July 2025 board of education meeting

001The blade was amazing. All right. I call the July 8th, 2025 Colonial School District Board of Education meeting to order. Please rise as Mr. Robin Crossen um recites the pledge of leads us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. All right, with that, are there any additions or corrections to the agenda? There are none. All right, with none, do I hear a motion? Uh, could you do me a favor just read the whole thing for me, Mr. Walls? No, I'll say it. Make a motion we approve the agenda as presented. Thank you, sir. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. And

002as moved by uh Mr. Law, seconded by Mr. Handy. Are there any questions or comments from the board? All right. No question or comments. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed? Neg. All right, motion's carried. All right. And moving right on to public comment. Do we have any other public comments? So, we do have one public comment. Uh, but we also uh would like to seed the floor to board member uh Mr. Robin Crossson to to make a statement during public comment. Mr. Robin Cross. Thank you very much. I am ending my term as a school board member as I moved out of the district and uh so at this point uh I'm completing 50 years and six months uh teacher for 40 years uh the school board for

003seven and in between I did summer school at leu uh and uh I've enjoyed every minute of it and I appreciate all these people and I like being on the board because I actually know everybody and everything uh including where the skeletons are and everything else, but uh it's a good district and I've seen other districts and this is really a good district and I really appreciate being on the legislative committee. Thank you, Chris. And my son would like to finish up and make a few comments. So, I'm going to uh now recognize John Crossson's son William Henry Brad. Oh, as well to say a few words. Sure. Thank you. Uh thank you, Mr. Mezer. Uh my name is John Crossson and I am the second of uh Robin's four children. Our older sister Sally

004was graduated class of 94 of William Penn. I was validictorian of the class of 97 and uh our younger brother David was graduate of the class of 98. I have our younger sister Mary here who went to Caraval. So we won't but you know um you know as as dad mentioned he's ending 50 years of service to the Colonial School District which is longer than I've been alive. So for my whole life he has he has been uh been working here in Newcastle serving the students of of this district. um and uh in many capacities. He started at Eisenberg um as the greenhouse egg teacher uh and then went over to William Penn as the greenhouse teacher before spending a long tenure at Wallace Wallen um and then going back to William Penn for a

005and until finally ending up at at Leech School. And uh I have many fond memories growing up of us going to Wild Swollen and helping to water the plants on the weekend to make sure all everything uh you know stayed alive because a greenhouse teacher's job is not Monday through Friday and um and and then um during high school uh would go over with the student council and uh Mrs. Kesler who was the adviser at the time to uh Mary Beth Kessler was the adviser to student council. we would go over and help with each prom and that was always such a moving experience because you know there are many teachers um in in who have a job to teach for those who teach at Leech u it's really a ministry of caring of love

006of compassion um and service that goes beyond simply teaching and uh you know my dad has dedicated most of his career to serving those students among us who are the most special and who require ired the most care uh and may often be dismissed or forgotten. But uh he has lived his life of service uh caring for them with grace, with patience and humility. And so uh as he comes to the end of his 50 years of of service, I think is one of those milestones that we don't see too often anymore these days. And I don't think we'll see very often in the future where someone can say that they spent 50 years of service in one career in one district. And so I commend his his years of service um and his example

007to all. Um and uh this I know that this past year has been very difficult without my mom who is always his greatest cheerleader and companion through all of those 50 years. And I know that she would be proud tonight. So well done, Dad. [Applause] Robin, stay up front here. Hold on. You have parting gifts. I know. Yes, he's only got another, you know, as a thank you, Robin, for everything. We want to just give you a certificate of recognition for everything that you have done here for this district for the past 50 years. Pause for the media gallery. Cheese. Good. And also, Robin, here's a few parting gifts for you. Thank you. some swag and a couple of special. I have to say I appreciate everything you've done for me. I knew you when

008I first started in 1991 in the A program. David's not here. I was part of the David Crossing graduation situation. Um but uh we made it through that. You when did you start at Was I here too? Yeah. Yeah, students say as soon as remember we student taught he must have been in the building. They had four and then all of a sudden one kicked me over William Penn and there were so many people William Penn compared to other schools but I didn't even people in the building. Right. You were down in W1. Yeah. Yeah. That's when the greenhouse did right there. Yeah. I I he was there when we were there. Okay. Dr. Little John. Yep. Joel, we won't go there. We'll leave that one. Joel was special. Is this in lie of me

009being president? Yeah, it's going to happen. Good job, Robin. Hang on. Thank you very much. Pleasure. You've been with us now on the board for Seven years. Make the 10, but no. I knew somebody cut it short. It's a pleasure that you've been here working with us and I appreciate you everything you did to support the whole board with me when I was president of Yes. very much. Thank you. And I think we're going to have a special visitor at some point here in a few minutes to to also make a few remarks. So, we'll pause the meeting wherever we are when that visitor arrives. That's I I do want to take a moment myself. I was going to wait till the end with it, but It's Robin's son brought up some things. Robin, you

010were my first friend here on this board. Um, you invited me in. Uh, I served as your alternate on the legislative committee. That's right. And very much. He makes it clear I was his alternate, but he invited me to every single meeting. He did not have to. And I will tell you, we have opposite views on a lot of different things, but it was some of the most fun learning everything from you and all the knowledge that you have when it comes to that and with everything. And it was amazing. It made me proud as as a colonial here to know, man, we changed a lot of minds down there and we were not scared to speak up and because you were there for the right reasons. And I appreciate it. I appreciate your friendship

011and um everything you've done to the district for the district and you know, we're we're we're sad to see you go uh so much, but we are so proud for what you've done and and we appreciate it. and I just wish you good luck with everything and please don't be shy in coming back to visit because we will miss you so much. Thank you for your kind words and your dream. Now he cannot be president because we're scared. So we didn't know what he was going to do. Do it for one meeting. Yeah, scary enough. So no, thank you Robin. We really appreciate it. Um do we have any other public comment? No, we do not. Okay. Well, we I reserve the I reserve for the to allow public comment when the special visitor arrives

012on the state for sounds good. And that the storm is what's kind of got I know one of our folks to leave. All right. So, we'll come back to public comment uh later on uh for the remaining ones. Uh, now it is going to be discussion and I'm going to ask Ted to please help me guide through this um for moving on to the organization of the board of education for the 2526 school year. Um, with that being said, turn it over to Jeff. I'm going to move over to Okay, just turn the camera to me. There we go. And at this time uh I will or we will accept nomination for president of the board of education. I would like to nominate Christopher PQ for president of the colonial school board. Do I hear

013a second? Moved by Miss Smith, seconded by Crossen, Dorsy, and Breed. Yep. Let's get them all down. They'll get they got to vote yet. We have greeted it was all at the same time for a second. I know. I was just trying. We'll give it to Miss Greetings. Rob selfesteem for me. We'll give it to Rob. It's our last one. Last one. Last. Uh at this time, we have a hearing a motion and a second. Uh, can I get a roll call vote on there? Do I take them all now or do I do one vote? Are there any other nominations for president? That being said, Mr. Chairman, that no others being offered, I make a motion to close the nomination for president. Do I hear a second? Second. All those in favor closing. Do

014I have to I have to vote on that? All those in favor? I I Okay. Motion carries. That said, President, congratulations. Thank you. I live with the touch of the G. That was tough. All right. And now, um, asking for nominations would be made for vice president of the board of education. Do I hear any nominations for vice president? I would like to nominate Chris Smith. Second. All right. Nominated by Dr. Dorsey, seconded by Phil Breeding. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. I move nominations close for I second. All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed? Nay. All right. Chris Smith is our vice president for 25 26 years. Secretary have to cast the vote. Oops. I'm sorry. I cast a vote in approved. I do again. Every

015year we ask if we're going to figure this out. This is going to be the first time we did this, right? No, it's every year we do the same conversation and the year Ted leaves. Next year I promise next year I promise I'll watch this. Watch the video. I'll go. I'll come in. All right. Um, as for well, as for the rest, actually, we take nominations for it, but actually it's the president's prerogative to actually nominate um Yes. to do that. Correct. Um and with that I should point you have to Oh yes. All right. New president and I appoint superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Mensor to the position of executive secretary of the board in accordance with code. Check. Yes. Got you. And you have your nomination for your two boards. All right. So for DSBA

016um board of directors representative, Mr. Handy, are you willing to do that again? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. And then for the alterate, um who do we currently have as an ultimate? So currently I am the alternate. Legislative is where I Who's on legislative for last year? Robin was alter and you were alternate. All right. Um we we've had discussions about not not holding multiple offices. My suggestion use these committee positions as learning experience for your your board member. So if you have a new board member being an alternate would be a Right. And we're going to have a new board member perhaps. I'm almost wondering if we want to table these nominations. That's incorrect. You can't We have to do them with You have to. Yeah, we have to. Okay. I can switch

017them out at any time if I'd like. Board action. You can't. Okay. Thank you. Um, so for legislative, I'd like to see Chris Smith, can you run legislative? Yes. It was Robin. It was the alternate alternate move up. Unless Keenan wants to do it. Keenan, unless you want to do it, but I know with everything you got going on. I didn't know how you felt about that. I'm on board. That's what I do. You're Would you want to do it? Yeah, I'm on I'm on the board. Like, yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure it's a new school. Listen. All right. I'm confused. Have a commitment. He needs he wants to do legislative. Great. You're up. You're going to put you on leg. We're going to go from alternate to All right. So, Kenan

018will be legislative representative and then um with that my suggestion would be that the new member would go on to DSPA. That would be it. I like it. Miss Brady, it's okay. I just need help. Ron, we'll help you out. And then obviously for you don't want any, right? Which one? Okay. Yeah. As you can see, yeah, the eyes. This one director. Oh, Chris can do it. Yeah, Chris. Yeah, I guess for me now, I'll be the alternate for legislative. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, it is Chris. Yeah, it's Chris Smith. Um, and there we go. So, we will have DSBA will be Robin Handy. Alternate for DSBA, Philip Reeding. Legislative will now be Keenan. And then the alternate will be Chris Smith. Okay. So, with that being said, I'll make a motion

019that we do the following appointments. Okay. That being said, make a motion. Do the following. Read the names. What I just said. Make the following appointments. Read off the names. Make the following appointments. Ronald Handy for DSBA league. Uh, DSBAL alternate Philip Reeding, legislative lead Keenan, Dr. Keenan Dorsy, and legislative alternate, Miss Christine Smith. Do we have a second? Do I have a second? Second. All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Those oppos. All right. There you go. All right. Thank you guys for all that. All right. And now now it's moving on to adopting Robert's rules of orders. Make a motion that we use the Robert's rules of orders as our guideline for meeting procedures. All right. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. As moved by Mr.

020Laws, seconded by M. Breeding. Um, are there any questions or comments from the board? With all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed, nay. With that, with that being said, there's not a question because you know how I feel about Dr. Roberts award is, can we please check with legal counsel and find out why we can't put that in policy and not have to vote on that every year? I can't hear. Okay. He wants to wants me to check with legal to find out if he can make it policy so we don't have to vote on it every year. That's an interesting idea. Good question. The entire world by that All right. And now moving past all the fun yearly stuff. Uh the next uh agenda item is the consent

021agenda. Uh the items listed under the consent agenda have gone through board review including documentation concerning these items that have been provided to all board members and the public in advance. Uh items in the consent agenda generally include routine personnel and business office action and updates as well as approval of previous meeting minutes and education related items such as choice and student placements. Um with that being said, do I hear a motion? I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Do I hear a second? Second. As moved by Dr. Dorsey and seconded by Miss Smith. Are there any questions or comments from the board? I have no question comments. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All oppose? Nay. All right. Motion carries. Next up on the agenda is updates

022and action items. And I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Mens for that. Uh as the board uh sees uh we are seeking the board's approval for an intent to terminate employee number 25-105 as we discussed in executive session. Do I hear a motion? Make a motion that we approve the intent to terminate as recommended by administration. That would be for employee number 25105. All right. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. as moved by Mr. Laws and second by Miss Breeding. Are there any questions or comments? No questions or comments from the board. All those in favor, please signify with saying I. I. All those opposed, nay. Motion carries. And I think we're going to pause for a second now and go back to uh public comment for just a minute. So,

023we're going to uh seed the floor to Senator Nicole Core, who has a moment to catch her breath from hustling up from the south from the storm to share something with the community and district. Absolutely. Hi everyone. How are you? Good. Good. Good. Good to see so many friendly faces. Uh hey, how are you guys? Ted's sitting here, you know, in case you didn't see him. I see the friendliest. Okay, so um John David John John. Okay, so uh Robin, your voice reached out to me and I thought that was pretty awesome. So I hear you're retiring soon. Yes, soon. Soon. Okay. Well, um, on that note, we got a lot of history about you. And so, um, what we prepared is a Senate Senate tribute. And for those of you that don't know, down

024in the lefthand corner here is a number. And that number will forever be in the archives in the state of Delaware. So, a hundred years from now, when your family wants to know more about you, they're going to be able to pull this record. Uh, you of course had Uh the original however uh it will be in the archives in Delaware. So why don't you come up front and I'm going to try not to have my back to every Okay. So uh Robin, this tren tribute is from the state senate. Be it hereby known to all uh that myself and the senators have joined together in the 153rd General Assembly in commending Robin Crossen for his distinguished service to the Colonial School District Board of Education. Throughout your tenure, he has generously shared his time,

025talent, and wisdom, earning the respect and admiration of colleagues, students, and community members alike. Mr. Crossen has dedicated more than 50 years to the Colonial School District. First as a beloved and inspiring teacher and since 2018 as a committed member of the board of education. His unwavering dedication to education and his tireless efforts on behalf of students and families has left a lasting impact on the district. So, I find it as well as my senators to um to the most fitting that the Senate recognizes Mr. Crossen as a fine public servant. His exception exceptional career and notable record of service stands as a testament to the power of dedication, leadership, and integrity. A legacy that will long be remembered and deeply appreciated. So, with congratulations and best wishes for a great future, the Senate directs

026this tribute. presented Tuesday the 8th of July of 2025 as Robin Crossson celebrates his job and a well done job. So congratulations. [Applause] Look at me. Good job. Yes. Thank you. You're so welcome. Congratulations. Thank you for making the effort to be here. Absolutely. In the store. That's okay. Probably. Oh, hi. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Perfect timing. Perfect timing. You notice where you're sitting, too, by the way. Wow. On that note, I'm going to depart. So nice uh to meet you, Robin. In all honesty, congratulations. For those of you that don't know, Robin spent quite a few years with my son, Nicholas, at Leech and uh obviously one of my most favorite chairs places. And I'm looking forward to the new building. Oh, don't you worry. We're all looking forward to Don't you

027worry. I was looking at those line items like fully funded. Okay, we're moving on. So, yes. All right. Well, thank you so much for letting me uh break your meeting tonight and I'm heading to my next event. So, gosh. Bye everyone. Good luck. All right. Safe travel. Yes. Thank you. You're so welcome. Is it raining? Raining. And please don't anyone take Route 9. Yes, we are repaving. Most of us learned that a long time ago. She a few minutes. Yeah, we'll let her let her go. I had to hold Ted back there. Here's the envelope. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Uh nice diversion. On to the next item. Uh we have an update or just like we wanted to share some numbers as a followup to the bricks in the book bag conversation that was

028led by Ed Stefen, our one of our our lead visiting teacher and homeless coordinator here uh in Colonial. And so I asked him just to provide the board with just the numbers of students who are either McKenna Vento or homeless or or foster care but then also put some attendance numbers there because he also works in that space to give you an idea. McKenna Vendor are families who qualify for homeless. There's a variety of qualifications in terms of being displaced living in a hotel like you name it. There's a couple different buckets there. And then foster children are obviously speaks for fosters care placed by the state. Um but I thought the board would like to see some of these numbers and perhaps you know Ed is here with Dr. Woodall who's supervisor of health

029and wellness and Miss Jacqueline Williams Williams is right I just talking about do Dr. Lamp today Jacqueline Williams who's also in the uh course with the the homeless families and our students. uh if you had questions and I'd like Ed to also share some comments about what the numbers really mean and kind of what it actually looks like for us in the district. Do you want me to make comments or does anybody have questions? Let's go with questions first and see what and then because the numbers are pretty pretty You can stand or sit right up front doesn't matter. I don't know. Does anybody Chris I know you carried the book bag Chris? Yeah. So Chris was the one who kind of jarred got jarred by carrying the book bag. So I don't know if

030anybody else had some questions. Is there certain uh actually I think almost your comments might be better to stir questions for us as we're looking at it to know I I have no clue how to compare it on what I'm seeing. Maybe you can help me in what we see and what this kind of tells us about our district or with our kids. Our district is unique in the sense that we have over 15 motel that accept housing vouchers for those experiencing homelessness within Christina school district has a similar situation because down at the University of Delaware those hotels in the area will accept but if you go down the roof corridor all the hotels there I would I hate to say 100% but 90% are homeless families living there not all our colonial students

031there's red clay students Brandy Wine AO Uh even some from Sussex and Kent counties get placed up here from time to time and they will transport back and forth to their schools depending on how long they're going to be here. The big one that popped up into our feeder pattern a couple years ago during CO was the hope center. There are 467 beds there around there. Um not all of them are families with student school age students, but um that was a huge increase for specifically Castle Hills and George Reed whose homeless numbers tripled after the open the hope center because that's the feeder school for the hope center. Um so they are sort of in a different spot right now getting acclimated into how to support these families. The issue specifically with all the

032motel, the vouchers are usually a two-eek voucher. After that, depending on your situation, you may get an extension, you may not. So, if they don't, after two weeks, they're out of the Hope Center. They're still Castle Hill students, but they could be living anywhere in Newcastle County, even Kent County, some of them. And in different situations, whether it be another hotel, double up with the friends, family, someone else. Um, the we connect, I did a presentation that was much longer than what you to see tonight. Uh there are families living in tents. I live right across from an elementary school in Red Clay and there is a little tent village in the woods and if you're in the elementary school parking lot, you can see the family living in the tent. Mr. Ste, can you

033repeat what you How long are the vouchers for? Two weeks. Two weeks. It's usually two weeks. Usually initial two weeks. Now, and and whose policy is that? Is that county? Is that state? uh it's DHSS is the one giving those housing vouchers. Now, if if they're at the hope center, they might get connected to another resource that will help extend their stay there or provide them different resources within the state to stay at. If they're just staying at the N motel, um actually a lot of those families end up having someone cover the cost for them. Uh we have some families that work there and that's how their room is covered. So it it it's meant to be an emergency type two week window to get you situated for two weeks and then after that

034figure out how we're going to spend. The day before Thanksgiving I was in New York giving a a mother a tent because her two weeks were up at the motel there and she had nowhere else to go and that was best that we could give her. She actually ended up getting a motel over Thanksgiving but um the emergency plan was we provide her with a tenant sleeping bag. So maybe add a little bit of the context of like when you have when you're dealing with the families and supporting what are some of the the resources that you're offering you and Caroline and the team uh to the best of your ability. For me I typically start with helping the schools get them registered and transportation set up. That's the the the first hurdle that we

035go over. Caroline and communities and schools then will help with uh food, clothing. Clothing is probably the biggest thing that you Carolyn connected with um Operation War when we got coats donated to the district. Shoes that fit gave us 300 pairs of sneakers last year for students. Yeah. Over 400 pair of shoes last year. Um there's the Lions Club in Newcastle reached out during CO and they provided bus passes specifically to William Penn and Castle Hills because that was they had a connection there. So it was partnership. How how do you decide how to set up uh transportation when they're always displaced? Setting it up is the easy part. It's the hard part is but finding it. How do you find them? Like um Miles Kamacho in transportation rightand man here. I sent him the

036information. He puts it out to bid. There's private band companies that will pick it up and it's usually based on location. So like there's a band company that will specifically run New York because they can pick up 10 students in a short period of time just like a school bus and get them to their buildings. They're not running from Newark to Wilmington to bear and all over. They're usually very centralized pickups and we have how do you find the families like they when they're displaced like they tell us they telling so you're not I mean because they can just disappear on you all of a sudden and that does happen. Okay. with the families who are very transient and don't have a stable place to go, whether it be doubled up with a friend or

037a family member or a motel or hotel, they do go missing for extended period of time. And part of what we're trying to do this year is connect communities and schools with these families so that they have someone to reach out to. Even if we we've had families who every 3 days move and it might take three days to set a ban up because it has to go to bid, they accept it, they call the family, and two days later they're going to start picking up a student. Well, they've already moved from that address. We got to go through that process all over again. If we can get them connected with communities and schools specifically, the hope is that that time frame is not three days every time that we can do it. Now, those

038three days for a particular student shows up in your in your attendance issues, they're excused absences until we can put the until we get transportation established. They're excused. Yes. because it's not by their doing that they're not they're not willfully just not coming to school with the transportation issues. Does that fall underneath the chronic absence? Yes. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about this bid process either way? Yeah. So, so basically with the bid process from transportation aspect uh so we work with up to I think we're up to 10 different van services. Uh when we can service them on our own school buses we do that as well. So typically in feeder we can work that out. Uh but many are on the van services. So basically you put the address out to

039your van services you know service the area and they basically get numbers back to you and uh you know as far as what that cost would be uh you know you basically get the approval you give the okay and then it's at least another 24 hours for the communication to say we're going to start picking up tomorrow. So minimum you're you're typically at least 48 hours sometimes as many as 72 business hours. So typically within three school days they're getting picked up. You can't set that you can't set that up with the band services that if if you're picking up a student from Newark to pen you can't have that schedule value set up probably going not quite because it's so sporadic where they're located and then it depends on the load in their vans

040that they're actually servicing whether they even have another seat that's available. So it's normally once you get rolling with them we have several very dependent ones that are much faster than the 72 by law and regulation. We basically have those three days to get it established. So, we want to get it done as quickly as possible and they do everything they can, but I'd say probably on average you're talking at least 48 two business days at a time. It's vivid and then return to the family and say it's about I'm just trying to think is there a way you get away from doing the bidding. If you can get the unit cost beginning of the beginning of the year that if you need van ABC to do somebody up in this area, you've got that

041unit cost you isn't the problem. The state pays the 90%. Yeah, they pay 90% of the came back to 100% of the foster, but they actually are in the last few years, it's been reviewed by the the current DO DOE supervisor of transportation. Uh, basically the cost formula and how that's set up. They've even set up some pilots of how to run those vans. Um, we have gone as far as joking that sometimes it's the wild, wild, west depending on what van service you get and the number they're throwing back at you that it's going to cost because they know we need to get these students to school. It's a I don't want to say desperation, but it is. We need to get these kids to school. So really in the last year or two

042they've really reviewed those policies. So far state of Delaware doesn't have any specific to like almost setting up like a funding formula to that that they have to stick to but that has been part of the discussion. We're actually currently working with a new van vendor we just began with last year and their cost formula looks a little different uh but more similar to what you're saying where basically they service an area and they can they can kind of just say anybody in this area we can grab. We've only been with them for the first year. We piloted it last year. Um you know we're interested to see what this upcoming year you know starts with. We didn't pick them up till about October. contract with these different companies and have those unit cost. Yeah,

043I can tell you it's it's a major focus in the last year or two, but has not been for decades. But when the when you look at the the amount of money that's spent throughout the state, it's it's pretty significant. So, it's definitely raising those concerns and saying, let's do what's best for everybody. Uh both in interest of money and also time and you know, what's good for our kids, best for our kids. And one of the big issues with it is that Kent and Sussex counties where it's stormy where it's much more rural. Yes. Their van rides are significantly longer and tougher to set up than it is here. I will tell you miles I I feel like anybody in Newcastle County, he gets back to me within a day and it's set up

044and they're picking them up the next day. So if they're staying in Newcastle County area, the turnover is not as slow. What were you going to add? Well, I think I think it's important to say that most of the time it's a capacity issue with the van provider, not necessarily a cost effect. So, we're not like waiting to see can we get a lower price from another van vendor. It's really more the logistics and the capacity of the vendor. And the state has tried um to look at, you know, statewide contracts for homeless transportation. Um but it is it is such it's so ephemeral, right? The population is moving around all the time that it's really hard to get somebody who is is going to commit to a cost when it's sort of impossible to

045know where they're going to be and and so forth. So, um and the state also doesn't do the contracts directly, right? So, they would um they'd put something out that we could all join onto, but again, that would be difficult because, you know, depending on which district was utilizing it, etc. So there's there's a lot of a lot of logistical challenges to So we pay for the vans and then the state reimbures us or the state we get reimbured and every time and every time a new van pops up we also have to take into account the background checks because every time we driver we have to have new background. So that also slows down the process sometimes because we're adding a van we have to add background check. So what what what falls in

046into the chronic absenteeism that is something that 15 years now maybe it's been like a catchphrase just students who are missing seat time. So if you're absent for an excused absence, unexcused absences, suspensions, if you're on an approved college visit, it really is taking into account how many days you're missing of instruction within the class. So this is days, not not individual. These are days, not individual students. No, the numbers there for the students. Individual students. Yes. How do you how do you calculate what's defined? Excuse missing the school day considered absent for so if a student goes on a college trip yes for to visit a college whatnot for lack of a term penalizing that student it's still excused but it's still it's still missed time it's become a concern yeah it's meet time

047but only if it goes above 18 days per year and even even if you get to 18 because there are a lot of high school students who are traveling with schoolbased programs that are in this 18 days and That's what academically they're still connected to school. It's really the students who are missing school, but they're not getting makeup work. They're not connected to the school building. They're missing out. And that's what we're trying to look at really. The the key piece to that is knowing the story behind those students on the chronically absent. If we knew, you know, seniors are paying attention doing college visits, we're not worried about them because academically they're where they need to be if they're visiting colleges. a lot more of the other students who kind of fall through the

048cracks because mom writes a note, you know, especially here, and I'm going to be guilty of this at some point, the Monday, Friday on se September because the beach weekends are nice. Race weekend, we have the fountain to go Thursday, Friday, and they don't come back Monday. Mom and dad write a note. It's an excused absence. That's a significant amount of school time that they've missed. And if it continues each holiday break by the end of the school year, they've missed 18 days and they're not engaged with learning or schoolbased program missing those days. So that's what we're trying to to monitor. Oh, you definitely feel free. Bye. Exactly. And a lot of those chronically absent students are going to also be homeless students because of transportation pieces. If they move frequently, they're going to

049fall into that. Double dipping on those. Yeah. That's another negative effect on their academic, not just the trauma of being homeless, but also missing school. So we have a total of 318 students in district over the course of this school year. Yes. They all weren't homeless for the entire school year. Some didn't stay with us the entire school year. Some came to us from Sussex County. Usually trans um foster care. Could they also be the Kenny Ventos or have you split them out? Foster care for a while. They used to be connected. DOE separated them because of funding purposes. So, different pods of money, but uh we I think there was five students this year that were McKini Vento at some point earlier in the year and then they went into foster care. It's not

050as common as you might think. We've had students who exited foster care and returned to a parent who were living in the hope center because being homeless isn't a reason to not custody of your children if they were stable and they were able to support their kids they give them back. So I think you know the reason we asked Ed to be this to be a little bit more informal because it's a little bit hard to capture what he just described because it is so I think there's so many different stories out there. Each one of these 318 has a different story that it's captured in you know we have people boots on the ground working to support families the best we can given some very difficult situations that they're facing. And I think, you

051know, when you hear the books in the bricks in the book bag, you know, these are the folks, you know, the three right here, you know, Sherry, Carolyn, and Ed, they're the front lines with Sam and um Jana are the teachers working with families to get students in schools despite the obstacles. And these are pretty high numbers comparatively speaking across other districts in the state. So we do have a pretty high population of Mckin Vento and foster care comparatively speaking. Um it's the you know and it's a it's arduous work um and it's difficult and sometimes you know you just keep working moving forward. You just don't give up. And that's one thing I'm, you know, Ed's been with us for several years in a variety of roles. Is it 20? Yeah. Visiting teacher, you

052know, and then the homeless coordinator landed in in a spot where Ed was, you know, passionate about helping families, communities, and schools. We got a grant that we brought in Carolyn. Um, and, you know, we definitely have a group. We have a team. So, it's not something on the side. So, I think that's why it's import And the big piece too about the Miss Carolyn is working out a district office right through that window. There's a CIS staff member in each building that she's working with and we're connecting our homeless students with them as well. So it's a network that we're trying to and that's where we we've been fortunate to be able to utilize her various funds to support a communities and schools person in each school. It helps keep that network going. But

053this year I know communities and schools presence uh is attendance is going to be their focus across the the state. Uh so they are going to be zeroing in on student attendance. So Ted, these the 20 plus unexcuseds, maybe not so much the chronic because sometimes the chronic do have things going on that we're aware of, but these unexcused ones where we can't get them, we need to get them in. And that's so there's going to be a big push on student attendance this year from communities and schools. And a lot of those are going to be overlapping of homeless and attendance. These are Yeah, these are because they they have to have 10% of their case load has to be a homeless student and an attendance issue as well. So they they have the

054whole gam this grant that you just mentioned. What what are the origins of that grant? It was an ARPHY. I got that out clean. Um after co all the federal Yes. Well, federal to the state state we got the grant through DOE. Um we had to apply and it the numbers were based on the percent the number of homeless students identified over a three-year stand. So like we got 160,000 uh R Clay got 200 Christine like the big districts up north got most of the funding. Is that something that you can reapply for? DOE has a different fund. It's not under that. It's a much more specific um it's a 100page application and only a few districts end up with that. So that was a COVID error grant. So it's they're not they're not offering.

055Okay. Um I'm just looking at what color looking at I mean it's a middle school but for chronic absence do somebody go in there and focus in like okay why is that this particular school so high for middle school? They they got on board with it this year with their attendance team and they have uh someone from Neores, their counselors, their visiting teacher, one of the administrators, they meet regularly once a month to review all that and they have made a big impact on identifying what the causes are for some of these students missing and now they're working on trying to support them so that they aren't missing school. So they they they realize the need and they've adapted to try and support that. And is any of it um due to things that happen

056in the community while they're not in school? Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes there there are students who are avoiding each other for different reasons. Yes. Now, with with these numbers, you're looking at like chronic absences about 24 25% of the entire student population. Um and I'm seeing like 13 to 14% for 20 plus excused absences. To me, when I look at this without comparing it to other districts, that seems extremely high. Um, unfortunately not. It's then that's where I was going to ask because I'd love to see if there's data or just knowing is that comparable to the other districts here in the northern part of the county because I know southern part of the county is going to probably look a little different or am I wrong in the southern part of the county pushing the

057same numbers? Um, Alquinics growth has made them sort of different because they'll have some schools that are worse than our numbers and they'll have others that aren't, but they're leveling out in different buildings. Um, nationally, our numbers are pretty consistent with what is going on nationally. I just participated in a webinar a couple weeks ago through attendance works which is the big conglomerate that everyone's using and there were people from all all 50 states involved and we are in Delaware and in Colonial specifically ahead of the curve in the ability to have the data at hand. They they can't even generate these numbers. I I these numbers Dr. Mer asking I was able to pull them up in five seconds I put dates in boom threshold report there it is. There's other states that can't

058even do that. So they don't even know what the problem is. So we are ahead in Delaware and and Newcastle County specifically because of that service center. That's who we use. They have a program try tracker that is great for great numbers like that. But to expand on Chris's question, what our our percentage is a district as a whole compared to other districts. How do we stand? I don't know the other district specifically, but the 20% is usually that common ground. So you're telling us our total numbers we have across where 20% of our district has these issues. It's unfortunately which which actually is is not not correct because there's double dipping numbers. What do you mean because he's got the chronic he's got chronic absence also into into that number also into 20 plus

059unexcused abs by test by student it could be a little less and I is I'd like to know if it's possible to get numbers to compare against other districts and if so I'd like that sent to the board um if you're able to get it. I don't know if I I mean I can ask some of my colleagues that might give it to me off the record. Um so I said if but I'd like to know it's not part of the um the um report card online DOE report. You can do the on track through that del report card to be able to compare each of the districts. I like that. And then you're on you would think that our district is being a little bit more high because of the level the number of

060transients we have. And that's it would not shock me if we're not if we're pretty consistent with everybody else. And I would say after co big thing is folks don't feel like they need to go to school. Yeah. I was able to work remotely. Mike and I work remotely. My dad's working remotely three days a week. a couple more and that's you know you have truency numbers in here active truency cases what's that number look like it's low um the truency process is not one that has been very helpful recently uh when they closed JP10 to build the new dollar state police barracks the truency court moved from there to downtown the judges at the JP court here was called therapeutic course. We would have cast evaluations for mental health checks for students, uh, drug

061and alcohol screenings, and then implement plans that they would call out our control. There's a drug and alcohol right by the stone place. Not soda. I'll remember excited about what is it? No, but that's one that we used to use as well. There was a few that have glimbled down. Now they the court hasn't done much of that in the last three years. You didn't feel it was successful though when it was going at JP 10. Yeah, it was. It was much more successful if if we went because we knew the students, we knew their issues and we could go right in and ask the judge, we need a cast evaluation. There's anxiety, there's some sort of there's something going on we need to know the root cause of and we would get the cast

062evaluation back after a month that uh done through um health uh division of health and social services, usually University of Delaware intern. So, it was a win-win for everybody. Um and we could implement specific supports at school and through the state that doesn't happen as much anymore. Do you feel there is a way to bring that back through the courts? Um I'm not confident on that. They made a conscious decision to do that. Move it from JP court to town court has that that got jettisoned several years ago. A big controversy around the validity and the reason for doing that and I and they did it anyway. and they're now kind of reaping what they sowed a little bit in terms of the the outcomes that we're getting. Yes. And that's that's across the state.

063Well, across Newcastle County, Sussex and Kent still operate a little differently court-wise. Um they're happier with their court system than the visiting teachers in Newcastle County, but I don't know that it's significantly better than what we experience here. That's not something we can speak with somebody. We we were involved in that the outset and we didn't too far the talking to the judges through truency court. There was someone high up in the court system who this was they were saving money and they were going to go this route and they moved them downtown because the the line that we were given was all the supports are within the courthouse downtown. You can get all that within the building but they're not utilizing and Aquilla was the drug we have. have any questions. Mr. um is

064is there a way without going through the courts to get some of these evaluations done that will help out? But if if the court is the hold up, is there a way around it so we can get service to the students? We've been asking that question for a while because why do we need to go to court and get them involved if we can do the cast evaluation ourselves? problem is the funding for it. The tests aren't cheap and then paying someone to actually administer them. It would be great if there was a nonprofit that would do it. We could just refer students to that doesn't exist right now. It would be interesting needed right now, but it' be interesting just to see and I'll just use William Penn for instance if William Penn's 20

065and I rounded all numbers here 2400 students. We got 56 students there. What's that percentage? Same thing for all of our percentages. We could use it on the static data from last year. The data that's here just just some more info on any try cases. I can give you that update. We were actually just compiling all of those lists um this past week. So, we'll be able to give you some updates on active cases as well. And the schools that have significantly less attendance and homeless and foster care are our smaller elementary schools and they are much more community based and there's not a lot of movement and even for like cutting bed schools I support. If a student misses a bus, they're not getting down there as easily as someone who misses the bus

066and can come through their neighbor's backyard. So some of it's just simple logistics where you're living. So that kind of stops us from being able to spread the numbers of the students around different schools. Yes. And that's been historical. I've been with this since retired. You have anything else? Thank you, Mr. Dr. I I No, I should say that we commend you for the work you're doing. It's got to be some of the hardest work and we thank you for it. I appreciate that. You get to a point where you get a little callous the stories just to get through. I like being educated on stuff like this because it's sometimes we don't see the inner workings of what you guys deal with with this. And don't be scared to b my ear. I'm sure

067the rest of the board can say the same thing because Jeff will hate me saying this. Uh I don't work for the district. I I don't mind making somebody angry and yelling at somebody and say what's going on. Um I represent the district in a certain way, but I also have no clue fighting for the good fight. The one thing that's missing from these numbers that you can't really see anywhere is the students who were homeless two years ago or in foster care two years ago who now are stable. But that trauma doesn't go just like the backpack. It doesn't go away. Sometimes it will go down to the schools. Ed, Caroline, and Sherry, thanks for being here this evening. And, you know, send that follow-up data directly to the board and see just CC,

068you know, the admin team up here. So, we just we have the same information and as Oh, if she sends it and you have questions, have always feel free to reach out and ask questions. You all do that. Well, we like percentages. was just dropped an extra row of column for us. We appreciate a bit for that. Thanks. Thank you guys so much. Uh the next uh agenda item is the FY26 tax rate and I will turn the floor over to Miss Falcon, our chief operating and financial officer for that presentation and conversation and uh consideration of action on the tax. Okay. Bear with me while I get this situated. Okay. Is everyone okay if I stay seated? Yes. All right. Well, it's not often that my presentations are a lighter subject, but unfortunately tonight,

069uh, you know, that that is the case because this is a little bit less wrenching than, um, than our homeless student population. Um, so this is part two of our tax reset conversation, and I'm gonna figure out how to move my presentation. Here we go. Uh, so I'm going to fly through this because this is a recap of the recap I gave last month. Um, but basically, you know, we go through this process every year. There are the four different components of our operating tax rate. Um, and the rate is charged on every $100 of assessed value. Uh, so this this process is in line with our our normal annual process. The difference this year is that we have gone through a reassessment. Um, basically, you know, I think at this point everyone in the

070room is familiar with the reassessment that has been occurring statewide. Um, Kent County implemented theirs last year. Sussex County and Newcastle are implementing it this year. Um, so basically every property up and down the state has been um evaluated and a a new rate was determined. um that is supposed to bring it from the early 80s or 70s into what is supposed to be reflective of 2024 market value. Um and this was the result of a lawsuit that was that was brought forward. Um, so the process for our tax rate this year does look a little different than normal because overlaying with it is this assessment process or the I'm sorry, the reset process from uh reassessment. So last month I gave you information on what we knew at the time. Uh, as of today,

071as of right now, uh, yesterday morning, Newcastle County sent an updated file out to all of the districts with some of the data issues that we talked about last month, um, updated and and corrected or accounted for. Um so last month we talked about exemption amounts for seniors and um residents with disabilities. Those amounts have been updated and those updates were included in this new file and there was a data issue found with condo um condominium properties where the values were double counted um inadvertently. So that was cleaned up and corrected and that was put out. So those issues have been have been fixed. Um the appeals information still has not played through. So we were not expecting that to resolve by this month. So that is still an outstanding issue. Um and then the

072final thing is that the Newcastle County tax pool um there was resolution for 2026. Um the pool was not eliminated. Uh but basically epilog language was put into the bond bill that freezes the allocations. So rather than actually going through a formulaic um determination every month, what the Department of Education is going to do is basically say this is how much each district contributed into the tax pool last year. So that's what we're going to put in for 26. And then each district is going to get out of the tax pool exactly what they got out last year. That's statewide. No, that is just Newcastle County. Okay. So that basically freezes the dollar amounts that we saw last year for the tax pool into 26. This the first time they've done this since what year?

073The first time they've done reassessment. No, the the allocation the signing out. So the allocations in the tax pool had been frozen before this since 2012. Okay. Um so the revenue numbers were being increased. So any any revenue that was being generated on that first uh 46.8 cents was going into the pool but how it was being redistributed had not been updated since 2012. So any enrollment fluctuations had not been accounted for. So that um basically we're kind of again pressing pause not just on the um really kind of moving away from the formula itself and just pausing on the dollar amounts that were that moved this past year so that the formula doesn't have to be updated. Uh since we just that would have required legislative action that we ran out of runway for.

074So, so that one will need to be revisited in an upcoming year to figure out how it gets handled in in the long term. So, what we still don't know, um, as I mentioned, the appeals process has not concluded yet, and again, it was not expected to be concluded. Um, I think they've got appeals going into the fall um for for the resolution for all of those uh parcels. Another big thing that, you know, was was out there and I talked about last month that really there's no way to know in advance is how will these changes impact the collection rate that we see um when the county sends out their bills. Um, traditionally our collections have been, you know, above 98%. Is there going to be a fluctuation in in what we see? Um,

075that there's just no way to predict that because we haven't seen a reassessment in 40 years. So, no one no one knows what to expect. Um, and then go ahead. You're saying the county hasn't finished their process yet. the appeals and all that stuff. They haven't finished the appeals process. They It's my understanding Newcastle County sending out tax bills this week. I have to get a rate to them by Thursday. Yes. So that they can send those bills out. Correct. So So the So they're not they have since we haven't sent our rate in yet, they haven't calculated what our bills are going to be. If I don't get them a rate by Thursday at 8 o'clock, it'll go the bill will go out with our old rate and everyone will pay 400% more uh

076or you know it'll it'll stay at $229. Um and no one will pay those bills because that'll be way wrong. So, um, what the county is saying is that if and and I can't say that this is an official, uh, an official statement, but, um, in conversations with the county, what they have indicated is that they are telling folks even if you have a pending appeal, pay the portion of the bill that you believe to be accurate because penalties and interest acrew. So if you you know if you are appealing 20,000 $30,000 of your assessed value, their recommendation is pay what you believe you owe based on the value that you think is reasonable. That way if you whatever the outcome is, um you're not hit with penalties and interest on everything. If you lose,

077there's penalties and interest on the unpaid portion. But um if you've paid the majority of it, then you don't have as much. So if they win, are they refunding it or just holding it as a surplus for the next year? Um that is a great question and I don't believe that they've actually made a decision on that yet. Part of that is that I I assume that but I feel the need to ask it. We did have a conversation with the county on that and um we we were basically asked to come to consensus in Newcastle County because they they can't do different things for different districts and we have not come to consensus on that. Um so I'm not sure what we're going to where those conversations are going to go. If refunds aren't

078issued, then basically they would basically put a credit on the account that would sit there um you know and be less you've got to pay in a future year. So that's what they do. Yeah. Um, so the new wrinkle or the new update or or um uh factor that we're looking at since the last meeting is that um the federal government has decided to withhold a portion of our federal grant funding for the FY26 school year. Um, as you can see, the the share of the seven billion dollars nationally per colonial equates to about $1.3 million. Um, and that is our title two funding, title three funding, and title four funding that uh those three the three those three grants make up the $1.3 million um that is right now at risk of not coming

079through and being available for us for this upcoming school year. Um, now we got to talk about it for a second. Um, even if we get the funding, it comes to us with a delay from what I've read, we're not going to be able to use it. So, what do we do? Point or do we hold it and does that carry over? I think I think whether or not we can use it depends on how long the delay is. Um, and I I will be very upl and I've heard I've heard both August, the end of August and I've heard the end of September, but if the Department of Education doesn't send the money to the states to be distributed to districts. By some time in the near future, the Department of Education loses the

080ability to send the money out and it reverts back through some automatic process at the federal level. Um I that's that's what I'm hearing. I don't know all the mechanics of that. I don't know what the likelihood is. Um we did have a conversation with um last week with Secretary Martin. Uh, Governor Meyer was actually on the call as well as um, Majority Leader Brown. And while they didn't have a ton of information to share beyond, you know, what sort of hit the news, um, they did indicate that, you know, they've been in contact with the attorney general. Possible legal action is being discussed. Um and you know they are kind of throwing the the full weight of state government behind trying to make us whole in in you know whatever way they can. um

081whether it's you know a lawsuit or I do know that there was some contingency funds that were appropriated for this type of um you know action not specific for education but just sort of a federal you talk about our contingency line items or we talking about state at the state level yeah the state the state set aside some amount of money that I I don't have off the top of my head um as a kind of federal contingency made no guarantees that we would see any or all of that. Um but you know they are looking at all the tools that they have in the toolbox to help you know help us through this situation um you know to try to one get it sent to us through legal action or or whatever means they

082can and then if it is actually withheld and uh it doesn't come through looking at what other options we might have. So um my next question is obviously going to be for upcoming years and how we predict this and you don't you can't predict I I think you I think looking at the big picture that's always going to be a possibility but we need to adjust to the lower cost be my personal we need We need to adjust downward probably. What does that how how do we adjust to that's going to be the big point of that? You're suggesting reducing our spending. Yeah, that's that's that's the pushing why federal government is is pushing some of that stuff back. It's the whole the whole thing on all the spending issues that were out there for

083whatever reason. If we don't have those items in the line as line items and we do get the funding, how do we use that funding then? Are we allowed to? I don't know what are the rules that are tied. It's title one money. Well, title one actually was not was not the title one money that you think of as the big grant that you know that funds a lot of positions etc. that was not actually impacted. Title one part C is a much smaller program for migrant students. That was part of what was eliminated. We I think in I think we might have gotten migrant funds one year in the last five but it's a very very small portion. It is not it is not the big title one bucket that everybody thinks of. Um

084so that was not impacted. So what's the 1.3 that is impacted? Title two, which is mainly professional development. We do have two positions sitting on that grant and um actually 60% of that grant budget is salaries and OBC's between the positions and other you know time sheets and um time that we're giving to teachers to you know to do professional development activities. Um, title three supports our English language learners, you know, both the students through kind of direct interventions that assist them and then also supports for our English language teachers to, you know, give them the supports and um, curriculum uh, integration and and all that kind of stuff um, happens with title three. And then title four really is it's sort of like funds for providing a well-rounded education. So um, music education. Um,

085a lot for libraries, uh, student leadership. There's a lot of, you know, activities around student leadership that we fund out of title 4. Um, music and arts, I said. Um, so, you know, these these are activities that would not go unnoticed if if we had to discontinue them. And I think from a budgetary standpoint, the shock and the timing of it is what's more concerning. um you know if if there is a desire to overall you know reduce or limit the amount of federal funds coming to schools if that's the desire of the administration then I would argue do it in an organized fashion that gives districts the time to plan for an orderly decline in funding. This is not orderly. This is this is chaotic. um this doesn't give us any time to plan

086and um you know cuts we will have to make cuts if these if these program if this funding doesn't come through and those cuts will unfortunately be felt in classrooms directly you just said a few minutes ago the state has a contingency and we've not been guaranteed any of that money and that's contingency for one year and we don't know if the contingency is 1.3 or we're getting 300,000 right or getting 3,000 or if we're getting anything to be honest because it is not education specific. So you know the some of the other uh policy changes or you know direction coming out of federal government may have bigger implications for other state programs that have to be that take priority over the cuts that we're that we're talking about right now. So, it's impossible to

087to know whether or not the state contingency money is going to be put into play to assist this at all. And at this point, we're so if we get through for this year, but then we have to start preparing for future years of this potential loss of these grants with it. But maybe we can make because we have our own contingency line item as well. Yes. That I know we keep and I know $600,000 I thought it was like 400,000. I was like really hoping. I remember that line item moving around here and there. Maybe it was just co And it's impossible to predict whether or not the the this administration is going to attack Title One and the larger the larger entitlements under title two in future years. Correct. What are we actually voting

088on this time? you are voting on uh the actual tax rate that we are going to send to Newcastle County, but that would include this. So th this is what I'm laying out here is sort of the risk and the uncertainty that we are managing right now in terms of our fiscal health, but it's necessarily part of the tax rate. No, it it is not part of the tax rate. But if we lose a million, if we lose over a million dollars funding, then our our financial Well, let's say we lose it. What do we do then? We kept assess the tax rate again or we keep No, not until next year. No, never not until another reassessment. No, the tax rate. Correct me if I'm wrong. The tax rate we look at that and

089make conjunction or approve whatever our tax rate is going to be each July, not the operating portion. But we can only reset the operating portion and have the flexibility that you have tonight after a reassessment has been completed. So, and as part of referendum, the referendum is actually uh in addition to what's in the mix here, but a referendum doesn't have to be part, right? And if we pass the referendum, then obviously that impacts, but that's pre predetermined by the taxpayers, right? We go out and say this is the rate we want. They approve it. or don't approve it and we bake that into the rate as appropriate. This is after a reassessment is the only time the board has the discretion to set a rate that has some flexibility to it. So Robin, I

090think I think to answer your question, I think Emily is putting this number out there for us to take in consideration when we're looking at our tax. What if we don't get this? Assuming. Yes. But it's looking that way. you know, my crystal ball on this stuff broke a long time ago. Um I really because we had the budget freeze um a couple months back, you know, when the um they first kind of settled into office and that lasted less than a week and then you know the money started flowing again and um you know I can tell you that they clawed back our ESR dollars and um DOE still hasn't gotten full payment on the spending. We we spent money because they gave us a tiny little grace period of an additional I think

091it was 20 days and we were able to get the money out the door knowing that the window was closing. They're still questioning our expenses. So the department still hasn't gotten the federal money to support the expense that that we made and sent out to a vendor already. So and that's not even on here. And ironically, the number associated with that expense is about $1.3 million as well. So if that doesn't come through um and the state forces us to cover that cost, then that doubles the number here that is potentially at risk and our contingency fund is 100,000. Yes. And we ran into the same issue 10 years ago because I measur my point is this is not the first time that we've faced this and had no and we've had to make adjustments

092in our operations and isn't it true and correct me if I'm wrong but in the past we set this tax rate this time. If things improve by next year, you've actually reduced the tax rate by a year or two in the past if that's you know appropriate. So did that last year? Yeah. Not 2024. Yes. Right. The the distinction is that there is actually sort of a legal gray area as to whether or not we can reduce the operating rate itself. Um because that is there's certain parameters by that it can be changed. Um and what we could do is again we we could adjust the other rates that we have, you know, that you have authority over. Um to basically raise less revenue with those areas and allow our operating expenses to subsidize those

093areas um to sort of draw down the excess funs. If if none of these, you know, gloom and doom scenarios come through, I don't have any other questions, but I'll keep asking more as the next month and so on. Sorry. Thank you. No, no, I mean in regards to the continuation of that specific Oh, yeah. It's not going away. Yeah, I know. You have to do something. Yeah, we have to make a decision tonight. Yeah, I need a motion on something tonight. So, um, so this is updated from last month. Um, this number, and I don't expect anybody have the number from last month memorized, uh, but it's $223 million less than I showed last month. That is the combination of the exemption correction issue and that um double counting with condominium parcels um that

094I mentioned. So we were at 396 last month in terms of um an increase over last year. Now we're at 388 and again that 15 you lost you lost. Go ahead. For fiscal year 2025 we had a property value in colonial $3 billion. Yes. Now with the with the new appraisals for $15 billion. Correct. How did how did you come up with the decrease? She shared numbers last month. I miss your question. So last month's number did not have the updated exemption amounts. So, the the file that Newcastle County uh gave gave me that I was working from last month had data issues in it that have since been corrected and that correction resulted in a decline or a decrease of 220. 15. You went from 157. Yes. Down to 154. Yes. What was the

095percentage? Wasn't it 511% last month? That was the overall increase from previous year. No, I think it was 396%. Oh, that's the property. Yeah. Remember the county the countywide is the I think the 511. That's what this would be colonial specific. Well, and I believe the county actually updated that because their number was the the new value was 511% more than the old value. So, the increase was actually 411%. Right? So, it's a 388% increase over last year, which means that the 26 base is 488% more than the 25 base, which is ridiculous. It's math. I know, but still ridiculous. All right. So, we either vote yes or no. We're not negotiating what the rate is. It's either we have we have four options for you're skipping ahead. You're trying to get to the end.

096We're milking the last meeting out. So, um, this this is a snapshot or a a snippet of the spreadsheet that was sent to me yesterday morning, um, that I worked through in kind of landing on the new the new number that I am using as the assumed base. Um, you can see the 15.4 million which is, you know, which is what I had on the last slide. You can see up here in the orange, these are this is the classification of of the type of parcel. The row label on the on the far left there. Left. Yeah. Um, so anything with an E in front of it is considered an exempt property. I don't know why, but the file, as you can see, has $20 million between exempt commercial properties and exempt residential properties that

097have a taxable amount included. I don't know why those weren't backed out when the when the data issues were being addressed, but they're still there, so I'm backing them out because my assumption is the way that they're classified, I'm not going to be able to actually get any payments from them. Um then you'll see the number that is at risk on appeal 528 million. I have more details on the next slide on that number but I just wanted to show you the math on how I'm getting from the 15.4 down to the 14.87. So what's do you have a key someplace on what the red labels are with what A equals what C what? Um, apartment commercial, exempt commercial, exempt farm, exempt residential, farm, industrial, residential, and you is unknown. I'd have to look up

098you. I do have a key, but it's not included here. It might be unknown. Yes, could be. I'll I'll confirm. Um, would they get an increase? So, because that appeals number is a pretty big nugget. half a billion dollars was um I I wanted to spend a little bit of time for you guys to understand how I came to that number because that number has assumptions built into it that I just want to make the room aware of. So the county did not require property owners who were requesting an appeal to identify a requested value. So I could just say I want an appeal because I don't think this is right. But I was not required to say I want X as my preferred or requested value. So of the data that I got from

099the county which included every parcel in our district that requested an appeal, a formal appeal, there was an informal process that that I don't have the data on. Um 826 parcels requested an appeal. over 500 of those parcels did not have a requested value. So, I don't have any data on how much of a reduction those owners are expecting or looking for. Um, and you can see by the second row here, the value of the parcels that had had a requested value was 275 million. The total value of the parcels with no ask and no way to know what they were expecting on the outcome is 1.2 billion. So 82% of the risk is on the side where I don't have firm data on what they are expecting. Okay. So can I stop real quick?

100Sure. Has the county told you what they've roughly been giving to these people? No, of course not. Because they well they they haven't decided enough. I'm asking questions. I know. But I don't think they've decided enough of them to really have firm information to give us. This is just a mild question. That kind of leads leads to another question. You got 82% of our of our residents, okay, have filed appeals and they don't know what the request is. Is that do you think I know you don't think but do you think that the rest of the county has the same type of spread in term so I just want to clarify what the 18 and the 82 represent that is a percentage of so in total $1.5 billion of of if you add up the

101parcels the value of the parcels that had some sort of appeal it's $ 1.5 billion in our district of that 1.5 1.2 almost 1.3 of that amount did not have any sort of requested value associated with it. I understand that's what the 82% is. It's not that 82% yes but it's not that 82% file an appeal. Okay. My question is if the rest of the districts in Newcastle County have that somewhat of that same type of How in the heck can New Dash County go out to go out with these new rates and everything when they don't have the entrance fees? Because the rate has nothing to do with the appeal. It does. In the end of the day, it does. Now, I understand the 388% 400%. How can they kick in that new that

102new rate and raise it to those things when they don't have the answers to their own damn question? That's a county question. I answer that. I know you're the messenger officer, but my point is not really the messenger. She's the worker trying to figure out speaking on behalf of the county, but she said, "Listen, Newcastle County is not prepared to go out with these new That's correct. That was a big affirm or deny that. That's not for me to say. I tell you this is this it left us making guesses that is not fair to John Q public. That's my point. They need to have all the ducks in a row come out with say here's the numbers. Here's what we need to go to. They don't have that. So how how can they implement

103this new tax rate, whatever you want to call it. Okay. And they don't have all this and they had to know that they were going to have these appeals and everything before. We're voting on incomplete information. We are, but we still that's accurate. That's why to be clear, Emily has spent a lot of time thinking through the assumptions last month's presentation preparing preparing was waiting until the last minute of the data file to make the best decision we have to make in order to continue to collect responsibly our revenue from the tax base. And so, you know, agree Ted, agree Chris, but we we're going to be faced with a decision that's going to be based off of inaccurate or incomplete data. In incomplete data, not inaccurate, but incomplete. So, it's known. Do we do

104we know how many they're denying straight out and not giving not data on how many are and the assumption that we discussed last month was 34%. Right. So 34%. Can you explain that part? Yes. So in order to come up with an assumption around what was at risk for these properties here of course it's not going to highlight this column right these 5 and 23 parcels that have no at risk number associated with them. I took what was at risk among the known parcels. So the 303 properties that did request something on that that number was 34%. On average they wanted a 34% reduction in the assessed value that they were looking at. So I applied that 34% number to the unknown parcels. I am fairly I'm pretty sure that all of my colleagues in

105Newcastle County landed on the same methodology to to cost out or to provide some sort of at risk estimate of their unknown parcels. I will tell you that our unknown percentage is higher than some of the other districts. Um the numbers were kind of all over the place. Um, but I think some, you know, I can't remember which district was which at this point, but some of them it was 60% of them had a value associated with them and only 40% didn't. So that varied. Um, but I applied the 34% to the parcels on this in this column. That is how the $435 million number is derived. 34% of the 1.2. Correct. So, if my number is right, there's $2.2 million at risk in terms of collections, right? That $435 million. If I just take

106our a revenue neutral tax rate, just to do a calculation, there's $2.2 million at risk. If I get this number, if this number is right, if this number if if everything in this column got wiped out, which we I realize is unlikely to happen. Can't say it's a possibility of zero, but it's very unlikely. If everything went away in that 1.2 million, we would be out almost $6.6 million in revenue annually. Right? So this is this is the guess of what the revenue is that's at risk in these unknown parcels. This right here is an absolute worst case catastrophic scenario. Okay, that has to be added to the known right. So the range is somewhere between 2.7 and8 million annually, right? Drive a truck right through that. So, um, and that's you just assuming off

107of numbers that people have asked for, not because we have no data from what the county is actually conceding in these reassessment, uh, appeals. Chris, I actually appealed mine on the first appeal, which is easy one. The second appeal is hard. It's almost impossible. But on the first appeal, I asked for an adjustment of a reduction of 15%. And I had a 15minute window to talk to the person, and I did. He said, "We'll let you in two months." And he did. He just reduced it 50%. He gave you exactly what you wanted. Yeah. Exactly what they're asking for. So it sounds like a good assumption is whatever they're asking for 34%. If they're just given as an average. Yeah. Right. But I I now might feel more comp is off of 18%. Right. I

108was also told that Tyler Technologies because my son's up in uh Conger Township where they also did it that Tyler Technologies tended to overvalue lower priced homes and undervalue higher priced homes and maybe they were just, you know, making adjustments based on. I don't know exactly how that worked out because that's just one case. Well, that's more information than the county gave us. We appreciate it. vulnerable, right? So, so again the 34% number is based in in you know an estimated or an educated guess but it is a guess and the risk is that if the unknown parcels the the parcels with no value outperform the parcels with a requested value and by outperform I mean if they win at a higher percentage or they're successful you know more successful than that 435 million dollars

109could could increase. So So that's where that um the $528 million adjustment for appeals came from. All right. So now we get into the brass tax and what Robin's been waiting for. What are the options? Um, so this this is we're focusing on the options here are really focused on the operating portion of the rate. Um, what I did with the other three components, which I'll just I'll flip to it here because I'm talking about it. Um, normally I have a process where the rate is sort of set and I look at where things are falling and I kind of adjust up or down based on um, where we're going to land with projected revenue and expected expenses. Um, but because it's not an applesto apples comparison, what I did was really focus in on

110what are the expenses? what is the revenue that I know we're going to need based on expected expenditures and also accounting for any carryover dollars, you know, or excess funds that that we had from previous years. Um because I really did want to minimize the fluctuations um in these rate categories so that we could really kind of focus on the operating side of the house. So, um, so this does look different than it normally does, but the three rates when you add them together, you're looking at 8.5 8.55 cents for all three of these rates with debt service and tuition tax. Um, if you zero in on the amount of revenue I was anticipating last year and the amount of revenue I'm asking or what's associated this year, both of those are slightly down. And

111the main reason there is not because our expenses are increasing or I'm sorry our expenses are not decreasing but we have carryover balances in those um in those areas where I can draw the balance down so that we don't have to generate quite as much revenue for the match tax. Um that one went slightly up. Um the general assembly added additional money again for enhanced minor cap. Um and knowing that that is something that we we desperately need um I wanted I wanted to make sure we matched that full amount. So that prevented me from being able to keep it neutral or bring it down and we didn't have as much carryover in that category. So that is it's a slight increase in revenue um ask but all told we're looking at 8.55 cents and

112what is our number today for that if we added of those three 7 cents for debt service 10 cents for match and 20 n I think for tuition. So um 39 46 see look 394 I don't know that's why I don't do math on that so we're 46 I think roughly you're saying now the number correct yeah and this is this is instead of showing you the up a penny down a penny comparison because That doesn't make sense anymore with the with the reset. If it's 46 and 9, let's say it's 46 and 9, you're down you're down 30 35. Sure. Yeah. Anyway, and but being down 35 cents doesn't necessarily mean that the rate that what we're generating on that rate has decreased. Yeah. And somebody said before that the county increased the assessments

113by 500% from 60,000 to 150,000 and our rate was somewhere around 40 cents or something like that. And you said a fifth of that gave 8 cents. 5 time 840 something like that. Go ahead teacher. That's about what you said in public meetings when people were asking about that would be revenue neutral more or less. Exactly. Right. Right. Right. So the Yeah. The rate should be going down at about you know 400% or 380% decline. Right. Yeah. All right. So we'll jump back over to the operating tax rate options. So as detailed in code um this process starts from revenue neutrality. So if we look at what our FY25 revenue was for tax receipts, we generated $73.5 million across all four categories. We estimated and advertised with the referendum that this year we were expecting

114to bring in another 3.2 2 million for the referendum by code that can get added in to your revenue neutral starting place. So our FY26 revenue neutral amount in terms of revenue generation capability is 76.6.7 excuse me 76.7 million. The rate that equates to based on the 14.8 8 billion base that we discussed earlier. The total rate is 5156. Operating is 4301 and the 5156. Correct. Yes. So that so the 5156 includes debt match and tuition and operating. Yes. So that middle column is the total tax rate and this is just breaking out the operating side. The constant is the eight the 8.55 cents, right? That's constant in the total tax rate category or common. All right. So the difference here in what you're looking at is the we basically have 3% 7% and 10%

115in terms of adding additional revenue to what we would expect to bring in based on the base that we talked about. So you just add 2.3 million to the 76.7 because that's 3% of 76.7% is 5.3 and 10% is obviously 7.6. So when you add those um additional amounts to the 76, the tax rate you get for um for both the total and the operating are shown here. These don't mean a whole lot by themselves. 40% increase brings in roughly 2.3 million additional. Your at risk is 2.243. at the assumption of 34%. So the average with a high rate of close to 8 million disastrous end. Yes, it's a$5 million. I'm just saying 3% I'm just making it clear. I'm saying this out loud so the board sees what I'm saying and what I'm considering.

116If we're assuming at a 34% loss of revenue uh for those adjust for the that money that's at risk, that means in what Emily has with the numbers she has, we're projected to lose around 2.2 million 2.7, huh? I'm sorry. 2.7 at the 3% because I I said last month it was about 3% at No, that's at revenue neutral. That's at risk there. 2.7. Yeah. If we stay at revenue neutral and this happens the way we're taking a long guess at 34% at risk or 34% reduction puts us at losing 2.7 million if we go exactly revenue neutral. Whereas the 3% that Emily is proposing, if you can go back to that other slide, Emily, that gets us 2.3 million. Right. So, we're still losing money at the 3% option if the assumptions that we

117make happen. And that's again those assumptions and the federal money doesn't show up. Yes. And that's federal money showing up, which is that's assuming we get our federal money. That's what I'm saying. Yes. So, if the federal money doesn't show up, we're up to I don't think so. I think that that 1.3 million is taken out of that. Take it out of what? Out of your operating cost there. No, do that. That's additional money we lose. That's that's assuming this that the the loss of the 2.7 doesn't take into consideration any of that federal money. Correct. We have taken that out. She just put that as a blur. That's just a as a this is also what we're dealing with. Right. So, let's go to let's go to the deep dates here. Go to the

118next chart. All right. So, we talked about this one already. So, this this is nice and colorful. Um, but what I'm attemp what I attempted to do was to keep the dollar change and the percentage change are in the same color. Right? So, property A, these are the same values that I showed you guys last month. So the 323 517 and 258 the new values that are assumed down here. Basically um this this third line down is the calculated tax bill for these um hypothetical homes this past year. Okay. So, home one at $32,000 of assessed value last year paid a tax bill of $741. [Applause] Sorry, real quick. From the email you sent out last night, this is the same. It's not color the same. Is that correct? Except for the the same numbers.

119Um, I added the percentages and flip-flopped the It is. No, I want the dollar value. You had percentages. No, I didn't. Okay. Well, I have on this slide. And sorry, I'm only asking because I'm looking at your thing that you said because I'm got it. Um, but if we go if we stick with this slide for just a second. Um, so the the the blue, yellow, green, and purple basically show you what the tax bill on these example properties would look like with the various rate options that we've got in front of you. And that's per that and I'll just go to the 3% just for a second real quick. Is that per thousand? $70 per thousand. No, that $377 total. Total total. So, homeowner A whose assessed value is now $145,000 would pay $77010

120for the colonial portion of their tax bill. Right? So, somebody who's looking at this and saying, "Oh, well, my new assessed value is 145. So, great. I know what I'm going to pay. This doesn't include the county rate. It doesn't include any municipalities. It doesn't include the votech rate. So, this is just what colonial taxes are doing. Last year was 741, right? And that's only correct. And that's what they're paying now $30. That's what that there are numbers on. And if we go revenue neutral because we they were going to go up anyway because of our um our referendum. in capital, right? Yeah. So, that's why you're seeing the change all already from a 25 tax bill to 26 neutrals because there was already tax raises in place because we spread that out over three

121years. Um, but the referendum the it is possible that if you you could have a a property that didn't see an increase because even with the referendum revenue added to it, it didn't appreciate at the same level that Colonial did overall. So, I will say I don't think that there are many of those properties out there, but it is possible that you could have properties that where the bill is going down even with the referendum revenue being added. Now, that's on an individual base, but as a collective of our revenue, we would still see the same amount, but an individual's household might see a reduction in their bill. Correct. Is what you're saying. Yes. Yeah. And and that's really the rub with this process is that what we're doing in aggregate, right? We say revenue

122neutral and that's at the aggregate level. That does not do anything to mitigate individual taxpayer impacts. If your home appreciated 700%, 800% while our tax base only grew by 400% rough numbers, right? revenue neutral is still going to mean you're getting a tax increase. But that but from a from a school tax perspect perspective is less of an impact what it may be from the rest of the county impacts numbers those our taxes are usually the biggest portion of the tax bill. So depending on what other you know what those other rates are doing that could mitigate it. Yeah. But generally speaking, your residential district, your geographic district is the biggest portion of your property taxes. So, but that portion of an individual person's tax bill going up or down is not our control. That's

123from the reassessment, right? Yeah. I'm to the public right now. Right. So Ted, this this does not have the um option to option dollar amounts that you asked for and I won't well and I apologize that I mis read your um your direction um because I have the percentages and not the dollar amount. What this shows is the dollar is the range, right? So if if we did a revenue neutral tax rate, this is the dollar amount range that these three properties would be facing of an increase. If we did 10%, that's the dollar amount here, right? So the three and the seven are obviously going to be sandwiched between those two numbers. To me, that's misleading because the variance from revenue neutral bill to plus 10% is not $7482. is $8083. I'm sorry. You

124have to add those two together. The difference between So the difference this is accurately labeled the revenue neutral bill not the 25 bill but the revenue neutral tax bill that's on this slide is 747 for this property for fisc for fc school year 26. Yes. Which which is an increase from 25 of $61. Yes. Correct. So if you go up to 10%. Okay. You have a difference between 74762 and $8.22 is your $74. Correct. Yes. Okay. So you add the two of them together from fiscal 25 until the new 20 26 rate. Okay. Would increase by $80. Right. But there's nothing we can do to mitigate the $6 increase. I understand that. And there's nothing we can do to mitigate the $798 increase in property B. But but the difference, what I'm saying is that

125the difference to go from those two, okay, is you add those two together because again, you go into property B, it's not $198.66. It's the $800 plus the 198. That is Yes, that's correct. Okay. So that's a big difference in telling going out to the public and telling them well if we stay with this one your bill is going to go up $6, but if you go with this one we go 10% it's only be 74. It's not that's misleading. It's $80. So what I've got there is I am showing that it's the variance between the revenue neutral bill amount and the 10% bill amount. So the math is accurate. You got to read the chart to understand what you're looking at. I and I agree with what you just said there, but it doesn't

126tell you what the difference is between fiscal 25 or 25 to the 26 to the 26. So what you're telling me So what you're telling me on that, okay, is that if we decide to go to plus 10% for property A, they're going to see an increase of just $74.83. No, that's not what that says. That's what it said. But we assume they can add. Well, you can't assume anything with people out there. They want to know what their difference is going to be. If we go from revenue neutral to 3% to 10% to what to whatever or 7% whatever the things were in there, they're going to want to know what that difference is that they're going to see per year on their tax rate. Well, that's why we were elected to represent them

127for this. Yeah. And we told everybody in all the meetings we had, we were staying revenue neutral. We did not. I never I didn't say that. We never did. I'm telling you that's exactly because the question came up there numerous times about that and we told them that we were going to be revenue neutral. We said that we talked about being we talked about the concept and what the law allows. We I I personally know that I stayed away from making any commitments to stay revenue neutral. We never did. We never we said that we would thoughtfully approach the the fiscal environment at the time and put forth the best options. What the statute say about it? Are there discuss you and I have had this discussion numerous times about if this were to go

128through what would it be? I always have the response back. It should be read. I can bring up the code citation for because they have to bring it back. I can do you want me to bring the code citation up? I was just asking what does what does it say? It allows boards an option to in to reset the rate such that the maximum t the revenue generated does not exceed 10% above prior year collections. That's what it says. That's what the other districts across the state have done the same thing already. Well, and I hear what you're saying. Yeah. I know what you're saying. I know we're throwing you. We're not the other districts. Get it. Get it. You're questioning code versus the math on the screen. So, it's the code allows for what

129we're what we're doing to happen. It's already been executed in multiple places. And I I understand what you're saying about getting the dollars, but All these numbers up there aren't those are the numbers. The difference between the variance the variance from one to the other. It's not the total. She's not we're not purporting that that is the total in any way, shape or form. Emily, how many options do we have? You have to pick one. What is it? There's she's given us four. There were four, right? So, it's revenue neutral and and in fairness, you can decide on the different percentage. As long as it's between revenue neutral and 10%. I'll figure it out and get it to the count. Can you pull up the original chart what you sent out last night on on

130that one page? The one that I sent over to you today and ask for the columns between For what purpose, Mr. The purpose is I want to compare what those numbers are and do quick math on it. For what purpose? Because you think her math is wrong or No, because I want to sit down to say what the way that I was figuring up there today earlier this morning when I finally got the the uh thing after after Jeff sent it to me is so we can see what the difference is. It was the It was the other one. The one you said was the one the first reset dot or the first number two. [Music] I have to go into my email to get it. So the way that I was looking at this

131earlier this morning is that if you take this and I'll just use property A for instance 741 minus the 747 is the 6 6.01 that we already talked about and if you take the 741* 770. Do the math there. Then you got a $30 increase per say there just then you got the 741 to to the 800. So you got a $60 difference there at 7%. Am I right? Mhm. Okay. And then at 822 you've got roughly 80 or $90 whatever calculation. That's the columns that days for each one of those we put in there is what that dollar difference was going to be for each one of those for the depth of the design. If you go to property A and you go from from 1985.06 revenue neutral to 1187 that's 800 to say

132roughly $800 difference there. That's the numbers that I was trying to get to or that's I don't think that's what you understood that I Correct. I misinterpreted what you wanted on the revised slide. My point is that these numbers, if you add them together, and I and I do understand what you're saying, that because I don't have a total here, it could lead somebody to the impression that 74 is the only change they're going to see. I I get that point, but it is labeled accurately. Um, they are the same differences, the dollar amount differences. I just don't have the 3% number included and the 7% number included. Let me also jump in. Sorry. If it's we want to present this to the public, you could fix that and put that out tomorrow as long

133as us seven board members understand that now because we're the only ones voting, the public isn't. But you could make that number presentable to the public tomorrow as well for what was requested because we all understand that math on that. Is that suitable? So public you're asking about the public. That's that's fine. So they understand what those differences are. But that's that's after we make a decision on what we're going with. But we're going to make that decision based on the information that we'll all agree that we understand that we can still give them a better more detailed information. We could revise that a million times to break it down more simply for them as we've made the decision. But they're not 's making the decision, we're representing them and as long as we agree,

134we understand what she's presenting. I don't think that I don't dis I don't disagree with that statement. The fact of the matter is is once we make this decision and the public goes out to the public and whatnot, you know as well as I do, if we go with 10%. I'm just going to say that, right? We're all going to be getting phone calls and complaints and everything else about it. You need to tell the county that we want to be revenue neutral or something up to 10%. Right. But what do you recommend? Don't tell that. Don't tell you that at all. And you don't recommend anything? I recommend against revenue neutral. Do you recommend 10%. That would put the district on the on the most stable uh sustainable financial footing we can offer to

135our community. Do you recommend 5%. This this is, as I said last month, this is an area where the board has the discretion. I know, but we're going to make the decision, right, based on your recommendation or you're not recommending anything? So, Robin, can I jump in? Yeah. Because I've had intense conversations with Emily about this and I came to the assumption last month based on just her 34%. Again, she is taking a wild guess. This is insane variables that the county I know she doesn't have complete information and we've we've now expressed our disdain for how the counties present this. So, we're going to I'm going to move past it and I'm just going to say we're going to make the decision with what we have even though it's crap. Excuse me. What do

136the board members Yeah. I mean, can we just ask the board members what we want? Do we want neutral? Do we want 5%? Do we want 10%? So, my what I asked her and a couple of us have kind of discussed with her is that's why we came up with those four options. 3% option if it happens in what we're seeing, we're going to lose revenue. We are not revenue neutral at that point. We are actually revenue reduction. Um, at about a half a mill, am I right? 400,000 is the number. 2 seven. and that's at what percentage? That's a three. And that's if we get the federal money, which we're not going to get. I would I would caution you against factoring the federal money for purposes of just understanding that we're facing a

137difficult climate because you can't and I and I do hold on. I do want to say that I am not I am not claiming that we are not going to receive the the the variance on the appeal number. Yeah, that's I'm not I am not right. I am giving you guys what is at risk, right? And the assumptions that I had to make around coming to those numbers. I don't know how things are going to play out. I think it's incredibly unlikely that we're gonna lose out on as much revenue is at stake with the appeal number because it doesn't make any sense to me that every single one of those appeals is going to be lost and and that agreed. Right. So when you say at 3% we're not going to break even, I

138don't I can't I can't agree with that statement because I don't know what that I don't know how these appeals are going to No, I'm saying that's based off of just the random assumption that we kind of but Emily doesn't know and we don't know. So we either have to vote of you know revenue neutral 5% or 10 we have to do something that the board members have to discuss which and that's why I was going to tell you my opinion looking at it as 3% if we go off that assumption is not enough 7% for me what I have thought and thought about this for an entire month back and forth and have Emily answer any questions I have and discuss whether is I felt 7% because I'm somebody who I'm trying to tell

139to the public, listen, I want to be revenue neutral, but I'm doing it with very limited information here. There's a lot of variables I don't like. And 7% feels like I am making the best decision because it gives me a buffer for anything else to where my goal no matter what is keeping this district whole without having significant hurt to it financially to protect the children, protect the staff. And I hear what you're saying, right? But we all want to be revenue neutral and and everybody says it wasn't said and everything that that people have heard, people I've talked to, they've all they always remind me that same is going to be revenue neutral. If we're going to go with anything on that thing, I think we get as close to revenue neutral as what

140we can get. I think 7% Chris just said 7% because of the appeals that are outstanding. the 7% is the closest to revenue. disagree because I got to go along with what Emilyy's saying there if you if you assume okay it's it's it's a wild guess with everything is that all those appeals are going to go through but she's there's no there's no way that they that's why she's picking she picked 34% she didn't pick all them go through would be the high number that was up there right no 34% what she calculated the number no 34 The 34% number represents what 18% of the people that appealed in Colonial. They requested on average 34% decrease in the value that the county assessment. But you used that 34% as part of your calculations. Correct. I

141did. I applied that 34% to the 1.2 billion dollar. Right. So that's an assumption. If my assumption is wrong and let's say that those that $1.2 billion dollars worth of property on average they want a 60% reduction, right? That the the swing there represents millions of dollars of lost revenue. So what I'm highlighting for you guys is not a prediction of what's going to happen. It is the risk that we are managing, right? So the 34% is a is a is the best guess risk. It's not it's not just throwing out a number to try to cover but but that's what it is. It's the best guess. But somebody has to propose a motion that we're going to do 5% or something and we have to vote on we vote three to four or four

142to three or something like that. We should have to do something. She can't tell you any she had and it's it Robin. It's more crystal ball broke. Ted Ted wasn't here last month. So I wanted to make sure we had due diligence where Ted could answer any or ask any question. Kind of wanted to kind of get caught up with some of the information we got last month. Um were you here last month? Sure. Yes, you were. I'm sorry. I thought that um long month, but I wanted to make sure Ted could ask all those questions because there was a lot of it and make sure cuz this is a big decision. Well, well, Ted and I talked about this before. We thought they did say right. Yeah. But I'm not arguing whether it's right

143or done. I'm arguing that Emily's already told us that he knows and you can't make it better or worse. I mean, it's still a guess. And the sad part what I believe is there. My guess is I believe somewhere between 3 and a half to 7% will get us revenue. Well, make a motion. I mean, what am I going to make? I make a motion. Go ahead. She can make a motion that we approve the uh 7% option for fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025. grant authorization to the president, vice president, and executive secretary of the Colonial School Board of Education. Two I always get the long ones to issue a tax warrant to Newcastle County Department of Finance as determined by the board. Do I hear a second? I second. As moved by Miss

144Smith, seconded by Miss Breeding. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Yes. What's the rate if you do 5%. I'm gonna stop sharing my screen so that you're not all watching me do my So I do I want to um also can I It's going to be real something real quick. Why you doing it, Emily? 7%. Yeah. Does that cover enough? Cuz here's here's my problem, right? Your answer she wants. Hold on. I know. I know. Hold on a second. But I think I think we need to prepare for the risk and scaling back. If we have if we're if we're put in a position to scale back, that's that's not doable because that that's saying that people and programming weren't necessary in the first place, which they are. That's not even true.

145So, we know we need these people. We know we need the programming. We can't afford to scale back. So, we I want to make sure we have enough. And that's that's the question I'm trying to ask. Are we going to have enough? And and and I hear and I hear what you're saying. Okay. It's no different than what we faced eight years ago, whatever ago to where we had to go and we had to talk about the same thing where we had Yeah. But we we cut we did make cuts and but we also still had to make the people were left but so where we cut we cut in all the things outside of the classroom. We cut athletics, band, art. We kept all the things in the core classes. So that's the that's

146where it starts. And so we have to be mindful that that's going to be where we're headed if and that was the one thing during the referendum that we were told loud and clear that if they threatened if you threaten to cut those things then we're going to pay the price because nobody wanted us to threaten to cut athletics. So Jeff but we also had the discussion there when people heard that we were going to be re No, we never said that. I I hear what I hear. We know what they think they heard, but we never said that. We were so specific to not say that. All right. But do we want a different one or Well, hold on. I I want I want to bring up I want I want to make one

147point on the motion that's important that I think it's because of the nuances of this one. Chris just put forward the 7% option, but we also have to make sure you're approving the tuition tax, the debt, the the tuition, the debt, and what's the third what's the other one? Match match. That has to be approved as well. So, like when you when this motion's on the table, it has to be you're approving that that 8.55 as well because you you just approved the 7% option, but that No, you just motion to approve that, but it hasn't that didn't explicitly say including the match the match debt and tuition as presented to change it. I would one vote or two time out. Time out. Time out. Time out. point them out. May I amend my emotion

148to it's ready to go is you cannot amend. We have to make a motion to amend it. Okay. Okay. Or else you make you decide to pull your motion from the table. Do I hear a motion to amend? Not yet. Not until we have those numbers. No, this is just to amend the motion to get it to the point where when you get that number The motion can be amended anyways. Wait. Yes, it can be, but you can't vote on it. I I Yeah, I'm I'm agreeing with you. There's no sense moving forward with anything until we get the other number. Well, because it's still on the table. There's a question out on that amount. No, you added for someone asked for five. I asked for, but that doesn't that doesn't change the seven, does

149it? You can't vote on that because there's no we're not going to vote on it. Well, then can you amend it though? Well, it's just while you're waiting to answer your question is Jeff Jeff to be honest with you. I I was earlier in the com tonight thinking about that problem. But the way the way that Emily has put the options the 7% is a total tax rate of 0.5517 with an operating tax rate of four of 4662. I think it's implicit okay in in that total tax rate that we are covering. included. All right. So if that's the way the board is operating, I am comfortable with that because she I just want to make sure that just make sure math is not it is because if Chris is correct, but I just it

150wasn't explicitly stated. If that's the assumption the board is making that that those three are then I'm fine. But let's assume then we'll assume it. All right, Chris. All right, the motion states. So we have a motion on the floor. We're in comment and question period and Emily's doing some math. Does anybody have Jeopardy music for Emily? She's doing I would think that 5% would land between 0.53 and 0.55 somewhere around 0.54. But I don't think that's what you're asking Ted. I think you're looking for dollars. She's got that completely. So Ted, are you asking are you do you want to know the dollar am not generated by five and the percent and the tax rate? I want this I don't want this to be a money gra money. Yeah. Like put extra money into

151the into the into the into the funds. No, we're keep saying is that enough? We want to make sure we're going to try to make sure that we're breaking even. It's a guess no matter which one. I don't even understand. Money grab would imply that like we're in take more money without needing it. Like to point we need 10% would be the 10% would be would be the the best possible going after a money grab. But no, it's not a money grab. That's a money grab. That's not a money grab. 10% would cover the law if if all if the if Emily's projection goes through the 10% covers us Keenan on the loss. The the 7% barely covers if doesn't might not even cover at all. The 3% doesn't cover it at all. Let's see.

152Let's see what the 5% comes up. If the seven the seven the seven doesn't cover, how can the five the seven does cover? Seven doesn't cover. It's the seven. What are you thinking we have to cover, Ted? What's the number that you've got in your head that we need to cover? The number that you had on there was a 2.7 is what we were looking at. No. 2.7 is is the appeals. If all of my assumptions are accurate, it's 8 million. This is the number. It's 8 million. 8 million is the is the is the total. It's the maximum risk. Maximum risk. That's what I was I'm using. The max does not include the 1 because to Robin's point, we don't know what we don't know. Well, you can guess all you want, but you

153can't say that's what I'm saying. Like that's if we're wrong, we could be wrong high or low and correct. So the other thing, sorry. Yes. The the federal uncertainty is while it's not directly related to reassessment and this process, it is something that we have to manage if it actually comes to fruition. So it is it represents a financial uncertainty that that we will have to manage through if it comes forward. The other thing that I don't have an estimate on is if collections tank and you know we're getting 95% of expected revenue instead of 98 or 99%. That's also something that would impact our operations which could happen because we're going through a very tough financial time right now. Right. So, well, and that's but that's a risk that we've had to deal with

154all the time. We've been very fortunate. Correct. But I would argue that reassessment being something that we've not we've not, you know, we've not seen how taxpayers act before reassessment. Understand that's in 40 years, right? Unfortunately, that's a risk we have to take manage. That's what we're doing. All of this is managing the risk of the uncertainty. And I, you know, Robin's right. I don't have a crystal ball. I can't give you firm answers on where we're going to land. Right. So the numbers 5% would generate an additional 3.8 million. The rate that would be the total the total tax rate not just the operating rate the total tax rate would be.5414 I got to I got to bring it out to the four decimals. I got they can't do math. Nailed it. And then

155what what's the 7% numbers? It's right here. The 7% numbers is $5.3 million of added revenue and a total tax rate of 0.5517. Do I have any other questions from the board or comment? No. But yes, I I want to point out that when I look at last year's budget, our total federal revenue uh was almost $10 million. Just making And Chris, I would when I say that we can't factor that in right now, we have to contemplate it and consider it. If those funds do get skimmed, frozen, or whatever you want to call, we are still going to have to make whether or not you pass 7, 10, it doesn't matter what you pass, we're still going to have to make tough decisions because there's going to have to we're going to have to

156we can't just we can't just replace it. We're going to have to make tough decisions. I understand. Yeah. So, that's going to happen no matter what. So, I don't want to assume that just because that happens that oh, that's going to just going to pull the 1.3 out of thin air and dump it in there. We'll have to deal with it. We're going to have to we're going to have to manage through it. And that managed through it means tough decisions are going to have to be made. I just that's why I wanted to clarify. It's an imperfect world. Well, I mean, that's that's normal in a nutshell. That's all of it. We have to manage the Agreed. Are we ready to vote? Uh, any other questions or comments? Mr. Handy, good. Miss Breeding, you're

157good. Miss Smith, I'm fine. Okay. Can you repeat what's on the table? I mean, what's on the floor, right? It is the 7% uh increase, which also includes obviously the match, the tuition, and the debt that's assumed into every one of the proposals that Emily put up. That is the 7% increase to our operating. And that's the number she's going to tell the county. That's total operation. There's no what is if it's approved. No, I mean there's no nuance about it. It's 7%. Correct. That's Mr. Laws. Any other questions or comments? No. And that covers the need not for the worst case scenario, but the near worst case scenario. Yeah. Yeah. That she don't know. That's that's off of her assumptions. Yeah. Off of her assumed worst case scenario. an assumption we're all that's all

158she we asked her to make it's not the worst case scenario it's the near it cover it helps us with the near worst case scenario agreed it is it's close enough it is utilizing more than half of the flexibility we have to keep the district on the firmst financial footing and the most stable that we can offer and what I will say which you know I don't we didn't talk as much about um this month is you know I I mentioned it But if none of these things wind up being as bad as I'm predicting or projecting or assuming, right, and the sky, you know, the sun comes out and everything is rosy, we have options to either prolong the next referendum, right? So give people relief and say, "Okay, you you made the decision

159to put us on the firmst financial footing we could be. So we can ride that for a longer period of time or conversely we can spend down some of that excess balance by manipulating how we're using the the tuition funds and the match funds etc so that we can you know manage the rate more aggressively in the future or you can do a combination of those things. So to the money grab point, I don't I don't want to leave folks with the impression that we are just trying to pat our coffers and sit around as bad. That's what we need to be very careful. Emily just made the statement she made is not that. It is it is not that because use a term. Yeah. I just you know you have that you have that

160out there that people say you're going to have all this goes through and everything goes by the assumptions that we have extra money because Emily in the end of the day we're not voting on right now an increase in our spending of our projected budget. We're still have the budget that we have. We are just trying to make sure we're gonna have the revenue to pay for the budget that's already been presented by you and approved on. So sorry, that's next year's pleasure. You know what I mean? Right. Sorry. We need to be very clear with communication that's been put out here is the fact that the federal money possible reduction by call are not included in that. So I want to be clear that they're not there's I've given you the numbers. I've not

161hit anything where I'm adding adding in 1.3 million anywhere. I I know you're not saying any communication you put out to make sure that that I would like to thank Emily for participating. Um, you all good? All right. Um, do a roll call instead. Yeah. Um, Mr. Handy. M. Yes. Mr. Smith. Yes. Mr. Lawson. No. M. Dr. Dorsey. Yes. Mr. Crossen. Yes. I vote yes as well. Go to six to one. Motion carries. Okay. All right. Next month, Emily will present the budget. She'll be up on the hot seat. I can't wait. Emily is This was your preparation. That's where you can figure out. Yeah. Yeah. That was, you know, appreciate the board's uh heated and passionate conversation around passionate. Well, for us that was heated. We don't normally get we don't normally go till

1629:30. Well, and I I I want to say Emily, thank you because it's been two months and but it's because we take it so seriously, which this is what this is all about. So we had a very intellectual and you know passionate discussion about this and we got all the answers we possibly could and we made it very clear to the public that we care about them and the decisions we make and we know we don't want to take advantage of anything. We are doing what's best for what we believe the public the district and everything and we hope they can understand our decisions with that. Um we're doing what we think is best for the kids. Yes sir. Thank you the kids. Well said. And at the end of the day, I I would

163actually back that up with those words. I made the best decision with the information I had to do what was best for kids. Yes. Yes, sir. Definitely explain what you knew and what you didn't know and she still doesn't know. So, what are we going to do? And the news journal supported me on it. That literally she already did. Emily, great quote. What do you got next in the updates and action items? Dr. I don't think I don't think it was fair for Emily not to have all the information that they were prepared to do. It's not fair. Ted, think about the districts that made decisions two weeks ago and she got no information yesterday. Many districts again made the decision to go 10%. I know. So again, this is this is our district, not

164the other district. No, but I'm saying how how tough it is to know that there's new information out, but we got to decide on that they did. And on both sides of this coin is yes, number one priority is the kids, okay? But we also have to worry about our community as well. So we got Okay, so next up, uh this is just a first read of the policy manual re uh recommendations from the policy committee. Um, we've reviewed uh sections 500, 600, 700, and policy 4 came back up for review um from the policy committee. And um we've shared these recommend we we've reviewed them with our legal counsel and at this time the um board needs to just kind of look through the remain the policies that were changes were recommended. Some of

165them you'll see a bulk of them were just words smmith alignments with um code numbers citations. The two that are in the middle there four and 604 are the two most significant uh recommendations that we're putting forward for changes uh with respect to the policy manual. So just kind of review those be ready for the second read in August. Um, if you have any questions outside, uh, you feel free to reach out, but it's pretty straightforward. The on in the board docs when you go to the document, you'll see all the changes and all the recommendations and what's what's being brought forward. So, it says it on each document. Next up, we have a a candidate for consideration from the Citizens Finance Oversight Committee. they have a seat available and they have someone who is

166interested in joining and so they would ask the board to approve the candidate presented uh the applicant's information was in the executive content of board docs. So at this time uh I ask the board to consider and act upon that recommendation. Do I hear a motion? I move that we approve the applicant presented to be added to the citizen citizens financial second. Second. Do I hear a second? Yes, I do. From Mr. Cross. All right. And uh as moved by uh uh Dr. Dorsey, seconded by Mr. Crossson. With that, are there any questions or comments from the board? No questions or comments. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed? Nay. And the last uh agenda item is we improve facilities update. There's an action item involved here, but there's

167also information for you. you know, quarterly since the ref since the capital uh referendum uh and our improvement of our facilities. We the public during that conver during that effort the public said we want to know more about how our money is being spent in this space. So all this year every three months we have a report from our facilities uh team and our operations department division around what's going on with that money. And this month is an update there for the board to see and the community to see what's going on in our buildings. But uh and that's no different than we've been doing all along. There's static document there. They this is also reviewed with the capital uh the major capital construction review committee which also came out of that referendum campaign that

168the public wanted to have more input and involvement in the capital project process. So this has been reviewed by them as well already. Um then the only the action item on here is part of our capital campaign was the William Penn roof uh project and roof replacement. So we are seeking the board's approval on the schematic design for that project so that we can send it down to somewhere down in do for them to approve and us to move forward with that project in a timely fashion. Uh, so I sure you held strong here just to answer questions for this, didn't you? Yes, he did. I said I said I thought this motion before. Well, that's what I said when I saw the agenda. I saw where it fell in the scheme of things, but

169you know. Yeah, I it was poorly timed, poorly placed. I apologize to Steve, your wife, your family. Um, well, before we get to any question, do I hear a motion? Uh, I move that we approve the William Penn roof design proposal as presented. Do I hear a second? Second. Second. All right. As moved by Miss Smith, seconded by Mr. Handy. Uh, are there any questions or comments from the board? Um, everything went good with the meeting. I apologize. I missed that. No, everything actually went great with the meeting. Uh, we had very uh basically involved community members, parents that were involved in that. I know our two school me board members. We actually have two new applicants that we're reviewing as well for possible future involvement, but uh last week we spent every bit of

170an hour and 15 minutes went over over just asking questions, answering a lot of insight, a lot of thoughts. So uh it's it's been showing to be, you know, a proven quality effort that's going forward. But no, and there will be some information we're putting together that will be made public hopefully by early August with more information around that William Athletic Complex. It's been a major focus of that group, you know, briefly next week about it. Can I get a recap? 100%. Not a problem. Thank you. I appreciate. We do a lot of talking about it. We're very happy to talk about it actually. I'm excited to guys. All right. Um, any other questions or comments from the board? All right. Uh, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed?

171Nay. Motion's approved. All right. This is it. That's it. With that being said, do I hear a motion to adjurnn? On that note, you do a marathon form. All right. Do I have a second? We had to make it work. All right. As I got my money's worth. Thank you. as moved by board member Robin Crossson, seconded by Miss Breeding. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. Hey, finish it off, please. As president of this, [Applause] what a