001September 9th, 2025 work session for the Rutherford County School Board. We will 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 voluntarily. I will be conducting a moment of silence and Dr. Sullivan will be leading us in the pledge. Please bow your heads for moment of silence. Thank you. >> Please join me in the pledge to our flag. >> 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. First up, we need the approval of the agenda. Take time and
002look it over and then we can take a look at the consent agenda. >> Yes, Dr. >> I don't have anything. Okay. >> We may have an additional use of facilities on Thursday for Walry Hill. >> Madam Chair. >> Yes, Mr. Darby. >> Um, Mr. Lee, can you kind of briefly walk through >> Oh, never mind. I'm too I'll get back to you. >> First up, we have Rutherford Proud, but that will be Thursday. >> Yes. There are no public comments tonight and then we will have instruction but I believe that first part >> the first portion empowering tomorrow citizens a vision for civics readiness will be Thursday as well and we'll have Lee Ramsey our 6 through 12 social studies specialist here to talk >> okay and second we have what Gillingham >> Orton
003Gillingham plus and morphology plus training so this is something we use every year and this is a renewal county schools will contract the institute for multiensory education to continue providing Orton Gillingham and morphology training to classroom teachers, ESL teachers, special education teachers, and academic interventionist 2526 school year. These courses are a five-day, highly engaging, interactive, and hands-on training will provide our educators with a deep understanding that enhanced Wharton Gillingham program. This accredited, structured literacy course will equip our teachers with the knowledge, strategies, and tools necessary to effectively implement foundational literacy skills across all instruction tiers. And the dates we are planning on two cohorts, one in October, November at a cost not to exceed $89,112.50 and it's paid through title two funds. >> Okay. Thank you. Any questions or comments, discussion? Okay. Next, we have
004legal. >> We have a transfer student under discipline one. And so the board has their packet in Manila folder and received an email from Miss Ripley last week. Board has been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student was remitted for possession of illegal drugs. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system while under suspension or expulsion. The director of school's recommendation is to deny. >> Okay. Thank you. Next, we have financial matters. >> So, the next thing we have is our insurance rates for 2026. As we talked about at our last meeting in August, the state had a roughly 5 and a half% increase. Uh the county has passed all of
005that on based on our conversations from the last meeting. I took the only the other options off the 2575, 0, and 100. And this is just splitting it 50/50. And then you have the current contributions as well. Can you go to page one of that tab? Tab four. Next one. Next one down. And so this shows you the rates. And just so everyone kind of has an idea, the state offers premier plans and within each one you have Sigma and Blue Cross Blue Shield. And then with each of those you can do still like a P or an open access plus but then you can still do Blue Cross Blue Shield or Sigma which is S or Access. And you have different rates for each one. And so you have those choices between premier or
006standard. And then you also within that have then an option to do premier standard limited or local CDHP or health savings account. Just looking at a couple of those you will see for kind of what it went from last year to this year. Uh increases of $40 to $60 on some of them. And it all really the biggest increases are going to be in your P and your open access plus. That's the one the state is asking people to pay up for. And so we are covering 50% of the increase regardless of which one they're on because that's the one that in the past has not had Stone Crest facilities with it. And so year after year we have that discussion. So we're just doing 50% covering across the board. Um I would like Brian
007to kind of discuss finances a little bit. Um okay I want to preface this by saying I am not for or against either one. I'm just giving you facts of of what I've kind of looked at it with the budget. Um the first thing is is I guess I need to know where if we decide to go with the 50% where is that 1 million additional dollars going to come from. Um so that's that's the first thing I'll need an answer from because we currently do not have it in budget. We did not budget for it this year. Um, I know one of the things I think last meeting was potentially take it out of fund balance. The issue with that is is our fund balance and the unsigned fund balance is it can be
008but it's not supposed to be and the auditors frown greatly upon the use of fund balance for non-reoccurring expenditures or for reoccurring expenditure I'm sorry. So this would be a reoccurring expenditure. So, for example, what we potentially will be approving Thursday night for us to buy the land, the $9.6 million, that's a a non-reoccurring expense. That's a onetime expense. So, that technically is what that particular uh fund reserve uh is for. So, with that said, uh again, you can only use it for reoccurring exp um for for non-reoccurring expenditures. Uh not to say that you can't uh but technically the other issue you're dealing with is obligating fund balance for expenditures in another current year that's not approved in this year because you will be expending that not starting in January on that calendar year
009January to January. So you'll be pulling out a fund balance for the full year which will cross into another fiscal year. So that's the other issue. Um and I spoke with finance director and he said, "I would strongly negate against pulling it out of fund balance just due to the fact that if you look at the the county, they just passed the 6% rate, which I think that's a big difference. A lot of people think that we're five five and a half percent across the whole board. It's not. It's only five and a five to five and a half percent aggregate. So, some plans are going to be more, some plans are going to be less depending on you know, which which area you want to go with. If you want to go with the
010premier or the local CDHP, the increase is different across the board. So, I did I did I took an example. So, a lot of people get that confused and say, well, that five five and a half% that's taking my full rates that I got for the the COLA increase that we got. If you took a just say $52,000 salary and multiplied that by the 2.5% cola that we got, that's about $3,000 increase to the salary. If you take the largest looking at that chart by Dr. Sullivan, um if you take that the the highest plan is about 500 acres, I believe 500 20 $30. If you take that multiply that by 10, it's about it's a well over $5,000 a year for, you know, the higher plan or the largest plan. If you take and
011multiply that by 5.6%, it's only $300. So, it's a $300 increase. So, you got $3,000 to your salary, but you only have $300 increase to your to your insurance. So, there is a difference there. There's that misconception that it's taking every bit of that uh increase, that cola increase, and putting it and the insurance is going to absorb all of that and it's not the case. So, I just wanted you to be aware of that, too. Um, the other thing is just make sure you remember we just we're about to take potentially if it gets approved on Thursday. 6 million out of fund balance. that's getting us close to the recommended level that we stayed at or that we don't want to drop below um with the county whenever they try to approve, you know,
012whenever we we start using money out of the fund balance because the finance director likes over there likes to keep us around 15 to 16%, that usually keeps us about three months of payroll available um in order to be able to spend. So, our payroll runs about $30 million a month. So, that keeps us about three months to be able to, you know, keep it keep keep people employed without, you know, if something drastic or catastructive happens. So, um, those are just some just a few facts that I want you to consider whenever, you know, you're voting on this and I know that Dr. Sullivan's proposing the 50% increase. And then obviously the 25 that we looked at the other day that year, you know, we originally were looking at was about it was a
013million dollars, the 50% is going to be about $2 million. So you're looking at about million dollar difference between the two. And my my biggest thing is it's not budgeted for this year. And with us trying to pull, especially if we try to pull that out of fund balance, we don't know what the future I mean, we're doing it early in the budget season. So, we don't know how the rest of the year is going to look. And we don't know what our current our revenues are going to look like, additional revenues are going to look like coming in because with interest rates dropping, I know our investment income that we have relied on the past may not be as great. And I don't foresee that our and I believe Dr. Sman will will agree
014with this. I don't foresee our outcome funding and our growth funding to be as great as it was in the previous years either. So, it's going to be hard to figure out where I'm going to pull $2 million from. So, I I just want to put that out there, something for y'all to think about and, you know, get back with me on and I'll be glad to discuss in further depth if you need me to. So, >> yeah, Mr. Tle and Sure. Thank you. So, you're saying was the 1 million for the 25% was that already budgeted or are you saying neither the 1 million or the 2 million? >> Well, the 1 million it it's when we did the budget this year, we increased all the the lines uh primarily to what we had
015to increase it to last year. So, there's probably enough in there to be able without having to do too much to it to cover what we currently have. plus, you know, that half a year of the one minute or I'm just going to say it's probably going to be if we did the 25% it would be half of the one minute so it be 500,000. So we probably have enough in there to be able to code it 500,000 but if we have to do a half a year of a million I'm not saying it we don't have a budget. So it's a it's just one of those things because we didn't know exactly what the increase the overall aggregate increase is from one year to the next. So we don't know how to exactly budget
016for it. And like I said, we don't we can't predict what plans people are going to take from one year to the next either. We just have what we basically a snapshot in time of what people are on currently to go off of. >> Yeah. Yeah, I understand what you're saying about uh fund balance as one of the questions I had was about being a reoccurring expense. So, it's just percentage upon percentage on percentage report forever. Um but uh be interesting to see what the conversation >> Thank you, Madam Chair. So, our county CFO has asked us to have the 15%. But the state controller is 5%. >> So, what's the difference? >> Yes. So for us to get our budget approved by the state, we have to have at least a 3% fund balance
017in there. A 3% fund balance for us would never pay even one month of salary. So that's the reason why he recommends us keep at least a three month. >> It's a balance in there. So >> thank you. So I get that. Thank you. And also I just move that we make it a practice next budget to go ahead and put $2 million in there. >> Yeah. instead of because they're always hitting us after we've set the budget down and we just need to go ahead and start planning for that. >> You're right. We don't need to get >> Thank you. Yes. Go ahead. >> So, I agree um that we just have to find the funding for that because we're already 8 n million in the deficit this year. And I do so what
018when we talk about the financial portion, I expect our outcome funding to to be pretty strong. I don't expect growth funding to be strong. I do anticipate us still getting that performance bonus though that may help cover some of that. The thing I think that is the most that we need to take out of it is with because of our private act fund balance seems like a good option. I would agree. But when you have a reoccurring expense and you have the county finance director who does not support that advising the budget committee to approve that it just speaking frankly it's very unlikely that gets approved by budget or the county commission if the county finance directors not support that. >> Yeah that's the performance bonus. So but that should be December. It'll probably be
019January because it's all your report card. How many a letter grades that you have as long as you had over 50% of your schools and they don't give us our letter grades till December 18th. But it's it should be between two and a half and four. >> I think Mr. Run had something you want to add to that. >> I just have one more comment just with fund balance also. Another thing is is if we're trying to reach and obviously the state mandated that we get to 50,000 for teachers by next year, most likely what that's going to look like is we'll have to budget into fund balance again. And when you reduce that fund balance, that means we're taking and lowering that fund balance even down more as a budget as a budgeted line.
020So if we take a million from it, that reduces it by a million. So that means that we have less to budget in the deficit against. So just another another thing to think about, >> Miss Fwell. Yes, Mr. Ross. >> Thank you. Uh so the only numbers that we have here is if we absorb 50%. What last time we were given different scenarios. what it looked like if it was less or higher. Can we get can we see those numbers if it's I don't how much are we without going into fund balance how much are we even absorb >> we're already in the fund balance 8 million into the negative for the fiscal year so that's my concern >> right but this is to absorb 50% so is that your recommendation is 50% >> it
021is right now as long as our board understands we don't have any other expenditures that we can do now through June and that's that's tough um to go now through June without any other real unexpected just expenditures. And I think that's great. Our goal has always been to invest in our people. But we have used performance-based bonus last year. We used metal detectors. We've used them to cover insurance rates. We've used them to cover new positions. Um what computers and those are things we're just not going to be able to do this year. >> I thought the metal detectors was used with a performance bonus. His performance bonus, the $4 million we got the performance bonus. Okay. Um, so your recommendation is 50%. Yep. Even if we go into what fund balance, >> we can't
022go into fund balance. We're going to have to figure out how to fund this ourselves by cutting things over the next seven to eight months. >> Okay. >> No frills. >> Any other? Yes, Mr. B. >> All right. Methodically walk me through this. It's a $2 million increase, right? And let's just talk in general terms. And if we paid 50% of it, I say we board likes to pay 50% of roughly a little over a million dollars. >> No, the actual increase to the overall amount is 3.5 million, I believe. Yeah. The 50% will be $2 million. >> It will cost us to fund it. So to fund it for basically six months, the next budget year. >> Yes. Which we're You're going to have to budget that. >> Yep. >> That's that that's where
023we're coming up with the million dollar. So, all right. Next question. >> How many open positions do we have? >> Not many. Less than 20. I can get you another report by Thursday, but less than 20. >> Is it re I mean, and the question is going to be, is it realistic that some of those don't get fun or don't get filled? >> Very, very few. >> I know it's tight. I'm just I'm trying to be creative. >> Brian and I will make it work. We always find a way to make it work. whether we cut spending or always, >> you know, the ended fund balance thing is not wise. It never has been. And the uh you know, you get away with it with capital purchases. I think you know, one time deals. Um
024the the second thing about that, and I think this is where you were going with it, is every year we increase the budget. So therefore, the percentage the the ended fund balance has to increase by that same percentage also to stay at that 90-day level or that three month level. So ends up there. Um can you bring back to us maybe Thursday night different alter I mean you know where you would come up with it you know let's just kind of be as creative as you can >> because I do want to try to take care of our employees as much as we can. It's not on them. Although yeah I I appreciate your illustration that that it is a you know 5% increase but it's only on their insurance port part. It's not 5%
025increase from their entire salary. So, >> well, big difference. >> I get it. I'm I don't want my insurance to increase either. So, but you know, I mean, it's one of those things that for a budgeting purpose and for us to be able to maintain, you know, the budget for the year without >> blowing it out of the water, you know, it's >> I I'll try to be as creative as I can, but you know, right now we're we have no fluff in our budget, believe it or not. Some people think we do, but we don't. Right. I'm I'm just trying to be creative and think about things that will happen and maybe something that doesn't happen. Some program we don't end up doing. Some computers we don't end up buying anything that was in
026recurring uh revenue or recurring budget. Uh shoot, I forgot the other thing I was going to say, but anyway, you'll give us some alternative. Thank you, >> Dr. Sullivan. >> Yeah, the thing I was going to add is that this is a when we talk about next year's budget, this is >> it's a commitment >> going ahead. This is a commitment to go ahead and cover funding for next year too. So that's that's where we've been the last couple years. This is only the 2 million is funding >> six months and so we're also going ahead and funding July through December of next year too because that's how insurance is going to go January through December. And that's where we've been is we budget for what is already been approved covering the next year. So
027then we if we need to cover more we have to cover more funding. So, I mean, I'm more concerned about losing funding next year than I am finding funding. There's there's a lot of changes and Mr. Robson talking about in the beginning. There's a lot of changes to TIA that I don't think are going to be very friendly to to districts. >> Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes, M. Okay. So, I'm going circle back around to the outcome and grow funding. When do we think we're going to get that money? >> Outcome funding January at the earliest because the state report card, we get a preview December 2nd through the 12th or 14th. It gets released to the public December 18th and that performancebased is based on the number of schools you have as a letter
028grade and growth or um outcome funding the last couple years we received in November. Is that correct? >> Outcome funding was November. Growth funding we received over several different months. But if you remember this year we didn't receive our last payment until after the fiscal year was closed out. So we actually had to acrue that payment. >> So it was it was two over $2 million there. So >> yeah, it was frustrating. We got our last growth payment in July after the year ended, which we could have used throughout the year to cover things like this. >> so we could if that money would come in this >> on time. Yes, >> we could we could use that versus >> Thank you. Any questions? Yes. >> How much money was our growth >> last year?
029>> Well, yeah, last year >> seven >> started off as like 500,000 throughout the year grew over seven. >> Yeah, it grew to a little over seven million dollars. >> Just under eight. And we have we see those in different chunks the $7 million. >> Yeah. Because they have to do true ups throughout the year and so as they do the trueups the growth changes you know and as we grew you know they have to add additional to the growth payments >> and this was just for the student. We didn't get anything for the capital >> correct >> in the infrastructure. I'm still waiting on getting information about how much money we're going to get for the uh infrastructure, the portion that$1 billion dollars, however much money it is that's part that's tied to the
030ESA. Um I got an email. No, it's I got I got a response that is still waiting in the controller to make decision to decide when they give when they can give guidance to the districts or when we can apply for it. So, I don't know how much money we're getting or when we're going to apply for it, but >> less than a million and a half would be my guess. >> $25 a kid at 50,000 students. So, >> you keep saying >> 1.1 to 1.3. >> Well, that can fun Hback. >> It can fund an eighth of an HVAC. >> Huh? >> An eighth of an Hback. >> Eighth of an H. >> Well, something >> maybe. >> Any other questions or comments? Okay. Next, we'll go to number two. >> Number two. And
031I believe the board passed this last year. For some reason, it didn't make it to the county commission. So, is that correct, Trey? Yes. This request is to reallocate the balance of $355,664.30 from Lever Middle School annex project to Simon Springs Community School project and the fund 189 building program. The shift of funds will move money not spent Lever Middle project in place in the Simon Springs project to clean up overages and move it to close out both projects. >> Okay. >> Not for those two schools. Okay, any comments? Okay, next. Engineering and construction. >> This is the extended sessions bus contract for power hour, I believe is what we refer to it as for 2526. Transportation submitted the extended sessions bus contract for power hour for the 2526 school year and compensation is $245
032per day. And then I know that we've got a couple questions. Kelly, do you know how many days we're doing power hour this year by chance? >> Yes. Can you find that for me? Okay. Yes, Mr. Dart. >> Mr. Lee, >> can you just briefly walk us through the process of how that's awarded for the contractors? >> Sure. I'll read it to you. B off of our power hour awarding process and application. And I thank Mr. Balls came. >> He attended and witnessed it firsthand the other day. Per our process, current contractors are run for county schools. Contractors can have one gen 8 route. Contractor will have two options to choose from. Option one, the bus that normally runs at that school, the bus listed on the application must be the bus to run the
033route. The bus that you submit must currently run a regular route at that school. Option two, the bus stop does not run an elementary school or a middle school. We do have some buses that just run high school or run one or the other. So, we wanted to make sure they had an opportunity as well. The bus listed on the application must be the bus to run the road. You can only submit one bus for the application process. You must be able to get to the elementary school by 4:15. No applications will be accepted after the due date. The draw day is published typically two to three weeks prior to the drawing. We use a picker wheel for the drawing which is a computer generated wheel. Uh one wheel for each elementary. The list will
034consist of each elementary school. Contractor's name will be listed under each school as they are drawn from the picker wheel. The list from the picker wheel will be used to award routes. The route placement will be assigned by the transportation department. Transportation will work to ensure the routes are awarded as efficiently as possible. >> Is summer school awarded in the same fashion? Is that >> is summer school awarded in the same fashion? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, are all of the contractors I guess put back in for lack of a better word for summer school as well? We do a fall drawing, we do a winter drawing so that everybody has an opportunity and then we do another drawing for the summer school. >> Okay. So it is possible that someone who got a fall
035route can also get a spring round and can also get summer. >> It it is theoretically computer general. Yes, it is possible. >> Thank you. >> It's it's typically fairly rare, but it can happen. Yes. >> One last question. The contractors that own multiple buses, are they put in per bus that they have or is it like per business? So, >> to per business. Yes. Okay. Thank you. >> We have husbands and wives that have if they're under one business name, they get one. >> Okay. >> If they have two separate com businesses and they actually are two separate entities, in theory, yes, they could both apply at the schools that they run, >> right? I feel like one business that has six buses doesn't get six entries. No ma'am. Okay. >> No ma'am. >>
036We try and limit it. It's very lucrative. It's very competitive and they all want one. >> So we try and make it as give everyone as fair an opportunity as possible. >> 21 sessions in the fall, 21 in spring. So 42 total. >> Any comments? Mr. you attended it. I I couldn't stand I It is It is It is a lot better than the oldfashioned way of putting everybody's name in the hat draw the the girls that ran it. I was so impressed and and I had enough sense to know that there was something out there in our uh modern age of computers that was it seemed to be infallible to me. I sat back there and I started making notes about which color got came up the most time and all that and there
037was no there was nothing to it and and you were talking about being competitive one of our husband wife teams the if I remember correctly the wife won and the husband didn't and there was a little bit of taunting going on on the back road during that but it was it was there was I guess 15 20 drivers here seemed like and it was it was very handled very well. I'm going to say that very well. >> It's a very touch It's a very touchy. We want to make sure everyone has an opportunity equal across the board. I I was very satisfied and I made a commitment to myself to to be as not to meddle but to be as involved as I can in the transportation to see what's going on because I know
038a lot of us probably get complaints or suggestions or whatever and you know the more we're educated more I'm educated the more I think the better we can create policy that makes the system runs better but I congrat you tell the ladies I congratulate them they they ran it flawlessly I thought well we we and that's why we do one in the fall and one in the in the winter because there is two sessions and that gives other people an opportunity to make extra money. Okay, any other questions, comments? Okay, next we go to corporate recognition and Miss Darby. >> Uh this was something I brought up at one of our retreats when we talked about um wanting to honor all of our local companies that have given donations to our school system. So, I
039got with Front Street Sign, who is also a great donator to our system, and he is going to come up with some designs that I will forward to the board to look at um to put on display for some recognition for our companies that have given donations to our district. >> Okay. >> Any comments? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Darby. And the only thing I would add is we're working through that I think for us because our we absolutely love this idea. Our staff has a lot of these um names as well. I think it's James like you have a list of how it is. >> Yes sir. >> It's a large number which is great trying to list of all these just ones we have so far. These are forprofit businesses. There are 37 and
040then there are also a number of nonprofits and churches uh that have been donated to our system too. And so, uh, we're working on a campaign to do window leak. We've already talked to a number of these businesses and want to do that that denotes them as proud supporters of the school system. But yeah, we would we would support this too, but we're trying to make sure we have some sort of systematic way of figuring out because this is just district level. We want to do it for all the individuals available. So, looking forward to working. I appreciate Miss RV bringing this to our attention and and talking with the man of France Street sign company. U we could not have a wonderful strong district without our uh community and people who are willing to
041step up and help us and we are very appreciative of that. Next we have director's update. >> Yeah, I'll have more on Thursday, but tomorrow we have three schools and three music educators who are being recognized at the 2025 music teachers of excellence. And so there are 30 nationwide and we have three of the 30. >> Wow. >> And so I'll talk more about that, but it is a big night. I I'll be there. We'll have again three three schools. Rocky Fork Middle, Smyrna High School, Riverdale High School are being recognized. Um they're music educators and so that's that's a big deal. It's in Scranton. So it's we're proud of it. >> What night is this again? >> It's tomorrow night. >> Tomorrow night. >> All night long. >> I had no idea. >> So
042it's great. >> Um Riverdale High School. Yep. Smyrna, Rocky Fork, and Rupdale. So, three out of 30 nationwide. It's pretty pretty impressive. >> That is that is impressive. We have really good music. We have good sports. We have good music and fine arts here in this county as well. Next, we move to general discussion. I just want to say real quickly, I am honored and humbled for the board's faith in me, and I promise to continue to lead with fairness, honesty, and integrity in putting our students first. I just want to say thank you with that. Mr. Darby move to adjourn.