001Good evening. Welcome to the Springboard Area School District board meeting. Today is Monday, May 19th. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge alce 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. The Springford Board of School Directors believes the community has the right to bring before the board issues and concerns they may have about items on the agenda or about items in general which affect the district or their children. Because of this belief and philosophy, the board will schedule a time at the beginning and conclusion of every meeting to have an opportunity for community members to share their concerns with the board. At the start of the
002meeting, members from the public may comment on agenda items only. The school board will move through the meeting agenda. Then at the end, when prompted, there will be a time for public comment. This meeting is being filmed to be broadcast on community cable channels and online. Individuals intending to make public comments should be aware that they are being filmed. Speakers will be asked to state their name in the area in which you reside before your comment. Good evening, everyone. Miss Crew, can I please have a roll call? Yes, we have with us this evening Dr. Chararma, Mr. Lackey, Mrs. Weine Garden, Mrs. Herman's, Mrs. Dearorf, Mr. Jackson, Dr. Wright, and Mrs. Goldmith. Um, and then, uh, Mrs. Westwood is not here, but we'll be reporting later. Yes, Miss Westwood will be here shortly. So, thank
003you uh for that. Um, as far as announcements go, the board did meet in exact session prior to the start of the meeting, but also we met in exact session on May 5th as well. Uh, both meetings were about personnel. Mr. Rizzo, do you have any announcements? Uh, not at this time. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, we'll move on to public to be heard. This is on agenda items only. So, if there's anyone that wishes to speak, please approach the podium with your name, township of residence, as well as the agenda item for which you are referencing. Seeing as though no one is approaching the podium, we'll move on to our first presentation of the night and that is a farewell to our student rep, Stella Stein. And we have uh Dr. Collier
004coming to the podium. Good evening everyone. It is that time of the year that we say farewell and thank you to our outgoing student school board representative and welcome a new one. Stella, it's been a pleasure working with you over the last two years, but more importantly watching you take on everything you set your mind to over the last four years. I thank you for your contributions to our school community and the selfless manner in which you did so. The University of Pennsylvania is getting a great one next year. Thank you for everything, Stella. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It has been such an amazing experience being on this board, meeting all of the board members, getting to know Anukica, meeting all the community members. This experience has been so amazing and so eye
005opening to see how much of an impact even just our school board has on the people around us. And I really do value everything that we've done here. And I'm so grateful to have this experience. So, thank you. It's been our pleasure. Tonight, it is also my pleasure to introduce our uh next student school board representative who is celebrating his 16th birthday today, Jason Drover. Good evening. Um I would like to thank the administration and school board for the opportunity to serve as student schoolboard representative for the next two years. and I look forward to working with the schoolboard and Anukica next year. I would also like to congratulate Stella for an impressive high school career, setting a great example for future student schoolboard representatives, and I wish you the best of luck at the
006University of Pennsylvania next year. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Dr. Collier. Um, I have I mean it's not often I have no words, but um I'll try to come up with something because Stella, you have been absolutely amazing. Um, I can remember I think it was Abby and I that were in your student interviews two years ago and I mean when you left that room my comment was this girl is fierce like it and you have not lived that down since this day and I know that um you know I I would say like I hope that you gained some insights in in working with our board but you know the the fact of the matter is you're already a strong fierce voice and I know that you'll continue to use that as you uh
007progress in your career at Penn. So I wish you the best Stella. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. And then um I see you have your finger, Mr. Rizzo. Yeah, I just want to say uh Stella, you're you know, you're you're you're a gem, right? You're you're one in a million. And uh and I would say this, if we have many many people like you that are growing up and going into the world, we're going to be in a really really good place. So thank you for all that you've done. Uh you're grounded. You're centered. You have great advice. You are you're fun to watch on a basketball court. I saw that a few times. Um but you also uh you've made an indel you've left an indelible mark with us
008and we're going to miss you. Um on behalf of us to you, I just want to give this to you very quickly. I meant to do this again. Everyone, thank you so much for such an amazing experience. You all have been so hospitable, so friendly, so amazing, and again, so eye opening. You all have really shown me what the world has to offer and how amazing people in service positions are. So, thank you so much. And we also have a little something else for you which I'm going to bring over, but I will say that this is not goodbye because we are going to hear from you at graduation, too. So, I'm very excited and very uh congratulations on being able to speak there. Looking forward to it. But let me give this to you.
009And then also as I'm about to get up, I want to say Jason, congratulations. While I was not part of your interview, Mrs. Deardorf was part of your interview. And I've heard such wonderful things about the way that you performed and the way that you articulated, you know, why you wanted to be on this board. So, we're looking forward to working with you. And I also have a little something for you. Okay, I guess it's my turn. Stella, it's been a pleasure working with you. I hate to see you go, but you're going to an outstanding institution. And I know Mr. Rizzo mentioned about you being special. You are special cuz in 1924 1924 2024 approximately 42,000 kids applied to Penn and the acceptance rate was somewhere around 7.98% and they're projecting that same number
010at least based on what my wife told me um that same number this year. So that puts you in the circle of about 3,200 kids around the world got into Penn. So you are in that that great percentage that has the opportunity to attend Penn and you are a representative of Springford. I think you're fortunate to get away from this board and all these people. Um but pick and choose what you've learned here. Um, I think he would be I think he would be a great success um and a true representative of Springford and also um Penn and I support your dad because I've been through this process and it's pretty nerve-wracking for parents too. So with that, I bid you farewell. I bid you welcome and I wish you the best of luck and
011I have something for you that I didn't share with the board. All right. Is it something? Is it pengar? Of course it's penarb. Okay. Oh my gosh. Dr. Welcome. Proud alumnness. One last thing. Stay in contact with Dr. Huitt. Do keep that connection. All right. Have fun. Bye. Go to Warden and come back and show us how to do budgets. All righty. Thank you. Uh, moving on, we're going to welcome Mr. Mscavage to the podium as we have an student athlete proclamation for boys lacrosse. Good evening everyone. Tonight, we're going to recognize our 2025 uh Pioneer Athletic Conference boys lacrosse champions. Just a quick little recap, semi-final game, they played Perk Valley. It was a tightly and hotly contested uh game. Um, we tied the game with less than a minute left, sent it to
012overtime and scored the game-winning goal right into overtime. In the final versus OJR, we defeated them 14-10 for our boys to win their 14th pack championship. So, congratulations to them. [Applause] Members of the team, if you guys come on up and shake everybody's hand, we have Devin Chararma, Cole Stadler, Mason Westwood, Dylan Seir, Ben Fish, Chase Fleming, Sean Hass, Gavin Roth, Colin Song, Nick Valerio, Bennett Pizzy, and Ryan Lynch. and our coaches, Amir Pickkins, Kevin Zaper, and head coach Kevin Donnelly. Congratulations to the boys lacrosse team. One more quick note while I have the microphone. Um, today our girls softball team won their first round of districts. They play tomorrow against Mthactton. Our boys volleyball team qualified for the district playoffs for the first time in our only our third year of existence and they
013are playing in the district semi-finals tomorrow against Pensbury at Pope John Paul at 5:00 and they take three teams to states so they'll have another opportunity on Thursday. Our flag football team is in the semi-finals of our league also. They play against Chester tomorrow at 400 p.m. in the stadium. If anybody's around, please come out to support the teams. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mscavage. And congrats again to Boys Lacrosse. It's wonderful to see our students having so much success in the classroom and out of the classroom. So, appreciate you. All right, moving on. We're going to go to board and committee reports. And we are going to start with our student rep report. Miss Stein, Miss Gupta. Thank you. So, this is our May student rep report and sadly my last one.
014So, hopefully it's the best one that I've ever given. So, for our past events, we had our PSSAs from April 22nd to May 1st. Then, we had our middle school choir concert on April 29th. The Western Montgomery Career and Technology Center had their no performance day on April 30th. Seniors had their decision day on May 5th where they got to wear all of their college gear and they were out in the football field and that was a really great experience. I was lucky enough to attend that. Then the Festival of the Arts were held here on May 2nd. Then we had senior prom on May 3rd which that was also a great experience. So thank you to everyone who made that such an amazing night. The SNAP postp prom was that same night on May
0153rd. Then students had their AP exams from May 5th to May 16th. Congratulations to all the students who were able to get through those, especially the AP psych exam, which I know was delayed a few hours. So, kudos to the kids who were able to get through that and finish their test at 5:00 in the afternoon. The middle and high school co and high school orchestra concert was on May 6th. Impact awards for seniors was on May 7th. Special Olympics were on May 8th. The spring coral concert was on May 9th. The middle and high school band concert was on May 14th. The senior academic recognition awards ceremony was on May 15th. And then the 5K run/walk was on May 16th. And then now I'm going to turn it over to Anukica for our future
016events. Hi everyone. Before I wanted to move on to the future events of our student rep report, I want to give a big congratulations to Stella. Um it's been so amazing working with her for this past year. um her grit, her spirit, honestly, it's just so infectious. And honestly, I'm so sad to see her go and I'm really excited to welcome Jason um to the school board. Um I'm really excited to work with you um this upcoming year and it's just a great moment overall. So, moving on to our future events, we have Keystone Biology exams on May 19th and the May 21st. Um we have an inservice day for students on May 20th, which is tomorrow. Um, we have AP exam makeups on May 21st and May 23rd. And I believe, um, the psych
017exam for those students who weren't able to fully complete it, um, there's a makeup for that happening next Wednesday, I believe. Um, there's the 16th annual Springford Film Festival on May 21st, along with the Western Montgomery Career and Technology Center Awards Ceremony on that same day, May 21st. The Middle and High School Chamber Orchestra performance is on May 22nd. Senior commencement awards and scholarship night is on May 22nd. Um there's no school on May 26th for Memorial Day. So happy Memorial Day to everybody who celebrates. Um and then seniors have their last day on May 27th. Um which is a rather bit bittersweet moment. Um it's really sad to see them go, but it's really great to see all that they accomplished. Um then seniors have their final exams on May 28th to May 30th.
018Um, we have the Western Montgomery Career and Technology Center new student orientation on May 28th. The senior athletic banquet is also on May 28th. The music banquet is on May 30th. And then underassmen have their final exams from May from June 2nd to June 5th. Um, and just a reminder that is open campus. So you come in, take your exam, and then leave if you don't have any more for the rest of the day. Um, or if you go by bus, then you would stay there for a study hall whenever you don't have exams. And then the last the class of 2025 graduates on June 4th. The last day of school is on June 5th. And then we have an inservice day on June 6th. And then the SAT is being administered here at Spring
019Forward on June 7th. And again, just a big congratulations to Stella for graduating and all of our seniors. Uh four years of pure hard work is really going to show off at graduation and I'm really excited to see how that goes. Thank you, Anukica. And then as always, I do have a few reminders. I want to be sure for students and families to continue to read the weekly update for districtwide news and to keep up your with your few weekly assignments that you have left. And then I want to go back to our future events slide for our 16th uh for the film festival on May 21st. Um I want the community to know that that is a free event. Anyone can go. You can walk in and watch the all the films that our
020broadcasting major students have created. It is such an amazing experience. But if you would like to donate, you can donate upon admission. But admission is free. So be sure to attend that to see everything that our broadcasting students have worked for. And again, I would just like to say, I know I keep saying this, but thank you so much to the board, thank you Anukica, thank you community, to everyone for making this experience so heartwarming and so memorable. And I truly am going to miss it. So thank you. I wish he could have seen Mr. Rothl's face in the background there as you were uh plugging the film festival. He's very excited for that as well. Um Miss Scupta, I'm curious for you. I know we talked a lot about graduation for Stella, but what
021are you going to miss about your junior year? Definitely all of like the events. I think staying busy, staying active is something that I'm definitely going to miss. Um, but that's definitely not going to stop next year, um, with all of my college applications and everything and senior classes. But I'm definitely going to miss having Stella on the board. Um, working with her was so magical. Um, and really learning how to really acclimate to this position on the board. I've really learned so much from connecting with the student body to connecting with all the board members. Um, and just seeing the impact that the school board is able to have on the community is just so motivating and I'm really excited to continue with this position for the next year. Well, we will see you
022back next year. We still have one month though, so we'll see you in June. Okay, enough about Stella. Let's get moving. Let's get moving. All right, Stella. Jason, you're here now, right? All right. All right. You'll have to get used to him, Jason. We'll fill you in. Alrighty. So, moving on from our student rep report, we have extracurricular with Mrs. Deerorf. The extracurricular committee met on Tuesday, May 6th. Uh we had a presentation. Dr. G uh provided some updates regarding to athletics for Mr. Mscavage as he was on duty in his job as AD. Uh Mr. Dr. Jones shared updates rel relating to club and activity events and also um his plan uh for over the summer to really review all of the clubs and extracurricular activities that we have and kind of see where
023there's interest and where interest is is waning and how we can utilize uh the pos the openings that we have for clubs um as efficiently as possible. And then we had two presentations. The first presentation was from the gender and sexuality alliance. Um, and then after them we had the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Um, so it's always great to see and hear from our students directly about the clubs that they're in, um, and what that brings to them and then also what that brings to the community as well. Um, I believe it's going to be on our agenda for tonight. Dr. also reviewed anou uh to the committee uh with a different scale for how we pay our cheerleading coaches because I'm shocked that it just happened now in 2025 that PIAA has recognized cheerleading
024as a sport. So the extracurricular contacts need to be modified to reflect that coaching pay. Um, we had no recommended items for our next meeting. And so since we usually do every other and we usually take July off, would our next meeting be in September? But I think we're also talking about maybe flipping um our meeting dates with community relations. So I'm not quite sure when our next meeting is, but it's CBD. We'll say September for now. Okay, sounds good. So we'll see you in September. Thank you. All right. Any questions for Mrs. Dearorf. Okay, moving on to policy with Mrs. Goldsmith. Yes, the policy committee meet u on May 12th. It was a shortened policy committee meeting because we wanted to allow extra time for the finance committee to meet. So, we shortened it
025to a half an hour. So, we limited the policy discussion to just policy 807. And what was discussed there was whether or not the policy was needed. One unknown question that existed at the time was there was a new state law put into effect about a moment of silence for 911 and some some laws require policies to be drafted. So the question left the policy committee which is we were planning to resend 807 since it merely just restated the law unless there was a specific policy to be required. My understanding from my understanding was that it was discussed with the solicitor and no no policy was being required. So that will be moved forward as you see on the agenda as a resendment. Oh and our next policy meeting is 611 2025. Thank you. And
026just a note for the community that is a change from a Monday to a Wednesday. So any questions for Mrs. Goldsmith? All right. Moving on to curriculum and technology. Mr. Lackey. Thank you. Um, curriculum and technology met on Monday, May 12th. Uh, a number of items were discussed. For curriculum, Dr. Gardy provided information on the curriculum renewals and discuss items that were that were not being brought forward for renewal. Uh, these items can be found on the agenda for review tonight. These include Edpuzzle, Fastbridge, Learning A to Z, Nearpod, Pebble GoGo, Pebblego Next, Progress Learning, Proximity Chinese, Seessaw, Smart Futures, TELS, which is the test for English language learning, and virtual high school. For technology, Dr. Hill provided additional information about the -ay and cabling and hardware projects. Um there was also details about the
027student device replacements as well as the staff device replacements. Uh there was also information around the interactive panel replacement, the replacement of classroom technology equipment. Uh we discussed a little bit the multi-year infrastructure maintenance and upgrade plan. More details on that to follow. Um and we also uh Dr. Hill also provided information around the web filtering services and the endpoint protection services. Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 11th. Uh, any questions? That concludes my update. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lackey. Finance, Mrs. Westwood. Yes. Good evening. The finance committee met on Tuesday, May 12th at from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Um, few things that we discussed ongoing business. Um we reviewed this these figures are all through April 30th. Um one is liquidity we have 92.5 million cash on hand. Revenues assessments
028are down affecting the real estate interim tax revenue. Interest earnings remain strong. For expenditures everything is in accordance with plan except for health benefits which we've discussed a lot if you've been at some of these meetings. For assessments we've increased approximately $3 million since the last meeting. Um, assessments are starting to flatten out as we've been discussing in past meetings. For real estate transfer tax, this is slowing and we'll likely be about 300k short of our target for the year. Um, until interest rates come down, we're probably not going to see a lot of difference in this space. Earned income tax still strong. We're approximately 500k increase from prior year, so about 4.74%. Um, we're pacing to finish the year around 14.8 or 14.9 million. um self-funded health insurance, we've averaged about 410K per week,
029which is pretty high. Um we're pacing about 1.5 million over budget projection as we've previously discussed. Uh food service, 740K meals served year-to date. Um we continue to see strong lunch and breakfast reimburseable meal sales, but weaker allocart sales. um year to year-to-ate income to revenue percentage is up 5% after we exclude the now ended 23 24 supply chain assistance that we had of 173k. Um we spent a lot of time on the 2526 budget. Um Mr. Frank discussed the budget ch the budget changes that were made since April 8th finance committee meeting. Um the remaining budget gap to index u remains at $1.873 million. Um, we had discussion again regarding commercial real estate assessment appeals, particularly the Fiser campus that's located in Collegeville, um, which will likely reduce tax revenue by 3 to 3.5
030million per year. Um, this is a long-term issue that will take years for the lost revenue to be recovered. Um, we're going to talk about this more later, so I won't go in detail, but Mr. Frink will um, reshare the three scenarios that we have to close the gap. These were talked about during finance um, in the budget. One is using all referendum exceptions. two is do not use the exceptions and three is a 5050 split of exceptions and debt service. Um lots of debate and questions back and forth. I won't get into all of those. Um but for new business, Mr. Fing went over the Wraid um settlement which is now filed for bankruptcy. Um there's some unknowns there. We're working with our solicitors on a settlement. So more to come. Um we will
031be hearing from Mr. Frink again soon, so I won't steal his thunder. And then our next meeting is going to be June 10th at 6 PM in the district office. Any questions? No. Thank you for the recap. All right. Moving on to property and Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam President. Uh property committee meeting was held Tuesday, May 13th. Meeting was called to order at 6:00. Um there were no items heard from the agenda on the agenda from the public. Meeting minutes were accepted as submitted. Um, on the old business, the facilities director gave an update on the Spring City Elementary School construction update. I gave an update on the Spring City Elementary School construction. There was also a um operational updates provided. One being replace a compressor and one of the heat pumps at the
0329th grade center, generation generator repair at Oaks Elementary School, fire pump replacement at the administration building. Uh the director also gave FY2526 proposed capital project review. One of those items of in particular was access control districtwide which is currently under review. School police and safety update. Chief Border discussed that our school police administrators have investigated 780 safe to say something tips from August 24th to May 20 of this year. School police are preparing for all end of year activities including graduation. Over 50 events are covered by school police every year. Phase four camera project um and it is being discussed um throughout the district. Purchase and installation of a buy direction amplifier at the high school PCC grant funded. New business was a the trash contract district renewal um is under discussion for all district
033buildings. There was an update provided by the director for the facility master plan and for the next meeting there will be another update regarding the facilities master plan by the director. Next meeting is June 10th. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Jackson, any questions? It's not a question, but it's a comment. Unfortunately, I was away for work, so I couldn't attend the property meeting, but I saw the the vendor um that you're looking at for trash. The only thing I would say to you for consideration, we chose that, our HOA chose that with a promise of lower cost, and they have significantly raised the cost year-over-year. So, I saw the 7% I just mentioned that I'm sure being looked at, but it was a bit of a promise of lower costs and then a little bit
034of a slide under year-over-year. So, I just mentioned that as you're considering negotiations. Thank you, Miss Westwood. Okay. Thank you. Moving on, Dr. Wright, MCIU. Thank you. The MCIU board met on April 23rd. Um, most importantly, it was happy 60th birthday to Head Start. Head Start turned 60 this year, having served more than 38 million children since May 18th, 1965. Also, good news was we received notification that our Head Start program will receive 100% funding for the 2526 school year. So, we're happy to hear that. Um, we talked a little bit about the the budget at the federal level. um some legislative stuff and other than that we have our next meeting actually this Wednesday um May 21st. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Wright. Any questions or comments? Okay, then we'll go to our assistant
035superintendent's report who is kicking off today. Good evening. That will be me. Dr. Murray. Students in grades 5 through 12 are invited to attend a virtual STEM event on May 21st and May 22nd hosted by Springfield Area High School senior Alana Ward. This will be the second event of the year. The first was highly successful and was held on Zoom. Students will hear from a diverse group of professionals including engineers, pharmaceutical scientists, and bioexperts biotech e experts as they share their experiences, challenges in the in real world STEM careers and hear personal stories. They'll also have the opportunity to get questions answered directly by people within the field. And information has been shared on Parent Square and in the weekly update. Students entering grades four for the upcoming school year can sign up for a
036learn a band or strings instrument. On Thursday, May 29th, the music department is hosting a meet the instrument night at the 567 7th grade center cafeteria. Students will get the opportunity to try out three instruments of their choice. And registration for this event closes on May 25th and can be found on Parent Square as well. Well, speaking of music, on Friday, May 16th, the middle school music ensemble participated in the 2025 Music in the Park Festival at Hershey Park. The awards ceremon at the awards ceremony, Springford received amazing results, including the middle school band received second place with an a rating of excellent. The middle school orchestra received first place with the rating of excellent and the middle school chorus received second place with the rating of superior. In addition to our group ratings, two
037of our students received special recognition. Outstanding accompanist um eighth grade student Elena Viet and outstanding vocal soloist eighth grade Laya Dominic. And finally, Springford was selected for a an additional special award. This award was given to an organization who quote displays an exemplary attitude of positive support and outstanding personal behavior throughout the festival weekend. Our music students not only performed at a high level, but they represented Springford schools and the greater Springford community to the highest degree. We're very proud of their accomplishments and a special thank you to the middle school music team, Alexi, Anna Ham, Joe Perry, and Steve Yoder for their exceptional leadership. Kindergarten registration is open for next year as well. Families and children who will be five years old before August 31st are encouraged to complete the registration process as soon
038as possible. Families who complete the early registration will receive an invitation to the first pictures event in June, which is an amazing event. U this special tradition allows the incoming kindergarteners to take their first steps across the same stage that they will cross again in 13 years as Springford graduates. We encourage families to complete their registration before June so they can be included in this event. And finally, the curriculum and instruction department and special education departments will be leading inservice tomorrow for all instructional staff. And we're looking forward to product training, collaboration, and curriculum writing. With that, I will turn it over to Dr. G. Thank you. Good evening. We're rolling out the red carpet. The 16th annual Spring Ford Film Festival will be held at the Oaks Center Cinema on Wednesday, May 21st, 2025.
039Doors open at 6:00. The trailer starts at 6:15 and the event starts at 6:30. Invite all of your friends to enjoy a night of student creations. Donations will be accepted at the door. All proceeds will go to the cool kangio saroma research. That was a mouthful. In honor of Jason Cook, recently members of the now club created welcome gifts for clients at of Laurel House in Norristown. Laurel House is a nonprofit organization that provides support and resources to women and children who have been affected by domestic violence, including shelter, counseling, and advocacy services. The nail club is designed to allow students to hold open discussions regarding topics surrounding women's rights. All viewpoints are honored to bring students of all backgrounds together in a safe environment. And finally, kick off summer basking in the evening sun
040with a hot dog in your hand and a Philly's hat on your head at the spring forward night at the Phillies on Monday, June 9th, the first official day of summer break. Join friends at Citizens Bank Park as Phillies take on the Cubs, all while supporting the Springford Educational Foundation teacher grant program. A portion of each ticket sold will help fund innovative projects in our classrooms. Tickets are available via parent square and the spring forward website. That is the end of my report. Thank you. Any questions? I do have I do have a comment, but go ahead. I was just going to comment that I will never not shamelessly, unshamelessly either way plug the first picture event that um we have for our incoming kindergarteners. I had a kindergartener last year and it I still
041look at those pictures and cry. So, it's a a beautiful moment and she thinks fondly of it, too. It was like getting to be a big kid on that football field um was awesome. So, I highly encourage the community get those kindergarten registrations in so they can be part of that not to be missed. Um and also I'm very much looking forward to the Phillies game. Um I think I purchased 12 tickets I think for board members in Idico. So looking forward to uh hot dogs and summer sun. So, we're looking forward to that event. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Dearorf. And I was just going to jump in there um and say uh specifically to everyone involved, but I know Dr. G, you did a lot to spearhead it, which is just another fabulous
042um Special Olympics that Springford had put on uh the other week. So, I know that it is no easy feat. Um, but I mean it's really just an event that just it's very heartwarming to see the community come together and um, you know, I just want to thank all the volunteers that made students and staff alike uh, that made that day possible. So, thank you for your work. Okay. Um, if there's no other comments, we'll move on to the solicitor's report. Uh, good evening. Uh just a brief update on a case that that piqued my interest that I think u was an ongoing topic for this board and pretty much every board about five years ago and that was if you recall masking mandates that school boards had. Well, justice is slow. Um but we
043we finally got direction from the Commonwealth Court. There there was a long-standing case involving two districts up in Erie County, Mil Creek Township School District and Northeast School District. They they had a number of um community members who sought to have schoolboard members removed because of of masking policies that were in place after the the emergency had had ended and after the the the courts had determined that the secretary of health at the time never even had the authority to put those mandates in place. Okay, this is very retro, guys. Um, as it turns out, the Commonwealth Court said what I what I thought was true law, and that was school boards always have the authority to do it. And you can't remove schoolboard members for um these claimed misfeasants or or you can move
044remove them from non-feasants. Like if you don't pass a budget, you could be removed for that. But for acting under authority of the school code, board members can't be removed. So, it only took five years for that decision to come out, but it is finally out. So, I thought you'd be addressing that. Thank you for that retro update. That was interesting choice of words. Go ahead. Just a quick question. Under what part of the school code did they determine the school board had the authority? Was it under the uh um attire one or what do they under five 510 of the school code? Correct. Okay. Yep. All right. Any other questions for Mr. Fitzgerald. Okay, moving on. We'll go through the voting portion of our meeting for next week and see if there's any outstanding
045questions or comments. Um, again, for the community, a lot of this was discussed in committee, but um, if there is anything, please feel free to raise it. So, we'll start out with section six minutes A and B. move on to section seven personnel. And I feel like something does need to be said, although it's already been said to the community. Um, but it would be very awkward for us just to skip over the fact that um, our dear superintendent, Mr. Rizzo, has announced his retirement from Springford. So maybe I'll just give you a moment to say a few words. Yeah, my plan was to say something more in June um at my last meeting as part of my report, but I would just simply say that um I have enjoyed this is my sixth year
046in the district. I have enjoyed every bit of it. Um we've had some challenges, had some amazing successes to celebrate. Um and uh I would say this that um my family has been supportive of me throughout my entire 32 years of my career. And uh and the decision I make is is to be more present with my family. um more to come later. Um but uh but I'm very excited about this next journey and I'm very excited for the position that Springford is in as they move forward into the next several years. So glad to be part of that even throughout the summer as we get ready for the fall for the new school year. So thank you all and uh you'll hear more from me in June. Thank you. Okay. So, other questions or
047comments with regards to personnel. Okay. Go ahead. Do you want to say something, Mr. I was going to wait till next week, but I'll say it now. On the agenda, we're very excited to welcome um you know, pending board approval, of course, Dr. Edwards, to the the seat of 10th through 12th grade principal next week. Um again, pending board approval. Uh we're very excited for what she's bringing to the table. We look forward to seeing her work with the agenda and we thank Dr. Collier for his time. Thank you for pointing that out as well. Um, and I will just echo that and I'll speak stroll solely from the standpoint of a ninth grade mother uh at this point that I've just been very impressed with um Dr. Edwards and her leadership in that building.
048So um yes, pending board's approval. We'll uh see what happens next week, but I'm looking forward to it. Mrs. Herman, I just wanted to add since we're in the personnel section, I think it might be appropriate to also note what isn't on the agenda tonight, but will be on the agenda um for next Monday night will be action items surrounding contracts for our assistant superintendent. Um so there will be new elections and contracts for approval um for for both of these ladies sitting next to me uh for approval next week and that will be on the next week agenda. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald, for bringing that up. Okay, any other questions with personnel? Okay, we will move on to finance now. Um, as Mrs. Westwood mentioned, we're going to have Mr. Frink
049come up and um really for the benefit of the community rehash uh some of the options with regards to the current budget. Um, so before he does that, just want to see if there's any other questions on anything else here under finance. Okay. Well, if that's the case, then Mr. Frink, welcome you to the podium. Hello everyone. So, um, what the committee asked me to do, and I was I was actually very pleased to see we had a number of board members at the committee meeting, uh, last week. So, for this, it'll be like a second look for some of you. So, that's that's great. If there's any questions that you didn't think of, uh, at that time, certainly, we can we can talk about them now. phone. For those of you who uh weren't
050there or didn't see the whole uh uh slide deck that we went through, this will hopefully uh give you some idea of of where we are and uh what we think's coming next. So, I'm going to I'm going to go forward and back up a little bit at the same time. So, this is this is where we are. So, it's not a big difference from where we were in uh in April. U we had some add-ons and we had some takeoffs but they kind of negated uh negated each other. So when we look at it the current uh total gap uh for the budget is about $7.4 million. Um the allowable gap per the index which is 4% uh will be almost $5.5 million. So that leaves a balance of $1.8 8 million almost $
0511.9 million that we that we need to that we need to address somehow some way. So what we did um and what we were asked to do was to come up with a couple different scenarios. We know a couple of things, right? We know that uh PTE has approved referendum exceptions um to the tune of almost $1.6 million just under that under that number. What does that mean? Um well it's a calculation and it's a calculation that compares uh actual expenses in our case in special education where the increase from one year to the next year is greater than what the index would have been. So for this particular case it was the comparison of the 2022 23 school year to the 2023 24 school year. And what they do is they take the 2023
05220 2022 23 school year the actual expenses increase it by the 4% which is what the index is now then look at the 23 24 expenses and the difference generally I'm simplifying the formula but generally that's what the referendum exceptions come out to be and in this case it's about $1.73 million somewhere you very close to that number. Um, so that's an option, right? And what would that would mean would be increasing the uh uh the tax uh you know the millage rate by more than the 4% which would come out to approximately 5.14% if the board decided to take the whole thing. Another option of course would be not to take the exceptions at all and figure it out another way. Um or maybe to split as uh Miss uh Mrs. Westwood said in
053her report earlier. So let's take a look at it. And this slide, I'm going to spend a little bit extra time on this slide because there's a lot to unpack here. Um it seems very simple. Um but each number means a little something. I just kind of want to dig into them just a little bit. Um what we wanted to do was we wanted to show not just what happens in the 2526 school year um should we make a choice, but we also wanted to show what was going to happen down the road. So you could see what the the short-term impact and the longerterm impact would be. Um, so if I just focus on I'm going to focus on the top section of of this slide for the moment and I'm probably going to
054go dig into some of these numbers a little bit. So for the 2526 school year, we know the index is 4%. We've been talking about that since last September. Um, we also know, as we just went over, our our current total gap is about 7.4 million, meaning then we have about$1.8 8 to $1.9 million of gap that we need to address to get to the 4%. Okay. Um in this case, we're saying scenario one is to use all the referendum exceptions, the whole $1.5 million um and to to break down some of that gap of the 1.8 and which would leave us uh a number of about 300 thou excuse me $300,000 left over. So, if we did that, what that would mean essentially is uh we would have to have a gap of about
055$300,000 that we would likely fill with uh the debt service drop off. Let me talk about that for a second. What does that mean? That means that in 2526 school year, we have less debt service to pay than we did in 2425. And that is because we have a series of bonds that will be fully paid off. That's about $4.5 million of our debt service line right now. Plus, we have another section of debt which is dropping by about $1.4 million. Um, I'm sorry, the first one was about $4 million. And then this $1.4 million brings the debt service drop off to about $5.5 million total. Um, we have to be careful with that. And when I say we have to be careful with that, what I mean is if you raid that kitty too
056hard, it's going to diminish the amount of money the district can borrow in the future because we won't have the room in the debt service line in the budget to pay it back. So we have to be cautious. It's there if we need it, but we need to be cautious about how far we go with it. Okay? So there's that piece. You'll also notice in this slide that on that row that says referendum exceptions for the 2627 and the 2728 school years, I have question marks there. The reason is because I don't know what those numbers are going to be just yet. Preliminarily, I can tell you that next year the the district would probably qualify in the neighborhood of $300 to $500,000. So, a significant drop from the $1.5 million we're talking about now.
057Okay, that's important to note going forward as well. And that's because special ed uh uh costs for the next year are budgeted at least to not increase as fast as they had the prior year. Okay. So, let me go back through those numbers again. So, if we fill the gap with the $300 uh,000 from the debt service line, that brings the tax uh impact up to 5.14%. As I mentioned earlier, going into the 2627 year, the index is projected to be 3.7%. That I don't know for sure yet, but that's what the IFO came back and said back in September. Um, and with that and some other, you know, uh, maneuvering within the budget and some operational things, the same things we kind of do each year, evaluating positions do we need to back fill,
058do we not? How many retirees are we going to have? Um, you know, Mr. Jackson likes to point out the three Ps, property, personnel, and projects, right? So, all of that, going through all of that stuff, we're thinking that the the gap at the uh at the end of all that process is going to be around $9.4 million, which means we still have about $4 million of a hole to fill. I don't know what the referendum exceptions are going to be, so I'm not going to make a guess at that point. Um, but that would mean that $4 million would likely be paid again from that debt service drop off. Okay. in the short-term window. Then going into the 2728 school year, again, the index is projected to be 3.4%. Don't know that for sure.
059Won't know it until the September of the prior year. Um, but going into that year, the numbers are showing me that we likely would fall within the uh the index at least the 3.4% going forward. I don't want to say out of the woods, but it certainly is painting a much bigger bigger better picture down the road. Um, so there's that part. Okay. Do we have any questions on that so far before I go into the next thing? Okay, good. So, one other thing that Mrs. Westwood pointed out when she was doing the recap of the uh finance committee earlier this evening is there is uh we we've had an experience now of increased uh real estate assessment appeals especially in the commercial real estate market particularly in the office space uh area um and
060the one that we're looking at and we're facing right now has to do with the Fiser campus down on our Cola road in Collegeville um little background we've been talking about this for a number of months within finance but for the benefit of the group. Um little background is there is that less than 24 months ago that property was sold from the prior owner um to another property owner for approximately $130 million. The implied market value for that property at the time, and I'll explain what that means in in a minute, was about $560 million. So a big difference. What is the implied market value? Well, the implied market value is simple. It's uh it's taking the assessed value of that property, which is on the books, dividing it by something called the common level
061ratio, which is something that comes down for the from the from the state from the state equalization board. It's a dictated number. It based on a number of economic factors, and you take that assessment that's currently on the books, divide it by that number, which currently is 32.9%, and you get what the implied market value is for that property. So, for example, if you were to take your home, go to your last property tax bill, right? Divide it by 32.9%. I know I did it for mine, and you're going to get a market an implied market value that's pretty darn close to the comps you're seeing of the properties around you. Same same number applies true for uh applies to the commercial market. So, moving forward, that property was sold uh as I said about
06224 less than 24 months ago. the this past summer, the property owner, taxpayer um appealed to the state uh to the state appeals board for assessments um and was awarded some relief. That relief uh put the implied market value from the 560 million down to $440 million. The tax revenue implication negative to the district at that time was about $1.4 million. That's a long-term revenue hit of $1.4 million. Now, I said before that the property was sold for about $130 million, and there were a number of different out parcels, and they're really only looking at two of the parcels um that they're appealing now. But the property owner decided to go back to the appeals uh to appeal the the ruling further with the Court of Common, please. And that's where it sits right now
063as we try to negotiate a settlement with that group. The taxpayer value of that property, market value of that property is about $120 million. That's what they're claiming. So the spread between the 120 and the 130, not it's a big difference for you and I, but for that purpose, it's not a huge difference. But what we're looking at their likely settlement is going to probably be a further revenue impact of about 3 to 3.4 4 million as uh Mrs. Westwood pointed out in her report earlier this evening. So, we're looking at that as a long-term revenue uh issue that we're going to have to address, not included in the numbers on this page. However, what is included on the numbers on the page in the in the lower section there, you can see cash remaining
064for real estate appeals. What I'm saying here is if the district were to use $300,000 of the debt service line, right? Um, it's money that wasn't going to be spent otherwise. We probably would have put it in the capital projects, uh, the capital reserve fund to help deal with some of, uh, you know, HVAC's and whatnot that are, you know, going to need to be replaced over the years, um, for those future projects. But what the district could do is take that $5.2 $.2 million that's going to be remaining to help offset that revenue loss going forward for at least that first year and into the second year as we address the issue of the lost revenue. What I'm saying here generally is this issue is a long-term issue and it's going to need a
065long-term solution. It's not something that's going to turn around in a year or two. You know, it's probably could take a number of years to turn that around if at all. the inventory for office space in not just in our school district but in neighboring areas as well. The inventory far succeeds uh uh demand and that's going to keep you know driving though or keeping those property values at a lower end. Okay, just so we're clear on that. Now, what I'm also saying at the bottom of this slide is I'm looking at borrowing capacity. If the if the district were to decide to go down this route, the borrowing capacity would still be around $40 million. Um you'll recall from the presentations that IC had done earlier that they were projecting that the cost for
066some of the grade shifting projects we were looking to do in the short term would probably fall right around that right around that number. Of course, GKO is now looking at at that separately. Those architects are looking at that separately. Um, but what I'm saying here is if we could still maintain a borrowing capacity of about 40 uh $40 million, we would go cash negative in the 2627 on that revenue line by about $300,000 and then it would start to go positive again as we rebuild um that line in the budget. Any questions on that so far? Because that's going to make the next couple of slides go a lot faster. Mr. think regarding the Fizer Wyth building when you say long-term impacts is projected five years, seven years. Well, again, it depends on the
067market itself. It's not something that the district has, you know, real, you know, has control over. I know it's going to depend on a number of things. You know, why we we can all talk about why we're why we're there in the first place and it's likely because of, you know, how COVID was handled and folks were sent home, you know, to to work and then companies discovered that, well, maybe we don't need all this office space anymore and what office space we do need is probably going to be more flex space than everybody gets their own office or cubicle within that within that building. So, we're seeing that we're seeing that's that's the inventory issue, Mr. Jackson that we're seeing where the inventory is is much higher than the uh than the demand. So
068based on the based on the data that GKO comes back with on their district-wide facility plan and their number is different than ICS, which I personally think it's going to be different. What is there a drastic impact on what's being presented right now? Uh it obviously depends on which direction that goes, right? So, I'm expecting that their their equipment plan is probably, to your point, is probably going to be a little bit different than what we had. You know, I I I'm not going to say whether it's going to be better or worse. That I don't know. Um but I'm I am more interested to see what they're looking at as far as the projects down the road go. Um whether, you know, how it's going to impact the projected cost to do the grade
069shifts that we were talking about. Uh and then of course keeping in mind that there are renovation projects that are becoming in the early 2030s um for some of our buildings that are getting older not to mention um core equipment uh within some of the buildings between then and now as well that we know is going to be up for either refurbishing or replacement. So another component here with with the ICS, there was a certain model we had discussed as far as which buildings would be addressed. If GKO comes back and their number is different, that would change could potentially change the approach that we originally had with ICS. And would that impact the numbers drastically to you? Again, it I don't know what they're going to come back with. So, it's hard. It's going
070to be hard for me to hard for me to guess. I think it's a lot of it depends right now. But, yeah, I don't disagree with you, Mr. Jackson. I think once that information comes to us, I think it's going to be incumbent upon the board to come back together and decide how we proceed forward. Yeah. And timing wise, um, considering uh, we have to have a budget approved at least by June 30th. I'm not sure how quick that turnaround would be. I know we're expecting a prelim report, but I don't know what the final report and then a decision on what the how the board wants to approach that as well. Mr. Dan, do you have any clarity on that date other than what we talked about last week? No, the date still stays
071the same. Um, we are meeting internally to discuss some options, but until we do that meeting, we really don't have any direction yet. Thanks, sir. And I just want to before we move on to scenario number two, I just want to clarify some of the things that you said. So as far as the um office complex, the Fiser office complex, I know you talked about, you know, uh a lot of uh external factors with regards to how return to work or return to office happened um during the pandemic that is kind of um now impacting us. what um if I remember correctly I think you had said that of that complex roughly I think it's what 200 million 200 million square feet and what and it's 10 to 15% of it's being utilized. Do I
072have that number right? Yeah. The the breakdown there generally is this. It's about a $2 million square foot facility. Um Dowo Chemical is in there. They have about a third of it. Um their lease uh is out to 2035 I believe is the right date. somewhere in the in the mid to early 2030s. Um Fizer is in there. They also have about half of it. Um so you can see there is some vacant space there as well already. But the thing about Fizer is uh Fizer has leased about half of it, but they're only using about 15% of what they've leased. That lease is up in 2028. So only a couple of years left on that lease. Um, and then there's a small piece that's that's leased by Keller Williams, which is also up up
073uh in 2028. So likely, I would argue if Fiser is only using 15% of that pol uh proh property, then after 2028 comes, they're probably going to be fully gone. Okay. Thank you. And so just to clarify what you said as well, the assessed value, which um went from roughly 440 million to the imp that would be the implied market value. the implied market value 440 million to about 120 million. Is that correct? Yes. Which equates to a 3.4 million roughly $3.4 million reduction in revenue to our district. Correct. Next year, which would equal roughly a 3% tax impact to the community. All else being equal roughly. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. So, so I had a a question and I it's kind of just for how I understand things but kind of piggybacking off
074what Miss Herman says. So, when you say a $3 million impact to the revenues which bluntly would impact the projected gap to index that $3 million, is that a single year situation or is that over a course of years? So, I guess what I'm asking is if for some reason would that possibly increase the current projected gaps to like seven million? Yeah, that would be a per year. So every year we'd be about $3 to $3.5 million less than we thought we were going to be. Okay. Up until up until this appeal, and all things remaining the same, if that's the only variable that we're taking into your slide, would that then make the the the gap a $7 million gap? Because we would be lost $3 billion. Yes. Okay. I would say yes. If
075I'm if I'm understanding your question correctly, then yes. I'm trying I'm trying to do what I think you're suggesting we do, which is solve this year, but also plan for future years. And I'm I'm trying to assess kind of where we're at right now to what going to potentially happen in in future years based upon what you know the the tea leaves to the extent you can read them as they exist at this moment in time. So maybe we can go through the other options because I I heard you say like hey I'm trying to pick up what you're putting down with regards to this. But Mr. Finy would say that you never come forward with recommendation but you have a point of view but maybe we can go through the other options and then
076hear from you. Sure. Is that okay Mrs. Goldmith? I just had one more question. Go ahead. And under op scenario one, assuming your scenario plays true, what impact just does this allow us to continue to move forward with the building projects or because we're possibly using the debt ceiling of 310 or other are we potentially going to have to delay those based upon what you can see right now? Based on what I can see right now, I think I think you would be able to move forward. However, we do have to come up with long-term solutions to some of this stuff. So, um, that means again going back to Mr. Jackson, looking at those three Ps, um, the projects, the personnel, and the, u programs to see where in there we can make adjustments to
077those things. And I don't think that some of those adjustments are going to be like quick right now types of things. They may be things that develop over a number of years depending on how those things are approached. Um but given that I think that the the district can probably achieve that gap over a period of time which is why I think in in this the particular scenario that 5.2 million that says cash available kind of buys you that time number one to figure it out but also to start to implement if that makes sense. Yes. Thank you. And before you move on to scenario two, maybe I could just say for the public, it is something that we've talked about in finance with regards to, you know, when you talk about the long-term implications
078of the commercial real estate market and healthcare costs and everything else that we've talked about. It's one thing to look at your agendas and decide yes or no, right? that that could be certainly part of it, but I think the bigger discussion that we need to have as a board is how do we make some systemic changes to the way that we operate if this is going to be a sustained long-term issue for the district. And I know that the administration has done some kind of research and work to think about ideas in each of those buckets. And so as we move forward into the June and probably more likely the August time frame, um we'll be putting out presentations to the community and having those discussions at this board in terms of how we
079may want to consider operating differently to be able to adjust some of this because it's it's more than quote unquote putting stuff in your shopping basket. It's, you know, to me it's again looking at the district systemically. Uh yes, I would agree. Um and I would say further that again I I keep stressing it's a a long-term revenue problem. So we have to come up with a long-term solution. So anytime you decide that you're not going to s do something in a particular year, you have to ask yourself, is that a permanent change or is that a temporary change? If it's just a temporary change where we're going to decide not to spend $1.5 million on widgets, but next year I have to spend $1.5 million on widgets because I didn't buy them the prior
080year. then really you're creating to to use the simple math, you're creating a 1.5% problem in the following year. Now, if you also decide that I'm going to delay what I'm doing this year and I'm going to pick it up next year and I'm going to make up what I didn't do this year, now I just created a $3 million problem, right? That's going forward. And I think those are the types of things that we have to look at. Every solution that we did, we have to have the the look of the long view. You guys have heard me say a million times, I'm a long game player. I'm always going to look for what that long-term solution is um and what I think is the best and what I think is the best way
081to go in the long term uh thing. And it's easy I think it's always easy to say, "Hey, what if we didn't do this this one time?" But again, one time doesn't help me. Um the $300,000 change that we're talking about there is a permanent change. We're going to increase that debt service line over time because we know things are going to cost more. We know we're going to have to um we're going to have to uh you know buy equipment for our buildings. Uh meaning core equipment for our buildings. We know we're going to have to do renovations at some point as our buildings get older. But if we take those things now and we can rebuild those things back into the budget over a longer period of time, call it 7 to 10
082years or something that then we have um we have that that line rebuilt so that we can borrow the money we need to borrow. We also know that things are costing more. Uh we learned that with the Spring City project when we came back for bid and it came back about 11% higher than than we were expecting. Um some of that had to do with uh you know a misstep or here or there, but it also had to do with you know with the costs of labor and materials were higher than than the the adviser was projecting. So it's also important to look at those things as well. Miss Herman, I was just wondering if um because I I like I have there's conversational about moving forward pieces that I definitely do want to have
083I was going to do that during board comment. Um but should we do that now or I I thought the goal was to get through these scenarios together continue to move on with scenario. Hold because I do think there's some conversation that needs to be had. I would agree. Yeah, I would agree. But I wanted to make sure that folks understood the methodology that I'm looking up here so that we can we can follow along. Um, okay. So, scenario two, right? Um, let's assume we don't use the exceptions at all. Um, again, looking down the 2526 column, we can see that our gap to index is 1.873 million. If we used all of that for from the debt service line, obviously we'd be we'd be reducing that line by that much as a permanent change.
084um we would keep the 4% which is the index um and then projecting out you can see how those numbers are are playing out. So 1 point almost $ 1.9 million from the debt service line in 202526 2627 would have about $4.1 million taken from that line um to make those index numbers. Um and again I will say I don't know what the referendum exception number is going to be next year but I know it's going to be less. It's going to and likely be in that 300 to $500,000 uh area. we would still have at the end going down to the bottom, you'd still have about $3.6 million of cash to use towards that long-term revenue problem. Um, which is which is a bonus to buy you the time to get the plan and
085to start implementing the plan. Um, but as you can see, our borrowing power diminishes, right? Because we're taking a lot more from that um from that debt service line. So, you know, in 2627, if we were to borrow $40 million to do the shift the the grade shifting project, let's call it that for now. Um, you'd go you'd go into negative cash on that line by about $2 million, $1.5 million the year after that, $1.2 million the year after that, and I think around $600,000 the year after that before you finally turn the corner into positive territory. Okay? So, that means you're burning your fund balance. That's basically what that means. all other things being equal, which economists love to say and is never true, right? Um, however, if you borrow 20 million, right, you'd
086be in you'd be cash negative by about almost a million dollars, 500 the next year, about 200 the year after that before you finally turn the corner. So, basically what we're saying here is you basically cut your borrowing appetite in half essentially, and you'd still have a little bit of little bit of blood left on the table from it. Yes. Um, Mr. Can you just go a little bit deeper on the point around having to eat into the fund balance and the implications of that in the scenario that you're describing? Yeah, typically it's a two it's a double-edged sword, right? So, not only would you be eating into the amount of money that you can borrow by using up your fund balance, you're also going to I don't want to say destroy, but you're going
087to uh have a negative impact on your credit rating. Negative impact on your credit rating is going to further cost, you know, make your coupon percentages go up on your borrowings as well. And then there's also some sort of implication if we have, god forbid, like some sort of an emergency or something that you know there's a large amount large expense like what is it going to do to our ability to pay for that if we're eating into that over time? Well, you're Yeah, you'll be eating into your cash reserves. Yeah, certainly eating into your your re your uh earned earned interest revenue line. You'll be eating into all of those different into those things as well. So, Miss Westwood, you mean if we have to go buy a chiller or a big generator about
088a million bucks? Yeah, that too. Correct. So, if we have one or more, which has happened, we've seen that happen. We have one or more large expenses and we're eating away at our our cash um or our ability to borrow like that, that puts us in an even worse potential financial situation. That's what I was trying to just get clarity on for myself and the public. Any questions on that slide? Okay, scenario three. What if we split it right down the middle? What if we used half of the exceptions? This is what it would look like. So, we'd be using $786,000 of those exceptions, which would be not a 4% tax increase, but a 4.57% tax increase. Um, again, in year two, we'd be we in year one, we'd be we'd be using about $1.1
089million worth of the debt service line, and we would be uh another four in the following year, not far from where we were in the two other scenarios. we would have cash remaining to help with the lost revenue problem of about $4.4 million to help cover year one and a little bit in year two of that dip. Um, if we were at the $40 million again, if we were in there, you can see where we're going negative cash once again, similar to where we were in the previous one. Um, but at the $20 million, we're we're turn we're looking at a little bit of a better story. So, I would I would argue that the borrowing capacity, all other things being equal, is probably in the 25 to $30 million range in this scenario. Mr.
090F, just for um clarity for folks that maybe have not been in other meetings or have have talked to us, the scenarios in 26 27, you've you've used this language before, the all else being equal. Could you just talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a term that we finance and e economics guys use to to to say that the the the playing the playing field is level. So we're making assumptions that um you know we're not going to see another Fiser. We're not right. We're we're going to we're going to have our health insurance costs which have been rising somewhat under control. We've we've put a a bunch of uh funding towards that in this coming year. Um so we're assuming that those things hold hold true as well.
091Does that answer your question? Yeah. Okay. So, what does that mean to our average taxpayer? So, in Springford, the median homestead assessment or home is about $161,000. Okay. So, for scenario one, if we to use 100% of the referendum exceptions, it would be a 4 point sorry, a 5.14% tax increase. um which would be an increase year-over-year of about $269 for the year. If we did scenario two, which is to not use the referendum exceptions at 4% would be about a $209 increase. So the difference between scenario two and scenario one is about $60 per year or about five bucks a month. If we were to split in the middle, then you can see it's it's split right in the middle. That just that's that's how the math plays out. And this is based on
092the median assessment, correct? Correct. Okay. Which normally you show 102. Yeah, I figured I would just a more realistic number. Yeah, I figured I'd take this straight off the uh right off the So a range depending on the options a range of 17 to $22 a month increase in their tax assessment or tax, excuse me, tax impact tax bill. Yeah, correct. Now, what questions do you have? Okay, Mr. Frink is I'm going to uh first thank you for reviewing this um for us and I have to say more so for the community as you know you went through this last month in finance and we've been talking about it for a while. Um I want to first defer to the board to see if there are any questions um and maybe actually Mrs. Goldsmith, maybe
093to go back to your comment question from before. You were um I'm just gonna say trying to pick up what Mr. Frink was putting down and although Mr. Frank I heard you say I don't have a point of view or I don't have a recommendation. This is not my suggestion, but um I know that you did offer one in finance and I would be willing to um see if you'd be willing to share it in terms of what you think is the best course of action. Sure. So yeah, in finance I was asked that if I had a recommendation I said I don't have a recommendation. And I have an opinion, but I'll give you my opinion. Um, so my training um and 35 plus years of experience uh in finance um has taught me
094a couple of things and one of those things, you know, as an internal finance person and and an auditor and all those types of things, going concern is always something that's on on my radar. Um long game is always that's they kind of go hand in hand and those are kind of always on the radar. So I'm always looking for the approach that deals with an issue on a number of different levels. One is right up in its face um as much as we can do right away and one that over the long term provides um options um especially when we're uncertain about other things. Those all other things being equal, we're a little bit uncertain on some of those things. Um, if we had a better idea of what our referendum exceptions would be,
095I think that might play, you know, play in there. I think I have an idea, but I don't think that next years are going to be terribly impactful. And I'm also going to go to the go to the this this scenario or the choice or the thing that's going to take as much risk off the table as possible. Um, that's just kind of where my training goes. It's kind of like the most conservative approach. Um to me the most conservative approach is scenario one. Um and that and why? Well, a couple of reasons. Number one, you're increasing your revenue base um year-over-year a little bit farther than you would have otherwise. Um which also means that as you as you go through the the next couple of years and there's tax increases there, it's on
096a higher base. So, it's going to have a higher positive impact to the revenue line. And that's where our problem mainly is. um at least from the certainly from the Fiser thing. It also takes uh some risk off the table, some limitation risk. Um we don't know a couple of things. We don't know uh the direction of health care costs. That has been a plaguing issue over the past couple of years. We don't know if there will be further assessment appeals. Um, we've had history, uh, recent history in the past number of years. We we would have a, um, a real estate, you know, a commercial property put in for a, uh, an assessment appeal. We'd negotiate it out. You guys would settle it here at the table. Um, and then two years later, they're
097back. They're back looking for more. We saw that with a couple hotels. We saw that with a couple warehouse bases. Um, and there's no saying that a couple of these other ones, including Fizer, could be one of those things. or I shouldn't say Fizer, it's it's a different owner now. So I don't I'm not throwing them under the bus for sure, but that property, that campus, I think that's something that's uncertain. We're uncertain, as I said, about what referendum exceptions were going to be going forward. If we felt that referendum exceptions were going to be in a similar place that they are now, I might say, let's wait and see. Let's just let's just play that game. If we don't take them this year, we can take them next year. But next year, but it's
098a one time it's a oneshot deal, right? If you don't take that 1.5 $1.6 million this year, it goes away. You can't look back and grab it next year. What you can grab is whatever referendum exceptions are on the table for next year, which as I said a couple of times is about three to $500,000 from preliminary numbers. Um, I think that I think that it gives I think that scenario one gives gives you more options going down the road. But I think it it it it hits the problem as hard as you can upfront. Um, and it gives you more options to uh for that cash reserve to help deal with that issue for the year one and into year two. That will give uh the district and the board a little bit more
099time um to do all the assessments and all the analysis to confirm the analyses we've already done um to give you a plan going forward. and you know and and by the time to actually put that into place. Um so that's that would be that would be my my opinion on it. Thank you. And so um again I'll before I turn it to the board I will say that when we were in finance um after you had shared your opinion um we had some good conversation about kind of um understanding where each of the board members on the committee stood and likewise the board members that were in attendance but not formally part of the finance committee and um where we landed was while it was not unit actually we had board members in each
100camp one two and We had board members across the board in terms of each of the c each of the camps, but the will of the overall committee. Um, in addition to I would say the majority of the board members in the room was in support of what you talked about for some of the reasons that you talked about which was scenario one. And as such, although things can be changed, I do want to point out that when you look at voting item F under finance, the final budget, that number that you are seeing there is reflective of scenario one. Okay. So, I will pause there to see if anyone has any questions or comments. So, so what we're saying is there's no there is no other evaluations going on now since this is already
101in the agenda under item F, the budget. I I think you were in support of scenario one. So, I say yes. Correct. Yes. right now in terms of Well, let me get clarity from you. What do you mean by that? Well, the committee made a recommendation and we've already put that in the agenda that that's the direction that we're going. Correct. As we discussed in finance, we said that we're going to put something there for for the community to see. But if it is the will of the board and discussion, we can change that between now and the voting meeting. So, it is not necessarily final. But we just wanted to put something out there versus putting X's which sometimes we do and I personally don't really like that. So dumb question Mr. Frink simple
102mathematics. If this board would curb spending beyond nothing beyond required operating costs, would that have an impact on what we're being presented right now? Um, I would say so long as it's a permanent change. So, if you decided, like I said before, if you decided, hey, there's $1.8 million worth of widgets and we're just never going to buy widgets anymore, well, that would have an impact. Um, but if it's something that we're just delaying to, uh, you know, just not going to do right now, but we're going to do it next year, then no, it would actually make the problem heavier. I like to say kicking the can. It's going to get heavier next year. Understood. Yeah. But is there a time frame to where it wouldn't be kicking the can? So my question is
103yes, I agree with you and we've talked about this for years. If you do it one year, there's no impact. It it actually causes more. But if we decide not to buy a chiller for the next five years, that will impact the budget. it it would impact it, but the at the bottom line there is you still have to buy a chiller and you're going to have to buy a chiller for every building eventually, right? So, you're kind of delaying it a bit. I think that what you're really looking to do is if you're looking to eliminate something um and then maybe put it back in over, you know, adding a little something in the budget each year for like seven, eight years, then you could get something back in something else. Isn't each one
104of these scenarios delaying? Isn't each one of these scenarios doing the same thing? Um, it it does exactly what I'm saying. It what it what I'm doing is I'm saying that if you're going to do this any one of those things, you're going to make a permanent quote unquote permanent change to your debt service line. But as I also mentioned, over a longer period of time, we're going to work on building that dead service line back up so that when we have some of those bigger projects, whether it's a chiller, a boiler, a complete renovation, whatever it might be, that we have the uh borrowing capacity to to uh service that debt in conjunction with looking at how we're operating and how we can be more efficient. Correct. Yeah. Just just a comment, maybe this
105piggybacks off Mr. um Jackson's piece like just my personal opinion after spending probably more hours than I wanted to um looking at this because it's a really complex issue is like I don't think there's a silver bullet solution to this and I do agree with Mr. Frink that we have to think long term. I think it is shortsighted for us to essentially do nothing. So, like don't don't borrow it all from somewhere because when you look at the long-term impact of that, it just puts us in a fragile position as a district and I'm personally not comfortable with that. Um, it's also not a just a shopping cart problem. So, yes, absolutely, we need to be very vigilant about the things that we put in our shopping cart. We also have to think about I'll
106just use this example because I think Dr. Hilt did a nice job of explaining this. when you do something for example like you decide not to buy laptops for another year and then things are out of warranty and you don't have a warranty and you have to pay more there's an added cost that you have to consider. So there's things like that. Um there's also the efficiency analysis I guess I'll call like some of the work that the the administration has already done which needs to continue. Um but those things are not going to get us to where we need to be. There's multiple things that we have to do. Like from my perspective it's not like if you just do this we're good. Um, so I do encourage the the board and I hope
107the community um, you know, understands this after listening some of this to really think thoughtfully about like what's not what's the best decision not just for this year but over multiple years and how do we continue to really challenge ourselves to not only you know fulfill our mission as a district in a fiscally responsible manner um, but also not to make decisions that really could put us on our back foot you know in next year and the following year and beyond. Can I I so I feel like we're kind of having two conversations at once. Um because this item, the final budget adoption and you know from what the finance committee um you know in conjunction with the administration has put forward on how we're moving forward is to select one of these scenarios. So
108I think that is you know what this conversation and presentation is for is to give the administration Mr. or think the direction on where to go, but I would like to have further conversation um about what we do next. So, I feel like we're kind of mixing them in this and I don't know um what how you would like me to proceed, I guess, with with my questions because I personally would like to move forward with kind of giving direction on the scenario. And then, you know, I had um things I wanted to say at board comment regarding moving forward with our our budget situation. So I'm just kind of looking for clarity on how we should say say it now because I don't think you can. So I hear what you're saying which is
109like there is like one step at a time which in terms of giving direction to the board and I guess we can kind of you know I mean I know that in talking to the will of the three pe you know the the people on this board individually that it seems like there is support for scenario one but if that is not the case then please speak up now because I would rather know that now than at the voting meeting next week. Um but Mrs. Mrs. Derodorf, you know, I think that, you know, anytime we're talking about these numbers like this, I think there does need to be an acknowledgement of, you know, what we need to do short term and what we need to do long term. So, I would say if you have
110questions now, I would I would bring it up. So, I guess it's a question um I think Mr. Frink kind of hit on it and then it's also more of a question kind of for the board. um is is talking about this systemic change and the long-term issue and the solution to that because none of these are good, right? No one's sitting here like, "Yeah, this is great. We're going to pick scenario one." It's it's not great, but this is what we have been dealt with decisions that we have made. Um but it's difficult for me as a board member to sit and have these conversations and we have been having them for six six months. Like this isn't a surprise to me. um because we have been discussing this like almost at nauseium uh
111to kind of see how we're going to solve this the best way that we believe for the community. But then, you know, when you continue on through the other objects that are on this agenda that we're going to be voting on next week, I feel like there's just like a disconnect, right? So there's a disconnect between I believe some members of the board um and what we have communicated to the administration as far as how to move forward um because we talk about our master plans, our 10-year plans, our maintenance plans. You guys are chugging along doing your jobs. No one has said please don't stop doing that, right? So, they're bringing forth, you know, smartboards and Chromebooks and wiring and chillers and generators and things that we need to do to make sure that
112the district keeps moving forward. Um, so, you know, it's just seems to be kind of do can you speak to because I I'm still I understand that if you take something out, right, you're doubling your process if you want to put it back. Um, but is there such a problem with like taking a pause, not removing that from the budget, right? Like still planning on having that, but maybe stepping back from some of these projects till we see what happens this year with, you know, the the economic market, with healthc care ideas, with these real estate things. Um because I I think that we are giving mixed signals to the administration as a board and you know they're doing their jobs by bringing chugging along and and following these plans and then some of us
113are like hold up wait ah we're panicked about this and we have talked about you know meeting we're not panicked you know but I I feel like sometimes that perception is there where maybe it's personal or or something like that and it's not like these are the facts that we all need to be comfort comfortable with moving forward. So, um you know, I just feel like there's a disconnect between talking about this, this is a very serious issue that's impacting all of us. Again, we are all taxpayers as well, but then making sure that we're communicating to the administration on how to move forward as well. We were presented with some options. Um, and then you know there's plans to talk about this efficiency and the systemic change and the long-term changes, but you know
114we have not really discussed what that is or how we're going to discuss that or even given you guys direction on that. So I just I don't know. I just feel like there is there a possibility to fiscally responsibly pause some of these projects um and do kind of what Mr. Jackson was mentioning, you know, musthaves because it just it it doesn't make sense, right? I think the the community can see it. You're talking about this dire situation and then you're wanting $3 million of something else. So, you know, how can we responsibly explain that or, you know, give that direction to you guys? Okay, I'll I'll take it first. So, um, you can always take a pause, right? Um, and and Mr. Frink is right. If it's a one-year pause, you do make the
115can bigger and heavier if you plan on recouping whatever that pause is. I see it this way. Let's just say we've been talking about not widgets. We've been talking about technology, right? So, uh, part of the tech, the conversation, the curriculum in tech was 1.8 or $3 million are things that were brought forward. If the board decides that they're going to take a pause on technology for one year, that's fine, but warranties are things to be considered. Um, when we talk about all of our plans, whether it be our facilities plan, our technology plan, our curriculum reserve, our plan, those seven-year cycles, those things, they're all based on things being approved in that year. So then we get those warranties for a certain amount of time. We get useful life that comes into play. If
116we decide, for example, since I think that came up, Chromebooks and and laptops, if we do not approve those this year, then we're either a going to buy twice as many next year to get caught up, or we're going to pause the whole program. Talking about programs, one of the P's, pause the whole program for a year, which then makes all of our devices on the average one year older or one year out of warranty. Then it comes to replacement costs or we love talking about auctions and tradeins, the value of the device after after it's a year older. Those things all come into play and those are the those are the added costs that that that Miss Westwood was talking about. So can we do it? Yes. Uh but for it to be to
117Jim Mr. Fin's point u if you're going to make a change it has to be a permanent one which means you might have to say we are no longer going to support K to2 onetoone devices. We need to figure out a way to do that. That's a long-term permanent change that would have an impact on the budget. Pausing the replacement of x amount $1.8 million in devices solves a this year problem, but either creates a longer ongoing problem with replacing devices and warranties or doubles the problem next year if we're going to try and get caught up over the next couple of years. So, it can be done, but we plan on things to what I and Jim correct me if I'm wrong. We do these plans. so that we can have a relatively flat
118impact on the budget year-over-year versus Katie, I'll throw this, Dr. Guardy, I'll throw this out there. Some of our curriculum years are way more expensive than other years. So, whenever we do the curriculum reserve process, we flatten that out. So, it's no not one year of a significant impact over another year. So, it's really pretty intricate and that's why we put these plans in place. So, for us to pause means we have to make a longer term decision and so that's where we are. So yes, it can be done, but we've got to be willing to have that next conversation. And I don't want to, you know, I don't want to pick on curriculum and technology. It could be property, too. Playgrounds. That was something. And I think why I just wanted to bring up
119this conversation is because it it can feel cherrypicked. It can be like these people are in support of the playground. These people hate Chromebooks. And I feel like we just as a board need to give that clear direction. Um, and that that's why I brought this up is to have that conversation. And you know to use the term kicking the can I don't think anybody wants to do that because that has been done and is partially why we are in some of the situations that we're in because you know of past situations where people didn't want to make a tax increase um for whatever reason um that even you know caused our um our teachers to have to take a pause on their increases. We're trying to correct a lot of those things. Um, so
120in order to have the best outcomes for our students, we have to invest in all of these things. Um, but I I just wanted to kind of open up the conversation so that there's clarity from the board to the administration of how to continue to move forward. So that's a fair point. I just one thing real and what we did do as a team, we talked about as we get into some of these conversations tonight just to share with the board what that impact would be so that we're prepared to have that conversation if if and when it comes up. That's all. Sorry, Mr. Jackson. Go ahead. Fine. So, every board makes decisions based on the given circumstances. Four years from now, there will be criticisms of this board. Every every we all have plans.
121There's a plan for everything. However, something's got to give to make systemic changes. Something's got to give. And not sure what that's going to be, but it has to be something. And there will be impacts. Um, and that becomes, you know, the million-dollar question. You know, is it curriculum? Is it, you know, I look at it just from where I sit. I was here during co, we spent millions of dollars on Chromebooks. That's less than five years ago. But there has to be a pause structurally um where it impacts the budget, but it allows the district to operate in a different manner. But we can't all sit here and say, well, we have plans, which I agree with you, Mr. Rizzo, but at some point every plan has to be evaluated. That I don't disagree
122with. And if the board directs us to re-evaluate our plans and retool them, we'll do that. But that's not going to be a right now answer to give you, right? And you very wisely during CO said, "Hey, we get all these ESSER funds, these $5 million in ESSER funds. Don't spend those on don't spend that money on ongoing things because then we're going to have to then we're going to have to write that check after they're gone." This is a very similar situation. um if we make that decision, it's we have to redo the plan. We can't pause the plan. And I just have a comment that came up in um the finance committee. Someone in the community asked, you know, how does this budget break down? And those big buckets are still salary and
123benefits. It had ballparked it in the 70%. Is that correct? And then special ed is 15 or 18%. Yeah, but some of those we're going to overlap because there's there's there's wages and whatnot in that. But you're talking about 85% of this budget is salary and benefits and special ed. Okay. Right. So that those chillers and the laptops and all that fit into this very small in comparison bucket of spend. Right? So that's really where that wiggle room comes in. And I think that's important to give the public that perspective of salary and benefits and special ed make up the bulk of this budget. So when we're looking at these what look like smaller things still very expensive chillers and laptops and such really that is fitting into the smaller end of this plan. So
124I just wanted to make sure I had those numbers right. Mrs. Westwood, do you have a comment? Just a quick one to circle back to what Mrs. Deardor said. So I do think they can be two separate conversations. I think just my and I think we need to talk about the latter the long term and be very clear. So I'm glad that you pointed that out about the direction for administration. The reason I at least say like think about the long term is because some of the decisions will have impact on that ability to have that conversation in the direction that we give administration. And so while now is not the time for us to go through and brainstorm all of that and figure that out, but we will do that very soon to Mrs.
125Herman's point, if we make a decision, for example, um to not use any referendum excessions or to really eat into our debt service line item, it will limit and or change options for the future. So that's at least for me why I say, hey, like think about the long-term. We're not trying to solution for um the long-term changes, but we will soon. But that's that I just think if we only think about what's right in front of us, I worry that we don't make the best informed decision. If if I could make a comment. So piggybacking off of I think a variety of people said is and understanding what Mr. Frink has said, I do think it has to be I I think it's kind of one of those like three bears approach, right? It's
126either we just keep moving forward with the budget or we we make a pause or bluntly I think it has to be a two-pronged approach to be effective. There has to be at some level some pausing of whatever this plan is because right now the plan is unsustainable. I mean we are we we can see the numbers up there that next year we're going to potentially be in a bigger deficit. So whatever plans have existed and this is not a criticism of of the admin. I think bluntly more of a reflection of what we need to do which is give that direction to them because we have given them no other direction to change from that plan. And so when they're analyzing and bringing these things before us, I think they're doing it in line
127with the direction they've been given, which is this is the 10-year plan. This is to keep chugging us on and trying to keep us on the path that they've been directed to. But what we know is I think now we can't stay on that path and we have to reset so that they don't feel frustrated coming to the table with ass that are being told no to and then what bluntly it's and to a certain extent an an unfairness and I and I say that not because I think anyone's doing anything wrong but you know I talked to somebody about this and it was like technology has kind of come at the end of the year where we all know this those decisions might have been different at the beginning of the year when We
128thought we weren't going to be in this budgetary situation, but now we're at the tail end of it. We only have these things to work with. So what we can learn from this is this should be different going forward in terms of managing expectations of this so that when we know what's going to happen which is a continued problematic with revenues on a variety of different formats out of our control. We have to manage expectations of what we can do because otherwise we're going to get to a point where we're going to have to make very significant cuts to programs and services and have expectations on staff that is more than what they expected to manage the situation and that's what I'm trying to avoid. And can I add to that also? Thank you very
129much and and I do agree and I love this discussion that's taking place here at the board table and thank you again from Mr. think who has to continue to give this presentation at different settings for us so that we can fully understand it. I think some of the conflict that arrives in our discussions as to what we should be purchasing and not purchasing. I say conflicts that we're we're voting our our votes are split or having discussion is because we as board members as much as the wealth of information that we bring knowledge that we bring to this board we don't know what is needed to keep the lights on to you know in this school we don't know well I'm I'm talking uh figuratively yes uh Mr. Jackson knows what but when it
130for example when it comes to discussions on on what we should be paying for with technology things do sound sometimes frivolous or curriculum but we and and it's hard for us to make these decisions where but the knowledge the admin team has that knowledge and again with that idea that we're change maybe we need to change direction a little bit with how we are guiding the admin team it is unfair for them to come to the curriculum meetings or to the other meetings prepare, you know, and um giving telling us how how they need to spend a lot of money and then to be questioned with things that they they can't even explain to us how this is necessary or maybe this would not be. So, um tasking them, asking them but not right here
131when we have to sign this budget right now. This is that going forward thing. We need to ask them what is actually needed to keep the lights on. So, and that's a maybe a different approach also to how we do our budgeting too. Looking talking about the bottom building up here are our requirements. What do we need there? Big discussions that should have probably already taken place. So, can I just add one thing and because I heard it and I wrote it down and so um just to reiterate when we talk about can we take a pause and it that's what we I think what it sounds like we need to is not to pause the plan but we do need to talk about redoing the plan. So, so I will not use the pause
132word but I heard you know I heard you say it's redoing the plan to move forward is what I would you know like to to figure out what we're how we're going to do that. I think that's part of, you know, and again, I appreciate the discussion. I think that's part of what I've been trying to express, which is, you know, there's the now and it's the short term, the now, what we need to do to be able to approve this budget for uh the following school year, but then in June andor August, and Mr. uh Brazelle, we can talk about what the right timing is because it seems like the will is to talk about some of these things a little sooner rather than later. You know, part of that is, you know, some
133of the research that the the administration has done. um which you know is uh you know personnel related uh project related you know plan related we can we can talk about all of that um I will say that you know because I know Dr. Right. I said this to you in in finance. So I would be remiss if I didn't say it to the entire board right now. I just want to be very clear with words. Right. Words have meaning. Words have impact. And so I appreciate you acknowledging that maybe pause was not the right word, but like re-evaluating the plan, re-evaluating, you know, um some of these things. I I don't know that anyone would be opposed to the re-evaluation piece, but I there were some words here that I don't personally I I
134do not agree with. For example, I do not agree that the plan is currently unsustainable. I think it is sustainable the but there are trade-offs associated with that. Um, so I just want to be very clear that when we speak, you know, like to make sure that as a board when we speak that we speak to say like I think I think right because it may not be reflective of the entire board, but we will find that out as we start to have more of these discussions in June and August. All right. Um, so let's go back to the here and now. Scenario one, action item F. Um, you know, again, it was the will of the committee. It was um the will of the majority of the room in finance. Are there any objections
135with rema having this read the way it reads for the vote next week? Okay, Mr. Pink. Thank you. All right, we are going to go back to our agenda and we're going to look at property. I had another question about letter G in finance. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I thought we had addressed the other action items before the presentation. My apologies. Go ahead. So, how much medical assistance billing like what is the average income that we get from medical assistance reimbursement? [Music] It's okay. I can I can speak to it. It it just if there's a general sense I mean I'm not going to like hold you to the So the 22 23 school year we were reimbursed 361,000. Okay. And then the IU will take 20. They're charging us 12% of that. Okay. So
136it's it's around the three 300,000. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions with finance property letter A? Any questions? Programming and curriculum. Uh K if we could talk about so I did I was on Zoom listening into the um curriculum and tech meeting. I I do want to talk a little bit more about the virtual high schools. I don't know Dr. Gardy who's appropriate but if you could just talk a little bit about that and why we think that that's an important part or component of our schedule and offering for our students. We have used that over several years to supplement any student schedule that cannot fit into our cyber course load or additional course offerings. So, I can get you that exact course information that we've had over the last couple years
137if you want that for this coming uh board memo for this week. But I did talk to the high school administration and that is something they want to continue to support in order to provide uh students opportunities for the coursework. Dr. Gardy, can you also um clarify I believe you said this in curriculum as well. We only get charged for the seats that we use if we need to use them. So, this is a not to exceed amount, but we would only be using it if it was needed. Am I correct? There's a Yes, up to that 11,000 that is listed. There is an agreement that is listed to this contract. Um, so that amount there is a flat rate that we do, but up to that 11,000 additional each cost would be for each
138of those students that would take that. There up to 10 in the fall and up to 10 in the spring, but the total cost would not exceed 11,000. I did put that in the board memo. I think it was 7,500 for this past year. I saw it in the memo. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions with the programming and curriculum? Okay. Conferences and workshops. Just a brief explanation. Um I was planning on attending this in July. Um it would be much more beneficial for Miss Lee to attend in my place. So she's on here and and I'm taking myself off. Thank you. Okay, moving on to other business. Okay. And uh Mrs. Schmidt's going to be with us for the next meeting. Uh, correct. Good. That's great. Not that Not that I'm quick to
139get rid of Miss Crew, although there's no getting rid of Miss Crew. She's everywhere in this district. Um, but it'll be nice to have her with us. Okay. Um, and then can I'm sorry. I think I was in the wrong section. Other are you still in other business? Okay. Just real quick, the gifted independent study, I'm trying to recall. Is there an added cost to doing that or no? So just there needs to be an advisor essentially. There's not an added cost, but it it does require board approval per our policy. Yeah. All right. And then we have someformational items um with regards to the delegate assembly which we need to appoint up to three board members. Um when does that have to be done by? Is that June? The end of June. June. Correct.
140Okay. So I think what we typically do every year is that if there is an interest among board members to attend the PA PSBA delegate assembly to please um send that email copy me, Mr. Rizzo and uh Mrs. Schmidt um to let us know that you have interest in attending and uh that delegate assembly uh at least in the years past when I've attended is uh can be attended in person or virtual. So I'm going to assume it's the same unless I say otherwise. Okay. Any other questions withformational items? All right. And that goes to board comment. I have a comment. Uh I wanted to see if there was interest uh from the board to revisit um recording our committee meetings um and putting them on YouTube. Um, and I ask this, um, well, actually,
141they've never been recorded, um, and put on YouTube. Um, but I'm asking this kind of in a spirit of consistency. Uh, we do it for these meetings. Um, and as we talked about, that is where a lot of the meat of these discussions occur. Um, and also, you know, we can't control information that is put out into the community about what we do. We can only, um, control what we put out. Um, so in an effort for consistency and to avoid any misinformation being spread in the spirit of um, education, I wanted to see if there would be interest in doing that. Why did we I feel like we've had this conversation, Mr. Rizzo. Were there impediments to doing it before? I mean, this is such a long conversation long a couple years ago. I
142think and Mr. Krew can certainly speak to it more than I. I think there were impediments years ago and there was an interest in the board to do it at that time. I don't believe there are any impediments because we streamed them already anyway. But Miss K, you have anything else you want to add? I don't think there was ever an impediment stopping us from posting to YouTube following the meeting. If there is interest in live streaming committee meetings the way that we do board meetings directly to YouTube, that would be slightly more difficult. Um, if we're talking consistency to be able to do that would be easier than to say go to Zoom for this but YouTube for that. Uh, Andrew can work magic on anything though. He's able to make most things. This
143is the second time I've seen his smile. can feel him burning eyes into the back of my head. Um, but there could be further discussion about the consistency that would be needed to be able to do both. But what do we think's being lost by not doing it? What's what what's well, you know, I have I'm on a mission to have consistency um is as many places as I can find it. Um, and I have noticed there are inconsistencies and misinformation um, put out there in the community um, about what's discussed at those meetings. So, if we're able to offer um, a recording of that meeting, then we can control that. There is consistency until there's a new board. Um, I think we've gone around this bulber tree a couple of times. Um, the same
144way with back and forth communications. We stopped that because of CO because when we had CO, before CO, there were conversations at board meetings. There was conversations at committee meetings. But when CO came along, we had 15 20 people standing here trying to go back and forth and we're spending four and five hours. So it really just depends on the will of the board at that particular time. So if the will of the board is to do that now until the ne So there will be consistency until the new board comes on. That's how it come that's how it tends to work out. It's not Zoom. I'm not talking about getting rid of Zoom or adding Zoom. I know that's a a sensitive topic, but I did um I appreciate your insight since you are
145you and Dr. right, are the the historians of the group, but um well, someday you'll be the historian, but I lost my I just wanted to um there was something that you said slipping my mind that I wanted to um ask, but I'm going to think about it and I'll get back to you because now I can't think of it. While you're Oh, go ahead, Mr. Say, Mrs. Stardiff, I would support it being posted after the meeting. It sounds resource intentive to be streamed during. I'd rely on Mrs. Miss Crew, I'm sorry, Ms. Crew and her team um further on that, but I don't see a problem with it being posted for people, board members or community members to view after the fact. And that was what I was going to ask. So, Miss Crew,
146if I heard you correctly before I make a comment, it to upload the video is no um is no more labor intensive for you, but um in terms [Music] of your it sounds like your recommendation would be to keep the Zoom continue to have our community participate in the manner for which they are participating now and accessing committees now. But it's but the uploading of the recording doesn't seem to be too cumbersome. Correct. We can easily uh change the settings in Zoom to automatically record so that uh the people who run those meetings, the administrators who run those meetings wouldn't have to add another step to what they're doing. Um, and then the next, it would likely be the next day given that Andrew, Rich, Brandon aren't uh at those meetings or working until 8
147o'clock at night. Uh, it would be posted within the next 24 hours. I don't I don't think we need to record those. I think those are opportunities where we are able to speak fairly openly, ask a ton of questions, and even workshop ideas where it may not come to fruition, but having that come back to you in the way some of the video recordings do, not a fan. I don't think it needs to be recorded. I think if people care, they can show up. I tend to agree with that. And I've been part of the discussion way back. There's there was a lot of discussion about this and to come to the point and and part of it is that this board does truly value um transparency and once but and everyone is welcome to
148be there and they are also welcome to attend doing um and they can I you know potentially they can record it on their own if they're do because the zoom is available there but I agree that it's it's an opportunity really to to discuss it's a work session. it is meant for the schoolboard committee meetings to be able to get their work done. Um, so I remembered what I wanted to say and it was um regarding the back and forth because I just want to clarify that we are not unique at Springford that we don't do a back and forth during um comment. Um I talked to various board presidents um of districts surrounding our area and they don't do that as well. So, I appreciate how you did it before COVID, but I don't
149um really, you know, I value um the fact that what we're doing is not unique to Springford. Uh it is a common practice in in in most districts. Um this is an opportunity because we are a public entity. We take public funds. Uh we have to do our meetings in the light, right? We have to do our meetings in um in public so that the public can watch us do our work. And it's it's our work. um it's the work of the district that we need to do it. It it it so we appreciate and are able to get those comments, but it's not um unique that we're not doing that back and forth. And um so I just wanted to clarify that. Um and then regarding Can I speak to that one? Sure. So
150just just for some clarity because that is offputting uh to community members that don't understand how we do things. Um, so Miss Crew did this last week. She did in the public comment section of the agenda did quote board policy that we are required to follow so that the community when they look at the agenda it is a little bit more clear so they understand that that's just kind of how Roberts have already in our in our meetings work. So I guess my question I think to oh sorry Mr. Jackson is speaking and then Mrs. Ward I'll be quick. So this played us out. So there's a recording. A parent comes here and asks for clarity of something Mr. Jackson said. There's no feedback. So then what's the point? If they have questions, they can't
151come here and ask if if they have confusion or they're not sure about what was stated or the true meaning of it, they can't come to a board a board a board meeting and ask for clarity. They can speak to you individually. Yeah. I don't do that anymore. You don't do that anymore. I was gonna say because I know that you do do that. So you you can also we can also direct them to reach out to admin. Yeah. Yeah. I I think back to when the community came in mass, they sent emails. They came to the podium in preparation. It was a couple years ago uh when we were looking at the annual calendar to add I believe it was Eid and maybe something else. I can't I I don't but we had so
152many folks who sent emails in advance to explain why this was important to them and it was so impactful to read through those prior to just having folks come to the I mean I appreciate the tremendous appreciation for the effort to come to um the podium. However, getting that information and be able to ask questions to maybe say hey how could we do this to have some forethought before they came to the podium. So it was in my opinion that was an excellent example of really good community input to help us understand what they wanted to achieve and then imploring the point at the podium. So that to me is a lot of what's going on. It enabled me to thank people and enabled me to ask questions. Hey, can you explain this a little
153bit more? um to be able to have that dialogue versus the first time I'm hearing about something at the podium. I can't for necessarily formulate uh a calculated response um all the time and I think that's fair what we try to do to administration at our work sessions have the questions prepared in advance so they can have that ready to go. Um I just think it's a nice way of working in my humble opinion. So can I make a suggestion because there is no in my opinion there is no sense of urgency with making a decision with this right now given that we don't have committee meetings until uh you know until June um what the June 9th the week of June 9th correct because I don't know that we're having community relations because of
154graduation. So um maybe we can do this because you know my my inclination is to agree with Mrs. Dearorf, but I'm thinking that I want to mull it over and I and reflect on a lot of what was said and maybe we can talk about this next week and see if we can get some direction with the board with how to proceed for June. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Well, if any more board comment, let's move on to public comment. Um, and this is on any topic, does not have to be related to the agenda. If there's anyone that wishes to speak, please approach the podium with your name and township of residence. Okay, seeing as there no one's approaching the podium, motion to adjurnn. Goodbye. [Music]