June 4th, 2024 - Budget Workshop 1

001[Music] w [Music] you your [Music] you [Music] o [Music] oh o [Music] June 4th 2024 walk kingan public school board of education budget Workshop number one if I can have a roll call please miss Gonzalez Mr riddle present Mr McBride present Miss Hannah Miss lensen presid Miss Fabian president Yu here we do have a quorum I do know uh board members Fabian and Gonzalez are planning on joining just running late and Miss uh Hannah was under the weather so she will be watching on YouTube with that I'll turn it over to you Miss po good evening board president board members superintendent colleagues and Community uh Welcome to our first budget workshop for uh fy2 uh the team the budget team is going to present the information if there's uh questions uh then I'll come up

002if need be Andy I think it's Andy Brian good evening everyone I will first uh start off in uh referring to the uh Illinois State Board of Ed uh uh operations budget passed by the general assembly dated May 29th of 24 we have some highlighted items on there those are items that pertain to WAN Public Schools um next slide thank you okay there we go so the yellow highlighted items are basically the um fundings that uh relate to WAN Public Schools of course Transportation you see uh orphanage tuition so what we're looking at we're comparing the FY 24 enacted budget which is the first column of numbers uh to the uh boxed in the first boxed in numbers uh comparison of FY 25 operations budget to FY 24 enacted budget and where you see uh

003evidence-based funding there's an increase of 3 50 uh it says thousand but it's in it's in millions so it's $350 million so the increase percentage is 4.2% so we're going to reflect a 4.2% increase in our evidence-based funding assuming that the governor uh signs it the other highlighted items we have transportation so look for we're looking for a slight increase in transportation costs uh orphanage tuition and if we go down uh to the other grants Career and Technical education programs 21.5% increase there we do have that as well going to the next page we have uh uh teacher vacancy Grant pilot program um and uh which we do have that but there's no increase in funding plan for 25 over 24 and we do have uh we get into individuals with Disabilities Act uh of

004course we have that too and Child Nutrition and Career and Technical education but you'll see that there's no increase in funding from 24 to 25 so a lot of these um items pertaining to aan Public Schools will be pretty much level funding from the state from 24 to 25 and that's basically what we wanted you to get out of it and I apologize but this is one of those things where what is being told is an additional 350 million were put into it so are we saying that's inaccurate information right and so we're fact we're going to factor a 4.2% increase on what we got what we received in 24 for 25 and you'll see a slide later on that denotes that okay so maybe I missed it because you said it was flat uh

005that one is is a 4.2% increase but some of the other grants that we have was so they shifted okay understand important for us to know from that what's important for us to know with the evidence-based funding $350 million is the base amount that was appropriated last year so there's been a lot of people lobbying to get more money into evidence base so that more of those school districts that are below adequacy can get up to the adequacy level so I think it was important although it may have been a question that you didn't intend to ask for that it was a good question because we needed to point out that enough money is not being put into the Avenue based funding model we're still tier one I get it it doesn't bump us up

006but like I I think what I'm understanding and I know I'm apologize bored because I do want them to get through the presentation but this was important is because I was actually encouraged so it's a small 4% increase but why that's impacting wke and Public Schools is because other grants that we received a decrease is that what I'm understanding zero increase zero increase from 24 appropriation so they they kept it flat yes so my frustration is it's being advertised as an additional 350 million but it's not an additional what I'm understanding is it's they're carrying over the same amount that they appropriated last year that 350 is only for evidence-based funding right yes and they're they're uh given us the same amount that they gave last year not increasing it which they were hoping that

007they would go up to I'm sorry they were hoping that they would go up to$ 500 and something million dollar so that they can increase the adequacy level for more school districts but they kept it flat and when we often say flat we mean gave the same amount does that make sense it it makes sense from what you're telling me that's different than how they've been representing it so I will reframe my comments I mean the state they have been they said an additional 350 million and additional 350 million is that would that would be additional not we kept it which it is additional that's why it it is additional they took away from other areas but she it's 300 they gave $350 million last year to us to districts across the the state districts

008across the they did not increase from $350 million to evidence-based funding that's what we're saying is flat wow so it's a continued amount that we serve but it's 350 plus 350 yes okay we it is a 4.2% increase right but when we say flat they did not give us any more than what they gave us when I say give us more than what they give us last year the value not the amount they're giving us 350 more yes but they're not giving us what they should I agree give us so I agree we're not where we want to be I just wanted to understand and it sounds like it's 4% but that we are moving because again they from my understanding the state can't go to fully full adequacy although that's been the goal right

009that's right and so what they're trying to do are incremental increases that get or should get schools like walk Keagan closer to our adequacy Target is because every year we should be getting whatever the max is there was fear this year that there was going to be a reduction so even if we were maintaining and holding flat that would have been like you said I can plan on that but but my understanding was that there would be an increase to evidence-based funding which means that there would be an increase to the percentage of the amount that walking and public schools was receiving there's a possibility okay and we're using that percentage increase of 4.2 in hopes that we would get a 4 A 4.2% % increase but we never know because it's compared to all

010of the unit districts across the state and so we just have to gauge it based upon this budget document but there's a possibility we might get a 2% a 3% we don't know is there a possibility sorry to interject to get 0% oh no okay we won't get Zer so there's still going to be an increase but based on our planning there was some logic used to say we're going to project off of 4.2 that's right can you help us understand the logic of why we're using 4.2 because historically the percentage increase that's in the budget document has been pretty close to what we've gotten and there's a slide that's later in the presentation that shows you the history of general state aid transition to evidence-based funding okay thank you okay do we want to

011go through this slide anymore or you're so patient with us okay we'll move on to uh uh General state aid evidence-based funding next and this is a nice nice graphic going back to 2014 back when we had uh General State a at the time uh starting out 82 82.4 million 2015 up to 88 million 2016 up to 95 million 2017 99 million and then and then from 17 to 18 a big jump from 99 to 120 million that's when uh the general state aid morphed into evidence-based funding and some other players that used to be separately noted in general state aid become a piece became a piece of uh uh evidence-based funding like uh tve transitional bilingual education and some of the U State um special ed uh claims But continuing along the years uh

012we have uh increases every year except from 20 to 21 we went down about uh 1% um and through uh 24 we're at 156 million million doll of evidence-based funding and then if we go to the next screen the difference is we we're adding fiscal year 25 at a 4.2% increase from the 156 million to give us 162 million so we are projecting 4.2% increase in our evidence-based funding based on the the uh Governor's uh legislation oh yeah and these numbers are after uh our deduction or our payment to learn Charter School the state takes learn Charter School payment right out of our our evidence-based funding and gives it the learn Charter and then we get uh we get the difference all right moving on to the Illinois State Board of Ed Financial profile yeah

013I'll do it so we have um so the uh the uh levels are the lowest level is a watch then early warning the review and then recognition so you'll see the last uh starting with 22 but uh you'll see in the next screen 23 is going to be the same as 22 we got a 3.9 score on 23 but we've got recognition uh 1 two 3 four five six and seven out of the last eight years which is the highest Financial rating you can have with the state it's based upon is ba based upon uh four four calculations that they do one is a fund balance to revenue ratio one is an expenditure to revenue ratio one is a days cash on hand uh one is a percentage of short-term borrowing maximum remaining and the

014fifth one is percentage of long-term debt margin remaining so we going through all those calculations uh they've come up with a profile score of 3.9 which is considered recognition the highest profile rating that we can have with the state all right moving on to property tax extension we have uh on the right hand side we have tax year 2017 at ,1 184,000 um and then we have tax year 2018 52 milon 48 you'll see the numbers the same in 2019 roughly the same in 20 20 roughly the same in 2021 so we've kept a level it did increase from 21 to 22 by about 300,000 that was due to a a new thing that uh the county did on this uh PAB recapture property tax uh appeals board recapture and then in 22 uh 23

015we kept it uh level with 22 at 52 million so 8,000 all right we'll go to Andy and he will take you for the first few slides for the uh the workshop uh before you uh step away we have a question uh Mr W so Brian I think it was with um I don't know if it was Item B Miss Hannah asked I'm going to read her a question could you please ask the question what are the percentage what do the percents represent in dollars I think that was the first slide you were showing I think it was answered uh if we just go back to the one that shows the increases I thought that was the last one but I did tell her that she still wanted me to ask so can you had

016the graph chart yeah so if you go to the graph chart I think that's what p is asking property tax nope not property taxes related to uh the evidence-based funding we had the you had percentages on it well no not percentages they had there we go there it is that's it that's what Miss Hannah is asking what that 4 4% increase equated to give me a wait leave that there please for a minute okay we're good so the change is the and I'm saying this for the record for those the 4.2 represents 6,555 N8 thank you Mr La okay and um apologies I have to I get frustrated with our state but this is good to see and so again I understand and um as taxpayers it all comes out of the same pot so

017we're just moving it around but I'd love to see us prioritizing um ebf and moving towards making that uh fully funded in the future years good evening ladies and gentlemen um for the next few minutes we're going to walk you through the YouTube next slide please the budget calendar is it really starts the day after the budget is passed by in September uh you can see there the days that are indicated that have significance for the uh District staff I bring your attention to for specifically we recently had the budget development committee where we shared the documentation you're seeing tonight with the community we also have tonight our budget Workshop we have a followup for that in August and we will close out uh after a month of review by the public at their choice

018uh they come to the district we'll have that information available as well as online and we will have a budget hearing where you will adopt the budget in September next slide please our superintendent starts us off as our educational and fiscal leader uh we have her statement which you've seen before I'm sure as board members our community members may not have seen that that's kind of our Guiding Light which we move upon next slide please again you can see our superintendent um commitment I bring the community's attention to two items mapping and Equitable education next slide please why are we here you can see the highlighted sentence for old folks like me have a hard time seeing it I'll read it the key emphasis ultimate goal is to positively affect positively affect student achievement keeping

019in mind prioritization of needs and allocations of resources so we maximize our return on investment always keep return on investment in our Mind's Eye next slide please this is a very simple chart that portrays a lot of steps if I could let me refer your attention to the left side says District priorities we start with a strategic plan we've gone through our first generation now we're on a second generation with destination 2028 our superintendent has shared with you her four pillars of enhanced learning family community engagement safe nurturing environment and diversity equity and inclusion at everything we do as our core based upon that the instructional and operational administrators in partnership with their staffs develop department and school Improvement plans those School Improvement plans come from forward in terms of budget requests and Department requests

020school as well as departments they're vetted through the various divisions to assure there's no duplication and we maximize the dollars based again upon need we move forward to the right we want to have a budget that is steady solid but not a a lot of variability we can anticipate what we need now and sustain ourselves in the future strategic next column to the right fund strategic priorities maintain our Financial Health we cannot support our schools and our departments if we do not maintain our Financial Health consistent processes consistent policies that support those processes ending up with our equal sign the stronger wps60 in the future than we have today with measurable outcomes which you see in terms of school Improvement plans and kpis next chart our budget considerations you notice the wheels they interwoven they

021mesh with each other and that's intentional collaboration we want to involve stakeholders we have our staffs with our ists we have our community members which I'll speak to later in terms of our budget development committees our departments and our schools speak with each other we prior prioritize based on need we do not roll over budgets as we used to do in the old days oh we have a million dollars inflation is taking place so we'll give them a million five that's not how we do it we have a list of needs so if resources increase we know what to do if our resources decrease we know what to do because we have a list of what we what we are doing and where we are going and finally sustainability we do not want to go

022broke we want to be conscious eye open and deliberate in what we do with our dollars the same thing we do with our instruction as well as our operations we had a recent budget development committee next slide please where we were fortunate enough to have Mr Marvin bbery and I believe this his fourth time he's uh served as our facilitator that was on 6th of May I'll speak in a second as to who is present so you can see the uh Community Shake shareholders that were in there as well as the staff the did a great job to refine and vet this budget that's being presented to you in its first form tonight next chart please uh it's a little small but what you can see is you have the senior staff you have the

023principles are involved you also see our families meaning specifically parents community members we were fortunate enough to have two board members spend a lot of time with us Miss Hannah Miss Gonzalez of course we we had Mr bmy and my colleague sty on the finance team again we looked at the budget in terms of critical needs next slide please now we're going to begin to take you across literally the landscape of the data for budgeting what you're going to see this evening is you're going to see the salary projections then the Operations Division the ASAP division we're going to talk a little bit about school comparability we'll talk about Capital Improvements for next year and for 20 26 into the future and we'll give you an overall perspective on projected fund balance when you see

024the divisions you will see roles and goals you will next see contracts and then you will finally see the expenses that combine for various departments we have that broken down for you as well as by the division as a whole so with that I'm going to yield the floor and uh Mr Chan I believe you're going to speak to um salaries and benefits good evening everyone my name is Nicholas chin under the office of business business and financial services here to walk you through the next few slides uh that show the uh summary budget figures by uh Department next slide please on this slide this is the salary and benefits projection um we will notice that under the education fund uh we're looking at a projection of 171 million in salaries under there and uh

02526.3 million in benefits in the education fund under the operations and maintenance fund approximately $4 million of salaries and about A5 million of benefits Pro Ed there under the transportation fund about $324,000 in salaries and $73,000 in benefits um under imrf and Social Security fund uh approximately $9.3 million in benefits and under the Tor fund about $1.4 million in salaries and $182,000 in benefits all totaling together in salaries 76,976 uh in salaries and then 36,5 38,6 35 in benefits you'll notice at the bottom of the slide that the assumption is that there is an average of a 4% increase used to calculate these projected FY 225 amounts next slide go back one please thank you there's only one um group of employees uh that's not contractual and that's the nonunion and so we have 4%

026here and we hope to in the next uh few weeks submit to you uh the raise for those groups my only uh question and clarification is this doesn't assume that we are at 100% staffed in this uh salary projection that's a good question um I look at all of those things I look at uh attrition I look at uh uh retirements I look at all of those things when I'm doing the salary projection and so those considerations were made when this was put forward yeah good problem is if that we our fully staff Board of Education we will overspend this number and if we struggle with Staffing as sometimes we have in years past then we don't spend the entire amount allocated but yeah so basically what we do is uh use Trend data uh

027that's the best way to do it uh and also we look at those who have already submitted uh for retirement we have to look at a a number of factors to do these projections and so we've we've not been off that much in the past last year so so just for clarification in these figures for not fully Staffing with full-time employees we have inserted long-term sub substitute salaries to make sure the buildings are manned just not full-time teachers right those those amounts are in there coupled with uh the amounts that we've paid for supplemental pays uh we also have to uh remember that contractual positions wouldn't be in the on the salary line but they would be on another line so we've considered uh all of those things and and so we're poised right to

028make the necessary adjustments if need be but at present this is our best estimate of what is going to happen next year one more point of clarification on that so if we do fully staff our district we've already allocated funding for those contracts so even if we don't need the Personnel some of those contracts we still have to pay for there's a clause a termination clause in all of our contracts all of them yes okay perfect thank you for confirming thank you okay next slide please so now I will walk you through the operations and maintenance uh portion of the budget the summary figures uh behind that budget request from that division um at the conclusion of this set of slides I'll uh ask Mr moton if he would like to clarify any of the

029details or specifics Behind These summary figures next slide please so for the goals and action steps uh mapped out for fy2 by uh this division um under fund 10 uh coming from okay so first of all looking at the chart the left column this is the department from where these uh budget requests are originating and then across the uh top row uh it describes what fund uh those requests will be uh budgeted to and then we have uh totals in the bottom row in blue when you look at the very bottom of the slide underneath the chart you'll notice that there is a link that link when you click on it will show you all of the details that make up these summary figures so um looking by Department um from uh wuty moton's office

030under fund 10 we have a budgeted amount of 497 th000 uh dollars to again accomplish uh the various goals and action steps planned for um fy2 moving over to fund 60 there's $70,000 budgeted there and the office of business and Financial Services Under fund 10 300,000 under the department of Crisis safety and student Outreach 2.7 million under the office of logistics 55,500 under fund 10 under human resources in fund 10 482,000 for the wraparound Center under fund 10 uh 289,000 uh and then in the oper for operations and maintenance looking all the way over to the right under fund 60 20.5 million in transportation and Food Service under fund 10 105,000 and then in fund 40 30,000 giving us the totals at the bottom of $4.5 million under fund 10 uh 30,000 under fund 40

031and 20.6 million under fund 60 and again that link at the bottom of the uh slide will show you the uh specific information behind those summary figures next slide please so here are the um f FTE requests uh for the goals and action steps from the operations Department uh from Deputy Molt's office a number of two FTE uh is being requested uh in a total amount of $170,000 to be budgeted for those positions uh that would be funded under funds 10 and 80 under the office of business and financial services 1 FTE being requested at a projected amount of 55 ,000 you'll notice there's other pay listed at 25,000 all of that to be funded under fund 10 zero FTE uh being requested from crisis safety and student Outreach however uh 639 th000 in supplemental

032pays to be covered under fund 10 no such costs being requested by Logistics no such costs being requested by human resources two FTE being requested by the wraparound Center at a projected cost of 90,000 to be uh out of fund 10 basically fund 11 is a a subset of fund 10 uh specifically designating grant funding from operations and maintenance one FTE being requested at a projected cost of 125,000 to be funded under fund 20 and uh three FTE stated for transportation and Food Service all of that totaling uh nine FTE uh total amount of 440,000 uh in if to to fund those FTE and then in supplemental pays a total of 66453 again the details of what exactly those positions and supplemental pays uh comprise of uh that l link is below at the bottom

033of the slide and I would like to point out as Miss pul has uh noted under operations and maintenance that 1 FTE for $125,000 to be funded out of fund 20 is a current vacancy next slide please so other expenses uh summarized by department and fund from the deputy's office 44,000 under fund 10 117,000 under business and Financial Services 468,000 Under crisis safety and student Outreach none under Logistics none under Human Resources 98,000 under the wraparound Center in fund 10 4.3 million under fund 20 for operations and maintenance 383,000 under fund 10 for transportation and food service and then 320,000 for that same Department under fund 40 the total stated at the bottom 1.1 million under fund 10 4.3 million under fund 20 320,000 under fund 40 and again the details of those uh projected

034costs uh in the link at the bottom of the slide next slide please operation and maintenance contracts uh again in a similar format as the previous slides none stated from the dis uh from The deputy's Office business and Financial Services 190,000 Under fund 10 16,000 under fund 30 518,000 under fund 80 under crisis safety and student Outreach 47 8,000 under fund 10 none stated under Logistics or human resources 295,000 for the wraparound Center under fund 10 2.8 million under fund 20 for operations and maintenance and then for transportation and Food Service 8.8 million under fund 10 and 12.2 million under fund 40 again the total is being at the bottom $9.8 million for contracts uh under fund 10 2.8 million under fund 20 16,000 under fund 30 12.2 million under fund 40 and 518,000 under

035fund 80 the details of which again are in the link at the bottom of the slide next slide please so all of that summed together by department and fund is on the slide bringing us to a total of 66 m815 1959 that is the projected uh budget amount for the division of uh operations so now I'll I'll ask if uh Mr moton if you would uh care to come up and speak on any of these uh details in your budget proposal I'm all right thank you Mr Chin and uh business office good evening superintendent board staff and community members um I did want to take an opportunity to highlight a few things um I would ask if we could go back to slide 13 which is the operations and maintenance goals and action steps and

036in parentheses strategies um yes uh one more please yes this one um so again wanted to highlight a couple things because we do have as the the department mentioned um doents link within the bottom of the presentation that go through in great detail uh the goals and action steps um I did want to take a moment to clarify the $497,000 within the deputy line item that's a little more than normal but there are some specific goals uh tangible goals within that that are in the link document um some of those items include um Regular ongoing consultative services for data review and scrubbing of our I Vision system which houses our hris and our business and Financial Services System also time and attendance implementation for the district um that is training and software for time and

037attendance recording for staff members uh we do have that built in a majority of our collective bargaining agreements to implement that initiative with Fidelity uh we are also coming up on our review of our Capital Improvement plan as well as a 10year life safety audit um so we have some of those costs that are not annual cost captured within that number and again those are some highlights of the Deputy budget they're hous within the deputy request even though they're going to be hybrid um initiatives that involve multiple departments so I wanted to make a take a moment to clarify that uh we do have if there are any any questions regarding to any of the slides Mr Chim presented uh myself as well as division staff members here to help support those uh questions well

038I did have a question I was looking at the cost for crisis safety and student Outreach and uh I guess the link is there but I'm just curious as opposed to uh the uh amount of funds that's being used what area of that uh subject there that the funds are being used for mostly because you got two different things you got crisis safety and student knowledge reach I I would I would want to say that the little student Outreach is taking the buck of the [Music] funds is that I was going to say but that but that would not safety student Outreach oh okay Dr sario can yeah so Mr McBride I I will say that um previously these departments were merged which is how it's reported here however student Outreach the specific requests associated

039with that department are within the ASAP requests which are in future slides so these numbers on this slide even though it states student Outreach and I do apologize it's for the crisis intervention and safety department okay and that's because that department was moved to as so for Clarity the 2,787 729 this is a security department request right not the Outreach Department included yes ma'am that's what I thought I just want to clarify exactly what I told you um I have a quick question on the the goals so one of them um under human capital and development is tied to anti-bias training uh for hiring managers do we know an estimated number of impact like how many people are going to receive that yeah so I believe the final number was approximately 57 uh 57 but

040that number is Ever Changing because as we feel positions or people transition in positions that may have hiring Authority we could see that number fluctuate anywhere to up to 70 to 75 people um so so that's there's some flexibility built in that but what we're trying to do is establish a a routine and process where we we have the training available for staff and then also if there's any questions if we need to have um face-to-face interaction as well as review of some documentation associated with that training as people are implementing the practices um this this is to support that effort okay um the reason I'm asking is because the video training which people would be paid for is less than 15 minutes so that 21,000 for 50 to 75 people for 15 minutes is

041quite concerning um so I'd just be curious as to yeah how how how we arrive to to 21,000 so if that's something you need to come back to in a later meeting that's fine but that's my big concern yeah sure and and we can certainly come back however I would like to say that you know the budget process is an annual process a lot of the budget submissions were several months ago um we're always looking to refine our trainings to be a little more robust specific intentional strategic so there's some flexibility built in here for us to have the opportunity to do that during the next fiscal year okay great thank you go ahead Mr bit I'm sorry thank you uh question and then a quick comment uh I I heard reference to uh uh

042supplemental pay and stiens just exactly what does that cover uh and and then the other my my comment is the way I understood it uh if a position currently had a long-term sub that's what was budgeted in there wouldn't it make more sense to uh to every position you have should have the the assumption that you're going to have a full-time employee there that's a good question uh we consider all of those factors when we're projecting um the salaries so how we approach it is to add we look at our system to see all of the positions that are currently filled and then there is an intentional uh review of those positions that are vacant so that we could assess whether those positions should continue right and so uh and we do that by asking

043for all vacant positions to be resubmitted during the budget process so that forces uh the system at large to do a review uh for those positions um that are contractual again we realize that the money is in the on the contractual line and so we're accounting for it there we also uh make sure that we have a contingency uh for those positions that otherwise would be created and or positions that we've not covered under the contractual line I hope I answered your question question but yeah we we really look at those things because we know uh as we've said before that 88% of our budget from 70 to 88% of the budget is Personnel so we we have to look at that uh thoroughly and Miss poke I'm going to ask a question and if

044the answer is we'll be pleasantly surprised I understand but my hope is that with the new contract especially for our teaching staff to have such an increase to that Baseline that we are going to fill more positions so my curiosity lies in how much of a factor was that in planning for these uh budget items um you know what I'm going to allow one uh Mr Chin where is he behind you yeah I'm GNA let him answer this question uh because uh we were intentional in what we did go ahead how did we allocate the money for the raises oh oh yeah so um so uh of course uh miss pulk being the astute fiscal manager of the district uh you know uh kind of looked out into the future of course and so one

045of the uh key steps that was taken was to put um a a bulk of the co money such as in sr3 uh specifically towards um existing uh staff salaries uh and benefits uh in the schools uh to support you know a a continued safe uh return to in-person learning and so to claim all of that uh reimbursement through those Federal programs uh which which allowed us to uh you know support future costs down the road even when those monies had expired and all been claimed so uh that was definitely an intentional and strategic move and something uh that that's helping us uh to sustain those those raises so I appreciate the recap maybe my question was unclear I'm more Curious on if we're looking at our staffing and we're looking at Trends and we're

046saying we're anticipating this many full-time employees teaching our students we're anticipating roughly this money to account for contracts or long-term subs or Subs with the new contract because we had been intentional with those funds to increase that base level how much of that contract potentially filling our full-time positions in bolstering those numbers was taken into account when projecting out what our salaries are going to be yes so I I'll just kind of rephrase what he said cuz I he worked very the team worked very closely with us and uh the superintendent and the board uh we knew that we were in negotiations we knew that the value of negotiations was going to be large and so we intentionally looked at the Esser funds we maximized them by um going back to FY uh 2020 because

047March of 2020 we could uh claim eligible cost and so we looked at Personnel in the schools that were eligible for reimbursement and we got what 25 22 million about $22 million reimbursement for eligible cost from eser monies we knew that we were coming to the board with $26 million over three years 22 million of that $26 million we got reimbursed from prior years that was in our books so we anticipated so and we and we budgeted wisely yeah so I think right now it and it's okay it wasn't so part of why it wasn't so the question in Miss poke is let's say because we increased salaries do we expect a 10% increase in our number of field positions do we expect the 25% increase that we put any of that into this and

048what what I know to be is you looked at previous Trends so you didn't take the new contract and say well we anticipated increase because of X you looked at what consistent Trends had been and and what I will say is that's also an approach that I would endorse is because while we did significantly increase our base pay two things that this board of education also did and it suggest transparency for the public we CT years of service at 10 years so individuals for the teachers right so if you are at 15 years in another District it may not be as attractive for you to relocate to walk so that is a way that we rewarded our long-term staff kept cost where Miss W was comforable with us keeping cost but also it's something that

049that we also have to overcome we realize that we may not be as attractive and as we moved our base other districts we're more competitive which is true but our also but other districts are just either as competitive or it just brings us out of the basement and into the convers ation so I would say is that the way that we are looking at it is in my opinion the best way to look at it is what have been our historic Trends and then basing it on that and if we do feel more and we start to see those trend lines change then we can put that into the formul the calculation okay that's the best way to do it because there's no I mean there's no other way because Staffing is totally Reliant upon

050students right and so as we've seen over the years uh fluctuations in the student down and up and that's not just in Wan it's across you know the state of Illinois and across the country right we have to use Trend data and so our office try to error on the side of caution by not bringing it down but rather keeping it level and putting a percentage increase on it uh because we could always make the adjustments after because it's so many knowns at this time right okay so just two quick comments so my takeaway is that we will be pleasantly pleasantly surprised but then obviously have to extort more funds than we're potentially budgeting for which is fine because I would like full-time teachers in our classroom so I I think but those those monies

051are are there because we would have Subs you you know what I mean so we've accounted for it it in some form whether it's Subs whether it's contractual or something we have it there and then we have contingencies in the event that we have to hire those positions so and again uh Mr um learon molon I'm losing my train of thought here Mr molon said that I mean a budget is fluid right it changes it's a living document and so as you know the priorities shift then the budget has to shift we have to move the money to where we have to move it if it's Personnel then we have to shift it from wherever it is to Personnel right so that's that's what we have to look at continuously throughout the year uh my

052second comment is I'm going to be very curious to see what the impact of the contract change will be for this next um school year and then how we will plan for future years considering it may be a blip in and everything but that's just a comment well that's why that's why we we initially explained it the way that we did we anticipated uh this huge increase of about1 15 you know million dollar $16 million and that's why we looked at uh Esser money not to pay that but to offset it because we shell gain yep right so that I mean that's it's all it's all a shell game it's just a a shell game but it's a legal Shell Shell game thank you for making that comment I see you m you still got

053the mical sorry thank you sorry sorry uh the supplementals would be overtime it would be give me another example of supplementals would be lunch duty recess taking an extra all that Duty yeah awesome thank you side note superintendent going on that is we did something where other school district struggled through um those negotiations we saw multiple strikes in other districts and other districts did not increase as large that would actually be something that I would go to market with is that walking in public schools is taking care of teachers it makes us more attractive as an employer um to even advertise what that percentage increase was it's because uh I think that could help us to miss um Ling's point so I didn't want to overstate is that yes we are a more attractive workplace

054and even some of the steps that we did um we should be advertising that to potential uh candidates y noted Mr Chen thank you uh so now I will walk you through the uh academic supports and programs uh budget request summary figures uh thank you uh so next slide so for the approved FTE requests from the uh ASAP division uh the column on the left you can see that is the uh requesting office or School uh the second column gives us a description of the FTE being requested the middle column is the value uh the fourth column is the number of FTE and then off to the right that would be the responsible person for monitoring that that work so we can see uh the offices listed to the left we have bilingual and Multicultural

055special education Glen Flora Elementary and North Elementary uh the uh corresponding descriptions we can see that there is a family support manager uh under the bilingual and Multicultural Department a newcomer psychologist and counselor under the bilingual and Multicultural Department a DL translator under the uh special education department uh prek teachers at Glen Flora prek PA professionals at Glen Flora a culture and climate specialist at North uh the associate values again are in the middle column all of those totaling at the bottom to 510,000 here are approved supplemental requests under uh the ASAP division again in the same layout as the previous slide with the responsible office to the left the description uh in the second column and the value in the third column so from the special education office uh supplemental pays being requested for

056the summer school coordinator at a value of 16,000 again under the special education office a SLP bilingual liaison um that would be supplemental pays towards those folks uh in the amount of 34733 at Washington High School or Washington campus I should say uh uh an additional professional Duty uh instructional leadership team stiped uh or supplemental pay in the amount of 31,2 57 at Oak day supplemental pays in the amount of 50,000 to elementary teachers for before and after school um activities uh Brookside campus uh again we see a instructional leadership team uh supplemental pay request of 31,2 157 and then at Washington campus uh a substitute teacher to assist with assessments uh in a request amount of 13,000 the total of all this coming out to 176,000 247 next slide a continuation of the ASAP

057approved supplemental requests uh at Lincoln Center uh that figure totals 2.6 million and then out at the schools that figure total is 3.4 million when you look at the link at the bottom of the slide um there is a file that you can go to to see the details that compose those uh summary figure amounts next slide so I've spoken on this uh slide specifically in the past so one of the things about being a title one school district is that districts that receive Title One funding need to demonstrate comparability and the amount of state and local resources that they um have at each of their uh School sites uh each of those School sites within similar enrollment levels and grade spans must be quote unquote comparable to one another basically within plus or minus

058at 10% uh per pupil amount so the um in in consultation with uh the ASAP Department the per pupil rates for each of the school sites listed on this slide is stated all the way over to the right so for example when we look at the first uh site listed that's Robbie Lightfoot with the site name in the middle and then off to the right we have a per pupil rate for Robbie light foot specifically of $1,226 99 when you take that per pupil rate and you multiply it by the enrollment of 81.5 that giv excuse me that gives you the uh total allotment amount of 100,000 for Robbie Lightfoot okay so that total allotment amount that is is the fourth column the fifth column all the way to the right is the per pupil

059rate the enrollment is in the First Column when we take that per pupil rate and multiply it by the enrollment we get that allotment amount for each of the schools you can see that the per pupil rate for the other schools in similar grade spans uh the next band being prek through five those being Carmen Oakdale Clear View Greenwood and North a per pupil rate of 88851 C per pupil that same rate applying for the K through 5 schools that are stated in the in the middle of the slide uh towards the bottom half we have the middle schools um again at the same rate and then the high school which is considered one high school although I know we have it split into three campuses here but it is considered one high school technically

060um as we reported to is so that per pupil rate is $918 when you take all of those site allotment amounts and total them together we get $1.9 million and that's stated at the bottom of the slide again the specific details of what that $ 11.9 million will be used for uh can be found in the link at the bottom of the slide so all the way at the bottom you'll see in the small print there is a link to a document with those details that's direct contributions that there is going to be pro-rated District contributions so we know that at the district level there's money that's going to the schools and that's going to be on a parata basis that we report it to the state but this is direct request so what Mr

061Chin just briefed are direct requests to the schools but there's some indirect request that's at the district level that's going to be given to the schools on a prata basis and that's what's going to be reported to the state as well so I needed to say just those numbers is not all that's going to schools there's other money going to schools Miss and I understand that we have to report our numbers to the state as one high school the 4,00 enrollment but just understanding the Dynamics of our district and knowing that aoec is our alternative school um and so there's um sometimes more supports there is there a way that we can get a breakdown of uh per pupil count at each building to see what that per pupil rate would be per building thank

062and I know you you don't have that like off hand but I I'd be curious to see that I the record Miss Pok said yes just the a okay moving on to the next slide please okay so um in the First Column again we have the uh office or um Department that the budget request is coming from and then in the second column we have the value um these are the ASAP division approved goals and action step requests so just looking through the uh responsible offices we have the office of assessment and data teaching and learning strategy and accountability English language Learners equity and inclusion diverse learners the office of the area superintendent student Outreach the deputy superintendent The Welcome Center and the eir Grant I won't read all of those numbers to you but

063when you total them all up at the bottom we come to 22.4 million the details of those specific requests again in the document linked at the bottom of the slide next slide um just ahead just a quick note for admin um I did open up that link and looking at the goals um I wonder if there could be a template or a standard set for how we're writing goals because some of these goals are super generic and even their description is super generic um that it's like what are we paying for what is the purpose of that budget line versus others that are more specific and detail and so it's very clear what that specific uh budget line is for so um if there could be some kind of uniformity as to how we're writing

064these goals and how we're writing the descriptions um because for example Community Support that could mean a whole bunch of things like you know are we talking about tangible goods are we talking about a service so again just so that it's a little bit more clear and that's just one example but but I'm saying throughout the the budget it's kind of hard to to know what that is like what we're paying so um thank you for that good evening um board president superintendent members of the board um colleagues and community members so that's a great question um and that's a great observation I I think one of the things here is that these the the way that this is created is so that's more General and Broad and so it isn't specific they're not line

065by line items um so you're going to see that more of the goals are written into um either responsibility or or the super eval and then coming down from the district goals as it relates to some of the items like an example might be the literacy initiative what exactly what we're doing what we're buying um but some of these are are General and I can let I can let Gwen speak uh at length about this but some of them are more General uh so that we can move them so earlier in this uh conversation there was a discussion about being fluid to a certain degree obviously when we're talking about Staffing it's it's got to be we we need to use that forecast because we need to have people in front of our our students

066and serving our our teachers and and so on and so forth but with other items we need some flexibility so that if we need to move um because something comes up or if we see that we're spending Less in one area and we need to spend more in another we can do that I totally understand that because we don't want to box ourselves and we know that needs change but when we're looking at even how the goals are written there's a wide degree where some are specific to tell you where the trajectory is um like it right so um even like the area superintendent goals right they're they're giving you kind of their specific of what they're going to do um and then it just tells you that they're going to host monthly meetings doesn't

067it's not very specific right as far as like what that entails or you know who they're Contracting for that I understand that but there's others that are a little bit too broad um to say for for example for the one that I picked under this one that happens to be under DL just says facilitating family and Community engagement Community Support they came up with that number right of 49,000 how did they pull that number they must have been looking at some type of Community Support to say cuz that's a very specific number 49600 it's not like a round Flex so so that's just one example so I don't expect um anybody to comment on that one so saying when we're looking at how these are written if they can be written so that we know

068the intent and so that we're very clear on our goals I understand how we get there and the strategy might change but we should know the intention of that department before you before you speak I just want to say that uh I understand where you're coming from I asked a question earlier about student Outreach it pops up again for 300 and something thousand and the question is when I hear student Outreach uh I could tie it to wraparound I could tie it into treny when I he so I'm just I'm trying to figure out I I know where you're coming from and uh that's kind of baffling for me but at the same time what is the which how you prioritize that what the district needs so to speak so at Le at least in

069terms of that information that you're seeing uh those are the action steps um these specific resources uh we would have to we would have to share no and I understand that the specific resources may not be shared because you may not know what professional development you're going to do to ACC the goal of professional development I understand that what we're saying is if we can get a little more intentional on our goals because you see some goals like I said for example the area superintendent are very clear of this is the direction that we're going so it's easier to prioritize when um to Mr McBride's point when we say what is the priority of the district we can look at those goals and kind of map them out versus something so General that it's like

070where does it line up in the priority because we don't know what exactly it's tied to yes so I do understand your question uh and in the process we ask for three things we ask for the goals the action steps and the resources the resources is where you get more information about like what you're asking um we didn't provide that here because I mean it's a lot of information right so we just wanted to provide the goals and the action steps so there could be some generalizations there but I think you would get the information that you're requesting when we provide at a NE at the next budget Workshop the full list of resources that's linked to these uh action steps yeah Miss poke at our next budget meeting can you also um with the

071slides put like Safety and Security on one and then student Outreach on a asop so it's not confusing yes internally or externally please I also think that where we have the description of jobs I seen um a manager for the bilingual department since we did adopt the new salary schedule the grade should be listed on those also as we move I know this was baked out before yes but that's something we should just get used to doing okay yes so I do want to tie back to miss fabian's point though is that we're looking for some sort of consistency right and so if we have a standard and an example of the community support under facilitating family and Community engagement if that's the standard we're asking is that the standard and others are going above

072and beyond so that we can get a gauge and if we as a board feel that the Baseline isn't sufficient we can ask our superintendent to say hey we need a bit more meat and potatoes I'm nodding yes okay so you're not in yes to say that I know you're in agreement but you get what I'm saying it's just again when you're looking at a budget for consistency's Sak you know you like I know and for transparency's sake for the community I know what some of these mean to say but it's not very clear and it doesn't convey the urgency of some of these things noted well noted we'll look I'm sorry that was kind of loud noted um we'll look at that um I know that um Dr Cesario has used smarty goals in

073the past I don't know what that is um we do have and I I'm not saying it's here but I'm just say I know I know that but I'm just saying like you've used the concept around smarty goals I know it's not here um but that is that's something that we'll look at I can't say we'll go to smarty goals I don't know what that looks like at this time of the year for the budget um where we're at in the budget process but I do think that we can um tailor something for what this looks like next year with maybe a standard format of what those goals look like and what should be what should be the consistency of them for lack of a better word I I'm not saying it may happen this

074year but next year um I do know Miss Patty um I I hear you listening to that so I know when we're looking at SI plans Etc that you're hearing what the board is echoing yeah so we have a budget meeting um between uh Lear and myself Gwen and Amanda to talk about uh things like that so we'll just add that to the agenda for that meeting so just to be clear for the board that we may not be able to clean that up this year at this stage but that is something and what we can we will but that is something we'll look at for the upcoming school year okay continuing uh again with the uh ASAP approved goals and action step requests by office so on this slide we see this is a

075continuation from the previous slide uh we see the uh office of uh it uh the 21st century Grant Early Childhood the teop grant uh the uh preschool prevention initiative Grant um the school Improvement Grant the teacher vacancy Grant uh the after school program supported by msel uh JROTC and the athletic department again all of those values stated in the second column totaling out to 9.1 million and again those detail specifics uh in the file linked at the bottom of the slide next slide here are the operating expense request amounts Again by Department it Outreach assessment and data teaching and learning equity and accountability bilingual and Multicultural education Equity inclusion family and Community engagement diverse Learners The Welcome Center area superintendence and the deputy the values stated in the middle column points of contact in the

076third column all totaling just over $1 million again with a file stating the specifics linked at the bottom of the slide next slide please so you move on uh I just want to highlight uh the diverse Learners that could you put go where they can be see sure you had it it was you had the correct slide that's that's the slide thank you it's kind of healthy you know and it's something to take a look at uh I'm talking to our board right now so you can move on I'm I'm sorry Mr McBride can you clarify well uh I'm looking at the uh the amount for diverse Learners and uh the question my in my mind why so much uh is there a Area uh that needs to be looked at uh because of the

077request for the operating yes go ahead I'm sorry no you're you're so you're asking about the operating expenses and why DL has so much so um I I have Mr Dave niss in here but I can speak to it to to a certain degree as well but it also includes some of the other uh materials and they have higher needs the the needs that those students might have so um there's additional equipment that's required there's nursing that's required so um Dave is the expert in this area along with Dr bubblet he can speak at length to it but that's probably more than likely why that cost is there especially because we we do have a shortage of nurses I I think that uh our HR team is doing a good job of trying to bring

078more in however we have to Shore that up with contracts so that we have those people there and I mentioned this um and I believe Dr bubblet may have mentioned it as well is that we have to plan for um for for needs that we don't even have yet we have to have people contracted whether they be nurses or um speech uh therapists or I I'm you know I'm just speaking off the top of my head but even if we don't have students that have those needs we have to contract now with anticipating that th those may arise because we don't want to end up in a situation where a student is uh has the right to those services and we can't provide them immediately so I I think some of those costs are are

079there I don't have a a line by line um but that's partially why that is much larger than some of the other ones well Dave did you want to add anything to that sir no I I think you'll have to speak to the mic please don't know exactly what is in that list but I do know that like you were saying we have had to purchase services from a number of vendors uh and that that money comes out of a different pot than the salaries and that may be part of it and assist of tech I mean there there's a number of different it's not only Services it's also required materials and resources for for uh our students that may have additional needs well I guess what I was M Ling was at uh wanted

080me to clear myself make myself a little bit more clear as opposed to what I was saying so what I'm saying is what you were saying you named off a different several different factors why the money is being used so I guess what I am looking at uh I see Down syndrome kids I see kids with artistics and stuff when I hear the learn but I think that there's another group of kids I guess that uh I think that we can do better in terms of trying to keep those kids from becoming diverse Learners that would save that would that would cause some of the impact here in other in in other areas that's where I'm coming from thank you oh sorry so yeah so I mean what I was going to say essentially is

081that diverse learner students have more needs so we have to allocate more funding from that but correct me if I'm wrong because one of my takeaways is that if we were able to hire more full-time staff we would see that number decrease over time because we're not using contracted Services it's a possibility but we're there's always going to be needs that we're unaware of so we have to have certain Niche positions we have to have those on contract because there's just a shortage overall we're always working to bring in as many you know we want to fill every empty position or vacant rather position that we have um but we have to we always have to to to to forecast just like Gwen does with you know the number of overall positions we also have

082to forecast with with what we have here as well but ultimately the goal is to bring in as many people as possible I I think I spoke to the efforts that that uh Dr Bub's team in their own right has taken going out to conferences working with colleges to recruit social workers and other folks um unfortunately there's just uh there's not uh we do have a shortage in some of those specialty positions and so um we we have to have that there but yes that's the goal if we did that we would reduce that number and then there was one more question I had around this so we also have another end of the diverse learner Spectrum where we have students that are gifted or have higher needs I'm not seeing in the breakout what

083the funding looks like for that population um and if it's something that just needs to go back to Dr bubblet as the head of the department that's fine um but that's something that we do have community members that are saying we're not doing enough for our higher Learners sure so with that you know our gifted program is accelerated it's an accelerated program six months to a year um you're absolutely right under under diverse Learners gifted students fall under that category our students the the ones that we're serving in the gap program is it's an accelerated program so we serve those through the tier one what whatever they're accelerated if they have additional needs so some of that is coming through through uh teaching and learning and through some of the other budgets specifically to what

084you're speaking about some of our students who may need more um we're we are working on that we're we're working on the policy as well so that we can make sure that we're addressing the unique needs of students yes so there is an attention to that but I just wanted to clarify that materials and things like that would come out of the tier one with with teaching and learning right because I want to make sure that we are differentiating because the Gap Pro program I was a part of it it's a limited number of students for the grade level right and we have students that may not be the highest of high to be in the top whatever to go into the gap program that still have needs outside of that gifted accelerated yes um

085so yeah I just wanted to make that totally agree say I just wanted to add um I do I did open up the spreadsheet so Mr McBride if you open it up you'll see the long list of diverse learner breakdown so it's not just the contract um to your point it's they also need a lot of different materials and supplies so um this spreadsheet I think is done really well to show the breakdown of everything and how you know it's not just the contracts but we it's it's a lot of supplies and child find is also under this um category so when you look at it that way then the number makes sense of the 64 glad you're pointing that out because some of these departments are rather large some are small and some are

086larger and our diverse Learners department is rather large so um there are a number of other smaller departments that fall under there so that's an excellent uh point to make I can see all the Poli stuff soble okay so this slide operating expenses uh Miss Fabian thank you for pointing out the details uh that you uh see next slide please now on this slide are the approved contract requests again with a detail file being linked all the way at the bottom so we can see that by Department we have the assessment Department diverse Learners The Welcome Center the eir Grant and it we have the fund listed in columns 2 and three we have fund 10 and fund 40 and then off to the right we have the responsible person uh the assessment uh Department

087uh having contract requests in the amount of 593 th000 diverse Learners in the amount of 12.3 million plus 2 million in fund 40 for transportation The Welcome Center 14,000 the eir grant 344,000 and it with 6.7 million totaling 20, 55,000 next slide so all of those figures uh coming out to a total cost of 65 M 28,5 and uh do note the uh highlighted or in blue in blue font right underneath uh figure uh this excludes uh salaries and benefits um and uh these uh compensation requests uh of million are not included uh in this figure because that's already been included in the uh salary projection from the first slide that I spoke on Dr SAR thanks thank you Nick so um just to highlight uh some the big initiatives our our high school transformation

088plan uh a lot of the work that's going there you'll see this woven throughout it's not found in one department or on line same with Middle School redesign um and our literacy uh initiative our Literacy for all initiative um is primarily focused in um teaching and learning or housed in in teaching and learning that was a uh considerable expenditure this year both for resources and professional development some of the that professional development will be ongoing but I I think with in collaboration with the board and and a lot of hard work with uh teachers and uh Lincoln Center folks we were able to really uh plan and move forward and we have a really great comprehensive plan moving forward um so money well spent in in that area uh the African-American Male Achievement initiative is

089also uh again it's not on line item but it's spread across a number my own budget uh included um um Dr n's office as well as some in the um in in uh equity and the face Department yes so um any other questions I'm I'm happy to answer I just think that those are large four initiatives and uh it's important that we highlight those in alignment to the the work that we're doing around our pillars I do have one question I'm going back again sure at uh what I seen in the uh highlights that you were showing and uh that was uh that's the trans uh dollars that we were spending in uh diversity learning Department transportation yeah that was quite a bit of money and the question is those are some of my concerns

090uh period uh dealing with uh those kids I mean are we going to continue to keep doing that I mean that's something going on year after year so um if there is a need we have to fill that need and so um it it depends on on what those needs are and I I think we have done a great job uh working within the division across departments to maximize resources and be really efficient with those resources uh but again I I'll go back to if there is a need that arises for a parent uh or or primarily a student but if there's a need there then we have to meet that need um my question Dr sure I understand what you keep saying there's a need why is it becoming such a need to have

091that kind of money every year for transportation go all right so I'm sure Gwen you want to special education Transportation has always existed because we're reimbursed from the state for uh regular and Vocational but then also for special ed Transportation so it's not uncommon for us to have that value well we had we had a guy by the name of my duck my myin uh can't take of Myers last and then Howard Atlas his pictures are still on the wall he was in special education and this have grown since theyve left and it never had been like that Gwen this is a lot of money for transportation the question I keep asking why I can't answer I can't answer the question why but what I could tell you is that I did uh talk to

092a number of business managers across the state to see if what the the average rate was and so the rates have increased over the years and so that would account for that but we get uh reimbursed a large percentage of special education Transportation uh over the years has been from 60 to 80% reimbursement for special ed so so that's that number is not uncommon well I guess it's not the number so much it's the disaster for the kids that's being moved around like that that's that's and that's not your that's your not your area expertise that's my problem so I what to be continue to be continue no no let's we we need I would I would like to respond to the why for Mr McBride and um Mr n if you can't answer that

093tonight if you can come back with that but I also think that and Mr McBride I'm going to assume here so if I'm incorrect please correct me okay but I think that Mr McBride is making a correlation of the transportation that amount being correlated with students that are receiving Educational Services outside of our district am I right that's correct and so so I know that one of his primary advocacies would be that we bring those kids back as as many as possible and we continue to drop that number so in this amount is that only included the students that are receiving Services outside of the district or also within the district cuz I think that may clear some something up this amount covers uh many students who are within the district uh I would I

094wouldn't care to speculate what percentage it is but a significant amount of this is students who may need a wheelchair uh lift to go to school or they they may need uh a cab that goes to their home because they live on a dead end there's there's a whole bunch of things that go into that and these kids are all in District in their neighborhood schools those are those not the kids that I'm talking about I'm kid about the kid is going to death planes going to connection going to all them different places those kids we can get a breakdown for that if you wish can you give us an amount so if it's 2 million how much are we spending on Transportation outside of the district you won't be able to answer that tonight

095before our next budget meeting if you could have that available absolutely thank you and then and then also to you're not just sending them there there's a salary that's the district is paying for sending them there those are the those are my issues there's a salary that the district is paying for sending those kids to all these different places and we can get you go ahead no I was just going to say we get you the numbers that's a crisis and we had we talked about that at one point we were talking about uh shifting individuals here down to the raap around to open this up to sa that I'm talking about so I think that's the budget piece right so it's year to year so step one Mr McBride when the board approved that

096plan was exactly what you said is to move individuals from here to the rap not the wound but the 214 Washington building right and so then the question becomes does it make sense for walking in public schools to set up the best program which is still the plan which would bring a significant amount of those individuals back again I'm not going to have that conversation tonight but in long-term Financial forecasting that's what we're going to have to talk about is prioritizing right is because you may say it cost 4 million and we may run an assessment and it may cost us 8 million right to do here in District so really like you said what's best for kids is what we should be prioritizing and nobody wants to be on a bus going an hour

097either direction right at the same time we have an obligation to make sure that students are receiving the services that they uh are legally um entitled to so I it's a both end is right now um I 100% see where you coming from and I would say is that the board is addressing that but it's addressing it through the two parts is we we don't have the current staff or spatial considerations in order to bring those students back we're creating the opportunity by relocating individuals from this building to 214 Washington BR I'm going leave it alone but it's sad to say the comment you made we don't have the current staff what kind of Staff do we need It's just sad to say man we we don't I mean it's very specific when I say

098that though I I do and I don't because if I have a student that may suffer from cerebral py right there may be very no no not that student you not that student that's DL student that's what I'm saying when I say even a student I've had to use out Services talk about emotional disorder students also need services that our staff cannot always provide because there are special certifications there are special instances and specialized training to be able to deal with these types of students as a parent I've had to outplay my own child and I will say it's not always a negative thing because if your child is receiving the supports and services that they need to eventually come back to your point to eventually bring them back so that where they're more stable

099and more functional then that's what that student needs and to deny a student you know that extra support I I don't agree with that there are instances that we do have to outplay our students so that they can receive the appropriate care and education obviously with the goal of regulating and hopefully bringing them back if we can because I know you're speaking more of our behavior and emotional disorder students there are some students that may not come back because we just we don't have that capacity internally it's a very specific and specialized field that can't be done through the contracts yeah well we have B wow Al m was not going to work like just having that I'm saying I'm saying what I'm saying is that we have these speciic programs right to avoid our

100kids going to some of them out outour with an emotional disorder you can't always avoid it because it's your brain it's a you're if you're neurode Divergent no matter what you do if that's hown students he got in there you going to tell me all them students got brain problems not all of them do that's not what I said I said there are specific students that need that extra support because they are neurod Divergent to be continued I think one of the components right is looking at a student that suffers from severe anxiety so bam and wow can give that supportive environment for students that have mild forms of it that doesn't take over their entire day whereas I think these students that are being transported are so severe that services like bam and wow

101aren't going to address address that need the need of my point is before they get to you they have a IEP and that IEP what comes with that IP is different issues bam and wow is supposed to be here to to to address those issues but guess what and and I keep saying as you was saying uh Carolina you got a lot of kids in there do not need to be in there that's my point I I understand but I'm just saying bam and w are not going to solve every kid's issue because I'm going to say it again you got a lot of kids and there do not need to be in there but that's a whole different conversation that's my that's my problem that's my problem I mean we're still going to need

102transport some kids out like that's what we're saying you're still GNA you can't keep all the kids here Dr Cesario can you just provide um or give some examples of most of the types of cases that would receive that transportation so one of the things I was going to say is sometimes our students come to the district with IEPs that require them to be outplaced they've never been a student in W Keegan so it may not be anything that they've never had a class here but they move into the district and we've had several of those um instances where we have students who move in and they're already placed in in a therapeutic center um and so they already have that but I think to miss fabian's point is that it's organic there are students

103that are born with um with with issues that are that require special attention um and it depends on the severity and there are the space that they have the attention that they the amount of social workers and um what all the supports that are there um are there to help them now as a as a principal as a a teacher I've had students who have had to have been outplaced and then they returned that's the goal um but there are students that's what the least restrictive environment is to the least restrictive environment so what it is that they need and when they need it um and and I understand the passion that you have Mr McBride that there there are students that you know in the past and historically across not just in W Keegan

104but in other places who have been mislabeled and I think the work that we're trying to do right now is to counter that but supports like bam and Wild are there to be uh for for us to be proactive their tier 2 and tier three supports so that we can meet the the social emotional needs of students they don't always deal with behavioral issues sometimes social emotional issues can lead to behavioral issues but often times and and and many times um there are a plethora of reasons people are born that way there's a traumatic brain injury there are a number of different things that require students to have a number of of different services so what I say is when it's required and it's needed we have a moral obligation and we have a legal

105obligation to meet that and working with parents um to to come to this decision and looking at the data so these students might be placed here they may have an IEP and that would be on on that you know we'd look at the data to see where we're going and what their needs are um that is the The Last Resort and it is not a large percentage of students I think that is kind of the question that you were alluding to like what are what does the typical student look like that may go there and it's they're there for a variety of reasons and often times it does help to regulate because there's a number of people it's like 8 to one and I'm making that up but it is a large number of people

106who are focusing on one student and so um I I Dave can speak more to this I can only give my perspective as um you know an administrator and a teacher um but um that that's where we're at it it is a need um it's not um someplace where we want to move students out and we've reduced that number during my tenure here we've reduced that number and we have increased the number of students in best but that's our goal um but it takes a facility and it and it takes and it takes more um we talked about having the the staff to do it and uh that's what we need and I want to jump in on Mr M is I think we're having two relevant but separate conversations this budget and this line

107item Mr McBride I get is we want to see it come down and what Mr McBride is saying is what are the proactive things that he can point to to say this is what we are doing in order to bring these numbers down right if if it is baming wild to your point Mr McBride is I don't necessarily and I don't want to put words in your but is that what you're saying is where are we spending money and resources in order to address the problem proactively as opposed to this is reactive well a little bit of both Brandon but uh I be be willing to to somebody said bring the numbers back of the kids that may be a mentor that we send a mentor that we send the UN buzzman that that we

108have over AOC those all that's part of the budget that divice divers and I know that but at the same time what's the antidotes why we keep doing keep standing and we just we just keep we just keep keep doing it year after year we we we understand more um I think our views around around um diverse Learners has evolved over the years to your point Mr McBride um is years ago there were different processes philosophies ways that these a lot of these students may not have been in a public education setting they were at home right and so now people know their rights they're coming they're demanding things from the public schools as they should and quite frankly there's a separate conversation that needs to be had similar to healthcare is we pay the

109price whatever that number is that they put out in front of us you heard them we legally cannot do it and so if the price continues to increase it's not a negotiation that we have and so to your point this number looks excessive cuz it is it cost a lot to educate these students um and so I think there's a both-end conversation is as cost continues to rise and school districts like at least I appreciate Miss pul is are our rates comparable to the rest of the the districts uh in Illinois and then are we talking amongst ourselves to say is this the appropriate rate is because these many of them are for profit businesses right and again I'm not that's not the thing the problem that we're solving this evening but are correct is

110these are monies that come directly from our coffers and are going to many for-profit institutions many of which do great work and as I mentioned support these students in ways that they need but we don't really control or set those costs and so um I do want to say that and I also want to Echo is that Mr McBride wants to be able to show what are we proactively doing in order to support more of these students to keep them in District 60 or return in return right or reduce contract costs I think so so one thing about the contract cost and I I think Mr Ying was alluding to that is that the the the transportation companies and the the price that they set is exorbitant I mean it's it's way up there so

111that's one of the factors but that would be a separate conversation obviously I think it's important for us to know that um we have a set amount that we get reimbursed for private facilities so we pay it UPF front but I can't tell you the exact rate for each of the facilities but that is that is established by the state and when we sub submit our private facility claim we get uh a large portion of that money back so we've been ranging what between 4 to 6 million maybe I don't remember off the top of my head but a large portion of that money we get it back I'm not be honest with you the money is there but the money made me uh speak about what I think that that's missing the money is

112not the issue for me the money is our babies keep getting oursource and at the end at the end of the result we talking prison the pipeline I see them later on down somewhere in state B Pontiac them same kids that I'm that we talking about here and that's that's that's my that's my real issue Mr McBride I think that's a it's a interesting conversation to have right because it's a very complex conversation um I've also been a part of a board reprimand where the student was outplaced and doing great and then they came back into the district with no supports and that's when the behaviors arose so I think it is a case by case situation and I think what you're advocating for is making sure we have the clearest picture available for all

113of these cases to make sure those students are outplaced if they need it but are in District if we can handle it is that what I'm understanding yeah but what I'm what I'm saying to you is what I see every day around me when I wake up in the morning some of these same individuals uh they didn't didn't got caught up in the drug but they started here right and uh Mr McIntosh comes up and talk it all the time because he probably lived it and understand it and he's probably his passion is like mind his same St The Same Spirit and we can see that when you hear prison the pipeline it starts with what I'm talking about right now putting these kids in cabs sting them all over the place and you were

114saying that they do come back I would be willing to bet you one of the ones that we sent out do not return here and I'm saying that to say I see them every day in the street right now the some of the same ones that went to WAN high school that I've seen at the boys and girls club and at the uh different programs that I was in Park District Junior Bulldogs they wind up coming here getting in the special ed having an IEP maybe having an IEP cuz they couldn't be still in the classroom or might have passed gas all the it all those little different things like that adds up to the IP and as a result they comes over they the next step is Dr Bubbles and from Dr bubbles next

115thing you know Mentor connections death the death planes I know all of them because I know that's where they all go but as a result of that I guarantee you most of them wind up down there and state Bill Paca Grand Bill somewhere down there so I am saying what are we doing to keep that from happening so again the proactive approach right so can we yeah so Mr McBride I hear your passion and this is something that this is an issue or initiative that you Champion all the time I would I'm going to ask my team to come back and be able to answer those questions for you but as far as the budget is concerned if we can please separate that cost of students that are being transported out of District versus in

116District so that he has a visual of that um and that and can give some context to that and we will come back with another presentation on um I mean you said a lot so and I've heard you I really you're talking about the prison of pipeline mislabeling of students um what are the preventative U measures were putting even prior to giving an IEP the mtss process Etc and so we I I have heard you so we will come back and we will have that conversation with the board and just on another note Mr riddle seen him I know he's seen him because he worked in the jail yeah not and and I do apologize but it's it's so we we've identify one point which is literacy yes right big and so to your point

117Miss McBride there are people who find their way into the school to prison pipeline throughout placement we know about that many individuals who are in present right who have IEP but not everybody who has IEP finds them way themselves into uh the penile system right but it is one of those Pathways uh but same for literacy is if if you don't graduate meaning there are so many of our students and my friends so when you talk about those Co those kids that you coach that are now may not have made the best life choices and decisions many of them didn't have IP right many of them graduated or did not graduate with a high school diploma and that's why I mean by we're having two separate conversations how we how do we support more of

118our students and get them to stay in school right be it with an IP and the adequate supports or without an IEP and getting to that high school diploma is because there's a lot of I think assumptions and I I want to have the conversation when we do have the the numbers but I also want you to know no we talking the same thing Brandon we the kids are kids and and and the in the issue is the same we talking the same thing the same ones that you talking about didn't get the I didn't didn't didn't have to go into special a that was the same that we talking the same thing still the issue is the same right so the outcome regardless of the I or is is is that wasn't the termination

119and so I think they're better support and that's why I go back to I believe the conversation and one thing we want to look at it is the budget is a moral document so while it seems that it's not related this is actually very related because it can help Drive our priorities and where we want to spend funding and resources and so as we've been talking about increasing the school year and increase in the school day we saw direct line items as it related to some of the things that we wanted to do with our black male student initiative right all of this is related around how are we proactively addressing some of the concerns that Mr McBride is bringing up along with long-term forecasting is is going to cost money and resources in order

120to return even a larger percentage of these students so for every action there is an opposite equal reaction and we as the financial stewards of the district have an obligation one to talk about it so I do want to stress that point is this is a very relevant conversation to where we want to go but I want to have it in an informed way so uh the takeaways that I have as the superintendent said that she would come back with a presentation as it relates to what is our current outplacement um and then and when you bring that presentation back the the two points that I know the board is going to ask they're want to going they're going to want to see that breakdown based on ethnicity and race and then they're also want

121to going to want to see that breakdown uh where we can look at percentages but if you have a percentage also make sure that you have the total number of students that that represent right uh so is there anything that I'm missing from that one no we moving we moving in the same direction we trying that's why the wraparound is coming that's another that's another resource you know two real quick and then I want to get them through the presentation I just want to stress that an IEP is not always a negative thing and so when we're framing these conversations we need to be very clear an IEP is there and it's a legal document for a reason because it's an individual plan for a child that needs it and so when we're having these

122conversations I want to move away from huge generalizations of in you know statements like they get the IP and they go to prison that's not always the case and I understand your intent absolutely that there are kids that are misplaced um or you know mislabeled but and and it's been it's not just a Wan issue it's a national issue where people see an IEP as a deficit or something negative and I don't think that's how we should be framing it and last point because I want to do an end I think we have to understand the historical context right so the historical context is that in many black and brown and this is a generalization but communities we've seen the Ed label used in order to exclude right and it may not have been intentional

123I'm not here to talk about all of it I just know that that has been something that and what Miss McBride is talking about is individuals P placed in a basement with without windows with three people in the class and not receiving that um great level content all those things that we have known about seen and even experienced we in walk Kean Public Schools also the state have started to say that is not the way that we are doing business and I have to acknowledge that um and I also have to say is it requires education is because like Miss uh Fabian said is that there is uh individual what is it education plan right but our parents have to understand and hold us accountable to making sure that we are meeting what is stated

124in the IEP right superintendent did a IEP audit if the student is required to have additional time for testing are they getting that additional time for testing because if they're not to Mr mcb's point they they're not we're not meeting their needs the needs of the IEP and so to your point is is if we actually meet what is required in the IEP many times we can keep that student in school with those supports right so I think that's the both end is if students get them we have to make sure that one they're accurate that they actually and and we have rare good staff to that point that are doing that um so I don't want to generalize but that the I is accurate and then that we are following the what's in the

125IEP plan and that we're communicating with parents so that they understand what their um rights are and can advocate for themselves so uh Miss linding final point on this one and then I do want to get through the rest of the presentation okay three fast things um so I'm glad you brought up the parents can Advocate they need the supports in order to be advocates for their students because they may know their kid they may not know the system in which they operate in or what are the possibilities out there right so that was the first one second um thing we also need to consider when we're talking about historically how individuals have looked at IEPs and them being a negative another aspect to Mr McBride's concern is changing the narrative around mental health because

126many of us more than I would like to um see rather still believe it is your choice well not that it's a choice but that you are broken in some way because you all you need mental health let's we all need mental health we all need life coaches right but mental health awareness but access to that varies and so if you feel like you can manage it yourself you may not go and some people think oh I don't want for whatever fil the stigma fill in the blank right the the last point I wanted to make and this is for the board when we talk about the school to prison pipeline it's more than just the schools so we will be as a board doing more or sorry as much as we can for our

127students we every one of us is an advocate for them our Administration has been advocates for them but it's bigger than that you have to engage with our representation to say increase the living wage I was out there and I think it was November with representative Mayfield and senator Johnson and I asked why is the living wage so low like to be in Lake County you need $19 an hour just for yourself that's not including a family and they got it to $15 an hour so we as a board make too much right right and so there's so many issues with the system so yes education is a sector of it but there's multiple public sectors we have to look at the health sector we have to look at um what we are paying people

128so they can afford board a roof over their head food in their bellies you know to save for emergencies Etc so the Board needs to be advocating for that with our positions with those that we encounter we need to encourage the community to start demanding more of our Representatives because that's another component of it we can address our slice but we need everybody to hold other entities accountable so that they can address their slice I'm off my soap box sorry Deputy Cesario or Mr Chin whoever um you go ahead sorry yeah I'm done I don't thank you Dr thank you thank you all thank you Dr CIO uh we're going to continue on with three more items under 3F or three foxtrod we're going to talk about Capital Improvement projects in fy2 capital Improvement projects

129in 26 and Beyond and we'll close out with the uh fund balance projections as a postcript uh Mr Lua spoke to you earlier about the um Financial uh profile of the district going from watch in the earlier years to recognition now I'd like you to pay attention to look at a column called cash on hand it's 168 days board policy asked for 90 and I believe when our superintendent assumed command of our district as we say in the military it was in the 70s we were talking about that downstairs so we've made a Quantum Leap in terms of prudent and Vigilant financial management so with that I'm going to yield the floor and Miss Pope are you going to talk about the capital Improvement for 25 and 26 and Beyond we're going to go go

130go through this relatively quickly but this was a request I think at the last board meeting uh from Miss Hannah regarding to a list of uh capital projects uh that we anticipated uh for the $30 million right and so tomorrow we're going to have a rehearsal for our um uh briefing with standards and pores uh president you know I am portet is uh that's our bond rating so it's going to determine uh the interest rate that we'll be able to get for this $30 million so we have a rehearsal on tomorrow with Elizabeth Hennessy and her team and then on Friday uh Friday we're actually going to have the live um presentation to standards and pores and so this is the list of projects that we intend to present to them we project that in

13125 we're going to have 20.5 uh million do almost 20.6 million uh in expenditures that we're going to spend using the um Bond money the working cash Bond money um the values are listed here on this first slide you see 11. uh N I don't have my glasses so like 12 million here next slide you'll see that we have 4.3 uh million uh listed there and so the details are are as listed okay you'll see on that initial slide I didn't point that out that we have a contingency there uh because we know that this is a document that's living and so we're more than likely going to have additional projects that we'll add here to equate to that 20.5 all right next slide go through this one go through the next one the next

132one and here we have the 1.9 rounded it's listed next slide okay so we want to look out into 26 um based upon the information that we've received from operations we have about 22 uh or $23 Million worth of projects uh those projects are listed in the F on the following pages again this is a living document and obviously in 26 some of these things might change because we might have more things that happen with our buildings that we have to make the appropriate adjustments any questions about capital projects um I just want to highlight what I just did a dance for um and that is the mobile classroom removal I hope the focus is on removal Andor replacement um and I'm glad to see um Outdoor Classroom on there as well my only concern

133is with the removal I'm not seeing gymnasiums in 2026 um so I'll be monitoring for that over over the years I I also want to right Miss lensing I apologize I thought you were done speaking oh you're no I'm I am done I also remind the board that there's a capital Improvement committee that will be looking at the initiatives for the upcoming years so these are not set in stone and they do go on priorities yes and it also goes off based off emergency so if we have a furnace that breaks down or Etc that may need to be dealt with also so there can be change here to miss Ling's point and to Mr M rise point and even to um some of the comments that uh Miss V shared last week right is

134and what Miss poke reminds me of consistently is we can't do it all and we can't do it all at once and so as we look for for every action there's an opposite reverse um reaction and so if we do want to move towards exploring what it would look like to have um full or gymm every day in the elementary grades we can we can go down that path but that may mean that we have to make a choice I can't hold taxes flat Mr vich I can't you know so again for every action there's an opposite reaction so I do think superintendent to that point is if the board authorizes it uh and I see Deputy moden in the back is bringing in an expert who can possibly do that assessment for us like

135we did when we did prek or kindergarten for the gyms for the gyms just to think about because again we don't want to go off of assumption we have to actually have a true understanding of what it would take CU if they come back with $120 million price tag is that something that walk King and Public Schools is going to commit to and we owe it to the public one to show them what that number is yeah and why we make the decision that we are making and so from the CIT Improvement committee I see stuff on this that been on there all five years I've been on the program is because the Outdoor Classroom was approved four years ago uh the get rid of the mobile units right but for all of those actions

136there's an opposite reaction or impact that we have to consider so I just want to put that on the table go Mr oh sorry go super we'll definitely look at that um but I don't need to say this you all know that we have a lot of need like we have parking lots that need to be repaved we need Windows um we there's a lot of needs so I don't and then we have a new another life safety audit coming up so that's going to also dictate a lot so I just want to manage expectations of like when you look at everything I don't know where that fits on the priority if it's one or if it's ton but there's a lot of things right now just that need to be handled just to sustain

137having kids in our building and being being being able to operate Mr MCB yeah I was looking at uh noticing whys feel um I know miss Hannah's always brought it up she would love to see that be renovated but one thing I and maybe I could be wrong the locker rooms over there for a football team has anything ever been done to that I think at one time you guys painted it right Le not paint paint paint is one thing but when you walk into that locker room I mean it it's uh the water's leaking she was she was being fous yeah but I'm oh but I'm saying I'm anything cuz the year is getting ready to come for football season and to me that's a I mean that's come on now so I will

138tell you uh we definitely need new facilities as far as the football field locker room even at the high school locker rooms I'll let you speak to what has been done at the locker room but from my experience um with the wagan um bulldogs not the um our feeder team not very much um so Mr Molton I'll let you address that I don't I don't get a chance to get to the high school the locker room I'm talking about the one over on Lewis yeah yeah so we have made some modifications to the locker rooms at the school but as far as Weiss field as you can see on the list um and this this is also in the capital Improvement plan um that would be wrapped into an overall renovation so we've done as

139superintendent said the junior Bulldogs and the main locker rooms for the uh like under the bleachers at the high school it's it's really not been significant major Capital Improvements Mr McBride um just just to be honest with you there have been some cosmetic things that have been done some lighting replace we've looked at some of the doors to access the areas uh mainly for safety reasons and loab ility and functionality but no major Renovations because we have discussed the Weiss field renovation inclusive essentially everything with the exception of the exterior lights that were put in a few years ago um to be re abbed replaced remodeled um really from top to bottom are we talking about outside and we talking about the locker room WiFi the locker room at wisefield well that's not what I'm

140talking about I'm talking about that the shed over there that's part of the wisefield but Brandon I'm talking about the inside understand we talk about everything on that property like Weiss field the the tennis courts baseball the Fieldhouse everything on that property is yes everything inside the f yes so to your point it would include that the locker rooms that you're discussing yeah but I mean you had you had Dwayne Springs was over there I mean he talked to us about but he didn't have to talk to me about that it's pitiful 100% so $13 million is how much it cost is that's the quote so again I agree is pitiful but as I said every every and I do I I mean I agree and our students deserve to be in top tier um

141facilities but if from the priority ation which the board have to choose $10 million roof $13 million soccer field or not soccer field but football field Miss and I got a lot of people I'm shut but Brandon what what what what would be the cost to go in there and just give it a small uplift because be decent enough Mr Le be it's like like upkeeping an old house you open a wall and there's 20 problems you didn't anticipate yeah we then you're talking about the same thing of you're doing touchup but I was going to say I don't want it to be lost um that operations has been doing an amazing job because the priority is academics we would love to be able to do it all to Brandon's point it's a give and

142take we only have one budget and so if we do this we can't do that if we do that we can't do this and previously teaching in the district I will tell you on days like this it used to rain inside of my classroom I used to have holes in my wall where the wind would blow in and so we have done a lot to improve the structural safety and just day-to-day learning enir the the day-to-day exactly the day-to-day learning environment the classroom setting um that academic piece because kids can't learn just even the air conditioning kids can't learn it if they're melting right they can they'll survive but that was a priority that the community also wanted and so we listened to also the community and what parents wanted my point being that I

143don't want it to be lost that there have been great gains and great strides in the look and appearance of our buildings and that learning environment and I think Sports is absolutely important but that's secondary to what we do we're here for academics and so the priority should be our learning environment and then academics or and then Sports sorry so can I just jump in and I just want to applaud the board together because for the past eight years the board has made intentional efforts to ensure that the our buildings are up to par for our students and there has been a lot of work done we're not nowhere where we need to be um but we're in the state of repair patch and not actually re Ren full Renovations this is where we're at

144now and it's going to take us some time to get where we're just now maintaining so I mean the board has taken a very bold stand in this area um along with the district um and so that's what you see there I do believe though all of it needs to go hand inand because kids you know stay in school for multiple reasons and want to be involved in extracurricular activities and so somehow we have to balance all that I mean our business is academics but I mean they do yeah coincide right yeah I know but yeah got to balance the budget yes Li um I'm just going to make a comment and I'm not expecting a response with this but in this conversation it's not lost on me that we talk about the day-to-day education

145of our students physical education being one of them so that they're being healthy and moving their bodies and we are instead of doing gyms focusing on Weiss field which again our students deserve everything but I just have have to make the comment that while we're focusing on academics physical education is a part of that so I'm not expecting a response on that that just struck me and I I had to make a comment Mr R yeah I would just second what's been said by Miss Fabian uh with Miss linding said and what the superintendent said that that we've made great strides um but the the children do and sports is very important but our children do live in the buildings and we've made great strides in improving the buildings for the staff and for the

146students uh I see one item on here that is the students keep telling us about at the Mikvah challenge they kept bringing it up in different booths that I went to and that was the bathrooms you know and so I'm glad to see that you know we we continue to renovate and look at the bathroom situation because the bathrooms are used every day by all the students and that is something that is very important to them they otherwise it would not been on three or four or five different mikah challenge groups who were talking about the bathrooms so I'm glad we're focusing on that as well and to to reaffirm um what Mr McBride is saying because I don't want it to be lost there are small wins um and I think sometimes Mr McBride

147we have to like a slide is broken or you were an advocate for if the scoreboard is broken at Lewis replace the scoreboard right and knows an easy and they did right it was an easy fix and so easy fixes execute but I do think that we have to be strategic about again if we going to spend even $100,000 $50,000 on the locker room but the plan is to tear it up in a matter of two to three years to go in and replace the the whole thing and I think sometimes that's that's a dipping ball and that's what I'm saying so if the if it's on the plan we can communicate it to the community this is what's coming cuz I'm sure the taxpayers don't want us to you know you what is it

148measure twice m b is always reminded us that I'm sorry to you but it cut once is because if you make a mistake that could be a $300,000 decision right and and that's something that could have went to somewhere else like those scoreboards so I appreciate that advocacy and I do want to the heart of what Mr McBride is saying if there's small things that we can do to improve the the value of our students right uh we should be taking those opportunities in order to do them if I can I I have to do this because this is my job I caution um uh everyone that as we read the newspaper across the country there are a lot of school districts that are encountering Financial challenges our district right now is not in that

149position so the Strategic budget process is not something that's nice is necessary so that we can identify those things that are the highest priority for the district because we cannot do it all uh our job in the business office is not to say what you do what you don't do none of that our job is to say what is available fiscally in order for you to make those financial decisions and so we're at that place now that we don't have the 80 million or so that we've had the luxury of having over the past few years so we've maximized the use of that money as we explained earlier we also at the board's Direction didn't go out for bonds but we put 30 million 30 million and prior to that over 20 million out of

150the ending fund balance so now we're at the place now that we have to go back to where we were before we had eser money so we're not where we were years and years and years ago but we're not where we were in 2020 and 2021 so there's one bucket of money grant money state money all of it goes in there and so all of the requests that we've provided to you tonight it has to come from one of those sources it's not a bucket of local and then we come up with extra stuff on the grant side no it's one bucket of money all of the requests have to be funded by either local which is General state aid property taxes corporate property taxes or from Grant sources and so that's why we go

151through this process so that we can let you all know where we are I am optimistic but I I would be a Miss if I did not tell the board by way of the superintendent that we need to be strategic we need to ensure that we're not only fiscal s fiscally sound for 2025 but we have to be fiscally sound for 26 27 and 28 those are the type things that standards and pors will want us to say and at this point I will stand flat-footed and say it but we have to I'll say again but we have to be cautious about what we're doing because there's a lot of information we do not know at this time we don't know if pration is going to happen we don't know what you know we don't

152know a lot of things we don't know if they're going to reduce grants we have no idea we're only making projections based upon historical Trends remember our salaries went up significantly that becomes the new base that is the new base and so we move forward from that if we have 3 and a half% we have 3 and a half% on 22% you see so so we have to consider all of that when we're moving forward in future years so as you as you as you give us that synopsis I want to rebuttal and I'm not going to respond to the rebuttal that I'm going to speak about we talking about fat there's a lot of fat there's a lot of fat to that I think that we using that we don't have to use in

153a lot of different areas I'm not going to speak on it but I I could if I did have to speak on it and do a presid ation I think when I got done I would be sufficient in my conversation or my my delivery in terms of that fact that I'm talking about uh that's being used in in in in the budget uh that I think that uh we don't need and going forward you know I think some conversation needs to be not with you with this board in terms of a lot of fat that's and I heard it a lot I heard Ray vukovich talk about it I heard several people from the community talk about a lot of fact in a lot of different areas that we really don't need but that's not

154up to you I don't know how to respond to I know you don't know what I respond because I ain't because I haven't responded to the fat I'm talking about that's why you hav't said don't that's why you can't and I'm not going to do that at this point I think there but I can if I can if I can say that there's a lot of discussions that are being had when we're go through the budget process before it even comes to this point so there's a lot of deductions a lot of prioritization that happens before it even comes to this point but I mean we do have to be realistic about what we're capable of doing and I and I applaud the board I applaud the superintendent I applaud the administration for being able

155to tell our story because I think someone said I think it was you board president said that you know we need to advocate for ourselves we need to be able to tell the legisl that we're not getting the money that we need in order to adequately educate our students every chance I get every chance I get we're at 69% adequacy that's low9 still at tier one and then at at the desire of the board the superintendent has directed us to keep the taxes low keeping the taxes low means that we lose that money for years to come so it's compounded so we lose that base so maybe that's something that we can consider it's not a large amount of money but it is money that we're losing uh annually compounding what Li say um yeah

156so the board has been and you showed on the slide since 2018 and has been very clear throughout the conversations that we want to keep the taxes level right the board has been very clear about that what I want to touch on um is as you are going through we can't plan for the future we don't know what's going to come this is another call to action for the community as you make decisions electing representatives at all of the levels you need to be mindful of what their intentions are right so if there are candidates that their goal is to Define education when we look at the sources of funding that we're getting those are going to either go away or decrease or go negative from where we want it to be so people need

157to be mindful of that another component is that our district suffers from the impact and Miss Gonzalez has said it before and I have reaffirmed it and I'll do it again our district suffers from the consequences of white supremacy has been redlining to cause the financial structure that we are in as a community and that ties back to the property taxes we don't have an equitable property tax system right I see more than just going to Stevenson but there social media posts of kids with these amazing facilities from a that you would think is from a multi-million dollar company and it's their school and it's even Beyond collegate level in some respects but then we have our buildings that we have to decide if our kids are going to have a new track to facilitate

158our athletes if we are going to have new rooms if we are going to have mobiles Etc so as people start to look at our numbers I am going to urge individuals to also look at that big picture to see how we can sh shift it and make it Equitable for all children and not just those who have access to resources because of historical decisions that people alive today had no ties to off my Soap Box any other questions about that I think to miss Lindon Point tax base has a lot to do with that when you start looking at influential areas like Stevenson you got to look at the people who stay down there and you got people down there uh have money that they can say all of a sudden as a taxpayer

159you know what I'm I'm going pay for that gym and you got people down there you know could do a whole lot of different things I mean you got again you got to look at the that am I correct Brandon you got to look at the community you got doctors lawyers corporate people down there and so that makes a difference when you start looking at walk Keegan and that's the that's the argument I thinking that's what we're all saying is that we have to be financially responsible with the resources that we have while also drawing a line and pointing back to the systemic issues that are why we got in this predicament and what we're trying to uh move out of right so Eva is a way that the state is trying to address that

160but we always we already talked about the issues with Eva our state rep has talked about school consolidations which will help many districts our own ISB does not support school consolidations well they support it by choice but if we look at the history of why there are as many school districts in the state of Illinois as there are in the state of California well you you you start to understand about how some of these things happen so I do want to say is that's why I'm always when we talk about the teacher crisis when we talk about these things I can't talk about it as a walk Kean specific issue I can only talk about it in the context of what is happening at the State national level so there are things that we can

161do that we have control over to be a more attractive workplace and then there are 3,80 vacancies in the state Illinois both things are true right um and so with every dime and every dollar so to your point Mr McBride this is the work and what what Miss po has said what the superintendent has said what the administration has said is these are our recommendations based on influences and input by the board on what should be prioritized and I tell the board this every time because I do it if you feel that there is fat this is the time to say I don't think that should be prioritized because I wouldn't call it fat I would call it different priorities is because you might have 300 things on this list they're literally a a a

162line item for each of these things we run out of money on line 108 so everything below that line is a priority would be good to have but we may not be able to fund and so what do you do you go hey I don't think we should spend 100,000 on this thing I think we should put that money towards this and if we do that as a board we can that's how we proactively come together and work on it but as a board to miss pokes point we also have to be consultative is because if we say hey she she's the one who's going to tell us this is the impact of that decision right and the superintendent says if the board makes that decision which is their right these are the things that

163we won't be able to do and that's how you have a collaborative conversation that's why I like this budget committee meeting it's not well attended but this is the most important work of what we do as a board of education right um in my opinion right and so I think where we put those resources is super important and I love what Miss McBride said is how do we prioritize proactivity is because a lot of times we are being responsive and being responsive is is what we see in the pile system is we are cleaning up some of the things that we didn't get right on the front end and as you know it's more expensive there y then it is what who who was that George was I forget I'm not concept say you pay

164now or you pay later right it's easier to raise strong men or uh than you build strong build strong brain cells and you don't need strong jail understood so I know uh Miss Fabian I saw your hand and then I want to get through the rest of this as it is 8:30 uh the fund balances I think we can just show um so out of transparency but it is available question budget but if she wants to I just want one quick shout out too right we do have an excellent grant writer that goes out for Grants to try to fill as many um fund sources as we can if we can't do it from what we get from all of the buckets we currently have so I just want to shout out to miss Tate

165that you know that department also is a big help to the district to get some of these things funded yes absolutely yeah again I just want to applaud the board and the superintendent and the administrators because um we we have been able to uh do a lot of things a a lot of things in a district uh such as ours and I think that's because of uh the supports that you all have provided and the way that we have uh looked at prioritizing uh expenditures uh we could not have done that a number of years ago because we just didn't know but also I want to highlight the fact that we're able to uh say why we can't do certain things and what those things are because when we got an influx of money we

166were not floundering trying to figure out what we needed to do we had the list already and so we were able to place the money where we had unfunded uh mandates right and so even with the report card there is a place that we have to respond to as to why we're uh spending money the way that we're we're spending it and so we have that information readily available and we don't have to make it up because it's there and so I again want to say thank you to everyone who works extremely hard to make it possible and also uh to my team uh because it's it's a lot of hard work we understand that uh th this process takes a lot of work it's it's so much easier just to roll it over right

167that's what we used to do a number of years ago and when we did that years ago we had a $122 million deficit in education fund is that right we had a $4 million deficit in the transportation fund and we had a historical deficit of $4.8 million in capital projects and so each pay period we had to go out to get a loan just to pay people that's what we did up until 2011 I think it was up until 2011 and so here it is at that point we had a fund balance across all nine funds of $32 million and now we have a fund balance I won't say cuz we'll spend it no they come looking and now we have a fun balance I won't say so thank you very much uh for your

168time and your effort and uh going through this tedious process is there I had Miss Fabian and then I saw Mr vich is hand if she wants to if you want to go through the last two slides that's fine my question is a general question about the budget process oh she said you wouldn't go because it was there maybe just flash it so yeah the two slides I don't think the community can see the the next two slides and I want to say um just quick I kind of mirrored some of the process that I did when I was at Fort Brag working in the finance office even when I was in Saudi Arabia these are the things we didn't even have a a cap on our budget right but these are the things that

169we did even in that wish we a federal government I love how you said we don't have a c we yes money what's I mean Department of Education yes these are some and I I I just have to say I just have to say that that these are practices that we had in large organizations even in war zones where we we we prioritized we came back to the state we said okay cuz I flew back from Saudi flew back from Haiti to to to to brief on what we were spending and how we were spending and the monies that we needed for the things that they didn't initially allocate to us so this is not a foreign process that we just pulled out of the air this is a process that Tred it and true

170it works federal government does Army po does and so we infused some of those things that we learned over the years into this district and it has been successful MH it has brought us out from a long long ways right and so I just wanted to say that it's financial literacy at the at at the school level and and I just want to say I think think we heard uh a few meetings back here about financial literacy and how important it is for all of us yep and it includes our children yeah and it people don't get it they don't get it kids a lot of kids don't get it when they ever when they get to College when they live life they go out and buy and spend and they just don't know and

171you have forced financial literacy on this school district and it's kept us afloat and we've done better than that our superintendent said when she first came you'll never have enough money to do everything but you you have to start somewhere if this is the priority that's what you work at and so she I remember her saying that's one of the reasons we hired her is because and and Miss Hannah was on the board at that time too is because she said you will never have enough money we told her about all the needs we had and she said you'll never have enough money to do it all but you can do some of it and you can start on your priorities that's so important it's a it's an important lesson you have our district has

172and we need to teach it to our children and I think this board I'm I'm saying something that I really feel is important is that I think we need to talk about that financial literacy class again for our students it's something that they may never get if we don't give it to them and I do want to yes I want to have that conversation because financial literacy is so important but I have to correct a record in that students are still required to take it the issue is that the staff member is saying that hey they've been dis incentivized by us not making a graduation requirement right and I think board president what I heard is all it has to be is listed and they have to be listed and that's it they don't even

173have to come to the class and so but if they fail it impacts GPA so that's what I mean by the context of yes let's have the conversation but every student has to enroll in the class that is true we were hoping that we wouldn't see massive failure rates right so and that's a bigger conversation um Mr vukovich yeah are you is the light green just realized Mr White looks different it's Alex you know how your glasses on even it's my cont when he stood up just a couple comments last years because the board you kept the8 years ago to now actual dollars went up 5.2 great for a taxer that's wonderful now you got to keep in mind of time your salar than teachers IMF nonunion am that you that kind in that 8

174period of time that's up 41% you're able to do that because of the state that's what's made all of this possible that's what has made all this possible it's money that she never had before first Duty he had experience maybe a little bit but most of you've never served on this board and really had to say no where you had to say we have to lay off two teachers we have to collapse this kind of stuff stuff that you may have to look at in the future you know it goes through Cycles talk about the painting White Field and then you're going to do something back in the 70s there was a school called Jackson school was a twin to Glen FL School painted it 2 years later tore it down they didn't need it

175it would be a beautiful building right now beautiful location they kept it but everything goes through cyes population went down 30 years ago wter school was closed because of no La population all the portable classrooms were done away with at that time there was a time in campus that building was closed for a couple of years when they put all the addition on the west campus so that goes through a cycle but you're down 900 kids over four years looks like you may go down another 300 according to your your projections I don't know how that goes into the evidence based funding because you have that whole harmless thing but if that Trend goes or if it goes further that could be an issue Illinois did increase the evidence Base by 350 million over the

176350 they did last year for more than that but that budget passed by the 100% there were only three it took three votes and there was a bare minimum so you don't know next year if you're going to that 350 is going to go in there there was a time when Springfield they would pay 80% of something and then by the stroke of the governor's pen he reduced it to 80% of 80% and it could be six or8 months before you even got reimbursed so there were tax anticipation there were a lot of things out there so you've got to finally a good partner in Springfield so you got a lot of things going there but you got a lot of work to do go ahead Miss faan and then can she finish her she

177I mean that do you have questions on this specifically cuz we got it there it's there it's available to the public if anybody wants to or has questions about those so my question is at the end of the year um are you going through all of these budgets and seeing what was the projected what was actually spent and having that conversation then like why did we over project or under project significantly right if it's one thing is like you're going to have a margin of error because you really don't know when you're projecting but if we over projected by 50% are we having conversations with those departments and looking at historical Trends to see is it a specific Department that's overestimating or underestimating and what does that process look like yes uh we're progress monitoring

178throughout the year so if there's significant changes we have to come back to the board for a budget amendment if it's 10% overall line or if it exceeds the bottom line by law we have to come back so throughout the year uh each of the uh those who have requested a budget are reviewing to see what percentage looking at what they requested whether you know it's something that they could should continue to do or something that could change to go to something else so that happens all all throughout the year um we're forced to to do that actually because in our AFR if you ever look at that there's two columns one that says the budget one that says the actual so our external auditor uh does he he does that for us so we

179are looking at that another thing that I want to point out is that because we do uh zerob based budgeting or modified zerob based budgeting it it goes back to zero so if we were to compare you know it with be kind of useless because we're almost starting over the only thing that uh really doesn't start over would be contracts because but those are under review as well to see if we should continue those and over the years some of those that we've had the previous year they've you know been dissolved and we've moved on to something else and that information was presented to the board so yeah it's a constant review uh I don't know if Dr Cesario wants to say something or Mr molon want to wants to say something about that but

180it's a constant review it's progress monitoring progress monitoring and and so we make those appropriate adjustments Miss Lindy um so I had a similar thought so I'm glad um board member Fabian brought it up so from the board's perspective the best location to see that 30,000 ft view of here was what we we budgeted this is what we actually spent as a summary where is that found uh you can see that in our uh annual financial report okay yes and we we are required to post that online so if you look at there or we could help you uh no that's fine it's just getting so there we're saying we're doing it so I want to make sure we're connecting the dots to where people can see can find it go to the annual financial

181report and then will see it on the expenditure Tab and the far right the last two columns you have the budget and the actual I'm saying that right yes yes okay and then I had I had two questions um so the first one was tied to looking at the tax base so earlier this school year I would have to scroll up to check the date we got 260,000 roughly back from the lake County um clerk where does that fit in because all of those amounts were the same and I don't see that we got 260,000 back yeah how did you post that in The Ledger when we got that uh collection oh you got to come to oh yeah we you know I I feel you yeah it went into a separate uh local Revenue

182property tax account or we not noted it separately because it was a separate separate multi-distribution of 220 to $260,000 right so here's here's what my brain's trying to figure out is that these are funds that we historically did not receive from property taxes that were due to us I can't point back to the graph that you had of the property taxes where we were lacking funds for that 260 to be then put into the separate fund and the reason I'm asking right um and you can definitely reiterate that I AP let me you reiterate that and then I'll I'll have a followup so this distribution came over uh came SE uh several separate distributions of this and all involving different funds but just to consolidate it I put it all in one account just to

183make sure that you know we got all of what they said they were going to send us okay so my followup is let's say in we're supposed to receive to make it simple 300,000 or whatever 300,000 in tax revenue a year if we are Miss missing 100,000 I would assume one of those for that year would or across the years reflect that deficit that we didn't get that was owed to us project so there's always taxpayers out there that don't pay um not all of them of course but but there are some that uh we never get we never get the total of the extension that we're told that we're going to get um and so and that's probably what this distribution was going back to numerous years and finding out that there was monies

184left out there that didn't get distributed okay so it's more so not that they're explicitly missing from those numbers it's those numbers are what they are but those numbers should have been higher so instead of like the 256 it probably should have been 266 but that's not what we received we received that okay perfect I just want to make sure that's clear and I'm good on that um touch Point go ahead Mr Lea gets a statement from the county when those distributions occur um we actually do the extension in March or April uh time frame March so we know uh how much we're to get that amount is also posted on the uh County's uh website and so we're monitoring receipts based upon the actual receipt statement that he gets right I I mean it's

185it's very little that we could do about it if if someone doesn't pay their taxes uh but we are looking at it and using that to project the following years you know what we potentially would get or would not get so we extend we get whatever is paid and then that money that we got back were 4 years under the previous clerk where it's supposed to be paid out on basically if the the county comes in takes your property for you for not paying taxes they're able to sell it and recruit money then they are supposed to divide that out to the different entities that were on that tax bill that backed up for four years so it shouldn't come I mean that was a winfall we was and so that was one of those

186to Mr Lo Point let's put this somewhere yeah Mr Vega every time yeah Mr Vega was happy about that and got that those funds out as quickly as possible because he knows that's money that we could have been using that we we should have had that we didn't for those our list yes um and then my my second question was um Miss poke you had noted that our working cash has increased over the years when looking at the ISB Financial profile we have a 3.9 which is great the area that is lower than the rest and it's weighted differently so it's not a one to one weight um is the working cash so if we're thinking forward and we wanted to get a four in that area what would be the goal to do that

187you want to talk or you want and if it's a takeway that's it's an easy way um the working cash is our bank yeah we loan it yeah remember I said that we have a historical deficit in the capital projects fund of $4.8 million that predates me right so it's masks when we put a budget in there of 20 million or 30 million right So eventually we're going to go back to that negative uh uh amount another thing is if we're um receiving the funds uh over a period of time m and we intentionally over spend in the capital projects because we can cover it with future year Revenue we have to loan money from the capital project because you can't spend money you don't have and so because of that it brings it down

188although it doesn't really bring it down it's a loan that's sitting out there that's bringing worker cash down so we're very intentional about maintaining a healthy uh balance even with the loans in working cash because the health of the district I've said this many times right the health of the district education fund onm transportation and working cash that's the health of the district those are the general funds the main operating funds so even if we were to go negative in um life safety or capital projects it wouldn't be a major detent unless we have to loan a huge amount got it so we're watching all of that and uh a couple of years ago uh like Mr vukovich said we not only had to watch the budget amounts you've heard me before said it's not

189only the budget amounts it's the cash flow mhm because property taxes come in June May June September and and and so around the January time frame we were poor you got more year at the end year we didn't get that budget approved State we were poor because we weren't getting the cash in to make our payments at that time right and so now the way it is I mean we don't really worry about that because we have the money in the bank to cover those things and so we don't want to go back to the time that in January we're looking for money because our receipts are not coming in time and and I would go on the limb to say this I I've told uh my team this uh repeatedly that uh the they

190lost eser money too mhm so pration might be a possibility and I kind of heard that at the IBO conference I I you know I was like oh my goodness we can't go back there yeah because we lost $40 million during pration 9 million each year we lost that so I'm not looking forward to Future prorations I'm hopeful that they'll continue to put more money into the evidence-based funding model but there's no promises and so the information that I had provided earlier about the 500 and something uh million dollars that we were trying to put in there sent you an email that explained that that's why I said it was pretty level right so uh Brian laugh at me because I said okay 100100 ,000 okay that's no increase you know because we're dealing with

191you know Millions right so that that difference wasn't significant enough to say that they put enough money into the process uh to Miss B but I commend them for doing anything because there was a high likelihood that it went the opposite direction so a win is a win because we can plan off of what we know right and and and so I do appreciate until they don't until they don't well that and that's on us too I think those are some of the things right and not this is my last comment my soap box for this evening we had um the what was it the income tax right that didn't pass uh because people don't necessarily trust our legislators to do what it is that they say they were going to do with the funds

192however that was something that was going to be used in order order to in theory address evidence-based funding and so when these actions of people who came out and we voted many people voted against it or vocalized it we at all levels of state government have to um be fiscally responsive responsible and do what it is that we say we're going to do with the funds if we go out for a $30 million extension to Miss Hannah she was sitting right here we should be able to tell the taxpayers exactly where that $30 million went so I appreciate appreciate that we've been able to do that we can very clearly and transparently show where these resources are going um and so I do commend this process and and as Miss po said this is what

193organizations do at every level multi-billion dollar organizations as to hey um strategic based budgeting right um so I appreciate that with that there are no further board questions at 903 i' like to call for a motion to a j just a compliment yes thank you it's a lot of work and thank you for keeping us solid take take the compliment take the compliment thank you a motion to adjourn Move Motion by Miss linding seconded by Miss Fabi and all in favor signify with i i and me is a j for