5/20/2025 - FCPS Budget Committee Meeting

001us tonight for the budget committee meeting. I will call us to order. The May 20th, 2025 budget committee, school board budget committee meeting is called to order at 5:08 p.m. Mr. McDaniel has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to personal reasons as he has a childcare conflict. Mr. Mr. McDaniel is located in Fairfax, Virginia. Mr. McDaniel, please check your audio and video. I don't think I see him on yet. He's not here yet. Miss Eismore, I apologize. We need to vote him in. I apologize. There was no vote in the script. I skipped right over it. Um, all those in favor of approving Mr. McDaniel's request, please raise your hands. Dr. Anderson, Mr. Mleavine, Miss Lady, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss um Anderson, Mr. FR, Mr. Moon, Miss Marin, and

002myself. That is unanimous for those presents. Now, we will go to Mr. McDaniel. Please check your mic and your audio. I don't think he's on yet, so we'll wait till he gets on. Um, I appreciate all of you coming in today for the budget committee work session. I know that this has been a challenging year with a budget shortfall of $121 million. I believe this is the largest gap FCPS has faced in many years. Um, I want to thank the budget staff and Dr. Reid for their hard work in um, adjusting the budget as needed. And I also want to thank the hard work of our staff and especially FEU for our first year of collective bargaining and coming to a collective bargaining agreement and then redoing the agreement as well. Um, and finally, thanks

003to a lot of thoughtful conversations with my colleagues and community advocacy and their voices. Um, I know we had a presentation from our superintendent our last regular meeting regarding the budget and we are here today. Dr. Reid can provide some further clarifications around some of the budget reductions that were proposed. So with that, I'll turn it to Dr. Reed and her team. Thank you, Miss Eismore. And um I appreciate the framing of the conversation this evening. Uh this has been a challenging budget year and I also appreciate all the staff who are here this evening uh potentially to answer questions. This is a team effort and when we talk about team FCPS we talk about everyone uh everyone in the division regardless of role is impacted by the budget. The budget is fundamentally the resource

004the backbone that will bring our strategic plan to life and therefore it's critical that our budget align with our goals for our strategic plan. Uh we've been very thoughtful about how to both support a competitive salary for our hardworking educators and support staff as well as wanting to make sure that the budget adjustments uh best align with the work that we know we need to support moving forward. There's never been a more important time I think for public education and we believe in the power and promise of public education and we will make the best and highest use of the funds we are allocated. I too want to thank our uh FEU colleagues as well as our um all of our staff regardless of their um union affiliation. Everyone has worked extraordinarily hard this year

005and as we wind down another school year and begin to celebrate graduations and transitions, I couldn't be prouder of the work of our students, our staff, and the support of our families and community. I want to share that uh this evening our chief finance officer, Lee Burton, will just go through um if you will our recommended adjustments. I also want to share that uh last week we heard from a number of our community members in the budget hearing. Um I took copious notes as many of you did and have met with our special ed department chairs as well as our AARTS and our principles. And one of the things I've shared is how difficult um the timeline of our budgeting in concert with collective bargaining is. And I think we have work to do to

006better align those so that we um can make the most productive use of our conversations and resources. I do want to take the opportunity this evening uh to share that clearly within our very short timeline last week, it was difficult to fully explain or clarify what staffing funding allocation adjustments actually mean. And that's why um I took time to meet with staff uh both last week and yesterday. So I think this evening we want to make sure that there are asurances around clarity uh for flexibility uh for this year for our AART positions and our um special ed department chair of positions and Lee Burton will talk a little more about that. But I do want to share my appreciation for those who've emailed us or came to the hearing and shared their feedback for

007us. It matters and um it was taken into consideration as we move forward at this work session this evening. So, at this time, Miss Seismore Heiser, I think I'll have Miss Burton uh walk through our budget adjustments as we prepare to approve um a final budget for 20 FY26 on Thursday evening. So, Miss Burton, good afternoon. Um as the superintendent said, you know, we've pro we've provided a list of recommended adjustments to align the budget with the funding levels that are available. Um and you should know that the priorities that were considered uh when developing the adjustments were protection of the classroom um give precedence to compensation of course and then remain in compliance with the v Virginia standards of quality. The adjustments include you know reducing the salary increase from 7 to 6% for

008FEU members and from 7% to 5% for all other employees or non-FEU members. Um and the FEU has agreed to this change. The classroom teacher allocations have been adjusted via formula change, increasing the divisor in the staffing formula by one student. That results in a reduction of 275 classroom teacher positions. Um, however, we will still be able to meet all the Virginia SOQ requirements. And these two items alone total $66 million. I mean, I think you all are aware that 120 million is a big number. So, we got, you know, a little over halfway there with the um change to the compensation and the um staffing realignment for um regular classrooms. Um the remaining 55 million um that's being reduced are the classroom monitors which are were originally intended to be temporary in nature. They

009were to address um needs at the schools during the pandemic. Um those are temporary hourly again so they don't have any FTEES associated with them. Those funds are being reduced. Um adjustments to the nonsoq staffing formulas for elementary special education department heads and advanced um academics resource teachers at non-title one schools have been reduced by half. Central office departments have reduced their budgets by 3% across the board. Um the social studies curriculum materials are being eliminated. funding for electric buses is being eliminated and systemwide non-local travel has been reduced by 50%. Um, as Dr. Reid indicated, you know, we are trying to lessen the effects of uh the staffing modications stemming from these adjustments. Um, the um, chief of schools, Dr. Pon and the regional assistant superintendents are working very closely with the principles as

010is the budget office to help them manage their budgets and make decisions about competing alternatives um and what they would do because they may be have in the past traded for a position and now the halftime special education department chair or AART position is a higher priority for them and so they might decide to not trade for what they had historically traded for and trade to be able to um provide a transition for these reductions during this upcoming year um fiscal 26. We're also um going to allow elementary schools to um their carryover to be increased from 10% to 25% if funds are available. You all may not be aware that we used to let them carry over 25% all schools um and that was changed three or four years ago. So now 10% is

011how much we allow them to carry over, but those are one-time funds. They're not recurring. Um, but they can they'll have a little bit of a bump because we're going to allow them if they have the funds available, which is the regular rules for carryover. So if they have um 20% available, they can't carry over 25%, they can only carry over 20%. Um, so we're going to allow that to give them some additional flexibility. And you know, we historically replenish the staffing reserve at year end every year. And we will have that available if there are any unique or unusual situations that warrant an allocation from the staffing reserve. And that's it. Thank you. At this point, we'll take um questions and comments. We'll start with Dr. Anderson. I don't see other placards up yet,

012so we'll start with Dr. Anderson and see from there. Um, thank you. Okay. Can you speak a little bit more to um, just to make it plain, I think what I understand right now is the cuts as proposed will continue, but the schools will have to work in order to create the other half of the position. Yes. And they'll have to give something else up. So let's say for example they have been trading for an additional assistant principal then if if the AART department head I mean AART uh resource teacher and the special ed department head are greater priorities than that assistant principal then they may make the decision not to trade for an additional assistant principal and fund these other two things instead in fiscal 26. Um and we do think that we have

013sufficient um vacancies so that if that happened then in this example which is just an example the assistant principal could be placed in another assistant principal job elsewhere within the division or or another position in which they're certified. So depending on the circumstances of the school it can potentially result in those schools remaining at a point five in these positions. No, that not for this year. For this year, the commitment is that the school flexibility will be used first and many of our schools have significant flexibility. And where that's not possible, we're going to go to the staffing reserve um for this year only. Um and that's why we've also um how do I want to say expanded the carryover only for elementary, not middle and high. um to support being able to keep these

014people whole for this year, but the central allocation funding will not be automatic any longer. So the central allocation won't be automatic and all of those positions will continue as current. It's just how they continue that's going to change. And I just want to make sure I have full understanding. First, it's access to their carryover. And if that is insufficient, then they're to make decisions regarding trades. And if they determine that some other position is more important to their schools besides using that option, then they have the third option of the reserve. So razes will be meeting with each principal or EPS and we are saying these two roles are a priority. Period. So they will be the first trades we will look at. Um and Dr. Pon is affirming that those and they've met

015with the RAZ's those two positions will be the first trades. And remember our title one schools we left the AART central funding intact for 1.0. So they would in a title one school only be looking at that.5 specialed department chair. In the non-title one schools we have the two halves. And we've looked at the trades uh both Mr. Solomon and Dr. Pon, Mr. Smith and I, Miss Burton that with the trade history and the expanded carryover, much of the um funding for those positions can be school-based where it's not possible. Uh that's where we will support with the staffing reserve for this year. Um, I have told both groups and principles, um, it's going to have to be a much deeper conversation moving forward about how we're going to be able to do this depending

016on a future funding scenario. So, what I think I'm hearing, um, is that we're going to make them use their trades for these positions. That's correct. That has to be a priority. Okay. And many of our schools trade for more than just the um for these positions. And if so, they won't have a lot of flexibility to determine whether an assistant principal is more important to the operations of their schools. And I'm just using the example that we shared earlier. So they won't have the flexibility of determining whether an assistant principal is more um vital to their operations versus these positions because they will have to make these positions be the first trades that they incur. These are the priority trades. That's correct. Okay. So then no one's going to get to the flexibility reserve

017at this point if the trade has to be if these are the first trades that they can engage in. I would expect no one to get to step three. Some of our schools have actually significant carryover which may not even need to get into trade. So it's really it's hard to give a one answer here because the schools all are in such very different places. So, I think that we're going to still continue to see trades. We have schools that are finishing the year with still open positions they didn't fill from last year. So, clearly that money up to 25% can be carried forward. So, there will be unique ways to problem solve schooltoschool. Um, but we have to make at this point tradeoffs uh with our current budget situation. Sure. Um just to put

018a finer point certainly I do agree that there will be some schools with their reserve especially with the expanded 25% instead of 10% they'll be able to take care of it in that way particularly if you're only looking for a.5 correct so a bunch of schools will be taken care of with step one with step two if trades which everybody in FCPS seems to engage in if the first trades that they can make are for these positions Then everyone will be taken care of in step two because if they don't trade for these, they won't be able to trade for anything else. That's the priority. I I think again without going into every school's trade balance and carryover, I can't I can't speculate on how many schools are going to be done at that point

019or how many schools will still have positions to trade. Um it's really on a school by school basis. And when we looked at the trades, there are some schools, even though they had the ability to use trades, didn't use trades. So, it's just it's a bit all over the map yet. And it's I think it's too early. The PDR sheets um I believe are coming out Monday, which uh will begin working with staff. So, I I don't know that that's going to be the only trade. I think there will be many schools that will have the ability to trade and use carryover and do trades beyond just these two half. Right. I I'm just trying to see what is the path to the third bucket, which is the reserve staffing. It just seems to be

020that it's already set up so that at least for these positions, they'll be taken care of with options A and B and not get to C. I know I was using numbers before, now there are also enrollment decisions, right? Like if a school suddenly is slated for a higher enrollment, then the staffing reserve comes into play. So the staffing reserve always, maybe Mr. Smith, you could better clarify kind of the history of how staffing reserve gets used. And so, and good good afternoon, almost evening everyone. So, the staffing reserve will still be available for schools to use as schools run up against our class size caps. And those class size caps have not changed. And so, as our regular staffing process uh unfolds, uh positions will still be allocated from the staffing reserve for those

021schools. We know that uh some elementary schools uh have also in the past used some of their monitor funds uh to enact trades. And so if those funds aren't available, then uh we would have to possibly look at other areas to fund those trade or to fund uh uh positions from the staffing reserve. And it's important to note that principles don't only fund material or trade material dollars, they also trade positions. And so oftent times uh we have had principles who have traded office staff or other positions in buildings uh to equal the amount of uh a teacher or another position. So we'll be looking at those position trades as well in addition to carry forward dollars. But the classroom monitors are no longer because that's taken care of, right? Because that hasn't changed. Is

022that correct? So there's no classroom monitor funds to be utilized in this. those have been cut, which is why I think the staffing reserve will come into play in a number of the settings that we're going to be working with principles on. Okay. I guess what I was trying to get at with my questions is what is going to be the negative impact to our schools because at the end of the day, that's what the community cares about. I I I don't know if I'm hearing that there'll be zero impact to our schools because it has to give somewhere. And so, I'd like to go back, please. So we've so the impact is class size will be u an impact for all of our schools and so when you're cutting $33 million I related to

023and as it relates to those positions specifically uh principles are going to have to make different decisions and so for those additional positions that folks have traded for whether it might be a resource teacher whether it is uh and I don't want to go into all the specifics about the individual position positions. Uh but whether it be for positions that they've used to support students in other ways in their buildings, they'll have to make decisions about supporting these two positions and uh the other work will not be supported in the school. Thank you. Uh Miss Marin followed by Miss Anderson. So Dr. Go back. Reed, you often say, you know, we're currently in a system of schools and not a school system yet. And one of the things you just said is the schools are

024all in such very different places. We have done a lot of work in the last few years to expand quality and access. We did it with literacy instruction where I had one school where no teacher was trained in Orton Gillingham to help with reading difficulties and another school that was trained 12 teachers. Right? So, we have starting to address that with benchmark. The get to green often traded. We had schools that had it as a special and other schools that didn't even have an outdoor learning space. We've worked to address that. I'm concerned that now we're roll reverting back to well people have flexibility. We had some you proposed and we're going to have to ultimately make hard decisions and I do agree with the question like what are the negative impacts and I understand

025that we want to you know do the best we can by staff but like we can't sugarcoat that there is $120 million missing. So, let's just like call it what it is. The other thing is um you know, I've heard anecdotes that perhaps between those two positions, they were really useful during COVID and soon after, but maybe they've actually been not doing the role they were designed to do. That's okay. Like, we should be okay saying, you know what, this isn't the most, you know, effective way. At the same time, and I say this having a kid with a 504 and an IEP, okay? So you know but we are doing different things to integrate services and so I don't it just seems like the dialogue is walking back the real you know I don't

026know the real severity of what's happening. I know I want to prioritize keeping people employed as much as possible um in addition of course to serving kids. So I just want to be more honest about that. The other thing I wanted to just check, so it was said that elementary schools would now be able to carry over 25% instead of 10. So is that to mean that they have 25% of their budget left over at the end of the year? Miss Burton? I know again it's variable school to school based on a a variety of factors, but um Miss Burton, thoughts on that? I don't know. Obviously some schools must and others probably don't. Exactly. Some will easily have the 25% to be able to carry over and you know hopefully since all of this

027has been discussed publicly. They are you know scrutinizing every purchase to make sure that they have as much money as possible so that they can carry over the full 25% at the end of the year. Is that usual to have a quarter of a budget left over at the end of a year? Well, it's not it it much of what we budget for schools are actually the staff in the school, right? So, we're talking supplies, equipment generally, um perhaps Miss Burden, the the coding for different like paper, there are variety of things that we budget based on, I believe, the student FTE, is that correct? Yes, they're per pupil amounts. So, yeah, it's logistics funding. It's non salary funding that they are allocated on a per pupil basis um at every school. That just seems

028like a lot of money left on the table at the end of the school year. In some cases, we also I know when I met with um staff, we realized that in some cases uh although fewer this year than prior years, we had positions that weren't able to be filled, right? That might have been a support position or a support role. Um and so those dollars that weren't expended would be part of a budget carryover and maybe another school had all their positions filled, right? like so the um it just it really is variable when you look at each school's budget. Okay. Thank you. And you know just getting back to um the differences you know Dr. Reed I'm wondering what what's what's the threshold you're willing to accept among the differences in schools where

029you have things that places that have specials and other places that don't have. So I think it's important as we think about the most important work in this school division happens in the classroom. And I think when Miss Burton talked about uh that being a criteria, we want to make sure that to the degree humanly possible direct services to students are prioritized. So, as we look at the work we're addressing, I think the work with our um students directly, whether they're in elementary, middle, or high school, we want to make sure that we continue to provide services for all of our students as effectively as possible. Which is why, you know, we cut buses, we cut curriculum materials we haven't yet ordered, we cut travel, we cut a number of things. uh we made a

030higher percentage cut of central office departments than schools because to the degree we can we want to protect the classroom and the work that happens at schools. I will say to your comment about being honest about the impact on this if the con if we continue to be underfunded, it's going to be impossible to not begin to make budget adjustments that very directly um and more so even impact our classrooms. Uh it's just, you know, we're getting closer and closer to the bone in terms of making uh budget adjustments. Well, thanks. And I mean to that point, I think that because you have worked very closely with this budget and the collective bargaining agreement, I think it's hard for the board to come in at this point and sort of tinker at the edges. And

031you know, I'm already really eager and perhaps later in this conversation we could talk more as a board about how we want to reinvent this process um to the extent on you know our end here but with the board of supervisors but it just seems like it is what it is and we are 48 hours away and it's hard to accept it but it is what it is. So thank you. Would I could go back Miss Maron? Okay, I'll be on the list. Miss Anderson, followed by Miss Dixit. I I too wanted to acknowledge the fact that I know our principles are in a difficult position right now to make some some hard decisions about staffing and things that they may have had plans for, and I recognize that. I also am grateful that we

032have figured out a way to fund the the contracts the way we have because I think that that's been a focus for all of us related to compensation all year. Um, the first question I asked when I heard about all of the the changes that were coming was whether or not these two positions would be able to be traded for because I have been involved with my son's elementary school for 11 years and I know that they have traded for a full-time AART up until the point when it became a 1.0 position. So, I know that there are schools that are that have prioritized these things in the past. So, I'm hopeful that we're able to continue that moving forward. I think the threshold of differences is a very interesting question to talk about and

033I think that we're getting closer to that consistency that we're looking for, but I never want us to get to the point where we don't acknowledge the differences of our communities and acknowledge the differences of the different flavors of schools that we have and the things that make them awesome for their communities. So, I just want to figure out a way that we can kind of get there. Um, I know that this is a difficult budget situation and I know many members of the community have reached out that there wasn't a lot of leeway and and um prior notice about what was happening. That was the same for all of us is that we were making very quick decisions um and recommendations on a very tight timeline this year. And so I am very grateful

034to staff for the work that you've done to kind of create that opportunity for us to have as much information. And I appreciate the conversation tonight. So thank you very much. Thank you Miss Dixon followed by Mr. Fr. Um Dr. read uh this was I know it's a hard decision for uh making it and I'm I'm sure this is not an impact for one year we are seeing that in nationally how cutting uh position federal workers and as impacting our uh country as a whole but here at school level we cut any position and that to the significant amount if you're cutting the funding it's going to impact it it is um we are trying to quick fix it I should say for one year, but it is definitely going to have problems. Um, so

035I'm definitely not seeing this as a long-term solution. Obviously, um, I'm also concerned about the impacts of our ability to keep uh providing support and resources to keep our schools safe and that has been an issue with where we have seen lot of um concern about safety and security of our students. So um if you're taking the flexibility of the funds for principal to kind of trade these positions a priority they may not have been able to maybe get another resource to watch the students. we're already taking the student monitors away which I guess nobody's talking about but that's like the big concern for me that it is uh they were providing a lot of support since co and I've since read and got an email from a lot of student uh monitors that the

036kind of support they provide um it's also very important I think for that uh that age group um so I I just I don't think this is um any shape fall good uh thing it's just like uh support. I I wanted to know uh what are the principal using their funds for basically in in a school. Many of the funds are logistics. Um there are some funds that principal use principles use to provide hourly support from time to time. Uh, we previously had an All-In for Virginia grant where we were able to hire highintensity tutors, for example, that were separate. Um, I don't believe that grants continued. That's been a that was a two-year grant. Uh, one of the things we made a very conscious decision about and I want um our I want you

037and also our community to understand one of the things we could have cut was building budgets, school budgets, but we did not because we can't cut those and then work for flexibility for the staffing. So, we've taken the TAC this year to leave the budgets intact so that principles have the maximum flexibility at the site because we have amazing principles and they're going to make good choices and they're going to work with Dr. Pon's office, Mr. Lambert's office and the security realm uh to make sure that we have the best possible supports with the budget that we have. We're going to make the best use of the funds we do have. And I have seen this firsthand, Dr. read that some some principal went to St. Stone Middle School last year with no Navy the

038other day and the principal shared how they use this their funds to support some of these uh staffing positions too. Obviously uh especially the new teachers who are in the classrooms and this uh then we have the the chairs and the um other positions which help them to get trained especially um a art and sped chairs and um so that's good to know that they they're going to stay on and they they have ability to keep it but I I just feel like there's going to be a um a lot of u restriction on other other stuff they can do and that's going to impact And at the end it's our students who are not going to get the class the service they should be getting in FCPS. So um I'm I'm just not really

039happy with this fact uh this is a result but I guess this is the best we could do. Thank you. Yeah I I appreciate that and I I don't think anyone's happy when we have to announce budget adjustments um that are not positive. Right. Um, I will say and I just want this is a point I don't want lost on us. I our special ed department chairs were emphatic about the amount of work they do with teacher trainees and we have a disproportionate number of teacher trainees in our special ed room special ed classrooms who also don't have access to sea stars right to do information. And we're going to continue to have a lot of teacher trainee if we can't pay a wage that you know attracts our best and certificated educators and retains

040our educators. So we're in this place where we have to the cycle of excellence also is dependent on being able to pay you know a competitive wage to our staff. So on the one hand compensation which was been a priority is necessary and on the other um in particular our special ed department chairs are performing heroic work you know supporting many of these teacher trainees at the elementary level. So I we're trying to play catch-up I think constantly a bit like chasing our tails with this budget right now but thank you. Thank you Miss Dixit. Um Mr. FR followed by Miss St. John Cunning. Thank you. Um Dr. Reed, before I dive in, would you mind characterizing the conversations you've had with special ed department chairs and arts over the last few days since the

041initial discussion? Yes, Mr. Fresh. Well, I began each with an apology, right? Because I think anytime you read about your position um being cut, you feel like your work is not respected or that you perhaps are not respected. and that was not the intent and I apologize to both groups for that. Our communication timeline was almost nil um by Tuesday and uh then needing to rework uh with our union colleagues and come with a budget within 48 hours do you know? So the we discussed um their work. I received feedback on the duties that each of the roles are the deep commitment to the division. Many of um the staff in these roles have been with our school division a long time and the tradition of excellence they've supported. Um they also talked about this

042not being a new conversation. Honestly, these budget topics. Many of them had been here at other tough budget times and we talked about perhaps how advocacy needs to look different for the coming year's budget as Miss Marin and Miss Dixit talked about um and they understand that we're going to uh work with principles to um be honorable in our work with them and their positions. So I I think the conversations were fruitful um and there's a better understanding of where we are and how we got to where we are. Generally speak generally speaking what was the response to the asurances about their positions? I think people feel good about this year and are very much so anxious about what may happen moving forward after this year. Thank you. Um, so to Miss my colleagueu's point

043about these choices having an impact, you know, it's interesting. We have a slate of adjustments to help us reach to fill the funding gap, right? The 120 plus million funding gap. And everybody is being asked to give something up. And at the same time, the school division is trying to use laser-like precision to lessen the impact of these changes as much as humanly possible. And so when we think about employee compensation adjustment, what does that mean in pra in practice, right? It means that our employees who collectively bargained for the first time and negotiated a salary that respects the world-class educators and operational staff that we have um and serves as a mechanism for enticing more people to our division and keeping people here with us. um will have to make do with less and

044that makes it harder to do that recruitment and harder to do that retaining. Um the staffing formula adjustments um you know some classes may experience class size increases but the school division is going to work hard to ensure that uh you know the impact is felt as as little as possible. But it is a very real impact on the school even if it doesn't reflect itself in the classroom with the students. deferring the social studies curriculum. We just spent a lot of time working on this effort with a lot of community engagement. We need updated curriculum, but we're going to make do until we can afford it. Uh and that's savings. Um the reduce the reduction of the classroom monitors obviously provides flexibility in our elementary schools. Um the staffing adjustment we already talked about.

045Uh central office department reductions 3%. We're doing the same thing in the schoolboard office and the officer of auditor general. Um, you know, it is not as if that that those funds do not go towards important work, especially in the central office that already has the lowest ratio of administrative support to school ratio of any school division in Northern Virginia. um and you know EV buses, it is going to be really hard for us to continue to chop away at our work on um you know environmental efficiency which also saves us tons of money uh and reach our goal of carbon neutrality by 2040 when we have to make these kinds of cuts but it's sacrifice we have to make to make this all work. Um, and obviously the reduction in non-local travel. We want

046our staff to be exceptionally well trained and to have the ability to bring new practices and procedures to our school division so that others can learn from them too. And so sacrifices are being made throughout this budget. And to Miss Marin's point, it has a real impact in the schools and on the people who uh work in our school division. Um, so I will leave it at that only to say I appreciate the assurances that you've made. Um, and I've heard from several uh, sped department chairs and AERTS who appreciated those conversations. Thank you, Miss St. John Kunning, followed by Miss Lady. So, first of all, I want to thank the staff um, and Dr. Reid for the turnaround, which was remarkable in a 48hour period. Um, I know this is hard. It's hard for

047everyone. Um, as was just said, it's it's a lot of sacrifices. I worked in an elementary school. I know what the special ed department chairs are. I know what the arts are and I know what the monitors are. I know it's going to be a hard hit. I think that we were honoring the first ever collective bargaining agreement and we weren't in the room and a lot of you were in the room and I know that the priority across the board had been compensation for employees. Um, and I think that you try to honor that without cutting people, maybe just readjusting positions. You were faced with a Solomon's choice of splitting that baby. And I don't envy anyone. I don't envy anyone that had to do this. As I said before and I said this

048when we were at our joint meeting with the board of supervisors when I came on this board, I know a lot of the things I wanted to advocate for and I said this is a barebones budget. We need more money for security. We need more money to support our students and their mental health needs. We need more psychologists. We need more counselors. We need more family liaison. None of that was put on the table at all as a consideration. We asked for the bare minimum and we did not receive the bare minimum. And is there going to be an impact? Of course there there will be. It will be on our staff and it will be on our students and it will be on our families. But as I've also said, our teachers will show

049up. They will do the best that they can. Our staff will show up. Our parents will show up. What we need to realize is that there will become a point that it will be a breaking point and they will stop showing up. So, I look forward to working with my colleagues and the board of supervisors to ensure that this doesn't happen next year because the work that is done every day by every person in that school building from the custodian on up and from the people that are here at central office and that are going out and supporting our students is heroic. I hope that this sacrifice is a sacrifice that we make only this year and that we all come together to try to invest and keep that promise of education for our children.

050Thank you, Miss Lady followed by Mr. Dunn. So I appreciate my colleagues uplifting of staff and how hard work how hard our our faculty and our schoolbased people work and our operational and our our central office folks work. Um this is not going to get better. Uh and I I hope that all the people who took the time to speak at the budget hearing um and it was a long evening. My apologies I couldn't be present but I was listening. Um, I hope that you don't lose the enthusiasm you had at the moment because we need to go to the state. We need to get the money to quote one of my favorite colleagues. We need to get the money and and I just this h people need to hear this. You know, our staff

051are quite frankly they're, you know, they're they're bleeding. They're it's hard work. And when our next door neighbors are offering him way more than what we can do, it's it's hard to compete. Um, and you know, I also, as I watched the budget hearings, I mean, the the the budget hearing with with all the community input, I really appreciated the 1% woman. I wish I could find her. I'll give 1% of my of my schoolboard salary back. Think if everyone did the 1%. I'd like I don't I have to go to YouTube and watch the whole thing again to figure that because I was pretty early in the uh in the comments. But I didn't hear a lot of people jumping on that idea. But she's at least had a solution. Most people who came

052just said, "Put this back. Put this back. Put this back." But no ideas of where to get the money. So it's very frustrating. I do have a question about carryover as this was uh shared with me I believe by one of our presenters at community hearing. This is everyone's carryover. So when you see and I'm not going to say some of them they're pretty huge and I'm guessing they're huge because they had principal searches going on and they had interim principles or interim you know uh you know administrators or or unfilled positions but when you say they get 10%. So year end which is June 30th what's left of this they get 10% of it. Well I I don't know if Miss Burton has confirmed the numbers on the chart in front of you. No,

053no, no, no, no. This is this is as of May 12th, but as of June 30th, Miss Burton, they get to carry over 10% of any logistics funding that they have in selected accounts into the next year as one-time money. So, if this also includes staffing reserve, they that they're not carrying that over. There is no staffing reserve budgeted at schools. That's budgeted centrally. and where they're allocated as unique and unusual circumstances like class size um exceeding the class size cap. They're allocated when we begin staffing for the next year for unusual situations, right? Well, we need to talk about exceeding class size cap because if you're really good at what you do, you normally can figure that out. You got to cla you got to close classes. You got you got to close them

054early because you've got transfer students coming in. You got to save seats. If you need to have a class at 33, you got to have a class at 27. I mean, I mean this, we we pay too many at contracts. Okay? And a lot of people want to finagle to get to them. And I get it because it's an extra 7%. Um, but we've got to do better. And and that's that's a big thing. The other thing I want to say about the arts, I want to say it about the the the elementary special ed chairs, I want to say it about a director of student services, a finance tech, an ESPIT, the people there, you get one per school. It is not equitable. There are schools with tw 250 children in them at the

055elementary level and there are schools with over a thousand and the same people arguing to keep a full-time ART and a full-time special ed chair. I'll take a go back. Thank you, Mr. Dunn, followed by Mr. Moon. I've got you on the list, Miss Lady. Thank you. Yeah, we definitely need the $568 million from the state. um that underfunding is unacceptable and it needs to end. Uh it imposes an undue burden on our taxpayers, an undue pay undue burden on our residents with limited or fixed incomes. Uh and we need uh all the support we can from the state legislature to make sure that our schools are fully funded. Um so we are uh postponing the update to the social studies curriculum, but hasn't the state curriculum for social studies changed this year? and what

056impact will updating, you know, delaying the update of our social studies materials cause in terms of being out of sync with the state social studies curriculum. So, interestingly, Mr. Dunn, we were reviewing incoming so data this afternoon uh because the math so standards also changed this year and we don't have new math curriculum yet. Um, that's a year out. Uh but I do know that our social studies and I'll have Dr. Prescidio respond here. Uh our students take a local social studies assessment uh which is I believe as an alternative assessment. So um I think not having curriculum materials will require central office staff to continue to provide some curriculum that will be matching what we believe our current standards are. um but they are able to take a different so whereas math and reading

057we're not able to do that. So Dr. Presidio do you want to elaborate on that please? Just briefly I think you framed it very well. Um the full implementation of the social study standards is next school year. Um, so we will be updating our current resources and materials to ensure that any updated standards per grade level have available resources for teachers to cover those standards. That's pretty typical of what we've done. We've deferred textbook adoptions in the past during my 14-year tenure here, and we do everything that we can to provide the materials and resources locally created um that allow teachers to have materials aligned to the state standards. What kind of updates does that involve? Like what can central office staff do to compensate for the changes? So, we create actual units of study

058that include daily lesson plans, sample assessments, uh, and additional materials and resources that help with instruction. Thank you. Um, I want to ask about contracted services. Um, in the budget book it says in FY22 it was 48 million, FY23 56 million, FY24 63 million and then it varied quite a bit. Um, FY25 approved was 42 million. Then it jumps almost double that or more than double that to 90 million in FY25 revised and then drops down again to 48 million in FY26 proposed. Um, that's like the stock market. So, I'm just trying to figure out what's uh how's it how's it more than double from the approved to revised for FY25 and uh and then drop down. What what's causing the fluctuations and and what's in that category? We'll have to research that and get

059back with you because we have a a budget process that we conduct with that and each department head provides um information to us as to what their contractual increases are in the upcoming year. It could be a contract that has an inflationary clause in it. It could be utility um rates. It could be fuel costs. It could be a number of things. Um and so that's kind of broadly, but to try to dig down to the detail, I'll have to go back and look at previous years and see what the exact uh contractual was and what that is compared to this year. Can you comment at all on FY25? I mean, that's the year we're in, right? And it went from approved 42 million up by 48 million to 90 million total to between the

060approved and the revised. I I cannot I'll have to I mean I'm confident we can get you an answer. I just don't have that level of detail with me. Okay. Um can I ask about strategic funding then? Because in the budget book, it's $0 for FY22, $0 for FY23, $0 for FY24, then $3 million for FY25 approved, jumps 700% to 21 million for FY25 revised. Again, a a huge increase, and then drops mere 5 million for FY26 proposed. Those are not like things. The three million and then the other number that you quoted, those are not the same thing. Um the 3 million was a superintendent's reserve that was included in the budget in that year. And the next year it was the um allocation is for achievement gap strategies and that is one-time funds

061that were allocated to the superintendent at year end because we had funds in the budget to be able to do that but they ended up on the cutting room floor last year um because um of budget cuts and as a result we funded it with year end. My recollection of of of that uh achievement gap reserve was that it wasn't spent that I mean we we reviewed that at the year end last year. I think Dr. Anderson talked about that quite at length. It was like $14 million that basically wasn't spent at all. Yeah, some of it's been spent. I I don't have a accounting a detailed accounting but again we can get that for you but this is the level of detail that we you know unless we knew ahead of time we wouldn't

062have with us here at the table. Okay. Um, but I I do think it's important that they're one-time funds. They're not in the operating budget. They're So, they're not ongoing funds is my understanding. Is that right, Miss Burton? Um, I' I'd like to understand for high schools, um, what is the carryover percentage that is allowed each year? Because looking at the information that was provided last Thursday, um, you know, one of my high schools had a had a remaining budget of over $400,000. most high schools had a remaining budget of around a h 100,000. So I just want to understand um you know for that high school for example is it going to be unfairly penalized when it's a high school in need compared to other high schools that might have spent more money during

063the school year. So, it's 10% for high schools and all of the recall that all of the money that's uh scooped back after the 10% goes into the year end which we have plans to fund for example the extra 30 minutes for all special education teachers um and a variety of other topics. that we've made some commitments so that money doesn't just drop into right an unused area drops into year end which we then approve in August um what those expenditures are but it's my understanding Miss Burton that high schools only historically have been allowed to carry forward 10%. Is there any flexibility provided to that high schools that have greater challenges or needs that they might be able to retain more of that? I don't believe so. I I believe it's 10%. No, but

064they're of course given additional staffing based on the needs-based formulas for their classroom teachers. So, they're allocated additional staffing positions as a result of being uh you know, high socioeconomically disadvantaged. Are are you assuming that the high school is labeled title one? No, it's built into our uh staffing formulas for classroom teachers. Okay. Title one is on top of that for those schools that are designated title one. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dun. Mr. Moon, I know that I'm going to be asking for go back. So, I'm going to just skip this on uh that I have a number of questions. So, one at a time. Uh uh Mr. Mr. Dun's questions prompting me to ask some carryover and mechanism first. I think you know I think you know Dr. Reed alluded that historically

065the limitation was 10% but I think my history tells me that long long ago it was more than 10%. more than 10% when things became hard uh uh that we the limit and and a a we decide to basically sweep in anything in excess of a certain percentage that happened to be 10% you know before then a a a some of the reasons why a some of the schools might have had larger amount at the end was uh they were saving some money for long-term project and and we used to let the schools be able to use that money, save them money so that they can you know carry on with a longer term project rather than you know having to use up all the money just limiting it to a no more than 10%.

066Once you know that you'll be losing all the money uh uh above you know 10% there could be an incentive somehow a a be prompted to use the money and just keep the 10%. So we didn't want schools to do that. Want to have a most effective and efficient use of funding. But that's just a historical perspective. Uh that textbooks I sent you questions regarding textbook funding. Uh you you wrote me back and said it was a syncing fund. There is a syncing fund. if he could just explain to us uh in layman's term how the syncing fund works for textbook purchases. Well, it's in the operating fund which is different from say our grant fund and um you know all all the other funds that are multi-year and they carry the funds carry from

067year to year. the the textbook fund is a syncing fund in the operating fund where we don't normally carry from year to year except for as you know whatever falls out at year end. Um the textbook funds we are it's it's kind of like FCPS on that we are allocating funds to the textbook um funds every single year so that we have enough funds when we do have a textbook adoption to pay for it. So it's just where we're accumulating funds so that we do have them available when there is an upcoming textbook adoption. So when when you say you are accumulating the fund, we do put that as a line item when you adopt a budget and how does it get accumulated after we adopt the line item for textbooks? So, if just bear

068with me on a very simplistic example, if we have a budget of $20 million, uh that's a recurring yearly budget. In one year, we spend $15 million on say um a foreign language adoption that's not, you know, extensive across the whole school division. That would be kind of a lower cost item, right? There would be $5 million left in the syncing fund to carry forward so that the next year when you had the 20 million you would have that $25 million. Exactly. Got it. That's a single you know understood that and also when we have a budget you know a a looking at our general budget process. We have budget approver approved. We're looking at approved budget and the revised budget. And revised budget when numbers change from approved to the revised, it's because we

069are putting in additional money or taking out the money from the approved. Is that No, it's the revised budget just reflects the approved budget or adopted budget plus year end because everything like all of your incumbrances, all of your grant carryover, everything that you all see on the year-end item carries forward into the next year and is added to the budget and that makes up the revised budget. So when you have but when you when the board has to take an action for the revised at the year end and then step propo gives us where the money is going to go or where the money will be taken out at the year end. So if a particular line item goes go ahead and finish your from one amount to another board would have taken action

070to make that happen. Correct. At the year end with your end. Yeah. So uh I'm going to use my go back later on to ask you because a lot of numbers just jumped out at me. you know, from going to $31 million textbook for approved to $60 million at the revised and actual 22 and 45 to 74 and 45 to 105. I have you on a go back. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um I will take a quick turn and then we'll go to go backs. Um Dr. Reed, I want to ask you a couple questions. I know that this board really prioritized compensation and I appreciate that we worked hard with our and and to honor our commitments to our collective bargaining and to our staff, especially considering the um where we

071fall five out of seven restaurants jurisdictions. But in order to do that, there were some cuts that were made and we've been talking for a while about the impact of what some of these cuts. So, can you talk a little bit more about the impact to our buildings? because I know we're trying to work very hard with principles to minimize the impact of the classroom, but if you could talk to me a little bit about what the social studies curriculum and the monitors, the staffing reserve and even the um change to the flexibility in using trades or managing their own budget will have as an impact to our schools. So, thank you, Miss Seismore Heiser. I mean, at the end of the day, not being fully funded will result in not fully supporting the compensation

072that we had planned and will result in fewer people working in the school division next year. Uh so I think the impact at the school and division level will be the remaining people are going to have likely more duties um because we're going to have fewer people uh the materials the social studies I think Mr. Dunn raised that question. We're going to make do for a year but we know that with math coming up that's a critical and I think social studies is critical as well. we are able to do the alternative assessments in social studies. We're not in mathematics and so we know that that purchase I think is critical. we're gonna um so uh I think the professional development you know the travel being cut in half uh the opportunity um so I

073think in general the impact is going to be one of um fewer opportunities honestly for uh continuing the learning necessary to continue to be a worldclass school division and you know the spirit here of the uh staff on team FCPS is to work hard. It's the most passionate staff I've worked with honestly in my career. And I we're going to be making uh do we're going to be making do with less and continuing to work harder. And I think you and I have had that conversation a couple of times. We're going to reach a tipping point at some point where uh we can't continue to do more with less. And I think we're getting closer and closer to that point. I appreciate that. And I will say I do appreciate the prioritization of the ARTS

074and special ed department chairs. I I'll just say I know firsthand the work the special department chairs and ARTs do, especially our special ed department chairs considering the number of new and provisionally licensed special education teachers. So I do appreciate the prioritization of that. But I uh you know I met today with some of our social workers that talked about our social work ratio is 1 in,400 right now. And I know how much work our social workers do to help with um absenteeism to help engage families to help um support our students and address discipline disproportionalities and prevent discipline issues from happening in the first place. I know I've heard from counselors about our counselor ratios and need to have more counselors in our schools. Again, to be proactive in addressing issues before we have

075to get to the discipline, right, before there are issues. I know safety and security is a huge concern for many of our families and our teachers and our and our principles. And so I'm I'm curious how this impacts our ability to provide additional whether it's weapons screening or counselors or mental health supports or um you know additional people to help with some of the security. I know we've we've talked about even some families have asked for additional people to be outside to help manage traffic for kiss and ride. I think it's important to talk about these specific things that we've heard advocacy over that aren't even on the table. Can you sort of address our ability to continue um with some of that work? So I um we continue to work to address um our

076ratios right whether it's social work counseling uh kiss and ride supervision. And I think as you've mentioned I one of our neighboring jurisdictions happened to get from their county board of supervisors 40 million more than they asked for actually and that particular division is asking they've uh set a target to be the lowest counseling ratio in Northern Virginia at 1 to 250 and are heavily recruiting our counselors. Um and since uh I think our counselor ratios are not going to be as favorable um it's going to continue to be challenging to maintain not just recruit but retain uh our counselors. So to your point counseling and social work uh we certainly would benefit I think uh from better ratios but right now we are not able to fund better ratios uh when we're not fully

077funded. So, I think that the idea that we're going to have staff uh be able to go out help with more kiss and ride and those types of things, I don't necessarily see that happening uh because the positions I think several of you have mentioned our monitors who did fabulous work. You know, their role um they provided a lot of supports sort of filling in gaps and the relationship work with students uh staff and families. And without those positions, it's going to be far more difficult, I think, to do those little extras. And we're really uh hopeful that our community will be patient as we navigate um these really challenging times right now because I think that staff are going to continue to work hard, but there's a limit to what we uh can expect

078them to do um at this time, particularly with fewer of them. Thank you. And and as one of my colleagues mentioned or a couple mentioned, we need to get the money from the state. you know, the 568 million shortfall is is huge and could go a long way. And I know that there's a lot of taxpayer fatigue and our our county supervisors have historically helped cover that gap from the state, but there's a lot of competing priorities in the county, too. And so, we're we're in a difficult position, you know, because we don't have any authority to raise our own funds. So, we're really reliant on our federal, state, and county partners. And um when we have you know issues in our county around and when we've historically had our county have to cover 70%

079of the funding we need to get and there's you know taxpayer fatigue as well. It's very difficult to continue to get that level of funding and know the shortfall from the state. I think we're feeling the squeeze on all ends given where we are at with our economy. So, what I think it's important to tell our our finish my sentence, our communities understand that there's a lot more that we expect from public schools in the last 10 years and we can't keep having those expectations with the funding. So, with that, I'll go to go backs. Um, I'll start with Dr. Anderson and then Miss Marin. Two minutes for gobacks. Thank you. Thank you. Um, one of the things that I thought I heard earlier and I must have missed this conversation was that there's going

080to be a 3% um, I guess belt tightening of the schoolboard office. Can you share what that entails? Yes, it was discussed at the retreat and it entails a 3% reduction of our schoolboard office budget and that would just go back into the um operating fund. Correct. Okay. Thank you. The other thing that I had asked about earlier in the year, I had a budget question regarding the superintendent reserve and the answer here tells me that 1.18 of that amount was spent in FY24, but I don't have any information here about FY25. Yeah. Again, I don't have that level of detail with me. I I can re research it and and get you an answer. I know, but I asked this question March 7th. So, are you saying you have a budget question that's outstanding?

081No, I asked the budget question. It was just not answered. I I'll be happy to share that with you. Um, the reason why I want to investigate that since such not much of it was spent. Um, clearly, how can we kind of address some of the other issues that we have going on? perhaps utilizing um some of those funds whether it be the classroom monitors which we're talking about are doing herculan work in support of our schools or safety which has become and not just has become but it continues to stare us in the face as a real issue and I'm wondering can those um issues be perhaps addressed by some of those funds which have yet to be spent those funds in some cases are going to be the ABL work. So I don't

082know if the invoices have come in with that which is our high school course taking pattern work. Um and along with our um achievement gap closing strategies we're looking at tier 2 materials particularly in mathematics um and uh summer session for um students ready for algebra middle school summer session. So we can most of uh those uh dollars and again they're one time each year um are encumbered to do what they're titled to do which is close achievement gaps and make sure that we have opportunities for students um to be successful in key academic areas. So so we can get you more detail. I think I I didn't anticipate the question this evening. Um, what's the total that's left of those two years? Because you're what I thought I heard is that it's not in

083this year's budget. Is it in this year's budget? Yes, it's it's one time her achievement um gap strategy money is was carried over from fiscal 24 into fiscal 25. carried over but not an addition but not a third um allocation. No. Um and the budget question that you referenced is as of January 31st. There's a note at the bottom. So this is all of the spending through fiscal 24 and fiscal 25 through January 31st. If you could just kind of highlight for me fiscal 25 because I just the chart says it was fiscal 24. If you could just highlight that I would appreciate it. Um, but I also wanted to ask a clarifying question related to what Miss Lady had shared. The 10% carryover that schools are allowed, is it of what's left or their

084entire budget of the year? It's 10% of their budgeted funds in selected categories. Selected categories. Okay. Um, I I'll probably will follow with you. Available. Okay. Lots of caveats there. I'll probably follow up with you in a little bit to get some better understanding. Um, and and the last thing that I will say because I' I've said this a lot, our schools have various levels of need. Um, we have some schools where we may, and I'm just using random numbers here, but we may haveund and students with IEPs that will require support from the special education teacher and others where there's 300. I I think we need to be a little bit more strategic and be a little bit more um and have some sort of formula that speaks to that need because just saying

085one person across the board does not necessarily address what's happening and I feel that way across a lot of different positions. I'll take take another go back if there's time. Thank you. I'll put you down Miss Marin followed by Miss Anderson. Sure. And just before I start, are we able to keep it at three minutes going forward because we um we have a lot of time left and there's a lot to say so for consideration. So yeah, thank you for clarifying that last piece about the carryover because I was clarifying and that wasn't correct what I was clarifying which was it's only a set of the carryover, not 25% of their whole budget. So nobody corrected me on that. So I'm correcting myself now. Um the continued conversation about flexibility. I just have to again

086say the division spent a lot of time a few summers ago especially calling through thousands of social studies lessons and materials that teachers had created in their best effort that were no longer relevant that were not anti-racist that you know so again I worry when I hear things like well the teachers are just going to create their own thing or central office will not doubting anyone's best intent but we have been making strides to be consistent so that does worry me and you know but to the point about again being honest you know sometimes when I'm talking in the public and a parent says to me well my kid has a long-term sub in their class my sixth grader had a long-term sub the whole year and I say yes that is the reality in

087the political environment that denigrates public education there are fewer people who want to come here to work and even you are going to have to face this awful reality now how do we engage those people to say, "Now, what do you want to do about it?" And that's where I kind of go back and forth with being overwhelmed at what we're trying to do and like the hope that well maybe, you know, it's going to hurt so much and that just devastates me, but maybe that will keep people engaged. And so, when I think about the boundary um advisory committee and the meetings and what you do with middle school start times and your regular, you know, meetings, Dr. Reid, I think we need to do that for the budget. I think we need to

088engage the community around, you know, we we've put in some of the CIP and facility stuff into the boundary conversation and it's really opened people's eyes up. They see, wow, oh, $14 billion. Okay. Well, but I also think that partnering with those board of supervisors is essential and having a formal way to educate them and inform them and work together. And I'd love to talk about that on my next turn. Thank you. I'll put you down. Miss Anderson, follow by Miss Dixon. I want to make sure that I'm looking at the right thing here. So, I have some questions that are nitty-gritty, but they're not going to be about specific stuff. So, um I assume that the money that's left over in these columns is not related to any local school activity funds that are

089included in No, local school activity funds are not part of any of this. Okay. So this the money that's raised for for certain initiatives will still be able to be carried over and it has nothing to do with the the 10 or 25%. Correct? Yeah. Okay. And then the second could you have any recolle and I don't need an answer to this but do we have an understanding of what the average historical percentage like over over time how much do schools traditionally are have remaining in their budgets? Well, one of the reasons that we allow them to carry over funds is because we don't want a use it or lose it mentality because that's when that's just not a good management practice spending. And so, generally speaking, they spend it all to 10%. So, that

090they have the 10% to be able to carry over and give them greater flexibility in the next year. Some schools are not going to be able to do that. um you know they they have needs and maybe they only have eight percent but you know it's up to 10%. So some may be a little less but the the max is 10% and they try to spend up to that level if possible. And so this gave them enough time to flex to change to 25% to to put back if they need to. Correct. Because I know a lot of spending happens in May in order to meet the requirements of the deadlines related to June 1st. I'm I'm hoping that yeah, they saw the tea leaves and saved a little bit. Okay. Um the other thing

091that I'd like to note is that we have I mean it's a wide variety of budgets for lots of different reasons. I would love us to make sure that we're capturing promising practices for folks that do have additional funds left over that isn't related to staffing. I would love to know what they're doing and how they're doing how they're um maximizing their budget more efficiently so that we can use those opportunities to to share with other principles because we can't assume that a principal walking in the door is automatically going to understand how to maximize their budget within an inch of its life. Well, they don't typically carry over staffing. This is logistics money. Um, some of the wealthier schools may very well have their PTAs um providing funding for materials and supplies and so

092they don't have to. Um, it it's it's not enough for me to be able to point to anything like 50% of the schools do that. But I do know that schools sometimes have PTAs who step in and purchase things for them or provide funds so that they can purchase things which release pressure on their local school activity fund. I mean on their um their operating funds but they can't use PTA funds, local school activity funds either one or donations according to policy to fund staffing because all of that has to go through payroll because appropriate taxes have to be taken out. We have a fiscal responsibility to ensure that IRS rules are followed. So we don't allow anybody to pay for staffing out of local school activity donations or PTA money. Okay. I I believe

093you. I just in practice I know that that may may flex in different ways just from my personal experience. Um, I would, and I've advocated for this before, but I would very much like us to start doing a more applesto apples comparison with the surrounding districts because one of the things that I've noticed is that we talk a lot about the difference in class sizes and things like that, which obviously would lead to having fewer staff in a building. And so, when we're talking about another school district that can pay a significant amount more, then sometimes it's because they have fewer staff. And so I think that having some sort of comparison between our staffing model and other folks would be an awesome way maybe to add to the way guide to give us a

094little bit more information for our staff that may be considering other locations. Thank you Miss Dixit followed by Miss Lady. So um some of my uh colleagues mentioned about the advocacy of the community and they how they came together um and and we saw that what the power of community and uh members when they speak on a topic together and we saw that in boundary we saw that uh in other things. Uh unfortunately the their voice raised for budget was little bit too late. Um and I think we um agree I agree with my colleague that we need to bring them the community aware um of what's happening much earlier on the process and then work together collaboratively uh with the people who are the actual stakeholder in our schools um and obviously we're working

095on taxpayers money so it's every every voice counts um I I did want to raise the voice of people who have not been talking a lot and they have not yet spoken much in our sessions and even the budget uh hearing is our classroom monitors. Um I I really feel like there should be a way for again the principles to be able to see if they need it in their school uh if they can do that. So Dr. Reed uh would that be part of the flexibility for the teachers for the principles to have monitors? I don't know. Um what flexibility I think principles have hourly funds I don't know Miss Burden what is the level of flexibility because essentially there will be no more central allocation line item for um monitors Matthew. Yeah. So

096the the monitor funding it's not exactly a per pupil allocation. It's actually um it's that the amount of funding that each school got was based on the largest grade level cohort they had. So just you know for example maybe a really small school every grade level has two teachers right at our at our smallest schools. So their allocation would have been based on having two teachers. Um but maybe another school has a bubble class at you know fourth grade and has five teachers but all their other grade levels are four. We would have given them monor money based on that largest grade level as far as the number of teachers there were. Um, and it was about $30,000 per uh teacher position at the biggest grade level. So it was how many monitors per school

097were assigned in elementary school? So I know understand just the average. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the the lowest number of monitors that a school would have had was about two. Um I guess some of our really really small schools could have had one but on average I would guess between three and four monitors. Probably around three. that that's the budgeted amount, not what they actually implemented. They could have implemented less than that. Okay. Um because there's a lot of funding for student monitors, right? It's like it's more than the spread chair and more than the arts. So how many position were funded out of that amount? They're they're hourly positions. So we don't they they don't have an FTE associated with it. So I I don't know. Okay. Okay, I understand. Okay, completely. So

098again, this could be again depending on the flexibility or hourly because I do know that some principal do bring in extra resources to support in the school if they need like an extra body here and I think a lot of teachers um really get support from that. Um elementary schools um definitely and in the spes um in the in the play playgrounds and the security and safety of our students. A lot of schools are in construction and having an extra person watching over the students um everywhere um or in the hallways or in the classroom. I think it's it's it's really important. So I would I would just urge um our principles to maybe find a way if they need the support of the uh monitors to consider having them if they have the funds.

099Thanks. Thank you, Miss Dixit, Miss Lady followed by Mr. Afternoon. Thank you. Um, just wanted to finish up my comment from before. Uh, I sort of got cut off mid thought uh related to the one of model at a school which my colleague also mentioned. I just want people to understand I'm not saying that a school of 300 students shouldn't have a full-time art and a full-time chair. I'm just saying by comparison we have the same allocation for elementary schools over a thousand. Um, and one could argue with technically seven grades, eight if you've got preschool. Um, maybe that should be doubled. I don't know. Um, but I think the main point, um, I was trying to make is that we are in tough times and and I don't basically unless something changes at the

100state level, what I'm hearing from colleagues is that this it's going to be harder next year. And I just bring this up because every cut is painful and um I appreciate Dr. Reid's um recognition of the short window um and the unfortunate situation where we weren't able to the school system wasn't able to talk with the people whose position by name was sort of a line item cut. Um I'm assured that's not going to happen moving forward. We'll have to we'll have to figure that out. Um, but also in terms of this, we have a collective bargaining agreement in place. It's three-year agreement. So, when the board of supervisors tells us next year, this is what we're predicting to give you, if it won't if it won't match our budget aligning with the collective bar

101agreement, do we start talking then about cuts because that's way earlier in the process. Yes, we do. Okay. because we that needs to happen. I mean, this is way too late. Um, and people need to understand and and then we need to have opportunity to do a deeper dive into yes, I was grateful for a meals tax, but then we also what they had indicated would be the tax rate. They they came down from that and and I didn't expect that because that we need the meals tax to help with the amount of money that we need um not to replace. So, uh, thank you. Thank you, Miss Lady, Mr. Moon, followed by Miss St. John Cunning. Uh, thank you. Uh, I'm going to go back to our textbook funding first. Uh, okay. All right.

102I All right. Correct me if I'm wrong. for FY25. I'm talking about this year's a approved amount was about 45 46 million for the textbook and then that went up to 105 or 106 when there was revised. So that delta of $60 million must have come from somewhere. And I try to find that because you know last several days I've been really scouring through uh different pages of the budget book to come up with the money whether I can come up with the money to address uh uh you know potential negative impact negative impact that's going to resulted in from uh you know staffing formula change and and among other things And this one stuck out to me. So I went to uh year and budget review and to see whether there was a $60

103million put in somewhere to make it from 45 to 100. I didn't see it. Third quarter wasn't there. Mid year wasn't there. Am I Am I missing something? Where did the $60 million come from? I mean, we we budget $34 million annually in recurring dollars for textbook adoption. And then if we have funds at year end, we allocate additional funds to that because, well, I mean, there's all kinds of reasons. First off, you know, sometimes supplemental materials is decided that we need supplemental materials to help narrow the achievement gap. There are also inflationary costs. um we're buying more physical books than we had previously. So we try to be very careful with those textbook funds to make sure. But as far I would have to research why. I mean I understand because in our own

104budget proposed budget book seems to claim that next year's $46 million is $60 million less than last year's revised FI25 revised. Well, we had two textbook adoptions this year, so that's why there was a a larger amount of funds for fiscal 25 than fiscal 26, but I'll let Matthew add some comments. Yeah, Mr. Moon, I I just wanted to to to um be more specific about the the year-end budget agenda is where we would have had um the adjustment that the board would have, you know, when when the board voted on the year- end agendas when that that carryover of those project funds would be. Um, and so because it's a syncing fund and because it's kind of on a multi-year basis, um, that amount of money that's in there is going to be um,

105if you're referencing a year-end agenda, it would be in the in the the project section of the year end agenda. I'm looking at the year end FI24 year end that will go into allocate for the FI25 and thoughhere in the year I see $60 million for well not a single penny, right? not a single penny firm. It's embedded in the project costs like FCPS on textbook funding. Any of those where we're accumulating funds, they are carried over automatically as um as multi-year funds. So, you're not going to see the detail of that. Most of the detail that you see in year end is going to be funds that are left over that the superintendent is recommending be spent for a specific purpose. other funds are just I just would like to make a request for

106you to provide a written response this question because I still don't understand what you're saying and just request made and so that I can go to next one. We'll do and and another thing that caught my attention is again as I oh my time is up so go back. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Miss St. John Cunning. So, one of the things that I want us to be careful about tonight is how we discuss what can change in this budget because I don't want to give false hopes to people that there can be changes. We were shortch changed. We have to make sacrifices. It's not good. and from what the projections are for what might be coming down the pike economically. But we do have to work smarter next year. We do have to do

107things earlier. And I know that one of the things that I was not here when collective bargaining was voted on by the board, which I think was very necessary. But I do know that some board members expressed frustration because then we can't put our hands in it anymore when they were used to doing it. And I don't know what the collective bargaining piece looks like in terms of us being more informed. Uh we weren't in the room. I trust the people that were in the room and what they set as priorities and that decisions were made based on those priorities. As we move forward trying to get information out earlier and trying to see, you know, if the priorities in that room had been like we're looking at the budget, we can't get all this

108funding. were willing to take maybe lower salary to make sure that this doesn't happen. I don't know what was happening in those rooms. I trust that what you outlined as the priorities were what were discussed in the room. Uh but I don't want to dangle possibilities out there and give false hope to some of the people that are that are listening to this. Um, and I mean it it really hurts me to the core because I intimately know some of our classroom monitors and I know that what the impact is going to be to them. Um, but I just don't want to create false hope for people. Um, and I just want us to be careful about that. Thank you. Um, I'm going to take a quick turn, then we'll go to go backs and

109since we do have plenty of time, we'll go back to three minutes for go backs. Um, thank you, Mr. R, for that suggestion. So just briefly, I think I I really like the idea when my colleagues mentioned about having community meetings about the budget, but I do also think that um sometimes in just starting any community meeting with here's the reality of our schools because I mean let's be real, the budget impacts our ability to do anything, right? So, if we're meeting about facilities, we need to talk about here's the reality of our facilities funding and our budget funding because I do think sometimes our community rightfully has gotten used to the idea of we have this excellent school system that can do all of these things coupled with the greater expectations around schools to

110be counselors and engage families. Um, things that weren't expected 1015 years ago, right, as much. So um and I think consistency also costs like to have the people to make sure we're being consistent takes people. It takes resources. Um so I do think that this needs to be a conversation early and often. I also think that I agree with my colleague about more consistent collaboration with the board of supervisors and and more you know sort of talking about what our reality is too so they're more aware and I'm wondering we always do a fiscal forecast meeting with them early in the fall. So I'm wondering if our part of that fiscal forecast can be the almost like a state of the schools because it's really hard for us to have a fiscal forecast because we

111don't control our fiscal reality. So maybe it's a here's you know what we're doing in our classrooms and here what here's where our challenges are because not in a any sort of way other than a collaboratively information sharing because they are primary funders. I think it's important to share information and I think that collaboration earlier more often will be helpful to everybody especially since we're both dealing with the shortfalls from the state and trying to do the best we can with that. I think that's going to just help everybody with information. But I just wonder if that's a good place to start. I know we're doing some additional joint committees, the school board and the board supervisors and I think that's another great place just to have informal conversations. But I'd be curious what you

112thought about the idea of maybe doing like a state of the schools to go along with the fiscal forecast. You know, I think anything that builds a collective context um would be helpful because I think the schools are part of the county, right? The county and the schools were all on the same team. And I think the the better everyone understands exactly the situation we're in. The expectations um and I will repeat again, high expectations require high support, and we have extraordinarily high expectations here. and that requires support. So the better we understand uh where we are, what our goals are and what we need to get there, I think that would help everybody. Thank you. I just I know in some of my conversations just giving additional context to things I think has been

113helpful. So I think if we just do that early and often perhaps that will help further that that joint collaboration that I think everybody wants. So with that we'll go to go backs and or go backs and like I said because we have plenty of time we'll go back to three minutes for that and we'll start with Miss uh Dr. Anderson followed by Miss Marin. All right. And this would be it for me. Um, my last comments. Um, I I I think we also have to be careful in what we're saying here and not to be insincere in our statements that what is happening here is not impacting our kids, not having a full-time special education chairs, not having full-time um arts, not having monitors, and then all of these other things that our principles

114are going to have to do in addition to the adjusted formula. These are impacting the classroom. they are that there's just no way around it. So, I I I hesitate. It's hard for me to absorb that we've stayed away from the classrooms. We're in the classrooms and I I just want us to be very clear about that. Um, one of the things that I also wanted to raise, um, I think in your last statement, Miss Eismore spoke a little bit about, you know, the limitations of local dollars. Those are real things and and we need to we need the funding, but we have local limitations. So, I'm really hoping that we can have some different conversations uh moving forward. I know Miss Marin has had a lot of advocacy on that end and we need

115to continue because that's where the big ticket dollars are and unless we can tap that, we will continue to be here. Um which is essentially my third point. Um, and Miss Lady also kind of got to this before I was able to. We have the tea leaves for next year. We know what the landscape is going to be and it's not going to be much different than where we are right now. We have the CBA agreement and it is incumbent upon this board to begin to have those conversations much earlier, much much earlier on rather than two days before the budget needs to be approved. And I know sometimes we worry about signaling, but we also need to be preparing um because we know what the landscape is. And I would like to see these

116conversations be happening more routinely with this board because honestly, I felt a little bit like a bystander in the budget process this year. I feel like it's happening to me instead of being the responsible body for the budget as we are supposed to be as identified by the state. So those are my big asks. Um but I do have two tiny questions. Um because this is in the community regarding budget. I would imagine Dr. Reid that the afterchool the middle school after school programming for the summer VIP camp which is run by the uh middle school coordinators uh we ago on that. I believe the county reinstated funding. The county originally in February paused their efforts to plan, but um I believe we're a go on that. I don't know that. Um when I would

117have to get like Mr. Horn is overseeing that. Dr. Pon, are you aware where we are in VIP camp? Are we currently taking enrollments? Yes. Okay, we are. So, communication has been sent out because nothing's been received by parents. And again speaking as a middle school parent I kind of get those directly. Dr. Pon I think the communication have been sent and everything but I I'm going to check why they have not been receiving but uh it was announced. Okay. It's just that usually by this point in February t typically the registrations happen and I know since the board of supervisors they just approved their budget last year but I have not seen anything and parents are asking because you know summer's coming. So, I would love to get that information if it was I'll

118make sure that you receive it. Uh, and when you send it to me, I'll put it in my newsletter that's going out tomorrow so that people know we're back on track with that. Okay. Thank you, U, Miss Marin, followed by Mr. Moon. Okay. So, um I'm really heartened to hear so much support for continuing to work better with the board of supervisors. And that was something that, you know, we said at the meeting with them in February. My question um to some of our colleagues here and also to some supervisors I've been chatting with lately is well, what's like the tactical steps, right? Like what are the actual things that we do, the action steps? So, you know, I've, you know, not surprisingly mapped out some ideas, but you know, like really what is it?

119And do we need to rethink our budget committee? Does it mean stay at two people? Well, what that maybe that doesn't serve us anymore. Maybe we need to have a larger budget committee. Maybe we have the joint budget committee. We have to see what the board of supervisors interested in. I think we also need to be very intentional about informing them. I I think we kind of expect that they're watching, but they have a lot of other stuff going on. So, are we sending them a memo? are we showing, you know, are we invited to a meeting where they could share an update and vice versa. Um but but back to engaging the public, I do think again these conversations like the boundary um advisory groups is important and I think that we need to

120have clear limits because I do not want to push the adults in the system to their breaking point. I'm not willing to do that. And I think we need to sense that to parents. Well, we can't have X, Y, or Z because there's a funding cut or we just can't do that this year. And I know this year from our elementary schools, you know, in our title one schools, it was a huge lift to do benchmark. And so, can they still do all the other things they're doing? Well, they're exhausted. Like, we have to again, and when I talk to people whose kids have gone through the system long ago, they're always shocked that there's 66,000 kids on free and reduced lunch, a third of our population. they're surprised we don't have this or that.

121We need to do a better job at reintroducing what our county is, you know, and what our resources are. But I really but Dr. Reed, I would like that language from you so that or or even to principles that they know how to say, you know, I'm sorry, but we're not able to do that thing on a Friday night this year or, you know, here are ways that parents can maybe it's helping the PTAs reinvision how they support you. I don't know, but we just can't allow the expectations to remain so high with with less funding because we'll lose people. Um, so colleagues, what I want to say is, you know, I think we can do this. I think we can adjust how we work and we have to invest that time on state funding

122if we want to do it. Then it's not just something that happens in the fall and January, February. It's every month we're meeting other schoolboard members. We're talking with our delegates and senators and working with our best partner, the board of supervisors, right? We're aligning our Richmond time. You know, we we can do that, but that also means that we have to change what you know what we sp we can't spend all of our time on all of the things that we do. But if we really want to get the money, it's it's going to be a full year effort. Um, and I again I would just love that our work calendar every month is prioritizing the budget. It's the only way it's going to happen that we're really like what do we want to

123do different? What's the story next year at this time that we've done differently? So I'd love to hear your all thoughts. Thank you Mr. Moon followed by Miss Dixon. Okay. Thank you. uh carryover. Uh Miss Berden, do departments also have a carryover? All of the carryover for departments is discretionary? We have a huge process where they um request funds from year end and depending on how much funds are available um they're reviewed um and decisions are made and then that's what's carried forward for departments um based on what they request and how much funding is available. Um, and while we're still talking about this, there are three or four items that are taken right off the top of year end. And those are encumbrances, multi-year projects, schoolboard reserves, and they're taken right off the top.

124In fiscal 24 carried into fiscal 25, 28 million was encumbered on a purchase order for Basil Language Arts adoptions. So that incumbrance carried forward automatically into the next year. In addition to that, we had 32 million in multi-year projects that was is slated for social studies, of course, math and language arts. And those two items combined are about $62 million. And that coupled with the baseline funds that we always budget for textbook adoption equals the hundred million that you were asking about. That's a perfect answer. And so going back to department carryovers so uh as far as the departments are concerned I we should be able to see that at the year end which no we're not it's it's not because it's it's not detailed at all in the year-end agenda. Um but I will

125tell you that the last two or three years we have had a significant amount of funds that we've carried over as far as the department carryover. Um but that is going to change. The recruitment efforts of the uh human resource department have been fabulous. We are not expected to have the uh fallout this year that we've had in the last three or four years due to the large number of vacancies that we had. Um and so we've already spoken with all of the chiefs and put them on notice that the amount of funds available to carry over at the department level is going to be very limited for fiscal 26. So, I'm assuming that that is going to be less than 10%. Yes. I'm just trying to again I'm just trying to find money. That

126would be my guess. I'm just trying to find money whether whether that's just something that a superintendent will work hard to make sure that a just like we expect the schools to limit their carryover to uh less than 10%. Less than 10% will do likewise. It's onetime money though so the usage is limited. I mean, they can they could trade it um for for staffing for one year only, but and that's why how we handle trades is they're identified as one year only um positions because it's not recurring dollars. And so that's the I guess the downside of using carryover is it's one-time money. you know one time you know one time money can be used for the one time purchase though like uh you know we I think it's superintendent proposed not to purchase

127electric vehicles as a part of her latest proposal that's a one time funding you know that can be done that can be divide so uh so so that's something I'm requesting to superintendent to keep in mind that you know we'll treat the department just like any other uh uh you know schools that we have tra will be trading for the carryover and again again because you know we the school board or I've been working with such a shortened amount of time to really look at you know potential uh you know alternatives to a superintendent proposal. I've been spending a lot of time again you know pouring over you know pages and pages and from the budget book and uh it just it came to my attention that there is something called transparency porter transparency porter

128on the fair county who provides that information to be posted on the transparency porter I'm sure it's just a a dump from focus or the yeah it goes to the comprollers's office and they so we provide the numbers and then they get who put up the numbers the comprollers's office it's from focus it's from our so it's our business suite yeah because I happen to be looking at you know going through a you know different departments how we have spent the money versus uh uh the amount I budgeted for each departments and etc. And I happen to see a superintendent's office having uh large amount as a school initiative which which you haven't spent a single penny. So uh either it's a mistake or just a bodies sitting there. Yeah, those are one-time dollars that

129we're using uh for the Dr. Howard Bell work. Um we're using it for um we're going to be moving algebra into sixth grade in the coming year at I believe uh Dr. Pon over 30 elementary schools. So one of the reasons we wanted to uh in terms of those closing gap dollars, we want to make sure we had a set aside and they're one-time only dollars to make sure we have materials uh that we can order. Um, and that's not even going to cover it honestly, but it'll cover at least I think 20 of the schools. So, it's encumbered and it's one time only. But we haven't spent a single penny thus as of that date like a March 30th probably. That's correct. Yeah. We don't I don't want to be reckless in how we

130address that. And those um invoices are still coming in. Okay. It's like a $90 million sitting there. Um they're onetime dollars. I think that there's encumbrances for some of that that would it's below it's less than that at this point and it's onetime uh onetime funding. I mean last year was the first time I think can we start the clock? Thank you. I think I'm out of time. Can I continue with this question? Okay. Thank you. You know last time I think last year was the first time that we had that particular uh sort of like line item under superintendence as far as a trans a trans transparency portal is concerned and the last time you didn't spend the money either there was a money put in there but really didn't spend the money this

131year I mean to me there was a substantially large amount uh and then haven't spent a single penny. I'm just trying to see whether we that's I'll have to get that's a pot of money that I can tap into or Thank you, Mr. Moon. Yeah, that we can get you the detail on that, but that's that's encumbered and committed. So, and again, the um invoices are still coming in. So, okay. Yeah, it couldn't be used as ongoing, you know, as one time only money. Miss Dixit, if I can interject. Yes, please go ahead. When this superintendent spends um the achievement gap, we we don't charge it to the superintendent's account because that's very broad achievement gap. We we move those funds to the correct account and then pay it out of there. So you may

132not see the actual expenditure data reflect what has actually been spent out of those funds because when we when we are asked that we have to research it because they get moved to the appropriate account to be able to spend it out of Thank you, Miss Dixit. So I'm hearing a lot about one-time funds and one-time funds. So I'm want to make uh sure the public knows and everybody knows that that this is not going to you know keep on happening. The after school middle school program, middle school after school program, it's one year funding we got from the supervisors. It's not continuous money. They've not promised it more than a year. Same thing with our uh with our adjustments we are making trying to make with the principal funds u flexibility fund for uh

133a art a sped chairs. That's also one-time fix right now. So, we still are in a big delta of $120 million. That's the bottom line here. We can say it in any way, but the numbers are numbers and they're facts. Um, I did want to ask uh Dr. Reed, that's $120 million, a big amount, and obviously it's going to have an impact. What are we planning to do to mitigate those impact in some ways? Are you talking about in the outy years? because the adjustments we've made and that I'm proposing for the budget address it for this year. I think that the with collective bargaining in year two, we know it's 3% and a step. Um our other union is in the middle of negotiating right now and they'll have um commitments that we're going

134to be needing to keep. So we know if you will those commitments and then we're going to have to look at the rest of the budget and really I think have a conversation number one about advocacy because I believe that it's possible even in today's financial times to fund a larger transfer whether it's from the state or the county uh to be able to maintain class sizes and the supports we know nurture a world-class education. So, number one, I think we need to really be thoughtful about advocacy and making sure we all understand our context. And then number two, um, if we're going to continue not to be fully funded, we're going to need to make some forced choices, I think, and have a conversation about that moving forward. Thank you, Dr. Reid. um the

135things how are going we've not been fund fun fully funded uh for a couple of years uh since I got on the board and um so I really don't know that's going to change now with the same set of funders if the funding people were different I would say differently right um and coming with federal funds we know that uh we get about $50 million for uh food food and services FNS department from uh federal government and I was told that we have the funds till end of this year. Uh do we have funds for next year from the federal funds for the the food food and uh free and reduced lunches? There has not been any discussion at the federal level about um supplements for free and reduced lunch. Um and you know trying

136not to talk about it because we don't want them to be alerted that Yeah. Um, but we haven't received anything except for I think maybe one grant that um that we're probably not likely to get that in the next year. Um, but there is an appeal process that we're that we're working through, but there has been no communication about any of our funding sources from the federal government except for that one grant official communication. Okay, thank you for that. That's something to keep in mind. um just in the uncertain time we are with the federal money overall. Um and lastly I was wanted to ask about Hazel Health. Um we have an a contract with Hazel Health for I guess is $1.6 million. Um I wanted to know if that is uh how long that

137contract is and I think have we funded for next year. Um if I can ask Dr. Prescidio to respond to that. I'd have to check on the contract terms and get back to you on that one. I I apologize. I don't know off the top of my head. And and just on that top same topic um sorry it said a lot question but this one it is about the our insurance for the employees right with Sigma I think we heard some very um disgruntled I guess uh employee speaking about but that's not being bringing cost savings as is anticipated have you started looking into other uh insurance providers at better coverage and lesser price. Um yes, in the sense that we as part of the agreement with FEU, we went out to bid, we went

138out with an RFP for a new health care plan um I believe on April the 17th. And so the selection advisory committee is moving through that work now of ranking all of the um respondents and um they should have a decision within the next month or six weeks as to what who our healthcare provider will be in the future. And we are absolutely hoping that we will be able to achieve some savings and efficiencies by going out early with this RFP process. Thank you. Um, I will take a brief turn. Miss Dixit, were you finished? Miss Dixit, were you finished? Yeah. Okay. I will just take a brief turn. Um, a couple questions I have. I know there's some conversations about the strategic initiative funds and some of these other funds. I also know that

139there's been some work done around reducing chronic absenteeism, some work done on, you just recently presented about um the successes students are having in completing and successfully completing algebra 1. And I don't remember off the top of my head the statistics, but it was quite impressive the how our students ended this year on the algebra 1 so if I recall um I know there's been some work done on inclusion work on expanding preschool which so much data shows is the value of that you know preschool is such a great data indicator for reducing costs and interventions in school and outcomes. So could you talk a little bit more about and also I know some of the work is being done to fulfill the goals of the strategic plan. So, could you talk a little bit

140more about what those funds are encumbered for or planning to be encumbered for that's actually still able to move our division forward? I think it's all of the above that you've just clarified. And um you know, I the we've made huge gains in chronic absenteeism, the spring sprouts, the blooming readers, etc., as well as um some summer planned programming and real-time materials and extra hours um that we've assigned to staff and schools. And again, uh being one-time dollars, they're not really appropriately spent on staff or salary because they're not carrying and continuing. So, I think that um there they've enabled us to really nimly respond to data because you don't want to line up expenditures until you get the year moving and see where you need to uh target resources. As we looked at even

141our most uh our schools currently in the most need based on uh midyear data, I think I shared some of that um in our uh recent session that we talked about data and how we responded. You have to be able to move quickly with resources, be they um materials, extra hours, transportation, extra uh adding extra buses to schools that need more transportation in the afternoon. It's just a variety of needs, but um as Miss Burden said, often they're coded off to different departments and then we'll collect and reassemble them at the end of the year. Thank you. And I also know that, you know, our board earlier voted unanimously because of the fact that we failed indicator five and six at the state level to lift up inclusion as one of the priorities. And some

142of the contracted extra contracts were to bring in some experts on inclusion to help our schools sort of go into, you know, to to help our schools really do meaningful inclusion. And so and as well as some of the strategic initiatives around that work. So is that some of that funding coming out of the strategic initiatives as onetime dollars? Yes, ma'am. It is. So, so impacting that would also hurt our inclusion work and hurt our ability to meet VTO's indicators. Yes, ma'am. It would um another question around some of that strategic initiative funds. You talked about um Dr. Bell's work, right? Um on course taking patterns. Could you talk a little bit more about the impact of that work as well? We've had a long discussion about uh making sure that students have access regardless

143of their uh pyramid to uh the most rigorous academic coursework. And in particular, we looked at uh course taking patterns. Uh mathematics was where we started. And so we're really um wanting to make sure that we have access not just in two or three middle schools but across the board for even algebra trig by middle school. And so um currently that's not available across the county. We want to make sure that it is. And Dr. Bell's work and Dr. Garing's work with us went beyond just mathematics, but also the types of diploma and course taking patterns students have access to when they get to high school. And we know that has a huge impact on post-secary success because um the course taking patterns uh and the rigor of the uh transcript from high school is

144actually more important than um you know test scores or GPA. We know that's the most critical work. Our high school principles have done tremendous uh prep work this year and as I mentioned to you um all but five schools started in year one. We've got five more adding and then we want to bring our middle schools on board because as the board discussed in that work session uh we know that course taking patterns at high school need to be planned in middle school. So we had a plan also uh to move forward with uh early middle school work this coming year and the second part of the high school work. So it's it's a tremendous retooling. It also connects to some of the work we discussed around standard versus advanced diplomas um and how we're

145going to hit the targets um or at least meet the conversation where we were at our last discussion. So there's a lot of work um in that area that is part of the um achievement gap closing strategies. Well, I appreciate that because I know some of that work, if I recall from one of our previous work sessions on the goal reports, there was some concern about the long-standing gaps in some of our different groups in terms of their access to advanced coursework, right? And in different schools as well as by different identity groups and along with achievement gaps. So some of this work is able to close those gaps to work on those gaps on this course taking pattern. It is really critical work that was coming out of those strategic initiative funds. Is that

146kind of the plan for or the the data behind some of this work that that's what it addresses as part of it is closing these gaps between access from different groups and different schools to these advanced classes. Yes, ma'am. It does. And furthermore, I we've had a long conversation about what do we do when we have a high school where six students are ready for uh linear algebra for example and just coming up also with sort of online solutions and the ability uh to connect students from one school to another uh because where we have a high school where we're able to offer that on site and then we have a high school where those six students who are qualified and eager and excited are not able to take that course because we don't have

147either a certificated teacher for that level or enough students to financially run the section. Part of the um gap closing strategy dollars is to make sure that we're able to find other solutions and we've talked about expanding our online academy in terms of coursework as well as uh better connections inter and intra building uh to support that and those are pieces we have to build uh because they don't currently exist. And then last question. I know at one of our meetings, it might have been a might been actually an academic matters if I recall. You talked about some of our strategies that you're using to support our newer teachers. I can't expect what you called it, right? Is that kind of is that coming out of some of those strategic initiatives and and other funds

148as well? Some of the support you're doing to help our new teachers get up to speed. Yes, ma'am. It is. And I one of the other projects we've talked about uh is microcredentiing for multilingual and um also for our uh universal design for learning uh micro credentiing and those are initiatives uh that the seed dollars are coming out of that. So I guess I bring all that up a whole lot of topics. I guess I didn't bring a list tonight but there is a long list probably more than we can actually fund out of the dollars that are there. So, well, and I bring that up because a lot of this is data. You know, supporting our newer teachers helps them be better teachers in the classroom. Inclusion work. There's so much data around improving

149outcomes from some of our groups that have the the worst gaps, right? Our special ed students. I mean, there's just data around that work, including UDL for allowing our twice exceptional students and our students with disabilities better access. Um, some of this work on course taking patterns can help close some of these achievement gaps and access to higher education, higher level classes gaps. And I could go on. It feels like while it's not listed in strategic initiatives, I know over throughout the year you've talked about these different things. I want to make it clear that's the funding pot for those. All right. Thank you. Um Mr. Mle, I apologize. I didn't see your placard. I'll give you your three minute. Do you want more than three minutes since you haven't spoken yet? Yeah, I'll go

150quick. Um so um Lee, I'd be grateful if you could just go back to um your discussion about transferrering money from the special initiatives pot to other places and just explain what goes on with that. That was not clear. So I'm just going to do a simple example. if she is buying um equipment, I don't know what kind this the superintendent's reserve account or achievement gap account is not an appropriate account because we have to do an annual school report at the end of every year that tells the state exactly what we spent on on what. And so we wouldn't charge it to that account because it's just kind of a broad holding place. we would move the if she approved the expenditure then we would move it to an equipment account the appropriate one

151and then fund it for and then we would charge it to there so it's just getting it in the right place right I mean I for for me it's just challenging because we have this this funding there that looks like it's unencumbered but it's actually encumbered and we hear that contracts are coming in for it but it doesn't Yeah you're not on the transparency website you're going to see the actual that's going to link up with with that exactly. Um, but you know, that's probably one of the few accounts we have like that. Maybe schoolboard flexibility reserve, same thing. We're not going to purchase directly out of the schoolboard's flexibility reserve. We're going to move it to the appropriate account and pay from that. Um, and then Dr. Reed, I wanted to see if you'd

152be able to speak more broadly about the impact of cuts to central office, what that will look like, the 3% across the board. So, thank you, Mr. Meline. I one of the things we wanted to make sure and actually um I think we percentage-wise, Miss Burton cut more from the central office than we did from schools. Uh so each department met uh they came up with their 3% of their budget cut and they met with Miss Burden and Mr. Smith to review that uh to make sure you know just extra sets of eyes as a team member to make sure that what we were cutting um that what we had left was still um supportive of you know making sure that um we were aligning with our strategic plan. Um and all of us uh

153every department made cuts. I don't we don't have a summary I don't think yet. I think Miss Burton you've kept sort of a running total but I don't have a summary beyond a number of pages. I don't know if you could clarify it all Lee. Yeah I mean it's about 7.5 million and of course each department has you know identified reductions of of 3%. Um most of the departments are using logistics funds. There are some positions that are being um eliminated but they are vacant positions. So there's it's the is the actual position. I think there are a few that have folks in in them but they will we we'll be able to place them in a like position and I think it's just a couple but we're still kind of working through the details.

154We haven't yet spoken to um any of the staff about the department reductions um in any kind of detail and so we don't really want to talk about that here before we've had a chance to actually talk to those folks. I I would also add that we've frozen some hiring, right? Because we're not adding people at this point until we're sure where we where the budget uh ends up completing. Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you. Um I'm gonna ask we have two more people who want go backs. We have time. So I'm going to ask my colleagues if we're okay with All right. So we'll go with Dr. Anderson and then Mr. Moon. Three minutes again, please. I I don't need three minutes. you just said something that kind of um raised my antenna a

155little bit and I appreciate not wanting to have conversation about it here since there has not been any um it looks like some folks need to be informed but could we get a listing of those positions that are going to be moved to other places or cut entirely or frozen entirely or is the fro or is the freezing temporary? Anything's possible at this point, but we certainly when the dust settles be happy to provide a list of the positions. I I would most certainly want to know what the positions right now that are being cut entirely. I think if those decisions are made, maybe you could communicate that to us sooner rather than later. Yeah, we'll be glad to do. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Thank you. I I would like to ask questions regarding compensation.

156two groups, FEU and non-FEU. Uh for non-FEU where the proposal from superintendent is to give a 5% a a pay raise other than hourly employees and those employees who are members of FCFPSA that's a long acronym right there. Is there any other group to be non FEU hourly and FC FPSA? Yeah. Well, leadership team. Okay. So, and any other group? They're non FEU. I mean, so any other group? No, it's it's just those two. FEU is operational and instructional. So, it's two components. And then the FCPS, whatever it is, supervisors, administrator, and um yeah, they're and they're hourly, part-time, hourly. They they're non or full-time or it doesn't matter. It's hourly. Yep. They're nonfe employees are not, you know, subs, those kinds of things are not uh in a union either. And then we have

157confidential employees, which and school board office. And could anybody tell me a number of hourly employees we have? It seems to me 12,000. 12,000. That's that's a pretty large number. Correct. Thank you, Dr. Solomon. Okay. Okay. Okay. Since we have a Mr. Solomon back there, could you could you come to the table? Answer my next question. I'm just trying to gauge the amount of impact if it differentiate hourly employees compensation increase versus non FEU than hourly employees meaning those belonging to FCF uh PSCA and LT what's the a 1% difference between those two two groups hourly groups which has many more employees of 12,000 versus you know a couple of members plus about another I guess this is 1,400 yeah 1,400 FCFTSA members I think I understand your question is what's the dollar amount of

158the dollar amount of the compensation increase for members of FEU and then the dollar amount of the compensation increase for members for folks who are not members of FEU. I'm no I'm trying to see the difference between 1% for hourly versus 1% for non-hourly and nonfe members. Mr. I think Miss Burton is better able to answer that question. So for hourly each 1% is $962,000. So 5% for hourly is 4.8 million. Okay. Thank you. That answers my question. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr. Moon. Miss Marin. Thank you. I just wanted to get a little tactical for a moment. So up next in 48 hours is our meeting and um it seems like there are amendments. So now would be a great time to discuss them since we're all here if that's

159of interest and about moving forward. So how do we get our 12 elected officials and the 10 board of supervisors at each of our executives to communicate? It's pretty tough to do, right? So that's why we have our committees. So I'm wondering about um putting a next step forward where we you know we have our process with the document and then it's public asking for two things. One is to discuss the board's. So one one thing first is our board to discuss our calendar for the upcoming year at a forthcoming work session before we vote on the calendar which the chair has provided a draft already to us. So I've already gone through it and seen where we might want to switch up a cadence or rethink some things. Um so I would love to

160know can we have a discussion about that before we bring it to a vote in July? And I know our timelines are set but it this is so important. So, I hope that others can um support that. And the second thing I'll put forward for a next step is to um have the chair and budget chair contact the board of supervisors to request a meeting in June to discuss the collaborative calendaring together. So, the request is for our leadership to request the meeting to happen in June. Um and I would say include the meeting to include our executives as well. So, um, I'll put those forward and I'd love to talk with you all about them, but you know, unless we really start to map it out, we're going to have great conversations, but we

161got to get to the action. So, thank you. Thank you. And I'm going to respond just really quickly. This is budget chair. If I may take 30 seconds to respond and then I'll go to go back on that. I will I will work with our chair to to talk to about that. And I also can work with our chair to talk and maybe put out a survey to the board about what that cadence might look like as we're working because I think it'd be difficult maybe to have people are welcome to speak to that of course but perhaps a survey to the board about what they would like to see for that then we can kind of build from there. Yeah. No, thank you Missheiser. I think you know you know how our calendars all

162are right. So contacting the supervisor's office, getting a date, right? And then perhaps we can talk and figure out, you know, what are some questions or, you know, ideas to put forth. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Um, next we have Mr. Fred by Mr. Dunn. So, as we've been having these difficult conversations these past several, uh, weeks, uh, I've been in touch with Chairman McCay about the need for our boards to more closely collaborate and different ways that might be possible. Obviously, I think Miss Eismerheiser and I can reach out appropriately. In terms of work sessions, um we will investigate the work plan uh schedule and circle back with options in chair's notes uh this week. So tomorrow what Thursday morning um to gauge availability for board members. Um I hesitate to move

163anything around on our next work session because it is the product of moving things around and I would hate to move the auditor general uh further off. So we'll investigate what is possible and circle back with options. Thank you. Uh Mr. Dunn, thank you. Uh Mr. Burden. So, uh, in budget question 35, um, you provided how much it costs for 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% raise for all FCPS employees compared to how much for those at those percentage levels for FU only. Do you recall that? Uh, and the difference between a pay raise of 1% for all FCPS employees versus a pay raise for FEU only is $3.7 million. Is that correct? Yes. Um, so uh if uh we were to uh reduce the pay raise for non-FU personnel by 1% from 5%

164to 4% that would liberate $3.7 million for spending on other potential priorities. Is that correct? I think it's three million but give or take. Yeah. [Music] Um the central office department reductions. Um you have here in the budget summary a figure of $7,457,569. Um, is that representing a 3% um uh a 3% reduction in the central office department? Yes, that is 3% of all of the salaries and logistics funding budgeted in each department. Okay. And where is that found? The central office department in the budget book. I'm not sure what you mean. So I'm trying to find is there an account labeled central office department or how how would I assemble the 100% from what line items in the budget book? I don't I don't know if you can, but the adopted budget book, not

165the proposed, the proposed is a much smaller document, but the adopted budget has each department's budget um by by department. So, like it says finance department. Um but there may be I need to I'd have to look at it, but there may be some things in there that were excluded. like I'm pretty sure that um employee benefits are budgeted in the finance department, but obviously it's it's it's for the entire system. It's not for just my budget. So there may be some um some things like that that are for systemwide purposes, but they're so they would appear in the adopted budget, but maybe weren't included because it's not something we can cut by 3%. Okay. Uh that's helpful. Um, so how was it determined to reduce it by 3%. We we looked at varying levels

166um as to what we thought we could reduce and 3% was where we ended. And what were the different levels that you considered? Well, we started at 1% and then we doubled it and said, "Okay, that's two." And then tripled it and that's three. So, we didn't really have a a robust discussion about the percentage that would be appropriate, but I can tell you having met with every chief about their reductions that this was very difficult for them. Um, I just doing the math, um, the central office department, if it were a line item, would be at $248 million. Does that sound right? If a 3% reduction is $7.457 million, then then 100% would be 248. I trust math. So if that's the calculation, then yes, you're right. So uh did you did you uh

167do any analysis of 4% 5% 6%. We calculated it but did not move forward with those percentages. And uh do you have any written analysis or or any notes or anything reflecting what the impacts would be at the different levels? And no. Okay. Just the 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% that's it. And how much of that 3% is consumed by uh by vacant uh positions, positions that have not been filled? Less than 10. Okay. Okay. So 90% would involve reductions of personnel or logistics or other expenses. Logistics. Logistics. Can you explain what logistics is? Non salary funding for example. Uh my FTE, Matthews FTE, Marty's FTE. Sorry. So you're talking about labor. Is that right? Yes. Okay. All right. But the majority of the 7.5 million, EL said it's less than 10 positions that have

168been reduced. The majority of which are vacant. The rest of it came from logistics or non salary funding. Sorry, I you lost me. So, of the $7 million, 10 consists of FTE positions that are vacant. Less than 10. Okay. And and the rest is non salaried. Sorry, say the word again. Logistics funding. Logistics. Non salary funds. So, that's not money to pay employees. That's something to be spent on contracts or other absolutely okay so we're not talking about materials supplies office supplies PD uh software licenses those kinds of things okay so uh so most of the $7 million is not on personnel now at the four five and six% levels the analysis you did um at those levels there's still more supplies non- salaried expenses that you could cut into correct I don't know the

169chief I would have to meet with the chiefs and discuss their budgets with them. Like I know for example my budget I've only got 2% in logistics funding. So I could cut all the materials, all the supplies, all the PD, all the travel, everything and I still wouldn't have 3%. So I was forced to look at positions. So if we did a greater percentage and wanted position or and wanted to see what we could get, I would have to meet with every chief and discuss because they may or may not have enough logistics funding to take an additional cut. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Miss Anderson followed by Miss St. John Cunning. I just had a quick question. Could you refresh our memory about how many like what is our percentage of central office

170staff compared to our schools? So like what percentage of our staffing comes from central office? I guess you're referring to the non-school-based versus schoolbased percentages. And we have the highest percentage of school-based employees in the metropolitan area at 93% with 7% non-school-based. and that is the lowest non-school-based percentage in the metropolitan area. So, could you give us some example of the types of people that fall within that 7%? I'm assuming it's um procedural support liaison and what other central I mean I know we often just think of the folks that we see in gate house but I think that there are far more people that we're not tracking. So, I was hoping that we could maybe think about what types of positions those were. Well, it's the it's the payroll who ensures that everyone gets

171um paid every two weeks or monthly depending on what schedule you're on. It's employee benefits. It's the people who manage um the health care plan, short-term disability, long-term disability. In HR, of course, it's the recruitment staff. It's the u salary services folks. It's um and you know the other chiefs could could talk about the various positions that they have in central office. But you know I I think that one of the reasons this was very difficult for us and why we had to most of the chiefs had to go to logistics funding is it's my understanding that you know historically it's been pretty taboo to add positions to central office. Um I know in my department there haven't been any positions added most certainly in the seven years I've been here nor and I think

172it went back long before that. So that's one of the reasons is you know in in the last 10 years 15 years when we've not added any positions at central office I think everyone would agree that the expectations of elected officials the community etc have grown much larger during that time period but you know we are not really allowed to stop doing anything so we just keep piling on and asking our people to work more. So, it's fair to say that across the board in central office and in the schools, we're we are asking for more from our staff in every capacity because I certainly know that's true in our office. I know that that's true in schools for absolutely as the requirements get more intensive. Um, Dr. Reid gave us the statistic and I

173had done similar research. We are larger than 11 states. Um, would you venture a guess that our administrative staff is is less than those states administrative staff as well? Yeah, I think that's a safe bet that our administrative staff is. I mean and you all of course have all seen the statistic that you know as far as our leadership goes we're at 1% and yes we are achieving some economies of scale because of our size but in the metropolitan area our leadership is 1% compared to two to 4% at all of the other divisions around us and you know Prince Ringum and and Lowden are both half our size so they're pretty large too um but we absolutely are the have the leanest leadership in the metropolitan area and I want to speak to this

174because it's something I hear from my constituents quite a bit too is that the easiest place for us to cut obviously would be central office and it's an easy trap to fall into that I just want us to be careful how far we go down this path because for a school system as large as ours. We do absolutely need the support staff at the central office level that allows schools to do what they need to do and to provide the services for those for those administrators at the school level and the teachers and the training and you know instructional services and chief of schools like all of those things lead to the schools that we're able to provide support for. So I just want to be careful going too far down the path of pitting

175central office against the schools because I think that you are correct. I agree that we are particularly lean and I appreciate the fact that we have aimed so hard to do so and I know that this 3% hit hits hits hard at the central office level too and so I just wanted to say thank you for considering that as part of part of it is that you know working together I think is the best way to make this happen. So I just wanted to speak to because it's something I hear hear about consistently. Thank you. Um Mr. Fris then Miss St. John. Oh, sorry, Miss St. John Cunning. Um, I wanted to follow up on that as uh and just add some extra central office category people, our equity leads that go and teach everyone

176in our school and do all the equity equity work. They do the behavior specialists that come out and support teachers when they have uh severe behavior problems. Um, all the staff that supports our community meetings, they do all the planning, they're out there. um our our interpreters that go out and interpret everywhere, their central office staff, our leadership team that aside from doing all the work they have to do put up with all the questions that we ask them. So I just want to let you know that our central office staff is vital. I want this is better said by the letter that we all got today from MSAOC. the paragraph, the last paragraph that says, "Furthermore, we advocate for respectful and dignified treatment of all FCPS employees, further reducing central office shows a lack

177of understanding of the functioning of a system. While we unequivocally support our school-based educators and the proposed salary increases, the board the board and superintendent must acknowledge in word and action the importance and key function of the staff who perform the vital roles that build the capacity of those teaching our students, create the curriculum, and quite literally keep schools functioning. Undervaluing these de dedicated professionals, especially given FCPS's already lean central office spending compared to neighboring divisions, undermines the su success of our schools and ultimately our students. Each FCPS employee plays a crucial role in the system that nurtures and elevates our students, particularly those who are the most vulnerable. I couldn't have said it better myself and I'm proud that I'm the liaison to this committee. Thank you very much. Um, Mr. D, I see

178you have plecred up again for I don't know which round it is. I'm going to take my take a turn and then I will call on you. Go go go go go go back. Um, so I just wanted to reiterate a little bit. It's I hear a lot from the community and before I was on the school board in the in the advocacy work and as a as a parent role, I heard a lot about a lot of concerns about fidelity fidelity of implementation. Fidelity of implementation, consistency, fidelity of implementation. You know, we have these great ideas and how well are we implementing it? I we hear about a system of schools instead of a school system. You know, I I hear from families who have concerns, legitimate concerns at their schools and they reach

179out for help and I'm constantly connecting them with the region office to help them. Um, I think about from my HR lens the importance of HR in recruiting teachers, in hiring teachers and staff, in keeping our building staffed. Um, and in complying with the law, there's just certain things that we need to do for an organization this size and having as a lawyer advised many organizations of this size. You have to have people to keep us compliant and to keep us running and to address the issues that are there. Um, I think we all can agree that the most important the most the really valuable people some of the most valuable people are the teachers and educators directly in the classroom working with our students. Those are the ones that we're all centering and lifting

180up. I don't think anyone would argue with those those are the ones doing the work of the boots on the ground as my colleague often says but I don't think we should say the other work is also not valuable because when you have an organization that's a $4 billion organization you have to have high qualified people who are respected to run that organization to the level that our community expects and that level that we need to do to not just be legally compliant but safe and hire and keep and support through HR functions our best staff not to mention many of the people that you talked about um you know and I think one thing that hasn't been mentioned is we have I think the largest transportation fleet in the Mid-Atlantic and that takes people

181to run and so I think you know what I mean the issue that we're grappling with here is that everything is important because we are at that place in our budget we don't want to give up on the work to move us forward the algebra work the achievement gap All these things, these are all important. We don't want to give up on the great work one of my colleagues mentions of outdoor classrooms because we all enthusiastically supported that learning for lots of different datadriven research driven reasons. We don't want to give up on the inclusion work. We don't want to give up on the early math. We don't want to give up any of this stuff because that's what makes FCPS FCPS. But we can't consistently do that work with fidelity of implementation if we

182don't have strong highqualified leadership to make sure that work is being done with fidelity of implementation and hiring the best teachers and supporting the best teachers and supporting our families and students when their students are not getting the support they feel they need in the building. So we've got to recognize that unfortunately we're at a place where something has to give. But we can't do it by devaluing one or the other. And I think that's just an important message to say we just got to work with our county partners more. We all have priorities and there's a lot of constraints. We're all dealing. We're all in the same situation with our budgets. But I I just wanted to say that. So, um, Mr. Dunn, I'll go to you. Go go go go go go back

183and then Miss Lady after that. Um, thank you. Uh so uh Miss Burden uh you've worked here since for seven years you said so 2018 roughly pardon me 2018 roughly you started. Yes. Okay. So uh I'm looking at the FY 2022 budget book and that was when Scott Braybrand was superintendent and he is listed here as having uh six direct reports. Chief Academic Officer, Chief Equity Officer, Deputy Superintendent, COO, Division Council, and Director of Operations. Does that seem right? Yes. Okay. Um now uh we we've heard a little bit that uh central office has remained uh stable in its uh staffing but when I look at the organization chart currently I see many more direct reports to the superintendent which is not to criticize anyone or or this organization chart but it does look like

184a lot more positions have been added in terms of direct reports that that didn't exist historically. Well, I I don't know that I'd characterize that as adding because the majority of those positions, if if not all of them that you're seeing there were existing positions that were made into chiefs without adding another position. And all of the leadership positions that are funded currently were funded with existing dollars, not new dollars. Is that true for the chief experience and engagement officer? That position existed previously. That's the one that I'm the least familiar with. I would have to I'd have to research that. Okay. But it was with existing dollars. And And what was that position called previously? Well, we may have taken a vacant position and turned it into the chief engagement position, but we, you

185know, we certainly didn't go back to the county and ask for additional funds. We funded it within our existing budget. Okay. And and and it's also true that the number of positions paying over $200,000 a year has increased fairly significantly, hasn't it, in recent years? I I don't know that I'd say significantly. Um I think that um we did an analysis that analysis of that recently and um if you apply the CPI to those positions then you know you're they were at the same level maybe a little higher than they were four or five years ago after you apply the inflation factor. Thank you. Stepping in for my colleague real fast. Um Miss Lady and then Mr. Fresh. I I'm kind of speechless. Um I want to go back and just reiterate a question that

186I believe was asked about the fact that our hourly employees are not part of the FEU. Correct. And you asked that that number because when we talk about cutting, we just want to make sure everyone understands that was a pretty big number. It was close to six million. Was that correct? for the the cost or the number of the cost it was like 12,000 hourly people but when you talked about what it would cost per I mean 1% 1% would cost the hourly people 982,000 and it's 4.8 8 million for the 5%. Yes. I just want to make that point because we we keep there seems to be a lot of conversation around cutting the non-FEU and you know I just want to be very specific. These people likely make the least amount of money

187in our system. And you know just like we're sort of very pained by the loss of the monitors. Um, I just think we need to be careful and I just it's bare bones. It's bare bones what we have everywhere. Um, and I just, you know, I I thank everyone who works in the system for the work that they do, the passion they bring, the the time they put in, the time they lose with family, the time they lose to exercise or engage in their own mental health. Um it's a hardworking staff and I really appreciate you. Thank you Mr. Fr. and then Mr. Moon. Thank you. Uh speak to the org chart a little bit. Um so as is my recollection is that previously we had an office of comm community uh communications and community

188relations. We used to call it OCCR and people in the community would be like what did those letters mean? Um, and we now have an office of communications and then we also have uh the chief experience and engagement officer. Is that correct? Yes, sir. All right. And so as we've kind of embarked with the superintendent over the last year and a half, two years on this reorg reorg that she's pushed forward, I think it's important to when you think about the number of direct reports that now uh report directly to the superintendent. What you're talking about is direct accountability to the superintendent who has direct accountability to us. And I think that's refreshing. The other thing I would say is that previously we had all sorts of assistant superintendents of this that and the other

189and now we have people whose titles align with the work that they do um and do not necessarily imply an academic um uh credential. Many of these people do not have they're not licensed instructional staff. We treat it differently through contracting etc. And one thing that I found refreshing as we've uh hired new people or changed positions or split uh departments, remember we used to have transportation and facilities, a giant behemoth of two pieces of the organization in one. Is that every time we've been brought one of these things, we've been told how the effort is being what effort is being made to make it costneutral or to not incur uh new additional employees. And so I get the talking point out in the community, look at the number of chiefs, but it fails to

190see, and this is part of, I think, our problem with the budget generally is we do a lousy job of communicating these things because we're racing on to the next important thing to do. It's like you don't brag about putting out the fire on on house A if house B is on fire. And so we've done a great job. The superintendent has a done a great job and should be applauded for the work that she's done to make the LT more transparent for the work that it does, more accountable to the superintendent who is more accountable to us through our executive limitations process. We get more data on the work of these people than we have ever received since I've been on the board. And part of me wishes that if people who tell us

191that they do watch our meetings, and I always tell them you can watch it at double speed on YouTube, but if you're going to watch one part of our meetings, I hope you will watch the executive limitations parts of our meetings because it shows you where the rubber hits the road and the work is being done and it has the data to back up the claims. So, I appreciate all the work that's been done, which probably saves us money in the long run. Um, and perhaps we need to do a better job of bragging about the things that our superintendent is doing on a regular basis that go unnoticed. Thank you, Mr. Moon, followed by Miss Lady. Thank you. Uh, I believe that one thing that we can all agree on is that next year

192we have this kind of conversation earlier than waiting until two days before we have to make a final budget decisions. I'm not blaming anyone for not doing that way this this year but you know having go through one first cycle with a collective bargaining being a a large part of that uh you know I think the sooner we start having this kind of conversation in case that county executive recommends not to fully fund us the better the better final work product will come out. Uh you know all our employees within FE you know Fairfest County Public School System do provide a valuable service a a for the future of our students and and the community. You know, with that said, you know, some of the things that I regret that we haven't really had a

193time to look into is, you know, besides what's been put on our table by the superintendent, whether there might have other things we could have considered looking at. I mean, that we need to have we need to provide ourselves with that kind of opportunity to look into. If someone out there on the street, you know, tells us that compared to 2019 compared to 2019, FI 2019 in FI26 with, you know, 6,000 less students, you are spending this much more or you have a this many more non-school-based central administrative staff. And why do you have uh you know, eight members have gone up from 17 to 25? Why the supervisors have gone up from uh a a a 593 a specialist have gone through 600 to a 700. Why a supervisors from 160 to almost 260.

194We have to look at those because those, you know, money potentially that can be saved could go into not increase the class size, not cut a positions, not not cut a special education department chair positions because you know people came out and spoke to us. So we got to have those opportunities much earlier than waiting on again that waiting until two days before. Thank you, Mr. Moon, Miss Marin. Yeah, I just wanted to underscore about those executive limitations because that is really I agree has really produced a ton of information and something I was talking with a colleague on the board today with was if we really want to focus on the money and the advocacy it takes to get that money, something's got to come off our plate. And for me, I've, you know,

195I helped hire Dr. Reid. This is going to be her three-year anniversary and she has produced and she's done it all transparently and although I would love to talk so much about grading policy and school food and outdoor learning, she's got it. Is it as quick as we want? I don't know. But I haven't seen anybody do it quicker and with a clear plan with more transparency. Her community, you know, support is through the roof. So, do we as a board feel that we can spend more of our time talking about the money and really let those executive limitations be the thing and let go some of the interests that some of us have and the deep connection because we just can't keep operating like this. So, you know, we've got the strategic plan, we've

196got the executive limitations, uh we've got academic matters, you know, how do we maximize our time and you know, maybe it's the committee structure, maybe again we can rethink how the work gets done. I know on the previous board, you know, we talked about it too, everybody wants to be in everything. That might be true here, but then it creates bottlenecks, right? So, I think we can do it. We just need to dedicate that time. So, again, you know, hopefully we could talk about it in a work session. and we have to talk about it publicly, but that's okay. And we're showing the public that we're trying to grow and do the business differently because things are different and we're trying to keep our schools great. So, I hope that we can do it. Thank

197you. Thank you. Um, so just a couple of follow-ups and and I appreciate those comments. Um, couple follows. Um, Mr. Fris and I will get together and talk about reaching out to the board of supervisors to see if there's interest in trying to do a joint meeting June or sometime this summer. We'll we'll speak with them. And then we'll also um I'll talk to uh the chair and vice chair about not not together separately. Just want to be clear about um looking at our calendar next year and trying to get some feedback from the board regarding next year's calendar and budget conversations earlier. So we'll we'll do those two follow-ups. And then um you know I I will say one of the things that I think has always been a struggle since I start on

198this board is um is is um figuring the board is supposed to be and and this is a conversation I have often people in the community a policy governance and oversight board. Right? We hire an executive to do the operations and while we we o you know we have oversight power of our executive I do think the executive limitations process has been an incredible process for transparency and the amount of data information and that was a process you brought to us because I was chair when we did the strategic plan and started the work towards that process and you came to us and said here's a way that I can be more accountable in a transparent way by doing these executive limitations. So, I think we're in a space now at this board that I

199think there's good conversations for us to be had as to how do we really focus our work and this is picking up my colleague Miss Marin's comments just now. How do we focus on work on the policy governance piece? And you and I have talked about this Dr. Ree about some of the really impactful work the board can be doing if we can focus on that as opposed to operations. That doesn't mean we don't have a ton of detail in operations through our oversight function that you provide us, but and it doesn't mean we can't have our individual conversations with you about areas of interest or topics, but I think if we keep doing that, we miss the opportunities for some really great, meaningful, impactful work we can do on the policy level. So, I

200look forward to figuring some of this out. Um, I just realized my time hadn't started, so I'm going to stop talking now. Um, and before we end this meeting, we have one more go back to Miss St. John Cunning, and then we'll end the meeting. Um so ditto to what almost everyone has said but the one thing I also want to mention is we don't have to collectively I mean yes we have to collectively get with our board of supervisors but we can individually start building those relationships. We can take them to to schools with us. We can bring them to visit the schools to see the work that's being done. Um, it's the personal relationship we build with the board of supervisor that represents our magisterial district, but also crossing the lines to other

201magisterial districts and saying, "Come to my neck of the woods. Look at what's coming happening in my neck of the woods because I know my neck of the woods looks very different than Miss Dixit's neck of the woods." And so, I think extending those invitations and making it a one-on-one if possible. I'm a big believer in show me, don't tell me. And I think the power of people going and seeing what's happening and not just talking about it, them seeing the teachers, them seeing the students, them them seeing the range. We educate kids from 2 to 22 years old. And we do an excellent job. And I invite the public to go see that. But we need to invite our board of supervisors to come look at that work because our teachers and our staff

202are beyond compare and so are our students, but they have to see it. Thank you. And with that note, I'm going to just a couple for next steps. Um there isn't enough time for next steps per se between before this budget's vote since that vote is on Thursday. So if there's questions, issues on this budget's vote, I encourage you to talk to your colleagues one-on-one to figure that out. But if there's next steps in terms of process building towards next year, we'll use the next steps document for that. But anything for this year's budget vote, it's going to be in two days. So, pick up the phone and call your colleagues and and we'll go from there. Thank you for the thoughtful conversation. Thank you to staff for all your time and we will um

203stay tuned for the vote on Thursday night. For that, this meeting is adjourned.