001Good evening and welcome to the April 13, 2026 school board budget workshop 2. We'll begin as we always do with the pledge to the flag. As uh you can see this is our second uh budget workshop of the year. We uh you can see from the agenda this evening that there are two and the first one was held in March and at the March meeting we focused on the revenues. Tonight we will be focus focusing on the expenditure side of our budget. After the presentation we'll take questions from the board and there will be also an opportunity for public comment at the end of our uh of that time. Uh this is anformational meeting. We're not going to be voting on anything this evening. Uh we'll continue to look at this budget between now and
002June 8th when we are scheduled to vote on it uh in a final form. Uh and as you know the budget must be in place by the end of this school year so that when July 1 rolls around uh we're ready for the new year to begin. Uh Mr. Art McDonald, our business manager will will be leading the presentation this evening. And given that we're focusing on expenditures, you'll also hear from Dr. Stevenson who is the director of human resources and Dr. Tol who's the director of curriculum instruction and professional learning and also Miss Roy will be joining us uh as the uh director of special education uh about halfway through the presentation. Um since there are three presenters joining Mr. McDonald this evening. I think what we'll do is pause for questions before after
003uh Dr. Stevenson and uh Dr. Tol do their presentations and before they leave the table and before Miss Roy comes up and then we'll continue on and then we'll start with the board questions and the community and back to the board. Sound like a plan? Okay, Mr. McDonald, I turn it over to you then. Thank you, President Titi. I'm going to start with the timeline that we've been starting with for quite a few meetings uh in finance and here in budget workshops. We're obviously in April. We're in our second budget workshop. We're moving towards a proposed final budget that we're going to present uh to you in April at the April 27th board meeting. that will keep us on track with the state to have a final budget in June based on the way our
004meetings fall. We typically do it a little bit earlier than some of the school districts around us. Uh if we're following the accelerated uh timeline, which we have done because we had passed a resolution or had not passed a resolution to stay at or below the index. So, we are following a little bit of a different process than some schools that would have passed that resolution to stay at or below the index. uh we filed for exceptions. We got uh acceptance backs from the state and we'll talk about that a little bit later in the presentation. Uh but we will be on track to be able to present a final budget to you at the June 8th board meeting and we'll have a finance committee prior to that uh in May on May 11th. The
005summary uh that we looked at since March has changed a little bit and I'll get into that uh in the in the coming slide but typical of the way we orient this particular slide is on the left is no treatment of new revenue in column B and that deficit has been is down to 12.1 million. If you add the revenue from the act one index of 3.5% uh that takes us down to about 7 million that tax increase from act one has tweaked a little bit because assessed values have gone up and we'll talk a little bit about uh that tonight as well. The act one index that we filed for for special ed that we got approval from the state that is added in in column D and that revenue brings that up to
006about 7.4 4 million of new revenue and that takes the deficit down to 4.778 in column D. Overall summary. This is to give you an idea of what the overall budget would look like because the previous slide doesn't include contingency amounts. And we approve a budget for authorized spending which is the totality of the budget for 2627. And it's not what we anticipate spending, it's what we uh authorize spending, what the board authorized spending. So on on line five of this particular slide, our anticipated spending is at 200,362510 made up of those numbers that I covered in the previous slide, deficit at 4778. And then the reserve and contingency amount of 4.5 million is detailed on the slide down at the bottom there. You can see we have an operating contingency of 1%. Revenue projections
007if that falls short. We have some protection there. And then of course uh we typically have a special ed contingency that's uh part of that general fund contingency. So at 4.5 million added to the 200.3 that gets us to an authorized spending number of 204862510. And assuming that there's no other changes that happen between now and the April board meeting, that's what we would bring to you in April for your approval as the proposed final budget. Budget development slide has changed a little bit since the last time we talked about it in March. And I mentioned assessment changes. So the assessed value in total, we we um look at that monthly if not uh more often than monthly just to see if it moves. uh we did see a little bit of an assessment increase.
008So you may recall that we had a $2 million decrease that was impacting the budget before that's gone down to 1.8. So we have some additional revenue uh that's represented not just in the total tax but also in the act one index number in that calculation. So uh that's contributed about uh I don't know about $175 $180,000 uh to the good. Last time in March, I asked the board if they were willing to insert the governor's proposed budget, at least part of it, into this budget, the 2627 budget. We don't always do that. Uh we've done it, we did it last year. I think that might be the first year we did that. Uh we do it again here in the numbers we're showing you tonight. So that $248,000 that I had on a slide
009in the March budget workshop that you know that most people were saying that that uh you know examine the governor's budget a lot more than we do that his budget's pretty safe and what he's proposed as the base amounts which are lower than they've been probably in the last decade are pretty safe to budget. So that's that 248 that we added to revenue. So a little bit change in revenue to the good capital funds transfer remains the same. 6 million. Uh the special ed department uh since our last meeting has done some very hard work to reduce their 2627 budget. You recall that was a $4.1 million number. That's a million dollars less on the expense side. So big help uh to what we're looking at as an overall budget. In addition, we priced our
010bonds and we floated them and uh we issued them and we got some good numbers. So the market was good the day that we went out and that we had talked about you know what the impact would that be in the current year and then the following year. So we're going to see some impact because we did budget for a bigger number in the current year u and we also budgeted for a bigger number in 2627. So we're going to see an impact in the current year and then we're going to see an impact in 2627 for that bond issue and that's a um a debt service change of about 523,000. So, that's a good that's a good change. Um, we are still looking at another trunch of uh bond issue in the fall and
011that's a $20 million issue. We have money in the budget to be able to cover that as a projection. Uh, but what we're going to be doing with this 20 million is going to help us out in 2627. Professional staffing adjustments was a different number on the last side and this is a grossed up number based on uh the impact of what we've made in staffing adjustments and overall uh there were some items in the budget that we presented in March that we had to go back and line by line add back into the budget. So there were some um overtime that we had talked about in a previous meeting. uh we added that back in and we had some additional things on the salary side that brought that number up. That's the net number.
012So there is some decreases that are part of that number, but overall it's an $840 $840,000 impact increase to the budget. The second look healthare projection wasn't uh as good as I had hoped and we're not seeing a huge decrease there. Um the medical went down a little bit, but then we had prescription that was flat before and now it's at 5%. Uh so that's impacting us. Uh still a $200,000 decrease on the expense side, but not as much as we had hoped. Uh departmental reductions still remain the same at 1.5 million. I'm now going to turn it over to Dr. Stevenson to review the uh staffing summary slide. Um good evening. Um as you look at the staffing side, um I'll talk about those that are that show changes. Um on number two, you
013see an administration. Um as as everyone knows that we will be um opening um Bear Hill Elementary School and part of that is that the selection of a new principal to start on for Bear Hill to start the um planning and implementation of the transition into this new school. So that 0.5 indicates that for that person who would be starting um um towards the mid year of of of the um towards beer bare hill work um for the on number five for the custodial um there was some attrition there in which we were able to reduce one position and on line 10 um for the athletic trainers um as you know that that we discussed with you earlier. Um the the reason why we were trying we are adding athletic trainers is because up until
014this point we have used contracted services Rothman and the general consensus and the issues that are going across um school districts or that they are either a losing trainers to districts or b those um contractors are closing their their contracts. And so we thought in the best interest for the needs that we had that we would have those um folks be a part of our um staff. The good news is we will be um continuing with the same two individuals who are part of contracted services and the money that was going towards the contracted services will offset um that particular piece. Thank you. Good evening. Um tonight I'll be sharing with you some information about our projected uh professional staffing for next year. So um to give you some context for context for that we
015generally share with you our um our October 1st enrollment history and as you can see for um 2025 and as we've discussed previously there's a continued leveling off of of overall enrollment at this time although it does remain at that level high and I do want to point out um you may remember from our uh demographers's presentation in the fall that he is projecting a slight increase in enrollment for next year as well. But generally since all of our um professional staffing is um enrollmentbased, this context I think is helpful for us to begin. All right. So if we look at the budgeted staffing for the 2627 year, this is a summary by level. Um you'll see that at the elementary school we are um projecting that we will remain um overall at the same
016FTE rate that we are this year. Middle schools um a slight decrease. We'll talk a little bit more about where that happens when we get to the next slide. Um and then at the high school similarly a slight decrease in staffing and districtwide remaining the same. uh schedule changes might have led to some of those opportunities to meet student needs differently at the middle school and the high school, which is why you see some of that change there. And you know, we also knew and as you'll remember when we made these middle school schedule changes that there was some initial excess staffing and at this point we're able to capture some of those FTEEs uh moving forward next uh next year. So if we look at the elementary level um and we start with the
017core classroom positions, you'll see that um it's one less FTE than we have currently. I think it's important again to note that our core staffing is based on the class size application to the projected enrollment. And although the enrollment enrollment as I said is um overall projected to uh go up even if the enrollment um spec the growth in the enrollment is specifically at the elementary schools you know that it depends on where those students are and then what one student here or there in the projection can affect a whole class. And so we're looking at one less core position but adding one more special education position at the elementary. So that nets out at the middle schools. Um we're looking at a 0.5 decrease in special education and again looking at how we can
018use our staff and the uh differently or more efficiently and the um the where the students are and what their needs are is what helps us in that area. And then again, going back to those schedule changes, as I mentioned, there was when we made the changes, we knew that there were some excess staffing there. And as we're looking at how um some of the extensions have shaken out and how we're able to use that staff differently um in the middle school, we're projecting a slight increase there in FTE as well. So at the high school level you'll see that the core uh number of FTEEs has dropped um will drop about 2.9. Some of the that is due to reclassification of departments and people shifting um where they're housed. So in other words um
019if uh if they're uh part of the math department, that's a good example. if they're part of the math department this year and they were teaching uh computer science, they're now part of our new technology and engineering department. So, there is some shifting that way, but there really are no um full 1.0 FTE cuts at the high school. There's a lot of um little pieces, if you will. Um and uh some of that is due to um retirements. Some of it is due to reassigning um some supports based on enrollments. And again, if we look at the schedule at the high school and having the lunch and learn, there is some um opportunity for students to get support during lunch and learn with their core classroom teachers or you know see others during that time
020period. So that may also be um one of the reasons for the difference in the staffing. Um other areas again you'll see there's a slight increase that really is due to the fact that we are reclassifying some folks from one department to another. Districtwide our FTE is remaining the same. So our total again as you look all the way across the columns there is uh a reduction of uh 4.0 FTE for next year. That's what we're projecting. Thank you, Dr. Tol. I'm going to back up just a second because I just noticed on this particular slide. So, I had mentioned debt service. That is a typo on the slide. That should be decrease, not increase on number five. >> All right. Would you like to stop there? >> Yes. I I just thought this would
021be a good break for us uh if anyone has questions for either uh Dr. Stevenson or or Dr. Toll, >> Dr. Meras. >> Yes. Uh, thank you all for the presentation so far. Um, Dr. Tol, I have a couple questions for you about um, sorry I didn't write down the slide, but about the um, projected enrollment and the history enrollment history. Yeah. Um so wondering if you could explain sort of the variables that led to um seeing the numbers sort of peak uh around 2018 2019 and then going down a bit. I assume CO had something to do with that those few years but just kind of wondering generally where did we see that increase and come back down to now. Well, I think you're you're absolutely correct with the the observation about COVID and
022um I think that there's um been some um movement in our enrollment, you know, sort of like the teeth of the saw and you know that there are a lot of um housing developments that have come up in the excuse me, in the district over time. Um, another thing though, interestingly, that our demographer has said over and over again is that oftentimes it's not those new um, housing developments, but it's rather the resale of homes that causes um, an increase in our enrollment. Uh, speaking to the changes uh, since COVID, um, I I have observations, but I don't really have a clear explanation of that. >> Okay. And is it um is October 1st sort of the the pivotal date? Is that when the demog demographers report comes and you see? >> So we give
023the numbers to the demographer on October 1st. That is because we have to report it to the state on October 1st and then shortly after that he provides us with his report and we typically look at that report um at our November education committee. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. So, um I think we're going to swap out presenters here. And uh actually Miss Roya is going to be joining us. Uh as you noted, there was a a large increase in contracted services. We've talked about that a little bit and um she uh is I think our best source of information on on the specifics of that. I think contracted services is a word that we all use often but it's that's a rather global term and inside of that there's a great
024deal of specificity and variety and uh she's going to to help us I think uh and and help those who are who may be watching the uh presentation uh know more about that increase to change the No, I I didn't mean she was going to do that next. I know that he's got to go along, but she's just come up here. I was just talking while they were doing the switch. >> Sorry about that if I confused you. The clicker is pretty quick, so we can go back and forth anyway you want. So, so to continue, um, I'm on slide 10, and there's there's quite a few slides in here that you saw at our last budget workshop. So, um, oftentimes, you know, things affect revenue and expense like charter schools and things like that.
025So, you'll see some repeat slides and you'll also see someformational slides. So, I'm not going to review every single slide in the packet, but uh we are going to touch on some of the uh things that I think are important uh at least for you to hear in the 2627 budget. Overall, on slide 10, this is just looking at what we're expending of what we're budgeting. And of course, we don't want to get uh over 100%. We want to stay under 100%. And this shows you at least for the last 5 years excluding uh the co years which are kind of outliers in that analysis that were uh just a little bit above 95% of expenditures expended from budget historically uh spending by function. What does that mean from the state's perspective? Obviously the majority
026of what we do is instruction. That's the biggest piece of our budget. You can see in the little box at the top of this slide what those numbers look like. Uh everything supports instruction. And so support services to that and then operation of non-instructional services, maintenance and the like and then everything else uh like debt service and those kind of things are in that other category. Expenses per student. This used to be operating expenses per student. This used to be something that's the state would talk about quite a bit. It really hasn't been uh a whole lot of discussion about it as of late, but this gives you a little bit of an idea of where we fall. uh in Chester County and some of the other schools that we're often compared to uh like
027lower Marion and Radner pie chart of the total budget expenditures. No surprise that salary and benefits is the majority of our budget. Uh that number has gone down over the years. It used to be uh pretty close to 70% if not at 70%. So there's been a shift uh to the other areas and the majority of that is mostly from contracted services and and uh special education but there are salaries and benefits obviously in those special education budget that isn't just represented in when we talk about the function of special ed or when we look at the financial report and the finance committee meeting for the area that's 1,200. So there are some things that Nicole talks about that isn't really related um to a 1,200 function outside of you know contracted services. So some
028of that is all rolled up in here but it's not it's not apples and or apples to apples all the time. Sometimes it's apples to oranges overall uh by object. So object would be what we see in the breakdown later on in the presentation uh between salaries, benefits, uh purchase services, supplies, equipment, those kinds of things. So you kind of see the breakdown here. Budgeted salaries at 80 million and shows you the breakdown of what that is. No surprise that uh the teaching staff is the majority of that number. Benefits number uh at 43 million. Again, no surprise that the majority of that is piecers. Um, that's the that's the grossed up number on the expense side. So, you know, we get half of that back from the state uh formulaically and the same for
029social security. This slide you've seen before, this is the uh impact of the piecers rate on the budget. And you can see it's down a little bit uh this year and then it bumps back up to a little over where it is this year and then it continues to uh slowly move up over the next couple years. This is a projection, but it's the most recent projection issued by uh PERS's board. our healthcare expenditures. Uh we're seeing some favorable numbers there in and we didn't have um as good a second look this time, but again second look um on this number is better than uh the second look that it was if you go back 10 years. So we're pretty lucky in what we've been experiencing healthcare expenditures. And overall countywide, if you look at
030our percentage increases compared to other schools, uh we're near the bottom. This is the all-in special education expenditure slide. So this includes everything from across all the object codes that I mentioned earlier. And in total, you'll see at the bottom in 2425, the last audited year, uh we're over 36 million. And the subsidy amount is that tiny uh green bar at the bottom from what we get from the state as a subsidy to be able to pay for that. U what we do here, what we have done at least go out and apply for exceptions to be able to cover some of that even though it's a lagging uh revenue push and we've done that this year and you we're at the over 2 million uh additional funds to be able to you know handle
031that expenditure room. big piece of the budget is transportation and you can see in 2425 it was uh approaching 10 million and the state uh that subsidy amount at the bottom been pretty consistent. It's starting to go down. Uh it's a formulaic calculation but the amount of money that's been available for that formulaic calculation has not increased. In fact, in some years it's gone down. So, um, we're still struggling with be able to, you know, fund that, uh, in the budget because what happens is we have a contractual arrangement that has built-in increases and the state numbers going down. So, we're seeing a compound effect of what the impact of those increases are in transportation. The charter school uh, slides you've seen before and you can see the numbers are up a little bit and
032estimated of 2627. Uh, on the tuition rates, those are blended rates. So you're not going to find an exact number in what you saw earlier tonight, but brick and mortar and cyber are combined on this particular slide. And you can see enrollment on the next slide uh is at 45 and uh it's down just a little bit uh from where it was in 2425. Again, estimated at this point and we we won't have a final number till we finish the year. And that number bumps up and down uh weekly based on uh the number of kids that are there. They don't stay the whole time a lot of times in the year. So one student at the beginning of the year uh may not be the same student at the end of the year. Sorry,
033got a little head there. Um all right, so I'm on slide 24 and this is the same format that we looked at revenue. So just to orient you, we're looking at the 2526 budget in column A. That's the year we're in now. We have a projection column in B and then we have a proposed budget in C and then a variance between the proposed budget and projection and then a variance percentage. So you can see how these numbers fall out and the differences in the lower amounts. You can see u the impact of what I talked about on the budget development slide with the departmental reductions. You can see those represented there. the um the budget development slide again and the drivers slide is a budget to budget not budget to projection. So you you
034can't necessarily look at the variance here and then track it back to the other slide. But for instance, debt service, you can see it's gone up by close to a million, but actually in the budget to budget, it's a reduction of the 500 or a um budget to projection is a change of the 523,000 I mentioned earlier. Historically, if you look across each of the object code areas from 22 23 forward, you can kind of get an idea what's uh increasing the largest amount over that period of time. And no surprise, uh salaries, which is the biggest part of our budget's gone up quite a bit. And then if you look at um professional purchase services and then other purchase services which is the 300 and the 500 line that's what um Nicole's going to
035talk about later. That's really the majority of those two areas are driven by the special ed expenditure. So you can see you know going from 12.4 million up to 17.3 million is pretty significant increase. So drivers um budget-to-budget drivers again the biggest one uh salary related at 4.5 million and you can see the breakdown of what that looks like uh across those different employee classes contractual agreements for benefits again uh piecers social security and then everything else so it's not a large number of increased budget to budget contracted professional services that's a portion of the number that we talked about at the beginning of the presentation that 3.1 million and the remainder of it is down below and other purchased services. So you're looking at contracted and 300 and other purchased in 500. Transportation's also
036in the 500 area. So that's going up about 631,000. Insurancees continue to go up. Uh utilities, fuel, maintenance, and repairs. We combined all that. Typically, it's not that small of an increase, but we did do some reductions across the board there, and we saw some little better numbers in utilities, so that's helping us. And same with fuel. You heard the IU mention that earlier. So, we're seeing not a big impact there across all those areas. And then I have the debt service on there as well. So, I will turn it over to Nicole now to uh talk about the next couple slides. >> Good evening, everyone. So, I wanted to just walk through this slide like I would have at our um the finance committee meeting. So, if you're looking through, I wanted to just
037explain that last um last month I gave you January's monthly spending and this um time to catch up. I was able to put in February and March. And I think if there's um anything that kind of shows the variability of a monthly payment. I mean in February we only paid 372,000 and then the next month we're paying 964,000. So that's just the nature of how the bills come in, how they can be processed, those kinds of things. Um but if you're looking through to the end, you'll see that I'm projecting that I'm still going to have an overage of $2.5 million for this school year. So, I just want to kind of take it one step at a time. So, when I explain to you tonight about contracted services, I I often say that um
038but it really is the two buckets of the Chester County Intermediate Unit and all the other contracted services. So, you can see that's approximately $19 million that I'm talking about for this school year. So, for the projected um what I would like, you know, what I'm asking for for next school year is the 20 million um $350,000. You can go to the next one. Yeah. Um so, you know, I so I recognize that that's a really large number. It's roughly actually I worked it out today, three times the total amount that we pay in salary and benefits to our special education teachers. So it it is I I need for you to understand the the gravity of this line item. Um and know that I do. Um so when people hear, you know, I just
039also want to discuss that the these specialized services reflect the supports that we have to secure for the students in need and that we can um that we can't, you know, responsibly provide through our own professional staff. So I think it's important to put a finer point on the budget driver as it has increased over the years. So um when I talk about it I I in the monthly finance I simply say contracted services but it's really not a simple term. It covers a tremendous amount of services that are essential to ensuring students receive the support the support outlined in their IEPs and the maintain compliance in IDEIDA. So um when you hear the term contracted services I know um many people the first things to come to mind are uh aids and paraprofessionals and
040you know as we kind of in the special education world world aids and paraprofessionals are kind of an interchangeable um designation. It definitely is different in regular education where the aids might be a library aid or a lobby greeter aid or things like that but then they also have reading paraprofessionals and science pair professionals. So there is a kind of a gradation of that that's different for them. So that is the majority of our contracted service. That's truly the single largest component of the budget is the aids and pair professionals. The next component that is very large are our personal care assistants, our reg registered behavior technicians, our behavior um specialist consultants and our board uh board certified behavior analysts. So those physicians um are specifically required for students with intense behavioral needs and these
041professionals help students with all different levels and types of behavior. And as you look across from right to left, the the high the further you go right is the more um involved training and the more costly that person is. So they have more training and they cost more money. So if you look at this um if you look at the pink and the purple um this really represents approximately 260 professional uh professionals providing daily direct supports to students. So then I wanted to kind of just give you a flavor of um the rest of the things that are in that budget line item. And um very fittingly, you know, tonight the IU was here and the career and technical education, which is the bottom of the first row, I think they said to you it
042was approximately $964,000. So of the 20 million, that's basically a million of that. And that is not for special education students. that is for all the students districtwide who want to participate in the CTE. Um so again it's not you know limited to staffing alone. It includes other related instructional therapeutic medical evaluative transitional services um that are listed on the slide. So while staffing makes up the largest share of the spending this category reflects a broad set of legally required services that may be be delivered based on individualized student needs. I can go to the next one. Sorry, I'm a little Then I just wanted to kind of um talk to you about this the how many different providers we have and we work with to um meet the needs of all of our students.
043Each one of these providers um specializes in a different array of supports. The providers are selected based on availability, credentials, and the specific services that are required. We often need multiple providers because students need wide wide excuse me vary so widely and require different expertise. Cost is also a factor. If we can deliver the same level of services in more in a more economical way, we always try to do that first. But when it when it comes down to meeting this needs of the students and we can't do it, we must go up the next level of the providers um to make sure that the services are provided. So um in summary, we you know have over 40 types of like kinds of contracted services with 29 providers and the contracted services are are really
044reflect some mandated services for students and they're not an optional spending from my perspective. Um but I I do want to thank you for always supporting me and and supporting all of our students in the district. You do do a tremendous job in helping us to meet the needs of our our students. Um, yeah, they're quite that that's offer. Do you have questions right now for Miss Roy while she's here? Okay, go ahead. Um, so I see the line for tuition and I'm assuming that's for um approved private schools. And on slides 27, sorry. Um does that also include um tuition through um ESAs? >> Yes, it does. >> Okay. And so I guess you you know to a certain extent what the tuition will be for next year, but how are potential additional tuition,
045you know, payments or needs accounted for in the budget? So we start with a straight line and then we go back three prior years to see what we budgeted and where we ended and we take we take an average of that and add it on. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Or subtract it. >> But mostly add. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mr. Zing. >> Do you have um on slide 28 you noted that there are 260 professionals representing those top two rows aids and professionals and then PCAS, RBTs, PSCs and BCBAs. Do you have an idea and it's it doesn't have to be like but like a ballpark of what percentage of contracted service expenditure is represented by those top two rows versus the 40ome um additional contract airs at the bottom or is that
046too granular of a of a note of this one? So >> I can tell you the dollars but I can't tell you the percentages. I don't know the percentage. One of the hard parts is when you go to the next slide, some of those providers provide services at the top and the bottom. >> I understand. >> And in order to get that number, when you get the one bill, it's not necessarily parsed out. You'd have to unpack >> to be to be precise on that >> all of that. >> Understood. No, that makes perfectly good sense. >> That's absolutely true. I'm sorry. >> That makes perfectly good sense. And my last question is just a clarification. Um, any services that are offered or contracted through the IU, is that part of the CCIU budget or
047the contracted services line? >> That's the CCIU. >> Okay. Just thank you. Appreciate it. >> Dr. Hoinsky. >> Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Roy, for coming and explaining in in such detail. I think this is extraordinary helpful. And we do have a uh report on special education in the education committee this week on Thursday as well for people who would are interested. Um I'd like to go back to slide 19 and this is more of a comment um which is about the special education expenditures and subsidy and I we struggle you these costs are growing but I want to emphasize that this is uh we are no in no way trying to um say that we don't need to provide these services. We absolutely need to provide these services and we are proud of providing these
048services. And one of the big problems is this graph here that our costs are growing and growing and the state contribution has include increased by 500,000. It's you know not even 10% of the of the expenses that we have. And it's something that we emphasize to our legislators all the time. And I just think it's something that the um that the public should understand. And I got on this board in 2015 when we were at $20 million and that subsidy has grown a pitiful amount. So um and you know the fed same on the the federal side that's even smaller, right? So there's um we are proud to provide to provide those services. Um but it shouldn't be all on the taxpayers in our district. We should get a bigger contribution from the state. >>
049Mr. Ktosk. >> Thank you. somebody else who joined the board at the same at the same time. I'll notice on the on the other side of it, the the expenses have increased by, if I do the math right, about 80%. Um, at that point, and when you're talking with the start of 16 million, that's that that's a big number. Um, question, couple of questions. one um I mean and and it's again it's based upon my experience and sort of where we started and where and where we are where we are now and it it is and in particular on the contracted services side you know when we started we there was just that that first transition really from in-house uh you know employees of the district to transitioning to mainly contracted services for the for
050the paraprofessionals and aid Um, so I'm wondering first whether what what you know about the experience in other districts around us, you know, then in whether they are experiencing the same levels of increase just in a gross amount and in the at the contracted services level. So yes, I am fortunate to be a part of the Chester County director's um group and all of the districts in Chester County are going through this um very much so from an aid from an aid and pair perspective and having um and are their overages are in line with mine or just a little below. >> Thank you. So, it's good to know that we're not alone [laughter] when it when it comes to this and we're not we're not unique um in terms of this experience. Uh I
051mean this is a just looking at these numbers and and and the increases I it's it's going to be difficult to be sustainable going forward. And so, um, I do think that without having to, uh, compromise the services that we're providing in any way that it's incumbent upon us to see if there are ways to deliver these services more efficiently. Um, and see if we can't try to explore explore some things uh, over the next couple years. uh from from that standpoint I know it's very easy for everybody to say well AI will give us an answer to to that but this is this is an instance and I'm not necessarily saying that it's it's an AI solution but whether there's an opportunity to say okay well are there ways to uh find efficiencies that
052we haven't discovered yet because it's a it's a dynamic situation and you know maybe there our abilities to to pilot certain efficiencies at at particular schools. Uh from that standpoint, it just you look at these numbers and just based upon my experience from the from the start of this this this can't continue and and us to be able to provide the remainder of the program that we're that we're so proud of here. And so, um, I just urge folks to really take a hard look at this and say, okay, are there are there different ways to to approach this and and to be creative about it? Uh, from from that standpoint, again, without compromising the the program itself and what we are required to provide and what we should be providing to the the kids
053in our district who need these services. Yes. Um, I couldn't help but also notice what others have said about slide 19, the absolutely staggering increase in special education cost and the extremely minimal um, funding by the state and fed. So my questions are, and this could be for any of the administrators on the panel here, um if you were to choose which contracted services or which sort of buckets in special education that if they were fully funded by the state, like we're not going to get fully funding funding from the state for much of this for a long time. I don't think I mean the adequacy and equity funding is not really going to touch our school district. Um we're a long long way away from a fair funding formula across the state. But if
054you were to kind of um point to or if there were any kind of nudges we could get toward um better funding from the state. Well, what I would think about because I've also seen the slides for Thursday's special education presentation at education committee which talks about the significant rise in the number of students identified by disability category and the state requirements for example for very small case loads even internally with our own staff for students in some of those disability categories. When the numbers of students in those categories rise, the costs for supporting those students also rises. And then those numbers don't even have don't even include um always the students depending on the chart we have, the students we're educating who aren't in our eight schools who require an even higher level of
055intensity of need. So I suppose any dollar toward special education students or even the educational program in general, it's a dollar in our budget. It helps. But if we're trying to maybe focus on some targeted supports, we might want to ask for relief in the areas we've experienced the sharpest growth. So maybe on the other side of Thursday's education committee that might shed light on where that could be targeted when you engage with legislators. >> Thank you. >> Did Mr. McDonald or Miss Roy want to add anything to that? >> No. Thank you. >> Along the same lines as Dr. Gusk, I think that if you want to talk about the buckets, it would be the tuition bucket. I think that that would be something that the state already helps us with and so it
056might be an easy avenue for there for them to help us more instead of opening another door. But that would be my suggestion. >> Thank you, Mr. Tony. Yes, I uh I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, but on uh slide 28, it says ALS's travel- CXD and I saw this uh vendor payment for AEL's rehabilitation services one $15,000 from March. So, um why is this like this says rehabilitation services and this says travel? So could you like tell me what's but like we're I can understand the rehabilitation services. They're the same company. But I think what um Oel's we had to in this line we had to um >> where oh sorry >> yes it was on on page 28 or >> can you just talk a little bit about what does >> is a
057um occupational um physical therapy travel training um training. Yes. So they have they they help us with the students who need to learn how to take the train, need to learn how to cross the street, need to learn how to read um you know how to get to their to their um their classes or like they're if they go from the IU to Westchester University, they have them read all the public information or all the public transportation and then they go with them to practice so that the students can then do it independently as they move forward. Oh, that's the extent of their uh needs because that's Yes. >> You know, $105,000 in one month. I mean, plus >> Well, I don't know where you're >> No, you won't see it there. It's on the
058uh >> Well, that would just be for hostiles, >> right? >> That would be for OT, PT, travel. It even though it says I don't know what you're looking at, but it it it's not just for travel training from >> They do business as ostels rehabilitation, >> right? They do business as ostels rehabilitation. Yes. Well, I when we were discussing, you know, ways and I I'm looking at travel and then I I look down here and I see 105,000 on a vendor payment. It was like, okay, is that travel? But now you've explained what they do. >> There are like four things up there that all do for us >> that, right? And this goes toward what uh Mr. Zinc asked too because that's an example of how these providers serve a number of these
059needs >> and it's one bill and one check, right? Thanks for illustrating that. It's one check, right? So for us to actually get granular with each of these services would be a lot of time >> sure >> to unpack even for just one bill much less across the board. >> Yes, that's one month just one month vendor payment from March. So well thank you very much. It just my eyes caught that name and it was an interesting name and then I see travel it's like really but thank you very much. Are there any other questions uh for Miss Roy? Thank you so much for uh that deeper dive into a very complex topic for sure. >> No problem. >> Uh back to Mr. McDonald. >> All right. Thank you. So, not to um extend this
060any further, but I'm going to recount what I said earlier about slide five. So, we saw um a $950,000 increase in March from debt service and there's still an increase in the overall debt service, but there was a reduction in expense side, not a 523, but a 427. So, this slide just represents the net on slide five, the net uh increase to debt service. So, it is correct on the slide, but there is a reduction of about 427,000. So the the um the numbers that you're looking at here uh when you see the budgetto budget number that's the 523,000 under debt service on that 800 line. So that matches up with slide five. All right. So we'll jump ahead to slide 30 where we stopped. Fund balance. Um this slide you've seen several times. This
061is just the commitment of commitments made by the board of our general fund fund balance. So, to be able to increase taxes in Pennsylvania, you have to have an uh no more or than 8% of your fund balance to be unrestricted. We don't have any unrestricted fund balance. We commit all of it. Uh so, it needs to be committed by the board and this is how we uh list our commitment. So, in the current year, um we've committed six million over $6 million of fund balance and that comes from two things uh and you saw it earlier in the presentation. One is the contingency which was 3 million in the current year we're in and then we had a budgeted deficit and we passed the budget of about 3.1 million a little over 3.1 million.
062So those two numbers together is the commitment of fund balance for the budget year that we're in currently. Capital projects we have committed that just in case we can't uh get to the point of being able to transfer 6 million at the end of a fiscal year that we're in. And we'll talk about that when we get to the projection. But you can always commit fund balance. This is um able they have giving the board the ability really to say at the end of the year we're still going to transfer that money. It's going to come out of fund balance. And then vested employee services directly a calculation from uh the audited financial statements. PERS is really the balance of what those other calculations are. Healthcare contingency is what the consultant recommends we keep, which
063is six to nine months of a roll of expenses in case uh we happen to need to close up shop and we have to pay off whatever claims come in those six months. And then the athletic fund uh has a certain amount of money that we also assign for that out of that 33.4 million. This is a represent representation of the fund balance as a percent of the percentage of the budget. Unfortunately, it's going in the direction, the wrong direction. It's going down. Uh that's really just because a function of our fund balance remaining consistent and the expense is going up. So, I'd mentioned uh I believe at a previous meeting that Moody's looks at this particular percentage uh in our AAA rating and we did talk about it in our last ratings call and
064we not getting down to the level that's concerning to them, but they did at least say in their report that this is something they're going to continue to look at. I think what uh makes it a little bit different for us is they know that we have a plan and it's been consistent. In other words, we're not reducing fund balance because we have ongoing deficits. We reduce it because we're moving money over to the capital fund. So, they understand that that's really just a movement of money out of the general fund over to the capital fund. It's not because we're ending the year in a deficit. So, I think that's helping our our AAA rating. contributions that we've made from the general fund to the capital fund. You can see them going back all the
065way to 2007. Over the last five years, the average has been about 5.1 million. Not where we want to get. Uh but we're budgeting 6 million this year and then 6 million in 2627. This slide really just is a representation of um a few things. uh one the transfers that I mentioned in the previous slide what the bond proceeds are and that's those uh blue bars that you see there and then what is the balance in the capital fund that's the red line and then uh how much are we spending in that capital fund that's the yellow line so you can see the bigger projects like the high school renovation spiking that capital expenditure line obviously as those go up we need to either fund it through a general fund transfer or issue bonds so
066you can see how they correspond bonding bars help pay for those expenses. Entitywide on slide 34 uh gives you we talk about the general fund mostly in these meetings, but the capital fund really is the rest of what's going on uh in an entitywide analysis is what uh actually shows up in the audited financial statements in several different areas. You can see that we're ending the year in a deficit. And the reason we can do that and still uh be afloat is because we're issuing bonds to be able to cover that. So over the years we've issued bonds to be able to cover that $140 million deficit that's really occurring in the cap in the capital fund. I mentioned earlier about assessments uh going up a little bit. So the projection in the act one
067index of that 3.4% on slide 35 has gone up a little bit. uh the state fixes what the exception calculation is because it's an actual calculation. So they fix a number of what you can raise in revenue and that number is fixed at that 2 million 207776 that hasn't changed. Percentage changes but the overall dollar amounts don't. So, we're still uh at a tax increase that's under 5% at 4.99 and adding revenue of 7,383100 is the limit of of what you can increase taxes uh based on this calculation. Now, that being said, when you increase a tax rate or millage, it's based on whatever the assessed value is at the time. So, if the assessed value is more, it's going to produce more revenue. If it's less, it's going to produce less revenue. So your
068tax rate is really just an amount that's you know translates to millillage. Uh it's not a you're not passing a tax increase. It's a dollar amount. You're passing a rate. We put this slide in a couple years ago just to give you an idea of what uh the impacts are of each of the u tenth of a percent on on each line and what that produces. And then we're also giving you an idea of what the impact is uh to the average assessed value TE home in the district which is that notation at the bottom of the slide and that column that you see out to the right. Historically uh these are the tax rates that we've uh applied over each budget year. And you can see years that we uh did file for exceptions
069and took either full or part of those exceptions in column C and D. Hasn't been every year. Um but we have done it uh historically. And then you can see what the average increase is to a homeowner uh in that final column in F. We looked at this uh last time. This is just a repeat. So I put it in here forformational purposes. Uh we don't have an earned income tax here, but it does show you uh what the impact is of those districts that do and how it impacts their tax rate. So this um on slide 39 is the current year budget projection and uh this has changed since the last time we looked at it and we're continuing to make projection based on what current expenses are. And unfortunately, uh, right now we're
070projecting a larger deficit than what we budgeted. We I mentioned earlier we budgeted a $3.1 million deficit and we're projecting right now of ending the year close to $4 million deficit, which would mean a spending fund balance of about $800,000. Now, of course, this projection includes the $6 million that we said we were going to move. So if it turns out that you know it's something close to this, we have the ability to adjust that capital funds transfer to something less than that. So we wouldn't have to negatively impact fund balance in the general fund. We'll continue to look at this obviously as we go forward. Uh but you know that we don't typically get the year-end numbers till sometime early fall uh when we look at that. So it'll be something we continue to
071talk about for the next six months. This is the projection model that's really u based on a couple things. One, the previous projection that I just mentioned and then where we are in 2627. This is untreated. So um it's just to give you an idea what would happen without any additional revenue because the revenue that happens in 2627 is going to impact every one of these years in addition to what revenue increases are in each of the years following that. Just to give you an idea though of what the numbers look like uh as a budget imbalance with untreated revenue. So that would be like column B in that first slide that we looked at as a summary. That's really what this is. These are this the expenditure assumptions that go along with that projection
072model. uh we use typically the same percentages because overall those areas have increased and um you know the areas that uh we mentioned earlier about special ed we have a different percentage for those compared to the other areas that are within 300 and 500 the contracted services area and then the tuition area just like transportation is going up a certain amount different than what special ed tuition would be even though they're in the same object code of 500. equalized mills and um something the state is still using as a calculation in their funding model. So when they look at local effort index or local effort capacity index, you'll see those different terms and some of the state um some of the state information that they put out about how our basic ed funding works. So
073they do a calculation that's smoothed over three years, but it does impact what we get from them from a from a funding perspective. And when you uh have a calculated equalized mill or a local effort index that's less than one, which we do, ours is somewhere in the low 80s. Uh they take and adjust your funding based on that. So if you have something less than one, they actually penalize you uh with the amount of money that they give you. And the reason they do that is because they're saying that you have the capacity to produce more revenue locally than you're doing. So we're going to give you less money and with the expectation that you're going to increase taxes to be able to get to a one basically in that calculation. So little counterintuitive,
074but that's what the state decides to do. Taxes paid on slide 43 by residents. you can kind of see over the last 10 years assuming an assessed value uh averaged among all those schools at 260. So we picked a number that's close to our average and applied that to all the school districts and what how does where does it come out? So we're we're on the low end of that which you know makes sense because we have a lower uh equalized mill rate as well. So we'd be on the lower end of what we paid over the last 10 years. I put it the EIT slide in again just so you can use that as a comparison. Then I also put in the property tax uh rent rebate program slide again uh so we can
075keep it in front of folks so they can see where they can go out and apply for that. Uh rates did change, got a little better this year. So we're hoping to see some uh some people take advantage of that. Key dates going forward for us. As I mentioned earlier, on April 27th, you're going to see the proposed final budget uh for your consideration and then uh with the option of the final budget on June 8th for 2627. And that completes my formal presentation. Certainly welcome your questions. >> Do we have any uh specific questions for Mr. McDonald? Yes, Miss >> W. question. >> Um the slide 31, the fund balance percent of budget, you said that the 18% while going down was not enough to um concern Moody's. Do what did they let you
076know what figure would be a concerning figure? >> Uh they they apply like a national percentage to that which is somewhere north of 17%. So we're getting close to that number. Um, but I I actually brought that up in the conversation that we were having with them u because I had some concerns about it and they um said that they look at that but that's a piece of what the rating is and it's not I would say it's maybe 20% of what they look at but the other things kind of outweigh that 20%. So and in the team that discusses our rating they said it didn't have as much impact as it could have because we're doing some other things well. Thank you. >> Other questions, Mr. Hung? >> Uh, yes. Just wanted to get
077a clarification on slide 38, the average taxes paid by residential taxpayers. So, with the school districts that have uh earned income tax? So, do those lines represent the just the property tax that they're paying or the property tax plus any sort of EIT that they might be playing? >> That's just the property tax. >> Okay. All right. Thank you, >> Dr. Meras. >> Yeah, I want to want to go back to slide comparing the healthcare costs over time. So I just wanted to have an idea of um it was a pretty significant drop in the past 10 years or so especially with medical um less you know reduced by more than half. So I'm just curious how did that come about? >> Right. So, a combination of things. One, um, lower rates compared budget to
078budget, but then we also adjust the expenditures based on the amount of, uh, funding that we have from that. So, we put money aside to fund our healthcare expenses from what employees pay for because they have a co- premium. So, we put we establish our actual rates because we're the insurer. >> So, because we're self-insured, we establish our own rates. if they become overfunded then we adjust the expense down so we make sure that we're not overfunded you know continually. So we do that we've done that in the 2425 year and we'll continue to do that if we can if we have the ability to. So our rates although they've remained the same that overfunding piece affects the overall expenses on the profit loss side. >> Thank you. I have one more question kind of
079more a hypothetical in terms of property assessment. Um, as I understand Pennsylvania is one of only a couple of states that doesn't require regular assessments by counties. I wonder if that would be on your wish list legislatively if uh say every three years sounds pretty typical. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I would it would be nice to see um some effort statewide or even you know locally to have a reassessment and e even though it's you know possibly revenue neutral when you look at it it's definitely a fair way to apply what's happening. I think our last assessment in Chester County was in the early 90s. So um there are some counties in Pennsylvania that it's matter of law that they do an assessment every 3 to 5 years. I think down Lancaster or York area
080they do that. So it would be nice to see something like that. >> And if there's a reassessment in the years that immediately follow it should take a hit to the appeals um that we're now suffering from. >> Absolutely. People wouldn't be you know coming they wouldn't get there would be a not a moratorum but be a time frame where you wouldn't be allowed to actually reassess your property after that reassessment. >> Interesting. So in other words, if there were regular assessments during the during the interim period, you can't appeal, >> right? >> There there's a window of time where you wouldn't be able to unless you did something significant. In other words, if you added or something like that, but if it was the same property, you wouldn't get an adjustment, >> right? Thank
081you, >> Mhm. >> Miss Pion. >> Yes. Just to uh um go from what Dr. Merc said, um, would it be best to advocate for that locally or statewide? >> If you're saying that, if you're saying that, uh, yes, you would like to see some, uh, movement uh, by uh, having reassessments done, a more quicker pre periodically quicker turnaround. Would it be better to do it locally by county or would it be better to uh advocate on the state level? >> Right. It's it it is done at the county level. They're they're the ones that come out and actually do the assessment. So that would be a countywide effort. >> But the state could pass a law requiring >> Yeah. They could say the state could say all counties must do it. They wouldn't pick
082a specific one, but it could be done locally as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Any other questions? Dr. Hotinsky. Um, so if we go back to our very first slide, which is the overall budget situation, we still have the $5 million gap and we have one year. This next year is sort of a normal year and then we're going to need to be opening Bear Hill Elementary School. So, we're not not expecting things to get cheaper. Um, so, um, so I know we do have the $6 million capital contribution in there, but we've we've been, um, sort of strong in and keeping that in there because we sort of a placeholder for operational expenses that are coming later. So, I feel like I certainly am not a fan of of going into like finishing
083this, you know, doing our final final budget be $5 million. And we do have some time. So, um I'm wondering if So, the administration will be continuing to do work, I'm sure, to to lower those expenses. Are there is there any I I think there's another 750,000 that might come in the governor's budget. Um we can't count on that, but >> it's something that might come our way. Are there any other big swings that you're anticipating or are we looking at really having to reduce the capital contribution or find additional revenue >> when you I'd go back to one of the things you said the 750 from what I presented in March or did you get that >> the total of everything that might be in the budget the governor's budget there was a wish
084list and we don't get all of that >> right an additional 500 right we put in the 250 >> there's like another 500 that was a possibility that came through. Um actually special education was the was the additional that the additional 400 and change. >> Um that was the funding piece that was kind of >> not >> really as definite as the as the safe part of what we put in. >> Um but we're going to continue to go through the budget and we're actually doing it now uh line by line in department. We just started doing that this week. So, we're going to we're hoping to come back to you with some additional reductions from that slide I mentioned earlier where we had the 1.5. Um, so we'll keep working to do that. We're,
085you know, we're thinking the same thing you are that we want to get it down to something that's somewhere in between where we were last year and below the number four. Um, so that's our mission and um, we only have the ability to produce revenue so much and I, you know, based on what we talked about with act one earlier, it's going down and the only thing that's probably going to change that is what um, we talked about earlier, which is one of the biggest drivers, which is special ed. So, we're going to, you know, hopefully continue to still have the ability to file for exceptions and look at that money cuz I I don't see the act one index really helping us. Um, if we look at our average overall increases in our budget
086when we do the first run through of the budget, it's historically for the last 30 years has always been between 6 and 7%. And this budget is significantly lower than that and we're still at a deficit. So, that tells me that it's really more about the revenue than the expense side. our expenses are growing was by a smaller percentage than what they have historically. So, it's a little bit concerning that we can't catch up even though the board is committed to doing that based on the tax rates that they've approved. So, um do we have the ability to pull some levers? Sure, we have that that capital funds transfer that we can adjust, but we want to get to a point where we're not having to, you know, suffer any kind of budget deficits when
087we open the new school. And a lot of that's, you know, I think Dr. Gusk was talking about staffing before and what that looks like. So those the biggest part of the budget is there. So we'll have to continue to manage that in small increments as we get closer to the opening of the school in fall 27th. And so several parts too. We're also looking at trying to close that delta between 26 27 and the following year when the new school is open with full day kindergarten. So part of the principal's salary is in next year's budget. So that part won't have to be an increase going from one year to the next. There are positions that created uh some extra space in schedules that we created with the addition of STEM and the modification
088of the schedules at the other schools that we're going to be able to use to fulfill some of the staff. Not a whole percentage, but some of the staff going there, which offsets again some of that delta between 2627 and 2728. None of that means to say we're finished with the 2627 budget. Um we are going to I'd love to right now say when we meet again in May at finance that that number will be smaller and I feel it will be but then every time we find that it will then there's some negative appeals result or something external that has absorbed some of those uh savings that we've been able to capture. So, I hope that we we have absorbed what we're going to and that the work between now and April and May,
089we still did get $1.2 million roughly out of that gap between the last time we met and now. I don't know how much more there is, but we're going to keep going at the same with the same level of uh scrutiny to uh bring as favorable of a turnaround to you as possible. I know you will and it has been a great change from last month to this month. I was very very happy to see that it's moving in the right direction. Um the the one other revenue source that I was thinking of is we've talked before about um rentals and that we are going to have our new turf fields will be open well are already open and the whole facility will be open and I recognize that we do not have a policy
090yet about rentals for those fields and I'm just wondering um I think we have a couple policy meetings left this year that um it would be something that we could address if the fields are going to be open next if the board other board members would be amendable. Um, so I don't know what to and I know right now we get 600,000 from property rentals overall. I don't know what kind of a number we might expect from from field rentals but >> right I talking to Mr. Kaldi about policy and we're in the 7,000 series which just happens to be coincidentally where our facilities use. But we are going to look at um the rates for for what we're currently have in the facilities use policy and we're going to update those to current rates
091and I think we're committed to be do that regularly now annually because those rates go up and the overtime rates go up. So just to um talk a little bit about the revenue side of it because I think it's it's a grossed up revenue number because there is there is expenses it's not all revenue. So we have folks, you know, boots on the ground with people in those uses and often times those are overtime hours that we're paying. So we're going to look at the analysis of that and see what the differences are and see if we in the past we've been aligning those numbers to really just make us even. And I think we need to evaluate whether that's makes sense going forward. Um so we're going to look at that and then we're
092also look at what it looks like for a policy if the if the board wants to go in that direction for the new facility. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Uh, so, Miss Wild, it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Monday is uh Monday the 20th, there's a policy meeting. So, that would be uh you're taking No, not true or yes. Yes. Okay. Uh fortunately there are I think two left before the year ends and it takes that long to to do that kind of work. So I I think that's a direction that uh we need to at least investigate. >> Yeah. The plan was to have the um that policy come up in May. So we are going to do some 7000s I believe at the next meeting, but then May
093is where we're going to dig into that. And it if it would it be able to be in effect on July 1st? That's the key question, right? >> I'd have to defer it to the either the policy chair or the administrative liaison who's approaching the microphone. >> You can come up here if you need to. >> There we go. There we go. >> Yeah. The answer the answer to that is yes. uh with with the understanding. So we have been talking about it, we want to make sure we get it right. Um so if we need to have that any policy revision and really it would look to be a policy because we don't have those fields listed anywhere. Um it could be a very short policy change that's presented in May. If we discuss
094it at the policy committee and the policy committee's okay with it, it'll go to a first reading and then there should be enough time if the board's okay with it. There's no second policy meeting, but the bo the policy committee and the board can say it's fine to come back for a second reading in June. Does that make sense? So, we will get the two readings in >> enough time between the May meeting and the June meeting. >> Uh we can look at the dates. Yeah. >> On that, >> close, but >> we've done that one before. Uh so, there could be a possibility to do it that way. >> Yeah. Another caveat to that would be um really if you put all the rates to the fields in the regulation, you could just put
095the regulation and as soon as the meeting happens and the committee is okay with it, we check in with you. The regulation could be approved and then post it the next day. So, I do think we have avenues forward. >> Great. Well, it sounds like you and Miss Wild can talk about that prior to next week's meeting and uh we'll we'll get that underway. >> All right. Thank you. >> Are there any other questions? Yes. >> Yes. A a question and then probably more of a comment. First a question and this is a follow-up from last month's finance committee meeting and we've been assuming this but just we've been approved for our special ed exception. Yes. Yes, we have. >> Because at the last finance meeting, we hadn't been yet, but we're we're >> have
096been approved. We got notice back from the state. >> Okay. >> So, the number that's in the presentation tonight is the number that they approved. >> Okay. Great. So, thank thanks for that. Um, and sticking with this slide, um, I I am I want to do say that I am thankful that uh we you know, this is this is part of my old man on the board thing right now, too. I am thankful that we've we've switched from uh putting the capital contribution from below the line to to above the line because when I started on the board, you would look at this and with if with that $6 million out, people would go, "Hey, million dollar deficit, that's not so bad. Let's see how much we can get under the index at that point,
097right?" and that would not be um an accurate reflection of the the current financial situation of the of the district. Um and to that point, were you going to say something or and but to follow on to that point, you know, we've talked a little bit and what thing that makes me pretty nervous is the projection that we have for this year. Um and to that we're >> not even going to meet it sounds like we're not we're going to have a a problem meeting the deficit that we did budget which means which takes into account that capital contribution which means that some of that c capital contribution may not be made um at that point and that has a cascading effect because if we don't make that contra capital contribution then we have to
098spend then we have to borrow more uh to meet our capital commitments, which means we have more debt service, which adds to the operating budget, and it's a bad cycle that that we do not want to to be in on that front. So, I mean, I know it's it's too late for this year. We can't do anything about that. and maybe even perhaps for this particular budget in terms of sort of figuring out the numbers on this budget. But in terms of execution and and and getting to the actuals and then budgeting going forward, you know, I think it's incumbent upon us to be able to think about, okay, how are we going to close that gap? Do we are there other ways to inject revenue into the system? Um, are there other are there
099just things that maybe we're going to have to figure out some efficiencies and cut some cut some costs on that point? Because the the on the path on the various options that we have in order to be able to meet the commitments that we've made at this point, probably the suboptimal commitment is the one that says, "Well, don't worry. We'll put less into the capital program from from the from the general fund." uh because that puts us down a a bad path. And so um you know I don't I don't want to I don't want to go back to the time necessarily where you know back it was back in 2008 where we sat and we had there was a long discussion about okay here are the you know 42 things that we looked at
100and here's what we're cutting and and that sort of stuff and and nobody was happy about that outcome. But, you know, absent finding some sort of uh additional miraculous source of revenue uh at this point, um I I I don't I fear about what we're going to have whether we're going to have to do that in the near term as opposed to, you know, as opposed to something else in order to be able to figure this out because the the path that we're on at this point is probably not sustainable from uh from a fiscal standpoint. >> It's one of the reasons as well we need to be certain that whatever we bring back to you there have been there have been adjustments made in the 2627 budget that should correct for some of the
101deficit in the projected in the current year and in order to in efforts to close that number down from $4.7 million. We do not want to take the things out of the budget that were put in there to ensure that they don't remain structural to our budget. So part of the examination is looking for other things that are not captured by that. >> It would do no good to say, hey, we've we've somehow figured out to reduce this to 2.5 million, but it's not a real those aren't realistic things. And then we end up not hitting that, right? Because so I appreciate I appreciate that and understand that. Um, and so I I know everybody's working hard to find real reductions in order to be or real additional sources of revenue to be able to
102close this gap and we'll get to where we where we can get to. Um, this is we just have to think about this on a going forward basis and how we're going to be able to maintain this. Um, because the the the way we're looking right now is not a is not a is not a comfortable path. Dr. Otinsky. Yeah, just two more quick points. Um, one is, you know, as we get to the end of the year, it's always a little uncertain because all sorts of costs come in late or after the fact, but as close as we can get with, you know, letting go of incumbrances and things, it's very helpful to know, you know, where we are as close as we can to the end of the year. Um so I know
103you always try to do that but [laughter] it's um it's helpful you know to the extent we can to not have a change between um spring and fall. Um but then also my other comment would be we have facilities tomorrow and you know facilities is the capital fund and that's a different pot but to the extent that we can defer borrowing and stretch out that debt service. Um, I know you're working on on some of the deferred maintenance costs and bringing that down and maybe we can look at delaying some some projects to see if we can push out our borrowing as far as possible. >> Right. I don't want to necessarily turn this into facilities committee, but I think we're going to see some good numbers tomorrow night. We we did what we said
104we would do, which is keep that number down below five for our infrastructure project. So, we'll continue to work at that. We we've also prioritized what they look like to give the committee and the board some, you know, leeway on what we do and what we don't do. But we worked really hard to say priority ones are really priority ones. And we got it down to a number I think that's pretty good considering we started with a a very large number. So >> I don't see any more comments or questions. I guess I would just summarize by saying we no one on the board wishes to end up with a deficit like this at the end in June on June 8th and we really appreciate the work that's being done. Um and we also recognize
105the harsh realities that are causing some of this. I mean, if you look at those two graphs, I think it's 18 and 19, the special ed costs and the which are mandated things, it's you escalating so much. And then, you know, the the state that's requiring us to do these things is not helping. And the same thing with transportation. Uh, again, a mandated thing. We we've talked about this before, you know, the and we've talked about this to our legislators about the busing of children 10 miles outside our radius and if only that was changed to 5 miles, it would change it would change our transportation costs and that's become a huge issue for lots of school districts, not just us. But, you know, these are the realities we're we're working with. And as Mr.
106kind of tour says we don't want to end up you know structurally unsound and uh so we appreciate everything and look forward to the next meeting. This is not our last look at this budget. Obviously we've got a meeting in April. We have finance two two more shots at looking at this in in May with the finance committee and the May board meeting and then finally getting to June 8th when we'll we'll have our last uh last look at the numbers as they stand. So, uh we appreciate all the work that's being done to to whittle that number down. >> Any other uh questions? Are there any questions from the community? Seeing none, the board to go back to the board. Okay. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting then? Thank you, Mr.
107McDonald. By the way, and thank you to our other presenters as well, Miss Roy, Dr. Tol, and uh Dr. Stevenson. Do you have a motion to move >> and a second? Second, and the meeting's adjourned.