001Welcome to the May 7th, 2026 special call budget workshop. We'll be opening the meeting with a brief moment of silence or prayer and the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag. No one is required to participate or be present for any of these and being in this portion of the meeting is completely voluntary. The prayer and pledge will be led by myself, Claire Maxwell. Please bow your heads. Dear Lord, thank you for this day and for this beautiful weather. be mindful of our hearts and bless us all. It is in your name that we pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> I pledge allegiance 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. All right. Today we
002will have our annual budget workshop and so you are going to hear the same thing tonight May 11th and again on May 14th without a whole lot of changes hopefully. So a couple caveats that I do want to go over with everyone. First these are you have two different sets of documents. The first one models what you will normally see on and this is the one that just has the Rutherford County Schools logo on the front. Looks like this for everybody that is watching. This is the format that we normally follow. We do not have our revenues yet. Uh the county doesn't have revenues yet. This is normal process for us so that it can all be uploaded onto the local gov forms that the county puts revenue and expenditures on. So we're still about
003a week away from that even though that's when we vote. We usually get it the day day before. So we'll go over that. That's just our general information. Second big packet of information you have are our individual accounts. This is the same process we followed last year and it it goes from each year. Uh really the ones you were going to be looking at are the ones that are the very far right. So the one that says fiscal year 26 budget shows you what this year's budget is. It's the third one and then the far right one is where we are budget request right now. Uh the one to the left shows department request. You're going to see a lot of department requests we weren't able to meet. And then the one to the left
004shows kind of with the cola increase. A lot of those are going to match. And then if you see the one directly to the left of that and I'm just going to use 7100 as an example. uh the one directly to that that is amended where we have added funds to any of those and a lot of those numbers again are going to match as well where we've had budget amendments. This is the form that you're used to seeing in a different format but again it's not uploaded yet until we get revenue till we give this to Michael uh so that he can upload that at the county site. I spoke with him on my way back from Cookville and he I'm actually getting this together and sending it to him tomorrow for him to
005make bigger. So, >> yes, I will once we get a little bit closer. I will for sure once we start actually presenting them. Yes, >> I brought my glasses and everything. [laughter] >> For sure. >> Yeah, I'll zoom them in once we get a little bit closer. Okay. But yeah, um we should potentially have the worksheets like you are normally used to looking at with the revenues and expenditures, not my Excel worksheets. It'll actually be out of local government, which is our accounting system. So, we should have that to present next week hopefully. All right. So, let's uh go over a couple caveats of this budget process. So, this is going to be very much a review from what we have talked about over the last month, month and a half. There are not very
006many changes um whatsoever. A couple, but not many. Again, this does not have any updated county revenue. It is strictly on last year's maintenance of effort. I am hopeful that we'll get a little bit more above maintenance of effort. As we all know, inflation is up. We are opening a new school. Anytime we open a new school, it does cost extra does have extra operating costs. Local revenue, the reason we do not have that amount, so the county government is getting a presentation tonight on their operating budget. It does not involve the school system. And so the school system of course is the board of education's responsibility. So they will have their presentation not including the school system, but their presentation tonight will have maintenance of effort from us as well. There's two reasons for
007that. One, they do not have a tax rate yet. Um, it's a reappraisal year and so that could be even longer. There's a chance that we may get additional funding if the tax rate increases that we could get additional funding even late into June. So, we would have to come back uh after that and pass or it would go into fund balance. Second reason is the state department looks at something called weighted factor which basically tries to determine of all the kids in the system. You look at the student, you look at all the different weights that they have and all the needs and what percentage of students did you serve compared to the city school students or however many students are in that district. We have increased our weighted factor. So we normally are
008about 85 to 86 or 84 to 85%. We are well into the between 85 and 86% right now. And so I know the city is checking to make sure those numbers are correct because that would have a big a big change on multiple things if we increase the percentage of kids we served compared to the number of students they served. And so those two numbers could have a big impact on our um tax rates. So, those are two things that we are still waiting on. Just a couple overall, and this will this will be review for the board as well. This budget does have a 1.7% cola lift to the table. I'll go over our goals to try to get to 2% if we can, but I'll um go over what each tenth of a
009percent increase, I hate to say cost, but what that expenditure would be. It does cover the state aggregates a little bit over 10% from what we understand. It does put additional to cover half of that for this next fiscal year. So to cover half of that 10% we do not have the what the individual breakdown of the rates will be. That'll be later into the summer. But we do have of what it costs this year for our insurance multiplied basically by 10% and we put an additional 5% uh of that. So it would be half us, half employees for that. And then our next process, we do have a work session at 5:30 this coming Monday. Then Thursday, May 14th, the board meeting is at 3:30 because we have a graduation and that is when
010our statutory requirement is to pass a budget to send to the county commission. So any questions on our processes? All right. So, we will go into we're going to look at this first big packet first. And these are just the overalls. And the first numbers I'm just going to quickly look at them. Fund 141 is our general purpose school fund. You'll see our proposed budget and these numbers will go down. We don't have any additional revenue input into this yet. Our general purpose revenue right now is 585,931496. You'll see expenditures are $599,58,449. That's a deficit of 13,576,000. Uh we always, not always, we have been operating in the deficit, although not actually ending up in the deficit. We talk about that um as a board quite often is that we budget in the deficit based
011on how collections end up. Our school system does not set revenue. For those watching, we don't have control of the revenue. We can only control expenditures. The county sets revenue. Revenue is set year after year that we put money into what's called our fund balance. And so the collections are above what is actually budgeted. And so even though we're budgeting into the deficit, we don't actually go into the deficit. We bring in more money than we actually spend every year. Brian and I will um especially in working with Michael, we believe there could be a chance for additional revenue. So, I would hope this number goes down as we get additional revenue numbers and we'll go into more detail on this one. Next is 143. This is our central cafeteria fund. This is not controlled
012by the tax rate whatsoever. This is controlled by USDA reimbursements and then payments by students, visitors, and employees. You will see it has a revenue of 26,844,000 and an expenditure of 35 million. It is budgeted into the deficit of 8.4 million on purpose because year after year we are still trying to bring this fund down. We have to have um a spinown plan to have six months operating and year after year we're still trying to make sure that we have a spinown plan. doesn't mean we actually have to get it, but we have to have a spin down plan every year. And so, do you do you remember what the fund balance was in that right now? >> A little over 19 million's fund balance right now. So, we've been trying to bring this one
013down for the last couple years, and it's it's still growing. And so, we're we're continuing to try to spend that down. I know there's been some discussion, at least at the county commission, for why don't you just pay for free lunch for everybody? uh that wouldn't be a realistic option for us. One, that would have to be a board decision. That would mean you would have to you would not get reimbursed for any of those students. It would be free lunch for all students and we would quickly be in the red within just a couple months because it would not be a reimbursement except for those students that were already being reimbursed for and we would be within the red very quickly. So, that's not a viable option. Next in this number is a little
014bit different. You're going to see it um with some my handwriting on this on the form that you have. Um it's a little bit more than 10,000 different. This is the actual revenue number that Michael gave us late last night. So on here you'll see $19,344,516. the revenue number that Michael Smith who's our county finance director who sets revenue gave us last night which is is approved by he sets he proposes the revenue he the county commission sets it so let me make that clear is 19,354,969 so it is a $10,000 increase uh from last year and so little bit of an increase you'll see on our expenditures we're at 18 million so we'll have about 400,000 that we'll need to update on what our expenditures are, but on 177 we will have no problem
015coming up with something else to expend $400,000 on. So, any questions just on the general portion of kind of where we are. All right. If you will go to second page um just as a our picture, then you'll look at third page. Our revenue on 141, we're going to look at revenue first. Yellow is maintenance of effort. You'll see Our numbers in yellow are exactly the same because this is set by the county. The revenue is exactly the same because county doesn't have their revenue numbers to us yet. Again, the county is announcing and talking about their budget, but it's not going to include our numbers yet. That has to be set next week, but that could fluctuate over the next month as the tax rates change and are announced. Anything you need to add
016to that? You know a lot more about tax rates than I do. No, it's just going to change over the next month. >> Okay. You'll see um updates to Tissa. So, Tissa updates. We are budgeting 14 million extra. We only got uh 7 million extra this year, but we know there will be the additional outcome fund or not outcome funding, the high performance growth or high performance funding that we did not get this year. We earned 4 million, we got 2.6. That 1.4 will come back. And then some of the charter school funding that is up front uh is also in this fund. [snorts] And then the rest of them, you see there's a huge number. If you look in 46,590 from the second year into this one, that's just basically coding differences from charter
017schools or is that the >> that was the for the teachers bonus? >> Oh, great point. That was the teacher bonus. Thank you for collecting that. That was the teacher bonus as far as the education savings account. That was a one-year account and that is now gone. And so that was last year's 9.7 million. Now that other state funds down to 400,000. You will see this other state revenue of 1.3 million here. This is the anticipated funding that we should get as part of last year's education savings account. There was supposed to be $25 per kid that was supposed to be allocated. Um that is where we are hopefully going to receive that funding. Um, so we are budgeting that into other state revenue as well. So that's where we have revenue right now. All
018right, on to the next one. It just shows you any differences. Difference. Authorizer fee. We were receiving this authorizer fee. Every school has to pay 35,000. And so we were not updating this and so it was rolling straight into fund balance. And so now it is part of our revenue. And so that is we're doing a anytime we update this we want to make sure that we're getting credit for our revenue. So this gives us a way to credit offset that revenue. Tissa you'll see is an additional 3.7%. TISA on behalf. We didn't budget that as part of fiscal year 2526. Anything you want to explain to that? >> It's nothing that really runs through our accounts. It's basically a wash. So we have to budget it in our revenues and it's also the same
019amount will be budgeted in our expenditures. We never see the money. it doesn't flow through our account and it's basically the state paying uh a TISA portion of um certain items to like uh your uh education savings accounts or your um I believe that's the education savings account um and to some other state agencies that is receiving TISA on behalf of us that we don't have to send the payment to. So it's basically the state making payments on our behalf, but we have to report it in year end reporting is what it is, but it's a wash. So it it's not any of our expenditures or any of our revenue that really, you know, we just have to show it on our books as that. >> You'll see early childhood education. This is one that
020we usually use uh to have additional revenue at Christmas for a um midyear cleanup, but we're budgeting an additional 500,000 to bring that deficit down instead of 1.3 the full 1.8. We just talked about that ESSA revenue for teachers for the $2,000 bonus going from 9.7 to 400,000. career ladder as teachers contri the career ladders for experienced teachers as that continues to those teachers retire we are reducing that number innovative school model grant we are expending those funds it does have a one-year ability to continue but we are expending our funds to make sure that we're we're utilizing those then you will see the public school security grant we're budgeting in this line instead of another one we just talked about 46990. The Tennessee Education Freedom Act funding for public school constructions and maintenance is
021in that line and then transfers in. This is where we're budgeting for indirect cost from school nutrition. Uh that's one we brought last year where you're going to receive another amendment to make sure that we bring down some of that um deficit. We're going ahead and budgeting two of the 3.6 million here trying to get our budget our deficit down as much as possible. So that's where our 585 million in revenue comes in 141. Any questions on revenue other than we wish there was more of it? >> Yes, sir. >> The public school security grant uh that's a million dollars that's that's coming in too. That's going to be coming in for this coming year >> hopefully. >> Okay. >> It's it's supposed to be in the governor's budget. Um and if it doesn't, then
022we will have to lower some of the maintenance projects that we're hoping to be able to take care of in those capital projects. Okay, thank you. >> All right, this is something we looked at and I'll just go over this briefly already because we'll go into further detail. These are our expense accounts in 141. So 71100 is our huge account and again huge thank you to Dr. Chastain because this is our large teacher account where just about everything in teaching and learning happens. It is 302 million. When you go from 297 million to only 302 million when you open a new school, have a 1.7% COLA increase, and you cover an additional 5% of insurance, and you only go up $5.5 million, that is an amazing, amazing job. This includes our 1.7% COLA increase. We
023are going to double the weapons detection system um stipen because $1,000 wasn't enough. People just weren't receiving enough. So, this is going to make it $2,000 is our proposal. Dr. Chastain, do you remember how many positions you transferred or can you >> We've we've right sized over just about 60 and we've transferred over 40. >> Okay. So, well into the hundred and I know that with Popular Hill Middle School, for example, the entire sixth, seventh, and eighth grade staffing is all by transferred positions. May not be people. maybe people who have left and it's an open position that's transferring but that entire sixth, seventh, and eighth grade position or school is filled with transferred positions. And so we have now opened an elementary and a middle school without having to have a tax increase. And
024I don't know that that's happened. And so huge kudos to our team to be able to do that. You'll see alternative schools moving spas now to alternative EAS. You'll just see um some variance of special education instruction, salary and benefits increase. Same for vocational ed instruction. Um attendance, health services where additional two growth positions for nurses, other student support, you'll and we're going to go over a little bit more of these in just a little while. Additional growth positions for Popular Hill for that's an athletic trainer. Increasing guidance secretaries budgeted hours from 7 and a half to 8 at the high schools. and then increasing SRO's pay for school security. We also have instructure which is what we use for our benchmark assessment that has done great for us and we have one more year
025probably of that before we look at a different vendor and we have an MVPA for assessment that is connected with that as well and that that's what that increase is for instructional supports 1% alternative instructional support 8% and we'll get into further lines so you can look at actual line items here in a little that's the packet. Uh you'll see as you look at board of education, um just kind of skipping down on any ones, we reduced the amount budgeted for medical insurance for pre65 due to we had a large surplus in this um and we're only budgeting the local po portion of charter school TISA amount. Office of Superintendent um salary benefits increase also increases to contracted services for communications. So we have aptagy in this line which is our new communications platform tool.
026So we are doing away with Edlio which is our website school messenger. Uh you're not going to have Remind. Every parent that has all of their kids getting different messages and different platforms from all kinds of different things based on their teacher or their school is all now going to be on one platform which is Aptigy. It also is going to help us tremendously and that we can send text messages to parents. So if we have a situation that happens, instead of having to go record a phone call, we can send a text message to her. Right now, we don't have that ability. And so that's that. James, anything you want to add to that? I may have butchered it, but that's the best I can remember from my memory. >> No, sir, you did
027great. Um, we just the one of the biggest uh complaints or or suggestions we get from parents is that they want to get their information from us from one source. And so we are unifying all of that. We've been training everyone. Uh, we're having weekly meetings with Aftergy. will be launching in June so that we can start doing that. We're excited. What that means is that so parents like myself that have kids in multiple schools and in multiple activities. I don't have to keep it with which sport does Remind or group me or band or uh class dojo or whatever. It'll be one place to get all of that information. It's very simple to use. It offers translation services for all the languages. So, we're looking forward to it. We we did have to have
028some conversations with elementary who's very used to class dojo that that was going to be a hard breakup, but we're we're going to work through it. And so it's going to be a hard breakup for some of us. Fiscal services reduction of salaries. Uh we the county is officially picking up our payroll staff. And so there's a transfer. They've had our payroll staff over there, but they're officially picking up those salaries. Salary and benefits increase for human resources. We talked about this last time, operation of the plant uh to maintenance of the plant. Brian is moving all custodians to maintenance of the plant. And I know those numbers don't match, but it's just because of how big those numbers are compared to this. Uh moved custodians and maintenance personnel to maintenance of the plant. And
029so you go from 10 million to 30 million, but if you see those lines, 39 to 20, you're moving 18 million. This year it's 19 million. And so you're increasing this amount is due to your total increase in your medical benefits increase. That's the reason it's 188 one year to 199 the next. Transportation bus contractors 2.5% increase plus the 4,000 and we'll get into that in a little while later. Plus two additional transportation department growth. And then regular capital outlay is dropped 65,000 because we are um reducing the deficit. We also have in transfers to other funds. Um this is the same as last year TISA on behalf. And so that's where we were at [snorts] 508 right now. And we'll go into more detail with those. I just wanted to go over 141 just
030kind of an overall snapshot. >> Yep. Go for it. >> Well, I mean, >> oh, >> I will tell you I didn't get those other two in there that you >> here are our vacant and growth positions. You were not going to see regular instruction positions because again we're right sizing would you say 60ish positions. So, we've right sized about 60 positions as we have grandfather and continue next year in the next year. And we're also holding some kindergarten positions just to see what happens with kindergarten enrollment um to see if it bounces back or if it stays low this year. Regular instruction teachers for Poppler Hill, the ones that we cannot transfer from somewhere, you have two PE, music, art, and two interventionist off the top of my head. Does that sound right? Those
031are your six positions because we can't transfer those from somewhere else without taking from somebody else. You have two instructional coaches. Uh we have 10 vacant EAS, five alternative educational EAS, and this is just a snapshot. This number changes each and every day. And so this just a snapshot. 31 special ed EAS, two sped um sign language interpreters. Your growth position is where I'm going to focus. So two school nurses, one school counselor. We are transferring. Each school has two at the middle school level. So, we actually are transferring one based on numbers. An athletic trainer at Popler Hill, a media specialist, a library EA, and then just your traditional positions. Bookkeeper, one assistant principal because we have one that started this year, one secretary, an attendance secretary, a purchasing specialist. Um, our purchasing department
032has two people in it now. So, to continue to to help that department, so that's a central office position. um four custodians for Popular Hill maintenance um right now has one position that is growth. We very well may have another, but we have five open. And so until we can fill those positions, they have asked for fire tech, um, HVAC tech, HVAC help, HVAC help, I know, and plumbing is kind of the and fire alarm tech are kind of their top needs, but we've also got five openings right now. And so I don't want to overburden the budget when I have five openings in those positions right now. And then transportation, you have a safety and compliance position assistant position and then a router dispatcher position. And so that's 26 positions, but I believe 20
033of them are for Popppler Hills. Is that correcting my number? The other ones that we've updated today, we have a part-time counseling position at Smyrna Primary School due to the size of that school and a part-time no a custodian position. No truven officer is going to go from part-time to full-time to be able to help um with attendance um positions, but I'll have that updated. Again, this budget cycle is constant working and so those are ones that Dr. Chastain came this morning and talked to me about from her team and I'll have those updated on Monday. So, those are positions. Uh let's look at fund 143. your expenses. And we have this very similar to this year since we're not all the way done with this year yet. You'll see your revenue numbers are just
034about m I think you have them exactly the same, don't you? For revenue, >> you want to talk about Y. I just budgeted these the same because we have whenever we count for our USDA uh uh funding that comes in, we're usually running about a month or so behind on calculating the revenue for that. Um and so with not knowing exactly how that's going to turn out right now, currently we're not collecting the full um $14 million that you see in there, the largest number. Uh so I didn't want to increase revenue uh when we're not necessarily collecting all of it, but we did turn around and increase expenditures by almost $2 million just so we can spend down that fund balance. Um and so that's what's having us budget into the deficit of eight
035I think it was 8.4 or 8.6 million. So but we're still the way we're running right now. It looks like we'll still put money back into fund balance or we won't reduce the fund balance that much again this year just due to the fact that our expenditures are not exceeding our revenues that we're collecting. So >> what is what is investment income? That is uh income that the county takes or the county invests our funding or invests the funding in bond bonds, notes, whatever it is that they're investing in and we receive a portion of it back based off of using our money to to invest. >> That's that huge fund balance we have that's making money for everybody. Okay. >> Yeah. >> The nicest way I can put it. >> We actually that's one
036of the revenues that we have been receiving over what we budget for. So, >> I have a question on um you're you said we're we're going to budget $8 million in the deficit, but you still think we're going to put money in fund balance >> potentially? >> It depends on where we end up with in So, our largest expenditure account line item is equipment and food. Well, non non-food uh line item would be equipment. It depends on where we get with that. Right. This year because I mean last year we budgeted 1.7 in it. We didn't get 1.7 million spent. So if we can get that 1.7, it may actually go with our expenditures being greater than our revenues. It just depends on where we end the year with that. Um as far as the
037largest expenditure we have is food supplies. Maybe next year we might with the increase in inflation and and that continuing to increase we might actually you know be able to spend a little bit more than what we collect. I don't know. It just depends. But it it seems as if you know over the last year or two we haven't spent down that fund balance like we've wanted to just due to the fact that you know our >> we've been conservative with our spending and our revenues have been coming in at a good rate as well. So >> well I mean that's good. It's not a complaint by any stretch. I would That's amazing. >> We just have to have the plan. It doesn't mean we have to spend it. >> I'd rather be a little
038bit more conservative. We weren't spending enough on equipment. We had I think we did Roy Waldron. We did Leverne High School. We had some cafeterias we needed to upgrade and spend some funds on and now we we're still going to do that, but we still have to have a plan to spend it down even if we don't actually spend it down. >> And the popular hill middle, that's included in the construction funds already, so it's not part of here. Okay. >> Correct. Any questions on 143? It's a pretty boring one, which we like. >> To give or see money to the next school. Is that a legal move? >> It's a possibility prior to the to the bond issue. it's already included in the bond. >> You follow what I'm saying? If we It's a
039thought maybe for the next project if we're still sitting in this situation that instead of including it as part of the construction project, we take it out of fund balance. But yes, it's something we are looking at. Yes. >> Like for the high school. Yes, that's a possibility >> because my qu my question is going to go to high school. Yeah. >> Okay. What does what would off top of your head what would be the construction cost for the equipment? What would be the equipment cost for a new cafeteria in a high school? >> I'd say I'm not going to hold you to it. >> A little over two million. >> So if if if you took that out of the bond issue or took it out of the construction cost, it would be a
040way to reduce that if it becomes critical to reduce it. >> Yeah, >> that that's all I was getting at. I I thought there was a um >> yes we I'm can we add we could add that to the to the initial cost of it and it may not it may take that burden off of us you know >> it would just be a transfer out of out of 143 into the the >> 18 to 189 >> to 189 where you know the the expenditures are now currently for the new construction. So it it wouldn't be impossible to do. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Hey, let me ask you a question. Back on back a little bit, we when we looked at the maintenance account, you know, we had those we got some open positions
041we can't fill. Um, I tell you, I know the I think I I think I know the problem is that we don't pay good enough to attract people that can fill those positions. And I think, you know, I think it maybe something we need to really take a hard look at. Uh cuz we're going to keep on having them if we don't get if we don't make it enticing enough to get people in here that can do the job. You know this I mean I guess from being a many many many year school principal I can tell you how valuable boy those folks are. Man, I tell you, I just um I just hate to see positions open because I know it puts a strain on everybody else, especially when you got two new schools
042coming on board. So, >> it's just thought. So, >> to follow up on what he was saying, I you're talking about the open positions but that are there. So what what would happen that you've got 31 open EAS, you got uh 14 open custodians and then your maintenance people. What what take what would it take to do that? Do you reclassify those positions? You you have to look at your um salary scale and the board can look at salary scale at any time. You just want to make sure you're looking at that salary scale. We have different maintenance levels. You don't want to start jumping the maintenance levels over the supervisor that's over them at the next level. And that's where It would be a ripple effect. That's what I would watch to get those
043positions filled. >> Like I I worry about I've got some of that right now. Like in my department, I've got, it's no disrespect to the people, but like my my leadership team, the people that I call at, and I'm sorry to call a couple of them out, but the my classified staff, like the people that I call to go out in the middle of the day, I have Trey and James are on two separate salaries, but Trey and James are the people that are driving um >> out in the middle of the night with me. James is on a much much much lower he's not a chief but he's on a much lower one compared to >> he's on the exact same one as my HR director not Dr. Anthony, but my HR director, they're
044on the same salary classified and they're two completely different jobs. I we need to watch the exact same thing with maintenance where we don't want my maintenance six, five, I don't remember the levels that we have. I don't want my maintenance five person being over >> Sure. >> that my project managers is that is that who's over them? >> It's a delicate dance. >> And that's what I'm getting at. And what what would happen and I'm not opposed to it, believe me, because that is part of our issue where typically in the past you have someone who's been at a Nissan or a Bridgestone or somewhere that has got their 25 or 30 years and they've got quite a few certifications and they're looking and I'm going to use the term slow down a little
045bit. >> Sure. come out of corporate, come to work for us, help maintain our equipment and that kind of thing, get some additional retirement benefits and >> which are very valuable to us. >> The problem comes in, they've got so many certifications, they're not going to take that kind of cut and pay. >> Yep. >> But to get those positions up, then I've got to look at the supervisor. Sure. I mean, it ends up being not just those positions, but then and then what happens, and I'm not opposed to it, >> but what happens then? You start getting people that we've got tiered based on where they are and what they do and their responsibilities, you start creeping where it starts going like this. >> Sure. >> And then we've got to start then we've
046got to look at them. Then I've got to move them up, but then I got to look at the other people that are beyond them. Am I getting them over the others? >> It'd be the same issue as I mean in the starting teacher pay you raised. >> Absolutely. >> Well, you don't you know your your principles and vice principal all that in that school or >> it's like right now we have a 5% break between each level. And so it's an even break between each level. >> So it's it's either it may be a combination of reclassifying that position or changing the two or three classifications. It's one of two >> or you pay for cert or you start paying for certifications. >> Mr. Lee, would you mind? >> I I I wished you
047I wish y'all would give us the for that. Yeah, we can. >> That that I mean custodians, you know, that's the those and the EAS. I mean, I know that we those positions need to be fil. Let me put it that way. They need to be filled. >> Thank you. Weren't we going to look at stipens for some of these hard to fill positions? >> We are. And do you want to go ahead and go into the EA portion too? >> Before let me one more thing. Um, Mr. Le, you know, would you mind looking and see what it would take >> to I guess solve that problem from what would it take to hire people like that that need to to fill those positions? Cuz I'm pretty sure they're not what we're paying is
048not what it would take to get them. Now, am I right or wrong? Or you >> The biggest problem is the pay, what what they're making when they come here. >> Will you evaluate that and just let us just give us your opinion from >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. >> Yes, we'll look at those hard to staff things. We can come up with that. We'll talk about our leadership team on Monday for sure. >> Any other questions on 143? I've got Brian looking at something for me and we'll come back to that. Here you can see the fund balance. And so here's a great example. Last 2025 we were at 21 million. Um we tried to get we wanted to spend 4 million to get to 16. We ended up at 22. Um then we
049wanted to spend 6 million this year to get to 15 and we're estimating we're going to be at 19. And so every year we're which is good. we just keep going up. So, this year we may actually go down just a little bit, but we don't know what our actual revenue is going to be. [snorts] All right. And then and here your growth positions. This is for uh we do have a vacant assistant school nutrition director. That's because I have our school nutrition director currently is interim. She has filled her own position and so I've left that interim for about a year. Uh we have food service manager. We have two vacant. That's because we're in the middle of hiring. We'll have a growth food service manager for Popler Hill, an assistant for Popler Hill,
050a food service personnel, an eight hour for Popppler Hill, and then five um five and a half hour part-time for Popular Hill. So, all those for Hill um school. Then we get to 177. This is, and I will zoom in, the exact same thing that we went over not long ago. So unless there's any questions, I'll just do a very quick review just so that everybody has it. Again 177 is our capital projects fund. This shows how we really need 325 million just in HVAC tomorrow. We have lots and lots and lots of priorities. You will see the total amount where we are. Uh we'll have a CMTA presentation in a couple weeks to talk another way to try to hit some of this and some other funds. Uh you'll see some of the priorities.
051What we're actually funding is are the highlights in yellow and then the amount that we're going to fund are the ones out to the right. So Blackman High needs 1.5 right now. It needs six total. It needs 1.5 this year. We're going to fund one. Uh, Central needs 500,000. We're going to fund 500,000. Last Cass needs nine and a half total. It's probably closer to 10 now, but we're going to ahead and start doing four million this year. And so, as you're going through this spreadsheet, the ones in the yellow are the ones that we're going to go ahead and start funding. Um, as I talked about the very beginning, we've got about $400,000 extra that we don't have budgeted on this that we will go ahead. If you look at the very bottom, see
052trustees fee is blank. Oh, >> that 400,000 will go in trustees fees. >> We just paid somebody out what we paid this year. That's why I left it out. >> Never mind. >> Let's go get you real close to Michael. >> We have no money. We just have to pay them to collect our money. Never mind. [laughter] >> You will see we are continuing with LED. LED lighting is moving inside of the building. We are moving into because I've seen happen some of the high schools. >> We've got quite a few. We've got actually got the first two finished. >> Okay. And so that's going to continue. >> What do they do to get that? >> Collect it for us. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> I know. Somebody's in somebody's pocket. They're not going to [laughter]
053>> real quickly on back to the LED line. Do we finally get all the ball fields fixed? The baseball No more baseball coaches are going to call us telling us they can't see. Yeah, they're all done. >> We finished all of that last year. Baseball, softball, soccer, if they had lights >> and football. They're all done. Everything's LED. >> Super. Thank you. >> And new and the schools that had the old poles no longer have the old poles. We've taken care of it all. >> Okay. >> That Cox's got it all done, so he's retired. [laughter] >> That open in case anybody want. >> And so you'll see LED we're still moving with. we will knock it down to 12 million next year. So, we got a couple more years left, but it's just continuing
054on and that's a great way for us to continue to save money as well. Any questions on 177? All right, so now we will move on to the other packets you have. And this just gives you an overview of what each account looks like. And again, I this is really just to go over. I'm not going to go into each line. It's just basically for you to look at between now and Monday. And if you have any questions about what all of these are, I'm just going to go over kind of quickly just what they are. If there's any big variances, we can look at it between now and Monday. If you want to know what some of them are as well, um, just have those questions so we can look in our system to
055see what they are because we're not going to be remember what each one of these expenditures are as well. You'll see, and I'm just going to 71100's our big one. You're gonna see this one actually went down. And again, that goes to two things. One, the work Kelly did. Second, so I'm in 71100. This is our very first one. This is our huge account. 71100 last year's budget. Um, just so that I can go over the first one, you'll see 197 203 216 216 211 347 and then right now it's at 211647. It went down partially because of the number of positions that we're right sizing, also because of that 200,000 or $200,000 teacher bonus. That'd be an amazing bonus per teacher. The $2,000 teacher bonus was in this line as well. And so that's
056gone for everybody. One of the big ones that you're going to see, this does have that 1.7% increase for everybody. You're going to notice a huge increase in the state retirement lines. This took just about all of our TISA increase across the board. So you're going to see it at 13 to 14.6 for state employees. It's the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System. It's TCRS. It is set by the state. Every employee has it taken out of their check before they ever know it. The system has a portion as well. And this percent went up how much? one >> about a percent and a half for classified staff and also your legacy teachers went up as well almost a percent. >> And so when you have as many employees as we do when it goes up a
057percent and a half and then another percent you can just see it was a million and a half dollar over $1.6 $6 million that percent change in TCRS did in just this one account. And so that that one line for TCRS took 25% of our TISA increase this year. And so outside of any medical insurance, uh cost of living adjustments, it took $1.6 million. And so you'll see that across the board. You'll see medical insurance, we're at 30 million, we're going to 33 million. Uh Medicare of course goes up. Retirement hybrid, here's another where that retirement number went up from 1 million to 1.3 because that went up there as well. And it's just with everything else continues uh to go up. Another one I want to highlight here is where you're going to see
058the big difference because this is where I talked to the commission about it. So you all need to be as well as where textbooks. So, here's our overall cost for textbooks that we need to put in this budget for the next 8 years. We would absolutely bankrupt our budget if we put $12 million into this budget for textbooks. This includes social studies for the next eight years. Now that we're on an 8-year cycle, we have to budget for the 8-year adoption of textbooks. We don't purchase the we don't actually adopt until this coming spring, but we always purchase them in May and June so that we can get them by July because it is now an 8-year cycle. We also have a couple gap years for we have English we need to purchase for three
059years because we adopted it on a 5year cycle. We have is it math as well? No, we did math last year. >> Oh, there's also now a social studies gap year that we have. And what else is science supplies that we have to do every year? And so you'll see there's gap year. So it's 12.3. We have 3.4 budgeted because I was able last year to convince the commission to let us go about eight actually it was $9 million out of our fund balance for textbooks. I've already told them that we can do one of two things. I can budget $6 million every year for textbooks and we can just like purchase them every single year, but we get a discount. If we purchase it eight years in advance or eight years, you get a
060you know 8 to 10% discount, which is that big of a number. It's a million dollars. We're going to save taxpayers. I don't really care the preference. I like to save taxpayer money. But if they want us to do5 to $6 million every single year and that's the way that they would like for it to be done, that's a perfectly fine preference for me if that's the way the taxpayers money that's how they want to allocate it. I would much rather do it every two years we have an adoption cycle. Cover as much as we can in that year and then hit fund balance for the rest as long as we're not going to be given as much funding as we normally should be and our fund balance is going to keep being that high.
061And so that's been my recommendation. it seemed like it was pretty wellreceived and talking to um Michael Smith that's kind of what we were looking at even talking late last night as well. So that's why you'll see last year we only budgeted 600,000. We've increased it to 3.4 which takes another huge portion of that number of 12.3 so that I can try to get and Kelly's working to get this number down even today as well. That's why you have a huge increase. Let me ask you a question. I guess just math math doesn't change. You know, 3 + 3 is straight. >> You said math doesn't change. >> I said the same thing last year. [laughter] >> Standards do every time. >> Well, I know, but still the answer is the same. Correct. >> That's
062true. >> Yeah. The answers are the same. >> And language arts, I think, is is basically the same. I mean, the way you get there and the answer is always the same [laughter] and that that kind of number bankrupts us, you know, that's >> Well, I tell you, >> it's tough. And I'll tell you one of the biggest things, and this is frustrating from the state department, and I won't go too far down this soap box. Um, next year all elementary testing is online and we now have a state law that we have to limit a board has to have a policy on which I agree with. The board has to have a policy discussing screen time for elementary school students, but all testing is online. And so those two just don't go together when
063kids aren't going to be practicing on how they're going to actually be assessed. And so you look at third and fourth grade kids who are going to be looking at retention yet they're not going to be that's a tough move. And so the state department's definitely not talking to the legislators about what they're looking at. And so that's that's tough >> about the state department. >> Hey, >> I'd be care I'd be careful [laughter] because it usually gets me in trouble and I'm making I'm making a lot of good progress right now. [laughter] >> They don't pay much salary anymore. I I'll save for a later date. >> Good idea. If you ever want a job, if you never mind [laughter] sharp, >> I did hear there's a move of foot to go back to
064paper for K through five. >> That would be amazing if they go to that. That'd be great. >> They said that there was going to be for next year. >> That would be amazing because that's every superintendent just about said no and they did anyways. So, that'd be great. >> I have [snorts] a question. Yes. Um, in regards to standards and the whole thing with the math aspect, how many different ways are kids going to learn how to get to 2 plus two? It seems like I'm in the classrooms and they're learning so many different process of getting to 2 plus two. And I think that's what's creating the need to make changes to the textbook because they're learning new processes of how to get to 2 plus two. even though 2 plus 2 will
065always be four, then it gets harder. And so we're trying to teach some conceptual understanding. So that's where the modeling and the the different ways to get to the right answer come into play. Kids brains work differently. So we we talk about this a lot, too. There's a place for procedural, just fluency, direct instruction, but there's also a place for kids to explore the concepts, which we're hopefully going to see the benefits of that in our in our higher math. Yep. >> Um, what? Go ahead. >> It's a buildup to the higher Matt. >> Is there any point though where you think we come to a time when [clears throat] they go this is it? This is the way we're going to teach math and not change it every two years. >> Oh, I doubt
066it. As long as there's money involved, I doubt it. >> There's too much money involved. There's a publisher involved >> because I remember h I watched a sixth grade teacher in tears as he was talking to there was only four or five of us that showed up telling us that the fourth graders and fifth graders were going to be okay but the sixth graders had been thrown to the wolves that this is the way it's they just changed it overnight and the way that they were going to teach math. This was when my oldest was in sixth grade. So, and since then it's changed and evolved even more and more. And that's that's where parents and even when I was a parent get frustrated. I mean, are we going to just say this is how
067we teach math? >> It's out of our control. >> And but I will say our team works extremely hard to clarify that message and and to meet the rigor of the standard while also making sure we are being simple where we can be simple and concise. But it is a it has been a big shift. I think we're almost through the worst of it. >> I agree. >> Okay. >> Um last one thing you may need to do when you meet with your other superintendent. I got a solution. [laughter] I'd like Why don't we just start uh a Rutherford County schools charter school just for us. That way we to do away with all the >> testing requirement. We don't have to be tested anymore. Said lemonade and pick the test. We could do whatever.
068>> Schools charter schools follow everything else. >> That would be awesome. >> You have to do a private school. >> So we could have the Rutherford County Private School Association. There you go. [laughter] >> There you go. All right. Back to the budget. Um, one thing I want to bring up, you'll see devices. We were down 225,000 to we're at 198 some point. We're going to start looking at devices. Right now, we're trying not to purchase many devices. They've gone up about $200 in the last month roughly. So, they've our little Dells that we buy that were 300, now they're 400. In the last month, they've gone to $670. And so, we're we're not purchasing them right now because that is a huge skyrocket for a computer that's not worth $670. It's a good product,
069but it's not $670 product. So, that's that's been crazy. All right. So, any questions on 71100? That's the big one. All right. 71150. And I'll go through these uh pretty quickly. You're going to see just the biggest changes. This one went up. Again, we moved a lot of special education to alternative school. And so, that's going to be your reason for those changes. Again, you're going to see a big jump in state retirement. It may not look like it, but in a line that's only 269,000 to go to 347, it almost increases 25%. Um, in that line, medical insurance as well, going from 420,000 to 669,000. And so, we are we're increasing that one um a third, trying to cover as much as we can for employees. So we could get a percentage higher if
070we were for a cola if we weren't attacking so much of medical insurance. All right. 71200. Next one. Special education instruction stays relatively flat. Whoa. We except for your increases in cola. Again, you're going to see that increase in state retirement and $800,000 increase in your medical insurance again. No, a million dollar increase in medical insurance. And so you'll see very quickly how that Okay, so 70 Brian says 71100 and 71200 are our largest accounts. Um, so $4 million increases in medical insurance together between those two accounts because that's where most of our employees are. And so that's when we only received a $7 million extra in just your overall TISA account that we were able to use. You've got 4 million that went there and then a million and a half that you saw
071earlier that went to state retirement and we haven't even touched raises yet. And so that's that's where our team did a really good job in trying to rightsize the rest of our positions. All right, going to the next one. 71300 vocational education. Again, you're going to see where a lot of these are just basically increasing. You've got a million dollar increase here in 204 from your state retirement. And you're going to see how this changes over the year. You go from 1 million6,000 to 1.1 million. And so a $100,000 change. Sorry, not a million $100,000 change just in your retirement percentage. Um, but that's again just COLA increases. your it changes again are going to be a $40,000 increase in medical insurance. Um, other contracted services, we had a big request here, uh, but we
072working through some things to try to get this one um, covered over two years. So, yeah, we're going ahead and paying this right now. So, this is you're going to see I just want to cover this one real quick. 3.99 is for Egeneuity, our new um Edenuity is not what we're calling it. Goodness gracious. Synergy. Thank you. Synergy is our new Skyward. And so, we are splitting this over two years. We're going ahead and covering some of it now and some of it next year because it's a two-year type contract because we're in the middle of adoption portion of it right now. So, Skyward officially is gone and well, not yet. it is going away and synergy will start but we're in the middle of moving all of our information over. So we're that's why
073that number is 72120 your big changes medical personnel increase you've got your cola increase but you've also got your addition of two nurses and then medical insurance 575,000 to 740,000. I know that doesn't seem like a lot with a $600 million budget, but when you're not adding a whole lot of funds to it, every $200,000 adds up pretty quickly. 72130. We are adding a counselor. Again, that's in your 123 line. We're adding a counselor to Popler Hill. Each school gets two, but we're adding one because the other one is being transferred. Um, and then your medical insurance in this line. Oh, and an athletic trainer is in this um line as well. Thank you. Anything else to highlight on that one? If there's anything else, major 72210. So, this is instruction support. So, this is
074Dr. Chastain's department. Zoom that in real quick. So, you've got a $200,000 increase in medical insurance. Where is our state retirement? um $75,000 in state retirement, but and you'll see her department requests. So, this tells you our team does more with less. This is what they've requested and we basically said you this is what you got and you're cutting it from what you had last year to try to meet what we've been doing as we try to put as much as we can into the schools. All right. 72 215 is a a very small 1.9 million account. medical insurance even in this one went up $60,000. Nothing here other than personnel really. 72220 is our special education staff. Then we have medical. What would those medical person in that one? That's a large portion of
075that staff. Can you pull that up? Brian's going to pull up what this one is because that's 1.3 million of that $3.3 million budget. Yep. But you'll see retirement increases um in this one. I mean, he's going to pull up what those employees are real quick. I'll come back to that one. I promise we're getting close to being done. 72230 vocational ed support. Um this is our CTE department. Basically our central office uh CTE departments um and different salaries for our people here. State retirement medical insurance and then um the professional development and things we do here. 72250 is technology. And so these are our school-based and central office-based programmers. It's all of them. So you've got your COLA increases, your medical insurance goes up 80,000. And then you will see all of our contracted
076services we have for technology, for antivirus software, and all the different types of things we have. You will see here they requested $3 million in equipment and we approved a million dollars in equipment. In that other line, it was occupational therapists and um physical therapists were part of that medical service people 72310. Um so your big ones here. So medical insurance um contracts with private agencies. What is that one? 3.2 million. >> Okay. Charter school allocation. You're going to see liability insurance. This is one that actually was nice. It went down $50,000. And so that comes from the county. We don't actually set that. So that came from the county. Um and workers comp went down $381. So >> we'll take anything we can. Um you'll see superintendent. This where you're going to see this
077is me. Legal, communications, and safety is all in this one. Although trustee is doing good in this >> trustee does great. Um you will see other contracted services. This is where the increase to aptagy um because that's where we have communications in these lines. Um as well 72410 this is principles, assistant principles, bookkeepers, secretaries, assistant principles. So this is a pretty big line. You're going to see medical insurance goes from, let me zoom in on that one. That was a big one. Uh 3.6 to 3.79, so $200,000 increase. And retirement as well goes up um $140,000. And so quite [clears throat] a big increase in this line. We do have an additional bookkeeper, secretary, and assistant principal in this line for the opening of Opler Hill 72510. This is Brian's department. You're adding a purchasing
078person to give you a team of three other contracted services. Do you know what this portion is? Is that audit? So no m >> Oh yeah, you did decrease it. Okay. So yeah, it was 300. Now it's 275. So no major changes there. 520 human resources. No major changes here other than I know the ratback program that we do our background checks increase. So we have that increase but no major changes in this line. 72610. Your big change again is moving your um maintenance your custodians that were here. You'll see that number is now not here. And so moving your custodial personnel now moving them to that next page of 72620. That's why you have that huge number of having that $19 million increase of moving custodial personnel into this line instead of being there.
079But you'll see our electricity, all those different types of That was on the last one, wasn't it? Yep. But nothing major there. Uh transportation 72710. So your transportation has your 2 and 12% um increase. Um I know that we've a couple of you have called me and asked me about what do we need to do because everybody's um insurance has gone up. anything that you want to do to address right now is part of this year's budget. And so we have the $4,000 budgeted as this year's budget. And so there's not a whole lot we can do because we can we could probably do a couple hundred, but I know that doesn't add a whole lot be a good faith effort because I know that it's it's gone up quite a bit. But in order
080to give people checks in June, the $4,000 is what we budgeted because last year we gave it in front and this year we have the 4,000 budgeted in this one. Um, we also have to to watch. Bus contractors are getting a bigger raise than our employees are and medical insurance went up. So, I know that's a fine balance. It's two separate things, but it's something that I have to watch as director that we have both sets of of people. But we do have that portion here. We don't have any additional drivers, no bus purchases or anything that um in this budget whatsoever. Just so that everyone knows exactly there's no bus purchases, no additional drivers, um nothing else in this line. >> Have we found anybody to potentially drive the buses that we have purchased?
081Did anybody take us up on our offer? We had two applicants and then we decided it was so late in the year, our best bet is to combine that special education one because that's what we need the most is the special education one. We know we're about to reroute um with opening of Popular Hill. So, we were going to put the special education teacher/bus driver uh on the agenda and I asked to wait till June so that we didn't mess with our contractors right now and so just to start the new school year that way. Um, we did utilize our buses yesterday and they were fantastic because we had to very quickly we had to get all of Oakland Middle School over to Oakland High School um in the pouring down rain for American Idol.
082And so we used our buses, Seagull Middle or Seagull High School's activity buses and Oakland High School's activity buses. And somehow we got the the middle school over to the high school in about 22 23 minutes. And so if we ever needed to evacuate very quickly, it was a a great uh training. So they started school, got everybody over there into the high school, started by E42. >> That's amazing. >> It was pretty neat. Pretty neat. >> So just so everybody knows, again, there's no bus purchases, no extra drivers in this budget. >> All right, finishing up 7330. This is just community service. We have 10,000 budgeted here every year. 73400, this is early childhood education. This is special education prek and voluntary prek. Your only changes here are your COLA increases and then 76100
083is where we give every school um a little bit of money to work on paint that kind of stuff within their building. So nothing major kind of within this budget. Um again, if there's something you want to look at overall lines, feel free email me, call me, ask Monday. We'll be happy to go over any of them that you have. Do you have that other information? And so one couple, can you pull up the 0.1 how much each raise would cost as well? >> I probably got that. Yeah. We also just wanted you to know because I'm trying to the so that everybody knows we are trying to get to 2% if we can get um as close as possible. That's what um talking to our finance director with extra revenue. how much an additional
084like.1% would cost. And this is just how big we are just so that everybody is aware. A.1% increase would cost $420,35.2% is $840,855. And then.3 is 1,261,475. So to get us to 2% is basically 1.3 million. And so that's just how big of a district we are when we look at making raises. It's just it's a huge system because of the number of employees that we have. Um one thing that and this was one of Brian's things, but hopefully this is something that the board will support. Um we've talked and it goes kind of along what you guys were talking about with classified staff. We realize our classified staff, the board asked us to look at this a couple years ago. That is exciting. I hope for classified because we realize classified staff are in
085a different spot and been we need to to reward and look at classified staff a little bit different. We have we asked classified staff last year about their degrees and so looking at giving a stipen based on if classified staff had different degrees and so we do have in this budget a stipen based on degrees if they have a certain degree. Do you want to go over what you have budgeted and we can we can change it change numbers is just kind of what we started with but trying to give classified staff a little bit of something extra. So, what I've started off looking at is just the difference in the pay in degrees on the certified side, which there's no way we can do that because when you jump from a bachelor's to a
086master's it's like $5,000. When you jump from a master's to a EDS it's like almost $10,000 and then when you jump from an EDS from a bachelor's to a to a doctorate it's over 15,000. So, I knew we couldn't give [clears throat] everyone those kind of stoppings, but what we did is we looked at just basically keeping it somewhat the same as a bachelor's, a masters, and a doctorate if if anybody on the classified side had those. Um, so we decided to start out with the bachelor's, if you had a bachelor's, an additional $1,500 stipen. If you had a mast's, it went up to $3500 and then if you had a doctorate, 5,500. It came to a total of 500,000 for we what I did is I sent out a survey to all Rutherford County
087uh schools just to get to the classified staff to get some feedback to see who you know what degrees were out there and and what they had. I'm not really sure that I got a 100% accurate responses because I had a custodian that had a doctorate degree. So, [laughter] I'm not really sure. That may be the case, but maybe that's what he wants. Um he he responded back that he had a doctor. Maybe maybe he did. I don't know, but it was a >> talk to degree and experience. >> That's [laughter] probably what it was. Um, but yes, so I actually had it budgeted last year, but it didn't didn't didn't come to fruition, so it ended up, I guess, rolling into fund balance. Um, but I budgeted again this year, so it's in the
088budget. Um, it's in the 721 130 um 189 line. It's an extra $500,000 that's in there. So if you saw that line was a little bit more, that's the reason why because I put it in there. That's where it was last year. So it's it was just something that, you know, we've explored. Sometimes our classified staff does get the short end of the stick that we see because, you know, it seems like legislature and everything for good reason, you know, supports teachers and and you know, the administrative staff, but sometimes the classified gets left out. Um, so I thought it would be and talking with Dr. soul and we thought it would be a good idea to look at paying for those degrees, you know, because I'm all about continuing education and and people doing
089more for themselves, you know, in the learning aspects. So, I figured it was fair for the classified staff, you know, to to get paid for, you know, the extra work that they did, too. So, you have any feedback wants to look at something different? That's what we have right now. It would take a it would of course take we would have to put that on the salary scale just like we have everybody else. would take an official board vote, but if there's something else you want to look at, change the amounts, just let us know. But it was some it was a good start. >> This would just be every year, right? Y >> they have that degree, they would get that. Okay. >> Anybody else have any feedback around it? Something different? >> Not
090not necessarily on that. Um, so if somebody has something on that, they can hop in. I was thinking about transportation, just trying to figure out what we're going to do with the insurance. I know that I've received and I'm sure other others have as well that several of our bus contractors insurance are going up 50%. And while I realize there's not in the budget that we can hop out and do that, I do think we need to make some accommodations to that. I don't want to run into another situation where we have some of the issues that we've had last year. Um, so I know you mentioned that there's 4,000 already built in >> and you said maybe a couple hundred dollars is something that we could we could look at in this year, but
091what are the other options beyond that? What would that be like asking for the county commission? If we were to go above the couple hundred, say we were do $500. >> Um, if we couldn't make it in this budget, what would we send that to the county commission and then ask them if they can pull it out of fund balance? Is is that an opportunity? >> I don't know if they would pull it out of fund balance because they would then think it was a reoccurring expense and they very rarely will do anything that's a reoccurring expense. That'd be my only hesitation there. >> Yeah. >> What options are on the >> Yeah. If we had a if we had a matching revenue, I think that'd be more likely. I think it's frustrating that um
092they had their county insurance meeting today. there was a A minus vendor that included the bus service. That wasn't the recommendation. And so I definitely think it's costing us money at this point because our we're continually going to increase our cost. Um, of course, you still have the legality question whether it's legal, not legal, and getting into that. That's for people way outside of us to be able to discuss, but as we continually go down this road, it's going to continually increase our cost. I don't see a way around that. Whether we're at 4,000 now, 6,000, whatever, it's going to increase our cost and without it become just a runaway train, I don't know how we address it. >> Yeah. I mean, I think in the short term, I would like to look at some
093options to see what we could do. I say short term this coming year and then really try to add more pressure to get back on the county insurance. And I know that's not even our decision, but um whatever we can do to beat that path because it is going to be if it's 50% this year for some of our contractors, what are we looking at five years from now? >> Yeah. Well thing I think on that topic uh you know it's it's the cost of doing business and I think that's where your management skills come in to sort of these costs cuz you know we can't continue to you know we we've increased we paid them for increased insurance and we paid them for I know in times past cost of cost of fuel cost
094of tires and all like that and you know we need to you know to me that's just the cost of doing business and we've given them a good contract and I don't know you know if they can't make a a profit doing that. I think it's just uh they need to look at their management or something. You know, that's just my opinion looking in that, you know, we've given them good contract and we're finally good money in there. So, >> yes. >> I didn't know if Butch was finished or not. I I didn't want to jump in, but a couple of observations I would make here. The uh you know, there's a what 2 and a half% increase built into the contract. And if I'm doing the math right in my head, that's a little
095over $2,000 that they're going to get. I I mean, I hate, you know, I everybody's insurance going up. What I understand, most of it has got to do with one portion of it. Um I think it's the umbrella policy or something like that. most of them I've talked to it's somewhere that's gone from $800 a year to 15600. So the the you know I don't want to mislead our taxpayers here by saying that you know everybody's insurance has gone from $4,000 a year to 6,000. I don't think that's true. there may be for some of the independent contractors, but again, we've got a price, you know, we kind of built in a inflationary clause and into that contract, uh, as I said, if I'm doing math right in my head, a little over $2,000 this
096year. what I'm concerned about and and this kind of goes along with transportation and I don't know that I can do these numbers in my head Trey so I'm looking at you to help me with this but if I've backed into looking at the fuel s fuel sir charge increase that's already built into the contract you know when we signed a contract with them last year this fuel is about $3 three three and a quarter something like that and Now, most of them are paying $550. And and so if you kind of run the numbers that I'm running through my head right now, average bus driver is going to drive 10 15,000 miles a year. They're getting 5 miles a gallon. They're burning, I don't know what, three, is that can I do that right?
0973,000 gallons a year. So, we've got to pick up that difference between four. And Jeff, I don't I'm looking at you now. I can't remember the number, but it kicks in at four$420 or something like that. So, we're looking theoretically if this thing continues the rest of the year. And I think most of us's experience has been with fuel or with gasoline. It goes up real quick, but it comes back down real slow. So, if we're really being prudent, I guess would be the word I would say. Do we build into this budget somewhere this fuel search charge that we're going to be probably dealing with for the entire contract next year? And and I don't Is there a number? Have we plugged a number in for that yet? I I don't know that. And
098I'm looking at both y'all right now because that that could be as much as 3,000 that could be as much as three or three to $4,000 per contractor. on 350. How many? We got 300. >> Last month it was 35,000 for all of them. >> For all of them as an increase. So So you're looking on a 10-month basis. That's half it's $350,000 and it's continually to go. And that was just last month. So >> we've [clears throat] been able to cover there there's to my knowledge the budget is what the contracts are. contract times number is what that's what's in the budget. >> That's what's in the budget. >> So, we don't have a number plugged in for fuel search char. And we've been able to cover it through unfilled contracts. >> Okay. >>
099That's how we've been able to cover it the last because we've been paying it for years. It's a it's a monthly thing that's never gone. It's paid every month. >> There's some number. some it's some number because under the old contract the number was so low we were paying it every month. >> Okay. >> And we're continuing to pay now. We raised that number up based on where it was when we did the contract a year ago. Uh and there is a clause that we we or the contractors can come back and relook at that and amend that number. But if we amend the number, then they don't have the fuel searchcharge funds available. >> I I I think that's a real number that we that and I know it may not be a lot
100of it could not be a lot of money, but >> it's a half a million roughly. >> Well, I'm thinking it we we ought to isolate a million dollars here. You know, that that's my opinion, but I'd want to do a little bit more math right now. But just curious question right there. So anyway, just my two cents worth. I'm hoping to whatever the board wants to do. We just know we're going to go further into the deficit. >> Yep. >> Okay. Anything else? I'm That's all I have. >> If nothing else. >> Thank you. We are journed. Quick. >> Sure.