001I need the large print version. >> Okay. So, Clay's gonna he's just running a few minutes late. We're We're good to get started. It's okay. Okay. Um, I will now call to order the February 9th, 2026 work session and public hearing on the FY27 budget. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> I mean, is there a motion >> to approve the agenda? >> Make a motion. A motion to approve the agenda. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. All opposed. >> Okay. Superintendent's proposed budget. Dr. Bowling. >> What I'm going to do tonight is we've went through this in detail with a lot of our demographic pieces for Clark County um public schools. I'm going to hit the key slides that have changed and give you kind of an update of the budget. Before
002we do that, just a little um there on those dates. We're past the December 17, 2025 date, which is when Governor Yncan, our outgoing governor, um made public his recommended governor's budget. And um we're also um past the point where the general assembly has convened to start work. The next upcoming date will be um budget Sunday following the end of the session is going to be on February 22nd. That's when the House and Senate committees will present their budget proposals. And we have on the 26th an expected deadline for each chamber to pass its own budget, the House and the Senate. And then they will adjourn on March 14, 2026. So, we do hope um that they'll be able to pass a budget before adjournment, but now final approval involves potential vetos and that typically
003concludes in April. So, that's kind of where we're at right now. And um I'll talk to you a little bit, but we do have some possible, you know, different scenarios with the state budget and we're nowhere near a finalized state budget. So, we do have a very early budget calendar here in Clark County. So, one of the things that we're doing is passing or going through the uh public hearing tonight and going toward on the 23rd passing the budget without a final state budget. So, there are ch uh potential changes that could occur and if that did happen, we would need to look at the difference in what we have in our budget and the final state budget. One thing by Virginia code is if a legislative body passes a budget a and then after
004the public hearing the expenditures go up more than 1% total, it does require a new public hearing. So because of this early date, that is a potential that hasn't happened to me yet because the governor's budget has been a really good approximation of the final state budget. But you do realize one key piece is that we do have different leadership in the Commonwealth of Virginia this year which could make the uh budget different when it actually changes. And there are a bunch of bills that I've been following developments in the general assembly and some of them include um additional at risk monies, additional special education monies and one uh bill that would advance toward getting um teachers in the Commonwealth of Virginia on average at least to the national average by 2030. And that bill
005includes a much more aggressive pay scale increase over time. not saying that any of those bills are going to come to fruition, but we are following those and they could have an impact on our total budget. So, as that comes about, that's something we'll have to consider after this process, even if that were to happen. Right now, we can go to the uh budget presentation. And the first slide I'd like to go over is slide four. And this just gets back to our priorities piece which something that we need to do and remember that um typically with our budget our priorities are taking care of our people. I firmly believe that our people are our most important resource and that we also need to make sure that it aligns with our strategic plans and also
006that what budget that we approve in the end uh links to our community stakeholder survey. So we will go over um that uh slide as well. All right. The next slide I would like to address is slide six. And these are the these are the results of our community stakeholder survey. And you can see clearly by far the number one priority was um employee compensation with the second one being career and technical or CTE programming and the third priority being student teacher ratios and priority for health insurance cost followed by academic course offerings. So you kind of would need to remember those as we work through the budget um public hearing and what our priorities are. Right. The next slide I'd like to address is slide 24. And for the public, I would note too
007that this entire presentation is up online as well, but I'm going over any slides that we've amended since the initial presentation. On this slide, we can see here the factors that impact our budget are the local composite index. And a lot of jurisdictions and divisions are dealing with really difficult budget situations right now. We need to be mindful that this is kind of a really good time for us and a prime opportunity because what has made this budget process a little bit easier thus far this year is the roughly 600s of a percent or 600s of a point decrease in our LCI which equated to um roughly a million dollars in additional funding which has made our budget process um a little bit more smooth this here. The third factor is we do have the
008um cf fall for the governor's budget which is the state budget but do realize that with new leadership and stuff and being so early in the state budget process that could change. Now historically typically the budget that we have right now for the count file is typically the lowest budget and things would potentially get better as time goes on but that is not 100% a guarantee. So we got to remember that really everything is on the table with the state budget still. Now the middle factor is certainly impacting us in a negative way. Not as much as some localities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but we know that we are uh funded based on average daily membership, which is ADM as of March the 30th. Um we are projected to go down some and that's
009a direct link to how much funding we have. not as much as some uh districts. And I believe in the um calculation of all of the estimates by the BDOE of student enrollment or ADM that the Commonwealth of Virginia in general uh predicted go down two or 3% in student population next year. So that is also a concern. And when you hear a lot about districts that are really struggling with the next year's budget, it's typically because they didn't get a favorable situation on LCI and then they have the ADM concern. Our ADM concern is not as large a number, but our LCI really provided a good situation for us going forward or our ability to pay. All right, the next slide I'd like to address is 27. And uh this is just to remind
010you of what gave us a better budget situation. You can see that our LCI for 2426 which goes through this um end of this school year is6032. What that means is in general based on the state's formula for the ability of the locality to pay based on that Clark County um as a county was needing to fund 60.32% of the budget through the end of this year. Next year our LCI is 0.5542 which means starting um after July 1, Clark County would only be expected to pay about 55.42 42% of the budget, meaning that the count uh the state would pick up roughly about 45% of the budget, whereas this year they're only picking up a little bit less than 40% of the budget. So that is a big impact to us. Um the next
011slide I'd like to address is 29. These are the positions that I'm recommending that we fund. really thankful to our administration and working with them to cut back on what we're recommending because I think the more that we are good stakeholders about what new personnel we recommend um impacts how much that we can take care of current uh individuals. If you'll see the only position there at Boyce is the math interventionist and that's a part-time hourly thing. It's something that we do with allin funding currently which ends this uh on June 30th of this year. That's just to provide some supplemental help in mathematics. No benefits, just a part-time position. And then uh and that's something we're doing this year just funded in a different way. Kie has the same exact position. And then we
012do have an extra um instructional assistant at Kulie recommended a 10-month instructional assistant. We're thinking more along the lines of kindergarten for that. And then we have a similar 10-month instructional assistant recommended at Johnson Williams. We are thinking there along the lines of um you know helping with their um advisory uh program and having some additional staff to run the advisory program. At the high school, the only position we have would be the workbased learning coordinator. There's a lot of focus in the new accountability system and also internships, externships with that and that work is really becoming much more comprehensive. So that's just an additional month there. And then we do have stipens for our LEGO coaches. When you look at that, that's really only two new positions that include salary and benefits, both being
013IAS. Now, one thing I do want to be cognizant of is a lot of this is dependent upon the scheduling model that you all uh pick in the end. And we can't really take a discussion or vote on a scheduling model for the middle school because that's not part of this. But I do want you to realize that that would impact this a little bit. This um I think would be something that we could make doable. But now we do have um this year because we double blocked some things an additional math teacher at the middle school and that worked under our current model may or may not under the new one but we would be committed to keeping those positions there because they're already in the budget and they could work with algebra intervention
014and do some math remediation and stuff like that along the day. So, I want you to know that you are still continuing to fund that position. And also, we have an extra English teacher that we similarly put in the budget last year. It's covered with extra block stipens this year because we couldn't get a candidate at that point. In talking with the administration, they would like to keep that position in the budget as well to provide additional assistance there in English. Um, one so I think we've got overall a really good plan. One thing that I would be aware of is that the definite the priority on additional positions this year goes to Kulie and Johnson Williams about evenly and last year we provided you know by far the bulk of the new positions went
015to Johnson Williams. Um we always decide on new positions based upon need but we also consider with limited resources you know addressing the needs at other buildings. So maybe not in this year's budget but the budget thereafter thinking about we really not done a lot of position increases at boys who are at the high school. That is slide 29. So the next one I'd like to address is 34. All right. Um, all right. Looking at factors affecting the uh FY27 budget. Um, I think salary increases to retain and recruit highquality uh personnel is at our top of our um agenda. Also, we have the new personnel uh requests, which I think are very reasonable this year. Also, health insurance. That's something that's really important. We're a local choice school division. And last year, we got
016the health insurance renewal like a day or two before we did the public hearing. That's also one of the factors about going early in. Um Mr. Nucci, our director of finance has been wonderful about reaching out daily forever, you know, trying to get this information and the last thing that we got is they were behind at the state and getting some of this. So, we do not have any indication about health insurance renewal rate. So, they're in there at their built-in estimate of 10% renewal. Could be higher, could be less. So that's something else that we're going to have to address as we go forward. And diff and different advisory groups that meet with me. Other than one or two kind of not exactly align with this, the majority of people have talked to me
017about what are their biggest concerns with the budget is having a substantial enough salary increase to actually be able to feel like they're bringing extra money home with the cost of living increase and not having that completely eaten up with increased health insurance. So I think what's on the front of most of our personnel minds are salary increase that I actually feel you know in relation to health insurance probably percent rise one of the most large increases in our budget is the cost per student at our enrep program and that's the program in which we bust kids to Frederick County for you know intensive behavioral support and needs of that line line item percentwise that is by far the most increased individual percent or piece of our budget. Um the next slide on there and
018Renee, what slide was that? >> 34. >> Okay, I numbered them without seeing. >> And good thing is the next two are in a row. 35 and 36 are the next two. >> All right, this is just to remind you that the consumer price index is 2.8% 8% which means pretty much anything less than 2.8% feels like going backwards on a salary increase. The next one's 36. And this one is a slide that pertains to the cost of salary increases for our team. Each 1% salary increase costs $211,952 to for us to remain competitive in a destination to be able to recruit teachers and new staff. I wouldn't recommend anything less than a 4.5% salary increase. That's why that number up there is an odd, you know, in between percents. That's where I was leaning
019um as of a little bit recently for recommendation and I think that's strategically picked on what would keep us competitive. Having seen how good we've been with reducing uh position requests and how things have fallen in line for our budget. I would recommend but this always comes among the school board that I recommend a number then you all discuss and then the chair comes up with a recommended salary increase to include in the uh board budget. I think once you see the executive summary I think we're in a position to do a 5% increase that we could do this year because of how good the budget has turned out and you're not able to do that every year. So I think that maybe capitalizing on it this year may be important for us. And if
020you look at the trend of the salary increases that we've done in the last five or six years, we've had seven, we've had fives, we've had a 10. Last year was the lowest we've had in a while, which is four, but last year was a pretty tough budget to pass. And I think that we're in a much better situation this year. And the next one is 39. And that's the updated executive summary. And this is where I was talking about being in a much better position to fund stuff. Some critical things have happened which is the LCI went down which was able to reduce the burden on the locality. Another big thing and I want to give a big shout out to Dr. El and Harry, our math specialist, for writing a grant for our
021math curriculum. That was in next year's budget at $380,000. They got the full amount funded, we found out. So that $380,000, which funds almost 2% of a salary increase came directly from the state through a budget that we're getting this spring. So we were able to remove that. So that even makes me feel better about rewarding our people because I think, you know, that's an investment. I saw an article where another division got 200,000 and they were really celebrating that. It was in the BSBA newsletter from a paper. We actually got almost twice that at 380. So um a really big shout out to them because that really helped to alleviate concerns with this budget. But by the time all this works in this executive summary includes the recommended positions that I recommended at 98,26394.
022The executive summary also includes a health insurance increase estimated at 10%. That's probably one of the biggest variables in this whole executive summary, but we can't do any better going this early in. So we're going to have to be monitoring that. But the executive summary also includes a 4 and a.5% salary increase for all staff members. And when you look at that, we're only asking for a 28,9797 increase in local funding to accomplish all of that in the operating budget. The biggest increase is in the school capital fund at $333,10. We were very judicious in what we committed to. The reason That's going up though is if you'll recall by the end of the year last year we hadn't had a lot of stuff to break and we were in a really good position with
023capital money. So we funded almost everything in capital that we had included in the budget at the end of the year and were able to ask for a very low capital budget last year. This year it seems like everything that could break Hback and some stuff wise has happened and we're cutting the money really close. So that's the reason for that going up there so much. But with a 4 and a half% salary increase and an estimated 10% increase in health insurance, the difference to the cost of the locality is $325,155. If we were to fund a 5% increase in salary, that would add $106,000 to the um operating fund, which would put us at like $130ome,000 increase and still put us around $425,000 including capital total increase to the county, which I think is
024really reasonable and a really good steward of money. And we're in a position this year to be there. we're not going to be in that position every single year. Um, some things that I'll mention before we turn it over to other things. Um, we will be presenting salary scales at our February 23rd meeting for approval. And that'll look really weird because we're approving 25 26 salary scales. You may say why? Well, we're just trying to put our practices of salary that everything's in a concise publishable way for our website. And if we approve it, then whatever salary increase you adjust, we'll adjust those scales to it and have it then become every single position that Clark County has has a uniform and publishable salary scale for. I wouldn't recommend not doing a step this year
025though because these are brand new and we've just developed them and we want to see some steps because we have to look at how we've historically done stuff are much smaller than others and we can't add cost to it. So I would recommend doing consideration of a step until next year and we have a year to kind of study maybe in a compensation committee what those steps look like. Um the other thing that I would mention to you is a part about the bonus or the potential bonus I should say. um if we're able to get, you know, to the 5% salary increase, I would be fine, you know, without the bonus. But at the same time, if we have it, I want to always reward our people. But this is one of those things
026that gets hard because it's included in the governor's budget. And I would tell you right now, if I knew if that was going to pass or not, but I don't. But I want to give you a brief update. When Governor Yncan was our governor and included that in the budget, it was to be a 2% of salary bonus paid by June 1st of this year, but it went through the LCI and the SOQ's. So, we were going to get roughly because it's our old LCI, roughly 39% of a 2% salary increase for our SOQ positions. What that meant was a a bonus that was going to cost slightly above $400,000 that we were only going to get $115,000 toward funding and that was to come as a caboose bill this spring and if you didn't
027fund it, you had to return the money which would be kind of a competitive piece and we were just going to be trailing it to see if we could afford it. Um, no guarantee that this is going to happen, but as of recent, there was discussion on the Senate floor of changing it from a 2% of salary to a flat $1,500 for educators, so $1,500. And the thought there was a 2% of salary as a bonus favored higher paying positions, whereas if you do a flat amount, the people who may need the money the most would get the same amount of money. Um, that's where it's at now. That there was just discussion. There's no amendment. There's no guarantee to it. There's no guarantee to the 2%. There's no guarantee to the $1,500. But it
028was discussed on the Senate floor. Also, with that, the person who done the discussion said, "I may introduce an amendment to make it instead of 2% of salary, $1,500." And it was said that we might make it flexible that it could be paid in FY26 or FY27. None of that's a guarantee. If this did come to be, I would think if we have any possibility of having enough money left over in operating, it would be better to pay it before the end of this year because I would think that may be a lot of burden, you know, to the county to have a salary increase and a larger bonus. um within one year if we have the funding and this comes to be toward the end of the year. I think that that would be
029the prime opportunity to do it. There's no guarantee of any of this, but I think since it's being discussed at the state level, I want to give you the most upto-date, you know, responses we've had. I will tell you though because there's more people in that bracket that $1,500 would be an advantage of compared to 2% that a $1,500 plat bonus will cost more than a 2% of salary bonus. But there is some hope that when the state has done um bonuses in the past that have been flat amounts, they did not run them through LCI. They gave you the full amount for every Q position. So like the one we did last uh spring, they gave $1,000 for every SOQ position completely and the FICA. So there is some potential that that might come
030to be and then it could be less of a cost on the county. Um don't think it's anything that we can be banking on. And I will note that anytime you do one-time bonuses, they don't affect BRS. And I appreciate that they're done with the best of intentions, but when they're done as a caboose bill with a few months left to pay it, they put people in really a difficult situation, but that is what we have um right now. The only other thing before we move into kind of discussion is we do have the attachments from Dr. uh Seal detailing the questions that she had and from Mr. Nucci about the capital. So, we'll let them go over it and then we'll move into discussion. So, I guess uh what we already got, let's go
031ahead and do the two attachments that Dr. Seal had first. I hope well and actually I'll um let's see if this will work here. So the the first presentation here um is on average years of teacher experience by division and or building. Um and I'm just going to go through these quickly and they are very brief. So I'll pretty much be reading to you here what the slides say. Um but Clark County Public Schools as a division um our teachers Average year of experience is 11.9 years. At Clark County High School, average years of teaching experience is 13 and a half. Johnson Williams Middle School is nine years of average experience. Kie, you can see is 11 years and Boyce Elementary is 13 years. We went on um in the subsequent slides there to break
032down further break down years of teaching experience by building for you. To give you an idea the percentage of teaching staff that range within 1 to five years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 15 years, 16 to 20 years, 21 to 25 years, and then 26 to 30 plus years. I'll give you just a minute to look through each one of those slides. The first one there is Clark County High School. So, you can The bulk of teachers at the high school they're range with one to five years or 16 to 20 years. We go on Rene to cool a high percentage there of new teachers within one to five years of experience which account for 35.71% of staff in that building at the middle school. relatively new or young staff with 42.85% % of
033teachers in the building being at entry level there within one to five years of experience and at voice um more of a range again with 24.13% in the 1 to 5 year mark and 27.58% um in the 16 to 20 year mark. And then the other document that we included for you, the experience comparison, um, we did go back three years. We did FY23, FY24, and FY25 with notation there of how many teachers left Clark to go to Frederick County and the years of experience um they had in Clark when they did depart, as well as the number of teachers each year who left to go to Lowden County. Um, I did want to say as a caveat as we were going back through individual stories and I pointed this out to Dr. Bowling today,
034um, please keep in mind there's a lot of reasons why people did depart. Some is certainly salary incentives, but um, again, as we looked through some particular individuals, others left for coaching opportunities that were not here. um maybe a change in grade level assignment um or change in subject area that were not currently available when they departed from Clark. >> And now um Mr. Nucci, if you'll come up and kind of go over the uh history of capital funding, we got that attachment relation to in relation to a question as well. So, this was um a spreadsheet we put together for Mr. Brumback who requested it last school board meeting. And basically what this is showing you is a five-year history of the capital fund uh what was spent, total budget and expenses, what was
035uh funded just out of the COVID funding line items, and then what was funded minus the COVID line items. So excluding COVID, how this budget um report reads is you have the original budget on the left. You add in any capital carry forward amounts. If you're looking just at fiscal year 26, that's 620,000. It comes from the previous year unspent funds. So it comes from fiscal year 25's unspent funds of 620,000 original budget plus the capital carry forward plus any operating carrier forward. So, uh, when we did this exercise a few months ago, we had $534,000 that we allocated towards the capital fund for, uh, projects at the middle school and the HVAC cool, uh, system at Kulie Elementary. We add that in, if it's applicable, we add in any other, uh, supplemental funding requests
036that we receive. And then we have the revised budget total. You take the revised budget total minus the year-to- date expenses, and that's where you get the unspent funds for the last five fiscal years. Just keep in mind capital is a kind of a tough thing to um project because you don't know again what's going to break year to year, what surprises you're going to run into. But again, this is just a history excluding COVID and then also just including the co line items for you. >> Do you have any questions for Mr. Ni? >> Thank you. Does the public comment piece? So, um, so the school board will hear public comments specifically related to the development of the FY27 operating and capital budgets. Do we have anyone here to speak? Okay. So, moving on
037to the discussion of the FY27 proposed budget. So, this time is provided for us to talk about what our thoughts are regarding the the proposed budget. >> And as you all work through this, the main things that we need is if there's something we've not funded that you'd like for us to do, um we need to discuss that and hopefully it's within 1% if we make any or anything um before we go um you know to the next step. But also the other part is that we need to discuss and probably the most important is to give us direction for the final budget that we get ready for adoption on um our meeting on February 23rd which then could be amended if the state funding changes or the health insurance. But the main piece that
038we would need direction on is the salary increase. Um, my recommendation is either four and a half or five, but I do think we're at a position that we could do five. And I think with the priority being on salary increases and not knowing what's happening with health insurance, that being their number one from our stakeholder uh survey and also the thing that I've heard the most, I think us either remaining competitive or trying to become more competitive is probably a big priority. So, I was going to recommend four and a half, but at this point, I would recommend just seeing how close I mean how reasonable our budgets turned out. But you all would discuss that in the budget in general and basically uh Mr. Nucci and myself would just be here to answer
039questions for >> All right. Who wants to start off? >> Well, I'll start off. I I agree with the assessment of increasing to 5% instead of 4.5%. Definitely our first priority. the positions. There's no major changes there. Additions for hourly wage and only one position total, correct? >> Uh, two full time two. >> Two full time positions. Um, and if we look at I know we're still going to be discussing at some point schedule changes that could possibly make some changes. Correct. know my biggest uh take on this is that we go with the 5% increase on salaries. I do would like to see in the future that maybe not this year but in the future that we look at what we talked about before in the previous meeting that one to 15 year range
040how far behind we are with other scales in the area trying to increase that um you know just brainstorming I know the older more experienced teachers don't want to hear this but maybe 15 to 30 only gets a certain increase and one to 15 gets a higher increase in the future but I would like to with a across the board 5% increase and I do believe increase u coming up with a scale >> that we not had in the past will help us visually see that that's the proper thing to say visually see >> to see that visually um I think that will help in the future as well but my biggest concern is the five we go with the 5% >> and some things to that notion we did with the scales it really
041we tried to be as consistent as we can and we had like Why don't we start here for this area here for this one? Try to be mindful where it but when we put it down to paper and that's why I wouldn't recommend a step this year. It's just we're going to be presenting a picture of what we're truly doing. And there were some steps on a couple scales that it was just a few dollars difference in a one three years experience, a four, a five, a six, a seven. So, I mean, it made us really aware of where we're at. So, I think a good step forward in that. I did work in a division that an ongoing committee, and you hate to have a ton of committees, but was called the compensation committee.
042And all they did was study salary scales each month during the year in relation to surrounding districts. That way, they could say not just a universal this, but we're really behind on step 17. We're not too bad on step 19. and make a much more deliberate decision. So I think after we approve the salary skills based on what we're doing, my recommendation for next year would be to have a compensation committee with board representation that works on that process the whole year. >> Anybody else? Mr. Wilson or >> Yeah. Uh I like that 5% idea. Difference between four and a half and 5% is $53,000. >> 106 153. Okay. >> 106. >> Okay. >> The uh Dr. Nail, are we still carrying that $77,000 a year coordinator who was wished on us by Richmond? And
043if so, she still necessary. >> Uhhuh. And is this an everchanging program or process or is this something that we identify a problem and we set up a program and then we have a program? I mean this is two years now. And one thing I would say is it's going to be an ongoing from now on out because Virginia Literacy Act is an ongoing law that requires us to do that work every year. Um, and not to talk about individual personnel, but I would say this is a positive. I think that she's a real big asset to us and one of our, you know, really strong team players. So even if we got in a position that we were tied on budget, I would never want to have to do because I'm always the type
044person that you take care of, you know, your people that I would but if we ever got in a really tight budget situation, that position wouldn't be the first one that I would offer up if that makes sense. >> I see it as a teacher salary plus two assistance. Yeah, it >> long as it's justifiable, fine. >> I think she's an astounding >> principal shaking their heads. Yes, >> I think a really big benefit to our division. And if it ever did get easier with writing literacy plans and stuff like that, extremely talented that I think we could have that person go into the schools more and work directly with kids on reading. One one question I do have kind of off the subject of what you're referring to is you talked about the salary
045increase. When's the last time we've had a stipen increase? >> Um pretty recent. Um I can't remember >> last year but it was >> the year before last I think we readjusted all of them >> and we've typically done that maybe like every three or four years. So, we're two years in, but we could definitely, I think maybe next year or the year after, but even with that compensation committee, consider uh adjusting stop increases. And along that line, it's one of those things I didn't want to add additional cost into the budget. So, with these salary scales, we just basically put it all to paper and I had to be like, step 13 has to be 2832 an hour. Step 32 has to be this and let you know worked around that. But there's some
046other stopping pieces that we don't do and I'm aware of that I think almost every other division in the Commonwealth does if not all. One of those being like master's degree stipens. We do that for teaching and teacher derived positions which is basically just teachers and like our um our um you know other related service like psychologists and stuff like that. There are divisions that do that for everybody whether it be a bookkeeper every now and then you know that may have a master's degree or anything. There are some divisions that do that stopping for everybody. There are a lot though that say the master's degree stipen is payable to everybody except for people on the administrative scale because having a master's degree is required for administrative position. But right now we have a very
047skeletal approach to that and I believe almost all if not all do um an e either a master's plus 15 which is an additional stop and if they have 15 hours above a mast's and typically that's paid for every single person that works in the school division even if they're in administration because having plus 15 is not required for administration. There are a lot of divisions that do a stipen for everybody. If they have the EDS, which is a terminal degree at some universities, if you don't want to do the full dissertation and doctorate, you get a specialist degree. And then, um, most divisions do a doctoral stipen for everybody in the division, regardless of position. If they have a doctorate, um, some divisions have those stipens stack. Some of them have it just at
048whatever the highest degree is is the amount you get. But this is the first one I'm associated with that I am familiar with that we're only paying just for masters and just for teacher and teacher derived positions. So I was really aware of that when we did the scales, but if we were to implement it, we would have an additional cost going into this year's budget. So, I thought it was much better that we stand back and look at those stipens as far as compensation and say, where are we really at and is this reasonable? I think when we did that we were we we were pretty competitive a little higher. >> Um Mr. Kennedy or Mr. I'm I like the 5%. Um, be honest where we're at and what we're trying to do to
049remain competitive. Um, I do want to sit down with you sometime and really get at a macro level on where we're at with some of the capital expenses. That's something that I've been kind of trying to dive into, email back and forth with Mike Le and um get into it with I want sit down with with um Mr. Kendrick as well and see what we can do to kind of stop putting band-aids, but and actually fix some of this equipment. So, in the long run, it it's more efficient and and we're being good stewards with the equipment and the money at the same time. So, our teachers aren't, you know, operating wearing parkas when they're trying to teach. So, I think that'll go a long ways as well u in the longevity and allowing us
050to to become more competitive down the road. So, to Mike's point, where we want to be going forward. It's all I have just with the u the end and be all as far as uh what we're proposing if I'm understanding correctly. We're looking for I think you said $325,000 more than last year from county. That's the ask the variance on your executive summary there. >> I believe to it now the um ask for the county is additional $325,155. That's a total ask for the county increase. Most of it does come from capital instead of operating. And if we do the 5% as opposed to four and a half, that would add an extra $16,000 on to that. So you would be around 431 I believe >> would be the additional >> would be >> the
051increase based on last year's yes right >> and um uh I'm going to second Mr. Kennedy's concerns on the capital side. Um I just think we need to make sure we have we have some backing up for him when when I think we have another round of of capital expenditures. And um we talked a little bit more last at our last meeting about that about the ADM and how that's going to affect us. I just want to make sure we're in good position to to handle that decrease in funding if our our numbers keep on going down. Right now we're in a good position and even though it makes me a little bit nervous because typically my projection is much lower than the states right now mine is actually lower by 16 which is not
052a huge huge number for next year but if that continues to happen then we're going to have to adjust our budget to our new reality and enrollment size and I agree with you on the capital. Now, this does increase a lot of extra for repair and for HVAC for a year, but that's still just repair. Now, typically, if you did substantial capital, you got to start looking at debt service and stuff like that. But I don't I want us to keep our buildings in good, you know, good shape. But probably some of those other things, we need to have an assessment first and they're probably going to be significant investment cost. I just think we need to be aware and make sure the county is aware that that car may get may not be there
053anymore or it really needs to be uh be considered as kind of a rainy day some of these things that popped up. >> Yeah. The way it's trending this year, we're being and I think we're always as a team really cognizant of what we spend being really judicious with the operating that I think Not a huge end of the year, but we might be okay with the end of the year and even if we had that bonus trying to pay it if we could without asking for additional monies, but I don't think we're going to have much at the end of the year on capital this year if I was being honest. >> Another question I have on the health insurance increase at 10%. Is that high percentage that you're calculating in? >> It's what
054we've always done. We mirror the county um the county employees and us. We always do a 10% as the average um as just an early estimate, but by last year we had the actual percent by this night and it was zero. Um right now it's hard and I don't want to get too optimistic or too pessimistic and put things out. There have been a couple localities that had really large ones, but they weren't on local choice. A local choice, nobody has that one yet. Um, a lot of rumors have swirled around health insurance. We can't get any indication, but in conversations with local choice, it has le led us to believe that maybe the 10% is sufficient or even a little high that we may be pleasantly surprised, but there's no guarantee that when we
055get that proposal that it may not be devastating. >> It's a definite maybe. >> Yes. Can you live with that? >> Um, the only question that that I have relates to a position that you all that you talked about um for the high school which was a a an assistant to help with with behavior issues and concerns. And so I don't see that listed. Is that >> no longer a concern or >> and then I think it was it was also talked about that they would potentially share this position with Johnson Williams >> and I I wasn't part of the direct dealings with that but our team come to me and worked with and the thoughts were that we had talked about repurposing a special ed teacher at the high school but they really wanted
056to keep that special education teacher position and um it arrived that they would be able to share that next year. know that's something in the future if you all want the fund that we can consider but I'd let Dr. still maybe speak that is that is that good. But if it becomes a strain that we're truly not able to see that shared, I think that's something we should definitely consider for the future, >> especially since the high school we're only doing a one month extension to one position this year. >> That's why I think being if we get limited funds, you know, considering extra for buildings that we've not done as much for in a while could be important. And so one question that I have, I guess, because we don't have the health insurance
057increase. So we're saying that this could be a a a potential 5% salary increase, but if it's like a astronomical number for health insurance, there there's not a guarantee, right, that it's going to be a 5% increase that you actually feel >> effective. You're correct. Um, you know, if we got a zero, I don't think that's likely, but then it would be a true five that you would feel. >> If we get something that increases the cost to employees, then no, it wouldn't be an effective deal of the same, but also once we got the rate, we'd have to decide what's the extra cost to the employer and the employee and work that out. >> Um, the other piece there too is We could ask for, you know, at that point additional money for health
058insurance, but if it was over a 1% increase, we'd have to go through the public hearing again. >> Another consideration is if the state budget does come back better and it provides additional state funds, then if health insurance is more, then we could look at covering the cost of that. I think the main priority I've heard among employees though is to try to preserve a truly effective raise of balance between salary and health insurance. Um, but it's so uncertain with that health insurance that we really don't have a true picture that we'll have to deal with that when it comes. If it gets to be really difficult and it's a bad bad number, then maybe keeping the 5% and passing a little bit of the cost of health insurance on is the revenue is the
059right direction because even though it would be dollars for dollars, if you do it on salary, it goes to their BRS which benefits them when they retire. The health insurance does. >> So is that something that we could we could discuss is is because it sounds like most of us are agreeing with the 5% but I do feel concerned with not having that that other number that you know >> yeah all this is theoretical just now of I mean it's all theoretical based on that health insurance and the state budget now we just get consensus and this is our public hearing so basically the only thing is if we were to include or increase expenditures beyond 1%, then we'd have to come back to this table. But if we were to get true health insurance
060information before the 23rd, we could pass the budget to send on the board of supervisors and approve it with the true health insurance number. And if it ends up being less than 10% or 10%, then our job is easy. Even if it's more, then we could look at within that 1% range of in uh covering more. And also, well, we're not going to have a state budget by the 23rd. So, I was going to say if we had a state budget and provided more funding, then we would know that. >> Okay. >> But whenever that comes in, you'll either probably we'll delay probably letting you know, but it'll either be a really big celebration or a lot of melancholy in this office. Um, >> similarly to the LCI. Um, >> what is the reason for
061the delay? Do you have any idea what's going on here? No, but I think big organizations, they don't get too they don't let our wants become their needs or priorities. I do think that um that your presentation and that the thought in terms of positions needed for next year has you guys really work through it and you know I don't think that it's filled with frivolous positions that that aren't important or you know aren't necessary to to help our students. So I hope that the board of supervisors recognizes that that that I think we're that you all are as judicious as possible. >> Yes. I think we always try to be good stakeholders and be mindful and one thing I think that we always ground each other and bring each other back and sometimes we'll
062mention is we got to keep in mind the total cost of what this is going to be and we always know that we are public servants and that we're spending taxpayer dollars. It does you know, money has to come from somewhere, >> but the capital projects have have really really hurt over the past year. >> Um, okay. So, are we we're all in consensus with the 5%. Mr. Bbeck, >> I'm okay with that. >> Okay. And I like that we're not playing a game that it's, you know, like we're not asking for 7.5 and then thinking that we'll get five. I like that. I think that >> I like that. >> I think we have all the direction from you all that we need to draft the budget for adoption on the 23rd and we
063will not have a state budget by then. So the best thing that could happen is if we actually know the health insurance Thank you. Okay. So, there's no other business, right? So, I will adjourn the meeting. >> You all stay here because we're going to reopen. >> We have to reopen. Oh yeah, that for sure. I will now call to order the special meeting for February 9th, 2026. >> I move to approve the agenda as presented. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? I. All opposed. >> I move to convene to convene a close session to discuss personnel matters including appointments, resignations, and discipline pursuant to code of Virginia 2.2-3711 A1. The estimated time required for the closed session is 45 minutes and action is expected. >> Is there a second?
064>> Thank you, Mr. Wilson. All in favor? >> All opposed? Okay. Sarah motion to uh reconvene into open session. >> I move to reconvene into open session. >> Is it second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. All opposed. >> Okay. I >> I and um is there a motion regarding personnel? I move that we follow the recommendation of administrative administration regarding the personnel matters. >> Second. >> Um all in favor? >> I. All opposed. >> Okay. And is there a motion regarding the personnel agenda? >> I I move to approve the personnel agenda as presented. Second. >> All in favor? I >> all opposed. >> Okay, I'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you guys.