001All right, we will call to order. Thanks for letting us start a little bit later than expected. Um, thank you for joining the board of education this evening. Please mute your cell phones as we begin this meeting. Today is Tuesday, March 24th, 2026, and this meeting is now called to order at 5:49 p.m. For those attending this meeting in person, live captions are available on a TV in the boardroom and in the lobby. To access the live captions in a language other than English on your own device, please scan the QR code on the screen or on the table near the entrance and select the language of your choice. The live stream of this meeting is also available in English and Spanish on YouTube for links to these live streams. Please visit the board of
002education page of the PSC website or PSC TV on demand on YouTube. Um second we have approval of agenda. Would any board members like to make changes to our agenda? Seeing none, we next have our action items. Can we have um I get a motion for the resolution in support of transgender day of visibility? I move that the board approve the resolution in support of Transgender Day of Visibility, March 31st, 2026. >> Thank you, Connor. Can I get a second? Thank you very much, Andrew. And Brian, I believe you have some remarks. >> I do. Good evening, everybody. It's great to be with all of you in community this evening. Transgender Day of Visibility is a time to celebrate the strength, the resilience, and contributions of transgender and non-binary people. It is also a time
003to bring awareness to the discrimination and violence the community faces to protect the safety and well-being of this community. We do not unfortunately have a student to speak in person for this resolution, but this does not minimize the importance of their voices. Tonight, we are honored to share statements and thoughts from students who have this lived experience in our district and in our society. Our first student wrote, "For me, Trans Day of Visibility means that I get to feel celebrated and seen for who I truly am. I get to know that people in my community see me and respect me." Our second student shared, "Oftentimes trans people, especially trans youth, are invisible or under extreme scrutiny and experience harassment. It is important to shine the light on trans people in a positive way because we
004often don't get that opportunity and that is why I find trans day of visibility so important. It has been communicated with our staff that trans and non-binary students deeply value being recognized from the very beginning through the consistent use of their names and pronouns at the start of the year and in each class moving forward. They also appreciate it when teachers include clear notes for substitute teachers emphasizing the importance of using correct names and pronouns and treating all students with respect. A third student named it feels really affirming and safe when when teachers speak up right away if someone uses a slur. It shows that they see us and respect us. At the Pter School District, we are committed to providing ongoing gender-incclusive practices, excuse me, and professional development opportunities for staff and providing real
005world scenarios so educators feel prepared to recognize, interrupt, and address bias and harassment in the moment. Tonight, we celebrate the lives and contributions of transgender and non non-binary people and recommmit ourselves to building schools and communities where every person can live openly, safely, and authentically. Let us remember that allyship is not a noun, but a verb. Please ask yourself how that you can take meaningful action to support transgender and non-binary students, staff, and community members to help them feel safe, seen, and valued every day in the Pter School District. Members of the board, members of the community, thank you for allowing me to read that resolution tonight. >> Thank you very much. Is there any commentary? >> All right, we will call the Oh, yes, please. >> I was waiting see if anyone else said
006anything. >> Um, I'd like to start by noting that we last had a discussion and passing the resolutions before force tonight almost exactly a year ago to the day. Um, for those of you who are not familiar with our uh board meetings when we do resolutions, recognitions, reports, typically I'm looking over at the podium that's empty. We typically have staff and or students usually uh present the award resolution, the recognition. And I'll speak, you know, for myself, they do a better job and speak way more eloquently than the board can in resolution. So, there's not as much for us to discuss. last year and this year, conspicuously absent from the trans day uh the resolution supported transday visibility are any student voices or staff voices. Um and I'd love to think that that's a coincidence,
007but it's not. And so since they're not here, you're left um hearing from me for this evening. Um those of know me in this role know that I believe in starting with the why. And a lot of times the why is usually inexraably linked with numbers. So, let's talk about numbers first. In 2024, the American Journal of Public Health published results of a 10-year study of mental health issues affecting the transgender community. It's entitled Temporal Trends in Mental Health in the United States by gender identity 2014 to 2021. And according to the study, which I'll make available to anyone upon request, in 2014, 11.4% 4% of cisgender adults reported frequent mental distress compared with 18.9% of transgender adults. By 2021, 14.6 of cisgender adults and 32.9% of transgender adults reported frequent mental mental distress. Now
008I'm going to give you spark notes but the conclusions from this report since those uh numbers were going in the opposite directions is what you would want to see that quote policies are needed to address the worsening mental health of transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States and this is from amjur public health 2024 col 523 to 526 seems simple right have policies that at least try to alleviate that now let's look at our own data and I'm looking at the healthy kids of Colorado survey um that we are actually presented on by Dwayne Schmidz in one of his recent DE1 presentations. If we look at the most recent survey that we've got from the Healthy Kids Colorado survey, there's a section where we look at PSD numbers of c certain mental acuity
009uh issues. Uh, and then there's subsets of gender, queer, non-binary, gay, lesbian, Hispanic, black, African-American, and Asian. Um, so here are the some of the results I think are jump out. The percentage of students who purposely hurt themselves without wanting to die in the the past 12 months. PSD, the response was 15.3% of those pled among the PSD students that identified as gender, queer, or non-binary, 45.2%. in 2023 felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row during the last 12 months that they stopped doing some usual activities. PSD students 25.2% and our gender queer non-binary 24.1%. Oh, excuse me, 47.5%. I misread the font's getting small. Here's some encouragement. In that same report, uh the the uh individuals, the students were asked if they have an adult
010to go to to help with a serious problem. Overwhelmingly, PSD students responded, 79.6% had someone they could go to in their schools. Of the students that identify as gender, queer, non-binary, again, 79.9%. Which is very encouraging. So, I guess my point is this. I think that anytime this topic has come up and the probably one of the reasons if I had to surmise why we didn't have student voices or staff voices at tonight's resolution is because I think that this view this issue or this this resolution has been framed as a political one and I disagree based on the the numbers internally and nationally. I I view this as a student safety issue because this resolution what it's doing and what Brian just read is it's acknowledging that these human beings exist in our schools.
011I don't think has anything to do with indoctrination. I don't think it has anything to do with telling people how to think or what to think. It's acknowledging that students that are reporting a higher percentage of suicidal ideiation and self harm are at least being acknowledged by this board and by this district for existing. And I think that's probably the least we could do. And I think there's some people in this room that would even call that a half measure. So let me go on my soap box one further and just say my personal views. These students, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, exist among us. They share classrooms with us. They play sports with us. They may be your soccer teammate and maybe have been for many years. They practice in hot
012band rooms alongside us, hopefully after tonight, which will be new equipment. They learn with us. They suffer the loss of a loved one among us. They celebrate an older sibling getting accepted into college or getting a job alongside us. They celebrate their birthdays alongside us. They celebrate acing a math test. And they may do all of these things without your knowledge that they are trans. In fact, your student likely does all these things with a friend or classmate that they have no idea is trans. Imagine the weight of that student's reality to navigate all those daily activities like any other student and feeling like they have to hide who they are from everyone around them and hoping, praying each night that they won't be found out or suffer the consequences to an unforgiving, unaccepting population
013that awaits them every single day, day after day, hour after hour, and worrying about where they will they will relieve themselves or where they're going to change their clothes so they're not going to be found out. and they will continue to exist with or without your recognition of that basic fact. Despite my own personal opinions, I was elected to this board for, among other reasons, to maintain the safety and dignity of all our students. And as the numbers above that I just discussed reveal, we are not doing everything we can to ensure the safety of some of our most vulnerable students. So, I think this resolution speaks loudly and for myself, I'll be voting yay because it says to me, to our students directly, that regardless of them being in the room or not, I
014see you and I accept you for who you are, all of you, not just the part of society is making you feel ashamed of. I'm here to let you know that you do exist. And I hope I can be some small part of the forces of good in your life and say from this deis that you matter to me and that you matter to our district and you are seen. This I believe that our system of public schools must expose our students to diversity. Diversity is skin color, socioeconomic status, background, sexual orientation, gender, and of ideas. We are preparing our students to enter into a complex global system. We do not prepare them by shielding them from people or perspectives that are different from their own or by denying that differences exist. I believe differences
015should be celebrated. And so I think this is a this resolution is a start. It's a year later. Clearly, we have a lot more to do. I want to thank Brian for his remarks and for the opportunity to speak. >> Thank you, Kevin. Right. Are there any other remarks at this time? I think you spoke well for I'm going to say for at least me, but I would imagine from all of us. All right. Can you please call the vote? >> Kyla Baze. >> I. >> Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. >> I. >> Scott Shoenbower. >> Hi. >> Dr. Andrew Spain. >> Hi. >> Jessica Zamora. >> I. >> Dr. Kronos. >> Hi. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Next up, we have our superintendent report. Superintendent
016Kingsley will now make a remarks to the board of education and to the community. >> Thank you. So, welcome back from spring break everyone. I hope everybody had a restful time away from school and community and looking forward just like you to finishing our school year strong. Uh tonight we have several action items that will be brought before the board. Uh but you will note members of the community that this is a bit different format than what is typical for each of these items. The board and our community will hear a brief overview of the planned purchase and the rationale for it. In tight budget times, we know it is imperative to be transparent in how funding is being spent. So, we are calling attention to these purchases so that they we are being very
017transparent about what they are and why they are needed right now in this moment. Later on, discussion this evening will also include that the board and community to hear other information about the summer construction projects that are planned across our schools. These projects address the district's maintenance needs and are being funded by the debt-free mill levy override. I want to reiterate a huge thanks to the voters and also recognize the incredible herculean effort efforts of our operations team for the incredible amount of work that they will be complete that will be completed in just about eight short weeks. No pressure, Dave. We we we got this. We got this. We also can want to hear an update later on in the state budget this evening. As I've shared with the community throughout the course of
018the past couple of years, the state budget is challenging now more than ever uh and will have a negative impact on the K12 sector. Our budget director and chief finance officer will provide an update on what we know uh now this evening. But as a note, we it's really important for us to realize that the budget will continue to be in flux and this will be a series of presentations and discussions that we'll have on this topic as discussions in Denver continue to evolve. I want to conclude my remarks uh with a student spotlight video at Bacon Elementary School. Uh, this spotlight video is highlighting their elementary school's makers fair which celebrates stu student entrepreneurialism and I think it's really cool. I hope you like it as much as I do. Thank you again. >>
019The pink bow. >> Yeah, the pink bow. >> Behind us right now is Makers Market. So, this is that was set up for fourth and fifth grade students and they are selling what they created during their enrichment time. >> Me and Tommy have fidgety fidgets. They're quiet fidgets that teachers and a C mass of food plus maps >> completely their ideas. They learn the basics of business modeling. So target audience, who are you selling to? What problem are you solving? And we were able to get all this way to kids making and designing their own products and selling. It's awesome. >> I think it covers a ton of things, especially for the partnership. So working as a team, making decisions together, and just really kind of coming together as a cohesive unit to make what
020would be a successful business. >> I think so far the favorite part has been honestly seeing where their imagination takes them, really kind of refining what they think as a problem to solve and then seeing what they come up with has been super cool. It's been really exciting. Huge thanks to our team as well as the incredible staff at Bacon Elementary School who make those incredible experiences happen all the time for their students. Uh thank you again for allowing me to address the community. I'm grateful. >> That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. All right. Next up on our agenda, we have our community comment. This is this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline. Those people will be called on to make
021remarks in the order that they signed up. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board. Ready? Oh. Oh, okay. All right. Uh, first up we have Julie Kramer. Welcome. >> Hello. I'm Julie Kramer. My family moved here from Texas last summer with our gender expansive teenager. My husband addressed the board last fall and I wanted to give you an update about how the school year is going. So, so far we're happy we moved. It has not been perfect. What do you want? But I always tell people that when within a few weeks of our arrival, we had to give our teenager a curfew. Our child never went out when we lived in Texas. Our kid made friends so quickly here and she's living the life that every senior in high school should
022have. And it's really great to see our kid finally happy. In Texas, our kid did not leave the house except for school. Because our kid identified as transgender, she was ostracized. She didn't want to go out alone without her parents because people, including adults, gave her terrible looks that made her feel afraid. I want to be clear that our child was destined to be who she is. We did all the normal things and lived in a conservative community. These kids are who they are, and trying to change that only hurts them. A number of her friends back in Texas have attempted suicide. We couldn't believe with all the oppressive policies and laws being passed in Texas that our child would be treated with respect here. Her teachers are kind to her. They address her by
023her lived name and pronouns. She has done it well academically and she's proud of her work and she likes her school. However, our kid has told us that she is on high alert about the bathrooms. certain parts of her high school have no genderneutral bathroom. If she goes to the boys' bathroom, she sometimes gets hostile comments and looks. She's afraid to go to the girls restroom because they might give her looks, too. That has been her only complaint. It's a big one that should be addressed. When we came here, we truly felt like we were on a different planet. My husband and I say almost daily how lucky we are to be here. I tear up sometimes because I'm so grateful. Unfortunately, there are still those who want to take our safe space from us
024after all that we've been through. My final message today is please keep pterisd a safe choice for LGBTQ students. It means the world to this mom. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Uh next we have ML Johnson. Welcome. >> Good evening board, superintendent, audience. I have three things very quickly. There is apparently a 16 school list propo proposed for evaluation. However, in this present situation, every school and office needs to be evaluating expenditures. Let's get all hands on deck. Number two, change often involves prioritizing values. In this case, it may be valuing personnel versus community, a district-wide reduction in workforce versus community schools. I would like for you to be aware that if a school site is closed, that's forever and ever and ever. If personnel a rift that can be uh amended to
025uh after this crisis has passed. Third, as many of you know, Flow Analytics generated multiple memos and they are first class products. The March 15, 2003 memo demographic analysis forecasts a 2% enrollment decline that we are now addressing. And that is dismal if you think of 2% for a long time. But there may the 16th 2003 memo student yield analysis forecast a significant gain from the 46 Fort Collins and Laram County approved housing developments acrewing as many as new students in the near future. When is this going to happen? I don't know. But often, maybe even frequently, when a young couple purchases a house, some magic happens and four years later, we have a for a kindergartener. When it's going to happen, I don't know. And the flow analytics didn't say so. But I would
026like you to please be aware that we do have two memos from this really first class company. uh making forecasts for uh our students. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Next we have Paige McGawan. Hello, my name is Paige and I'm here speaking on behalf of my husband, a music teacher in the district who works at Bacon Elementary. Like so many other PSD teachers, his contract FTE was reduced last year, forcing him to work nights just to make ends meet after a decade of serving his students and his community. So I'm here today to talk to you about school consolidation and how under the right leadership, consolidation can be done responsibly and create new opportunities. In Penllis County, Florida, where we are from, they are dealing with the same issues we are. rising housing
027costs, declining enrollment, and families being pushed out. They are projected to lose 5% of their students per year, even though they're remaining a densely populated area. Like us, they reached a point where school closures became necessary. But what stands out is how they did it. They closed two elementary schools and consolidated others into K through8 models, saving them 15 million in repairs and operating costs. At the same time, they made intentional decisions about what happens next. Instead of letting buildings sit empty or selling them off in ways that harm the district long term, they partnered with community nonprofits. One of the most impactful solutions was expanding a district-run employee childare program. They repurposed empty buildings to provide affordable child care for staff, helping employees stay in the community, creating jobs, and making uh use of
028empty space at no cost to the district. The program is already fiscally self-sustaining and continuing to grow. More important, they protected their teachers. Not a single teacher lost their job. Staff were reassigned to strengthen schools, reduce class sizes, and maintain arts programs. They were able to do this when they too spend 85% of their budget on staffing. And they're not alone. Even districts cited as examples on PSD's own website, such as Broward County and Atlanta public schools, did not lay off their teachers as a result of their school closures. These schools made it a clear priority for to create stability for students, teachers, and their families. Despite major budget cuts, they didn't just consolidate. They used the process to improve their district and reflect what their community wanted to see. I understand every district is
029different, but this is a real example of how consolidation can be done in a way that actually prioritizes students, staff, and the community. So my ask to the board and the community is take time to study models like this. Commit to transparency, protect teachers, and treat consolidation not as a last resort, but as an opportunity to invest in our community, in our schools, and in our students, and use it as a chance to reflect what they want to see. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Next we have Kristen Draper. Welcome. Thank you very much. It's a little different on this side. So I want to start off first by saying um to teachers and staff, thank you. Thank you for helping to raise caring, wholehearted little humans. To the administration and cabinet, thank you
030for all the hours, the heart, and the soul that you pour into this job. And to the board, I want to say thank you for your commitment to our youth, our future, and that you're doing this all without pay. So, I'm here tonight to speak on trans day visibility. Imagine if people in your own community felt you should not exist. Imagine if you are only seen, only visible once a year. All students and staff deserve to be seen for who they are every day, not just once a year. They deserve to be treated with dignity, with kindness. They deserve to be able to learn, to teach, to make mistakes, to be successful, no matter who they are or what their circumstances are. Thank you, PSD, for making this visibility a reality for your staff and
031for your students and for our future. There's always more work to do and we can do it together with love, with kindness, with open hearts and open minds. And open hearts and open minds. What that means is cynicism is not wisdom, hope is not naive, cruelty is not strength, compassion is not weakness, and joy is resistance. for. So for those in the no, share your joy, show your pride, embrace your true self, and above all, love yourself for who you are. We do. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Casey Railing. Is it Riley? >> It's Ryland, I'm sorry. On September 28th, 2024, I attended a meeting about a new idea to bring to voters, a mill levy that would bring more money into the school districts for infrastructure, teacher pay, and small school support.
032Also, a promise that the school consolidation decision would be delayed three to five years. I eagerly signed on to help. On October 12th, along with many from our Lopez Elementary community, we walked around our neighborhood knocking on doors, passing out flyers, and speaking to neighbors about the mill levy. Only one door was slammed in our face as most everyone was happy to support it. On October 17th, I went to Zi Brewery to participate in a texting campaign to get the word out to voters. One in my group got reported as spam and lost texting ability on her phone for a week. During the door knocking, I met a local realator who was hosting a voter information night with neighbor to neighbor. My husband signed up to speak and brought the mill levy information to a
033group of younger voters who asked great questions and had an overall positive opinion on it. Between September 28th and November 17th, I drove around town delivering 4A yard signs to people who were interested. On November 18th, with a margin of 57.2 to 42.8, Lammer County voters approved the $49 million mill levy. I was very proud in the part I played to help get that initiative passed. It has been 16 months since Fort Collins passed that override. 16 months since the community was told that a promise made needed to be a promise kept and that passing 4A gave the district time to make good on promises to take a deeper look in good faith. 16 months, not 36, not 48, not 60. Many of us worked hard to campaign for 4A much like some of you
034did. It is an affront to that effort that you are now failing to keep your word. We have now seen the comprehensive planning committee's expedited timeline and progress. What it shows is a return to the same place we were two years ago. Declining enrollment and school closures with little evidence of meaningful analysis in between. I stood before you almost two years ago as a voice for the community. We were clear then that some outcomes might be unavoidable in school including school consolidations or closures. We understood that reality. What we are asking for was transparency and accountability. Where is the economic impact study showing what closing schools will actually save? Where is it shown that there is consensus with the city regarding the competing goals? Where is the documented analysis of alternative ways to increase efficiency
035or reduce costs? Where are the transportation studies? We understand there are obstacles and hard decisions ahead. And many of us are willing to work within the confines of this reality. But you cannot continue to work within the confines of predetermined outcomes. That is what we asked for. That is what we were promised. That is what we fought for and voted for. And that is what you are still not delivering. Please do better. Thank you. Next we have Danny Lawrence. Welcome. Did anyone else notice last month that during the RiftF meeting, no PSD staff showed up to advocate for their jobs? You all kind of strangely giggled about it. I sat at home appalled because as someone with open civil rights complaints against the district, I know too well what retaliation looks like and why staff
036didn't feel like they could come here to fight for their jobs. Celebrating silence is odd for people who aren't receiving the truth. And then over spring break, I saw a post from the Colorado Education Association on social media. It used the public comments given at a state legislative finance committee meeting by a PSC kindergarten teacher who felt more comfortable telling a room full of representative strangers that she wasn't able to implement IEP services for six students than coming here and asking for your help. Her voice shook. Her words were powerful and she spoke truth to power. Last meeting, Dr. Ziggler asked a question about staff availability if the district were to identify more students in need of IEPs. And I don't think that you were given an adequate response. So, I wanted to clarify this
037isn't a find the money, find the staff, and we'll see whether we can fulfill the need. That is illegal and that is the heart of the cultural problems here. There are no options. IDEIDA doesn't say serve needs if you can. The next time you ask Dave Mononttoya what it costs to educate special needs children and discuss the net value of that in public, which was totally gross, by the way, at least ask parents what they've paid to educate their children in your public system. because my total is 80,000 just in legal expenses. Five attorneys in 11 years. And that doesn't touch the $200 an hour that I spend on braille literacy and assist of technology instruction. But also ask yourself, what is the cost of not educating 3,000 students already facing a 75% unemployment rate
038on them, on society, on civil rights as we know it? Children are people, not dollar signs, budget line items, or jobs for adults. The sign outside doesn't say every child every day. We need you to see children as something other than a tool that you all press on to seek more funding while simultaneously not implementing students existing IEPs, arguably committing fraud with the dollars that you do get while violating their dignity. Since school principles indicate in your long-range planning surveys that they can't implement IEPs right now and kindergarteners, kindergarten teachers are driving to the capital to admit that they can't honor the civil rights of six-year-olds. Are we just going to be a district that now tolerates that we violate rights and that that's has become an acceptable part of what we do here? The
039social media clip and the video are in your email tonight. And I would like to remind you that this district is currently under an ISIT from CDE. And if you aren't going to audit the internal IEPs of those six children at Irish Elementary and get their teachers some needed help, then I will request CDE's involvement to do so. Five years ago, I sat here thinking that if I could prove that needs weren't being met, that maybe you would do something to act. But tonight, I'm wiser and I'm leaving here assured that the futures of vulnerable children aren't enough to get you to recognize your fiduciary responsibilities under federal law. That it's sicker than I imagined. That we are promoting a culture that uses the very kids that PSC slightes to generate more money. Disability is
040a business in this school district. And I'm ashamed that I ever exposed my son to it. >> Thank you. Next, we have Kurt Custing. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Kurt Castine. I'm a resident of Fort Collins, Southwest Fort Collins. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I'm actually speaking uh with regard to the transgender day of visibility resolution you passed. I'm a little surprised actually that my comments come after you've passed the resolution. I think you should re-evaluate that as a governance issue. we should be able to talk before the board actually acts on the item that's coming in in the evening that it uh that it comes up. Uh I'm going to read the first paragraph of the resolution you pass. Whereas transgender day of visibility is an internationally recognized awareness
041day that occurs every March 31st to celebrate transgender non-binary non-binary people while bringing awareness to the discrimination and violence the community faces. So, while I agree that discrimination and violence are not to be tolerated, I don't agree with celebrating transgenderism as it pertains to minors. Your role as the PSD board of directors is to act on behalf of the students of the school district, most of which are minors. I would like to offer an alternative resolution for you. This is a resolution against gender transitions for minors. Whereas the Pter School District board of directors is considering and has passed a resolution recognizing transgender day of visibility on March 31. And whereas PSD is responsible for educating about 30,000 students, a vast majority of which are minors. And whereas gender transitioning for minors is increasingly demonstrated
042to be harmful for the long-term well-being of those who experience it. And whereas many and by some estimates tens of thousands of indiv individuals who were transitioned as teenagers are now actively seeking to dransition and experiencing deep regret over changes that are now irreversible. And whereas healthc care providers, medical associations, parent groups, local, state, and federal governments are moving quickly and decisively toward protecting children by opposing or legislating against drain gender transitions for minors. And whereas recommendations from the board of directors support or promoting irreversible physical changes to the bodies of the students entrusted to them will get positive consideration from the student body, parents of students, and the community at large. Now therefore, be it resolved by the Pter School District Board of Education to state that gender transitions for minors cannot be known
043to be beneficial and may quite likely come to be viewed by the affected individual as harmful and deeply regretted and therefore recommends that adults do not support or encourage children into undergoing gender transitions. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. That concludes our community comment for this evening. Uh, next on our agenda is board topics and committee reports. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to board topics. Do any board members have something to report? Go ahead. >> Just a quick update from the um legislative committee. Um, Andrew and I hosted a call again on Friday. We'll be doing the same um this Friday. Andrew, you may have to host that one for me. Um, just to let you know. Um, tonight we're going
044to be speaking about budget, so I'm not really going to get into that one. That's what we predominantly spoke about. Um, one thing that, um, will be happening in the next few weeks here is, um, the long bill will be introduced. Um, and hopefully that will be sooner rather than later so that they have ample time to discuss it. Um, the other one that I wanted to bring up was Senate Bill 135. This is Taber reform. Um, I don't like to read the tea leaves all the time. I do think this will be on our ballots. Um, however, we had a good conversation pertaining to the effort that it's going to take all of us here to get uh to not only get it on the ballot, but then also get it passed in November.
045That's the update. >> Thank you, Connor. Does anyone else have anything to share at the moment? >> All right, I'll go. Um, so in recognition of our transgender day of visibility, we often share dates for our own events. So I wanted to take an opportunity to share some uh events as well that are happening in the coming days. So first there's an event for music and arts lovers at the Mishwaka celebrating through music visual arts and guest speakers occurring on March 28th. For those wanting to get a deeper understanding of the parent perspective, P Flag is offering an opportunity for a parents of trans panels panel on March 30th at the Trails at Timberline Welcome Center. And last on my list, but surely not last, in the opportunities our community provides, is a showing of
046the heightened scrutiny at CSU Lori Student Center on March 31st that showcases our civil rights activism for uh transgender rights at the intersection of courtrooms and media. So, there's a lot more events, I'm sure, and these are just some highlights to give you a sprinkling of options, but I'm I just want to reiterate Kevin's points. I'm very proud of our district for honoring our trans community and I think there's a lot of really good learning opportunities and celebration opportunities. So, thank you very much. Does anyone else Yeah, please. >> You kicked off some updates of things coming up to look forward to. I had the um I don't know if anyone else has experienced after spring break you have to start looking at your calendar in a very aggressive manner and you look at April
047and May which feels like it's going to be next week. Um so, some good news. Um I don't have it on my PSD computer. my work. But PSD celebrates is Monday, May 4th. Is that right? >> At the Lincoln Center, I believe that's right. Yep. So, that's something that's going to be incredible. Um, just looking forward to my own calendar here. There's some other things I want to note in April. Um, I've been asked to speak at um a graduation of sorts for Liberty Common High School. Their justice house is graduating. So, I get to share some remarks to their student assembly on April 22nd, which is going to be really exciting. I'm going to take a play out of uh Superintendent Kingsley's playbook and I get to talk to the students before about what
048justice means to them and hopefully incorporate some of their um their own thoughts into our remarks. Um there was something else I can't find it, but there's um and Lauren, this may be too premature. There are some more engagement sessions coming up, but I don't know if we want to I don't know if those have been confirmed as far as dates. >> We're in the process of confirming those. There'll be one about every week in April and the community can expect an email sometime this week. >> As of right now, we still have our uh April 16th one that we were going for. Um I have the one I am attending is at Bamford. Does anyone remember the other one? Or Lauren, if you could help us out again since mine, what was it? Rice.
049>> Thank you. All right. So, those start at 5:30 to 7. And again, that's Bamford and Rice on April 16th. So, those are just kind of the continuation of our community engagement sessions that we've had thus far and we'll be adding more um with regard to consolidation planning and what we're going to do in our future. So, any other comments? Yes, you look like you >> just make sure everyone knows that those aren't restricted just to the people who attend those schools either. Open to everybody in the who wants to come to any of those. >> Thank you for that as well. Right. Are there any other Yeah, please. >> I just want to highlight um as Director Hell has mentioned is April and May coming up. This is the wonderful time of the year
050where our local high schools are doing their theater productions for the spring and um we have some excellent plays on deck. And so if you are looking for something to do in the evening, support our school and support our theater programs and I can assure you you are going to have a fabulous time. >> All right. I love the celebration. Is there anything else at this time? All right. and we will keep moving along with our agenda. Next on our agenda is our consent. Uh would any board members like to pull anything from our consent agenda? >> Okay, seeing none, can I get a motion? >> I move that the board approve and adopt the recommend actions for items on the consent agenda. >> Thank you, Kiranda. Can I get a second? Thank you, Kevin.
051And can you please call the vote, Leah? Kyla Baze. >> I >> Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. >> Hi. >> Scott Shoenber. >> Hi. >> Dr. Andrew Spain. >> Hi. >> Jessica Zamora. >> I. >> Dr. Kronos Ziggler. >> I. >> Motion passes. 70. >> Thank you very much. Uh, moving on to our action items. As Superintendent Kingsley alluded to earlier, we are having more action items than usual. Many of these things historically would have showed up on our consent agenda. Um but we wanted to make sure that we are talking about them as much as possible in public and getting some really thorough knowledge for ourselves as well as our public on especially our expenditures. Um our first item is our executive limitation policy EL2.8. Can I get a motion? >> I
052move that the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted board of education policy EL2.8 8 in his internal monitoring report dated March 24th, 2026 and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusions stated in the internal monitoring report. >> Thank you, Connor. Can I get a second? Thank you, Carla. Um, is there any discussion on this item? I see none. I figured >> well in my similar how we did last time. I think it's just important for our community to know that we're our eyes are not just glazing over when we do this. It's not prefuncter. Um so the internal monitoring report that we're considering is essentially I'm going to paraphrase how the superintendent keeps the board informed as to various things. Um I think the only thing I'd like to say to amplify
053there, you know, there's there's certain policies that he shall not and will not do certain things, but he shall also do others. Um, I think that the longer I'm in this job, I have a certain appreciation for the amount of information that our superintendent and staff have to curate and present to the board in a timely manner. Um, it can be overwhelming to receive it. Quite frankly, um, a district of our size, we deal with things like uh, power outages with fallen trees on buildings. um student safety concerns at some of our facilities that we need to be aware of any kind of disciplinary action that may that may you know come across and anything that would uh invade the public sector um from a PR standpoint. So just the amount of information that the
054superintendent team have to curate I do feel the longer I'm in this job I I have an appreciation for it. I'm getting more used to it I should say. Um but I I I'm going to vote for this for because I think the evidence also supports that the this policy has been um implemented in my view. >> Thank you for that. Is there any other comments before we take a vote? All right. Please call the vote. >> Kyler B. >> I. Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. Hi. >> Scott Sha. >> Hi. >> Dr. Andrew Spain. Hi. Jessica Zamora. >> I, >> Dr. Karan Ziggler, >> I. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you very much. All right, moving along, we have our McGra Boiler project. Can I get a motion? >> I move
055that the board approve expenditures in excess of $250,000 and authorize staff to execute a contract for $267,970.95 with Reliant Mechanical Services to provide construction services. >> Thank you, Kevin. Can I get a second? Thank you, Andrew. All right. And I believe we have a brief presentation. >> Yeah, tonight hearing we look forward to hearing about the McGra boiler project from our CFO Dave Montoya. Dave, welcome. >> Thank you. Um, so tonight we are asking the board to approve a boiler replacement at McGra. Um, this boiler was installed in 1992, so it's about 34 years old. It was identified in the McKinstry study uh facility condition assessment that was done prior to the election. So it was already identified in that as well as confirmed by our own our own internal facility condition assessment that the
056boiler needs to be replaced. Um what this does it supplies reliable heating to maintain our to maintain a safe and comfortable environment for our students. Um the plan would be to do this work over the summer of 26. And um the question comes up is if we don't do this what happens and so our our schools are designed to have redundant systems in the boilers. So we typically have two boilers in the schools. If one fails during the year, we do have the redundant system, but that puts that redundant system under strain. It's not ideal to run it like that. And so we don't want to get in that situation because if we end up losing a redundant system because we put it under strain during the school year, we would literally have to close
057the school because we wouldn't be able to heat it. So um this was deferred maintenance that was identified um in in both of those studies and um and we're asking the board to approve it. This is funded from uh the debtree mill. So I think always thanking our voters for the opportunity to maintain our buildings is much appreciated. >> Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? >> Please can you real quick because I always I think language is important. So when you say redundant, are you implying that's a backup system or >> Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what we're referring to. We actually have two boilers that operate independently and the idea is if one goes down for whatever reason the other one continue to heat that building. Um and so when one
058goes down it puts the other one in a lot more strain. It can survive for a while. That's not an ideal condition so we don't want to get there. >> Can you I should have asked this earlier so I apologize. Uh how long should a boiler work first of all and how old is the other boiler in Macra? I don't know if I know the answer to the second part of the question. And then how long a boiler lasts, I think, is going to depend on what type of boiler it is. And so, for example, we were just reviewing our systems in our facility condition update. And in in that, it it's interesting to listen to the people that maintain these. Um, they will talk about cast iron boilers as the best thing ever and
059that they're still serviceable and maintainable. Um, this one that was installed in 1992 is not one of those. Um, so it's reached about 30 years of age, I think. And that's probably about I'm kind of looking over there. 30 years seems about right. >> Great. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments at this time? >> Right. Seeing none, can we please call the vote? >> Carla Baz. >> I. >> Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. >> Hi. >> Scott Choenbower. I >> Dr. Andrew Spain. >> I >> Jessica Zamar. >> I >> Dr. Corona Ziggler. >> I. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Next, we have 8.3 for the purchase of musical instruments. Can I get a motion? >> I move that the board approve expenditures
060in excess of 250,000 and authorize staff to issue purchase orders to the vendors notated in the attachment to this item. >> Thank you, Andrew. Can I get a second? Carla, thank you. All right. And I believe we have a presentation briefly for this one. >> Yes. Joining us this evening to present the purchase of musical instruments and equipment item is one of our assistant superintendents, Dr. Ensun Olsen. Welcome, Insoon. Good evening. Um, I am super excited to bring forward to you our musical instrument and equipment request. This is very near and dear to my heart as I am a former competitive classical pianist as well as an oboist and flutist or floutist I guess. Um, and I would had the privilege of being part of a band from middle school all the way through high
061school. And that my competitiveness started in as when I was four and finished when I was about 19. Um, but really truly about the work that we're presenting in front of you. Um, we're just super excited as we know uh music um is near and dear to uh many people's hearts and especially our children. But we are just super excited that um we can bring this request in front of you so our students are not just doom scrolling on their phones all day long and hanging out. But we are super excited to provide an ongoing resource um for instruments and equipments due to the community passing our debtfree mill levy. And so, um, this is directly tied to our strategic plan with our literacy focus around, um, highquality instructional materials. When you think about music,
062it goes well beyond the music sheets that they look at and read from, it also includes the musical instruments. We are well aware that um our musical instruments across our system variety in age in um how often they're used as well as which instruments are used depending on what programs each um school offers. And so this is our step into creating a standard expectation around musical instruments and ensuring that specifically around the choir risers which is an highlighted example here as we just got to live through our elementary and middle school combined district choirs that risers are really important when you have kids coming on and off stage. And so we recognized that throughout our system there were some safety concerns and so there was a priority of replacement for the risers. Um just to
063give you a context um a tuba which is a very large musical instrument um brand new for students can range anywhere from $3700 to $7,000 just for one tuba. And so asking schools to try to create a maintenance cycle and ongoing and as they flex and change because just because we have eight trumpets this year does not mean we're going to have eight trumpets next year and all the variations that come within there. And so equity and access is really important to us as we continue to distribute the resources that we are asking you to um consider today. Um, this also allowed us to bid price as you see in the um documents attached. Um, one that specifically breaks down by each leveled area and exactly what each school is going to receive. Um, allowed
064us to bid um and actually use less than the allotted money given to us, which is a great place to be in the first year of using um our Milvy dollars. And so I am super proud of our team and the work that they went through to get us to a reasonable budget. Though of course we could always use more if we think about u musical instruments and the competitiveness that we have in our district and just the love for music and our students being able to explore and find a place of belonging. And so, um, we hope that we have presented enough information for you and to show that there is distribution at every single site and it is varied. And we are going to continue to look at enrollment as we look at
065refurbishing these musical instruments in an ongoing cycle as we continue to move forward. that this is year one and we wanted to give you an opportunity to um let us know if we're heading in the right direction. >> Thank you very much. >> Questions? Yes, please. Comment. >> Quick question and then a comment. Um so I looked at the list and it looked like each school identified or I guess let me not get in front of my question. Um the schools have listed certain equipment with price tags alongside them. Are those is that all the schools need? Did they ask us? They tell you what they needed or is this just what they got this round? >> So, um we did a study a few years ago to look at requests and needs across our
066system without um any regards to budget per se. Just what is the request for music? What does that look like? What would we need to say to sustain highquality programming K12? What came out was a request for over $2 million. And we know that we can't afford that, sustain that, or move that forward. And the list and requests that were um gleaned from our schools this year, there was a request around that boundary around that of what are the instruments, equipment, resources that you need that you have not been able to replenish. Therefore, you can now provide better access for students. So you're not sharing a recorder amongst three kids or things like that. That's not safe or appropriate or of all the reasons, right? And so that's part of what we had to nuance.
067So is it enough? No. Is it getting us closer to a level of expectation? Yes. >> Thank you. I noted that because I was curious because the total that's in our packets is $461,39. That sound right? better than two million. Um, yeah. >> Uh, my comment was for those of you who don't know, um, I'm glad you brought this up and we got to talk about a bit because it allows me to yet again, uh, say that Fossil Ridge High School marching band captured the 2025 Colorado class 5A state championship with a score of 89.55 at the US Air Force Academy on October 25th, securing their fourth consecutive state title in eighth in 14 years. They swept all judge categories, finishing 1.1 points ahead of runner-up Legacy High School. If this helps them get their
068fifth consecutive, so be it. >> Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments, please? >> Yeah, I'd just uh like to echo Director Havalda's uh points as well. We have a robust and stellar music program throughout PSD at all levels. It's amazing. My kids experienced it. Um, I'd urge the rest of the board, I don't think there's any objections, to support this wholeheartedly. Um, these music programs can be life-changing. They're I've seen it so many times. Gives a a student a chance to pursue their passion, to learn skills, to practice those skills, and then see the fruits of their labor, which is a life lesson that I think we all need for for so many reasons. So, um, this is a long overdue uh purchase. Uh, so I'm all for it. So, thank you
069very much for putting that together. >> Thank you. Other questions or comments? All right, seeing none, I believe we're ready for a vote. >> Kyla Ba, >> I. >> Connor Duffy, >> I. >> Kevin Havda, >> I. >> Scott Shenbower, >> I. >> Dr. Andrew Spain, >> hi. >> Jessica Zamora, >> I. >> Dr. Cander Ziggler, >> hi. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. Uh, next we have our recommendation for external audit services engagements. Do can I get a motion? >> I move that the board approve the PSD audit committee's recommendation to engage Clifton Larson Allison Allen, excuse me, LLP for 98,875 to conduct the fiscal year 2025 2026 annual external financial audit and single audit. >> Great. Can I get a second? Thank you, Andrew. And I believe we have a brief present.
070>> Yeah. For this item, we have our chief finance officer, Dave Monty. Welcome back, Dave. >> Yep. So, uh, what we're asking the board to do is approve our external audit for the year. Um, this is something we need to do annually. We're required by law to do it. You can see there's a law sighting on here that requires this independent audit. And, um, and it also requires a single audit of which is our federal awards audit. Um, also what require this is the the board policy or the executive limitation 2.8 um that requires the superintendent to bring forward manners where board action is required by law. That's why this is being brought in front of you. It does not meet the $250,000 threshold or above, but it is required that the board approve it.
071Um the uh the audit is intended to do an independent assessment of the financial statements to ensure accountability and transparency and strengthen public trust by demonstrating sound sound stewardship of public funds. Um and then finally kind of rounding this out there was a competitive uh selection process that was conducted to select Clifton Narson Larson Allen. We are actually entering the third year of a fiveyear potential engagement. The way we do this is you get the award for one year and then we can do four awards after that. Every five years we do need to go back out and reissue another RFP to evaluate that. Um and so the uh that's kind of what we have in front of you. Just to give you a little more background into uh because a lot of this work
072is done with the board of education's audit committee and so I thought it would be helpful just to describe the audit committee to you so you know kind of the players there. Um we basically have five community members and then two directors, director Spain and Director Duffy are make up the audit committee. Um we as staff support that. Um but the audit committee is actually chaired by a community member. Um and so when we did this this um evaluation last time uh for the RFP to select Clifton Arsen Allen, we actually in involve our community members as well. And these are community members that need to apply for that position. It's not just awarded. They have to have industry experience. And so that's exactly who we have. And they help us with evaluating who we
073select and who we don't. And so that's how we've brought this forward to you. I can take any questions at this point. >> Thank you, Dave. Uh questions or comments? Yes, please. >> Yeah, thank thank you. Uh this is one of the ones that I had asked some questions about. Am I right to understand that Clifton Larson or CLA has been our same auditor since 2009? Is that correct? >> That that is that is correct. They have been our auditor since July 2009. Um, I would I would say that the last RFP round where we did the selection, it was a very robust conversation on whether we should change auditors or continue with the same in collaboration with our community members and those involved in that evaluation process. It was determined that Clark Clifton Larson
074Allen provided the most value, but it's something that we're very conscious of. Um to also add to a little bit of the story, I think that you know this really comes back to the days of Enron and you know when Enron collapsed there was this audit concern and and so there was this quick reaction to require change in auditors. I think where the industry really settled is in large firms you have multiple partners and there's partner rotation that's important and so that is something that we are always looking for to make sure they're rotating partners so that we are getting fresh eyes. Um, but I don't want to I don't want to say we we had a very robust conversation on whether we should award Clifton Larson Allen or not. Um, and we would have
075been okay if the decision was to go a different direction, but the will of the group was to engage them for another round. >> Yeah. And that that kind of goes back to my grad school experience. It probably was right around Enron. Um, and you know, good financial hygiene >> from what I learned was was changing those auditors, getting a fresh set of eyes. >> Um, I think when you get too cozy, it can lead to less scrutiny. And that's that's one thing that right now, especially as we're under these, you know, >> serious discussions about budget. That's a concern I have. And um I did reach out to um some of my fellow board members who gave me some good feedback about the process and and uh um you know I I think accelerating
076uh the RFP next year to do it next year rather than two years from now might be something to consider. Um if that's possible. Um I just I'm concerned 17 years is a long time to have the same even even with rotating partners. I I get it and as staff we felt the same way to some extent, but we also understand that this is a collaboration with the audit committee and and how we proceed forward with that. So um I I would encourage the two board members that are on the audit committee to bring that conversation later um to assess whether the audit committee would like to do that or to continue on that. I I'd really like them to have a conversation and then maybe come back and decide where we're at. >> We
077can do that. other. Yeah, please. I think I'm on the same line. It's Scott. So, when would our relationship with this audit group in in terms of the current >> So, we're on our third year. We're on our third year. So, that's the auditing the 25 years. So, it would be two more years potentially positive renewals, but we have to enter those. Those aren't automatic. We actually have to select to continue. Um, but it would be for the seven fiscal year would be the conclusion of it. >> Awesome. Thank you. I think I agree too like I understand it being u I honor and respect the committee and whatnot, right? And I think um ongoing improvement is beneficial all across the board. Um and so I would want to encourage the audit committee what criteria
078are we using to select that and how are we balancing this long-term relationship with seeking out a new audit partner because that does make a difference. That's an awful long amount of time to have the same group working. Um, and I understand how biz and all that different stuff works. And sometimes maybe we might need to forego what our current criteria is for selecting someone through an RFP for something different in order for us to get those fresh eyes on what we are doing. Also that different perspective might challenge us to think in new ways or to see things differently or they're going to ask different questions, right? Or alternatively, we could be familiar with the current practice, right? And so um I just want to highlight and affirm director um Shawnberg and Shamberg and
079say that that I I suggest and highly support that decision as you all connect as a committee how we shift that and bring more integrity through the process. Yeah, the RFP I appreciate that the RFP will have clear evaluation criteria. We did the last time. I don't recall exactly what it is at the podium tonight. Um, but that's where we would really want to focus is what is the criteria by which we're evaluating and make sure we get the right criteria. Um, I want to just echo like and and I said this before, but we as staff are not opposed to changing. Um, it was a collective decision. >> Thank you. Are there any other questions at this time? Right. Then I think we're ready to call the vote. Please. Carla Bes. >> I. >>
080Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. >> Hi. >> Scott Shoenbower. >> No. >> Dr. Andrew Spain. Hi. >> Jessica Zamora. >> Hi. >> Dr. Kron Ziggler. No. Thank you. >> Motion passes 5-0. >> Right. Yes, please. For 8.5, >> I move that the board enter executive session is authorized by CRS section 246 4024B for the purpose of conferring with an attorney for the board of education to receive legal advice on the process and procedure related to the appeal of a decision to expel student B. >> Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you, Andrew. All right, at this time we will go into executive session. Um I not sure what else I'm supposed to say at this point. >> We'll resume after this and we'll have twoformational sessions um before another executive session.
081Yes, I'm I'm hopeful this will take 30ish minutes, but I would I would this is where I'm not sure exactly how to support people on how long, but I believe it'll be relatively short. >> And then and then it's and then it's Sorry. Uh and then it's after that we'll still have action item 8.5. >> Correct. Yep. All right. We'll see you all in executive session. >> Sorry. Thank you very much. We do need to call the vote. >> Carlo Baz >> I. >> Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. >> Hi. >> Scott Shman. >> Hi. >> Dr. Andrew Spain. >> Hi. >> Jessica Zamora. >> Hi. >> Dr. Kronos Ziggler. >> Hi. >> Motion passes. Seven here. Director Zamora, point of order. Um, pertaining to action item 8.5. Um, I will be abstaining
082from voting this evening due to not being able to attend the first executive session of the evening. >> Thank you, Connor. All right. Uh 8.5 is that review to take action on superintendent's decision to expel student B. Can I get a motion? I move that the board vacate the superintendent's March 5th, 2026 decision that a student be expelled from the Pter School District through May 27th, 2026 and that following a re-entry meeting with the administration, the student be readmitted to the district in accordance with board policies. The board secretary is directed to serve the determination on appeal to the student and the student's advocate via hand delivery or certified mail return receipt requested. >> Thank you. Can I get a second? >> Thank you. Andrew, can you please call the vote? >> Carla Ba >>
083I. >> Kevin Havda. >> Nay. >> Scott Shoenbower. >> I. >> Dr. Andrew Spain. >> Hi. Jessica Zamora >> I >> Dr. Corron Ziggler >> I >> motion passes 5 to one. >> Thank you. Uh next we have ourformational reports and discussion items. We have a debtree mill levy override mill projects plan for summer 2026 update. Can we get started? >> Yes. Thank you. So here for this presentation is Dave Mononttoya our chief finance officer. Dave, welcome back. So, tonight we have a a brief update on the summer of 2026 uh projects that are going to be taking place. Um so, we're going to we're going to go through these pretty quickly. Um before we get into it, I would say the majority of the projects I'm going to be talking about that require board
084approval have already been to the board for approval. So, this is kind of after the fact on a lot of it. Um so when we're looking at summer of 26 what we're looking at is various project types. Most of it is the deferred maintenance that the debt free millie was designed to do. Um with the exception of adding HVAC in for Weber and Leer for AC. So that would be a little bit beyond the deferred maintenance. Uh what we're looking at is mechanical and boiler replacements, building automation, uh janitor replacements, roof replacements, HVAC and other improvements, tennis court replacements, gym floor replacements, and track and field replacements are kind of what's on the docket for summer 26. So, kind of getting into the the details of of the different pieces. Um let's start talking about
085the deferred maintenance first. Um so, um we just approved a boiler replacement for McGra. Um, you'll see the co total cost of the project here. You approved a contract. There's additional permit fees in there that makes that number different than the the contract amount you just approved that we pay as a district. Um, building automation systems. Uh, we're going to be wrapping up the second phase of the Port Collins High School building automation project that started last year. Um, we will be taking on phase one of two of Fossil Ridge High School um, building automation system. And again, those these projects are very intrusive. they will take multiple years to do. So, um you can see we're just phasing those as we move forward. Um we have two gener generator replacements. So, these are pretty
086basic. They're the generators that sit outside the buildings that provide emergency power if needed. Um emergency power does not mean that it powers the entire building. It's just emergency power. So, um so those are replacements that we have for those sites. Um and and I I want to come back here because some of these are under the threshold of 250,000. So you would not have seen them as a board. Um and these two generator replacements are examples of that. But most of the other things have been in front of the board. Uh we uh a number of board meetings ago we approved a number of roof replacements. So you can see here we have the Shepharddson Elementary roof. Um that is one of the older buildings. So it's going to be more complex. Um and
087we are phasing that over one. It's going to be a two-year phase. So we're going to take the first part of it on this summer and then finish it up the next summer. um because of the age of the building, the materials, and when they're going to be tearing the roof off, there will be extensive abatement that's required just because of the age of the building. Um and we do not have that contract back. I suspect it may need to come to the board, but we're waiting for the bits to to close, so we don't know that information yet. Um Harris Elementary has a a roof replacement. We brought these all as a package to the board the last time. Um the Irish Elementary uh is the other uh roof and then Critter High School
088is is the bigger uh project out of all of them and and that's going to be phased over two years. Um phase one taking place this summer and then phase two taking place uh next summer. Many of the contractors have indicated that they're going to try to create the projects so that they're in balance between the two years. Um if we're in the process of phase one and we can go deeper in phase one, we'll do that. Um but right now the the phasing is set for two years. Um we have a number of athletic uh deferred maintenance things that we're taking on. Uh there's some gym floor replacements at Harris. Uh we have a gym floor uh sand and refinish at Istone South and Canard. Um both of those projects together. Um this one,
089the next one, the next two here have not been to the board yet. Um and they will be coming at a future board meeting. um the tennis court replacement at Fort Collins High School and a track and field replacement at French Field at Rocky Mountain High School. Uh the track and field replacement, just focusing on that for a second, is a project that we've been trying to do for a number of years now. And it's been delayed. It's been delayed. And what our athletic director will tell me is we cannot delay again. We have to ch make this change. Um same thing with the tennis courts when they're cracked and the the the things are heaving. Um kids really can't play on it. It's a safety concern. So, that's the other reason why the tennis
090courts are on here. Um, I thought it'd be good to maybe provide a different slice of the HVAC, uh, since we just we just talked about this in the board meeting, but this is a a a slide that I put together to kind of indicate the phasing, the phase one and the phase two, and what's going to be accomplished at both Weber and Leer. You can see that Weber is the the newer of the buildings and it it it actually its building envelope is in much better shape than Leer. So we don't have to do as extensive deferred maintenance and envelope repair at Weber for the AC project. Um and so for the AC project at Weber, what we're looking at in phase one is doing classroom AC and a service upgrade. And then in
091phase two, what we would be doing is focusing on the common areas or the larger areas and also uh bringing forward that that deferred maintenance item for the lighting upgrade. um as well at the Leleser it's a little different but very similar. Uh we're going to be focusing on the classrooms in phase one. Um there will be a service upgrade that's required for that one as well. Um but we're also doing other things uh while we're in Leher because it's it's an opportune time to do this and and they're necessary. So the first one is we are going to be doing some building envelope work at Leher. What building envelope basically means is doors, windows, gaps, roofs, things like that. Making sure they're tight and that we're we're sealing things up. So, it's kind of
092the whole package around the the building. Um, we're also looking at a boiler plant replacement um similar to the McGra one that was already that was included in the contract you already approved. Um, and then in phase two, what we're going to be doing similar focusing on common areas um there will be some more building envelope work that's done at Leer um in phase two and then similar to Weber, we're going to be doing the lighting upgrade in in summer of 27. Um and then finalizing this project, we will be doing a secure entryway as well in phase two. Um for Leer, um what I've done is summarize the budget numbers for you. I think this was probably already in your cover page when you approve the contracts, but I think it gives you a
093little more resolution around how we have dedicated the $2 million plus the inflation. That's the $3.7 million that you see in phase one from the from the debtree mill levy. In phase two, the inflation goes up a little bit more. So we got about 4.2 two that we're budgeting to uh put at these projects. Um the bond is picking up a very large portion of these projects. We we talked about that in the AC um presentation we did last fall. And so you can kind of see how that's going to phase out over two two years here. And then also breaking out the deferred maintenance because a lot of these things are deferred maintenance. Um they're just we're just doing them because we're doing the air conditioning upgrade at the same time. So this gives
094you I think a good summary of those those two major projects. These are the two big ones that we have. I mean, they're all big projects, but these are the two major major projects. Um, kind of getting into uh just rounding out this uh this presentation again, uh just highlighting what we're going to be doing this this summer. Um last year we ran into issues just because of the express timeline and the compressed timeline that we were dealing with with equipment. What this slide shows is all the equipment that is delivered that is um scheduled to be delivered in a much earlier time frame. You can see we're getting generators in April. Um the boilers in May. Um HVAC equipment in April. Uh we we have like the um rooftop units will be coming in
095June. Those are going to be perfect time for that. Um and early um the transformer is already with the city of Fort Collins. So they they've got that in their yard. Um and then we have been getting we will be getting some electrical gear and other rooftop units for Leer um also. But when we uh when we asked the board to um to allow us to approve these these contracts when we were at the original design build phase when we were approving the base contract we had actually asked board for approval to make these equipment purchases um because it was going to happen over December and January and we have and so this is reflecting the the new purchases that will be coming. Um the takeaway of this slide is that we're much positioned or
096we're better positioned than we were last year because we've had more time to plan and and do the work. Um, so then kind of looking future. So that kind of wraps up the summer of 26. And and a lot of these things are going to be kind of very similar as we go through them. We're going to be doing boiler replacements. We're going to be doing um HVAC and air conditioning. We're going to be doing lighting upgrades. We're going to be doing all these different things um as we move forward. So it's going to be very similar projects each year um moving forward. And how we're going to determine those is the um the work that we've been doing. Um, all of this planning and all the summer 26 really stemmed from the facility condition
097assessment created by McKinstry. Um, we've been using that as a as a district and modifying that along the way. So, that's kind of how the summer of 26 projects got there. What we're doing now and what we've just we're getting close to finalizing this and this is going to be fed into the um comprehensive planning committee as well. We have been spending a couple months now going through and revising our facility condition assessment. And so what that means is BD elementary its facility condition assessment is much different than it was prior to the air conditioning. And so we had to update for all the projects that were done. We also and some of those were done with the bond prior to that. And McKinstry properly recorded as deferred maintenance, but we took care of that
098maybe two years ago. So we needed to update that uh information and we've been doing that. I think we're I think we're pretty close to being out of draft mode on that. Um and then also what we've been doing is um very similar to Mckenry work and and actually working with Mckenry a little bit on this is revising our facility condition index number which is it's just basically a measure. It's a ratio that you pay basically take the deferred maintenance cost and the way Mckinry did it and we replicated it is the deferred maintenance over five years and then you divide by the replacement cost of the building. And so we we did exactly what Mckinry did last time. They helped us a little bit to get there. Um, this also included needing to go
099in and update. So, like if Batty had rooftop units, of which I know they did, we needed to adjust that in the facility condition index so that it fairly reflects what the current status of that building is. Um, we so we've we've done that work and we're kind of finalizing that and doing quality control on that as well. Um, and we're also doing very detailed work and this kind of followed and is in conjunction with this. Um what we're doing is we're looking and having meetings with all the people that are involved in all these different core systems and actually mapping out like what are the work what is the work over the next three years. And so we've been focusing on looking at building automation systems. We've been looking at outdoor services. There's a
100lot of concrete asphalt playgrounds out there that need some attention. Um flooring, roof, building envelope, HVAC, electrical, athletics, security, and plumbing. And so those are kind of the the key topics we're having. But what's feeding the information is the work that was done above with the facility condition assessment by the same people that are doing this work. So that's kind of where we're going in the future. I just want to give you kind of a little bit of a a a peak at that. Um and uh we'll be seeing a lot more of this information um come forward as the comprehensive planning committee actually starts using some of this information for the work they're doing. With that, I'll take any questions. >> All right. Any questions, please? K. >> I was so excited. Um, I'm
101just c This is just really trying to make sense of um like security. I was just curious like is this referring to like the physical upgrades? And if so, how does that align with maybe like tech upgrades? Because I know sometimes when we do some tech stuff, right, you might need to move a wall or right, >> change a room around and stuff. So, How does those two play out together in terms of that category? >> So, so when I'm talking about the the safe entry way and the the slide there, what really talking about is the physical flow of people in and out of the building and controlling that flow. Um, so one of our schools, there's some enhancements that we can do and we'd like to do those. Um, we've identified that if
102they're necessary, but it's really changing the structure and the flow of the building. Um, may it's going to involve, I believe, putting a door and a wall in there. So, there is some construction involved. There may or may not be some IT involvement depending on where that wall is, but the people doing the projects are involved in that. >> Other questions? >> This is just a technical question. Um, not even technical. I just want a definition. Uh, what is entailed with building envelope? >> Building envelope. Yeah, sure. So building envelope is basically what seals the building from the outside. And so you've got windows like think about right here. We've got a door, there's a door frame, there's some some gaskets that seal that door off. That's part of building envelope. There's there's no windows
103here, so I can't use that as an example, but same thing. Um there's also areas of like making sure that there's areas culked and so that there's not air moving in between. It's an envelope. So think about it as an envelope that covers the building. And we want to make that we're controlling what's coming in and out of that envelope the best we can. The older the buildings, the harder that is to do. >> Others, >> are you feeling pretty good about the progress of getting ahead of the curve on things? >> Yeah, I I' I'd say I'm feeling really good about it. um we are in a much better position we were than we were last year and that really comes back to the fivemonth time frame where we're trying to do all that
104work and get it ready. So we've had time to plan. Um I do ask on a regular basis uh the people involved in this how are you feeling feeling like we're going to be okay with this and because we took on a lot at Batty and O last year and we as a group have decided you need to maybe split those up over multiple years. So we're checking in often like how are you feeling? How are the contractors feeling? Are they going to get there? And right now we're hearing really good things about that. Um I will tell you there's some things we're learning um that we can improve upon. One of them that we've learned is and and we've been doing this in collaboration with our secondary schools, specifically our high schools. But um
105we need to do more in-depth planning, multiple years out with comprehensive high schools so that we're not taking too many comprehensive high schools offline at the same time. Um having both Fossil Ridge and Fort Collins off was creating some challenges, but we've been able to work with the staff and resolve those. Um, but it's something I think that if we can get the high schools in with us, we can come up with a cadence of this is an ideal time for this school to have some maintenance, this is an ideal time for this school to have maintenance, and then we just plan it together. So, those are things I think that give us even more improvement next year around. >> Thank you, Dave. Uh, is there any other questions from the board at this time?
106>> Right. Thank you for that update. >> Justformational. So, appreciate it. >> Thank you. You've taken action on most of it. There's gonna be a couple more things that come your way. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, moving on. We have a budget update and I believe we have another guest. >> Guests all night. So, tonight we look forward to hearing the budget update from our budget director, Brian Gustoson. Welcome, Brian. >> Good evening. >> Thanks for having me. Uh tonight we'll tip off uh part one of what is likely a four-part budget kind of spring series here. And as we get going, we're going to focus heavily tonight on the March economic forecast. So I'm going to get into to that and that'll be our our primary focus as we get going here. But
107as we go, let's u ask questions, interact as we go. Of course, there'll be time for questions at the end, but uh want to know uh your thoughts, your questions to make this as useful as possible for you. The like I said, we're going to get into a four-part series. We'll start with the March economic forecasts, and I'm saying plural there. I'll I'll qualify that here in a little bit. Tonight, we'll talk about the projected fiscal impacts of uh what's been going on here in March on our district. Next time, so that's a few weeks away. Then we'll get into where we present a preliminary budget to you all and then a proposed budget that will be later in May uh for adoption sometime in June. So that's kind of setting the stage as we
108get into talking about the economic forecasts. This is this time of the year is where really we've been there's been a lot of talk a lot of talk about school finance and how things get going uh as we plan for the next fiscal year. But as we get into March, that's when the ball actually kind of starts rolling at the legislative level. And March is important because it's that third quarter of the calendar or the the fiscal year for us. Um forecast that comes from two entities in the state of Colorado. I'll talk about those. But the role that it has in the finance act is important to understand. So I want you to come away this evening with understanding what is the role of the the economic forecast as well as an understanding of
109two uh forecasts and the differences between them. That's important to note especially this year and then we'll get a little bit into the influence on our district budget planning with these. So you probably uh heard about these last week uh this this was going on last week where we get updates on on state economic situation. I know uh Mr. Duffy re referred to it a little bit earlier with uh their weekly call u getting getting into the the long bill and thinking about where the legislature is going with school finance and to continue to set the stage a little bit going to talk a lot about three groups and going to use a lot of acronyms so always have to to make sure we're grounded in what those acronyms stand for. the OSPB, which I
110struggle with this one because it flips some letters around, but that's the Office of the State Budget and Planning. Okay, this is a group that advises the governor primarily on fiscal management, planning, those kinds of things. It's important to understand which groups are kind of affiliated where in the whole process. And we also have the legislative council staff, that's the LCS. So, I'll be talking about the LCS. This is a nonpartisan general assembly research group that advises the legislature, the general assembly on policy and helps them develop public policy. Those two entities, the LCS and the OSPB develop forecasts each quarter and the March ones are what we're going to focus on. They're separate. They're separate and independent forecasts and they both get evaluated by the joint budget committee, the JBC. So you hear that
111acronym often, the JBC. Hey, that's a bipartisan legislative group that sets the figures and creates the long bill. The long bill was mentioned earlier. That's the state budget. That's the bill that establishes the state budget and there's a placeholder in there for the school finance act. So once that the figures get fed into the long bill, basically that's what's moving forward with the school finance act embedded in there. So, as I mentioned, those first two groups are establishing forecasts and did so last week here in March. And then that joint budget committee determines which forecast uh to use as it sets figures for that long bill. So, that's where we're at in the the cycle right now. And I'll get into some of those some of those details. Okay. So, we're going to compare the
112two forecasts. And this is high level. Uh, this came from a summary from CDE, the the Department of Education. They provided us with a a a summary late late last week and really laid out a lot of this really good information for us. And this was one of the really eyepopping uh tables that came in that that data. What you have on the screen is a table that compares a some different categories in that left column, different fiscal years, different categories, and then the state budget and planning um I guess summary of each of those categories in the middle column and the LCS summary in the right column. that first row. If we just look at current fiscal year 2526, the state budget and planning forecasts a surplus at the end of this year of
113$13.7 million in the state budget and we've been hearing a lot of different talk about a much bigger dollar figure in the deficit range and and we'll get into what's kind of behind that number because that that was eye popping. It was to to me Dave and others I'm sure that received this information. whereas the legislative council staff forecasts a billion dollar deficit. So immediately we have two forecasts looking at the same fiscal uh situation that are vastly different forecasting into next year. Uh the the OSPB forecasts a deficit of 21.3 million and then the LCS forecast is a deficit of either 806 million or 1.47 billion. Now, I'm not exactly sure what goes into all of that, but you can it this just illustrates the differences that we're wrestling with as we are trying
114to figure out, okay, where where are we going to end up in all of this? Both have um evaluated the general fund. This is the state general fund reserve requirements. And you'll notice that there are different requirements established. Currently, the requirement is a 15% reserve. uh but in the OSPB projection or forecast that's a 13% reserve and I'll talk more about that later. Remember that the OSPB is connected primarily with the governor's uh budget request and governor's office. The governor released the budget request in well November 1st, amended it slightly in January and so we'll circle back to that. Both forecasts uh figure on an inflation rate somewhere between 2.3 and 2.6%. Both evaluate the new school finance act that's being implemented in different ways. This especially as we get kind of back into budget
115mode. This is what a hard one to conceptualize. Remember we're running on two school finance acts at the same time right now. This is year one of simultaneous acts and so one will be phased out over a six-year period and one is starting to phase in. Well, the phase in period is supposed to go at about 15% per year for the first I guess five years and then 10% in the final year. The uh OSPB forecast identifies that next year we're talking about next year will be at that 30% implementation. So the as scheduled uh implementation whereas the LCS uh forecast indicates a pause in implementation. Both forecasts are uh decreases as they they label it compared to December. So, not as favorable as their December forecasts, whereas one has a bit more of an
116optimistic tone. I think you you sense that in the dollar figures there um compared to the other. But both identify that there are challenges ahead uh economically. That rationale line, that last row at the bottom of the table is is interesting to note, but also starts to reveal some of the the difference in the approaches here. The state budget and planning group is assuming in their forecast revenue changes that would be accompanied with some governor's uh request, the governor budget request and suggested policy adoptions and changes. I'll come back to some of those that are at least suggested here in a little bit. the legislative council staff is assuming assuming only current law and that's that simultaneous to school finance uh act implementation or current joint budget committee actions and that's a lot right there
117but that comparison starts to really illustrate as I mentioned the challenges that all school districts are facing when trying to plan now for next year. Okay, I'm gonna keep going, but again, feel free to hop in. We can we can ask questions or you can save them till the end. So, just quantifying in a different way. We've got differing outlooks. We've got uh both being downgraded or reduced from December and both identify that economic conditions are expected to worsen over the next couple fiscal years to a different level monetarily, but both have that expectation. The joint budget committee, as I mentioned, is charged with figure setting. That means choosing which forecast to follow. And per the information we received on March 20th, the joint budget committee has chosen to adopt that state budget and planning
118forecast. Okay, that was the middle column and and I'll go into a little bit more about uh what what's behind that. Okay, so that's the one that's tied to the governor's budget request. So now we're into that process where the the OSPB is saying, okay, we're going to take these economic um data points. We're going to plug those in as we're working with these figures and now the Department of Education and we'll be charged with working with all these folks to start creating some runs for the schools and other parts of of at least K12 budgets. So, we start to finally understand, okay, well, how's this going to impact us? What we do see in the uh the governor's budget request, and remember this is tied to that state budget and planning economic forecast, is
119that overall in the state, uh, we'll see a K12 total program, and remember that's the formula, pupils times per pupil rate increase of $26.7 million. And that's based again in that 2.3 to 2.6% inflation range. I I believe the inflation rate we saw um released last week, the Denver Lakewood area inflation was 25. I don't know if if you remember seeing that. I think it was 25, but I know there there's certainly some some challenges not only statewide, but nationally and globally that are starting to impact that number. Also uh in consideration in this this forecast that's setting the the budget uh that was also recommended by the governor is the six-year phase in continuing for the new school finance act. So that's up to 30% next year. The three-year averaging component of counting funded
120pupils remains in place for next year, phasing down to a two-year averaging mechanism in the following year. That's what we've been planning off of for a couple years now. There's been a lot of talk of that changing and it goes back and forth and uh the where this at least forecast and proposal um settles in is maintaining that three-year averaging next year. Currently, we're in a four-year average of counting our pupils in a declining enrollment situation. In this, there's no change to the hold harmless uh provision that's in the fiscical year 27 school finance act. and the hold harmless provision. That's the the the sort of uh it's it's a look back really for certain districts that didn't benefit like us well from the implementation of the new school finance act. So it maintains funding
121at the level of the 2425 old school finance act. Hey, this is where we start to get into a combination of one-time dollars going forward along with recurring dollars in the new school finance act. Again, further complicating things, but that that provision remains in the U act as recommended. There's been a lot of talk there too about that going away, but so far we still see that uh being planned for. The last bullet has been something that's been tossed around for a number of months as well, and that's about specific ownership tax. And remember, specific ownership tax is the tax that is collected uh by taxing districts uh in a in a certain area on vehicle license fees. And we as a as a property taxing we entity, we certify our mills. We get a
122portion of the school district boundary so tax. There has been a lot of push to roll all so tax collected by districts into what's called the local share of the big formula. And and we'll illustrate more in in a few weeks what this looks like, but we have portions of our esotax that we collect that are outside of that formula. Hey, for for a district like us that has portions of the esotex outside of the formula, this means reducing what the state has to backfill in in the formula. >> You as you tell us we could interrupt you interrupt. >> Please do. >> Would that include 4A? >> Well, >> best guess >> sort of. Yeah. Um this bec because we we have certain mill levies that we certify. Okay. We have a general fund
123millie that's mill levy that's certified that's part of the program but we also certify other on top of um program funding mills beyond formula mills like the 2019 uh mill levby override or 1996 or whatever it is as well as bond mills. So we certify a lot of different mills and we collect so tax for each of those as well. Those fall outside of that that formula. Now that would be subject to being rolled into what's called local share and then not subject to state equalization starting in fiscal year 28. So if I understand it correctly then there is there is a scenario I don't know if you run any numbers in which if this happens all those other measures would fold into the local share meaning there's a potential that the state wouldn't have
124to backfill anything and we would be completely on our own to fund our schools. Do I understand that correctly >> for that component? The state would still have to equalize whatever the formula doesn't generate in local share. >> Presuming that local share would get us up to the fill line of my cup analogy from Dave. >> Correct. Right. Yeah. It totally continuing the cup analogy. Yeah. The state would just have to fill in less because now we'd roll in beyond formulao taxes a little bit more of where they used to. >> So again, sorry, let me be clear. Is there a scenario that you guys can forecast in which the local share would obate the need at all for the state to backfill a penny? >> Probably not here. where >> I'm sorry that's a
125complicated question but ju >> just due to the the volume and and Dave will hop into but the volume of the >> Dave can speak Kevin because he understands we've had enough conversations where he's like I know what he's asking but >> I think the ESO portion that we're talking about is a small number when you look at the overall number that the state is backfilling and so even if let's say the SO tax goes away and that's an $8 million reduction to the to us because of the local share change, we still would be getting equalization and backfill from the state because we're so far off from being able to fund ourselves. >> It's it's by a lot, >> right? But it's still impactful. Did the OSPB forecast detail out at the state level
126how much the SOT tax would reduce their overall number or overall deficit? Did they say, "Hey, we think we can make up $450 million statewide." Or did they just say, "We're going to go with SOT and we'll figure it out later." not that we've seen yet because this is forecasted or proposed to come into effect in a phased in approach starting in fiscal year 28. So not next year, but it's been on the the burner a little bit. And so getting it out there ahead of hey this is something to think about in future school finance act legislation. that talk at least in this forecast and proposal would be starting in fiscal year 28. >> Has there been any talk on that about whose responsibility it is to develop that? Is that the OSPB or
127would that be the joint budget committee? >> That I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah, good question. Certainly, this is one of the areas where we're going to have to get a lot more information, do a lot of homework here. Yeah. So that's on the horizon. But so you would you would think, well, it's not something that's going to impact us immediately, but it's impacting planning, right? We we have to be thinking multiple years down the road. So it's uh something for consideration for sure. Additionally, in the the K12 budget request by the governor, uh that this request would continue to fund our categorical sources. This is beyond the formula uh reimbursements for transportation, special education funding, English language learner funding. These are little buckets that are little. I mean, they're they're significant buckets outside of the
128formula. These typically grow by the rate of inflation. That provision remains. However, read AAC, which kind of falls into this category of categorical at times, is likely to continue to be reduced. We've seen reductions in read funding to to support significant reading deficiencies consistently over the past couple years. Anticipate that would be reduced. Additionally, the governor has highlighted that there will be administrative reductions at the CDE level as well as potential state grant reductions. None of this really quantified yet, at least especially for us. But taking a look at state grants like the school health professional grant, school counselor core grants, grants that have been on on the the the minds and and uh on our vision as far as what impacts us here at PSD for quite some time. So you start to see
129the the levers being pulled as far as how do we fund some of this um this this school finance act by adjusting other areas of the state budget. So, how are they getting to this? So, and and again, we received a really informative memo from the Department of Education that's helped us walk through this and we look forward to getting more information and starting to see the numbers behind this. But this this is what we are able to discern in just a few days of analysis of the the state budget strategy to come out with a forecast that's a billion dollars different than the the legislative council staff forecast. Well, the the governor's plan is based on a number of assumptions and one is to use reserves from the general fund to stabilize the budget.
130So that's about a $334 million estimate at this time. The and and some of these are they're in the weeds of of statewide legislation that I'm not as as versed with, but you may be more so. Uh the privatization of Pinnacle Assurance, which is a work comp, it's really the state chartered work comp carrier. Uh there's there's a push to move that away from being a state chartered work comp provider and more of a privately held provider and that would free up about $400 million in the general fund. The third bullet, yeah, third bullet, the redirection of affordable housing finance funds. This is from Prop 123. That was a fund established and oh gosh, I think that was maybe even just last fall. This would redirect about $110 million from that fund into the general
131fund. So again, we're starting to move some move some dollars around here. There are talks about well maybe Medicaid isn't as impacted as maybe it would have been or was initially thought to be at the state level, but that could free up about $124 million. The fifth bullet, Taber refund adjustments. There seems to be uh some belief that HR1, a federal level, the big beautiful bill, did not account for u all Taber refunds appropriately, something to that effect, right? So there there's some dispute over Taber refunds in previous years. And so this is certainly up for interpretation and debate on how much money can be brought back into the general fund that would have been Taber refunds previously. And then there is also uh the proposal to reduce one year only the state on behalf
132contribution by about $16 million. So, all of these bullets, as Dave and I have talked and and we talked with cabinet members earlier today, um really stand out as as a lot of one-time dollars here. There are a lot of one-time actions supporting what's what's setting up to be our our program funding for next year. So, we've got a lot of estimates here. We've got a lot of things that are still going to be arm wrestled about, I believe. and and we're going to have to stay poised and and aware of what's been going on here. So, I kind of alluded to, well, how are we looking at this? How are we now taking this information and preparing for our fiscal year 27 budget? Well, first and foremost, regardless of of those dynamics, we're focused
133on aligning the budget in a in a period of declining enrollment. Hey, we've got a declining student count projection of going into next year. That obviously is a huge driver in the budget. And so that's uh a challenge we're facing. And regardless of what the revenue situation looks like, we need to make sure the budget is is adapting and aligning to that. Similarly, we have to address the challenges of 10,000 open seats in the district. maximizing working with community groups like the comprehensive planning committee that's been mentioned earlier this evening. Uh working with those groups, working throughout the district to maximize our our spaces, our facilities with efficiency uh and and in the most effective ways possible. So those two items really are are at the base of our budget building. Additionally, now we've got
134to dive in and and see what comes out of these March revenue forecasts. Is it really going to stick uh the OSPB forecast based on a lot of the assumptions that I've I've identified and shared with you here? And if so, hey, what does that look like? If not, what does that change to? There's going to be a lot, I think, potentially happening in the next few weeks that we've got to be able to uh adapt to and um work with. We certainly uh see that there's that agreement on worsening forecast over the next few years. And that certainly has to be part of our planning. We've got some trepidation, of course, by those forecast variances that I've identified. And and similar trepidation about the significant one-time dollars that that seem to be funding the
135recurring formula if this continues to move through into the loan bill. And so as we continue to move through our process, we'll continue to analyze these things and and we await information hopefully in the next few days about some data behind this forecast that's impacting the school finance act. Additionally, we have deployed already the studentbased budgets based on that enrollment uh change for next year. Back in December, I talked to you about uh how that process works a little bit, what that cycle looks like. And in February, we rolled out the allocations. February into March, our buildings worked with their allocations to build their staffing plans for next year and then met with uh district leaders to get those approved. And so, we're just finalizing a couple more changes in those, but but really those
136budgets are are identified and established for next year. We will uh we'll we'll be coming back to you in a few weeks and and trying to figure out how to to identify these recurring and one-time sources in our in our program funding and how we're going to to work with that in the budget. That's that's going to be a significant challenge, I think, for us. But I believe that uh reflecting back to to November, right, an initial approach of thinking about a worst case scenario budgetarily uh has put us in a position to be able to at least address these items. The thought at that time of what happens if SOT tax is rolled into the formula or what happens if hold harmless provisions go away or what happens if a new budget stabilization factor
137emerges. All those things may still be on the table, but what we're seeing and and Dave let me know if you feel differently. What we're seeing here is at least some confidence coming from the Department of Education that this forecast will will initiate the long bill and and set the figures. >> I I I do want to jump in because I I think what Brian and I are doing is we're looking at some information from CDE that is more information than I've seen in the past. So, it lends me to believe that it's probably plugged in. But all of this has to be taken, action needs to be taken by the JBC. The joint budget committee is the one that ultimately is going to make all of the decisions. Um, but what we're trying to
138forecast is what we're hearing behind the scenes a little bit. So, putting that into a timeline, right now we're awaiting those school finance runs as I mentioned and there will be a an update on the possible riff on a the April 14th meeting that would have budgetary impacts. We will circle back with round two of a budget update with some fiscal impacts and start putting some numbers and some some data in front of you on April 14th. Hopefully we have some uh from the state that we can work with at that time. On the 28th of April, we'll submit a preliminary budget. Talk through that a little bit. And that will be a budget especially um it it can be a little bit challenging to to think through this preliminary budget. It will not be
139balanced. It will reflect revenue for next year compared to current currently budgeted expenditures and illustrate a gap that we're trying to solve for. So, that's the start of the preliminary budget and then we'll work into okay, what is a what does a budget balance or a balanced budget look like as we get into May? Uh, and and we submit a budget for adoption. Additionally, this spring, we look forward to receiving some multi-year enrollment projections that will continue to help us plan for not only next year, but into the the future years, especially with these forecasts illustrating concerns, continuing concerns economically over at least the next two fiscal years. with that just focused heavily on the forecast. Uh what other questions do you have? >> Thank you so much. Does anyone have current questions with all
140the uncertainty that we're facing? Yes, please. >> I was just curious like from you all's expertise like there's this assumption of where the budget's going to be at the state like was like a level of confidence. you don't have to use that word, but like how comfortable are you all with um things not shifting and remaining the same? >> I'll I'll answer first and Dave might answer differently. I would say it's unusual or from my experience, it's a little more unusual to see discrepancies like this in the forecasting. And so that that challenges confidence a bit. Where I do feel a little bit more confident is that the Department of Education is, as Dave has mentioned, has has rolled out a really um substantial amount of information that's been at least vetted uh as as
141that's the way they think it's going. So, I'm I'm a little torn, but >> yeah, I I would maybe lean toward being a little more less than confident, and that's how I've felt through this whole budget scenario this year. Um, you know, in the past, typically I'd be more comfortable trying to predict where we're at even in January. This is such a interesting session this year that we weren't even able to think about that. And I think there is still the potential for things that we have not seen yet. >> Quick question with kind of along those lines with CDE kind of backing that more um optimistic outlook. Is it is it maybe wishful thinking and trying to maybe pressure if if you release that all to the schools and they start budgeting is that
142pressure the legislators to go with that more that plan the governor's plan or his projections I should say is that the game I don't know I'm just asking >> that's a good question h >> it's an interesting theory. I I don't know. I I I I don't have um any perspective with with some of the folks that developed this at least uh memo to to really gain any insight so far. >> Yeah. I I I think where Brian and I are talking and even debating so much as do we rely on this memo or not? And I've never seen a memo like this from CDE. So that's unique and interesting. I haven't seen something with as much detail. So, that lends me to believe that it's something that they didn't put together overnight. And there's
143a number of people that are attached to that that are on the JDBC, not the the legislators, but the support staff. Like we have a lot of people on CDE. We had some people from OS I think maybe somebody from OPB. I know there was somebody from Ledge Council on there. So, it wasn't like it was just isolated to us as K12 that got the message, which lends me to believe maybe it's true. But at the end, the JBC is the one that takes the action. So regardless of what CDE put, JBC may make a different decision. And the language is very clear in the memo that they chose the OSPB forecast. I'm very cautious even saying that because it's the JBC that needs to take action, but choose it. And I don't think they've
144done that yet. Now, maybe they know it's going to happen, but it has not happened yet, which lends to why things can change. Thank you. Go ahead. >> What part of the SOT is for like the current budget year when was considered um local share? >> Yeah, that's uh gosh, I think we're at about eight million. I was going to say 8.2. >> Yeah. >> And that's one of that's one of the ones we don't know what it's going to ship to. Yes. It's a we get SOT and it's about half and half, right? Like >> it it's started to move with the implementation of the debtree mill. >> So we have a little bit more that that's already starting to be counted toward the the local share in the formula that that started to
145work its way in this year kind of quietly >> from our perspective. But there's still about it may be just a little less than 8 million that's outside of the the formula that would roll in and change our revenue. >> And again, if the state were to recognize that as local share, they would just say, "We're not going to send another $8 million to you because you're already getting it." And this is going to impact not just us, but SOT tax is going to be a pretty big hammer on all the large districts because we're all doing it the same way. And when you get to like DPS and Cherry Creek where you've got enormous bonds and belovedies, this is this is big for all of us. And again, it's scheduled to happen in 28.
146I don't know if that ends up in the school finance act or if it's just a PowerPoint slide. Um, and yet to be determined. >> Quick check. April 14th is when we're contractually obligated to vote on the riff. Correct. >> April 14th allows us the time that we need to meet the deadlines that are in the contract. So, we need to be able to notify folks based on that date. I'm just the reason I asked I'm a little concerned with the timeline on the previous slide that we're not even getting a draft PSD budget until the following meeting. I mean, we're getting some budget statements. I mean, I get that and it's a process. I'm just I I I've got a built-in stress that we're making a looking at a huge decision without, you know,
147really understanding separate from the state and I know this is just a moving target. So, we're I'm going to probably be peppering you with a lot of questions on getting what we can information wise and and I know some of it's going to have to be guesses and ranges from you all to say option A looks like this, option B, whatever that range looks like. So, I just for me I'm probably going to be asking for some of those things just to get as clear a picture as we can because that's such a big decision. Don't want to take it lightly. I also do want to reiterate that the HR team is currently working very very hard to place all of our continuing contract teachers. Um we are making progress um and are encouraged but
148have not landed fully yet. >> That's actually really good news. I'm hoping that continues to go well. >> And and to your point, yes, we will be getting finer points on this. Um, as Brian alluded to, one of the big missing pieces that we have yet to see is a school finance run of which what that's where all the detail is. You can see the formulas and the calculations for all 178 districts. And we look very close at that. That's going to be very important. CDE typically has not released those until there is language in a bill for them to run against. So, we're going to have to wait to see if are they going to do it early and based on that memo, maybe they will give us a run early, but it may
149have to wait until that that point, too. So, um we will be getting a clearer perspective as those things happen. When we get the run, that's going to be huge. When we get the language of the actual bill, the school finance act, that's going to be huge, too, because then we're going to be able to see what language are they actually using in there, not just what the PowerPoint slide or the memo says. Thank you. >> Other question, please. >> I'll just put a plug in. Um, the legislative committee calls are open to the public Fridays at noon. We're going to be talking about all this stuff in detail. >> Thank you, Connor. Right. I don't see any other questions at the moment, but I'm sure more will be coming as we get more information.
150>> Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you very much for your time. >> Thank you. All right. Uh, at this point, we only technically have a couple of more items, but we could call our meeting at this point. We only have forecasting. Um, I've been told we can skip our executive session for tonight and just postpone it to our next meeting, but it's not urgent. So, if we are collectively comfortable with that, we can adjourn our meeting. Okay. Not seeing anyone. Yeah, please. K, did you have something? >> Oh, thank you. I appreciate the feedback. It just it is helpful. All right. That is it's great. Um, all right. And then at this point, we will adjourn our meeting at 9:50 p.m. still on March 24th. Thank you very much, y'all.