Stafford School Board 4 17 2025

001Okay. Uh, all in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Um, first item for discussion is a melan elementary school redistricting potential scenarios. What are my messages? Good evening. Hello. Hi there. Here tonight to present scenario one and scenario purple. And then we'll go over the next steps and the process. Didn't you have scenario line presented last week? Uh yes, I'm going to get into made one change to it. Yes, I'm going to get into that. So you can see the original scenario line on the left. And then there's the scenario line with this superscript which was the change made back last week by the school board. On the right hand side, if you look at that box on the right hand side, that red box, that identifies two planning units, planning unit 157 and 157.2 that were

002assigned back to Conway Elementary. Uh, initially they were assigned to Berry Farm and one of those planning units is a park so they have no students. The other has a few a few students. Um, did we talk? So I believe I know that as Randall said at the meeting at our last meeting that transportation was okay with that but just for the record that's you know on everything else we've said that that was okay. Yes, transportation had a chance to look at it. They said it was fine. Okay. They actually said they preferred it. Okay. So there's no significant change to the demographics or the capacity utilization at either school with the new line. Uh in terms of so uh with regard to seating space at our existing schools is the same where we have

003zero schools over 100% capacity as the other scenarios uh out in uh 20 20 in 2030 there'll be three schools slated to be above 100% capacity. And then the schools in the outlining areas, Falmouth, Garrisonville, Grafton Village, Rockville, are all slated to be 82% utilized or higher. With regard to ES18 and 19, they're both slated to open in the low 90% utilization. Uh, with regards to their free and reduced lunch, they'll be around 50 51% for both ES18 and 19. ELLL is slightly higher. ES19 at 24% whereas ES18 is slated to be 17% and both have uh sped uh population estimated to be 15% when the school opens in 2026. Okay. So what we have here is a chart that shows all of the scenarios that have been uh developed and of course all these

004scenarios have been developed with community input and schoolboard uh feedback as well. So if we look at I just focus on scenario one and then uh scenario line with the uh superscript one up uh next to it. That's the latest scenario. So we if you take a look at Conway and if you take a look at Ferry Farm in 2026, you see it's a very insignificant change. It goes from 79% to 81% and vice versa. So it's a 2% flip-flop uh with with this with this change. And then uh we go out um to 2028, the same thing same thing plays out in 2030 where both schools are slated to be at like 86% capacity. So they both fair as balanced. All right. All right. So you want to go down to the demographics. Yes,

005that's fine. Thank you. So looking at the demographics again, it's very insignificant changes like one 2% nothing. Um it's going to make a significant change out of your school. All right. Scroll down. I don't know why. Okay. And then for those of you interested in the raw numbers, I've just added the raw numbers. I'll just so that you can see for each school the projected number of students. And those of you interested in doing the math yourself at home, you have the ability to do that. All right. And then as well we've added the projected demographics, just the raw numbers. So in all transparency, you have all the data that the staff has access to to create these numbers. So you can verify them yourselves if you'd like to. Okay. With regard to the reassignment

006plan, um in 2026, it's pretty much the same as scenario line. The only difference being Conway and Ferry Farm is they shift the 15 students. Um so now Conway is at 770 707 students. That's the projection for 2026. And Ferry Farm is projected to be 561 students. And then you can see where the students are coming from. Uh below the green highlighted areas, those show you the descending schools. All right. All right. So could you could I ask a question real quick? Could you go back? So like for example, Winding Creek, I know that the portion of this scenario are students that so original redistricting there were students that were currently at Winding Creek that were assigned to either Stafford L or 19. Are these students that are actually in Staffordell right now or are

007these students that in scenario green were in Stafford? Do you know what I mean? Like Winding Creek and they are staying at Winding Creek. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Those 34 that are So those 34 that are Stafford L, they're moving from Stafford L to Wining Creek. So they're currently in Stafford today. It's not like we moved them one place and we're moving them another place or back. These are all from today to the new school. I just wanted to make sure we haven't moved anybody into Stafford for years because it's been overcrowded for years, right? And these kids are coming from Stafford, but I wasn't sure if it was Yeah, we're away from the line comparisons or anything else at this point. Okay. All right. So, now we have scenario purple. And

008so, if you look on the left hand side of the screen, you see our current boundaries. And you look on the right side can of the screen you see scenario purple and you're able to see sort of the changes very high level there. All right. So our transportation department they took a look at uh scenario purple and there are some similarities because of course in the current boundaries there's an island scenario the same thing stays in place. So there aren't any significant changes with regard to that in terms of any uh uh changes changes to any inefficiencies or anything like that. So it's pretty much no significant change. Uh some of the key highlights to scenario purple, zero schools over 100% capacity just like all the other scenarios. Le school is slated to be over

009100% in 2030 just like all the other scenarios. In this scenario, however, Rocky Run is slated to be 72% full in 2030 and all that has to do with which students are being reassigned. Um, with regard to ES18, it opens at 82% utilization uh and will remain below 90% capacity through 2030. Um, of course, ESAT is going to help relieve crowding once will help relieve alleviate uh future growth from the Westlake development. Uh, and it will also relieve others crowding in the southern part of the county. With regards to demographics, stream reduces lunch. ELLL and sped are very similar uh for ES18 with all the other scenarios. Same thing with ES19. Very similar. No significant changes. All right. All right. So now we have the raw number of students here showing you by scenario. So

010we see for example in ES18 at ES18 we have bear with me what is that is that 9 98 9878 and 878. So this, you know, subtle change at ES18 and you can see how that plays out for all 19 schools by year starting with 2026 all the way out to 2030. And here we have the raw number of students in terms of the demographics for each school. All right. All right. Thank you. So here we are the reassignment plan for scenario purple. It shows you the number of students and where they're coming from. All right. So did you have any questions about the reassignment plan or the I can't find the percentages of her purple. Am I missing it? I can see the numbers clearly, but what's up? Oh, okay. Right. But you mean

011population? Yeah. Percentage. I can see the numbers, but I just want to see the percentages. Are they not inclusive? You'd have to pull out a calculator. Well, no. You know what? Assuming I know. Is there a button we can push on this one that we can get percentages? Yes, we will share. Let me see something. Let's go back. Let's see. I think they were in the bulletin. Yeah, yeah, I thought so, too. I know. I saw them. Yes, it is in the bulletin and um that is an attachment. I apologize. No, no stress. Um with numbers. I just was What does transportation say about that? I mean, I know I saw that. Did they have a preference? Susan said they had a preference in the line amended. Yeah, they like line. They thought it was

012just as close. Um with this one, no significant um change um than what's currently in Right. but it's what is preferred is I mean we created that island. Yeah. I didn't get a because Conway had the room and there was no room on Rocky Run. I mean that that it wasn't ideal, but that was the only place to to to move the students that there was room. So guess my question is why would we do a redistricting and in in essence since we started with the clean slate create an island that and that's a board question that we can talk about. I I I'm curious in terms of transportation whether transportation weighed in on the changes to Rocky Run's boundary. So in scenario lime, there are a bunch of kids who have to be transported

013across 17. Whereas in scenario purple, those kids don't get transported across 17. How did they not get to transport? So take a look at you see you see how it's in scenario lime, Rocky Run. Well, this is lime. Yeah. Show So show purple. Can we put lime on one side and and purple on the other side so we can look at them? Okay. because in person it looks like the 17 is just the north side of 17. Right. Right. And so I would I would imagine that for transportation not having to cross 17 to take elementary school kids would be preferred for that. I don't know where they would be in other parts. So it's harder to cross 17 than to go down 17 to cross route one and then go I'm just saying I'm

014just saying I'm just pointing out that there is that difference. Does that make sense? Yeah. and and we didn't address it specifically with them um during this round, but in the previous rounds when we talked about that, that was an area and they said, "Hey, we you know, we prefer them to go to Rocky Run, but realize we have to balance everything." Um and so some of those students, it's not a designated walking area, but some of them still still can walk um because it's it's disconnected from the neighborhood. You have to by car you have to go around, but they can cut through woods to get there. So, some of them still do that. Um, but they won't they won't be walking across 17 to get to right they will not be but that's

015just so they pointed that out during their initial review of our because multiple scenarios had them similar to line were you talking about just crossing 70 I know it's I'm trying to fix because I go up so here so this red dot is ES18 and this is Rocky Run so these students right now go to Rocky Run. Um, but now they'll have to take a bus or car across Route 17 and go down Stafford Plaza Drive to get to ES18. Correct. Okay. So, the other thing is is once we finish the rebuild of Hartwood, all these schools down here are going to have to be redistricted. So, maybe it would be best to be least disruptive there in this redistricting because I don't want to move students a couple times. We don't know when we're

016going to get rebuild and we don't know how many seats we're actually going to have depending on the growth that comes in. That would be my concern. You know, we're not adding it's not like adding a new school with 1,00 plus seats. Hartwood was just approved, right? So, we are on the CIP things on the CIP before, right? I have approved that I have board I have supervisors saying to me maybe Drew will open an FY28. It depends on steel prices and aluminum and all of that. So it's just like I'm not pass I'm literally not passing any judgment but so we could literally have a half built school sitting around because of I mean oh my god I think it'll depend on the bid I think once they start once they start building the

017we'll have to finish because we'll sign a contract but the issue is when we're going to start and that's because if you look at the CIP over the years we've had you know buildings high school six has been on the CIP for a long long time. I remember the last land election took a long time for that one though approval to do. Well, it wasn't just election, it was the negotiation. And so I think I think that's a difference between lime and purple is if if all this crowding and I don't know whether it'll happen. I don't Westlake hasn't even started yet. So I don't know if that's a real concern or not. But the purple plan leaves room in ES18 and in um Hartwood and Rocky Run should we need to move students into

018there or if we lose a school like Hartwood as a catastrophic failure or if Rising Star is a catastrophic failure, we now have some room in South Carver County to move some students. I just I'm I guess I'm a little curious because when we last left, everyone other than everyone was fine with lime except for the 10 students that I asked for. That was the only upset part. And the comment made was that's fine. I'm going to go in and put a scenario that doesn't include that was your words. No, no, that included other people who wanted to stay at Conway. what you said it doesn't include that is what you said in in the meeting but in any case she said I'm I'm talking but any case um this scenario has 374 of George

019Washington students right put into a scenario and once again just like when lime was created everyone is called and talked to by the two of you and this time again everyone is talked to except for me and I I guess I'm just curious as to when you went in to do purple, what was your thought? So my thoughts were when those areas were moved into Conway in the last big redistricting, there was a lot of concern about students from Old Forge being moved out of Rocky Run into Conway. What I'm concerned about is that we're going to do the same thing again. that we're going to move them into Rocky Run and then we're gonna have something go wrong in terms of out in the western end of the county and suddenly we're going to

020move them back into Conway to make room in Rocky Run to take kids from um Hartwood at that point. And so I'd rather move them once than twice, but that may that may not happen. I mean I don't know. And and let me just say I will totally defer to you on this because these are your constituents, right? Thank you. Yeah. But I guess I'm um I don't know that was that a problem. Was that a problem that we are really concerned with not making it until the opening date? Because in our discussions, we never talked about, oh, let's, you know, uh, make sure that we have an option because if that's the case, I mean, we got to make sure the same thing for Drew. Do we need to redistrict and, you know, make

021room in whatever buildings for Drew? I mean, I just don't know that that's what our one of our goals was to do. I definitely hear what you're saying. I definitely feel it. I mean, go into Drew, go into Hartwood, it's concerning. Um, I just, you know, we kind of shunned away from that when we did the high school redistricting because we didn't want the originally Mr. White had put extraordinary numbers at Brookpoint in the outlying years, extraordinary numbers at North, and we were like, ah, but those schools are probably not the ones who can handle it. um and that bringing on a new high school anyways, if we have to make the shifts, we make the shift. And high school's a little bit different because of the fact that we have these um learning specialty

022centers, you know, so kids may not even go to their districted ones and elementary obviously they will go to theirs, but I just didn't I I totally see what you're saying. I hear what you're saying about consideration of Heartwood. I just didn't feel like we as a board had commented or Well, I think that's the conversation now, right? Yeah. But just after a public hearing, I just feel like it's, you know, kind of hard to have it come out now after public hearing to say this is a consideration in case hardwood doesn't make it. Okay. Well, the systems also changed too because now we have we have tariffs that may affect steel imports. We have one they're on pause, right? Okay. So, we But no, my point is right now the county is concerned about

023funding. Um we don't know what the federal government's going to do. We don't Things could change. There's a lot of things. So, we can also have our glass half full at this point as well. It's a choice that we have to make. We can either choose to look at every situation as the sky is falling or we can start to have to look at the things that we have a job to do regardless of what happens and that job needs to get done. For me, the problem with purple is that it is an extreme change, not just a small one. It's a very extreme change to families that came out like didn't have it like once again we're not giving them a chance to react to something that's incredibly huge. Now, most of my constituents,

024small part of my constituents are affected. So I have two questions. One, are the folks that came and asked to stay in Conway still in Conway and purple? Yes, there's one. Was there more than just confused? Old forge. No, what was it? How many students are in reprehenic landing? A couple hundred. A couple hundred. So one person came from that subdivision and asked to stay. Did we get did anybody get anything from anybody else in Repanic Landing? I don't recall seeing anything but I think I think No, I just wanted to clarify in terms of I think the issue I have is No, no, I'm just asking for the folks the one community that Susan was worried about. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to clarify because my brain has a very hard time trying to

025figure out what the numbers are with the colors, with the changes, with the whatever. I'm not, you know, all that adept at it. So, so the folks the 10 folks or whatever 15 folks that Susan asked to stay in Conway in purple are they in Conway? Yep. Okay, that's one question. The second question is why is the Felmouth Elementary School so big after of course that's how it presents on the map, right? Like currently it's almost that footprint though. Okay. So, but no, right. Okay. Okay. But I thought we were trying to also decompress Felmouth because the age of that fil that's rather and it still it still is because that little bit of light blue there number of children. Okay. So that's I mean sitting at um elementary school 18 elementary 18 this is

026Oh thank you. Okay. And you people hand me more stuff that's gonna confuse me. I'm sorry. Um, okay. So, I just want to go on record about hardwood is also saying, of course, I'm the one most concerned about, not I mean, we're all concerned, but we also have a thousand trailers that we paid for that at the B. I mean, I hate to say it, but we've already asked what would happen if we had to put up a campus of trailers, which given it's not I know it's not optimal, and don't kill me for saying it out loud, but I've already said it out loud before you got here. But at the end of the day, that's also something. I just want to see us making reasonable decisions, not based on whether I did as

027I finance I asked to look at it. She actually said that a couple years ago and we didn't have any then. That's correct. So, but anyway, my point is is that I want to make the right decision, not a decision based on what may because we can sit here all day and do what if, what if, what if, if this, if that, and then I can go home and I can be underwater thinking we're never going to fix this or I have the option to sit here and say this is what works better. So now I know how to look at it, right? And so so one of the concerns for me too is this is what you want. Yeah, I'm going to look at it now. Look at this bottom where it says how

028to read this chart. No, I know how to read it. No, but no, it tells you how many students are. Yeah. The other thing is I see people are actually listening. Hold on. Hold on. Let me answer. I'm sorry. That's okay. So my concern is this Old Forge neighborhood which is incredibly vulnerable and they don't show up partly because they may not have a vehicle to drive here. They may not have a computer to and it's a transient neighborhood and it's a transient neighborhood and I can remember at the last redistricting going into the neighborhood talking to people they were like yes we want to stay where we were but they're not going to come here and tell us that they want to stay right. So I think arguing that it has to do with

029how many people talk to us all the time um may underestimate for some neighborhoods versus other neighbors. I was talking about repenting right which is not the same. So so so and let me let me continue. So my concern is just absolutely if we want a plan that that we want to go with lime, what I would beg of this board is that if things, you know, if we have to do the hauling sewer and shut down Hartwood and put those kids somewhere else, that we aren't going to move Old Forge again, that we're going to say Old Forge gets to stay at Rocky Run and Hartwood can go to Margaret Brent or Hartwood can go into ES18, but we're not going to push those kids again out of that school. We can move them

030if we That's my concern. We can't commit another board. I know we can't promise. But for clarification, so I thought Old Forge wanted to stay at Conway. They do they're at Rock. Have they communicated? And I I get that there's not a lot of communicators there, but why are we saying that they want to stay? Susan, they're your constituents, right? Yes. Have they Have you had any contact with Old Forge about wanting to stay? I have not reached into I walked through Old Forge since I ran. I went in there then um and to deliver Thanksgiving meals, but no, that's not the conversation. I don't disagree with what Dr. Chase is saying about move and then move. It is a vulnerable population and what have you. But I will also say similar to what I

031told the families that were talking to me and considering it's only 10 kids, it's almost all the families. But um the thing that was I I made sure was clear is the principal is leaving. There's a big redistricting and teachers may leave also go, you know, either to go to 18 or 19, whatever. um there's just going to be some shifting. So it's not going to look like same old same old Conway. Is this still what you want? And the answer was yes. So I mean cuz in the beginning I was like h I don't know. I don't know. And you did a lot of shifting in that first meeting with me and then I know you and Dr. ownership did people in your own meeting but that was in a different section and then

032you know you done purple um and you know in all scenarios it doesn't look the same so as it is as that the school they want to go to. So I like I said I wouldn't advocate for them without having made that comment with them and then they still said yes and that's why I advocated for them. you and I have had the conversation. I am not, as we've witnessed, not a fan of dominoing kids for space. Um, I did, you know, I know we've talked about moving kids from yours, Alissa, from Hartwood to Brent before. It's not Miss Holstead's favorite move, but, you know, in an emergency situation, we do have room um up at Brent and, you know, it could be that Yeah, all of those are, you know, just based on the

033neighborhoods that are around. Let's remember we will hear from many many parents about the dangerous roads to get from Hartwood to Brent. Yep. Oh yes. We won't hear Okay. But but this is all hypothetical. I mean the question is do we want to open 18 at 82% and have it under have it at 90% in a key. You know my concern with that and create an island. But my concern with that is and we we've told people this about Monure the newer schools are better equipped to handle you know a higher number of students and and Felmouth and Conway well Felmouth's we that's really old but Conway is getting old so you know that that our second newest elementary school now it's been a long It was built in 2005. Well, 20 years old that's

034I mean it's maybe mid late 2006 maybe. But that's that's a real question I think we're looking at. But I go back to transportation and I only know from when I drive. I don't drive a bus. But if I'm coming from 17 where Old Forge is, it seems to me that it would be a lot quicker to go from Old Forge to Rocky Run. Yes, you do have to go across 17, but then you're you're not going that far as opposed to and this was one of the issues when we did move them down to Conway, this long commute, you know, it's it's a much longer commute and the problem is it's harder for families to get to the school and that that's why we didn't want to move them. Nobody wanted to move Old

035Fort Conway, but there wasn't anywhere else to put and I think for me that was the problem is if Hartwood was not able to be funded in this budget, I might have a very different opinion. I know that we still have a lot of up in the air, but it is funded and when you think about we just funded FY26, so it's really like only two years that we have to try to get it like that gap, right? like after the redistricting but before the school is supposed to open. Um, and I I will add that uh typical protocol is once we're to the point where we're spending money on design um and construction. This board of supervisors does not move projects out. So, we're at that point now. We already have $3 million appropriated

036next year for Hartwood where we're moving into the design phase. So, we have our prototype and now we're designing it for that proper piece. I I just had, like I said, a supervisor question Drew, and we're much further along with Drew than we are with Hartwood. So, I just But yes, I that's terrifying. Anyway, I I just also wanted to say all day, too, you know. Yeah. I I just wanted to say for that that moving the modulars is an option except that that is comes at a huge price since we're not moving them. We're not building. We have buildings with space. All we have to do is move students. That's all. So, I don't I don't think I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do think that I'm not comfortable with opening

037Rocky Run at 72%. Don't kill me and staying at it across the board because, you know, it's a big if and then, you know, that's that would probably be one of my biggest issues is is is that piece of it. Um, so the purple has moved like and I know these guys were out in one of the other scenarios and then in again on 18 or whatever. And how many are there? Isn't that a couple hundred? I think so. Right. I think it was a couple at the top of that area. Is 878. So So I mean I don't know. I'm not I'm just not a fan of the way it Well, it's certainly stuff to think about consider. We're not we're not deciding today. No, no, no. Well, we have to decide what No,

038but I mean I guess this is comment on you. We want to cut some back then. I think we're at six now. We have red, orange, yellow, green lime. Yeah, but lime is 10 students different from green. I mean, that's the minimum. I was going to say one is 10 students from one I I guess what's throwing me off is I mean I think from the beginning of this conversation this whole section confused me anyway just because of how Fmouth kind of looks like it cuts into it it's really hard to visualize this of course again it's like geography right like it looks like our schools are right next door to each other and I guess in theory they are but it is really hard to be like, well, why don't all these kids go

039to Conway and all these kids go to Felmouth and then no, nobody's on an island. But then, right, it just has to do with where the kids are, right? And the numbers, right? That's the problem. But that so so looking at the maps then can get very like very confusing that way. But um Gotcha. I'm just not I mean I'm just going on record of saying I'm not comfortable with 72% across the board at Rocky Run. Am I reading this right on page 20? The red boxes are the ones that reassign in purple. So all of these Yes. Yeah. So that's a that's a pretty significant purple change. Oh, good. These these are all reassigned. Right. Right. A lot of work. Wow. What work you've done? I mean really all for these crazy ladies that

040can't get it. I'm sorry. me. It's just me. I'm only speaking. It's not the recipe. It's totally me. Wait. What's reassigned in purple from from from previous from green or from green? Okay. Cuz I was going to say but it looks like current. I mean they're currently going to a lot of them are currently going to that school. It's just leaving them at that school. Okay. They're currently like in the current not in the current line. Right. Yeah. Yeah. because I'm like, but it looks exactly the same. But yes, those are the ones that are record. Every time I look at this map, I am shocked at how much of our county lies outside of our urban services area. Yeah. Yeah. Like all of Rock Hill Elementary Schools attendance zone. Well, I mean, and that

041was Can you go further once? We Oh, but but we have um St. George's that you can walk through the woods in the back to to Rock Hill. No, I'm just saying that, you know, when you think about when, you know, Miss Hall said these schools look like they're super close to each other and it's like we can't go we're constrained by public utilities. So it it's but it's always visible to me on these maps. I I will say and I'm and I'm going back a bit. Um when I served on first couple years on the CIP advisory as a parent and they tasked us with where are the students going to go? That was our task. Where are the students going to go when the five elementary schools were renovated because they were all

042supposed to be renovated, right? And then make a decision because Hartwood is right at after them. So, wherever the five went, then Hartwood was going to go. And originally, they told us to comment on a trailer campus on the back of where Rising Star is. They told us they were going to build a trailer campus there, but we were trying to take care of Stafford Elementary, Monure, Falmouth, Grafton, and Ferry Farm, and then Hartwood. So it wasn't really going to work for the northern schools. So we tried to come up with something central and they were going to build a they were actually talking about closing down R putting them in there. They tal and then what we found was Stafford Middle School was half empty. And so we were able to occupy half of

043Stafford Middle with trailers fenced in in a semibuilt playground. So we cohabitated an elementary school in Stafford Middle School while Falmouth Grafton and Stafford were renovated. But just so you just for context, the whole trailer campus, we didn't have any was came then to us as an option for when schools needed to go offline for a full year of renovations. But they had a two gyms at Stafford Middle. So that they did and the way that they could split their cafeteria made it work as well. And and they and they did have they had two art rooms, too. They had two art rooms. It worked out good for the students at Stepher Middle. The principles said it did go very well for them. But then the supervisor said they're rebuilding Monier, rebuilding Ferry Farm, of

044which they did one and not the other. We have any other topics, concerns with redistricting? Is our goal tonight to decide how many we're going to move forward with or we can just to talk about it. Do we want to go with part of the conversation? Can we agree we're not going to have any new scenarios though? I mean, I think new that's a thing we have to agree on. And I I think we can eliminate one of the lime ones. That's me. So, right. Mhm. Um, in I was going to say in in talking to board members prior to our last board meeting, um, red was one that people were interested in getting rid of or at least willing to, you know, that they weren't using it. They weren't going to use it. And

045yellow, orange was still talked about. Um, green slashlime. I think you could just I think we probably could get rid of green and lime and just have line one or whatever the the second line is. Can we Well, I was just going to share I think our approach and and I know L is showing line and line and line one here. Our approach is just that is just the new line. We voted on that change that is just we just want to show that for comparison purposes today. So, we didn't intend to have two lines. you made a vote to clearly put those into line. So, our plan was just have line moving forward with that one change. I think that we've all stopped tinkering or considerations of red, orange, and yellow. Um because I

046think we did our overlay of changes in green. More subsequent ones were done with lime and then a completely different uh direction with purple. But I think red, orange, and yellow are not in our Well, you were the one of the ones that was interested in orange. I thought orange as a place to start for fairy farm, but then that's where green came from. Listen, I'm not doing red, orange, or yellow. Gville district doesn't want any of that. I'm getting flashbacks, but I'm with you. I don't I can do away with those three. I I think we've kind of amended red, orange, and yellow to the point where now they've been supplanted by a green Does that have to be a vote or can we just agree to not go forward with those Saturday? I

047I don't know. I mean, do we have to actually vote? Can we just pull the board? Yeah, I can ask Miss Boight for clarification, but it's my understanding if there's consensus to or direction for us to not to bring those scenarios forward, then we can do that because then what happens is we have to notify all those families. So, I want to make sure is that miss right? Is that right? Just some consensus from the board and direction. So I would I would pull the board though just so it's clear that because if anybody wants to bring them back on bringing them back I would vote not to but I don't want to Okay. So we're going to talk about I'm going to pull everybody on eliminating our red orange and yellow all three. Uh

048Dr. Warner. Yes. Dr. Chase. Yes. Sky. Yes. Yes. And yes for me. So we'll get rid of those. Um, those are Lionel's creations. But we I think that we better every time the conversation you gave us a jumping point though. That's good. And then green, lime, and purple. And it's very on brand. This is on brand for us. Consistent, if not inconsistent. It's a little off. We haven't hit like 12 or 13 areas. We're not getting a little behind. Lime was like a tweaked to green. So they didn't want so we heard about live we're like why not blue green because it was just we were just trying to pull students out of ES19 because it was opening at 95% is there is there interest in keeping green now since we have lines is there

049or is that one that could be eliminated from I mostly your students. Well, that's exactly it. My question would be how are you with that? For these newest scenarios, I worry about allowing those families to have as much like as many calendar days for feedback as the red, orange, yellow people have. Um, we'll never get there because those were the very beginning. But purple is still fairly new. It was spring break, you know. Well, really, so like to put it up and have people and then take it back. And the same thing with the tweaked line with um um your constituents, Maya, like the end of the day, they're not really moving, but maybe they really wanted to. And I don't know if you've had the opportunity to. I've definitely been trying to engage with

050people. I haven't heard a lot of push back, but also everyone knew that it was need so I say leave the rest of them, okay? So that way people can engage with us. I can put out social media blasts. This is your opportunity. Final call. These are these are the final options. Now is the time if you haven't to engage with us. Right. Right. And also I definitely need to find out from Lionel or um sorry Mr. White, Dr. Smith. Um forgot we're at work. Um where is the um transportation feedback like the rankings or the information? I know you have shared it but I just don't have I don't know it where it is right here and I I do want to assess everything that's left with the gaze of how it is going

051to affect transportation because we haven't officially heard from transportation story is that what I remember they've looked at it and there and then the distance between Old Forge and Conway is 5.3 miles and the distance from Old Forge to Rocky Run is 4.3 right and and it's like pick your poison You're going to go under 95 and deal with that traffic or you're going to go cross route one. I mean, traffic is pretty hideous going either way in for that area. Absolutely. Agree. But yeah, I think a green leaving green in place because that was mostly affected ES19 or green to line. Yep. And Miss Scott, just to clarify, we did have transportation look at them all and they did they did say they're all doable. They're all workable. We did not have we had

052them just review in terms of does it work? Is there any significant challenges? We did not have them rank order them in terms of their preferences. So, and can we put on Well, I would like to know what their preference is. I do I do want to know what their preference is because that's going to have weight on which way I go. It doesn't mean it's the way I'm going to go, but if I vote to do something the opposite of what they want, I'm going to have a damn good reason why. It's a it's like a tiebreaker for me. Yeah, that's why I'm thinking too long. You want you want them to rank green, lime, and purple or just you rank for high school, but I think they definitely did pros and cons of

053each scenario if they're not necessarily comfortable. I'm not actually I'm not comfortable with ranking either because I think I mean a I think it's an unfair position to put them in because it's asking them, do you know what I mean? I I think if they're comfortable with it or if they can if they can see pros and cons, I don't want to put them on a ranking system and then and then disregard the ranks. Not green and lime are so close. What's the difference between system and a pro and a con and then disregard it? You just disregarded staff's everything anyway. So what's what's the difference? If you're not comfortable with it, don't look at the information. I need it. I want it and I'm asking for it. So let us work with transportation. We'll

054get some feedback around it and happy to bring it back and let's share it with everybody at the same time just so there's no surprises or somebody gets the Friday. Okay. Missy has sandwiches and stuff out there and I would like to take just a quick break to the restroom and stuff so we can do our you know five minutes. So thank you We're not going to be ready to have that conversation tonight given where the state budget is is, but we wanted to just give you an update uh based on where we are right now with uh the scenarios from the county funding. We'll give you a couple of scenarios from state funding and then uh kind of go in a little more detail on each of those uh really four scenarios and what

055that could look like in terms of budget. We are waiting on uh the governor to approve the budget. He has until May 2nd. So we'll talk a little bit about that and try to highlight for you what we see as best and worst case scenario really just at a high level in terms of what we think we would be looking at. Obviously you would be adopting the budget, but we'll share with you at a high level what we think some of the recommendations or considerations would be in the best and worst case scenario. We'll talk a little bit about the CIP. We were really pleased with where the CIP uh landed on Tuesday. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. Want to touch on uh one-time funds and where that's sitting. Um and

056then we'll wrap up by talking about um there is a provision in the governor's budget that does talk about FY25, so our current fiscal year, and providing a bonus. And so that is something that's out there that's still waiting on the governor's um the governor's adoption within the budget. So, we'll talk a little bit about that and our thoughts on what that could look like just so that's on your radar. And then finally, a recommended timeline for the budget. We'd like to share with you. Obviously, tonight we're not here for reconciliation based on where we are. Uh we did have a special called meeting scheduled for Tuesday. We're recommending that we not have that meeting based on where we are. So, we're going to share with you a recommended timeline for uh for the budget

057meetings moving forward and what that could look like. So, with that for the details, I'll turn things over to Mr. All right. Uh, thank you, Dr. Smith. So, um, as you mentioned, we're going to start with a high level overview of of where we're at as far as county, um, local funding. So, in your schoolboard, um, approved budget, we had, um, a 5 million increase factored in based on the county administrator's budget. Um, that was included in the final adopted budget from the county. Um, additionally, they advertise for a public hearing to increase the meals tax um with the intention of providing those additional funds to the schools um with the intention of those um going towards staff raises. So, it gives us an opportunity to align um our overall increases to staff with what

058the county is proposing as their overall increases with staff. And we'll get into that um a little bit. So 5 million um budgeted uh plus an additional 3.1 million budgeted with the meals tax bring us to a total increase of 8.1. That public hearing is on May 20th and then the action would be that same evening after uh the public hearing. A question about the meals tax. Yes ma'am. With the the addition that 3.1 is a presumed number, correct? Correct. And so we think we have it and then because it doesn't go if it go if it how when would it go into effect? Um if it went into effect I believe their intention is for it to go into effect July one. The 3.1 is an annual number right. So which is why I

059assume it's July one. Okay. I have the same because it's such a late date but but I think that's the intention. Okay. But they stated that that 3.1 but when will we receive it? Mhm. If it goes in effect July 1, the next year, you know, when would we get the end of that? It wouldn't it be after the end of the fiscal? So, it would be included in our overall county transfer. So, just the way we function now is as we spend money um and it exceeds what we're receiving from the state each month. We basically um true up with the county and we do a county transfer. Um it's all the same bank account, so it's really just a paper trail of moving the funds. What I'm thinking of is next June we're

060part of that 3.1 is through June 30th of next year. Correct. Right. And on it doesn't end next June 30th. It would be continuing. But but the the 3.1 is is July 1st to June 30th. Yes, ma'am. That's what they anticipate coming in. So what come and and that's paid the month after. I mean I think restaurants pay it whatever the month after. So in practice, the meals tax for the month of June, which we would be spending in the 3.1, would not be collected by the county until after the end of the fiscal year. That doesn't affect us. Um just but but they don't know what they're collecting. Oh, similar to sales tax. Like so that's why sometimes our state our sales tax for FY24 is one of the reasons we have a large

061carryover. Our sales tax number came in higher. Um and so it went up sometimes typically down. Yeah, correct. In fact, we thought it was going to go down during the year and then it actually ended up going up and above. I just don't want to spend money that Dr. Chase is always talking about. We don't want to wear that orange jumpsuit. Y So like like all of our re you know the county will do um midyear updates, quarterly updates. So if the meals tax is drastically trailing behind, we're not going to it's not going to be a June and July issue. We're going to start to see that trend. Well, they guarantee us 3.1. So, that's my but that's what you said. They're going to give us 3.1 in the county transfer, right? So, right

062now 100% of the meals tax goes to the schools. Now, there's never been a situation where they said, "Hey, we didn't meet our seals meals tax number." And then they short us. I'm just concerned about budgeting and spending 3.1 that may or may not happen. It may be 4.1, but it could I think the point is like for us it's guaranteed. They're actually that was my question because for them they are taking the risk but are we going to they're taking the risk and the rest right? But that was going to be my next question is if for some reason it ends up being 2.5 are we they going to expect us to credit but at the same time if it goes to four do we get that as well like do we get to

063pay and no problem if they guarantee 3.1 I I will say like any of our funds I don't know if they can guarantee 100% they appropriate 95% of the total transfer to the schools in the school budget. So, um, they always have the authority to not release that last 5%. In my time here, they've always released that. Right now, in their policies, we already get 100% of the meals tax. And the years that it goes above I thought they changed that in April. This past April or April 24th, I thought that changed. Um, my understanding is it's we get 100% of the meals tax and in the years that the meals tax revenue has exceeded budget, they put that into our capital reserve fund. That's where I'll carry over. Has it ever been lower? It's

064never been lower. Um, for people who are just starting to listen and pay attention, um, explain what the mills tax is, like what tax stats are. They're asking all my questions. I'm just going to check them all. Thanks. Um, yeah. So, not my expertise, but just generally speaking. So, I know you know. What's that? I said I know you know. So, right now, right? Yeah. My my budget's getting a lot tighter with 1% increase. Um, so right now it's a a 5% meals tax. They're looking at our surrounding localities of what are charged on that like fast food meals and and other kind of ready to eat platters from grocery stores. Uh, and we're we're behind Spennsylvania, Fright City. I'm not sure about Prince William. And I even think with this increase, we'll still be

065maybe behind. So it's nice. That's what I would wanted you to say for people that don't know what the meals tax. Why didn't you just say that? Um, because I wanted it to come from an official. People could listen to them better than you. I'm You are an official. That's right. My bad. So, we're going from 5% to 6% on the meal tax. That's that's what they're advertising. And that's any prepared food in Stanford County that you purchase, right? Which puts us closer with um surrounding localities. M. It's time to expand Restaurant Week. I mean, yeah, I think so. Well, now we just hope people will want to go and pay an extra 1% on their food. Right. So down the drain as well. Assuming this passes in in May after the public hearing, we

066are completely secure in Yes. including that 3.1 in our funds that we are budgeting for next year. That that's if you say yes, I'm okay. That is my understanding. Yes. Well, let's can we double on that? Yeah. because because we don't want to be in a situation where halfway through the year we find out that we have to cut a million and a half dollars out of our budget. Right. So, and I'll reiterate what Chris said. We we monitor our our revenue stream month by month. And so, this would be just like everything else we're monitoring along the way. If we feel like, hey, things aren't coming in or if that's the case, like just with the state, we start to take a look at that. So, we do monitor it all of it along

067the way. Sure. We don't want to go into it spending it and then have to personnel in the middle of the school year. Absolutely. I mean, so the question really then on the table, Chris, is that we're we're going to verify that like, you know, um I've got my we're your agent and we're telling you to make sure that we don't ink a deal that doesn't guarantee us money whether we play or not, right? Like that's the bottom line because because we're going to play with this money and so if you're not going to guarantee it then that's that's our that's our risk and that falls back on us and I'm not comfortable with that either because you know I get it. It's all in good faith, right? Like you're going to do this 1%

068and I and I appreciate it. That's not the point. I just want to make sure that we're gonna we're going to target specific things with the idea that we have 8.1, not that we have five. Correct. Correct. So, I just want to make sure that it is a guaranteed 3.1 and hopefully it is four. But I'm sorry, I have another question. I know you're on slide one, but just just the nature of the beast. Um, yeah, but the public hearing is on May 20th. will have issued contracts before then. Am I or am I wrong? I'm asking I'm guessing loud. So that's a So and if it doesn't pass like if people say I don't want to pay extra mills tax and this doesn't go through then what is our you know because that's an

069option too. Correct. Then we're at the five. Okay. So we go ahead. I'm sorry. I got it. And we'll get into several different scenarios here in just a moment, but I'll I'll give the high level state budget scenario. Not much has changed in the last few weeks where nothing has changed. We're still waiting on on the governor. We basically have there's three different scenarios, but it really only is two scenarios. when it comes to the to the dollars. Um if the um governor accepts the general assembly's budget or does not act between now and May 2nd, we will go um to the general assembly's budget that was included in your schoolboard approved budget that had the overall increase of $18.9 million. Um our worst case scenario is is that he vetos that general assembly budget

070and we go back to last year's second year of the bienium budget. Um that would means we we mean we would only see an increase of $6.1 million. Um and we'll get into that um as well, but that's a $12.7 million reduction over what you had in your schoolboard approved budget, which still had a large funding gap. Um so we have four scenarios, but the I'm going to kind of just show you I've got the red box just kind of outlining scenario I'm going to talk through each time and we're going to work down and then I'll go to the next one and work through the next scenario. So our first scenario, our worst case scenario, which means the meals tax doesn't pass. We don't get that additional 3.1 million and the bienium budget is

071what we fall back to. So we see that big reduction um from your schoolboard approved budget, which only had the $5 million from the county transfer assumed. Um we have that $12.7 million reduction, which means our funding gap now is at $31 million, which is which is what we see here. That's our adjusted funding gap. Um, however, below, and this is not an assumption of what you want to do, but this is just giving you some context of where we would land. If we remove all discretionary compensation, which is really the items that we identified as discretionary in the budget, um, and we give the 1% to get from our one and a half up to the two and a half, um, we would still have a funding gap of about $16.5 million. We're using

072two and a half because that's what the county is doing for their employees. They're doing 2.75 which we can target that as well. This was just a starting place two and a half. I wanted to put out there why we The reason we're showing two and a half is because we need to do an average of two and a half to maintain our scale integrity. Okay. We're going to have um we're going to take some major steps backwards in our scales. If we can't move progress people up a step and I will say in our initial look at this and you'll get to that when we talk about the last scenario here, uh it would still require us to make some cuts to get there. we felt like we could probably get there. Getting to

0732.75 is going to take several more cuts. And so that's just our initial look since Tuesday and trying to plan for this. So that's the other reason we started. And I've mentioned to Dr. Smith and I want to mention this for next year. If we have to give a certain salary increase to get state money, could we please not call that non-discretionary? Yeah, it's a great point. something we just kind of overlooked because we put the compensation adjustments in the bottom, but it was a requirement to get the state funding. We're actually the state funding 100% paid for that one and a half%. Right. Because we're going to like I we're going to we're going to give that whatever raise we're required to by the state. We're going to have to give the money back

074if we don't. Correct. So, it shouldn't be non-discretionary. It should be I mean it shouldn't be discretionary. It should be non-discretionary. Yeah. And just like I share with you too, we never we did not think at that point we were going to get down to the one point. I think we thought we were going to be much higher than that and so but point well taken and and we will do that and hopefully we will be I mean hopefully the worst case is not going to be that we deal with jumping to our second worst scenario um would be still the bianium budget but we get the additional meals tax money of $3.1 million. Um so you'll you see that there but we're up to $475 million of total revenue. That would bring our funding

075gap to about 27.9 million. and then uh backing out everything except the two and a half% would get us down to $13.4 million funding gap. So still very far off from balancing the budget. Third scenario, which is um we get the general assembly budget um that was budgeted in the schoolboard's approved budget, but we don't get the $3.1 million. So this is like our second um best scenario we could see um occurring means and and you'll see this number is going to look familiar. 18.3 that was your funding gap in your schoolboard approved budget. Um and then reducing all of our salary scales down to only seeing an increase of a 2.5% means we have a $3.8 million funding gap. And then our best case scenario right now as far as funding would be that

076we get the general assembly's budget and we get the additional $3.1 million in the meals tax as discussed by the board of supervisors. That brings your schoolboard adjusted funding gap down to $15.2 million and then our funding gap with the 2 and a.5% compensation increase um is down to just under $700,000 and some of these are rounded. So, but that's very close to what our funding gap would be. So, can we just clarify because the school board's budget we're way off of that, right? Correct. I mean, so, so be clear on what you're talking about for people listening because if people are thinking that we're going to have the money for adjusting the base by $1,000 and that we're going to be able to get to is it phase three of the support cap, you

077know, so so can we clarify what we're talking about here for the Yeah, I've been trying to. So, this here is our schoolboard adjusted funding gap. So, with everything in the in the schoolboard's budget, we'd still be at a 15.2 million. And then reducing all the compensation adjustments out gets us down to a $700,000 gap. Okay. So, basically, we're just maintaining the integrity of our salary scale. We're doing this. We're doing the superintendent budget. We're not doing school. I was just going to say we're not doing yours. We're not doing anything. We're not doing anything. We don't have a state budget and we are just discussing. No, no, but those numbers reflect those numbers don't even reflect Dr. Smith. I'm just just want to make sure we're millions of dollars shy of what you even

078Wait, that was the best case scenario? Definitely the best case scenario and that's as we see it now. I know he's going to talk a little bit more in the next slide, but I I just put a little bit more around this is once we get the state budget, they will release a new calc tool for us and we'll run the numbers again. So they give us a count tool tool. That's what we go off of. But once the state releases a budget, once the state finals a budget, hopefully make, you know, no later than May 2nd, we will have that count tool and we'll bring it back to Hopefully it'll be correct. Yes, that'll be nice, too. Remember, they have $2 million one way. Could have been $2 million the other way. They've had

079a lot of time to prove it. It should be any chance they have four million. I mean, never mind. That would I don't even know what the number would be to give us. Just call him up and ask him for that 15 million. just say, "Hey, we could use just a, you know, we wanted to at least start the conversation so that you could help provide some guidance to us." Um, I want to preface that with these are just potential recommendations um from the superintendent that him and I have talked about. Uh, but really we need your input on on what we would have to do. But we wanted to start talking about if we are faced with that worst case scenario um we are looking at some pretty drastic adjustments to the school board's

080um approved budget obviously but then even above that going backwards in some of our other areas for instance we would um have to explore increasing class sizes again uh we did that in FY25 to help balance the budget so in our 26 budget we would we would look at that um most likely only looking at that one and a half% compensation um adjustment because that is uh is funded by the by the state. Um we're already doing 5 to 7 and a half% insurance um adjustments premiums for uh our employees. So we would potentially have to look at increasing that again to help offset costs. And then uh just a couple of other options. Um cleaning standards. So we could we could ask our custodial staff to basically clean less or staff less. um uh

081and and try to work with not having that impact the school day. But we could save money that way. We would have to reduce our We have a contract that we are under that we can't just Yeah, we have a contract, but we And does it say modify it at will? Well, we always have a um non-appropriation clause and so we have adjustments in our contracts where we could revisitation. could also from board of supervisors, but if we don't have the if we don't have the funds to pay it, they give us a lump sum. I mean, we're making choices. I just want to make sure that we know what our options are with respect to that contract before we start talking about making contractual changes. Yes, ma'am. And we already have our maintenance procurement

082team are already kind of knee deep in it looking at it in case we're faced with our kind of worst case scenario. And I'll have our legal team team of one. Absolutely. I work with procurement. Yes. Very closely. Um we would have to look at how much we offer for tuition assistant. We have we have caps on it each year, but we might have to lower that cap and then just overall program offerings. Uh without getting into specifics, but we would kind of take a look at everything. Essentially everything would be on the table. That's kind of so including sports. So when we're looking when we're looking at the best case scenario and you have 2 and a.5% to 2.75%. So in the budget that you brought to us at one point you had 3%

083to maintain give everybody their 3% step but everybody above 16 years only got one and a half%. What are we talking about here? Are we talking about flat across for everybody or are we talking about maintaining a scale and people at the higher end would get one and a half? Yeah, it's a great question because earlier I mentioned average of 2 and a.5%. So, we need an average of two and a half% to do a step adjustment. So, we have some people at the bottom of the scale making less. So, it's not dollar amounts aren't as big, but those are still 3% differentials on today's scale. Um, as you get to your 16 and above, those are only one and a half percent adjustments on the license scale. It's different on the service scale because

084it varies. I just don't I just don't want people who are listening thinking, "Okay, I'm going to get this," but then they don't actually get it. Y So, I just wanted to clarify. So, that's an average. So, when we look at this two and a half to two and three/4ers, it's it's an average. And and back to once again, I I do want to point out this is for discussion. Obviously, we need school board's input in that and and you guys will have the final say there, but we just we wanted to bring forward kind of what we are facing as we move forward over the next couple of weeks. So, with with the best case, we're still $15 million difference, right? No, your original budget from our from our original budget. Oh, yeah. And

085a lot of that is because, you know, we're we added phase four of the salary scale. We added adjusting the base. We added the support support staff. So basically it cuts everything that we added. And we are we are treading water with the um salary scale is basically what we're doing. We're actually not because it's adding the two and a half%. I know it to you it's treading water. To me it's moving forward or at least staying in place because there were many many years and where people got no step at all. We did nothing. And then eventually we did away with the steps because people would say, "Well, I'm five steps behind." Well, you know, you remind me of Malcolm X when you say that because and not that this is about race or

086politics or anything, but the idea he said something I'm going to mess it up. But he was like, "If you have a knife in my back and it's in two inches and you pull it out one, that's not progress." And that's how I feel. This is not progress. Also, when we think about the superintendent's original budget and he presented it to people and people were pretty pissed off, they weren't as kindly, you know, they didn't ingratiate themselves to that budget. They were like, "We need more money to go to staff. We want you to be more aggressive." And we were. We absolutely listened in that moment. So we just need to understand that this is not going to feel like progress to anyone even though the numbers might say that it is because you know

087there were no step increases I don't like that's that's in the past for healthare it's in conjunction with and inflation you know so so yeah so as a standalone it's bad enough right even in the best case scenario but then if you look at our worst or Even if even if there I mean I guess we don't get to fall anywhere in between these two really it is but but program offerings I think like I I I heard everybody come out the other night and I I watched all everybody give their comments or whatever and so it's really nice to talk about cutting budgets and programs and stuff like that as a way I get it to be fiscally responsible but we're talking about the impact that it's going to have and and we talk

088about our teachers and staff but on our kids. So for me the biggest pain point here is taking away any access that these kids have to anything sports because some of these kids are relying on those scholarships and they will be literally poised in this moment in time as a last like our juniors this is their last option to get sorry I don't know why my oh um this is their last chance to get that that scholarship or that whatever and we are literally talking about getting into this because and I get it. We can have the conversation about tax increases all day long. Nobody wants them. Nobody asks for them. It's it's a conversation that makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall. But at the end of the day, this

089is this is the impact of that. The best cutting options for our kids. This is the governor's the governor, right? But but this is still but this still comes as well sort of. No, if the governor does if the governor vetos it, then we're in the worst case. Correct. We are. still $15 million behind which we didn't ask for the seed. The best case scenario is we asked our local government. So like I agree 2 and a half% is less than our staff wants, needs or deserves. Right? For me and I'm a glass half full kind of person, right? For me, the biggest step as far in the term in terms of progress that we made with this budget and this year is that the county recognized that both sets of employees should get the

090same percentage because throughout the evening um and I was there for all of it, they were talking about well last year they got 8% or last year they got 6% and I'm like wow like 8% 6%. So, and we talked about a lot, so maybe my memor is not great. They had one of their bud priorities was to do a section of their what they call a market pay adjustment, right? And they took that off. Correct. On the county side. And is it still in? Yes. So, they're doing their market pay adjustment. So, they're interesting, right? I mean, you know, as I reminded you a little less happy right now, but somebody which is, you know, this history that they did in one year an adjustment for the entire I'm not safety put them on

091a scale and we had to do it over five years and here we are which we gave them which which we gave them and now and now we're not doing year four right so and we're not doing the service we gave them everything they knew what our budget needs were going to be it's not like we've kept this a secret we have been very clear in a 5-year budget what we were trying to do and we were trying to be respectful of the fact that we have 5,400 employees and all of them deserve the raises that we're asking for and 71% of them are residents in Stafford County. So, and now we're raising their field tax. And this is why when you talk about taking away programs and access to kids, if we go with

092the worst case scenario, we have to juxtaposition that with paying employees a livable wage. You know, those kids have to eat too because they live with the employees as well. And so, so yes, I need a scholarship. And I say this as a mother who's had three kids that got scholarships. Okay? So that's I appreciate the scholarships my kids got and those three kids have graduated. That being said, I still got to pay mortgage, got a car note, you know, totally I don't know what the best of what to do. It's it's theoretical to stand up there and in your mind, right, when you're when you're talking about things, theoretically, if it goes up this much, then I might be out that much or whatever, but this is the hardcore reality of that, right? So,

093now you're going to be out college tuition or now you might your kid might be out the opportunity because we can't afford to provide that program for them. Or what if we have to start charging for sports? Well, but what if we got the money for that? What if we just don't even have any teachers? Well, that would if we just don't have any teachers. I mean, I hear about all this other stuff, right? But the fact is, if I don't have a qualified teacher in the classroom, you're not going to have the skills to get any dog on scholarship for me, you know, and Iris to the north are given a six and a half% raise. I hear you. I mean, clearly I agree with you. We did with the No, I didn't. I

094wasn't dismissing the impact on staff. I'm emphasizing what this had this the granularity of this. And the other, you know, side of that is you have people saying, well, stop paying for the extras. Stop cutting the extra, you know, stop we don't need all these extras. We have to tighten our belts. When we talk about what that means as far as class size, like for me, extra is anything above SOQ's, which are local priorities because those are decisions we can make and that these board like either the seven of us and everybody before us decided where the Virginia SOQ's was below what Stafford County wanted. And then they these boards our boards have decided to invest in where they want to put you know the extras and it's to keep class sizes not at 35

095for that we're going to cut extras. They need to know what that means and it means 35 fourth graders in a classroom. It also means there's no nurse in the building. Yes. That's not an FOQ. and itinerant counselors because isn't the counselor number you know below maybe we need to share schools are we allowed to we don't have to have that's right I forgot we don't nurses are not in position it means deans of students it means special ed chairs like all these things that make our kids' lives easier which makes our staff's lives e lives easier those are say easier honestly it's better that's it's not even easier it's just better because I mean we all don't can you know easy is something you can do without better is something we need can we

096can we hear about the CIP now goodness I'm I'm the usually the pessimist but I don't think we're going to be in the worst case so I don't either but I don't either but I also think you know me and my expectation manager I agree I do agree with you but but I'm an expectation manager all right so um moving over to the capital improvement plan. Uh it does have better alignment this year with the school board's request. So we made some progress there. Uh starting with our major capital projects. Um so this isn't a surprise, but the continuation of high school 6, 18, and 19. Um we had an amended budget for the Drew Middle School rebuild, which included land and some of the off-site costs that was approved at the full amount. Um

097uh and some major progress. they moved up the opening date of Hardwood Elementary School. So it would open in August of 2028 um the same year that we would open the Drew Middle School rebuild. So that did move up a a um several years in the county cip from last year to this year. Uh the North Stafford fine arts wing uh was part of the um CIP this year with a completion date in August of 2028. Um, and then if you recall, we moved some of our major mechanical work actually to the large capital CIP uh instead of our 3R list and the um Ronnie Thompson critical systems major mechanical work um was funded. So these are like projects that will all start pulling out pulling money um this next year whether it's design or

098some of the actual construction costs. Uh another area made great progress. I'm going to give a little history real quick on 3R. We're usually in that six, seven, maybe eight million dollar range of recurring dollars. Last year or this current year that we're in in the FY25 budget, they did allocate one-time money uh to give a kind of infuse um our 3R funding and that got us up to about 14.5 million. Now we're up to 17 million that's a combination of cash and debt finance. So it is not one-time money. Could look at that as recurring. And that's part of their CIP that each year and that was an approach that we took this year was look we know we can't ask for 20 25 million if we can just get to 17 which is

099a little bit more than we got last year and then each year let's start to gradually increase that number up to something sustainable. Uh and I I do appreciate that the board of supervisors has improved their funding on that because that's a huge thing because so often we were triaging so many projects off the list because we just didn't get the funds. So, I appreciate that, too, but let's not act like, you know, unfortunately the issue that happened at Rodney Thompson and us being very vocal and honest to the public about it is the reason why we're getting what we're getting. Well, that my thought my you know I wanted to say on the record Denim is here but CIP advisory committee has done a really great job at breaking down this like highly technical

100kind of boring unless you're mechanically inclined conversations and making them you know digestible and understandable and how and relatable you know to that families understand like this is what's going on and you know you just hear major mechanical blah blah blah and it's like gibberish and you're like oh so Well, the water bladder can, you know, we could have this is what this means. Um, and I think that that is definitely a key part of honestly even the board of super helping the board of supervisors understand what we're talking about, right? That it's not just acronyms and whatever. Yes, they should just believe us when we tell them we need money, right? Like um for maintenance. They don't have to understand like the actual nuts and bolts of what's being fixed, but um we all

101understand scheduled maintenance, right? We got our oil changed and our tires rotated. But but I don't know that the board of supervisors fully understood that for us to replace an HVAC system in a school might cost an order of magnitude more than for you to change an HVAC system in your house and 100%. And I think that the CIP has been very effective at kind of differentiating kudos to the school board and our parents and advisory groups for the advocacy because Oh yeah. The citizens budget is the Stafford High School concession restrooms. I I saw the meeting. I know what that's about, but is that included in the 17 million or is that because I know part of it was in 27 or 28 27 it was within ours. Yes. And now they're using all

102their funds. They're using proper money from money. Yeah. They're supplementing with their funds so that we can start that work this year as far as the design um and get that rolling. So, we're going to we're working on the specifics of what that timeline looks like and then how we can allocate that additional funding uh to get that work done as quickly as possible. All right. Any other questions on on Oh, and I did just so you could see a comparison. Um, you do have like just a one pager that shows all of your your projects compared to when the county approved them um as an opening date. Uh, so um I know some of them they all they all line up and they're not all funded, but that doesn't like discredit the amount of

103like effort and work and improvement in the CIP. What's not even shown on here is the the movement we made on our three R list as well. Okay, I'm really excited. All right. Um, shifting a a little bit. So, this was still a FY25 going into FY26. We knew we needed to kind of bridge the gap. We didn't have enough money in our our operating fund to do some of our annual cyclical replacement that we've talked about for um actually several months and we had proposed using our FY24 carryover funds to do some of that work. Uh specifically um doing some Chromebook and teacher classroom equipment uh for a total of $3.1 million. We also had identified the purchase of our Blackjack warehouse space at a cost of $2.9 million. Uh and that was using

104FY24 uh one-time money that was carryover money from schools that we did not spend in 24. Uh and just taking a chance to to remind everybody a lot of that was because of shifts in state revenue. So state was telling us our revenue was going down on our couch tool midy year um and the at the end. So we started cutting back spending to make sure we didn't go over budget. Uh we ended up getting excess sales tax even over the original budget. So we saw, you know, three $4 million swing that we couldn't control and so that's moved over into some carriers. So you're just trying to make it clear that that wasn't money we could have put in salary that we chose not to. It was money we didn't have. It was. Yes.

105It was not over budgeting. Um it wasn't, you know, we don't have a bunch of money we can cut from our budget because we had $6 million. Nor should it be money that we should give back, which was mentioned as well. we should not give that money back because it's not like we knew that was going to happen and I just want to make that clear. Correct. So, um, two timelines shown on here and I'll I'll explain why. Um, we've already talked to you guys have taken action on the Blackjack Road property and it was contingent upon a lot of stuff falling in place there. Um, we've talked to the county staff and shared information with the county and board of supervisors. Um, our plan is next week there's a board of supervisors work session.

106We would uh be there to answer any questions on the Blackjack Road property and how we would use those funds to purchase the property, how we use the property now, and then follow up at the May 6th meeting where they would take action on that. Well, they could go either way, right? Like if they approve the blackjack, then we get it, we spend the money. If they don't then, but can we also go on the record as explaining like this is like we are currently leasing this building at a rental like at the leasing rate or whatever it is,000 $125,000 for the year and and requests or questions have been asked of us and why we haven't looked to lease another property instead of buying this one. And so, you know, we're looking for complete

107transparency. And I fear that the message will get out there that we're being fiscally irresponsible by not leasing instead of the reality, which is current leasing rates are exponentially higher than they used to be when we got this building. And at the end of the day, we own nothing. It's also going to cost us additional money to retrofit another warehouse to the space that we have when we are already actively living in the in this particular land piece. So, so however this turns out, the decision on this from my perspective, and everybody can correct me if I'm wrong, is that it's like my mom used to say, don't what are you renting for? It's taking a match to your money. You have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. This is

108a property that has a tenant on it. This is a property that over time will c will save us so much money exponentially and has the potential for us to collocate some things in the future with the county. So, there are like 15 winning variables on this and and I've tried to point that out, but I want to take a chance now to point that out, too. That$125,000 that we would save and lease would instantly actually cut into this $700,000 funding gap that we have. There you go. Right. In our best case scenario, and it will help in any of our other scenarios as well. And I know that um you know the feedback I've heard from you know when I hear other people like board of supervisors or even in the public you know

109why not just take that money and use it towards salaries and we talk about that's onetime money. Um why you know why are you going to buy another building when you can't maintain the ones you have? Well we're building four. So like we are like we can't make decisions in that that way like we would essentially have 125,000 available um if it were appropriated to us for that type of maintenance. That being said, we've asked for maintenance money yearover-year. Um so we can't I mean we can't operate in a world where we can't do what we need to do because of what might happen in the future. I feel like we just had this conversation with redistricting, but well, what I'm what I'm looking for is when when we had the discussion here about the

110um the capital purchase and one of the supervisors was very much um had lots of opinions and ideas and um but it's a constant narrative from the same individuals of have you looked here? Have you done like you guys, you know, already brought us the the information and the slide deck of when you guys went and looked at other properties. So, can you send that to them so that they don't have to ask us the same dang question and waste our time and waste your time again? If that is sent, it is wasteful. It's wasteful when we have the information and we've already done it to tell us to do it again. I'd like to see you look at that again. Well, I'd like to see you pay for us to look at that again.

111You know, it's it's it's ridiculous. And I don't I mean I'm not expecting you to have my energy when you go there, but I would love to give them this information beforehand is all I'm saying. So that cuz it if it's an honest question, which I don't believe it is any longer, but if it is an honest question, then you know, let's give them that information yet. We've already looked at it. So here it is again and look at the numbers. This is the way forward. You know, that's all I'm asking. And we've continued to work even after that joint schools working committee. We've had um some discussions with county staff about how they can use part of the uh building space too. Um once we own it, we can do we can put in

112some racking systems in there that lets us actually have more efficient use of the space which will free up some space for the county staff to use. But do we want to do that? Is that the decision that we want to do that building with that extra space? We have needs as well that that space needs to be used for us. I mean, and if we decide that we want to use it for withstat but county, that's fantastic. But when I visited it this morning with supervisors or this afternoon, one of the things they commented on was they don't have a classroom for some of their stuff. So, could they sometimes use that classroom? I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with shared services where it makes sense, right? And I don't think we

113should shut that down as you know, right? I don't think anyone said that. What I said is we need to make that decision. That shouldn't be um a decision maker because one of them said it. We should make that decision because we have needs. Our needs are competing with theirs. Like when my kids want to buy like I get my one kid a new hoodie and her, you know, the sister takes it, right? Like I mean you just said we're building poor so it's not like we can't use that extra space if that tenant moves. I'm not saying I don't want to do that. I'm just saying don't change. We should not allow them to change the narrative of why we need this building. That's all. That is a potential and that's a positive, but

114it's also not a negative if we decide we actually need that entire building. That's it. I I just want to say that we just leased Blackjack Road property when we first came on the board because it's very easy for a company that leases a building to decide that they're going to do something else with it and then we're stuck with the responsibility of finding a new location, moving re retrofitting it, moving everything out of it, and then usually paying more money. So, for example, we're going from $125,000 a year to $210,000 a year. We still don't own it. We still have to retrofit it. And we have to spend money to move everything that's in it out of it. And it's just it's not coste effective. And we have the reserve funds. But I have

115no problem with sharing the space if it's a it's if it's viable for us, if we decide that. But um I just think that uh one of the things I pointed out was we have some um some peak times and some lower times based on when we have major furniture orders or or or other orders coming in and then we image computers and then ship them back out. And so we have there might be a period where we have a bay free and if they have high peak times where they need to pull stuff in and store it there while we have that low time, we're completely open to that and willing to work with. All right. Can we hear about the bonus payment? Okay. Can I can I just If the way we can

116get this is to agree that we will share it to the extent it's feasible to maintain our operations, I say go for it because this is a one-time opportunity to buy this pearl property. If we don't buy it and the and the landlord is going to sell it, somebody else is going to come in. we're gonna have to move at the end of our lease and then we will lose the I don't disagree but that'll still be our decision if if that's the that's all I'm saying this window is closed some point we got to like actually it's not like we can say we'll decide next year if that landlord and I have no idea who the landlord is but if they you know intend to sell it they're going to sell it and it's

117a pretty good market for you know warehouse space right now because it brings in revenue and you there's there's a demand for it. So, I I would hope that that the supervisors will keep an open mind. But when I was listening the other night, they asked you, Mr. Palmer, well, if you don't buy blackjack, if we don't approve blackjack, do you have other things to spend the money on? And of course, you said, "Yes, we have a so so they, you know, for the for them, you know, they recognize it's our money. It's just we have to get their authorization to to buy the project. Again, significantly impacting the conversation about fiscal responsibility is this one. So, I don't know why you wouldn't approve the purchase of this property with that money recognizing that we

118are being as fiscally responsible as we can because the cost savings over time is hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not $10,000, not whatever, it is hundreds of thousands of dollars. So for me, that has now been stated out loud. And I'd like to see some common sense variables put on paper in a pie chart so that we can also present that because it gets a little frustrating when we walk back from common sense, which everybody knows, you know. Anyway, that's it. I'm I'm already in trouble. I do want to touch on um because as we brought the budget and talked about using the onetime money for um our other Chromebook and technology purchases uh and classroom technology um we haven't had a formal vote on that. So we don't feel it's right to go

119and ask the board of supervisors for that. So we want to come back on May 13th um and go ahead and make a a decision by the school board for us to move forward with that request. And then we would immediately send that over. We'll let the county know that it's coming so we can move that forward as quickly as possible on the counties. When that comes forward to us, can you show us the, you know, where that 3.1 fits in the total plan? You know, what we need and what we're going to do next. I mean, clearly we're doing this because we have the funding, but I'm sure there's other needs. And, you know, is this, you know, a significant portion of it or is it, you know, when when it when is it?

120I think that would be helpful for me to know. I'm not where where is it going not approve it but I want to know what's what's what's what are we looking at in terms of sure finishing and we can show that in terms of the the the Chromebooks at the you know the different levels and what that's looking at there is part of the pieces around it's going to it helps out with some teacher desktops we have some desktops that actually are running Windows 10 and so that's no longer being supported by uh Microsoft as of October and so we have to otherwise those computers won't work anymore and so part of that money is to replace some of those but we can explain explain all that to you. I'm less concerned about what you're

121buying here because I trust that this is what we need. But what else do we need that's not being funded here? I want to put that in perspective. I'm okay with this. But there's got to be more information about this. So yeah, I do as well. I do as well. We'll bring that. Can I ask a question about the Blackjack property? Have we done like a full like a home inspection facility? Yep. We did a facility study on it and it came back and said it was do we we don't have like an impending roof in like in next year or something. So there's they recommend some things on the roof. Nothing like immediate need to replace the whole roof. It's more of like hey so we're working with the seller right now as far

122as making sure it's got the proper roof coating and stuff but overall it actually came back with a really high facility condition index on All right. So, also tied to the state um budget is part of the general assembly is they approved bonuses and FY25. So, using one-time money um what they funded was $8,000 for SOQ funded positions with no local match. Uh however, they also realized that divisions have more than just the SOQ positions. So, they gave the ability to adjust the dollar amount so that you could extend that um bonus to um all of your employees. What that comes to in Stafford, it's about $3.4 million that we're getting that we can use for our employees. Um and what we've typically done is if we have contracted employees, so not hourly employees, but

123if we have full-time and part-time contracted or part-time, we'd get 50% or their proportionate share if they're 75. So, in this instance, what we can afford looking at all of our current FTEES with that 3.4 million is to do $700 for a full-time contracted employee and then 350 for the part. Again, this is tied to the governor's what he has to decide by May 2nd, so it's not guaranteed. And so, we did just want to share this with you because this is a possibility. He doesn't govern it. He doesn't if it's Yep. It's part of the general assembly budget. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, if he gave it to me, he either signs it or doesn't veto it. Yes. Now, it's unclear to me about whether this is severable. Sometimes they have the severability where they

124can break apart different pieces. I'm unclear whether this could be he could do one thing on one one piece of the budget and then separate up this. But, um, this is this is included. This is FY25. Technically FY25. I think it's kind of broken out separately from that 26. So, we're going to have to see how it all shakes out. Well, we just want to let you know because this could I mean this could be May 2nd, right? That we know about this and we could be ready to to move on this. And so we'll bring that. So when we see it at the meeting, don't be surprised. Yep. If we don't see it at the meeting, well, we know. And then just know we're targeting the if you look at the language from the

125state, it says a June 1st distribution date. Um when you dig into that and talk to people at the state, they've extended that where you can go into the fall unless something changes with with the governor. Um so it doesn't have to be by June 1st. We'd be really tight timelines. Then uh what we're currently projecting is that we can take it to uh get schoolboard approval in May. And then we still have to get appropriation by the board of supervisors whether it ends up in 25 or 26 budgets. We'll have to get appropriations. So if we have a teacher who leaves, they might not get the the bud the bonus and if we have a brand new teacher they might get the bonus. Is that would that happen? So whoever we would look at

126it as whoever is contracted with us at the time we'll have a cut off date. Um so that might be June 15th when All right. whoever's contracted, they've signed a contract, they're returning. Uh we know after June 15th that if they've signed a contract, they're locked in with us and they can't then move to another school division. So it could be a brand new teacher who hasn't been here will get a bonus and it could be that somebody who was here all year and left will not get the bonus. Right. So if they have not left, yes. Typically in the past what we've done is um and this is this is flexible. we either they haven't started with us, if their start date hasn't been effective yet, then they would not receive it. Okay? And

127then the person leaving because their contract goes through June 30th, they would still get it. So my do as of date, he says no. As of the date we approve it. So I I will come to you if this is the if this is the case, I will come to you with a recommendation on this. Um in terms of the distribution date, the amount in terms of what that look like. I will tell you right now, I would recommend that we use it more as a retention bonus for somebody that is going is with us and is remaining with us. And so we look at that as a as a benefit of you are a Stafford Schools employee and you're coming back next year for us to do that. That's that would be my initial

128recommendation if you were to ask me today, but should this be approved, I'll definitely we'll definitely bring that back. Wait, so that was $750 for part time. Wait, per person? That's the That's the bonus. Yeah. Before taxes, it was actually thousand, but it was only for SOQ. We're But we are allowed to give it to all, which would make it 750 or 3700. I saw a five in there. Yes. 350. 350. 350 for part time, 700 for It's still so It's better than nothing. It's a bonus. It's a bonus. Okay. Malcolm quote to go with that. I do, but that one I will not say out loud on camera. Yes. So, kind of wrapping it up and just looking at a timeline, the the top kind of box there is just looking at the operating

129budget. So, we have our work session tonight as Dr. Smith mentioned. Um proposing that we do not hold a special called meeting. We are not ready to adopt a budget next week. Um and then knowing that the governor will act on May 2nd, we would then hold a work session on May 8th. I won't be here. All right. My son is graduating. I will be in Colorado. Congratulations. It's my kid's birthday, but I will be here. Well, this is just a We were just looking at dates. So, like this delayed out. Okay. If the governor approves tomorrow, maybe we revise this. Um and then so we would come back at the May 13th meeting to adopt the budget. um if we know at that on if we know at May 8th where we're heading with

130kind of employee pay, we can get everything kind of ramped up and ready to go. So after that 13th, we can roll contracts out very quickly after that. Um realizing that the end of May is end of school and and a lot of our our 10-month employees will be out of the building after that. Uh but want to point out Monday that that 13th and 16th is before that Neil's tax public hearing on May 20th. If we wait until May 20th and then act after that, we're really looking at pushing our budget adoption and getting contracts out late May, early June even potentially. Um, so I just don't have time. I think what I was going to share also is, you know, Friday is May 2nd. Once we get that and we we may not

131know up until May 2nd whether it's going to be worst case or best case, right? So we do need a little bit of time. That's why we built in the Thursday. We need a little bit of time to put things together to be able to ready to bring it to you right for that. So that's why we picked the Thursday. But again, we're flexible. I mean, we need you. No, you need you have to be there. So that's that that was just our rationale in terms of picking that. and you already had a board meeting scheduled on the third, but you've pretty much done the work on both of them, right? It's not like you're going to start the work on May 3rd. Um on which which one of these best or worst? Um everything

132dollars. We won't have a calcul. But when will you get the calc tool? That's that's the calc tool could be weeks after the governor signs. But the good news is is it's gonna if it's the bianium budget, we have last year's capital that's really gonna be closed, but we'll have less money. I know or if he goes back to the general assembly budget. Um unless there's some adjustments to that, it's going to be really close to the capital that was released for the general assembly from our legislative team. I' I've talked to each member of our legislative team to let them know the the consequences of kind of each of these situations and ask them to ask the governor to go ahead and sign with the budget week. So, I mean, just for some of

133our folks, I did I have heard something actually. What have you heard? They said, "You guys need to tell certain other people to call the governor cuz they're on the same team. They need to play nice." That's what they told when I when I checked in with them. They said, "Don't come to us. We already gave y'all a good budget." So, that's my question, which is, is there a way to So, who calls the governor? the people, us parents. I think you can call anybody who lives here can call the governor's office and say, "Sign the damn budget." Right. Before we wrap up, I actually have a budget question that I'm kind of embarrassed. I didn't think about um So, I have gone through this year with a little tiny bit less stress in my

134heart because we had that um emergency funds for emergency repairs and stuff. Contingency. Yes. that they put into an account for us at the last budget. Um, I have not heard conversation about that existing moving forward. I don't know if there's a plan for them to allow us to continue to operate in that way even if there isn't a separate like kind of piggy bank for it. Um, so if it isn't something that has been talked about on their side um already, then I feel like like I don't I would love to know um kind of where we are and how much we spent just because not I mean that's the thing with emergencies you can't predict them or how big they're going to be or how little they're going to be but to kind

135of get a sense of store we use that money. Yeah, we use so I can share the county administrator county administrator and I have had several conversations about that. I told him about how helpful it was and beneficial to us as I think it was beneficial to them as well. Uh that in terms of that um and he agreed and we talked through that. We did talk about that's a kind of a separate process because it came out of their endofear funds in terms of some of that. Um and so we've had conversations around that but also shared that was a separate process. We wanted to get through the budget first and then come back to that. So I'll continue to to have conversation with him about that and talk more about how we can

136How much last year? last year it was it was put in with the whole package because they came up with that. Um but also we've always I mean at least in our budget we we've had our own capital reserve fund that's held on their in their fund balance. Last year was the first year they set aside a significant amount of funds and said let us just set aside come to us if you need it. So obviously they, you know, their year-end funds, they don't need to like reappropriate back to themselves, but maybe they do. Like do their account could they could because they're who they are and their board is, can that money just sit there in perpetuity or do they have to like roll it back in and then redistribute it out? Do you

137know what I mean? Like we would have to give back funds back to So they could take that money. Okay. Um, when it comes to our schoolboard work session on the 8th after we know what you know the governor's deadline, my my only question or I'm just asking that um we maybe make our work session as early as we can make it and we have to stay until we're done. Uh because I think you know potentially it can be very contentious with us you know um not that we're not nice people you know what I'm saying that we are partnership appreciation that night from 5 to 6 the partner oh I didn't realize I have it on my calendar I have my calendar in front of me that might be the one and we didn't

138pull Dr. We didn't pull the board. This was really I know. I'm just saying as we're discussing availability, I just said all the board members can be here. Dr. Chase is being You're gone the 6th through the 10th through what the 11th 11th Mother's Day 11th or 12th. Mother's Day. We're driving back. So maybe we get the 11th. Maybe we get the 11th Sunday. Sunday. No. Oh yeah, it is. So the 12th will be Tuesday. 12th will be Monday. I just don't know what time I'll get back. I don't know. That's a lot. That's a big conversation to have before the 13 is a big conversation to get done. 24 hours cycle stuff. Yeah, I lost. I did that from Yeah. Chicago and Florida and San Francisco. So the ETH is not happening, right? Is

139that is that what my I'm just saying if we have something from 5 to 6. So if Dr. Chase isn't available that day, just Yeah, but I I'm just just marking it as that we committed ourselves publicly. Well, I mean, could we could we meet on the 13th and then adopt on the Wednesday? So I mean the other problem with that, but why would we to meet earlier and be optimistic and and meet and talk about if the best case scenario is approved, this is where we're going to go because I if it's not the best case, we're going to need a whole lot more than a long marathon session. But I mean that's is that a possibility? We're just waiting for it. We could meet earlier before May 2nd or before Yeah. before and

140like we could meet Tuesday, April 22nd and talk about the best case scenario, right? If if if we have the best because it's either going to be the best or the worst, right? I know, but at the end of the day, that's to me that's very confusing. That's a lot of ifs for the public to have to handle. That's a lot of hypotheticals and I don't think that's fairly. We need an answer first. Otherwise, we just do like our just move our regular meeting to the 20th so that we can do all the work that we need to do on the 13th because they want to get the contract. So, we have talked about having a meeting this that the 20th is when they're talk they're talking about the meals tax. Like, do we want

141to meet at the same time they're doing that? No. Uh, we could do that Monday. Talk about the hypothetical. We can do that Monday the 19th. It's still a hypothetical, but the 3.1 million is is not going to make or break the budget. It's a huge It's a big difference between the five I mean, and the 8.1 though. I would say let's assume it and then if we have to amend it, we do that. Okay. We want to assume one thing, but we'll assume a little arbitrary. No, I'm not the tax. We can meet on Friday. Yeah. I'm in Boston. When When does he have to pull the plug? Right. I'm in I'm I'm on I'm I'm in Boston. When? Oh, you are. May. We can agree not to meet on Tuesday, we can we

142like Marin said, if you'd like us to pull the board, we can do that uh for other dates or however. Yeah, I think that if we do something the 13th and then the 19th, we can work on the 13th. We are in agreement. We're not going to meet this coming Tuesday, the 22nd. And we're not meeting on the So, everybody take it off your calendar. And not the 8th. did not we'll change the eth won't put the eth on there. So we're not doing really anything after that you know yeah we'll wait for any other any other board meeting. So are we going to get any background information about you know a dollar figure with things you know that what are our choices going to kind of like a menu you know you this is

143what this is how much you have and how much is actually discretionary and maybe none I mean what do we have to cut if it's what we have to cut then we have to know what are the discretionary things that we've approved because I don't want to come in here and just start looking at a list and and saying, "hm, you know, right, with seven of us doing that, I can't imagine we're going to redistricting all in one night." The way that that I was envisioning is that once we get a number, I'll come we're going to develop a recommendation to share with you. We we'll be offering to meet one-on-one 2 by two to talk through some of those and then if you have other ideas that things you'd like us to bring you'd

144like us to cross out, be happy to do that, but we'll bring everything that we have in terms of that. that week between the 2nd and the 8th to do that and then by the we should be able to we met on the 12th we should actually be able to pull it together Monday the 12th she's not guaranteed to be here oh that's right it really does need to be seven I want the recommendation but I also want to know what's the cost the recommendation by cost as well as what's not in there by cost in case we want to substitute items. Yes. And I just think there's there's a lot of things and so I don't know that we're going to be able to provide everything, but if there's things that you have, but

145how do I how can I evaluate a recommendation if I don't know what's not there? You know what I mean? And in terms of I I just think the cut the cuts could be so significant. Um I mean there's things, you know, I'm talking about the best case. You're talking about best case. Oh, if you're talking about best case, the worst case, we're going to need a lot more than one day. Start at 4:00 that day, right? I think. Yeah. I was thinking you were talking about worst case. Can we start the 13th at 4:00? Can we just start earlier and then have that and then just move the work the work session on it. You know what? I think the 13th is too late to wait. But I I obviously we have to because

146we all have to be here. But would it maybe facilitate us going quicker if we could do one-on- ons with you or two on twos come in and so that way you know me and you like we we got the same information we understand and we could maybe go quicker on the 13th. Yep. Mr. Bulmer could both be there and we'll do two one on one on two two by two whoever would like to. But also this is you're you're saying the 13th is too late because you have to send out a contract on the 16th. But if we had the work zone still we're going to do it on the we're going to get out contracts as soon as we can so employees know we Yeah. I mean that's that would be the priority.

147Correct. So correct. Well that's what I'm asking. It's be based on your timeline and when you approve the budget frankly. So well so then Maya would it make sense to come in on at 4 on the 13th to at least get and just dedicate that work session to the discussion would have especially that night what else do we have we're doing agenda review tomorrowending start in the morning I mean we can talk about agenda review that's important enough like I Sarah just mentioned maybe on the 13th coming in at 10 start. We have governance that day, but well, we can change that. I'm just saying that's the only other everything this needs to take. Oh, yeah. We did as far as I'm concerned. Right. So, if we started at 10:00 a.m. and just do go

148get do what we need to do. And if we break for a few hours before our evening meeting, okay, but we have you guys have calendars, too. I mean, we'll make it work. Okay. But we get to put in the time, the questions, the everything and we don't feel rushed along with us doing two idea because then we can we have that whole week after you know after the anytime after the 8th two on twos to get you know as much understanding and we can kind of know where we stand girls that [Laughter] day idea because it's May and work is really Well, also like when y'all are making decisions about cutting things. Well, I'm just saying they should get an exped before that, right? The AP or I don't have any. I just have

149a And we're still expected to we're still going to vote. I just have three. I have my but that way we have we can take So is that the will of the board to say to do at 10:00 on the 13th? Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. I I think that is a good idea. Do we get another and then if we need to if we're done and we can break and we can we do that'll get us ready for the bring out a whole pile of pretzels. All right. Not not meet on the 22nd. We're going to basically shift the 8th to 10 a.m. on the 13th. Correct. But we're going to still have the night and we'll invite one. We can kind of where we so far, but like will it actually happen?

150Must if he signs it tomorrow like we could come back and look at the I appreciate the glasses. All right, we everybody