BOE Budget Meeting 4-10-25

001Good afternoon. It's time to start our meeting. You join me with a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance. [Music] Thank you. Salute. I aliance 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. [Music] to start tonight. We need to approve our minutes. Move to approve. Second. Motion to approve and second. Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say nay. You guys have minutes for approval. [Music] So to get started guess the start for tonight looking at the budget plan for this year budget draft one is where we are Mr. Ste. Yeah. So it's nothing's changing there yet. So that's why we're meeting. So, if you'll go to the the next attachment, this is

002what I presented to the county commission last night and thank you for those board members that came for that. So, I just added some details from questions that I've gotten from board members and other uh county commissioners and that. So next slide. So just the bottom line up front just some questions that were presented to me. You know in the central services of the GP 3.6% of certified personnel are in there. Um some discussion about leadership pay and salaries and just to remind everyone they're on a lower daily rate than teachers currently. um working on a multi-year approach to have steady growth in student achievement and balance the budget also. So that's where we are now currently to stay at current strength. Our personnel are producing increases and safe quality care for all students. So

003we're in a good place right now and uh we've been discussing for a while now trying to balance the budget uh without utilizing fund balance. It's just not sustainable. Um so this is year three where we where uh it's out of balance. So next so I updated this slide they were asking about TISA and what's included and what's not. So in this slide here we have raises for the teachers. That same number will be raises next year for the teachers to get to the 50. The step raise is not included in TISA. Well, a lot of this is not specifically line item in TISA. Uh, so we're after year five of all of our teacher raises, our certified employees, the teachers, we'll have over $9,000 pay increase over a 5year period. Then I've I've proposed

0042% for classified and the 2% step raise is is an average of what it is between each each level. and then 2% increase for classified and certified supervisors plus a step raise where applicable. Uh we got health insurance increases over the next two years. So 3.5% January 25 and then another 3.5 January 26. Uh and then of course TCRS rate for classified employees is going up to we think around 9% for the hybrid for certified 9% and 5.5% for the legacy. For those that don't know what that is, in 2014 we moved away from the legacy pension plan, which us older people are on. So, it's just a they take a certain amount out of your check every year and when you hit year 30, you get a pension. Um, they switch to a hybrid.

005So, you have to invest into your if you're a new teacher from 2014 or you've moved in somewhere, you invest in your retirement and the state invest. So, it's a shared uh approach to um benefits. And then the total salary and benefits increase that I proposed in this certain draft that's probably going to change is that 3.6 million. Next slide. So I had a lot of questions on what TISA covers and what it doesn't cover. So those are all the things doesn't cover include buses and textbooks and facilities. Big bucket is the maintenance and and major projects. So next slide. This is just what TISA looks like. So that's just a formula. Many of you already dug into it. Outcomes has three areas. Elementary, middle, and high school targets. So they have committees that create

006those targets at the state level. And then we try to find how we can maximize those uh targets. Next slide. And this is just the wording from the state department off their page on what the outcome money is. So the top right it says incentivize student achievement and education excellence. So do bonuses, we can do pay raises. Uh or there's some school systems now taking the outcomes money and if this school earned $18,000 and that school gets $18,000. And then there's others that are already doing strategic compensation where if you're one of those teachers who produce or have a high academic achievement which gives the county more money then you get a bonus. You're one of those that doesn't then you don't get a bonus. So there's many different ways to do this. It's not

007a set way that you have to do as a county. Next lot of questions about central services. So like we've done with insurance and other stuff. I just surrounding counties called and ones that answered. We're at 3.6% of general purpose fund certified positions in this building. And then those are four counties that answered uh our question on where they are. And out of GP for non-certified, it's 2%. Once again, the supervisors are paid a lower daily rate. And then just at the bottom, I put a caveat just so everyone knows that this is a professional development building as well as office space as well as central hub. So a lot of things come here and then go back out to the other schools. So that's why there's just a lot of lot of parking uh

008not not enough parking for all the vehicles. So next slide. So the other question was we're well below the state student teacher ratio. So what I what I did is I tried to break it down so you know that not every certified person is counted in a student teacher ratio. So uh the ones that don't count I've listed up there um in elementary schools and then ones that don't count in high schools. And then just so everyone knows we do what's called an audit or aotment meetings twice in the spring to match how many students are in a class to a certain teacher at by grade level grade bands. And then if you don't have enough students in a certain grade band, you might lose a teacher or you might gain a teacher. So we

009we do it case by case, teacher by teachers situation. Uh next slide. And in the salary study, there's some questions about supervisor pay. And I know we're going to discuss those percentages today. So I just wanted to show you what an outside third party uh said about our supervisor leadership pay. So these are the counties we were compared to or compared with. Next slide. And then this these are all the comments about the central office leadership and their pay. For the most part, we're comparable with our peers. Uh we got a couple positions paid lower. Um but we're not like excessive or out of industry standard at all with salaries in the central office. But that's for you guys to read through if you'd like. Next slide. This is possible additions for this year. If

010we can do it, great. Um, I've talked about these before. This slide hadn't changed. Next. So, that's our projected revenues. If you look at the the TISA estimate that was sent by the state department, it actually its number is 70. And so, Tissa is 70. And then we have a little over 5 million of other grants that we get and that's those first three pages of the the draft budget which itemizes what those are. Next page just the expenses again. Salary and benefits are 86% of our total budget. Next page you never done that before. Just shows that we have a gap with this current draft. Next page. And that's to stay at current strength. That's not changing anything. This is a rotation that's been in place for several years and it's planned out several

011more years. So that's 1.7 million. Next slide. Then capital projects um total and then also I I separated the tennis courts out of there also so that the total you can see the total with and without. And I did mention at the county commission my previous job I was at a middle school that needed a new roof and that was paid for by the county not the school system. So I just wanted to point that out. So it's different in every county. And then next slide that's total maintenance and something I have talked about is maybe bundling this and asking for a one-time allocation from the county commission to take care of this if that's something they they'll entertain. Uh the next slide shows the total. Yeah. Then we get that gap. And next slide.

012And this is what shows you about wonky going from BEP to to TISA. If you look at the bottom left, maintenance of effort test not met, but required local match is met. So there's a if you look in the the estimate that I send out to you, there's a section that has a calculation of what local contribution should be. Next slide. And then these are all discussion items I'm sure we're going to talk about tonight. Um what why is there a cost increase? So obviously inflation, required payraises, insurance, maintenance, we've aging buildings. So we want to keep everything up comprehensive care of all of our facilities. We want to make sure um stu I already talked about student teacher ratios. We need to look at a multi-year planning. So um start working on that working

013with the county commission as a team to to figure that out. Do we need to do a reset? What do we need to do to get us back on track because we're going to have the same problem next year. So um and then the um Mr. Van Winkle mentioned the 10% we have Kim has broken it down now over all those percentages to look at tonight also what it would look like for classified if we do the 10% that's just a rough estimate of of the additional cost on top of what's what we originally proposed and then we've already talked about the the leadership discrepancy on daily rates. It's a lower daily rate for leadership. So that was the updated slide deck when I Mr. Ste. Yes sir. When uh I looked at that, did

014that include subtracting the 2% that anyway? Okay. So any other discussions on this right now or y'all want to jump into the salary scales and items that we have listed? All right. So chair, may I move on, please? All right. So under number five on the agenda, the first is supervisor and safe school salary scales. Like I said before, once we get to salary scales and we approve something, then our federal people can start balancing their budgets, the 142 and 143 items. So that's why we have so many different salary uh schedules tonight. So we'll look at this one by itself separately. And please uh what questions do we have? I think we've talked about this one before. Okay. So, why can the safe schools counselors not be on the certified pay scale? Cuz they're

015not all certified teachers. So, what we use for certified is that you've got a teacher certificate. So we have a couple that do have we got three that have their teaching license who are also have the other requirements are working towards those. So they get paid on the certified skill but they are certified teachers but all counselors are certified. Yeah. So Scott Hull he is the um he has all the uh qualifications to be their person. They check in as they gain all their hours to move up on certifications. So luckily we can use him to certify all their hours and then they move up into different certifications as they get their hours [Music] in. But there's certifications in the counseling side, not the teacher side. So is there any requirement by the state to

016to I guess to have that separate pay scale? They couldn't be on the same as our certified. They could um I've talked about this before past couple years. There's several different professional positions that we have here that have certifications in those positions. Like Miss Bray has an accounting or finance, it's finance, right? Finance degree, but they're still considered support staff. So, that's something the board could definitely change. we have with these certain positions up here uh just because they're handling that massive budget. But that is something the board can look at and and move to the certified scale if you'd like cuz we were talking about also supervisors going on that same daily rate too. I was wondering why we can't simplify and get it all on one certified scale if they're certified. But laughing.

017Yeah, the simpler the better. This is this is what we inherit. You know, it's been been used. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I would I would love to put everybody on the same scale that has the certifications, right? Be a good time to fix. It would be a good time. So, the next is the grandfather master scale. [Music] How many more people do we have on that? It says on the bottom cuz I think there's five. Okay. Only five cuz I knew that they were six employees. Six being only exist for six employees and then we won't have that scale any longer. Correct. Down to five now. She took one. Okay. [Music] And then the next scale is principal AP systemwide supervisor scale. Questions on that? I'm looking at it in the

018doctorate column over to the right. Mhm. Just why supervisor lower than principal? Uh that's because there was some years where that 2% increase did not go to supervisors, but it went to everybody to the other leadership to school administrations. So that's where the scale caught up with not providing the 2%. Well, this is also where I was pointing out before that the and I know it's probably hard to say that the zery year principal for a masters with a masters is lower than what the teachers make rock. Yeah, that whole scale is lower. Yeah, we're all supervisors. That's what we're talking about when we say put them on the same scale. Keeps that from happening. Every year we go, it gets further apart. Okay, next one to look at is admin and supervisors add-on. This

019is something we tried to come up with a different plan the past couple years, but it just hasn't uh been passed or worked on. So, I didn't know if had any questions. Yeah, this is another one of those things that it's for one on the assistant principles. You've got the secondary assistant principles and the elementary assistant principles and they're things are all wonky just I mean they're basically the same job in different schools but um their percentages are different all the way across the board. Some school systems have all the leadership on the same pay scale as the teachers and then there's a supplement for a position, not a percentage but just a flat rate. Yeah. Others make a salary range for each supervisor position. So, so it looks like this was intended to provide

020some type of lo longevity increase or something. Correct. I know initially when this was developed uh principal supervision uh experience did not roll over into supervisor experience. They started zero. They started back at zero. So that's something that has increased our expenditures over time. Yes. is that and so I think I think that was part of what was meant to be done on this and and it hasn't been followed for the entire time. Um and then something else is I know other systems do this based on the number of students. So some some schools have I know Putham County does that but if you have over 250 students you step up to a higher higher supplement and if you have over 500 another another step and how many teachers do you have in the building

021that's part of the formula down there so I think it's no I think it's just based on number of they've changed it so when I was down there I had a number of how many am I supervising how many adults am I supervising I think we have something similar to that. If it's 20 teachers, if it's up to 20 teachers, you get but everybody has 20 teachers basically. So, it doesn't really make a difference there. But so, how do we how do we from here, how do we go about simplifying it, getting it down to either just a supplement or or something? Well, the last couple years we've looked at putting them on the same scale as the teachers and then some sort of add-on. So, they'll have teacher daily rate, but they don't work

022200 days. They work 240 days. And that's where that big pay increase come from. You're working more days, right? So, we did that and then we talked about different add-ons. I don't know if you want to or Kim if you want to talk about what those look like uh last two years that we were looking at. It just varied by profession by whichever level you were in. It was just a daily add-on to your daily rate. flat rate flat rate depending on where you are you could actually so much a day that was added if you were an you principal if you were a supervisor but it's a flat dollar and so your annual or the longevity would be the step raise that you give for the certified kids right that number would stay until

023you post change yeah but as an AP let's say just for instance this isn't a solid number I'm just going to throw one round number out they get the teacher daily rate plus $50 a day or it could be 20 year or five, whatever. But that's what and then that would that number doesn't change. You just worry about your base rate increase every year that it has to be enough to incentivize somebody to take your position. Oh, yeah. You're probably not going to be an AP for 10 more dollars a day, right? So, I guess with our current staff, this wouldn't change, right? We'd have to grandfather like we've done in the past on you. You can pick how you want to do it. The way this works when you do s and you know

024this so I'm not not trying to insult anybody's intelligence here but when you do it when you make that change the first time you might have people that are on the on the new scale have already topped out then they don't move you just can't go backwards so you can't make less right so if they're already too high on the new plan they stay there until those years catch up and then they move so it's it's it's messy no matter what you Like if we if we're going to talk about a balanced salary scale, well, everybody has a different number they're going to get when we fix the scale, but then after that it levels out. But the first year of changing anything, you're ripping a band-aid off. It's Yes. It's not It's not going

025to be what everybody gets the exact same number. Mhm. Or you could grandfather those here now and start on a certain date with new ones on a different have two SK for a while because it doesn't take long to age out here. Do you know how many how many this would affect as far as not moving as far as their salary not going up or whatever? It just depends on how many years of experience they had as a teacher before they came and administrated. That's what I mean. Do you do you have a round number an idea of how many we have to calculate that every individual? So depending on what we land on for the scale I guess you're you haven't done that yet. Not every individual yet. Do you know what the total

026effect of do we have any type of I guess projection on what we could do and what the total effect on the budget would be at this point? Yeah, we did that when we tried to balance the scales. You'll see that. I shot that out with that. We can do that same analysis with this. Okay. We'll just get that to you as quick as we can. But we had those numbers last year and the year before. So, I'll try to find those also so you can see what we presented last year. You've already seen it. Okay. I just didn't know if it'd been done for this budget yet. Now I recalculated and but you'll see that in a minute like the 2% 3% and then putting them on the scale. That's the email that you

027sent. Yeah. Yeah. Three columns because I just went in with each one and hand calculate. Okay. Well, I think y'all got a packet. So, let's start with that now. So the first on the packet is the um comparison chart of just doing this the step and plus the 1713 what it looks like at each experience level. And then to the right of that, those last three columns shows where we've balanced it out and what the total cost is. So total cost currently to do the raise plus the step is 585,000 for this group of people. For this group of people, correct? This is just people that have a bachelor's degree [Music] compared to 585 and 905. So it's it's a small small difference, a little bit of an increase like we talked about. Each page

028following shows you between the two balanced and the yellow is current. This is system one. And then the third page is the [Music] masters systemwide masters specialist. Next page is the EDS the teacher on this top left is where it says EDS. So we split it out. Each one of these pages have been split out for each different level of salary person. And the lower left is the total number of employees on this page. Then we have a PhD page where we have 15 on that 29,000 current. If we do the balance, it would be 17,000. And the next page is PhD systemwide. There's four people $1,000 difference $8,700 for 8,900 for one 7,100 for the other. Then the last page is a total balance. So do a balanced salary schedule. This is for certified.

029That's the total there. And if we do the current system, that's the total there in yellow. A little bit of a savings to go ahead and go to the balance system. You found that balanced again, please. Uh the balance means we've leveled out step to step. Correct, Kim? Now the steps vary whether you have a bachelor's, master's, DDS, but between each step it's the same all around. And that would also be if you want to put everybody on the same scale, these these would be the scales. But to be clear, there's no supervisors or principles currently included in this calculation. This is just current population of teachers school certified. Yeah. So, we like the balance. We don't like the balanced. This is it. This isn't everybody's. This is just the teachers. Say again. Certified teachers.

030Okay. Certified teachers. Could be RTI people or, you know, any of those in the buildings. [Music] Does this freeze anybody? Everybody gets some game. Mhm. Up to the 17 13. Yeah. But it varies. So if you look, some people get very little. If you look at the front page, the very first page, you look at the middle column of the balance, the green side, the last three columns, the middle one shows you what their ray their raise would be. So because it's different variance in between each step, that's why it's different this time. But once you fix it, then it'll be the same. It's the same. Several several school systems have did this two years ago where they tried to balance it so it's more manageable. But next year we'd still have to do get

031up to the 50,000 by the end of next year. So more iteration. More iteration. Correct. Doing this balance scale this year, what's that going to look like with adding that next year is going to make it easier to compute and deal with? Cuz I think this should have been done last year. I thought it was silly that it wasn't done last year when the opportunity was there. Yeah. Mhm. any changes that you see or you want us to get to you as quick as possible? Yeah, I don't even have a copy of this right now. I'm just looking over it here. So, Oh, there's a stack left at your desk. I got Oh, yeah. I didn't know where your original spot. Well, there wasn't one here. stuff here, but I was going to take Nick.

032That's okay. I appreciate that. And I'm assuming we're still on a good trajectory with the balanced for where we need to be per the state law for the beginning. We've got one more iteration. Yeah. You Okay. Is it safe to say that once it's balanced, we shouldn't have this problem again? If it's not balanced, it's going to come up again and again and again. It's just the the my concern is that you can see that once you balance it, there's going to be some people that are will get a very nice raise and then some people are not going to get so much. But that's that's the only way I know to do it to fix it. But as it is now, you can be in a very little raise. Correct. Or a big race

033depend same thing exists today because the difference in the scales are are the steps. So, it's no different. We're we still have variances that we we're dealing with. We do balance it and it settles out. Yeah. Miss Frey, I know you've had to do a lot of hand calculations on all of this. Um, thinking ahead to having it balanced, is there some kind of software that um would be helpful to you that we could purchase for you to utilize for rather than having to hand calculate things? It just depends. It would be easier if on like the supervisors and your assistant principles if there was just a daily add-on and they had a daily rate and you didn't have to go through all the different alliterations. But I don't the way that the folks are

034paid I don't know that there will ever be any software teachers are easy. You just go to their education and their years of experience and you got the number. Okay. It's just when there's a variance in the days beyond the 200 you're going to have to do something. Okay. So looking at it this way, it doesn't really show where they're currently at. It just shows the proposal, right? Yes. This is just by what I did is I took our current population and I placed them where they are today. Does that make sense? So, the first page is where they're at today, correct? There's 17 at year zero, 21 at year one in in bachelors. Mhm. Yeah. And that's what they're currently getting paid now in column where it says current column three. Yes. Okay. And

035then I made the assumption that like the funds from year zero move up a year. That's what they would mean. That's the difference. So column four is add 1713 plus the step, right? So like for example, if you are a zero teacher this year, you're making the 48 46,575 and then you would move up and then that's the difference. So what would it be if we didn't balance the scale? It would be just the 1713. That was the other proposal we've done. The balance part is the last three columns. The balance part is the last three. The first three are like just adding 1713 to each particular step. Okay. So I would assume in your spreadsheet that you've done this and you have the formulas in the sales. Can you send that out? [Music] and

036there was another sheet that's behind that budget. It's like this where she gives you totals. If y'all saw that. [Music] So, if I'm understanding correctly, Miss Bra that that the number the tally sheet that has the balance versus the level the yellow and the green totals on it. That was just the teachers only, the certified teachers only. So, that doesn't include the supervisors. So, do we have you have we have it a little bit further on? We'll talk about that. Okay. to see where we are balanced versus level scale for them as well. Yeah, that was that other sheet I just pointed out. Yeah, that's the one you emailed out. Yeah, I think. So, this is the supervisor one. I was thinking this was the teacher as well that they had been emailed. [Music] Let's

037do this. Hey Kim, will you go ahead and explain this sheet here? It's the one that says balanced on it and then it has the four columns that has Is that the supervisors and the principles and APS? It's all all the above. [Music] We asked about this last year and we asked about this last year and we never received anything and now again we're year again. And what did you not receive last year? We had the supervisor discussion last year and we had a solution but it was voted down. Yeah. Yeah. The the budget committee voted no on it. Yeah. So it didn't make it to the full board. Okay. Under 2% is Yes, ma'am. Sorry. I'm sorry. Under 2% is if you kept the current scale for principles and supervisors and you just added

0382% which is what we did last year. That would be the addition that you would have over what we currently have. If you added 3%, it would move to the next column. And then I went and calculated all of these folks based on the balance scale. That would be your difference. And then if you just did the scale where you added 1713 to each level, that would be the difference. So the total cost is what runs along the bottom for each, right? for each. Got it. And now is that just on base salary? What I did, I calculated their complete salary. Like I took them and put them where they would be on that scale and then I applied their current percentage percentage based on the number of days that they worked and that's the

039difference. So my thoughts on this is everybody that is on that would be on this scale, they're all certified. They're all degreed uh and they would all be being paid on a base uh salary scale for those for those degrees and certification, right? And and I feel like in my opinion that's the way that's the way it should be. I don't know why it was ever changed. But then I feel like the daily rate of pay should cover and the number of days work should cover the increase in pay that they that they should receive for the job that they're doing. And then that we should revisit the supplements on how we do on how we pay the supplements. That's that's my opinion. I'm just that information. Like I said, what we did is not

040we just created a amount that would be added to their daily rate for assistant principal, principal, supervisor. Mhm. I mean, everybody has the same certifications, the same. Correct. I mean, and and administrators teach teachers and supervisors teach administrators, right? We're all they're all teachers. They're all certified teachers. Correct. So why why did we ever go away from that? I don't know. And then if if we thought we were paying too much or not enough, handle that through supplements. Should have been that's my not what they did. No, it's not what they did. That's what we wanted to do. We couldn't couldn't agree on the add-on. Yeah, that was a problem. We didn't agree on the add-ons. Yeah. For last year. For last year. Is that still out in the share folder or has it been

041Probably I'll have to look. I was going to say I can resend that out resurrect. That's what I was talking about. Have a set salary like a teacher scale and just put a supplement like you do for the coaches. That would make it a lot easier. A lot easier. But it got voted down. Yeah. Didn't didn't make it out of committee last year. So are there any proposals on what those supplements should be or how we should do that? Yeah, last year I like I said I'll find that. Last year we proposed certain daily rate numbers for APS in this many years and principal in this many years and supervisor this many years. It just never it just never uh made it out of committee. It didn't get it get very far. No. So, I'll

042find that and get that out to y'all. Okay. That'd be a good starting point with that because I don't think uh we would need to modify it much based on what the recommendations were last year. Probably not. On the other question on the on the um balance scale that you presented us is um just comparing that to the current I just need to see it myself. I'm a visual person. I need to see that salary scale against this balance in that first column. Yeah, right. Okay. I just want to see what's changing and and how it's changing because that that's I guess that's progressive, but we have to meet those numbers at certain benchmarks, right? If we could go to that slide, it might make a little more sense. Yeah. And I'll have that in

043your packet also. couple states on it [Music] level. Pardon my messy handwriting, but I didn't understand that. Yeah, but we just looked at that. Basically, this is where we have to be according to state law. Like next year, a zero teacher has got to make a minimum of 47,000. At year five, they've got to make a minimum of 47,645. At year 10, 50,370. At year 11, 52,900. Now, the state doesn't care whether you've got a master's or a PhD. I could care less. They give one bump for an advanced degree, but this shows next year the minimums at those levels. With or without an advanced degree, the advanced degree is the second one. Okay. And those the base plus that plus number hasn't changed. They've changed the base but not those numbers in the last

044probably 5 years. And next year these will change again, right? The base will change to 50, but it'll be 50 plus 6550 plus 3370. And basically on their scare they basically say they don't care if you get a raise between year one and year five. You can get a raise your one, year six, year 11. Mhm. But it makes sense to do a linear progression. Yeah. To step it up. Yeah. But that's why doing these skills kind it's tricky sometimes because they hit these benchmarks at those certain years. Thank you for working on that. I know you had your head down and doors closed yesterday when I was here working away on the scales. And the funny part about this is this will not be released for next year till after July one ever. Yeah.

045Say again. this for next year even though we got to make our budget based on it will not be officially released until July one. Okay. After our budget our fiscal year starts. [Music] How did you come up with um how much the base plus was like you know 6 to 10 years is 3370. That's from the state. They state Thank you. Yeah. Mhm. Thank you. you got enough information. Once you have questions, you know, email the group and I'll get everything back to you, too. If you think of something as soon as you leave tomorrow, whatever. [Music] And if we were to, let's say we were to launch and start with what was recommended for the supervisor add-ons from last year, you could calculate from that and show us where we would be looking at

046this sheet. Basically, with that which scale we're going to start, that's that's the starting point. That's the best first order to decide if different scales are one scale. Yeah. Balanced or otherwise, right? The official terms or otherwise really that's two different things to come second. Yeah. Okay. Hey, Miss Spray, if you would. So, we're clear on exactly the order of business. So we know for like voting for moving forward with things on the salary scales step one we would need to approve scale. Step two we need to approve you putting on. Okay. So if you just run it off for us that way we know for focusing in on the numbers and being prepared to vote on those. We've got to have a starting point. [Music] So, does everybody feel pretty good that we can

047get estimates on the supervisors with add-ons using the balance scale? That okay with everyone before that I think also. So, we'll just we'll just base those estimates on the balance scale and we'll get that to you. That's my So, we'll do the daily rate supervisors on the teacher daily rate plus add-on. That's the estimate you're looking at, right? Yes. And then y'all change the add-ons however you want to change them once you see them or whatever. We'll give you the balance. The balance the balance with add-ons. We've got to consider when we look at this scale the percentages. Yeah. If we want to change percentages. Mhm. Go to flat rate. And we got to decide about grandfathering or not. That's that's the add-ons that you're talking about, right? Yeah. Add-ons will be a flat rate

048or a percentage that's listed here. And you'll use the add-ons that we started with last year just as a starting point. Last year as a starting point, correct? So, are there other districts that are doing just the daily rate for for those supplements? Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. And like uh several systems, they just have a pay range for each position in the office in the central office. It varies on what position and it varies. It does vary. So, but it could be that you would top out after being 5 years in this building. Just depends on what kind of range you would want to see in that. People cut it off at 15 years, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's what is determined that particular job is worth for that time period. You just get

049cost of living after that. I've seen several that cut at 15. Okay. Well, that's nice. They get cost of living after that, too. Where I come from, when you capped out, you capped out. You didn't get anything. Cost of living. the step raises in in the built into the certified that takes care that takes care of a cost of yeah it's cut off at 25 is that right 25 when we did the balance last year we actually had a proposal that went out to 30 just to reward those those veteran teachers because those okay you're I thought you were going to say supervisors but no the we for veteran teachers that once you get cut off at 20 and then you got to work another 10 years to retire and you're not getting getting anything.

050Yeah. You're not getting the step raises. So that was something we proposed last year also. Yeah. Which a lot of school systems did their retirement too. Mhm. They're cut off here. Keep your based on your five highest years, right? You can continue to grow. That's good for you. It's long-term benefit for them. Yes. So, is that part of your balance proposal this time? No, I I kept it tapped at 25 years. Cuz that's the way the scale is right now. Correct. Mhm. But if you want us to show you what it looks like going out 30, we'll do that. 25 versus 30. I'd like to see 30. Okay, we'll do that. Mhm. I think it's a good thing. I mean, you got to reward those teachers. Mhm. Definitely. So we'll get that for you. Also,

051I think most people look at things at 25 years. They've got that to look at in retirement to gain motivational. Mhm. Okay. So the other salary side of that big bucket is the classified. So you have a whole They're classified each each classified position is in has its own pay a scale. So it's mapped it out at what it looks at 2% increase and a 10% increase. So the first column is what they're getting paid currently. It shows what those increases are across the board. That's the portrait. It's this one cherry. Yeah. So the very first one says custodian comma mower. Oh [Music] yeah. And if we if we did 10% across the board, what was your estimate, Miss Betray? That's in there. Is it in there? Yeah. [Music] But basically, if we just did

0522%, you have the number that was in the draft. budget you go to 10% all classified it was approximately 530,000 530,000 additional above the two could you repeat that if you do 530,000 in addition if you do all at 10 10% do 10% you should have a sheet that says employees less than 260 then you can see it 2% increments I'm [Music] Don't go that way, Diane. D's going to cost. You don't have it. Yeah, I think I do. I'm just digging through the findings. A lot. Yeah, I I don't like not being prepared when I come to a meeting. So, this is stressful to me. trying to dig this up and look at it and understand it while we're talking about it. Yeah, no worries. [Applause] Thank you. Yep. [Music] Thank you. Oh, that's

053what you sent in the email, right, Mr. Stepp? I think so. Yeah, that was what you sent in the email. Okay. [Music] [Applause] your your totals that you did were based on the 8% calculation, right? I think I saw this in an email, too. Yeah. Mhm. And that was 8% across the board, 8% on less than 260. Yeah. Yeah. All those calculations were less 26. Both of the people are in this category. There's only 59 people that were two seasons. Yeah. I guess the other question I would have or alternative I would have this is consolidating some of the some of the categories. Yeah. I don't I don't understand why we have so many different positions. Consolidation is always good. Yeah. I mean I I don't I still think it would be similar to what

054the teachers I agree. day days worked. Same same hourly rate of pay for the same type role, but the days worked determine how much more you make versus you know a higher hourly rate and a different role. If you have a secretarial type position, why is it not all on the same pay scale? Do we not have the same expectations from all of those secretaries? I'm not sure how they came up with all these different I got here, but any consolidation is good. It's just when you consolidate the lower hourly rates to the higher just there's a just like switching to balance. There's a cost to it, right? I mean like a like custodians the level one functions are very different than your maintenance. I mean that's a totally different I understand that. Yeah. Um,

055and then like some of your secretarial things, they do probably more bookkeeping than they do secretarial work. And I think that's part of I don't know. Like I said, it was when I got here, but that's just kind of the way because when I first saw it, I thought, "Wow, this is a lot." Um, that was explained to me. Well, I mean, you have you have school bookkeepers who are bookkeepers. I mean, that's their title, but they're not being paid as at the same rate as bookkeepers at central office. So it just doesn't make any sense to me. I will say the ladies in central office control a lot more money and bigger budget. They have a lot more money in accounts and things to deal with than the school because the school still if

056you if you make a mistake it's still the same consequences, right? I don't know about that. Doesn't matter how much it's district versus just a school. Yeah. The district stuff rolls up into the county audit. The school is a totally separate but the responsibilities don't change for a bookkeeper. for a bookkeeper is a bookkeeper, right? I still you have responsibility much larger budget and it increases responsibility is still the same. You still go to you still go to jail if you don't do it right in extreme cases. [Music] I think looking at what the job responsibilities are and if we can consolidate any of the ones that have overlap would be good. Um I understand what M Miss Gray is saying about if we're talking doing something that impacts districtwide versus just the school entity

057itself. Um especially if we're talking about audits and federal and state money and those sort of things. Yes. It's different systems you have to know. The audits still happen at the school level too. Yes. It's not extensive. The school audit is not near as extensive. And like I said, you have to deal not only with the finance office, but e and the department of ed. I mean that's two separate reporting agencies. So we're looking, if you're drilling down to skill set, we're looking for a bit of a different skill set that's involved when we get to the district level. So we're looking at maybe a different type of pay because the skill set that it's requiring. To me, it's a more and I'm pretty familiar with what it's a more difficult So and I kind

058of see where where Scott's leading to the guy the people at in the office up here at Central. Um would you are you asking for a lot more whenever you're hiring one than you would for one at the school level? I have put people in school book or or the principals hire school bookkeepers. Let me back up. That's their decision. That have never got any bookkeeping experience. Zero. And then I have a lady that's a retired bookkeeper that I send to train me. I would never ever suggest putting somebody in one of these bookkeeping jobs here that has no bookkeeping. So, do you think that might be have something to do with the pay that we're offering for those positions that we don't get anybody experienced? Because most of the time they're having to beg

059people to take those roles because of the amount we're paying. But now that we recognize experience from other things, the pay is better now when they have to start off at year zero. Mhm. I agree. And that was always one of my pet peeves. But now if you had somebody that came in at 15 years experience, they would be compensated for that. Plus, it's less days. So, I mean, they're going to make a little less money, but they're going to work, but not at the same rate as somebody that's at Central. So, why why not take that and make it all the same pay scale and make it to where the 182 days are going to make what they make for 182 days versus the 260 day? Who also gets vacation sick days? these employees,

060the people at the school get they get the snow days and people here don't. I just in my professional opinion and I have worked very closely with both of these groups of people. Yeah, the bookkeepers here at Central have a lot more responsibility. It's a different skill set because of dealing in plan and all these things that you don't have to do to school. I mean, I sat with both of them and I love them all, but I just know it's two different jobs. two very different jobs in the level of responsibilities for because you have a federal on it and the county on it, not just your internal school. I'd still like to see what it would cost to put all the school secretaries at the same rate of pay as a as a

061secretary at Central. And what are we in the business for? We're in the business of teaching children [Music] and they need a lot of support and so do the students. So we're talking about these positions that are supporting students. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That the schools wouldn't run without. So we need to make sure we're competitive in that and moving them through the different years appropriately. But combining skill set groups is I wouldn't be for that, you know. I mean, if we're looking for two different types of skill sets and we're expecting two different types of job responsibilities out of them, I would not be for rolling them all into one. I mean, we need to have I mean, you could do maybe uh secretary secretary one, secretary two, and and maybe both those have different

062stories or bookkeeper one, bookkeeper two, kind of thing to make it to simplify how we're doing the salaries. I can see that being some type of incentive to where you're training somebody to be sec secretary, there's got to be some motivation for moving on. Yeah. for secretaries that have been doing it for, you know, 25 years and are doing comparable work to what you're what you have at Central, why are they not on the same pay scale? How how do you advance? Well, I guess that would be if we're looking at a level one to level two. So if they do get to like a level two operation in the school, if something's required of that, then they would look at moving them to a level two, not necessarily central versus school, but a level

063one bookkeeper and a level two bookkeeper depending on what the roles. So there's still incentive and no evaluation of what of the skill sets that they have. Is there an evaluation of the skill sets that they're that they have? Yes, they did have an evaluation. Oh, so evaluation like view of the job descriptions. The job descriptions are different. So there's there's a there's not an evaluation of skill sets. So you mean coming into the job or do you mean once they're in the job? Once they're in the job. Yeah. Evaluation, but it's not an evaluation of the skills that they've developed doing that job. There's no incentive is what I'm getting. The only incentive you have is your step raise each year. That's the only incentive you have. You don't have any opportunity to grow.

064Now, there's jobs that come open here and they have the opportunity to apply to us. Okay. I mean, that's like the position up front. That job came open a year ago something year and a half ago and we had three applicants, one internal one. Now, that would have been a promotion, but we had one now. I don't know why cuz it was would be a promotion, but we have one internal candidate for that job. Mhm. And two external. And we've had other openings up here. Same thing. I'm still just looking at the overall salary that I mentioned in the last meeting where you start at 15,000 a year and you top out at 25,000 a year. It's it's it's not going to draw your really high level candidates for those type of roles. But there

065again, it's $192 and that's a lot different than 260. But we're also spending a lot of money to hire those people and then train those people. That's that's where you start finding a big discrepancy and big a burden on us. If we're having to hire multiple people a year and train those multiple people, then it becomes an expense on the budget itself. High turnover rate, high turnover rate and things like that. So by I mean even if we have to raise the qualifications for those jobs, we have to pay more for those jobs. You know what I mean? To keep good people, the expense of hiring and um and losing it gets expensive. Some positions, if you're looking at positions anywhere you work, they've got a particular value to them for the type of work

066that you're doing and the skills that are required. So, you know, even if you're there for 30 years working and you're still doing the same skill, it still requires the same skill set, still requires the same job duties or maybe they modify a little bit year to year because of systems we're working in or whatever. That job is worth a certain amount. So, we don't want to, we certainly can't afford and don't want to get in a position in my opinion where we're continuing to pay somebody just because they're staying in that position if they're doing the same thing over and over again. There does need to be, to your point, Scott, an opportunity for them to move up into something else, which Miss Bray has said, they have the opportunity to move into a

067higher skill required bookkeeping position. Um, so as long as we've got projection and also other opportunities within the district, but still certain job duties and a skill set are going to be valued at a certain amount. And if we were to just continue to add on and add on and add on for that position, we would wouldn't be able to afford to do that. I'm not suggesting we add on and add on. I'm just suggesting that we pay a comparable wage, right, for those positions. And I think that's across the board with classified. We're we're a lot lower than the county employees and they got another raise. I mean, when I came here, one of my goals was to get to that $15. Um, but the thing to remember is every time we move $1,

068we're classified, it's $550,000. Yep. So, one of those things, uh, this would be a great discussion with county commission as far as when do a reset, you know, what what do we want to look at with classified employees and hourly rates? I mean, how how much does it how much does it affect the the overall budget to just increase those school level employees to $15 an hour at the starting rate? I mean, that's what they just did for the county, right? Mhm. Be between 1.5 and two million. 2 million. 1.5 and two. I mean it would also help with with um recruitment retainment which is part of our strategic plan. Correct. How much I think we talked about this the other day you and Miss Bray cuz I had asked about were we competitive now

069you know we had the lean frog study and we have done some big raises because of that in this category. Um, and so I had asked where we were still competitive to other districts around us. And the response I believe was that with our benefits package, we were competitive pay-wise with this current pay scale with the insurance package. With the with the benefits package. Yes. The insurance package is for a single person is $10,000. Do you happen to know what the the pay rate for a custodian or mower person for the county is correct? I would never I think the entry level is it ended up to about $14.15 or something like that. The proposed with the new proposed rate uh 15 something. Okay. So $15 an hour for with no experience coming in. No

070experience. But we have no we don't have the benefit of in the county that is here right either. Not even [Music] that's still low. Do the do the benefits you so you don't have a benefits package at all? We have one, but not not 100%. Not 100%. Do you know Is it family coverage? No. No, it's individual. It's individual coverage. About $1,000 a month. Is it 80%? Is it 8020 or something? 8020. Okay. I don't think so. I think 8020. It's 100% for family. Is that what we found out, Mr. Steppp? 100% for other family members for certified here. No, no, no. for the county. I think it was I think we found Let me see what the message found out that for family members the the county doesn't pay 100% and the employee pays

071100%. Okay. Correct. Yeah. Employee pays. Yeah. And I don't think their offering is quite what it is here. You're on the state plan, but you don't have as many different plans to pick from. So I don't know how if we can go back in the records for the school board, but there were many years that teachers and employees didn't get raises to keep those benefits. Right. So when you start taking about talking about changing that, then you have to look at the salaries haven't been increased either. Yeah. Right. Well, that's kind of where we're at. I mean, if we're going to be looking at raising pay, then it's a balancing act, right? Then we're looking at the benefit side. If we're talking about not coming up in pay because the entire package is more because

072of the benefits, then I mean it's a balancing act between the two. So county employees are full-time year round, right? They're not for the most part. We have a few part-time. Okay. So you'd have to look at the annual pay versus the 182day pay. Yeah. That's mainly in sanitation is those part time folks. Don't our maintenance people work full year round? Our janitors and that kind of thing cafeteria workers cafeteria work. Well, there's some of the ladies in Kathy's office, but like your maintenance custodians are year round. You have your other school custodians that are 207, but the maintenance custodians are 260. They work year round. There's one in each school. Depends on the position. Yeah. So, but still my point is a lot of those people that are out in the schools, they work

073and touch the children every day, every day. So, so maintenance uh starting out with the 2% this year would be 1407. So, we're still not at the 15, but they do have the the maintenance custodian. Yeah. Yeah. Maintenance custodian. Yeah. So, when do we actually get above the $15 per hour? 10 10%. 15 years. Year four. here. So, this is what I was this is what I was talking about in my spreadsheet at the last meeting is we've done these percentage raises and the higher higher paid employees have have gradually the the gap has gradually increased because it's a percentage. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's why I was suggesting that we do the catchup of 10%. Which still doesn't get us to the $15 an hour starting. M well for the maintenance custodian it would depends

074on what position you're looking at. Yeah. Yeah. For the that's the only one at the school level that it does get us to the 15, right? I mean this is the first time I change maintenance. Yeah, you're right. No, you're right. That's right. the admin clerk. It gets us over theif over the 15. Why do we have to give everybody a raise at the same time? Why can't we just give some of the people a raise and the other people just That's at the board's discretion. They've done that before. That's why the Mhm. some of the schedules are a little off. Well, if we go to balanced, that'll occur a little bit as well. I mean, the balance is going to vary what what people are going to get versus the flat two or three.

075So, is there something we could do policywise that that we could set a policy that would have to be changed? Um, if you wanted to do something percentage-wise at different levels. So, so basically what I'm getting at is is if a future board wanted to just give 2% to teachers and not to anybody else, we can do that already. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we could set a policy to say change the policy. Yeah, but I don't think we have a policy on it. But you have that right to do that. Yeah, we don't really want to make a policy. We all change. Yeah. create a policy that says, you know, any any raise would be across the board on the if we go to a certified scale. Let's change it. And then a scale for for

076or classified to say any any raise across the board would be the same for this category and this category. And that way we don't get into this situation again where we are now. Yeah. Let me dig on that one. I'll get some advice on that one. I don't think so. I mean, that's the only control we have is through policy, right? Budget, policy. Budget and policy. Yep. And that's where uh this board has voted a few times to not give certain people a certain raise and give the other people a raise and that kind of stuff. So, they've done done that pretty Oh, boy. But but if you had a policy in place, then you'd have to then you'd have to change policy. Right. Right. I'll look to see if there's any sort of policy

077like that out there. sample policy so we can modify then I'll bring it to the board. Yeah, in our experience policy just gets changed anyway if something wants to do something different. So I don't know how much benefit that would be or not but so the other if y'all are okay to move on. But the other part of that 86% bucket of our budget is the insurance some requested materials. So um you have one form on what it looks like. It the employee pays 20%, one that says employee pays 30%. What the other counties are doing. You got another page that shows what the other counties are doing. And by this is just requested material. This is not a proposal or anything like that. And then one that lists if dependents were 50/50. So that

078should be in your packet there in front of you. So that's just what it looks like. That's what was requested. So this is based on the last I had square. That's actually on our on our website, right? Premiums are on the HR. Yeah. [Music] But I took it to the employee level so you can see and I know you've got the total numbers in the budget. um as it is today. Yeah. Do do you know does everybody take the the full family plan that's eligible? Most of your certified folks have at least employed plus children. That's the most predominant one. As far as your classified people, there's very few people has anything besides single because they have to pay 100% of it, right? But if you look over here at the side, you can see

079probably the predominant is the employees children because there's there's a like in Blue Cross Blue Shield Preferred there's 131 people that have that plan out of,00 I think there's 900 because not everybody has insurance. I think this bill was 900 and something. [Music] So that draft number one budget that includes includes the pay scales as they are today with the raises then the 2% for [Music] yeah the 1713 plus step raise and the 2% for supervisors and 2% for classified. So if we we meet again, have a special call when y'all vote on that, then we change the the budget as needed. And once we get salary schedules, federal programs and sped and all those guys can get their budgets ready, too. And food service and food service. Well, the only other thing we included

080in your packet, the request on the Baker's Crossroad property. So, what we purchased it for was 290,000. Appraisal value was 210,000. The highest bid we've gotten to date was $93,500. [Music] So, that's the When's the last time you uh we have people that have called to bid for it. people had brought in. The last one that came in was like 16,000. That was my first couple years ago. Mhm. Now, we put it out to bid I think in 2021, but literally I have an envelope in this folder that someone brought in and handed it to whoever was at the front desk handwritten for 93,000. Yeah. Did you tell them it was for sale, not on sale? I just It was a It was a family that has adjoining property to that. Mhm. Looks like a

081fire. It's not costing us anything to keep the property. It is not. It just it was brought up at the county commission meeting. So, we wanted to get that information out as quick as possible. Yeah. Yeah. The county comm some of the county commissioners specifically asked if there was any property that we held that we could sell to help with ongoing plan in the current budget. We'll trade it for that $7 million deficit. Okay. That was a proposal I said last night. I said, "Yeah, for 7.3 we got whatever you want." We tried. I heard it. Yeah. And part of the part of the draw to this too in my official capacity of work, I've spoke with the road superintendent that has some potential interest in it. Either partnering with the board of education on

082the use of it or, you know, trying to work something out. It's sitting there not doing anything right now. There's folks that could benefit from it either from the county. I I spoke with him and he asked at one point, you know, can we use it for brush and stuff like that? So I haven't talked to him since then. He mentioned that one time. So I think everything we've talked about today is going to add to that deficit. Right. Correct. Do we have do we have any options? And even if even if we get that onetime capital uh to cover that capex, is it is it do we have any options to cut anywhere? We're going to have to do a reduction in force. How are we going to handle that? Well, there's multiple issues

083there that have been discussed. So, um I just showed you what it would look like if we just cut all the maintenance, right? Still 1.3 mil. uh you now have a look at the big bucket, the personnel bucket. Um what it would look like if you did something with insurance or the other discussion piece was student teacher ratio. We're we are right at the state requirement on all nine elementaries. So we really if we start cutting we'll be out of compliance if we start reduction in force unless it's classified or maybe the tutors or stuff like that. Um, and I showed you what that cost was too on that draft number three. So, those are those that 86% is a big bucket. So, we cut everything. Like, if they take over maintenance, that's where the

0843.3 would have to come from. I mean, we could cut here and there other stuff, but you got to keep up your buildings. We got to keep that. And we can cut buses, but that would be Yeah. buses $400,000, right? That's the the maintenance is the big bucket. Mhm. But the items that I listed on that draft three, those are the big ticket items before you get into personnel. So I I know that um the the rotation maintenance that we do is just those are just ballpark figures, right? Mhm. And they've been raised a little bit since we started just because costs have gone up. And like I said, some of them are like this is the bucket lot of money that you get to do the flooring. Yeah. More like buckets like that that

085you can utilize in your building as you see fit. So is there any potential for for our personnel to do some of the tear out on that and cut that cost in half on each one of those flooring projects? Is there potential for things like that to happen where we could save money? They do a lot of things, but it's been my experience like the flooring and things like that. It's cheaper in the long run for us to hire somebody that does that for a living. Let them come in at night, get in, get out. Mhm. That's the right tools and they have the right tools. That's what they do for a living and we do some there's some minor we've laid some flooring in small areas, but to do a library or something like

086that, typically tear out doesn't take a lot of expertise. It's just tearing out. try that but I don't know that if it be well I mean and what kind of savings are we going to look at for that right yeah but they know what they're doing a lot of time from it's already thin as it is and I mean you would have to hire more people in other words to to take on some of those tasks especially flooring and stuff those tiles don't come up easily most of the time it's written machines and and things like that to do the size of the project that that you're asking for. So, like she said, somebody that knows and has that equipment. I understand. I do that stuff, too. But anything we could do to save money,

087I mean, that's what we're interested in doing. That's for sure. Most of these people are on state contracts, so they've been vetted and are supposed to be giving us the absolute best price. and we have piggyback off of this and to the district to try to get their best price. So, do you have whenever whenever they go in to do the work, do you ask for itemized bids on materials and labor and do we do we hold them to that? Yes. And we make them come back to do as it should. And then anything that's actually bid out, usually if it runs through the architect, that's on Mr. Yes. So, I know looking at this maintenance budget, I see that the total. Do you have the expenditures broken out into what we've spent that money

088on this year? Yeah. Yeah, I could. So, I know we just did a a deep cleaning, right? Or you're working on that across the county, correct? How much do we pay for that deep cleaning? Just depends on how long that they're So, it's an hourly rate. Yes. He quotes you by the job. Okay. He comes in and looks at what we're interested in. It varies school to school. Done four times. So, we have custodians that clean, right? Yes. Is that something that they could do on a weekend on overtime? And would that be cheaper than paying external contract? That's I've approached that subject. And when we have custodians like where we've been short custodians, we've offered overtime. We've begged people to do it and they're not I have people in the cafeterias that will come

089in and work extra hours. Mhm. But we've had a lot of trouble this year with custodial people just medical that sort of thing and you can't I mean they just they just go on and do it. So does that relate to the hourly rate that we're paying? Maybe I think it's not necessary the hours like I just said the work and we have a lot of retired folks that take I was going to say a lot of them can't bend down and crawl in and get under and do the things that you have to do to do something like that. They're very limited to their physical Yeah. They can mop and push a broom and do the things that they do and they do it well but not gonna crawl under crawl under a basement.

090Still goes back to kind of what you're offering and pay, right? Yeah. It still goes down the fact if I can't crawl underneath the crawl space, I'm not going to crawl under a crawl space. That's what she's saying. You don't want to do that work. But the one what what he's saying is the the ones that are physically able are driving 20 minutes down the road and 30 minutes down the road to skilled labor jobs that's paying 27 $30 an hour. You know what I mean? So because of what we're paying, it's affecting the Sure. It's a factor. Sure it is for the amount of for looking at that since we're back on that discussion a bit. um Miss Bray and Mr. Steppp. Um with the classified um is there I know you've laid out

091the 2% 3% 4% 6% and 10% on here. Um is there a way to work within the scales a little bit um to get us in a better balanced position with that too? Like we're looking with certified. Well, now there this is balanced. I mean, there's 2% difference between each level, but I'm talking about like to Scott's concern about with us given that 2% across the board, right? We've got people that are being paid fairly high and then we've got the lower end being pretty low on coming in. So, that's what Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was Yes. But but you were talking about not doing as big of a raise on the upper end and doing a bigger raise on the lower end, right? That's what I thought we were talking about. Okay. Yeah.

092No, that's that's You were going to do 10. That was my proposal the last meeting. That's what I work towards. Yeah. Okay. So, it was not my understanding. So I I guess I was I either heard incorrectly or was told incorrectly, but I didn't realize that that plus 10% on this scale you gave us was graduated in in raise. So when we're talking about the higher level is getting a less amount, right? 2%. Okay. The 260. So you just some of those columns are frozen. Okay. That's just with the 2% that I originally did. So they're staying at the 2%. Correct. I mean that but you said that was a very small amount of people that fall into the above the 260 59 people out of a total of 437. and we're still looking at

093the 550 extra to go that route. So, we have 593 certified and 379 classified as of right now. 539. Thank you. So we have 59 that are 260. You have everyone in this building, your 12 maintenance custodians, the mechanics, the people that work at the bus garage, and the two hospital secretaries. Actually, that 379, I don't think that includes Kathy's. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't include cafeteria. You gotund 111. 379 plus 111. So that's 490. Just realized that when I looked at that email, I was like, "No, that can't be right." And Kim, that was total. That would be minus my 260. That would be aboutund 107. You got 260. I have I have a few 260, but they're not in this budget. Are they paid? That was a question I had too. Why

094are they not in the budget? They're on per budget. They're on the federal. So, it's all federal. Your your stuff's off federal right now. Yes. And it's a separate pay scale, but the the cafeteria staff start out it's essentially the same as the custodial the the Yeah. The first scale with the custodial and she tries to do whatever we do the she does for them. Yes. Mhm. But once we get a salary schedule, then y'all will see all their budgets because that's how they balance their budget. So, but you will see it. So, we need to start fundraising. Yeah. So, just just analyzing some of the stuff that that we haven't that's not on the agenda for today. The overall budget where I ask you for the last two years. We we've overbudgeted each of

095those years. And I know you said you like to add a little extra in there just to protect us, right? And there's like some roll over. Yeah. Yeah. I understand that. But even even with that rollover, we still are overbudgeted, right? And some projects that that got it was in the bottom of that. What? Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. I mean, ISM has really skewed it a lot cuz like that first year we rolled a great deal of money cuz she got it late. But you got monies like that that roll over from year to year. And like any projects like we roll south three times that's $750,000. So that rolls to the next year. Yeah. So it's not So you showed a role of like 6 million in 22. Most of it was but

096we were 11 something million over budget, right? We we came in that far under what we projected and we were actually meeting the 17% on the last two reported fund balance reports, right? What was reported to the state was over the 17%. Well, you'd have to go back to the there was a little bit of discussion about 17%. So that we we met that the last two years. that was due to rollover and that rollover has to go back into it. It has to be reappropriated to those particular partners like has to go to CTE because it's a grant. Correct. Yeah. And like safety has to go to safety and that's the only place you can spend it. Correct. Correct. Even though it shows up in the fund balance where we don't use it. I

097know that's a wonky thing, but that's where that's why we roll it and then pull it back out. That's why in here you see all these budget amendments recording the roll over the roll over. So e even though we we had that roll over, we were still over by 5% 5 6% on what we estimated and that's always your um a lot of unfilled positions. You never know. And then there's like in that teacher line I have to budget for summer school. Like there's $100,000 sitting there for summer school. We may get money from the state. We may not get money from the state. But we got to have summer school and any extra positions that you want. I always put money in for that. There's things in there that Yes, I did put it

098in. If we don't use it, great. Then there's been years that we've had to use it. Yeah. I mean, it's an estimate, right? I understand. But so that estimate that we're providing has a has a a slush fund, so to speak, of $5 million or three to$5 million. But like I said, if you went through and looked at the things that rolled over that were projects that weren't completed, it probably would be about I'd say around 30. Your big bucket is like your teacher lines and things like that. We had one year where we went a year where we had two guidance council positions. I that were not things like that where you go an entire year. Yeah. But I mean it's like a million dollars usually in that teacher. Yeah. There's over 1 million

099in 23 24. There was 1.3 million over. But there's a lot of things in there. Unfilled positions don't make up that much. Well, not unfilled, but there's other things that factor into that that Yes, it will. But again, too, that's an estimate. And I estimate that those are master's degrees or whatever I the number I pick, it's an average times that many positions. Sure. And you might get a doctorate instead of a master's. And so I mean that's an average. I don't cuz I don't know who's going to be in that bucket. So, do you do you when you do that, are you just throwing a percentage out there that you're going over what you actually need? What I do is I basically I take how many positions I decide where I think they're going

100to be on the chart and I start there. Yeah. And then I add a summer school differentiated pay, everything that I know that's going to be in there. Mhm. And that's how I do it. So, the reason I was asking that is that's something that the county commission should be aware of that, hey, we've got uh 5% fluff built into this, which is $3 million, which would make up the difference if they were to fund that capital expenditure that he's asking for if nothing happened. If nothing happened, right? But I mean I mean, and when you say nothing happened, you could have something happen in the teacher line, but you still have $2.7 million built into it, right? 2.8. I mean, you might have to hire four teachers at 200,000 or and we hired two

101that I mean 100,000, but you still had 1.3 million left in fluff. You see what I'm getting at? I do. You're saying market so it could also count as fun balance. Is that what you're Well, what I'm saying is if if you estimate it closer to what we're actually going to spend, we wouldn't be asking for as much money. Well, I think this year I've actually I made a really concerted effort to do that. Yeah. I mean, I've really penciled it down. Okay. If you look at what I've actually put in for this year, but like I said in the teacher line and some of those big budgets, I don't know what degree and what I mean it's almost impossible where those four or five people like the librarians, the guys, I literally had figured

102every salary in that bucket. Interesting. Yeah. To the P. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the lines are are dead on every year. I I get that. But some are have have some I mean I I can send you back what I did on the percentages that each budget line was over. I mean I just I just the reason I asked that is because there is some fluff built into that budget that we're asking for money for that rolls back into the fund balance because we don't use it right. And we have met the fund balance requirement that they're asking for by policy the last two years. They said that we didn't last year the way that they count because we didn't have two months of operating expenses. That's what that's what started this whole thing. The

103numbers you sent me were over that percentage. 13 million. Yeah. That's two months of operating expenses, right? depending on how that Okay. Well, we've been going back and forth about that today. Okay. But yes, and that's about where it needs to be. Well, I mean, it it's where it needs to be, but we we do have expenses that we have to pay, right? Yeah. Okay. That was that's all I had. Couple of things on personnel. If you don't put the position in the bucket, you can't hire them out. And if they don't get in a position for a day, it's that much money going to fund for everything across the board. That's a quick Yeah. You you can't spend over what you budget. I get that. And and that's that's different in the private sector.

104If you don't put it in the budget, we can't hire for that. Exactly. Yeah. And it can't go negative. Yeah. Yeah. I know. They get real. No, I I understand. I understand. And like Scott saying, and I know he's been saying the same thing, but I'm not as smart as him. Um, but like on the page three of that draft budget, the other vocational thing, we budgeted 6,2 if I had better $295,158 and then we spent 62,000 but that rolled over. That's for ISM money. That's grant money because she got all that that dropped in in one year and so that right at the end of the year and that money rolls to the next year that can only be spent for that for CT. So a question I have about that is why are

105we budgeting grant money grant money because it runs through I get that but that's not part of what maintenance of effort should be. That's a grant comes from the state. have to talk to them about that. Yep. So, but what I'm saying is that shouldn't be part of our our request for maintenance of effort. That's a grant. It's not the countyy's not funding that. Yeah. You mean it shouldn't be included in what they're calculating for the reserve that they're requiring? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. But they say that it's state funds and the way they look at it comes from the state. It is a state, but it's not part of TISA funding. It's a grant. Well, it is part Well, they but they generate Tissa. It does generate Tissa, but that money is

106not Tissa money. That's a grant. That's doesn't make any sense to budget. PreK. PreK is the same thing. PreK has to be a preK. It's a grant though, but it all runs through our GP budget. It runs through the GP budget because we have to report it to the comproller, right? And to the state and various other people. Well, the comproller is a state, right? But that shouldn't be part of what we're what we're budgeting as part of the TISA funds. So what are you proposing? No, what I'm Just tell me what you want me to do. Well, you're adding that into our proposed budget and it's a grant. But I think that would be what we'd be required to do. Are you proposing we pull those out? I don't know that we can do

107that. I'm going to email God. I got a couple spray you have the patience of a saint. I got a couple emails to send to the comproller just to get their opinions on those so I can get those back to you. Say that's like that way they can explain. Maybe I have the patience of the saint. [Music] Can you go back that one page, Diane? I don't know what page I'm supposed to be on. That one right there. And I know that you say that this is ISM grants or whatever stuff that that rolls over, but down there at 599 other charges for $6 million and we spent $4,000. This is a couple years back. That's where the grant came in. She had to recognize that right at the end of the year. And we

108had to put it somewhere. I mean, it's got to go somewhere. when that money when we have we get those grants, we have to recognize them immediately and put that money and that's where they told her cuz they very specific about where this can be spent, but that's where they told her to put it. Then immediately when they rolled the next at the beginning of the next budget year, we had to pull it out and do a budget amendment and then reallocate reallocate all the way. But any of your grants, whether it's safety, prek, nursing, they all work the same. Yeah. But since some of these funds are intermingled, too. But the thing about ISM after next year, it's done. It's going to all be. So I don't understand why that's not similar to what

109Miss Andy has to do. So she she does hers after we do this. That ISM should be there's some but some of this I don't know. The ISM is not going to cover all of this. So some of this is GP and some of it's all intermingled and it's very confusing. Yeah, it is. It's very very to tell me. I I'm very aware. Um, but like I said, after next year it's done cuz we're paying 25% next year and then it's over and then this will all be GP. Now, like free without that number in it. What? Without that number, correct? It'll be all ours money you get. We get another grant. It's going to be the same thing. Yeah. I don't know if you'll ever see another $6 million grant. You might, but that's

110like prek year over year. You folks pay a portion and then the grant covers a portion. Then that 599 line item is just for grant use, right? Like Well, no, it can be used for other things, but it was just they're very specific. When she got that money, that's where they told her to put it and that's what we did. So, I I'll deal with a grant. I've got a $799 and that's all that is is that grant and that that's all that comes and goes out of that line item and nothing else. You can't use it for anything except for the right. So anything any of her monies she use they tell her where to put what b to put that in and then they have to upload that to the state and say

111this is where we I'm sure you do the same thing prove that you spent it for that allotted. So is that money spent in our regular teacher line for teachers? It is on her page. Yes. See this a this these are her teachers 63 teachers and part of that money is paying those salaries. It's still the 116 teacher loan though, right? It's in her function. It's in a different function. But all that's the state sees 116 teacher line across No, they I this is reported to them separately what I report and we upload it to them at the end of the year. They this is all what I I put into the state system is just what you see here. I got you. Yeah, this whole format's comproller format. Yeah. I mean, this all gets

112uploaded to e [Music] and they have to approve all this, which is a whole another world. Yeah, that's a whole another. But I I'll email the controller with those questions, make sure we get clarification. Not a problem. And my big takeaway from the meeting last night after your presentation and the talk about the reserve is there is within the policy as we talked about last time an opportunity for us to work with the commission regarding that reserve. Um so we need to be discussing about you know our long-term plan for that. But some of how they're calculating that could be part of that discussion as well. That's all I have. What do you have, Chair? So, that brings us to the question, where are we on voting on anything? We need more info, more meetings.

113We need to look at 142 and 143, approve them, then come back to 141. We just need to keep working tonight or separate what we need. We got to have salary schedule. We got the next step is probably pick the salary schedule and then who's on it and then approve that. The what and the who. So I guess what are the action items that we took away from tonight on that salary schedule? What I have written down I got a whole scale. We want to take that up to 30 years. Did I hear that? We all said that. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote that down. We're nodding. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. We want to put look at putting the supervisors and the principles on the one balance scale and then get back to you on

114what the add-on would be per day. Yes, we did say that. [Music] and then proceed with the classified with the less than 260 at 10%. And then leave the other folks at 2%. Say again, leave the the folks that are less than 260 days, give them the 10% raise and then the 260s 2%. Well, next you said that the two like 59 people, right? Can we have anything that kind of gives us an idea of what those 59 people would be at 10%. Sure. That puts us back in the same situation that Scott was concerned about. Puts us back to Yeah. Extend. We're trying to kind of balance that out a little bit more between the incoming versus the Yeah. Um I personally I think we need to look at Miss Bray's figured some different

115percentages here between the two and the 10%. That 10% is a pretty big step when we're looking at where our budget is this year. Yeah. Um, you know, looking at the 6% across the board here, um, it takes all the positions up to over $12 an hour, which gives us a good step up towards 1204 would be the lowest um, and as a starting um, which is the uh, would be 1158. 8. It goes to 1204 instead of 1158. Uh they're currently at 1136. But if we did the 2% if we did the 2% it would be 1158 versus the 6 at 1204. But they'd be going right now from where we are 1136 to 1204.6 which which if you look at that over 182 days is not a whole lot. When we're looking at

116her calculations, the difference between 6% is 340,912. 10% is 5681 1888. So yeah, I mean it's not a big a huge chunk of money, but we're talking about trying to balance things out and still be cognizant of where we are with our budget this year and get us a little closer to um you know, a higher incoming pay. I think there's some other things we can do to make up that $200,000. Yeah. That's my opinion. I mean, we can do both and vote on it. I think even going with 6% there's going to have to be things we're going to need to be doing in other areas in order to help the budget. So, that's just one area do that. I mean, I'm for the 10%. If you want to do 6% and us vote

117on the difference, that's fine. I'm I'm for the 10% though. Yeah, I believe that this sheet it does. Yeah. Well, that only tells what 8% would be, right? Well, no, it lists out by the percentage in the column to the right. She held up this the one that was Oh, the one that was emailed to us actually shows to the right of it, but with the it shows taxes, right? That's up for cost. So, we don't have the taxes, right? This this shows the taxes and everything at 8%. It does. It does, but I'm just comparing what she gave us for percentages. But the taxes in TCRS is going to change with that too, right? It will. Yeah. Mhm. Cuz it's on the amount that the increased amount. So the lower the increased amount, the

118lower those are going to be. So now what do we need on this? I'd like to see the 10%. Yeah. But we've got Well, you've got it the totals of everything at 8%. The taxes at TCRS is at 8%. Okay. that cuz I was doing what was in addition to the two that was already there. So you just want to see total 10. Total 10. Yeah, that's me. And Shannon asked for total six. [Music] So then if we need to put that to a vote. Yep. So we're scheduled to meet again on the 15th next Tuesday. That was supposed to be our final deadline. I mean, it should be. We've got everything to vote. Okay. We are very close to Yeah. Do we need to meet before then or can everybody do their homework and

119and their own questions with Mr. Can you get everything after? Well, I mean, between now and that meeting on Tuesday, is it feasible for everybody to do their homework and get their questions answered so they know how we're prepared to come to the table to vote on those things? We're voting on salary scales, right? Salary scales. Salary scales for classifyations. Do we special? Yeah. Mhm. 30-year scale. Where the where's the difference come from on the 6 and 10%. So my question is if we I mean we could do a special call after the meeting on Tuesday like we did before so we can vote on those things but is that meeting going to be sufficient or does everybody else require one more meeting after the information that we've asked for is available to us. We've

120got two things going on. One is to get the budget before the 15th like we should and we've done a work session on the 17th. We've got things scheduled for it. So our normal our normal stuff. Mhm. So if we need to come in tomorrow night, Saturday, Sunday, whatever we need to do. Do we need to do that? I'm open to Saturday. Would that give you time? No. We can do Monday the 14th if we need to. Yeah, like Monday. Whatever you want me to do. I just love cross 5:30 in the morning. Yeah. Bless your heart. I think like if this you want me just do the balance scale and send the teacher scale out with the the 30 years up to 30 years. Yeah. Mhm. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but

121we're we're kind of hung up on two elements of this, right? We're on 6% versus 10% for classified. Yeah. And we're unsure about the supplement supervisor, right? And whether we're going balance scale or sound like we kind of Yeah. kind of drinking from the same water there. Yeah. Yeah. So if we're only talking about those two elements of it, do we need an additional meeting or can we handle it in the in the time on Tuesday? Maybe schedule a special call. I don't but I'm not you off. So do we So that's salary scale, but what about benefits piece? That would be a separate piece, right? And then what about any of the maintenance pieces? Would the maintenance pieces come later or do we need to? For me, some of the salary that we're talking

122about directly ties in with the the um benefits, you know, cuz we're talking entire package. So, um that's the biggest bucket. So, for me to make a decision on the salary piece, I need to know where we stand on the benefits piece. if we as the board was going to if we're going to maintain where we are now, if we're going to make any adjustments to that, we showed what it looked like. So, right, that's just a decision the board would have to vote on. So, that's something else we would need to be prepared to vote for in addition to the salary pieces that we were mentioning. So, do you want me to redo the classified deal and actually show take all this other off what it would look like with at the 10% level

123and where it currently is? Good with that. I think I think basically what we all need is just the total number on what 10%'s going to do versus 6%. I think we're all to that to that spot. Yeah. Just a Yeah, just how much is it going to affect the budget? Yeah. Yep. Yeah, those numbers you've already got the schedule. You you have to do the calculations. And as far as the as far as the benefits go, I don't I don't see the the uh I guess the reasoning behind giving a raise and then taking it back with the benefits package. So, it doesn't make any sense to me to do to take away benefits and give a raise that just counteracts that. I think if we're going to change of benefits, it needs to

124be from this point forward rather than grandfather. Yeah. I mean, that's just kind of where my conscience is at with it instead of taking away a benefit that somebody's become comfortable with over however long they've been with us here. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz that's part of the salary. I mean, as part of what they're already getting and that'd be like paying them less. There's Well, and that's the thing that's that's one of the pieces of that that if over the years, you know, pre all of us they have said or the district has said over time that they would rather have the benefits the way that they were rather than the pay. Now, I don't know if it currently stands that way. We haven't done any kind of survey that asks where the importance is for

125them. Um, I know Mrs. Bray has expressed in the past that bringing employees, teachers, trying to market to the younger employees, the teachers, they're still on their parents plan. They don't care about the benefits. They're going to the districts that pay higher. So, that's been an issue that we've struggled with. Um, so if we're going to be, we're talking here about paying competitively and raising the pay and the state specifying where we need to be for raising the salary. So districts are going to be closely aligned to a certain extent salary wise. So we're not going to be competitive with the benefits, meaning we are going to be paying more for benefits than other districts are. So how do we balance that? Right. Salary scale compared to some districts. If you if you look at

126Yeah. Putnham County for sure are our overall salary scale is well below theirs but they're 8020 on their insurance. Right. Right. So how what does that mean? It is my understanding that it's it's very rare to find a school district that's paying 100% now and not just in the state of Tennessee across the country. But we've done that because our salaries are so low, right? So, if we're now bringing the salaries up, you know, we're talking total compensation package and um I all of us that are in a situation over the years that where it hasn't been paid at 100%. We know what it's like. Every year insurance goes up, every year it goes up for you. Many, many, many years you get that little cola raise if that and your insurance goes up. I

127mean, unfortunately, it's just a reality. We don't have control over that but we are tasked with spending the taxpayers money appropriately and we are facing going to the commission and asking for help right so so I think here's what you would run into is if you start taking those benefits from current employees plus they don't make the same amount of money then they would start leaving the district to go make more money. Well that's where we need to be competitive with things. So, we are coming into a range where we're competitive with the other counties, but it won't be in the benefit range. We will be providing higher benefit package. We're still not even close in the salary range with Putham County. Yeah. We're not even even at the doctorate, we're if you go up

128to the highest level that we pay a doctorate at, we're still 7,ou even with this raise, we're $7,000 lower. Mhm. They get an 8020, which is probably equates to about $6,000 per employee. we we're paying full, which is $10,000. We're still not making up the difference with our benefits package. Well, they have to pick the standard plan. They pick the premium plan. So, you know, that's that's another thing that we could look at, too. Like the variety of plans. Do we say we'll still do 100% but we scale down on what that variety of plans are? So, we can Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Yeah. So, we can save in that area. They've got a couple of options and those are at 100%. If they want beyond that, they have to pay. I

129mean, I I feel like there's some wiggle room there. Still being fair to the employees, but being good custodians and being realistic in what we have budget-wise to work here and being competitive. The other thing that we need to think about is this year the teachers have the advantage of getting a couple bonuses. One that's coming through the state and one that's coming from outcome money. and if there's a time that we're looking at making some changes to that, there is some additional funds that have been afforded out there. So, so just keeping all that in mind, other counties got those same those same benefits. But so, so I understand to to what Mr. Cole said, how about looking at 8020 packages going forward being the maximum that we offer? Mhm. And that could be

130part of our long-term plan and what we're going to Yeah. express to the commissioners if we're going and asking for help. But I think we need to make some decisions on that because they're going to be making decisions on how they're going to be helping us. We're going to do that. I mean, we're going to start hiring season for next year. Mhm. So, we need to know, right? I think it I mean if if one of our biggest draws right now because our salaries are so low and then we start saying we're going to drop our benefits package to any new hires or whatever else be prepared to raise that salary for new hires a lot higher than what it is now. I mean we we would need to jump next year. it would need

131to be comparable comparable to what the benefits package loss is going to be. I think yeah I mean to me it's it's a wash whenever you're talking about you're taking wrong from Peter to pay Paul more or less and the the only thing is is like she said you know if you get a college student that's still on their parents insurance they don't need it. So they then you're then you're offering something that they don't even take. Mhm. And that's not just teachers. That would be across the board for maintenance and a lot of other position. Is there a way to add to is there a way to give a supplement if people doesn't don't want the We've talked about that. We've talked about that, haven't we, Miss Spray? I think it's a little hairy.

132Yeah. Yeah. Then you don't have a salary skill. You can't incentivize people not protect. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess on on what's the action item that we're taking away from that to vote on whether we're going to change insurance packages going forward. You want to change going forward? I just need to know before folks start hiring for next year and we'll have to redo we'll have to have two different So can you present options on what those would be that we're going to change to? Uh could you give me some ideas about what you're looking for? So high deductible PO is it u 8020 uh employee only employee children employee spouse. So we've got the sheet that she's showing us now. So you're you're speaking just limiting what we might offer of that. Yes. Um

133what the savings would be if we just said offered let's say the standard through Blue Cross Blue Shield or Sigma. Y that's it. And then and then I guess per employee, how much would that save? If you pushed everybody to like standard going forward, how much how much per employee and new hire employee would that save? So right now currently you said it's 10,000 per new employee. So if we go to that standard plan, how much would that save? It's probably on there already, but yeah, but I guess that would be something that we could that we would need to vote on that. So, I'm getting um I think I'd like to recognize Yeah. Yeah. Um, I just wanted to ask the board to keep in mind when comparing to Putnham County and what are

134the pay rates there, you need to consider what the taxation rate is there because you're asking for help from the county to fill it out because of how the spending practice has been that is not this board, but some members were here and voted for those budgets last year. So, it it's just very troubling because I'm a citizen. I'm listening to the county and the issues that they have and you're talking this $4 million. I don't know where they have a bucket of money to help out the school because they also have to pay for the sheriff, emergency services, the library, the employees. So before you get carried away with this thought of, well, we need to match Putnham County, think about what you're asking the citizens to do. And that's the only comment. You're

135just driving me a little crazy with that. So yeah, and I I completely agree with that. I think for one, um, if we have if we need to invest in our schools, what's the harm in raising taxes? That's my opinion. Um, I know that it's not a popular opinion. It's not your decision. It's not my decision. You're absolutely right. It's our county commissioner's decision. And there are so many things in this county that need help and need everything else. Um, and our children should be our number one priority in this county. No, we we are all taxpayers as well. Yeah, we're all taxpayer. As a lifelong taxpayer of Cumberland County, I have no issues with asking them, "Hey, give us more. We need more." I hope we still we still lose we still lose teachers

136to Putnham County and we have teachers that are waiting for openings in Putnham County to go there. Yeah. And I think that's always going to be a bit of a challenge for us just because to the point they do have more funds that they're working with. their school systems a little different than ours. Funding is handled in a different way. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, we are where we are with these things this year. You know, I think more discussion with the commissioners, which we're going to have to come, it's going to have to come anyway because of the reserve and some other things that we're dealing with. But, um, yeah, going forward, but we've got to figure out what we're going to do this year and then how we're going to help the long-term plan.

137I like talking long-term plan because that hasn't been something that's been entertained by the entire board in years past. Okay. Yep. So, going forward from tonight, that an agenda for next Tuesday to include these things we talked about. Some will be voting items, some won't. Some areformational. Lisa, would you make some progress on getting things checked off? getting where we need to go. Are there any other questions or comments? Anybody media? If they're not then we'll adjourn for tonight.