001Heat. Heat. Hey. Okay, first of all, I want to welcome each one of you that's present here today in person and also for those of you who are um out there in cyerspace. We at this time we're going to today we're going to call this meeting to order. Uh today is June the 11th, 2026 and the time is 601. This time we're going to ask everybody to stand for the pledge of allegiance and then we'll pause for a moment of silence. Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May be seated. Uh I need a motion to make uh several amendment couple amendments to tonight's agenda. One, the first one is we want to
002remove the consent agenda and we'll pick that up at at Tuesday's meeting. And the second we want to add Miss U Libby Whitaker. Uh she's going to present the FY26 budget. >> May financial >> I mean the May financials, excuse me. Um can I get a motion to amend the tonight's agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. The motion has been properly made by Miss King and second by Mr. routes to amend tonight's agenda. Uh, is there any discussion? Okay. All in favor, raise your hand. >> Okay. The motion passes uh unanimously. Uh, Miss King, do you have the ethics statement? >> Yes. >> Oh, before we do that, uh, >> well, you have the ethics statement. >> Yes. >> Go ahead. In accordance set forth by the Georgia Ethics Commission, it is the
003duty of every board member to avoid both conflicts of interest and any interest of such conflicts. Does any board member have any known conflicts of interest? Seeing none, Mr. Chair, we will proceed. >> All right. Thank you, Miss King. >> You're welcome. >> Uh, do any board members have any comments at this time or remarks? If not, uh, Mr. Superintendent, no comments tonight. Okay. Well, at this time, we're going to move into our business agenda. Okay, >> that's what I Okay, before we move into that, um, can I get a motion to approve the amended agenda? >> So, move. >> Second. >> Okay. The motion has been properly made by Miss uh, Black Shear and second by Miss King uh, to approve tonight's amended agenda. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor, raise your hand. Okay.
004The motion passes uh unanimously. Okay. At this time now, we will move into the business agenda and we're going to ask Miss Erica Williams uh if you will come up and make your presentation. Good evening. >> I got it. >> Thank you. Good evening, board chair Kstphen, Vice Chair Rouse, board members, Superintendent Bacon, and guest virtually and in person. Today, we will discuss our related services, and this will be an action item. We are a district with a vision, generating excellence, one team, one goal. A mission to inspire, challenge, and prepare all students to compete globally. This aligns to our strategic goals. Learning and wellness for all, doing things the Twig's way, and growing and sustaining our village. Our contracted and related services are school psychologists, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy. Our
005school psychologist. A school psychologist is a licensed mental health professional who supports students academic success, emotional well-being, and behavioral health. They bridge psychology and education by conducting psychoeducational assessments, developing learning and behavior interventions, and collaborating with teachers and families. Jennifer Rafferty will serve in the role of contract school psychologist. Miss Rafferty will serve our students at Twist County Middle High School and Jeffersonville Elementary School for 36 weeks. She'll be funded through the idea budget for a total cost of $52,000. Physical therapy. The physical therapist promotes motor development and student participation in everyday routines and activities that are a part of the students program. Middle Georgia Christy Hiller serves 10 students in person in the amount of $24,720. Occupational therapy. The occupational therapist addresses the physical, cognitive, psychosocial, and sensory components of performance. It's included but
006not limited to fine motor skills, gross motor skills, handwriting, and spacing. Miss Cynthia Ree serves 15 students at $520 per week. The total cost is $18,720 and that's for 36 weeks. Speech language pathologist. The speech language pathologist works with students with communication disorders including but not limited to articulation, production of sounds, language expressive and receptive. Dr. Tiffany M. Gandrit of communication dynamics will serve Jeffersonville Elementary, Twix County Middle School, Twix Academy, and Elim. She serves a total of 59 students with a total cost with a cost per week of $1,862 and a total cost of $67,000. And that's for 36 weeks. Are there any questions? board chair board. I recommend that we accept the related the bids for related services as presented by Miss Erica Williams for the FY25 school year, FY27 school year. >>
007Okay. Is there any discussion or questions? If not, can I get a motion to accept uh the superintendent's recommendation for the related services for the I'm sorry. >> Okay. >> Second. >> Okay. The motion properly made by Mr. Butler and second by Mr. Rouse. Is there any discussion? Okay. All in favor raise your hand. Okay. The motion passes unanimously. Um, at this time, Miss Who you want? Miss W. >> Yes, >> Miss Miss Re. >> Miss Re. Okay. Good evening, board chair Karstarin, Vice Chair Rouse, esteemed board members, superintendent Mr. Bacon, and constituents in person and online. Our mission, our vision is generating excellence, one team, one goal. And our mission is to inspire, challenge, and prepare all students to compete globally. And tonight, this budget represents our entire uh strategic plan, all of our
008goals. After much research and planning, tonight we are presenting the fiscal year 27 budget for review. I want to review the process that we've had. We've gone through quite a number of meetings together, many very very late nights working on this uh process together. you were presented with the um budget development guide and this uh included our payroll because we started with payroll first. Payroll is the majority of our budget. Um so we started with the payroll. Um it's also because the majority of almost all of the instruction budget comes from payroll. So with that, we started first with that. We've also in this book that you had, we looked at all of the positions, the salary, the benefits, the funding sources to get a total picture of the payroll. Then we looked at the
009non-payroll costs and that was the other booklet that we went over just a couple of weeks ago. That was our second guide, the budget development guide two. And this had all of our non-payroll um items by function. within it and the details behind each of those so that you would definitely have a clear picture of what is behind every line item in this budget. As we looked at our funding sources, which is the revenue at the top of this, we looked at our local taxes and we are holding them uh flat because the tax digest so far does not support that change. And if that comes about because this is a budget and it's a plan that can always be adjusted in this for revenue you're looking at the east other resources um we have
010our QBE we have those other categorical grants such as the school safety and security grants um the REI Georgia TAP grant the custodial grant student advocacy grant and then you're looking at our federal programs our federal ederal programs line is based on our current numbers because we have been t they have not been released yet for fiscal year 27 but we have been told to expect that they would be close to if not the same as what we had this past year. We're not expecting any reductions in any significant reductions in our federal programs budgets. With this also we see that u the budget is an estimate or a best guess or what we would call in our field an educated guess as to what the budget is going to be. Again the majority of
011our budget is instruction which you see at the bottom are the uh anticipated expenditures. So instruction is the majority. Um and then you see maintenance on operations is the second highest line item that we have. This budget reflects the corrective action plans that we have put in place including staff cuts, spending reductions, uh the plan these plans that Mr. Bacon has put in place and he has a goal to leave the district in a better place with a positive fund balance as we are looking to hire a new superintendent. Um we also have the in these non-payroll costs you have all of the details behind it and um any questions I believe we have answered on those details um so far in this planning process. So tonight this is being presented as an information item.
012Are there any questions? Thank you, Miss Wen. >> Sir, >> thank you. >> Oh, you're welcome. No questions. That's a good thing, >> Dr. Whitaker. First, thank you for allowing me to come squeeze in tonight. Um, as we were looking at the agenda, uh, Miss Rearen will present to you an FY26 budget amendment after this. So, we thought that looking at your May financials, where you stand at this moment in time, would be a good support for her presentation. So, it made sense to go ahead and present the May financials now, so that you have that information going into the budget amendment. So, thank you for amending your your agenda for me. Thank you. Um, if we start with general fund, and this is where you'll see most of the amendment. Um, you'll notice the
013local taxes again is a very small amount, which we expect this time of year. You also had a tan draw of $150,000 in May. If we go down to your expenditures, you'll see that percentage. We would want that percentage to be at 92%. And you are over in a lot of categories. Instruction is your biggest expenditure line item and it is right at 91%. So that that is a positive. You will notice that your current month expenditures are higher than normal, higher than average, and that's due to the 2000 the onetime $2,000 supplement that was given out by the state. So, you got a a grant for that, but then you also chose as a board to give the $2,000 supplement to all employees. So, there are expenditures involved that were not covered by the
014grant. And that um stipen was paid out in May. So, this May's expenditures are are higher um $234,000 higher compared to previous um averages. That's how much the stipend was. Um, you'll also notice school nutrition is not something that we've budgeted for in the past because they have their own budget, but uh the board chose to cover those stipens for your school nutrition staff since it was included in the grant. A portion of them were included in the grant. So, you'll see some expenditures in that category that that you normally would not see. So this um year to date uh where you stand at year to date will uh be reflected in the amendment that Miss Rearen will propose. Next, if we go to capital projects, um for the month of May, you actually um
015you generated $79,000 in splice collections again, which is your average. Um you'll see $73,000 of that 79 went towards capital projects. And then you'll see on the next um page $6,273 of that collection went towards debt service. For capital projects you had just uh a few expenditures. You had some HVAC repairs. You'll see under maintenance and operations. You also had um $48,000 that went towards school safety and security. That was the uh central office vestibule and that whole security reinforcement there for debt service. You had your June um June bond payment was is due with June 1st. So the payment was made May 29th. So you'll see that bond payment reflected in May. the $590,000 $590,350 is your bond um principal and interest payment for June, but it was made May 29th, so it's reflected
016this month. And you'll you'll see too for debt service um the revenue that was generated through splast and then the expenditures for debt service are going to balance out so that your fund balance is going to end up being zero because what you generated is exactly what you're going to pay out for debt service. We keep going to your special revenue funds. You had a little bit of um money drawn down. you also had some expenditures. I know that today was the deadline to do um all of your uh draw downs that would be paid out in the month of June. So today was the deadline. So in the June report, you'll see a significant amount of drawdowns for that. But in May, um you had $59,000 drawn down and 96,000 was spent for school
017I mean for uh special revenue. Moving on to school nutrition. Um, so there was $81,000 in revenue in the month of May, which puts your year-toate revenue slight below what was budgeted. However, um, if you look at the expenditure side, your expenditures year-to date compared to budget are significantly lower as well. So year to date, you've spent 79% of your school nutrition budget. So the collections of 83% is not concerning to me because your expenditures are also lower. Moving on to the balance sheet for the general operating account. So your uh cash balance in the bank is is $625,000. um $150,000 of that is the tan. So, we did draw down some funds. Um that puts us at just nine and a half days cash on hand. Um last month was 21 days, but we
018had a significant tan that we drew down last month. So, so that that is down, but we still are um positive $365,000 cash on hand for Splast. Um you'll notice that that went down significantly, but we did make that big bond payment and so we knew that that balance was going to was going to drop. So, you have $286,327 in your SPLOS bank account, and that's after making the bond payment. >> So, that gives you 25 days cash on hand. And for school nutrition, um they have a balance of $81,325 cash on hand, which is um 46.77 days. Uh last month they were at 33 days. So they are better off in May than they were in April. >> And I know I slipped in so you didn't have time to review any of that
019beforehand, but do you have any questions? >> Are there any questions? And we'll get that report. >> Can we get a copy of that report? >> You just you just completed it, right? >> I I just completed it. Y you'll definitely get and it's the copy too that you'll have to sign. Remember last month you had to sign so you'll have to sign it again. So you'll definitely get a copy. Got >> thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. >> Uh we got Miss Reed. Good evening again. Uh protocol has been established. So I will get right to it. This is the fiscal year 2026 uh amended budget as uh Dr. Whitaker presented to you. Um we were going to have some shortfalls. We expected that based on the budget. That's not We're not
020necessarily behind in reality for the most part, but the budget itself, we were significantly behind. So, the budget itself needed an amendment. Um, as we've talked before in multiple settings, we've talked about the fact that uh the budget wasn't necessarily reality that there was the budget for fiscal year 26 compared to fiscal year 25 was much less, which we had already explained that that wasn't making sense because it should have been automatically more because of pay increases and everything else, but it was less. So with less then we should expect to see less in expenditures but there were going to be more in expenditures at least in payroll and um that was going to be a problem from the beginning of the school year. So we again this was not where Mr. Bacon and I
021were operating at the time in this particular role that we are in today. So when we came into the positions where we are and we realized how far behind we were and that we were not operating within the budget then that was the first thing that we did that Mr. Bacon and I have been focused on ensuring that we stay within budget. Um but we were already behind. So how do you remedy that? That was part of the reason why Mr. Bacon came to you about the tan that we needed the tan to be able to make things balance out and to end the school year. Um we needed to these drawdowns like Dr. Whiteder was saying the drawdowns that are taking place right now that today was the deadline. That was because the Department
022of Education, the Department of Audits, they are changing to a new system, a new um accounting system if you will, if I could say it that way for you. And so they're shutting down for the summer. Normally, we're able to do drawdowns all summer long. We're not going to be able to do draw downs. Draw downs. Today is the deadline for the draw down. we should receive the money. Normally, you only draw down the amount of money that you have expended, but they're allowing us at this time to draw down not only what we have expended up until now, but also what we anticipate expending over the next month. Well, we want to be very conservative with that because if you draw down too much, then you got to pay it back. So, we're trying
023we tried to be very conservative with that. And for federal programs, the draw down that we just did is about $161,000, which is far above what we would normally draw down. So, the plan that we have to make sure that we stay within this budget that um I'm about to present to you was that we're going to take that money and put it aside so that it doesn't get caught up in the everyday spending. We want to make sure that it's there when we get ready for uh end of June going into July that this money that we're drawing down in advance that it is still there when we need it. So that's one thing that we're doing. Um we could have ended the year without doing an amendment but then it would appear that
024we didn't correct these plans. We want to make sure that it is clear that we are aware of what the plans are and we wanted to make these plans reality. That's number one. Number two, we went to financial review meetings and they reminded us about the $2,000 supplement that um Dr. Whitaker also just talked to you about and that needs to be reflected in an amendment. So, they're requiring us to reflect that in an amendment. So if I'm going to redo it to afflect that in the amendment, we might as well address everything at one time. So that's what we are doing. We are addressing everything. So there were more taxes that came in than we had anticipated. So we're reflecting that on the top line. We don't necessarily have to do it because again
025a budget is an estimated guess, an educated guess on what we think things are going to be. But we have more information since this is one month before this ends. So we are uh we have more information to base it on that no one would have had 12 months ago. We also um see in this that we added the $2,000 supplement. you see that line item, but again, as she just explained to you, it didn't cover that anywhere near cover that. So, we we already you approved that that we would cover it through general funds, but we also have to reflected in expenditures. So, we made sure that it's reflected in expenditures before I um redid the budget. And just in case you forget where the original budget was, it's in your proposed budget packet
026in here. This was the original budget that we had. So if you wanted to look back at that later, you can. When I took that and looked at actual expenditures, we were going to be behind by 934,269. So we needed to adjust it. Thankfully, we had that increase in taxes and this adjusted um line item for $183,371 that was added in. So, it's going to balance everything out, but based on the actual expenditures, because again, you don't normally do a budget at close to the end. You do the budget 12 months ago. So, but I had the luxury of seeing what where all of our expenditures went. So, we are adjusting based on actual expenditures plus some more anticipated expenditures for the next two weeks to get us to the end of June. And so
027that's what you're seeing on these line items under general funds. That's what's been adjusted is what's in a general funds. The other line items have not been adjusted except for debt service. The amount that is being paid back for debt service and what is owed um is more than what was budgeted. So we changed that and we changed these expenditures, anticipated expenditures on the bottom half of the page. And that's where we came up with this um amended budget. Are there any questions? >> Any questions? >> Mr. Go ahead. >> Hey, Miss Rearon. >> Yes, sir. Hello, Miss Rearen. >> Yes, sir. >> Do you mind explaining one part was muffled a little bit for me when you were saying about we air marked the money that it'll be set to the side? I was
028trying to hear what was that for. I couldn't hear that part. >> The uh the draw downs that we did today were is that the one you're talking about the draw downs the 161,000? >> Yes, ma'am. That is in federal programs after we expend the M. In federal programs, it comes out of general funds first and then you draw it down from federal programs to reimburse us. And over the summer, we're not going to be able to do any draw downs because their system is going to be down. So, they're allowing us to draw down what we have expended and what we anticipate to expend that's going to be applied to all of the federal programs. And so we did that. We estimated what uh we looked at what we thought for sure it was
029going to be and then we reduced that because we want to collect less just in case a bill doesn't come in on time or um if something like that happens if it comes in after the um grant expires. So we want to make sure that we have covered all of that. So we've drawn that money down. But some of the money again has already been expended. So, we're going to um pay back general funds, but some of the money hasn't been expended yet and won't be expended until after the end of June. And we want to make sure that that money stays set aside to pay us back at the end of June and that it doesn't get swallowed up in the general fund account. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Are
030there any other questions? >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Reed. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, we want to thank each one of you for being here this evening. Uh that concludes our business agenda and uh at this time we're going to move into executive session to discuss some personnel ma uh matters. Um can I get a motion to move into executive session? >> So move >> second. >> Okay. The motion been properly made by Mr. Butler and second by Miss King. Uh, is there any discussion? Okay, all in favor of moving into executive session, raise your hand. Okay, the motion passes unanimously. Again, we want to thank each one of you for being here and u we're going to move into executive session. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Happy birthday.
031Mhm. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey. Heat. Okay. At this time, can I get a motion to return from executive session? >> So move. >> Second. >> Okay. The motion been properly made by Miss Black Shear and second by Miss King. Is there any discussion? All in favor, raise your hand. Okay. The motion passes unanimously. Okay. Can I get a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation for the for new for for the two new hires? >> Second. >> Okay. The motion been properly made by Mr. Butler and second by uh Mr. Rouse. All in favor raise your hand. Oppose. Okay. I didn't get Miss King. Did you vote? >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. Uh so the motion passes. Uh 4 to one. Huh? >> Did you hear me? >> I did. >> Oh,
032okay. I'm sorry. Motion passed unanimously. Okay. Now, can I get a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation for uh the resignation? >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Okay. The motion been properly made by Miss King and second by Mr. Rouse. Is there any discussion? Okay. All in favor raise your hand. Okay. The motion passes unanimously. Is there any other? >> Okay. Well, can can I get a motion to adjourn? >> I made that motion. >> Okay. The motion been properly made by Mr. Rouse and second by Mr. Butler that we adjourn. Is there any discussion? Okay. All in favor for adjournment raise your hand. Okay, this meeting is now adjourned.