Budget Workshop - April 16, 2025

001John. Yeah. children guys. Guys, we're on. Good afternoon and welcome to the board budget workshop on April 16, 2025. Um this is a workshop um and I'm going to turn this over now to Dr. Watts. Thank you so much. And uh this is a continuation of our earlier conversation. just want to level set and ground everyone in um where we have decided to invest our focus and our dollars for the upcoming school year. Um as you can see the larger green box is our investment or our priority of instructional excellence and how we're going to be focused on the classroom and what is needed at the schoolhouse. Um earlier today you had a presentation that aligns to the yellow box and how we might be able to optimize compensation and benefits. And we'll also spend

002a little bit of time today talking about the strategic and continued use of our funds to sustain operations and accelerate progress towards our performance indicators. I just want to take another minute to say that our discussion today is not just about fiscal management. Um, it is about asking tough questions, which I always invite from this group and the community. It's about setting clear priorities. It's about measuring outcomes and making adjustments. Um, it for me is about being bold enough to say no. Uh, but also courageous enough to say yes when things are needed the most. Um, so, uh, we want to in our discussion today and as we move forward into the future, we want to not just be about dollars and cents, but about the value that we bring to this region as it

003relates to our instruction and the way we serve our students both now and in the future. So given that we uh have a lot of influencing factors that we consider as you can see on this slide there's it's a little bit of a balance beam that we are looking at because we have to consider both the late local and state economic landscape what what is happening federally which we all know sitting up here that there's some uncertainty um nationally about what's happening and how that may impact us. we have to sustain operations and there are also unfunded mandates that come from the state. Uh but internally we also have a strategic plan that we're dedicated to and we want to advance and accelerate um progress and outcomes. We are uh constantly looking at both qualitative

004and quantitative data. We're looking at our historical investments and you all have heard a lot about return on investment and as we think about that we are looking at the history of how our dollars have been spent and what do we need to stop start and continue and of course throughout this process we have uh been galvanizing and collecting and we will continue to do so both uh board parent and community um engagement. So these are kind of all the things uh we are trying to balance to keep the the beam lined up perfectly and in terms of how we serve our students. If you'll go to the next slide um I'm going to kick it over to the finance team and today you'll observe a little bit of a dance between me and the

005finance team uh where there will be certain slides uh the finance team will cover and certain slides I will cover. So uh appreciate the dance. Uh but we also invite you to dance with us by joining dialogue and asking questions where questions uh emerge. So with that said, I will turn it over to um Paige to cover our funding sources. Good morning everyone and thank you for giving me your time. Um, we're going to be discussing some of our three main funding sources of revenue, which includes our federal, state, and our local revenue, which makes up um, our budget. On this first graph right here, I wanted to show how much of how much money we receive and have received since fiscal year 20 in the local revenue, which is the top blue line. We

006start out in fiscal year 21 with the actual not the budget since we have those figures to see how much we actually received in revenue. on the middle line that is our state revenue and the bottom line is our um federal revenue which looks like a straight line but it's because it's so small in comparison to the other two that it um kind of makes the line like straight even though it's not because it's so much less than the uh the other two but I did put data labels on it so you can see exactly how much we received uh fiscal year 21 and 22, 23 and 24 are all actual numbers. Our fiscal year 25 is our revised budget that we currently have. I did not use actual because we're only three4s of the

007year through and if I did that, it would only show three4s of our revenue. So, I put in our budgeted amount for our revenues. And then the last dot on the line is our fisc year 26 projected revenues. We have not received any of our information yet, but I did for the local revenue. We projected an increase of about 10% based on a historical data in the fact that we have continued to go up on that. And as you can see, that makes up about 65% of our revenue, the um local revenue does. And it has continued to increase. And we're projecting uh the federal revenue next year, I mean not the federal, the local revenue next year to come in at $456 million. Our local revenue has been increasing slowly. It makes up about

00834 35% of our budget. And as you can see in fiscal year 25, the current modified budget or revised budget is 206 million. And we are showing 202 for 26. And you might go, well, why are you going down? It's not so much that we are losing money, but when we adopt the budget each year, we cannot put in state grant state grants that we're not sure we're going to receive because we're told they're one time only. Now, many of these renew, for example, the hygiene grant, we get that we have been getting that for several years, but that we take that out each year. There's several uh grants that we do not put in there to adopt the budget because we have not been told by the state that we're going to get them.

009So, um on there, that is why that looks like less. Plus, some of the state grants that are in the general fund also have carry forward money. So, after we've adopted it, when they find out, oh, you have this much from the prior year, that also increases it during the year. So, I just didn't want um you to look at the graft and think that we're actually going down in state money. We are not. It is just that that is the way when we adopt it. We cannot just assume that we're going to receive all of the state grants. If we know we are, they're in there. But if they're one that is a one-year and that's all we've been told, we take them out the next year. The bottom line is our federal um

010monies. And for this year, we got and this is only general fund. we received 1.3 million. So for next year it was projected to put in 1.3 again. Now that is an extremely uncertain number because it uh federal dollars are very unknown at this time but for right now that makes up less than 1%. It makes up 22% of our budget. So as far as general run general fund revenue, it's not a large portion of it. I am going to show a slide that shows the grants and all the federal money that is not in the general fund. So you can see um I can see everybody kind of wondering about that more money in the federal funding. This is just a portion of the federal fund that lives in the general fund. Most of

011those federal dollars live under another budget code. So that's why that line looks flat and that's why that line looks like but you'll see the real federal dollars a little bit later in the presentation. Before you get too far because this slide I think would be where I want to um always reiterate. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that state funding is what we actually add to our general fund after the state pulls back their five mills. Yes. Um this is I used our midterm that we just received our midterm aotment from the state and I use that for the next year because that is always relatively close. Once I get those numbers from the state I will drop in the exact numbers but that is based on our midterm

012now because it looked even at our FTE from prior years and has adjusted. So right at this point that is the best numbers that we have but yes this is 65 mil. Yep. I just always I'm going to say it every time I can that the state to play and get that 206 million in the 2025 revised budget. We immediately have to give back five mills of our allocation which hovers around 100 million most years. Correct. It's somewhere close. You don't have to give me the QBE. It's a it's huge. Um that sounds right. I would want to look that up to give it. I'm not going to make you quote it, but last time I looked at it, it was somewhere between 95 and 100 million that immediately gets pulled back to the state.

013So, um, we could easily flip-flop that blue and red line by a lot if we actually were, um, given what the state told us they were going to give us when they pull back that 5 million. I will mention many, many years ago when I first started working here that it was the opposite. The state made up about 65% of our budget and the local made up about 3435. So, as you can see, the state has kind of pulled back and put more and more on the local uh the local taxpayers, federal funding. So, with that said, we want to uh dive a little bit deeper into each one of those. Was there another question? I just what you just said, I think is really important for our local community to understand. And I don't

014know if there's a quick way to do a graph or something that shows over the years how that funding source has transitioned, but I think that's really important for our local community to understand why we have to rely so much on our local community for school funding versus state and it we can co we'll cover some of that, but I think in our next bite at the apple in terms of our budget, I think it would be easy to go back and look at the allocation sheets and show how much we earned in QBE versus how much the state took back uh resulting in what we actually received. I mean, I could do that and you can look up those allocation sheets yourself and see what that number is. So, we can definitely show that

015in in an upcoming presentation. Um, so to dig a little bit deeper into each one of those buckets, I want to spend just a little bit of time uh first focused on federal funding. Um, and I want to set the tone for this discussion or this next piece um, by talking about something that is um, new to us. Uh, something we're experiencing now that the conditions of our federal funding have changed. Um, and there is a legal element to that and some risk associated with that. So as we have as I have shared with the board as of recent uh we have been given a directive to sign off on certification um that we are complying with the federal civil rights laws was bas which was basically established in the Harvard case that federal funding

016is used appropriately and does not discriminate based on race and some other issues and that the way we are spending our money in the district um does not uh focus on or should not highlight or prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. If so, we could be in violation of the law. And so, I have to sign off on a document uh by April 22nd certifying that uh we do not have any of these practices happening within our district or we could face penalty. The penalty could include withholding federal funds in the future and even more severely it could take it could look at us three years uh prior to this year and require us to pay back funding federal funding that has been given to us in the past. So with those uncertainties um or

017this all brings about certain uncertainties because we're not really sure how far this law applies. There are it could mean um ways that we have practiced spending money in the before programs that we have invested in could be seen by the federal government as in violation of these laws and we would run the risk of losing funding. So, I wanted to preface all that by stating the new conditions that we are living under nationally. Um, and understanding that it within my leadership influence and impact, I would never want to put our district in a position where we would lose federal funding because it has a tremendous impact across um our district. So, with that said, I will hand it over to uh Miss Kulie and she will go over what our federal funding sources look

018like. Thank you. On this graph, you can see this is all of our special revenue funding, which is our federal funding. We have various programs in it such as title one, our federal special ed, um, JOTC, food services. Um, one of the ones that is highlighted is our CARES Act. And I just wanted to mention that one because this is looking at fisc year 25 revenue funding. And the reason we're looking at that is because we want to see what do we what can we anticipate for next year and how much are we currently receiving that is not in the general fund from the federal government. And these are all the accounts. Now we know that the car's act finished. We were given till the end of uh December to spend this money and that

019was how much we had and that has been spent and we will not receive that 18.499 499 because that was from COVID the ESSER and CARES Act money. So we have used up that the amount they've given us and we will not receive more for that because COVID has passed. So that that number is for sure coming out next year. Now all of these others we are not certain at this time of what we're going to receive because we just don't know exactly what federal funding is going to be at this time. And so this is a big question mark, but as you can see here, um it does make up this year over a hundred million dollars in our revenue. So, that's one of the things we need to figure out, plan for uh

020based on if we did not receive any of it, if we receive some of it, if certain grants go away, if certain ones don't. This is all question marks and things for the board to kind of decide for next year how we will handle it if it does go away. So, I just wanted to put that up there. Yes, sir. Question. um education for the for the homeless. Is that Kenny Vento? Yes, sir. All right. So, if you'll go to the next slide. I think we have gotten some direction and I invite Mr. Butler to the microphone. We have gotten some direction on a few of our federal grants. um and he's going to highlight uh what how we are adjusting to the direction we have received to date. So great morning. So, our teams

021have been closely monitoring um and examining as we've discussed this morning the evolving landscape and um so the intent here is really just to provide you with a brief snapshot uh of where we are uh and where we anticipate changes uh and how we are proactively uh really planning to adapt in the event funding is impacted. Um so our goal really uh as a department uh is to ensure that we're maximizing uh our funds uh and planning for sustainability and impact in mind. You'll notice that the status column uh we've organized to highlight those grants where we've confirmed adjustments for fiscal year 26 uh and how we may be planning for fiscal year 27. potential adjustments uh in areas where we're making some shifts uh in anticipation of um reduced funding uh or based on

022um policy changes and wasteful spending. Uh so uh you'll see how we're preparing here uh for a few of those grants, but largely many of the grants uh we're still awaiting guidance. Yes. Yes, please. Uh Scowski, so many questions. Um, so like the world language grant, it's okay at one school but not at another. Like what differentiates from one to the terminated at one school? Yeah, they've already told us that. Right. But why why why is it being terminated at one school and not the other? the department of defense identified that grant uh as they are reviewing uh as a wasteful spending. Um so that was the extent of the termination notice that we received. So the world language program that remains in place of the other K8 school is not department of defense funding.

023Is that the difference? So let me I want to be clear. This is just one school uh and has impacted one staff member. Um and this is at one of our Yes. at one of our K8 schools. But yes, there is another grant uh at that same school uh that they're still uh able to uh to utilize. Okay. So it's the funding source. I'm just trying to understand the differentiation between what appear to be the same program on its face, but the funding sources are different. Correct. Yeah. Okay. So I I guess my question is how did we decide which school or did they decide which school? They decide what school it's at Pilaski. Uh Dr. for bringing. So we have more than one position at more than one K8 school that is funded by

024the world language grant. So Department of Defense grant the the Department of Defense. There are a couple grants we have. So So that's the one they're cutting. But do we have multiple people or is there just one person for the grant and that was it or are there other positions still within that grant? So it's just that grant. Okay, one person done. Gotcha. It wasn't like they said you have three. We're going to terminate one. They just terminated the only one funded by So the grants gone completely staff impact. Now I'm there. Okay. That was I I was confused. So we have other world language programs at other K8 schools that are not funded by the DoD. That is correct. Got it. Okay. Great. and and is is MSAP as a whole at risk? And

025and so we're simply planning for adjustments primarily because this is the last year of the MSAP grant. So some of this again is just some general planning. Uh so that's why the point that we wanted to make and Dr. Dr. Hos Browns is not here but in the most recent board members meetings she has highlighted or asked the question how are we adjusting or preparing. So the series of the next two slides was in response of that which is a fair and valid question given the national landscape right now and our employees have been asking about what the impacts are. So, this is to communicate back out to the community and to our employees um what we are doing to adjust and plan for potential adjustments. With that said, on the next couple of slides,

026I believe we have some other mitigation strategies. I'm going to advance. So, should we find ourselves needing to make uh larger adjustments based on changes in federal funding, we wanted to list out, and I want to make sure I highlight the word potential in the header here. Should we need to make greater adjustments, these are potential mitigation strategies that we may use. So, uh, first we would consider or we could consider transitioning staff um into existing vacancies into our general fund budget. So, if they're federally funded, just as you saw on the previous slide, we could move them over into general funds as long as the there was an alignment of their certification. Worstcase scenario, and I put that in parenthesis, we might need to highlight it because I do not want to send alarm

027through the community. Uh we could do a a reduction in force. That is not something that we would consider as a first step. Uh we could sunset programs. We could leverage attrition. We could close out and not fill vacancies that may be existing. Some potential other mitigation strategies we could employ would be hiring freezes, reduction of hours, furlow days, freezing pay. earlier today. I think you heard about the implications and the consequences when we freeze pay. So again, that would probably not be one we would want to go to first. Um and then we can look at ways that we generate re revenue as a way to mitigate uh use of fund ballage. And and I want to again make sure that I'm not raising alarm in the community, but there could be a discussion

028about a millage rate increase. Again, all of these are potential. I want to highlight, underline, and underscore that. But when asked the question, how are we planning should we need to make pivots? These are all the different strategies that we have to talk about, discuss, and of course get board approval for for no particular order in any of these, just a menu. Howard Hall. I'm just sitting here thinking and we all know that Title One supports underprivileged students which is a close alignment with DEI. And we you opened up earlier about dancing. You can line dance, you can twostep or you can break dance. And when I think about Title One, I'm thinking about break dancing because that's a close alignment. And I'm really concerned that DEI may have an impact on Title One simply

029because the of being underprivileged with with um being closely linked with diversity and equity. Have you heard anything from any other district or your um colleagues, other superintendent with this concern regarding Title One and federal funding? I would say most superintendents across the country are concerned because we don't know the extent in which this condition notice, the certification that we have to sign off on, we don't know how far that applies. It could apply to a a partner that we're working with that may be a partner that talks about equity, right? Many of our partners highlight equity as a foundational part of its mission and vision. Mhm. So if someone were looking at that, they could assume that we are investing our dollars in a partner that supports equity, which could put our dollars at

030risk. It could go as far as hiring practices. There are a list of different things. We have not gotten very clear guidance. We have been told, however, that if we are in violation, we could risk ending our funding and the penalty would be also to go back three years of funding. But we don't have concrete rules about what it applies to and what it does not. So, as a district right now, we are looking at all of our policies. We're looking at all of our practices where we're spending our money and we are trying to highlight places where we think this may be a violation or a risk for us and then we'll have to make necessary adjustments. Who will determine the vi the violations when so we're guessing the court will the courts will

031we're trying to decide what's if we're in violation and who will determine that we are in violation would be someone who wanted to investigate us and raise that to a place of litigation. Miss Campbell. Um, Miss Hall, were you saying that you were worried that because Title One is linked to DEI? You believe this wasn't about maybe us not having a policy or still having a policy that we hadn't gotten rid of or Right. Okay. So to that I would say I I looked up some information on this while I was reviewing this information uh for today and uh there are articles of the new administration stating over and over again in NPR um in uh New York Times that I mean I can read you the quote federal funding would not disappear but be

032redirected to the states particularly title one um they are trying to return education to state and local levels uh while ensuring key funding streams remain intact. So I wouldn't panic about DEI being linked to title one. Seems like title one is something that is going to be preserved no matter even if it comes to the states unless the other violation if we are found to be using those funds in a way that goes against this certification that I have to sign off on it would become I understand that person and I think our training this afternoon there's a deeper dive into this topic so you all can learn more from uh maybe some legal experts on this topic Anyone else? Yes, Mr. Hall. Dr. Watts, it seems like some sort of tutorial on language is

033going to be uh probably helpful to us um in terms of all speaking in the same tongue with the same uh precautions. Yes, I think today's training will set us up nicely to do that, have that discussion. Okay, with that said, that is kind of our uh information on federal funding. Let's now move over to state and local. And Miss Kohley, I'll pass it on to you. Thank you. on this slide right here. This was um produced because there was a question by Miss Campbell in a prior um one of our prior meetings about how our costs per student seem to be higher than maybe other districts comparable to us. And so what I've done here is just a graph of the cost per student that was in our annual comprehensive financial report. And what

034I do want to emphasize is I'm not sure what you were comparing it to, but we have to make sure that we're comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges. For example, this number right here that comes from the caffer is all funds, not just the general fund. There is a graph, the next graph with just the general fund, but it is all funds. And part of that is the ESSER and CARES which we received an extraordinary amount of money in comparison to some of the other districts surrounding us. And so that of course has made our amounts look very high in recent years because we did get quite a few because we have a large title one population and the CARES ESSER funds were tied to title one and that's how they determine

035how much your district received and so I do want to point that out. One thing that it kept going to on the esser funds is we did not go immediately when we got er funds and just spend it only on like uh mask and things like that. Like when people started first panicking over it, we kind of held our money to what would be the most beneficial for the students in the long term. So we kind of spread our dollars out over a long period instead of spending them in the first couple of years of receiving them. That's why we're this year just finishing up the last bit because we did use it in a manner that we did do those masks and stuff like everyone, but we also did not put like so much

036money into that like certain districts could have done. But on here, I do want to mention that one of besides the ESSER funds, one of the things that has gone up so much is our health insurance. For example, our health insurance back in 2019, it cost us about 77 million. That was our actual cost for health insurance, 77.2 million for all of the employees. Our actuals in 24 were 110.6 million for health insurance cost. And then for the fiscal year 25 adopted, we have budgeted which includes vacancies because we do put um health insurance in a vacancy because most people do take our health insurance. We have budgeted 149 million. I do want to comment that currently in our general fund that we have 2,234 unfunded by the state employees that are fully locally funded.

037Now, the state does help us by giving us money for health insurance for most of our teachers, but not all of them. For example, art teachers are not one that the state funds. We fund that locally. So we have to cover that health insurance for all of those teachers and for um all of throughout the district parapros and that sort of thing. So I just wanted to say state that what it cost us for um are unfunded this year. Health insurance costs per um per employee $22,620. So for every employee we pay that amount no matter who they are. And the state was on something. The state only funds mainly certificated. They do fund a few non-certificated but it's very minor. So, when they say they're going to fund those, we're talking about low numbers

038compared to our 2,234 unfunded teachers, uh, custodians, bus drivers, that sort of thing. And if you take what it would have cost us in fiscal year 15, we were only spending $11,340 on health insurance per employee. So that cost us if we were to do that now based on our unfunded it would be an additional $25 million $25.3 million if I took the 2,234 unfunded employees times the 11,340 that comes to a little over 25 million. If you take that in today's take it into the today's time what it's going to cost us for next year for that 2,234 employees times the $22,620 that's going to cost us just for the health insurance of unfunded 50 over $50 million. So as you can see things are rising. In addition to that our retirement has gone

039up astronomically and none of these are things that we can change. They are dictated by the state as to what we have to pay. So, it's not like we can say we're going to go with a different insurance provider or something. We do it through the state. Our retirement in fiscal year 15 was at 13.15%. This year it is at 20.78%. Next year it is at 21.91%. And when I say that amount, it is that percent of their salary. So whatever their salary is times 21.91 it has gone from 13 in fiscal year 15 to over 21 almost 22. So that's another reason the costs do keep going up and what has costing so much and I just did want to point that out in addition to all the grants on this next slide. This

040is just the general fund, not all funds. Does not count does not count the um state grants. Takes out ESSER. It takes out ESSER. It also we took out because food service which is a huge one. Um it takes out food service because that is a fund 600 which is a federal fund. So this is our cost ne for fiscal year 24. cost for a student with the general fund money was 13,529. I'm not sure, you know, what we were looking at comparing it to others, but you have to be real careful to make sure we're comparing the exact things they are. So, I just wanted to um point that out. Neither one of these graphs that I've shown, the prior one or this one includes the capital projects esplash. I have put a footnote

041at the bottom so you can see it's all of our functions except for those particular ones. And of course on this slide it was on the prior one for the food service because it was all grants but this one because it's not a federal grant. Uh, Miss Campbell, um, is there a way to get the numbers from the prior chart that were already without East Bloss, but to get them with our USDA like food service fee attached? When you say food, you're saying you're saying that you took out Esser is in this one right here in this is in this one. It's in the first one here. I'm going back to the all funds. Food service is in this one and ESSER is because it is a grant and it's not in the general fund,

042right? So, it is in there, but if you wanted to look at it more for local, Yeah. because local doesn't pay for any of the grants like that. So, if you want to look at um the Oops, I'm going backwards. Sorry. Um if you want to look at the local funds, this is what the lo this is what local and state general fund covers as well as that small 22% of federal. So that's why I wanted this in here so you could get a better feel when you're not counting grants because we got such a large amount of ESSER money. We get such a large amount of Title One money compared to My My question was more because we're not getting the ESSER funding anymore. That being gone, I think is really good. So we

043can see what that number is. But we'll probably still be getting food services. Correct. Yes. Certainly hope so. Certainly. So I guess that would be more federal. Yeah, it's federal. But you know, that's my point. For sure though. I mean right now we are in uncertain times. Nothing is for sure on anything that's you know other than our general fund in our state that has told us they're going to we can get those numbers for you. We can run it with the school nutrition. Thank you. Did you have a question? No, I'm good. Uh Dr. Bringer, I love where the line of reasoning is going because depending on what you put into the sausage definitely changes its cost. Um Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm looking down here and you're saying that we've pulled the one that's

044up right now, pupil transportation. So I'm thinking, is that all people transportation or is that what we get from the state or is that what we get from like because we know we only get about what 8% of our pupil transportation budget from the state. Um we don't need to dive into that now. It would be interesting because this is a talking point in the community to actually have it broken out with what we as a board and a district say this is what we spend per pupil to educate and it includes this much for power, this much for this, this much. But then this is how much we spend per pupil local federal for transportation. This is how much we spend per pupil for for food just to have it broken out because you

045know we we have our our missions to do the education side of the thing but public school has become a panacea for all the other things that we need to do in a community where it comes to mental health feeding transporting x y so just that wasn't and we used a very small when I first worked here we used because the city and county did most of our policing and then they could no longer do it they said so we had to take that over so that's one of the things that cost a lot of money I think in telling our story and this I see people like thank you um it it is it in all transparency it tells the story of what does this look like because it's it's a buffet it's an

046alle cart you have to and we have to add a lot of these things so um I don't want staff having to do a ton of extra work but I think it would help the narrative in the community to say here's here's the breakdown here's the you know cuz they just see one number and they want to pay post it everywhere and I got somebody smiling she got something to no understood we could take care of it we'll get those I mean do you get that slide addresses you're saying if you'll go to the next slide I mean it's just it's a way to tell the community Dr. bring to your point as we're we're sharing this narrative to the community at large. It is difficult when you talk about a per pupil expense from

047district to district to district and they have different unique needs and they may be funding different things. For example, and you'll see in the next couple of slides, we invest greatly in our people. For example, school nurses. We have a school nurse in every school in Chattam County. Not all districts do that in the state of Georgia. That's something to be applauded. But we invest in that here locally in our budget. So if you take that number and you tie it into the cost per pupil, it's going to be different when you compare it to a different district. So we wanted to illustrate for the board the difference between the previous number that was shared when that um the kayfer came out under the I'm sorry, that's the old way of calling it, but also

048what the uh work we had from our auditors do. Now, they were looking at that as an an all-inclusive approach, rightfully so, and that's fine. But, as we want to illustrate through the budget process, that's not exactly an applesto apples way to do this. And we really have to look at per pupil from a true basis of what we can control in our local budget, which primarily comes from the general fund. Yes. What you'll see on the next slide is a little bit of the narrative that we're trying to share with folks is that um our per per pupil investment is greater because the board and the community have made decisions to support things that take into account poverty and student complexity such as a nurse at every school. We don't have to do that.

049We have chosen to do that. It's a great investment but it increases our per pupil funding. A full police department state and federal dollars do not cover that. If we want to continue to benefit from that, that's going to uh drive up our per people expenditures. And you can see some of the other things we are we have the benefit of a student wellness center and dedicated staff. We've been able to give consistent cost of living adjustments over time. We also have programs like Oakland Island and Massie Heritage Center that other districts do not have. the uh state only gives us about $7 million for transportation, but I think we spend a little over $und00 million for transportation. So, uh we have made good choices and good investments in our district. But if you just

050look at the data, it does drive up the per pupil expenditures. Mr. Smith, just a quick question. Uh when we talk about a full police department, a full police department doesn't necessarily mean that we have a police officer at every school. does it or do we? We do have Okay. And and a SSO and an SSO. We have two safety people at every school. Okay. Okay. Other districts don't do that. Other districts don't tell me this. Um in in this in this wise I'll leave that there. I'll leave that there. Great. Thank you. Can I can I make a comparison just for a second? This Ron Rah human resource just so as we were talking about the eighth largest in on the salary side just so you understand for nurses we have the fourth largest

051number of nurses in this in the in the state. So remember we are we are far now 910 in population but we have the fourth largest as it relates to the nurses. So that's just how we are. Uh Dr. And also when we begin to compare with the smaller districts that's surrounding us um the Effingham counties and bullet counties in those smaller counties sometimes they make one person can serve as a title one director the curriculum specialist the personal transportation and food services. So when you begin to look at per pupil it looks as if there's a lot of waste and abuse and it's really not. We have a district of a whole another size and the magnitude is totally different. So those positions, they don't have program managers. They don't they don't have those

052addition additional positions that we have at the central office level based on the size of the district. To further illustrate your point, the state pays for one accountant for the whole district. One accountant. One accountant. That's all the state pays for. That's it. Paige. That would be Paige. We get rid of Mr. We They don't pay for him. M I'm thinking in terms of language the line additional staffing non non-state funding to meet the diverse academic and behavioral needs. We could change that to various. Let's get diverse out of there. That's Connie Hall speaking. So, I think I hope this paints a uh fuller picture of our per pupil spending and what could be attributable to the increases you see year-over-year and what could be uh contributing to why we might be above other districts.

053You can move to the next slide. Yes. I'm sorry. Let's not forget this east floss how that's included also as per pupil. When the public looks at it, they look at every dime that comes in. It's not it's not in either. No, I'm just saying the public's perception. They look at the entire budget divided by the number of students and they say that's what the per people is. That's the perception of the public. And we do have a page in our budget book just to that where we do it with it with the base and then we do it with uh with the esplos and stuff added in so you can see the difference. That's on a one page in our book. Every year we put that in too just to let you know. Um

054some good information in that book. On this slide, it is the same thing as the line slide that was on the prior one about the revenues, but this is just one year for our forecasted revenue in a bar graph. So, you could look at it. Locals blue, states red, and federal is green. You can barely see that green line because it is so small in comparison. This is just general fund revenue we're anticipating for next year. On this slide, we are showing our 2026 budget reductions. Um, we're going to reduce our startup cost. We're going to um Groves had received startup costs the last two years as well as Palaski. They come off next year. We usually do startup cost the year that they're about to come to be and the year after. So they

055can buy things that are not included in esplos. But we have added this year Windsor Forest High and we also took off Godly Station got a little bit of money this year. So for next year Godly Station will not receive anymore. Neither will Palaski or Groves but we will be giving a second year to Windsor High and Bloomingdale. So that is going to reduce our startup cost because that is less than what it was before. And so that will save us a little money. our vacancy factor. We're going to increase the vacancy factor by 10 million. And this is due to the fact that we have about on average 685 vacancies a month. And so that leaves money sitting there not being used unless we move it somewhere for it to be used, which we've

056done. But we feel like that would be a safe amount to increase vacancies by so that we're not tying up money in vacancies. So that will be an increase which will reduce our budget by 10 million. Um let me speak to the last piece because the last piece is the divisional uh reductions. As I have committed we in good stewardship to our community. We realize that the resources, financial resources we have are not ours. They are shared and contributed for our community. We want to be good stewards of those dollars and we want to make sure we're using them strategically and wisely. So this year we approached our divisions, our central office budgets in a different way. Um we looked at a hybrid zerobased budgeting process. Um, and as a result of really each division

057chief and their teams looking at their budgets from previous years, looking at places where maybe dollars had been invested in the past that uh were not used or did not demonstrate a high return on investment in each division. We have made uh reductions across each division. And I think last year we made reductions of about a million and this year we're adding another um 8.7 million. So this uh this slide represents the adjustments that we have made to be better stewards to our community in terms of their um investment uh financially in our district. Uh Miss Hall, uh Dr. Watts. I think that's most commendable. But I caution that if we should find when we get into the actual operations of things that there needs to be some adjustment that you would feel emboldened to

058review. Um, yes. As things may come up. Yes. This was a over two-month process and we are balancing. We know we have to continue operations. We We have to operate efficiently. I feel pretty good about where we are with this with these reductions. I don't anticipate and I'm looking at the team for affirmation. I don't anticipate that you will see inefficiencies or ways in which we could not operate because we cut $ 8.7 million. I don't anticipate that. I'll I'll tell I mentioned yesterday my concern is everything being ready for August 1st. If we get to August 10th and it's smooth sailing, then you know, okay, this is great. But I just want to know that you feel you have the autonomy to change anything needing changing as we go forward. As recent as 6:00

059p.m. last night, we were making sure that everything that you see here is a conservative and fair approach, balancing the need to continue operations with being good stewards of our taxpayers dollars. We're looking at it through both lenses. Dr. Bringman is sorry. Is this $20 million reduction um evident in the slide you gave us earlier? 49 that had the budget sources by year that had the local at 456. Is that It would have been 476. No, that was revenues. This is expenditures. I I understand that. But we base our budget off of what we think we're going to get revenue-wise. And we can adjust that revenue-wise by changing the millillage so that it comes in lower than the 456 or we just going to I mean that I'm try moving pieces to build the budget.

060If we kept our millillage at the same you're saying that we would bring in 456 for local. Yes, not changing the projection. Not changing the millillage. Okay. And moving forward, we're going to reduce our budget by 20 million. Keep in mind, you're basing that forecast on the millage rate on a tax digest that we have not seen yet. A tax digest that I will bet my salary is going to increase hopefully. I will bet a lot just of them. Indicators are likely. Yeah, indicators are likely for that. Then I think and I mean we based it on historical digest information. But it is important to note right now in this time that we currently are. We still don't know. Of course we don't have all and this is why moving forward and we're working there

061and I I'm not holding anybody on district staff. We are rebuilding how we've budgeted and I'm loving it. Okay. Da da da da. No. Um you just pop. We were dancing right. Um, but if I'm reading this from the outside, I see, woo, 456, 456 million local, but they're cutting 20, you know, I I'm just trying to get people to understand there's a lot of pieces moving here. There are a lot of and this is why it would be nice to decouple those two votes and have us set a budget based on what we think we need to do and then later on fund it based on that millage rate not have them so close together so that we kind of already going oh we're going to get this much so we can do this

062much. That's how it has felt in the past. I know we're getting away from that. Gosh, the return on investment program sheet, that's going to make a huge difference. But I would rather us get to a point where this 20 million is coming off of the budget number that you're asking for. Yes. And we're not even talking about what we think our expected revenues are going to be because we're just saying to educate a child in Savannah Chattam County Public Schools, this is what we want our budget to be. Then we go and look at how we're going to pay for it where both of them for the longest time have been so closely intertwined. So the approach that you're talking about I think is I I think is the approach that we're using. So

063the things that you're getting ready to see are what we believe are the things that are needed. Correct. Right. And we have our list and we have our priorities. What we want to hear from you all today is what rises to the top for you. Once we get the actual numbers, we will then revisit the list and decide what comes off and what stays on. And then that would help us understand where we go with that 456. But what I will say is everything that we're going to share with you today, my commitment was we would not need to go into fund balance to fund it. Gotcha. So everything that we're going to show you today in terms of priorities would be able to be done in a manner that kept us out of fund

064balance and reduced expenditures by 20 and reduced expenditures. Thank you, Dr. Howard Hall. But I also want to just highlight one other unknown and we just talked about it. should federal funding go away, we also need to make sure we're being thoughtful about fund balance. And if there is a need to move employees into our general funds, we've got to be thoughtful about that. We can't cut so close that if there's a need to pivot in six months, we are then having to look at some of those mitigation strategies. So, it's a it's a it is truly a dance. I don't know if we're break dancing or line dancing, but it is a dance and we don't know what song is getting ready to play. [Laughter] Uh Dr. Howard Holland and Miss Hall. Yes. One

065of my major concerns is the return on investment and number of vacancies because right now we have vacancies in many of our well several of our um high need middle schools as well as high schools in core content areas such as math, social stud social studies, science and reading. And with that vacancy, that's that's not a good reflection of on our return on investment when the month is now April and we still have those vacancies in those core contri having substitute teachers in those classrooms. Yes. The entire year. You are your point is very valid. I think one of the things that I could say that I'm excited about is we are enhancing the way we recruit talent in our district. We hired some recruitment people this year that have able be able they can

066focus their full time and attention on that. But everybody, let me be 100% everybody is a recruiter for the district, not just the two people we hired. Um I think we're seeing less resignations. We uh had a job fair that was fruitful for us. Um, and depending on the economy, you may see a shift of people returning back to education as a as a viable field because there may be other fields that may not be hiring as much. So, there are a lot of factors, but I agree with you. Anytime we have a classroom without a teacher, we're not getting a return on investment and we aren't serving a child in the way that we can best serve a child. Miss Hall, I was just thinking as a board member how wonderful it's going to

067be to be able to brag, hey, look what we saved this year. You know, we we're heroes. That is until something goes wrong because then we're the goats. So, uh the dance, let's Yeah, this dance Let's see this dance through um like I said, the beginning of the school year. you on this slide. This shows the expenditure adjustments that we are increasing. The prior slide showed you proposing to increase proposing, excuse me. The others was proposing to decrease. This is proposing to increase. The first two bars, go into them because we'll go into them later. Okay. It's just a overview. Overview. Oops. I think that's the page. So, we wanted to remind you that in February, we shared some blue sky thinking uh projected expenditures or ways that we could invest in our budget for

068the upcoming year. And you all gave us some feedback. Um and strategic priority one, you can see this is again board input. Um you all highlighted add uh adding prek classrooms as a number one priority and as a low priority you you uh indicated that having attendance and engagement staff supplements were important and you can see the in between. If you'll go to the next slide I don't know if I have anybody up there but um it would be our stakeholders and I can't remember the feedback on this one. I apologize. Yes. Oh, it's actually our employees. So, you highlighted in February that uh the PRS and cost sharing for uh eligible uh retirement was your number one priority and you uh depprioritized that uh additional HR staff was needed and you can see the

069in between. On the next slide, your feedback to us was that you wanted us to make sure we had an investment in additional funding for routine maintenance. Um, and you depprioritize any additional funding going to the renovation or relocation of Bull Street. And you can see in between. So, we just wanted to remind you of what you told us in February. You'll go to the next slide. So now we want to dig deeper into our priorities as we move forward. I think this is highlighting specifically what Dr. Bringman was saying. Can we first create what is the optimal situation in terms of how we make our investments for each year and when we actually get our resources we can decide what to depprioritize in that discussion. So, what you're going to see on the next

070few slides is a deep, deep, deep focus on instructional excellence because again, if you'll remember the bigger green box, we want to make sure this year we're focused on what is happening at the schoolhouse. And you'll see the areas that we'll touch on. You'll also see a big focus in what we believe should be a priority for the board, and that is optimizing compensation. We've already had a deep dive in that. Um we do have some areas around outreach and engagement and sustainability that we want to highlight to include the discussion about pools that we had back in February. So we've gone back and we've monetized that so that we can give you an update on that. So again stressing to you on the next slide that the approach that we've taken here is to

071reallocate where we can reallocate maintain investments where we have seen a return on investment. Um and in places where we think we need to increase or add funding that would accelerate our progress as a district. We are that was another lens that we looked at this through as we uh moved uh our priorities forward or as we're moving our priorities forward. So we will have our academics team and our uh schools office present on our investment proposal and instructional excellence. All righty. So, as we uh prepare for the upcoming school year, uh of course our focus remains uh on providing highquality instruction uh and ensuring that every student is uh positioned for success. Uh we're presenting six uh priority budget items for the upcoming year, each designed to uh really move the needle on student

072growth, achievement, and readiness. uh and these uh investments uh were really developed in collaboration across our academic departments. I'll begin with our secondary literacy. Uh this year we're proposing a district roll out of the science of reading aligned professional development tailored specifically for our middle school uh teachers and leaders. Um and this will include two uh learning and leadership pathways. Certainly want to highlight the benefits here. Uh really the intent is to a long-term plan is a continuation and a continuum of literacy support. Uh while year one will focus on middle school. Uh our goal is to build the capacity of uh and consistency across uh our K12 continuum. The second priority uh is focused on bolstering our post-secondary readiness tools. Uh while we currently are um provision with a state resource uh there are

073some limited features. Uh so we want to make sure that we are providing uh a tool that uh uh ensures access uh both uh for our students, our staff uh and really there's an opportunity uh to engage our families as well. Uh so we're proposing a comprehensive uh post-secary readiness platform uh that really centralizes some of the support uh and access for our staff. Um and of course there are some benefits here. Um the idea really is to continue reinforcing uh college and career readiness. So is this is this like a local version of Georgia Futures? Yes. Okay. And I'll have uh my colleague ship the others. Can we say something, Mr. Uh yes. Uh this is really great. If we can if we can accomplish this, this is really um this is really good

074to see. This is something we I often hear uh parents of uh rising seniors who seem lost in this whole process of of getting their kids into college. So this is wonderful. Thank you. All right. Good afternoon. So the next proposal um that we're bringing before you is um a focus in on our um younger students in the foundational grades, grades kindergarten through 2 grade and an investment in high dosage tutoring um where we are target a population or our students that we know um are still learning the foundations of reading and this proposal is ground grounded in the science of reading. So what happens here is we have that direct alignment as we are continuing to develop our teachers in the science of reading. Um we know that students are still experiencing um some

075some gaps. So this intense high dosage uh researchbased tutoring um will allow us to learn more about what it is that we need to be doing and replicate across more schools. So this is the first iteration of high dosage tutoring. um this does not um take away from what our current staff will be doing in the school. So it won't deprive students or core instruction. This actually augments um court instruction and it gives us a real-time data so that we can have lessons learned to be able to replicate um this process if needed in the future. I will add to this is the section that you're hearing from Dr. Barnes is our attempt over the next year to have a plan to differentiate differentiate support for our highnee schools. So the next two slides are

076for a specific subset of schools until we get a more comprehensive plan which we hope to have next year. Um but this is our start kind of breadcrumbming to what we might do across a a larger group of schools that we define and want to focus in on. Uh um M how so how many schools? So for this first subset just two schools for next year for next year. Yeah. When we get a more comprehensive differentiated school okay plan it would be more than two schools. But these strategies we're talking about two schools for next year. this next year so we can pilot it. Okay. But this this actual Yes. go bigger. Yes. Can you flesh this out a little more? Flesh out the differentiated school plan. Yes. So, we've talked a number of times

077and I've heard you all lift this up and there is a need for it. We have schools that uh experience various challenges that are inhibiting the progress that we know our students can make. We need to figure out what the differentiated support plan looks like for those schools. But that starts off with defining what we mean when we say a high challenge school. What data, what's the criteria? And then we need to decide what are the additional investments we're going to make in those schools. And so as we look to next year, you'll see a more thoughtout plan. Is it more staffing? Is it that we're going to pay employees more in those schools? Is it that those schools get things like high dosage tutoring or other programs that we know that might help them

078get on track and accelerate? But we are going to pilot a few things smallcale for one year to figure out what works before we implement that across more than one school. Does is that helpful? Yes. And especially if you can do that and keep us out of trouble. Oh, we're going to be out of trouble. Okay. We are. Unless it's good trouble. What we're doing is really focusing on the needs of our kids. So, like I said, we can do that. That's great. Howard Hall. When we say high need schools, you know, I always talk about the school culture and climate, we can't leave it out. It's coming next. They have to go to the next slide. That's that's that's that's big. There's more to come. Okay. Okay. All right. I'm sitting patiently. I'm waiting.

079Okay. So, before we go on, I would like to say this is all very exciting. One thing I would love I would love and I think my board members will agree with me. We have always had schools on the CSI or TSI. I would like for us to get to a point that none of our schools are on that list. And I and whatever plans that we're making needs to include that. Yes, sir. So, so those are all great points and some of the data that you just talked about drives us in selecting the schools that would be part of this differentiated support. Um, quite naturally now we don't have u any schools on the CSI list and we want to continue that to be the case. However, we know that there are schools that

080have worked hard to come off the list and they have done some things. We want to learn from that, but we also want to make sure we give them the foundation so they don't get back on the list. So in essence, we got to move more students faster in a shorter period of time so that they don't fall in a rank order and be at the bottom of a state's list or a federal list. So um that is part of that um conversation of selecting the right schools. The second part of the differentiated support for high need schools will focus on uh quite naturally focusing on people developing the skill set of people that allows them to function at a high level. A key thing in uh schools is being that they are equipped to

081be able to uh reach students in a manner that builds strong relationships, raise expectations, set the bar high and being able to differentiate the level of support and instructional needs needed for students to be successful. So the next proposal is an investment in u a comprehensive differentiated um ask that will focus around leadership development. Uh that's going to continue to focus around classroom uh coaching and developing teachers not just on pedagogy but also developing teachers around student culture and classroom management and high levels of student engagement. um being able to move classrooms from what we will call ritual compliance where students are sitting and may not be actively engaged um or they could be just wondering to students that are actively participating in the instruction actually being able to answer questions support their claims and

082get do exactly what teachers are asking them to do. This is a redefining of redefining of the classroom so that we can ensure that pedigogy is happening and it's just no longer just compliance. Students are actually engaged in the instruction. I'll just I'll add to this just by saying that this is stems from a belief that I have that when you're working in a challenge school, it takes a different skill set, a different mindset, a different level of resilience and grit than working in a traditional school. You're serving a different population. You have to move with different urgency and different practices sometimes to move those kids faster. So we can invest money, we can invest programs, but if you don't strengthen pedigogy, mindset, and practice, the money won't truly benefit in the way that we

083want to. So this is our attempt to build in opportunities to enhance practice around transformation, which is different than just regular progress. It's a different skill set. I'm Miss Kowski. So I think so I was so excited to hear you say everything you just said about really rethinking about how we even act with our students in the classroom and recognizing that and we were just having a sidebar before this about the need for physical activity in the like asking a student to sit you know for 90 minutes or having the expectation of our elementary school students to always walk single file not say a word and have like there has to be structure, but we also have to recognize the human need for movement and the human need for like all of those human elements.

084So, I know this is focused on our high need schools as it and I'm thrilled to death to see that we're doing this. So, this is amazing. I hope we will also take this opportunity to look at strategies and and really innovative practices that can also be used in all of our schools throughout the district. Absolutely. Um, I know that we will, but I think it's important to say that out loud. And I'm so excited to hear about um hear more about this and track our progress as we pilot these. Actually, we started with some schools this year. I don't remember. You you passed us an investment to allow us to start and some of the principles that we've started with are in some of our higher performing schools. So, we we can begin to

085build their capacity as well. So we've looked at it across different schools to see how we might roll out the next iteration. This is great. Thank you, Dr. Howard Hall. And this this is good with the job embedded coaching and the pedigogy mindset. However, we have schools that we can't control embedding what goes on outside of the home. For example, tardiness. Have two and 300 students reporting tardy every day. That's that's one factor that's going to disrupt instruction. I know we can only do so much, but so what component are we including to provide some type of training or or um workshops for our parents because we need our parents to assist as well because those students are reporting tardy regularly over one 200 students at a time daily. And that's a problem. Not every

086school, but I'm I'm not going to mention a school's name, but I know it's going on. It goes on in some schools, but I'll also say that we have schools in this district that serve the same population of kids, but with extremely different outcomes and observations, same demographic, same type of kid, but the leadership and the mindset in those particular schools yield a different outcome. And that's the point that I'm I'm honing in on. So what are we what are we doing about it? Because it's it's a major issue. Yeah. So some of those things that we're talking about um is not necessarily a budget as as it is sometimes a performance management absolutely um responsibility. So I I've had the opportunity to observe a lot of schools and just look at what was taking

087place. In many cases, um there were things that we can do, things we can do different as leaders and as employees um to tighten up some systems around our campuses. And um we have to be more intentional around naming those things, providing the necessary supports so that u ultimately all of our staff are rising to the expectation that we're establishing for them supportility. So that is the idea. Now what that translates to is really defining what accountability looks like for that happening at a high level or when that doesn't happen at a high level. Miss Hall, if I'm the school that has 99% on time attendance every day and Tanya, you're the school that a 100 kids are late every day. Part of our accountability as a board is to see that I get the

088opportunity to discuss what I have done at my school to they get that get where I am. They get that now. If I So, oh, this isn't an accusation. I'm just saying we need to encourage as much as possible principles. Yes. and leadership teams getting to interact so that I can teach you what I've done, you know, and you're not waiting for something, you know, to pie out of the sky one day to find out what I'm doing. So, the fact that it's right within our district should make it easier, you know, we're not having to go out anywhere. But I hope that that kind of interaction among our our principles that they have a chance to do that. Yes. And my other question, Dr. watch with the classroom level coaching. Doesn't the gifted endorsement

089piece fall into that? Because if I'm going and getting a gifted endorsement, I'm learning all these different techniques that here to four we thought would just be for our highest achieving kids. But I'm learning. It's a part of it. I would say it's a part of it, but this is a lot more streamlined, um, defined, prescripted, explicit. It doesn't require a teacher to take what they learned and gifted and then translate it into their practice. This is a lot more very specific ways to do a think pair share or very specific ways in which pedigogy is working. But it also addresses the mindset. It's it's it's very different. Okay. I know a lot of teachers and parents and taxpayers think that if they go in a classroom and everybody's quiet and they're sitting and that

090that's something wonderful. So I'm just this coaching needs to Yes. change that whole paradigm I guess is what I'm saying. Yes ma'am. So that's what I was speaking to. It takes it from what you just described as ritual compliance. they're just there and they appear to be engaged to actually being actively engaged. So, educators on the board, I know you're familiar with the um the strategy that many of us use is I do, we do, and you do, right? It's just that explicit. And so we have to really teach people how to walk through the situation and give an explicit directions, explicit instruction so that the teacher understands when I set up my instructional lesson, I say these things. Now I'm going move to and I'm going work with students. We're going to replicate and

091this is how I want students to follow me in doing this process. Now when I release them to do their own learning and their own um problem solving, how to monitor what the student is doing and engaging the student in a think aloud. So we can get the student to think like the teacher then we can start seeing the cognitive lift goes from the teacher to the student which then students begin to learn. Now there is a thought that once students begin to learn and get more excited about school tardies begin to reduce chronic absenteeism begin to reduce because student school becomes an environment where they feel successful. It's not a one piece to you know that would fit the entire puzzle. There are multiple pieces and but and but this is one of the

092approaches that we can potentially ramp up not not even potentially we will increase student achievement but we also will change some other metrics along the the journey as well. Guys we have about 10 minutes so um can we take 15 minutes? Yeah. Okay. I'll make it 15. We'll let's keep moving. We got this. All right. So, the next ask is investment in our um staffing allocation adjustments. Um this was briefed with you in our last session. Um so, there's going to be a focus on um assistant principles, the uh secretarial positions on the school counselors and media specialists. What you see here is the change in the staffing um aotments. The direct impact what we see is in assistant principles. A large change here um lives in the high school ranks um where in some

093cases this takes a 0.5 to a whole position which we were already doing but also it it u addresses where we have larger high schools that have less assistant principles. So this provides more uh supervision and oversight to assist the principal in supporting instruction. U we're looking at um the greatest investment here is in high school. Uh the change will be an additional one in middle school and about four that we'll see an improvement in K8s and those in our larger K8s. The second one is around secretaries. Um we have a lot of uh secretaries that were in.5 positions. uh could have been a 1.5 things of that nature in our schools. So what this does is it right sizes it so that we have a four-time person at a school every day. Um and

094this directly impacts um 17 of our 21 um elementary schools that will gain a.5 and then three of our 21 elementary schools u may see um at at least a one increase there but everyone will actually get to a whole position. uh similar numbers look the same through middle school, KA and high school. Um one of the things that we found by adjusting the formula, this allows us to also um ramp up the support around attendance clerk. So we don't have to have a ask for attendance clerks, but that becomes a actual responsibility that we can build into the formula um for the additional staff that may be there. Um and the bookkeeping. And the bookkeeping. Yes. Right. Media clerks. Um this goes also back to the 0.5. Many schools had 0.5. So we're just

095right sizing that to make it a whole position. Uh similar discussion as that of secretaries. In terms of our counselors, this is actually a reallocation of counselors moving from the central office now being put into the actual schools. And so what that does is it supports the overall social emotional learning of students and give actual school counseling more people to provide school counseling more so than all of the um the actual compliance things that counselors may end up doing such as threat assessments, suicide assessments, things of that nature. Um they can really provide a actual school counseling support that's needed to help our students. Um in terms of our uh middle school electives, those are all really uh reallocations which is uh zero ask and ISS par professionals. Okay. So you know I'm going to

096ask. Yes sir. Okay. So let's go. Yeah. So let's go back over this reallocation for uh I hate that we call them elective teachers but anyway uh bandon art and health. What do you mean by reallocation? So what what it is what this is happening we already have some um over above aotments that's already given to schools and it baked in. So they already there. So it's not a additional budget ask. We're just going to designate them to teach certain areas to make sure that we're offering That's correct. And so after doing further investigation, I know that you was going to ask about chorus. So doing a deeper investigation. Currently six of our high schools already offer chorus. Um so there is an ask um and uh four of our high school would like to

097offer chorus. uh three of our middle schools currently offer chorus, five uh would like to offer and then we have six of our K8 schools currently offer chorus and we have an additional four that said they would like to offer course to students. They're all getting course. Well, I can't say that. What I'm saying is what we're working back to they're all getting course. [Laughter] What what I what I am saying is we're creating an opportunity where there's an elective and there is a high student interest that we are able to fill the courses with. Um we'll be able to provide opportunity for a student um or their the students interest to participate in course. Okay. Y thank you. All right. Next slide. Let's keep it moving. Nope. We're going to ask this. This section

098should go pretty fast because you got the deep dive this morning. But I'll call Mr. Ray up to the podium. Uh this is again a focus on employee compensation. Again, we won't belabor things that you've already heard, but there was one additional highlight that we need to make in this particular section. Yes, I'm going to go through it. Um obviously, as superintendent mentioned, it's employee optimizing compensation benefits, which you talked this morning. Um we did, this was one of your considerations. We wanted to be the highest. just want to remind you um about the PSR um contribution that we want to do for those employees uh matching contribution for PSR Pers employees um and so that's something that we want to budget in this and it's at 85,000 that you can see there um you

099can see the overall chart um what we have working with finance um you know we'll work through that but you can see the the totals that we have on that slide as well including the longevity step along with the compensation plan Um and the cola is listed on this slide as well. Um going to stewardship that cola. Oh, sorry. Is that cola based on the revised numbers or on current numbers? Um that cola is based on current numbers, but um we're still working with finance because to some degree the compensation study that was done was all employees including all funds whereas finance does the general fund. So there's kind of like a a a match that we have to get on there, but it should be about close because because finance is doing just general

100fund employees whereas the compensation study was all employees based on regardless of funding federal and state. But I guess the difference would be about $700,000 new versus old could. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we got to just say we got to reconcile that with finance. But yes. All right. We have our last two sections and that's our community engagement communications piece and our operations teams uh investments. These should go fairly quickly because they are very quickly. We are continuing to invest in the work that we do in engagement and outreach. Appreciate the support of the board for expanding the growth of our department. Uh we, as you recall from last year's budget process and into this uh particular school year, we launched a new arm of public affairs, an engagement and outreach arm. Great work going

101on with our newly hired only a few months in executive director of engagement and outreach, Tamika Trible. She's doing great work and working on a district-wide engagement plan for parents, stakeholders, business partners. And we realize that as we go into the next budget cycle, we really need to provide supports for that particular division arm now, departmental arm of the division, you'll see there's about an additional $50,000 in there that really supports collateral materials and events and the work that they're doing uh grassroots on the ground. uh one of the bigger parts that you'll see as uh we're looking forward into our work for utilizing and leveraging tools and technology that expand our engagement and outreach practices and go uh to an area that Dr. Howard Hall you specifically mentioned today in culture and climate. Uh

102we're looking at moving into the work that we do to be more real time uh engaging with families and customer serviceoriented. uh we know that the impact that our our clients have, our parents and the community at large, many times they're having that first engagement with the district through our digital platforms. So, we're looking at tools that engage with the existing website. We've migrated to the final site platform on the district website. We found tools that integrate very nicely with that to provide a customer service level of engagement uh with parents uh stakeholders, students and employees that may have questions about initiatives that the district is doing or simple things like how do I register or where do I find my bus route and they'll be getting real time engagement through this some AIdriven type

103of platforms that are pulling from existing resources that are already on our website and available there. So you really get away from that three-click dynamic which we already are focused on uh as just good metrics for the engagement of our website. But this tool and this platform will provide a an interactive type of component will also allow us to streamline inbound communications to appropriate departments uh for deeper engagement and questions that the um parents and our our client base may have. We see this having a real payoff in the work that we're doing in culture, climate, customer serviceoriented district, and leveraging parent tools, uh, existing tools that help with business partners, stakeholders at large, uh, for a greater payoff for us as we go forward. And you'll see in the strategic plan, culture and climate

104matters and the way that we in impact uh the work on our our community at large, knowing some of the work that we're doing with the initiatives of the district, uh sometimes complex matters, uh it's easy to have a tool that can really pull from a a wide breath of tools and resources that we already have and streamline our inbound communication. So, that's really what that $150,000 represents. We're hoping to get this launched early in this budget cycle which some startup costs with existing monies but there would be in a ongoing expense that would be uh grow the budget in um our public affairs division. Thank you. Uh uh Mr. Super quick I know we're short on time. Love this. I think it's it's fantastic. Um, as we're looking at the continuing these tools, I

105think we need to anyways I would encourage us to look at how individual school sites are being managed. There's this includes huge this includes the school sites, right? Yeah. There's a component in this that will feed to our school sites. The uh platform that we're we're talking about uh is really from a a district engagement standpoint. Uh we there are tools that we also are finding in some of the resources that we're looking at that feed down into the the the individual school sites. It's important to recognize though as you're saying every school has its own identity and its own community that we recognize and we support fully under the full umbrella of Savannah Chattam County Public Schools. It's only as good as those who are investing in it and using it daily with topical

106relative content. And that is a uh performance management component. Uh we've heard that word already this uh go around in this particular work that we're doing in how we engage with our schools and how we work with the school level individuals who are managing those components. The transition to the new website in many ways is designed to also overcome that to streamline that and make that process easier and less burdensome for sitebased staff. But some of that is performance management. Okay. Okay. Well, let's just make sure we're giving those schools the that the training that they need to do it and because right now the disparities between some of those websites is Yes, ma'am. Yes. Yes. All right. Let's hit our last area. All right. So, custodial that this is an additional allocation using the

107current GDAU formula for uh sites that we have added. So, for example, Bloomingdale is a larger site. So, they would need additional custodians. So, that is across the district. Um, and then for the pools, uh, hearing from the board at the last meeting, we understand the intent to, uh, review the finances to open, uh, two pools, Jenkins and Haven. It would be outsourcing the lifeguards for about $70,000 for two lifeguards per site to operate that from the end of May to the very beginning of August. And then ongoing maintenance of those two pool sites. So, in total, the ongoing pieces would be about 310,000. Then, onetime expense to bring Haven up to uh par. This is an estimate based on the Jenkins pool. However, until we get in and really dive in, we wouldn't know

108uh what all needs to be done, but we have estimated it of $180,000. And then the closure of the two other pool sites would be about $150,000. So, in total, $1.1 million. And we gave you a little side note that said we uh received the Jenkins funding already, so that repair was not included in these estimates. Uh Dr. Howard Hall, I'm big mad. Okay. Closure of Schuman and Brock of of the pools for those sites. No, not acceptable. And it's going to be I I've attended several neighborhood meetings and our parents are upset about it. And I did hear in one neighborhood meeting that Haven would be um included which I didn't know anything about. I guess Mr. Smith must got an insight on that because you talked about it in February. I'm sure about

109Haven. But all of those pools need to be open and I know that I don't expect for the school board to supply the the lifeguards. That's something. See, we working in silos and it needs to stop. And some people are feeling that, well, the parents need to complain. No, they don't because the parents elected us to speak for them, not only as school board representatives, but the city officials as well as the county. And it is shameful. I'm very upset about it that we're making plans to close those two pools. That's on the east side, west side, and west Savannah. Now Haven is more considered west side. Schuman east side Brock West Savannah and we need to do something about it. We need to come together as a county, not just a school district, but

110city officials need to be sitting to the table with us to figure out how to keep these pools open in our in our neighborhoods in those communities. Dr. bringman. I I am all for being out of the pool business 100,000%. Amen. Um I'm fine with the city and county taking over it. They got city and county pools. They can take our renovated Jenkins pool and they can man it. Um it's just the overreach of public education. Um we're just adding things that are outside of teaching. And yes, we could teach swimming, but I am all for not having ongoing maintenance costs of 240k to have two pools going. I wasn't a hu I mean, Haven and um Jenkins are 2.6 miles apart from each other. So, if we're going to get in the pool business,

111do I get a pool on the southside? Do we get a a a pool from the school district on the islands? Do we get a pool? I mean, if we're gonna start talking about now having to have pools that are equitable for our entire county from the school system, we're gonna have to build a ton of pools. Um, it's just I I'm all for the city and the county picking up, but I believe we're going to struggle to find those lifeguards, and I'm glad we outsourced it for somebody else to find it because then we would have had to have another position to manage them. Um, so I'm just done with the pool business. So, by the way, one of the reasons the city and county got out of it is that they couldn't find

112lifeguards. So, um uh I agree. We're in the education business. We're not in the pool business. uh the liability alone based on something that I know happened in the past. The liability alone I think it is irresponsible for us to be in that business. Um I and I understand I understand the frustrations of neighborhoods not having it. That is something that the city and county should be doing. We have got to stop doing things that the city and county should be taking care of. And the reason that they were able to wipe their hands clean of it is because they knew they could throw it throw it on us. and we'd fall for it. I'm not falling for it. Miss Miss Hall, I certainly think we could help by convening a meeting with the county

113and the city. Certainly, there's no, you know, there's nothing preventing us from doing that. Um, we have a lot of children who drown. We have a lot of children who just never learn how to swim uh because they just don't have the resources around them to do that. I don't know how um my goodness, I have two children who swim like fish, but we they grew up on Hilton Head and they had every opportunity to do that and that's made a huge difference in their lives. So whatever we can do to promote that, that's a wholesome, wonderful part of your life if you know how to swim. So if we don't want to take it on ourselves, certainly let's have a meeting with the county and city officials to see if something could not be

114done instead of just, you know, throwing our hands up and and letting it go. Mr. catchmar. These discussions have happened already and we there was anou in place where they get we'll give them the pool they're responsible for running it and they've told us before we haven't because we can't find staff. Now are they managing it well? I don't know. Um but I I agree with what everybody has said so far. They're they're all valid points, but I I'm also I don't want to be in the pool business either. I would be fine deeding those properties to the city andor county in exchange for them giving us something we need adjacent to one of our properties, but but that's our contribution. We'll give you the pool. We'll give you the land. You can own it.

115And but you guys run it as part of your wreck programs. that's not something we should be running year round, particularly in the summers when we're not in session. Um, but there's a way for us to contribute to to letting people be able to swim um but staying out of the day-to-day as well and not have the ongoing cost. So, I think that should be the discussion because we've already had the discussion before about how do we partner on this? We had anou and they couldn't find what they needed. Um, so uh Mr. Smith and Guys 1240. I'll strive to be very I'll strive to be very expeditious. Um I believe that everyone has made a valid point. I totally understand where we are and how how um how of a slippery slope this could

116be. But my concern is when we look at the prior conversations, when we talked about keeping Jenkins open and the other pools closing, uh for me, it wasn't a problem of uh what school was going to stay open. It was the problem of what schools were closing or what pools were closing. And when we talked about keeping Jenkins open, and I'm not speaking to anyone directly, but I am going to make this statement. When we talked about keeping Jenkins open, no one really said at that point, we're not in the pool business. But when we started talking about uh another school or another community, those pools being open, it became, okay, well, we're not in the pool business. Well, and let me let let me say this. If it was said, I didn't hear it.

117So, let me let me say that. So, let me So, now I've been clear about stating that I didn't hear it. So, if it was said, it was said, but I didn't hear it. So, now that we're talking about keeping the pools open in other communities, it's being said and it's being voiced that we need to get out of the pool business. We're not in the pool business, but we do teach cooking. We're in the cooking business. We do teach cosmetology. We're in the cosmetology business. We do auto body work. We're in the auto body business. But when it comes to pools, all of a sudden, we're not in the pool business. So, all of these things are a part of education. All of these things are a part of uh building character for our

118students and a brighter future. So, I don't believe that we should say we're not in the pool business when it comes to this. All of these are liabilities. All of these are things that need our consideration. But when we talk about it being in certain neighborhoods, then it becomes a greater liability. So, I'm hearing. So, let me make this very clear. No one on this board, no one on this board has anything against any community. No one on this board prefers any community over the other. And yes, people on this board did say we are not in the pool business. Right. Okay. Cooking and all those things are under CTA. The pool business is not. We are about teaching our you know what we can't even get our kids at grade level on reading right

119now. And no. So and hang on. And fiscally speaking, because this is the taxpayers's money, fiscally speaking, to get into the pool business would be the most irresponsible fiscal thing we could do. Let the city and county I I want every kid to learn how to swim. You know what? Let's talk to the Y. Maybe the Y wants to take them over, but let someone else do it. We don't have the money. We don't have Oh my god. And the just the legal alone. It only takes one kid drowning. And And by the way, this school system has been sued before when we were in the in the pool business. So, you know, let and please, please, please do not try to turn this into a us versus them thing. It is not. No one

120on this board operates that way. And the the small implications and the not so subtle implications are offensive. Well, I'm so sorry that you're offended by any uh statements that were made, but I will go further and ask this question. Was there a conversation about us not about us closing all pools and leaving Jenkins open? Was there a conversation about that, Mr. Moss? Yes. And people and people said no. So, but but did it pass? Did it go through? Was that going to be the plan? Yeah, sure. It was going to be the plan to keep Jenkins open but to close all of the others. So now that we're having a conversation about adding to the list of pools that would be left open, it's now an offensive statement to say let's keep more open.

121So my thing is if we're going to close one, let's consider closing them all. That's fine. That's fine with us. I mean, the 2019 agreement actually included Haven as part of the contract with the city that they weren't able to fulfill. So saith the internet. Gotcha. But again, the Jenkins being left open was passed. That's my point. That's the point that I'm striving to make to you, Mr. Moss. Okay. Point made. Anyone else? I'm so sorry. Just a few more. Go ahead. Go ahead. more. So, uh, Miss Hall wanted to say something, Miss Hall. All All I want to say is that we can disagree without being disagreeable. Correct. My father taught me that early on. Uh, I still say let's have the conversation with the city and council and county because what Mr. Kashmar

122was saying could work. So, let's have that discussion. Could be. Yes. But for now, I have included as a opportunity for you all to consider. I wanted to show you what the dollar amounts are so know what the price implication is. And Dr. Howard Hall, I don't want to minimize your comment that you're upset because it includes the closure to pools. We would just need to increase the dollars if we're talking about increasing and keeping all the pools open. So I just want to the number that you see there is a number reflective of keeping two pools open and closing two pools. If we kept all the pools open that's more of a financial investment. Now one of these schools will be closing. Schuman Schuman will be closing. Yes. So to round out this um

123and we are at the rounding out place. Uh we really wanted to get your feedback on are we on the right track with the list of recommendations that you have seen today? Um what additional programs or initiatives are not listed here that should be? And I I know that we have at least one board member who's shared that he believes there are a couple of things that might be missing that we need to add. Um and then what choices and tradeoffs are we desiring to make if there are new items that need to be considered such as keeping an additional pool open. So I don't know that we have time to have that robust conversation because we need to eat. But it is a conversation that we need to have because the this is the

124basis of the the final budget that I will bring to you all for approval. So if I don't have guidance then I'm you know I'm not sure where we should continue to to evolve in our research miss Hall and then uh Dr. U. I would like to say that what resonated most with me was the academic progress that this represents. I am thrilled to move ahead as um from what we learned today in terms of the academics and Mr. Barn's presentation just a big picture um adding the things from academics as Miss Hall stated but also having the metrics as they're added to the inventory for our return on investment and then if there is anything from that inventory that were on the we're going to really look at these I think they were red

125in color maybe or orange I can't remember and if any of those um have not passed the district's first look as as possible inventory items that will be removed or if there are ones that are on the lifeline for the next year's budget. So, we kind of understand that that we are trying to really tease out what is working and what is not and that everything in our budget should have hopefully some way to look at return on investment. It might not always have a metric, but at least some way to scale it. Sure. Uh, Mr. Gowski, just quickly um two points. I agree with um Miss Holly and Dr. Brman on the the academic focus and especially our high performance schools, I mean our um highly challenged schools uh pilot project and I also

126want to commend the team for um the work that has been done leading up to this point. So, for example, the staffing allocations about the secretaries and the and the media clerks. We had that conversation previously. So, it's really helpful to get the information as we're going to be able to see how it all then fits together. So, thank you to the team for all of your work on that. Hearing a lot of guidance on compensation and that's a that's actually the biggest I definitely support the biggest piece of the pie. I definitely support the compensation recommendation. Okay. Cashmore. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to be Roger. Roger nodded at you. Teacher kicked in. Sorry. Teacher mode kicked in. Um, ROI, academic focus, teacher recruitment, staff recruitment and retention, which includes compensation. Um, and

127then also, I mentioned this earlier, um, relatedly, we've talked in the past about workforce housing, subsidized child care. I know those are specialized things. I know we don't have the expertise in house or maybe we do or maybe people are just stretched. I want to I'll say again the board has $500,000 in contingency budget money every year. I am happy to move to spend some of that to get the right people in to expedite workforce housing and subsidized childare discussions. The workforce housing in particular we've been talking about for several years now um including since Dr. for what started. Um I'm just highlighting those two things. And then last retreat we had um we talked about transportation um and trying to solve transportation issues. It's a comp issue, but it's also a bus size issue,

128etc. The last the last retreat, it was about a year ago, two retreats now. Um specific commitment to trying to solve transportation to reestablish charter and choice transportation. Um, that's still high on my agenda as well. Megan Davidson, could you give a 30 second overview of where we are with the transportation and extending it to choice? Absolutely. So we are in transportation evaluating a pilot to um for next year that would be one school in which they had geographical location pickup sites um to in try to attempt to resolve the transportation challenges for our choice or schools and program. So looking at doing it at one school next year, potentially a K8 to see what the piloting to see what the implications would be and then expanding it across more schools is where we are

129right now. We don't foresee a budget implication, which is why you don't see it in this presentation because we've already ordered the buses we need to do a pilot. I know that doesn't satisfy your request, nor does it satisfy what I want to happen, but we have to start somewhere. And some of this does have to do with a workforce challenge. If we go too fast and I don't have this the bus drivers to cover it, then Dr. Hoskins Brown, welcome. Hi. Thank you. I um Yes. So, I was just told that we haven't had lunch yet before Yes. Before I ask a question, I just wanted to know thank you and sorry I wasn't able to attend the workshop, but my student who had her comprehensive did pass, so we're closer to another PhD

130in marine science. Um, my question is just how is the pilot that you're drafting different from the pilot that we did before? It uh it is going to be a pilot, so it'll only be one school. Um, so we can more carefully because what I heard historically was that it was maybe a flawed implementation. And it wasn't m necessarily that it didn't work. It could have been implementation. So we're going to scale down so that we can really have our hands around it before we try to take it to scale and do it across the district and geographical pickup locations. So if if a pickup location was Woodville Tommpkins, the parents would take their child to Woodville Tommpkins and then the bus would pick them up to take them to the pilot school. Okay. So,

131but we we did this. We had hubs and the the pilot before that was interesting to me is that it did it across the grade spectrum. So, you had a realistic idea of what the impact would be. I mean, because if if I can just do one thing out of 57 things I'm supposed to do on that day, I can do it very very well. It's the integration across the other task that brings me challenges in in doing my work. So, I'm just wondering if it's going to be artificially successful because you've made the goal small. It could be. Um, and so I just want to know the comparison between the the difference and the explanation for the difference from the previous Yes. pilot. And to be honest, we need someone to give us a

132little bit more information on the the previous when was that? I remember we talked about it at the time, but I don't remember them ever actually picking kids up and taking them home because none of us were here. We weren't here, so we don't know. We voted against doing it. Okay. Well, see again, I'm coming at 12:52 when you've already had the discussion, but when I'm thinking about transportation pilot, I'm thinking about the previous transportation pilot. So, I think we did have some pickups happening on Wilmington Island to get folks out to tea early on. And there was some something about that. That was during the burn administration. Um, and then there was the pilot of changing um it was it was a bell time. Yeah. That so we had the bell time change for

133a later high school start that we did across elementary, middle, and high. And then we had a hub pilot that I know we did on Wilmington that we did on Wilmington Island. And I can't remember where the other ones are. So, um, we can just I got a box of papers. I'll see if I can find that information. Any other feedback on what you saw today because that helps us. Dr. Howard Hall. Yes. Overall feedback. I was real very impressed with the plans for our high need school as well as compensation because compensation is across the board. It it not only impacts high needs but also our schools that are performing well. We want to want them to continue to show continuous growth and excel and exceed the expectations. So, it's compensation most definitely because

134that includes everybody classified and and certified as well as high needs. Um upset still upset about the pool situation. Um it was mentioned about them and they I feel like them because Brock represents my district and I'm upset. Understood. Any other feedback before we close out with just two more slides? Miss Campbell, I'll jump in since everyone else has jumped in now. Um, I love the pilot study for the high need schools. I think it's amazing that we're focusing on the schools that we're trying to assess where the issues lie and how to help them and we're not just going in throwing money at it. I think we'll figure out what we need to do and then maybe next time we can do it for more. So, I appreciate that. I think the pallet is

135going in a great direction and I'm excited about it. uh I'm not going to say that the pool is perfect, but uh it's certainly uh getting there. So, with uh with more editing, I think we'll be able to get to a great place. Thank you for all the hard work that you've done thus far, as well as to your team. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. So, I haven't said anything. Go ahead. I'm sorry. So, uh no, every everything's been great. Uh, you know, the only thing I would add, and we've talked about this a lot, I really I am a firm believer in merit pay, and I really want to look at some way of incentivizing our teachers. Um, and you know, maybe we can do this without with outside money or whatever, but a a

136bonus program for teachers. So, got it. All right. Just to close out a couple of more slides on next steps. We will, as we begin to refine these things uh based on your feedback, survey the community. We'll also begin to share with different community groups and comm community uh leadership groups to include professional senate. Uh we will this year gather feedback from principles and extended cabinet. And obviously we had a big discussion today about federal uh the unknown and potential impacts. We'll continue to monitor those and leverage those uh mitigation strategies as needed and only if needed. If you'll go to the next slide. Um the last thing that I want to highlight to you and I will share in my next update in more detail. um as a part of our stewardship and focus

137on um making sure that we're spending wisely and strategically, I feel it is necessary and needed that we have a deeper dive into our finances, policies, department practices so that we can have an even stronger understanding of our financial position, how we make decisions, the tools that we use, the efficiencies in which we operate. Um so I am looking to bring on a third party um to spend the next few months with us doing a deep dive into our finances much deeper than what our audit detailed so that we can understand where we are and be better positioned to move into the future. Um, and so in the month of May, you will likely get a proposal. I will share in advance so you have time to ask questions and look at it more deeply.

138Um, but it would include facets that are covered here on this slide, but you'll likely see a contract request to come in to fund this third party evaluation and support, but I wanted to highlight it as a next step. Awesome. and this. Okay. So, um I will accept a motion to adjourn this workshop. It's been moved. Seconded. All in favor? I. Let's go to lunch. Guys, let's I think did somebody have a question?