001back from our break and Lona next item please consent so for The public's information the purpose of the consent agenda is to help the board handle routine matters efficiently so that the board can spend more time reviewing monitoring And discussing the educational issues of the witch toop Public Schools students academic success is the top priority for the Board of Education board members review these items in detail during the agenda review Workshop held at 10:30 a.m. on the Fridays prior to each regular board meeting at the AAC building these workshops are open to the public but no action is taken there for discussion question purposes only and your presence is always welcome at these so with that is there any consent agenda items that a board member would like to pull Madam president um I would
002not like to pull anything but I do just want to um thank the district call attention to the fact that we're making such good Pro progress on our secure entrance our secure entries at our school buildings uh with safety as one of our um goals in our strategic plan okay thank you very good uh do I have a motion to approve consent motion I'm sorry motion to approve the consent all seconded okay motion made by Kathy and seconded by Julie okay motion passes 7 Z Lona next item 2025 legislative update Capital strategies okay Kelly all right I would invite uh Addie and Shan Miller uh most of you guys know Sean from being at board meetings before um he is with capital strategies and is our uh boots on the ground in toeka and we
003invited him here tonight um because our board meetings are awesome and why wouldn't anyone want to everyone would want to come to these but uh Sean's here to give us an update on legislative session um and we'll pass it off well I was going to introduce our esteemed guest but um superintendent beld beat me to the punch so I'm going to turn it over to Sean Miller uh to give you guys an update thank you Addie um Madam chair I appreciate it thanks for having me here tonight if I get a little too close or too far away from this please just let me know uh my name is Sean Miller I'm the managing uh member of capital strategies we're a contract Lobby firm in Topeka U very excited I'm celebrating my 20th session in
004Kansas this year so it's been uh a great deal of fun we've represented witch um 259 for a long time now so I uh most of you have heard me talk before um and so you may cut my microphone here in a minute but um I have 68 bills that we've been tracking for you guys so if we talk about all of them we'll still be here for breakfast uh in the morning and I don't think any of us want that what I what I am going to do is talk kind of high level a little bit about a few of the bills uh maybe reference a couple of them talk about the budget just a little bit and then um I am a Texan and a lawyer and I can talk forever so I'd
005rather just open it up and answer the questions that you have I think that'll work better for all of us um and so I think maybe where we start just a little bit as we'll start with the budget that's really the big uh ticket item both literally and figuratively and we have started uh a slightly different budget process this year than we've ever had before so um what representative uh McCrae Miller went through when she was in the legislature we're doing a little different this year we didn't start with the governor's budget we started with a legislative budget and we started there and we compared the governor's budget to that later to see whether we needed to add or subtract this is our infancy year for trying this there's been a few hiccups I think
006next well this fall for next session we'll probably start it a month or two earlier um but we basically built a u you know $1 15 billion budget over the course of three or four committee meetings in December and started with that as our base and then we built up or or subtracted from there so it's been a bit of a learning process for all of us exactly how it's going to go um but but I will say and I'm I'm very happy to say that at the end of the day uh the the house is the only one that's passed a budget so far they passed it before the end of February first time that's happened in in recent memory and the Senate has begun to take up the budget now and so that's
007where we're at at this point the house passed substitute for House Bill 2007 that's a number to hang on to for a little while if you want to and in that bill from the K12 aspect they passed um what I would call constitutional full funding right it it um manages everything that was required by the Ganon Court plus the CPI the inflation factor that was mandated by the court that's what's in statute um and they have done that now once you get beyond that we get into a lot of little I shouldn't call them rats and cats because they're really important um pieces but we get into a lot of other things from really sort of Big Ticket items like special education funding down to CTE transportation and um you know continued Workforce training for
008teachers those sorts of things um those items by and large I would tell you did not Faire as well um they they focused on full funding they got that done that is really critical the State Board of Education had recommended an additional 72 to 75 million for special education and they rep recommended that over the next three to four years to get us to that 92% of excess cost that's required by Statute um ultimately at the end of the day the K12 budget committee recommended 30 million so not the 72 that the state board or the governor had recommended but 30 million when that got to the full Appropriations Committee there was a motion made to cut that to zero and then there was a substitute motion to um instead cut that to 10 million
009so there is 10 million in new special education funding in the bill this year uh I put a small asterisk on that because last year in special ed they funded about $75 million and two and a half of that was left over arpa dollars right our federal um recovery dollars and those were a one-time fund so the 10 million this year two and a half of that has gone into maintenance of effort to replace the two and a half in arpa that we couldn't use this year so it's really probably more like 7 and a half million in new special education funding these are kind of rough back of the envelope numbers we'll see what it plays out at the end of the year but last year we were somewhere just under 75% of excess
010cost Statewide statute calls for 92 um at 10 million which is really more like 7.5 million I think we probably fall back into the upper 60s something like 69.2 somewhere in that neighborhood of excess costs now that impacts every District a little bit differently um we're getting runs from ksde right now on exactly how much that costs uh but that for a district the size of Witchita is is in the tens and tens of millions of dollars in special ed funds that um have to be transferred over from the the local general fund right and and we talk at the legislative level a lot about underfunding of special ed and people think that I think that means that special ed services are not being performed and as we all know here that's simply not true
011because those are federal requirements so we have to fund those special education um expenditures to fulfill those IEPs um and that's not an option so what happens then is is districts and in different amounts right um have to pull money from the general uh fund at the local level over to cover those special education costs so that's really been a significant point of discussion this year it was big in committee some very impassioned pleas um from a number of members both Republicans and Democrats to fund this um and we saw that again on the floor when the budget was debated I bring all that up because today the Senate education committee got their first run through with the budget it was about 52 minutes as one of the members said so we had 52 minutes
012to dig into $6 billion doll that's seems like not enough time um and and they're going to work that on Wednesday in the Senate education committee so I assume you will hear some of those same discussions brought up again right what about special education what are we going to do about special education the budget is the one place where the committee can really or excuse me the committee is the one place where the budget can really be tweaked they can add money to the budget if they choose to because once it gets to the floor of either the house or the Senate we are limited by what we call a payo rule and that is if you're going to add money to the budget at that point you cannot increase the total amount of the
013budget as it is so you have to go steal it from somewhere else and that always becomes a big point of contention everybody says yes we want to we want to fund special education but I want to go and get it from one place and and Addie doesn't like that and she wants to go get it from someplace else and I don't like that and so you it's really difficult to find a mix on the floor where everybody can agree yes that's overfunded and we can go take $20 million from that to get us back to the $30 million recommendation that came out of committee so I hope that makes sense that's a little bit of the process that we that we're going to go through over the next couple of days um we anticipate
014that the Senate will pass a full budget before they leave in March um probably some time we're probably looking at something the week of early in the 24th the week of March and then March 28th we uh reach what we call First adjournment We Take a 10-day break and then we come back for just a couple of days and we're going to be done done for the year so so uh one of the other reasons I'm not going to talk about the 68 bills on here is because a lot of them are not what we would call exempt committee exempt bills and they did not meet the first turnaround deadline so they can no longer be acted upon this year Never Say Never there's always a little Lazarus in there we can go get something
015and stick it uh in a in an exempt bill later um but really at this point we're down to just a handful of uh bills that I'd really like to talk to you about um and I'm not weighing in Pro oron on them just trying to kind of talk to you high level about what they do and these are the probably the bills that you will have heard about from either uh you know the United school administrators or KB or k&a or something along those lines and we'll we'll kind of roughly do them in numerical order but um I'm just going to talk about two or three that are kind of unrelated then we'll put them in the buckets after that so Senate Bill 47 is one um this year it's we've seen the likes
016of this before um it's not it's a new number but not a new idea and it really deals almost entirely with the way local boards operate from how items are put on the agenda to where board members have access to within the facility all of those kinds of things and so that bill came out of the uh Senate education committee um it uh it it passed but it passed by the slimmest of majorities right 21 to 19 so literally the slimmest of majorities that it could be it it would allow any individual of any school board um to put an item on the agenda they could change the agenda basically they could add one item each so each one of you if you wanted to as you showed up today could say nope I have
017one more item we want to talk about tonight and I could add that item to the agenda um it also would prevent a school district from prohibiting any board member from having access to any school facility more or less at any time um and most quite frankly most school districts already like we we talked to a lot of them it's like hey welcome on the board here's your key right um but we also have a number of places where we've had either really close elections or people who were elected who in fact had some legal difficulties or there was something about that where they said you know perhaps we don't need you to have access everywhere all the time um and so it's anyway it's just a it's a pretty wide ranging Bill about how
018um boards would would react and typically what we see on these kinds of things in Kansas we are what I would consider a very strong local um home rule state and and we say hey we we kind of know how to run our business and our folks get to vote for us or against us if they don't like what we do and so um please let's make sure we're doing what you want to do but let's not micromanage us and you're going to hear that kind of through a number of these bills tonight and and quite frankly I say that because that's what people on the floor said or in explanations a vote that's what they said um none of these bills have been taken up or acted them by the by the house or
019by the opposite chamber at this point just FYI uh the other one probably one that has garnered a lot of uh media attention if nothing else is Senate Bill 76 that is uh officially titled the given name act it's it's what we kind of colloquially call the pronouns bill um and it would actually prohibit any staff member teacher from referring to a student by a name that is not by a pronoun or a name that is not match their um biological sex on their birth certificate uh it's kind of a strangely written bill um that's the attorney in me sorry that comes out because the teacher is prohibited from doing it but it doesn't say in the statute exactly what happens to the teacher if they violate that prohibition it goes on further um that
020if uh essentially if a teacher or a student is being requested to to refer to another student by a pronoun that they don't feel matches that student that they can seek injunctive relief and probably bigger to most schools particularly a school of the size of Witchita it allows for monetary damages it allow that person to Sue and seek attorney fees um and so you could really see a really litigious U set of actions come out of this again I think a lot of school districts have policies on this already one way or another um this bill did pass the the Senate um it is headed over to the house we've seen bills in this vein before um you don't get very far as a Lobby is speaking for the governor but we've seen bills in
021this vein before get vetoed and um this bill it came out of the Senate did not have what I would call a veto proof majority right there was not 27 or more people that voted for it so um it it's likely to get some some action in the house but we'll see ultimately where it goes at the end of the day uh which to was sort of Cutting Edge on this one but we saw a couple of bills that have been worked and heard that's 2259 2186 both of those are related to local boards um being required to come up with e-communication policies keep the kids off phones during the day um as they're in the the school and so we've seen a few of those not a lot of those have really moved now
022I will talk really quickly about kind of something that may not seem to touch on schools very much but this is what we've kind of dubbed the property tax session um the legislature ran in November on we want to do something about property taxes and so they feel now that they were elected that they need to come forward and fulfill that mandate the very difficult thing as people who work at the city or county or School District level know is the state has very little control over most of the property tax dollars they control 20 Ms for K12 education they control one and a half Mills for educational building institutions than Regents universities type buildings and then most of your uh property tax is local right fire districts libraries City County those sorts of things
023and so they have really struggled with how to deal with that quite frankly um they are looking at eliminating the one and a half Mills for educational building blows a pretty big hole in the budget and for the the average um person it saves them you know $20 on their property tax bill it's not a big number um but it's a pretty big hit to the district as a whole or the state as a whole um we have also looked at House Bill 2011 has been passed this one deals directly with the 20 Ms for schools my antenna always goes up when we hear that because in theory it's okay take the 20 Ms down to 18 Mills but we want to make sure that schools are still constitutionally funded so we need to find
024a way if that's not coming from property tax dollars to backfill those dollars with state general fund or something else so 2011 did um pass out a committee it cut us from 20 Ms to 18 and a half Ms but it does have that automatic trigger that would backfill school funding from from the state general fund and that's a really critical piece for us um the the other things really that we would look at this year that are kind of I know have been on your radar um Capers is always a really huge issue how do we attract and retain staff teachers there have been a couple of bills this year that have been focused on teachers that would move teachers from Capers 3 to Capers 2 it would not address other staff within the
025agencies um I do not sense even though there's a great desire to do something to fix Capers that we have a solution in place where they're actually going to take action on something on Capers this year so we'll probably continue to see some interim discussion and interim study on those types of things and then the other one that doesn't probably seem to touch schools too much is uh but but probably does is immigration related issues particularly given the discussions that we're having at the federal level um we have a couple of bills that have been heard that would um essentially prevent anyone with an illegal immigration status with a with a non-legal immigration status from receiving any state or local benefits it's pretty broadly defined not really sure what that means and there's a lot
026of discussion about that if a student um comes to school and is educated and that's paid for by local property tax dollars is that a public public benefit and so could any student who doesn't have a legal immigration status be prevented from coming to school that's kind of probably the extreme of that um I think most folks in Topeka Washington DC wherever tend to think about benefits in terms of welfare benefits snap tanif food benefits those kinds of things um that one got a little attention last week as well because um we had a pretty controversial hearing it kind of blew up the chairman ended the meeting and um cleared the room because people were speaking beyond their time and sort of casting well I guess um calling the committee sort of racist and and
027bigoted and those kinds of things and so they cleared they cleared the entire room it's unclear whether they'll actually work that bill or not but those are the kinds of things that tend to be showing my age when I say above the fold in the newspaper I think mostly now would be like a really high hyperlink on the page but um but that's that's sort of what we deal with there um the uh the last two bills that I'll talk about are perhaps the most controversial um they're also not new ideas um but they are they deal with tax credits vouchers whatever word you want to use for them um and Senate Bill 87 would expand the existing lowincome scholarship tax credit currently that's set at 250% of the federal poverty level I could contribute
028to one of these scholarship granting organizations I could get a 75% tax credit um on my taxes and then those organizations Grant out scholarships to students students who are at or below 250% of federal poverty level to attend a non-public school that has been in place for a few years now there's been some uptake but not a tremendous amount they put a cap on it when they first passed it we've never gotten to that cap um but this one seeks to expand those caps and also expand the amount of uh money that someone could donate to a scholarship granting organization but perhaps most fundamentally different it changes the um eligibility to receive a scholarship ship so it would no longer the 250% FPL would still be in place for a generic student but if you're
029a student of a military veteran or a police officer a firefighter or um an emergency responder EMS then you would automatically be eligible for the scholarship there would be no FPL so you could be a police officer who is uh the sole bread winner in the family and get that scholarship you'd probably be pretty close to that 250% or the example that gets tossed out all the time is you could be a firefighter who's married to a doctor and you're way above the FPL and you would still be I'm qualified for that so that has passed the Senate uh it's sitting in the house right now they had a hearing on a similar bill in the house um I assume they will take it up as well um the other bill that I want to
030mention and it's the last one I promise is um Senate Bill 75 and that that is much more like what you would see as an Educational Opportunity credit in other states where they have enacted more of sort of an AC Ive voucher type program a money follow as the student type program um that bill uh was worked in Senate education committee it passed out it did not make it above the line so it didn't meet the turnaround deadline but it was blessed so it is exempt it's still alive it's kind of sitting there we don't know if it'll be acted upon or not uh but it could be at at any moment if they choose to um so that I think that's sort of where we're at right now rather than going way down the
031rabbit hole on some of these other things I'll talk about whatever it is that you guys would really like to hear before you move on the last one you just mentioned would you talk about the price tag of that yeah um so the price tag on it right now uh we can look at it in a couple of ways we can look at it with the existing cap so we we've got caps on it right now that would cap it at $25 million so that's a pretty small one um what we have seen in other states and what we've seen in the low opportunity tax uh scholarship program is those caps tend to kind of grow or be taken off at some point um Oklahoma if you want to just do a little Googling on
032it recently enacted one they had 31,000 students apply the first day um Arizona did it and thought it would be you know 2030 million and it hit them for about 125 million in the first year so a lot of what you hear and concerns about this from legislators is really just what is the price tag going to be and how do we if we can't afford but 7 and5 to1 million for special education what if we pull another hundred million out of the system right what is that going to do to special ed or what is that going to do to constitutional funding so that's kind of the debate that you hear back and forth on those things um and and that's not a Kansas Centric thing Texas is going through the same thing right
033now lot of lot of press on those as well but um yeah so the the price tag theoretically could get pretty high pretty quickly okay thank you melody first of all thank you for the overview um probably three questions what's the Surplus that we're holding that we're carrying now as a state thank you um it is roughly $3 billion doll right now three billion and that that is the combined State ending balance and the rainy day fund so that's together okay uh [Music] then when you stated that some were wondering um how much they could afford all right what's the additional conversation around that I mean period with A3 billion doll Surplus happy to try to tackle it without uh putting motives in anybody's head right you know that's where I'm going I I I
034kind of thought perhaps you and I have worked together for a long time so um so what essentially we're doing right now is we typically for those of you who haven't been involved in the legislative process we we do consensus Revenue estimates and we really look out about 24 to 36 months that's that's way out for us um because we have to post a budget every year and whatever budget we pass this year only survives to next year next year's legislature can change it and so we tend to look at things in pretty short stretches of maybe two years um they asked for this last fall and got some runs that went out five to six years we have the last several years overspent revenues by $4 to $600 million and so they looked at
035a run that said if we continue to do that that by the year 2028 we're slightly in the red and by the year 2029 we are significantly in the red to the tune of about6 to800 million and unlike the federal government we are not constitutionally allowed to deficit spend the one thing A legislature has to do every year is pass a balance budget we have to have at least $1 in the bank at the end of the year and by law we're supposed to have 7 a half% ending balance um so that's really what it was that they began to look at if we do not make some fundamental changes in 2028 2029 we're going to be in a position where we may have to do significant allotments big cuts many of us remember 2014
036through 2016 we had to do a lot of those the legislature left thinking they had passed a balanced budget and then revenues continued to come in under under under and the Governor Brownback had to make allotments across the board it was required it wasn't his choice he did not enjoy it um it was not a very fun time I would say for most of the legislators because they had to make significant and difficult decisions so was that one of the reasonings behind them cutting 165 million from the governor's budget do you know did they give a reason why they they they didn't really and you remember they didn't really work the governor's budget this year they started with their own so so it was it was presented correct it it was that much lower um
037there are areas of the budget that are higher than hers right where they chose to invest more there are areas where they did not um partially we're getting into non-educational issues here a little bit but partially um the way her budget is built uh she included Medicaid expansion in her budget that draws down a significant amount of enhanced Federal match dollars and by Ching to not expand they had to take a 9010 match for certain healthcare services and reduce that essentially to a 60/40 match so where we would have been paying 10% we had to pay 40 and so it's kind of odd and that kind of removing that changes the budget profile quite a bit as well so you have just one or two of those things in there and it can it can
038move things around pretty pretty significantly so first of all could the board have will we receive a copy of the I'm happy to share it uh you don't want this copy because it's got my H scratch all over it email yeah so that to by email tomorrow so they can share it that would be great last so conference committees um or floor action what do you think might happen what's what's the conversation particularly around special education funding the the special education funding discussion as I mentioned earlier is an emotional one there's a lot of bipartisan support to increase it um I think the question is how and why and there is a bit of a disagreement at the legislative level about how things are being counted and what excess costs really look like um representative
039Christy Williams is the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee and she has requested from the Department of Education I think a couple of different formulation runs on excess costs because I think she wants to get a better look at those and feel it's it's it's a bit of a strange calculation right because our state statute requires us to fund 92% of excess costs at the state level not District by District we don't look at 259 or 500 or 501 and say what's your number we're going to fund 92% and so theoretically that means you could be underfunding some schools overfunding some schools and depending on which formula you choose to run you you can kind of show data that shows that and so she's requested a couple of runs on that um I cannot tell
040you whether that means that she gets Those runs or and I say she the whole committee is going to get those runs and they say okay everything looks great we'll increase it perhaps in conference committee or we see there's some disparity here and we need to talk about it during the rest of the year and then we'll figure out where we are I think it is difficult at the point we're at in the session to add significant additional funding to special ed okay I'm not going to tell you I don't think that there's not going to be an effort and that there might not be some added um but I I think it's a very difficult conversation to have the other thing that we have to keep in mind on special education funding is that
041because it's a federal requirement we run into maintenance of effort issues so we can't add $50 million this year and then decide next year we don't have it and we pull it back out right we're now locked in we have to maintain that state level of funding in that particular bucket so it's not simply that we can we really like transportation and this was a rough winter so next year we're going to add more money for transport and the following year we pull it out we sort of lock oursel into that discussion when we add money to special education I think that's part of the reason that they're a little bit reticent to add money at this point I appreciate it thank you yes ma'am thank you thank you any further questions from the board
042okay Kelly last thing I would say and this is more of kind of a philosophical big picture uh opinion maybe I don't know um but I think it's important to reiterate based on you know Katie's comments that she made ear earlier and that process that's going on along with some of the especially the the one bill specific s SP 41 specific to school boards um we have mechanisms in place for our community to notify us if there's concerns going on in our buildings we already have that in place and I think I'm thinking of I think every single one of you has gotten touch with me about some sort of issue or question or something that's come up and we address it and we we look into it and sometimes the information is a little
043off but sometimes um there is a significant issue there we don't need a higher level of government to solve that for us right we you guys do a good job of governing um so I think to sometimes we're trying to solve problems that maybe maybe are maybe aren't real for our community maybe are real for other communities but I think that's that's a stance that I I hope our community knows we don't need a a special portal at the federal government level for people to let us know when they're concerned about something we we they let us know they let us know right we already have we already have those mechanisms in place for people to let us know um how we can do better and we're always trying to work with parents and do
044better so um I guess I just wanted to put that out there in kind of a a big picture of you that um I feel like we are very responsive to the community we do have a lot of openness and transparency and so um other other places may not I'm not aware of what other places do but I think it's important part of the conversation so I just wanted to mention that yeah I would agree I think when um the board receives emails and comments uh especially concerns uh with anything that might be going on in the schools they they are addressed um they are quickly addressed so uh our emails are public they're published on our website and so uh people are people know how to get a hold of us and they do
045and we do follow up with those emails so try to be very uh very quick to respond on those kind of things so thank you for bringing that up any further questions from the board okay seeing none thank you guys very much uh thank you Sean for what you do up in Topeka for us and keeping us updated and we'll look forward to your email tomorrow to us so thank you very much so with that at uh Lona budget report okay Addie I am just GNA stay up here because you guys get me two times this evening so um I have oh I think I need to start the slideshow sorry awesome um so I'm uh here this evening to give a budget report for the board uh a few objectives I have for this
046evening and Buckle in everybody because we have quite an agenda um I and your step away Sean you don't have to sit here storm a little bit he was so excited after his awesome legislative update he wanted to hear all about the excitement of our budget so I understand um so tonight I'd like to discuss a um a proposed budget timeline for all the touch points that will interact together as we work through the 2025 26 budget holy cow can you believe we're there um I also want to give an overarching view of the board's responsibilities in building our budget it's a huge billion dollar budget um it can't be done by one person it can't be done by seven people we have a huge amount of staff that support that um year-long process and
047so giving you guys a better feel for where we interact and where your input in the budget comes in um is part of our agenda this evening I think Sean's presentation is an excellent segue into giving you some estimates for what we believe uh fiscal year 26 might look like in terms of revenues for us we're going to do a quick follow follow up from presentations from almost a year ago of where we're at with resolving that $42 million budget deficit for this fiscal year um and then talk about next steps for funding our needs in the district so we're at the very start of our process today marks our first touch point for officially starting to to go through the fiscal year 26 budget tonight we're going to go through revenue revenue estimates we
048have a very tight proposed schedule um and I'll be touching base with you almost every month in uh our upcoming board meetings to to keep the train moving on the train tracks um so we'll start tonight with some Revenue estimates and our ultimate goal is really around August um posting our notice of hearing which uh publishes our proposed Mill levies and uh fund uh legal maximums for our fund balances a budget hearing and a budget adoption so those are our major goals in our timeline and so I mentioned this earlier our budget is huge I have a division of people that are dedicated to planning and monitoring the district's nearly billion dollar budget um but you all integrate with this very important process essentially by establishing priorities through strategic planning um essentially giving us those
049pipelines for where we should look to invest our budget so we can gain outcomes um and and meet those those goals that you all have set for us in the Strategic plan uh over the last three years or so we've Incorporated a uh pretty comprehensive and formalized building needs assessment process into the the budget timeline and so the the district's uh board of education is charged with reviewing State assessment data reviewing building needs assessments that are completed by um buildings site councils building leadership teams Etc um and then proposing an estimated timeline for all students to achieve proficiency on St State assessments and so we'll do that uh along this budget process um and then additionally our main goals really are to establish those local property tax M levies and to adopt legal maximum fund
050balances so those are our major goals as we start to work through this timeline um and the work we're going to do together so before I jump into the the fund numbers um incorporating some of the changes and legislation that Sean spoke to us about this evening um I've become aware that there's been some misinformation that's come up about some factors that contribute significantly to our budget planning and I'd like to address some of those things with you this evening um and that way I can give the board some accurate information as we head into our budget planning season for you um for you to think about so um one very important factor that we take into consideration when we're planning a budget is all of the competing pressures that we have on Capital outlay
051um capital outlay is charged to do many things and support many initiatives in our district um this fiscal year we uh the the main revenue streams in capital outlay are local property taxes motor vehicle taxes and an equalization state aid and capital outlay this fiscal year we budgeted about $50.2 million for those items I'm leaving miscellaneous income out of that total of consistent revenue streams because that is mostly made up of interest income that number three years ago was $400,000 the district is doing excellent on um taking advantage of current market interest rates interest rates are a roller coaster we will not have that income stream forever um it's not something that we can rely on to fund our long-term facilities needs so when we're thinking ahead and three to five years out of what
052capital outlay is going to look like that's a factor that we kind of have to leave out it's not something that we anticipate to stay at the levels that it's currently at forever a lot of people when we say Capital outlay think of just facilities maintenance work um capital outlay in our district supports a huge number initiatives of initiatives and I've listed some of them here for you this evening so facilities maintenance and upgrades this is a number that District administration has been quoting on average year-over-year is about $20 million um those are four kind of planned projects um bigger projects essentially that our buildings really need um you have your repairs and preventative maintenance these are things that are actually broken repairs are things that are actually broken that need fixing um and then
053a small amount of preventative maintenance to keep the things that aren't breaking yet from breaking in the future um school safety uh districtwide software student and staff hardware furniture and Equipment Replacements fleet vehicles CTE technology and equipment and uniforms are all examples of things in addition to our facilities that have to come out of that Capital out labor budget so huge pressures on our Capital outlay fund to support all of the initiatives that we have in this District so when we think about our income streams um and the money we have to support these initiatives we Al also have to start to take into account some pressures coming at us with some of our aging infrastructure um you all on consent this evening approve some large dollar items in support of um both an initiative
054established by the board through the um office restricted access school safety initiative but we also have a tremendous amount of work that's taking place on some of our beloved high schools for East High and North High we're at nearly 40 almost over $40 million over the last two or three years in investments in just two of our buildings and this is something we have to take into account when we're collecting Revenue in capital outlay we can't spend it all on that Year's broken thing we have to plan for large major facilities structural issues large things that are breaking um and that number of things that could break grows Year over-year you guys have heard that as deferred maintenance right deferred maintenance is not the things that need to be done today it's the things that
055are just we need to potentially plan for them to break in the future and that number we reported last year was $1.2 billion do that number grows every single year and so some of our Capital outlay funds we have to reserve for things like the North and East High projects um and those have been significant for us to the tune of $40 million um so I want to go through just an example of a scenario in looking at where our cash balances in capital right now and we did have a large cash balance $84 million is a big number um for the size of our budget and the size of our building portfolio it's not um but it $84 million sounds like a very large number so we started this fiscal year at $884 million
056if we go back to those consistent revenue streams that we know we're going to get property taxes motor vehicle and state aid we're adding about 50 million 50.2 million to what we have available to spend if we look at our spending on average over the last two fiscal years we're spending over $80 million a year on facilities needs and we've been told by experts that's not enough um we'd have to spend over $150 million a year to catch us up over for a 10 to 20 year period so $80 million is still not enough to get us where we need to be to overcome some of our deficits and our facilities needs um but if we continue on this trajectory start at 84 million add in 50 take away 80 by the end of this
057fiscal year Capital outlay goes down to $54 million that's okay um if we take it Forward one more year assuming the same Revenue assumptions that $50.2 million and still spending that average of $80 million by the end of next fiscal year 18 months less than 18 months capital outlay is at $24 million sitting in the seat I would never recommend taking Capital outlay cash down that low that is not enough to get us through the six to seven months of the year where we have no money coming in um so in 18 months with our spending where it is assuming these assumptions um Capital the the the restraints on Capital and the pressure on Capital are very very great you take it out just two a total of two fiscal Years and we're in the
058whole in capital Outlet we're not going to let this happen this is not how we'll operate right but it does mean that we'll have to make decisions we will either have to reduce our spending out of capital outlay so reduce the amount that we're contributing towards our facilities needs out of capital or look to our general fund budget which is taking away from our instructional initiatives to support our facilities needs those are our two options for supporting capital outlay okay so um the second topic I've heard a bit about is our cash balances uh Witchita public schools at July 1st of 2024 had an unencumbered cash balance of $348 million again sounds like a very large number so we're going to get into the weeds a little bit of what that's made of um and
059so our government Finance officers of America kind of sets the standards for how we classify our cash and so we've got three major categories capital and bond special revenue and other so of that $348 million capital and bond and interest make up 48% over $167 million that means we can't use that money for anything else other than facilities needs which we have many many many many many plans for and needs for and bond and interest which is already set aside for future debt payments future obligations that we have to pay um and that's 48% of our cash balance special revenue is those highly restricted funds that see receive revenue from State local Federal governments that are restricted by purpose meaning I'll give you an example special education great example money we get for sped has
060to be spent on special education we cannot use that for um funding facilities needs we cannot use it to go and fund General uh raged teachers it has to be used on special education students so um 109 million over 109 million 31% of that cash balance is funds that are they're where they are and we cannot spend them on anything other than where they are specified in that fund so our other is about 71 million which is 21% um $30 million of this I'm kind of moving over to that uh stacked bar chart to the the side $30 million of that is budgeted to be spent this fiscal year it's budgeted in the budget you all adopted in uh September to spend this year we only have $41 million or 12% of this cash balance
061set aside in in what's called contingency reserve um this is a rainy die fund if you want to call it that um essentially set aside for emergencies $41 million for a school district the size of witto public schools that's 6.9% of our operating budget it is 8 to 10 operating days if you think about a best practice in your personal life best practice is 3 to six months of a rainy day fund we have8 to 10 days in a in a contingency reserve fund and that is um the uh about one state aid payment so if the state were to be late or miss a state aid payment because they're short on revenues you know we heard times um where that's happened right where the state has been short on revenues that is one state
062aid payment for witch toop Public Schools so in total $277 million of that 348 almost 80% of that fund balance we cannot use for anything other than where it's at um and we have plans for it capital outlay has plans Bond and interest has a very specific debt schedule that we have to make um everything is either budgeted or planned for on a you know three five seven 10 year basis so when real quickly when we look at where witch to Public Schools cash balances are in comparison to other school districts in the state and this is just some of the largest school districts we're right in the middle of the pack we don't have the most we don't have the least um we have the most in terms of dollar figure because our budget
063is almost double in size to the next District in comparison we have a very large budget um but we're we're right in the middle of the pack there are 101 school districts in the state of Kansas that have a higher percentage of cash on hand than we do so um not the highest not the lowest right in the middle of the pack and this is we have about $ 80 million in our bond and interest fund right now which which it makes up a large portion of that kind of restricted cash and this is why we still have $213 million of scheduled debt payments to make we cannot collect that overnight so we have to slowly accumulate cash over the lifespan of a bond issue so we can make the principal payments at the end
064of the bond and so we do accumulate cash because we are approaching the end of the bond and interest cycle for um some series for the 2008 um bond issue we're sitting on cash because we have upcoming principal payments we have to make um and we could not collect that overnight from constituents from property taxes so uh a third thing I would like to address this evening is um just oversight and Regulatory bodies that we're subject to in terms of deciding who what when where how why we can spend our money um so I've listed some of the opportunities where we have independent agents coming in from external organizations who review our um our all of our spending and when I say all of our spending I mean our line item detail millions and millions
065of records of detail that are being audited and reviewed and tested um and when I say I can come to you this evening with accurate figures that is not because Addie LOL Chief Financial Officer said they're accurate it is because highly qualified organizations who have established best practices for 32 years in a row have deemed that our financial statements are transparent and are materially and accurately presented they gave us that designation um and we've had many many Auditors review that um and say the same thing so when we say our numbers are the source of truth and the source of accuracy it is because we have earned that designation um and and many groups have worked to um to contribute to that so these are just the external bodies I we file so many reports
066I think every single person has you know our financial records they're online they're online for anyone to view our checkbook goes online every single month we file so many reports on our spending um so many organizations see our data and validate it on our behalf so not to mention we have several oversight bodies that give us rules to follow as well for what we can spend money on and and why and how and all those things this is just a the tip of the iceberg on the the major organizations that we work with we could go on for days on the um regulatory bodies that we work with on a consistent basis to to help us make all these decisions and deploy funds in our budget okay this was a lot of information so our
067major takeaways for just addressing some of these factors that impact our budget planning um our pressures on Capital outlay are high and they're not going to stop coming without more revenue streams we will either have to cut Capital expenditures or we will be using general fund budgets to support facilities needs um the district has cash mostly in restricted funds to F fund long-term obligations and immediate needs the district is highly regulated and audited um and all of these factors uh greatly impact our budget planning so with that I'll jump into um some fun numbers some I I want to go over with you this evening our enrollment audit results and how those translate into budget estimates for fiscal year 26 so we're going to go slowly on this PowerPoint um so if you'd like to
068watch the screens might be helpful so that way I don't overwhelm you with too much data um in a table and so right now our fiscal year 25 budget was based on a one-year piece of legislation that essentially allows us right now to take the average of fiscal year 24 and 23's audited enrollment so we get to combine those numbers together to get kind of that above the line I'll all say adjusted FTE total so we know what that's going to be we already considering we're a district in declining enrollment we always want to look back to get the highest figure to base our budget on so we already knew what this figure was going to be it was 43 to 69.8 and so even through audit we knew that this number was going to
069hold um when we filed our budget we considered all of our weighted funds prek special education Transportation um CTE Etc to get those extra weighted FTE that we qualify for and that number was 39604 so our budget was based on 802 33.2 FTE we multiply that by our base state aid amount our general fund budget before virtual was $442 Million we add in Virtual our legal maximum for our general fund that we published this year as our budget was $ 4466 million how did we audit out our weightings went from just over 39,000 to 38,6 42 that was a decrease of 418 FTE for waiting so if we look at what that gets us with the base state aid per pupil of 5378 our general fund budget before virtual is our new legal maximum for
070our general fund budget is $443.20 to4 million every single year another excellent reason to keep some cash on hand because if we don't have any cash on hand we're cutting people's budgets in the current year so if we have cash on hand we don't have to cut our budgets right so that that 3.2 is um where we ended up through audit so now if we take those audited figures that we just went over um and plopped those in for a starting point for what we think will happen in fiscal year 26 um we know based on our fiscal year 25 audited FTE what that above the line adjusted FTE total is going to be that number audited as 42891 point7 so we're losing 3781 FTE just just as that b That Base enrollment figure our
071waiting we're estimating right now and this a little bit of this comes into play with what Sean spoke to us about this evening with special education funding some additional that $10 million that's going into the special education formula as well as some changes we're anticipating on sped Transportation um we anticipate a little bit of a bump in waiting to a little bit of an increase over our audited figures for next year in the budget uh 406 FTE in our our total weighted FTE that kind of combats the loss from the audit a bit not quite all the way but um almost all the way so anticipating a little bump in waiting right now the proposed base state aid per pupil amount is 5611 it's still early um Sean mentioned hopeful that we might have consensus
072on this number by the end of March um but we have been told they anticipate this to change a bit it may drop so and any drop even by a couple of dollars impacts our district a lot um so right now we're looking at a general fund budget before virtual of 4618 you add in your anticipated virtual and we're looking at a general fund budget next year of$ 464 almost $465 million so an increase of 21.5 to the general fund what does that mean for the rest of our operating budget because we have our L as well and L is 33% of our general fund so considering our general fund budget is going up to 4649 um we anticipate our supplemental general fund to follow suit um up to $14.1 million so in total across
073two funds U looking at a estimated increase of of $28.6 million for our operating budget next year so before we get too excited um $28 million it's a it's a big number for our district it's it's decent right um I we're not going to go into too many weeds of our anticipated cost increases this will be kind of on the the agenda for our April time together um but every single year we have to evaluate our cost increases transportation is a big one um and we'll evaluate that more in April but we're anticipating a large cost increase for transportation this year utilities Insurance software um making up our remaining budget deficit from this fiscal year and a wage package are all things that are going to take away from that new money um and so
074we we're still evaluating what these costs are going to be to that $28 million figure and we'll have more information as we move along the budget process on on those items so let's jump into our remaining budget deficit so we reported this $6.2 million figure I want to say in April last year we got through phase one and phase two budget reductions um and we reported back that we were going to stay as far away from classrooms as possible for for phase uh three and future phase reductions and so right now we uh we have a plan to uh make sure that this remaining $6.2 million deficit um has no impact on next year's budget so we're looking at 10 % of mandatory administrative Center FTE reductions across all divisions ongoing class size reductions um
075consolidations of non-attendance Center departments and prioritizing program spending we're still working through the details of all the action items that come but District administration has a plan to enact to make sure that again the $6.2 million is not going to impact our our spending next year and and Addie I just um to to draw the line because it's been a while um the the number we were at last year this time of year was 42 million if you remember that um we got that down to around when the sped money came in at the end it was around nine or 10 somewhere in that and we said we're going to pause at that point and we're going to come back next year for the rest you'll notice that this is not nine or 10 and
076that's because U if you want to go into that we've actualized more savings from some of those decisions we made last year than we thought we would um and so that's part of why you may be like well this isn't this isn't the number we thought we were going to need to cut this is less than that um sure and Addy can explain that way um lots of Revenue estimates changed right um mental health intervention team funding changed completely our Assumption of what was going to happen and at risk funds changed um you know the the direct certifications that we're carrying over from covid timelines for students who again directly qualified for free and reduced lunches because of their medic a certification students fell off and so we anticipated losing some revenue for that we
077didn't lose as much as we thought we were going to um sped money was a definite uh big help last year so we realized about $9 million of additional special education money um and that that certainly helped our budget deficit position um going into now being down to 6.2 million dollar to Res so yeah Melody looking at sorry looking at uh the deficit being six million this year so um right because it says remaining that's right yep we talked about that one 1.1 million of special education funding potentially from the 10 that is in the budget currently would that would we take that here so that one point two that we spoke about the other day um those that estimate is going into next year's budget that's 20 26 got it and we are trying
078not to impact our budget planning for fiscal year 26 with decisions that we needed to make as a as a district leadership team okay um with the fiscal year 25 deficit and if you recall we are maintaining our budget by the use of some one-time funds some cash essentially to help us so we didn't have to cut the system all in one year which is very challenging to do um I commend this board and the superintendent for getting as far as we did in one fiscal year that was a tremendous lift um really remarkable work but doing all $42 million in a year uh is very challenging and so using some onetime cash was a a great decision on this this board's behalf and so this year we're we're carrying ourselves through this year with
079some cash we don't want to keep doing that in the future um and so we don't want to continue to make a future wage package pay for a budget deficit that we can resolve with other actions so okay so um I want to jump into just a a quick overview of our wage package history um and this is important to look at because when we've gotten new money in the past it's been the direct of this board to invest in our staff through wages we had some some holes to fill with years of um freezes on salaries and so as we've gotten new funds we've used them to dig out of that hole for salaries and then stay in line with um with CPI increases right so if we look back through the years um
080we got in in fiscal year 17 18 our base state aid increase was 4% we gave over 6% in ra uh raises that year and that was to start to climb out of some of the um the steps that had been frozen for staff for years and so we've consistently given more and raises in those first years of Gan and money coming in just to help catch staff back up and we've done that year-over-year 202 to 21 you see a 0% base increase in a 1.4% pack value that was Co that was enrollment decline right and so when we're in declining enrollment and base state aid comes out and we say base state aid is 4.3% wiah public schools never realizes that full 4.3% because we're always just opposing that with a 1 to 2%
081enrollment decline right so that that figure is always diluted a bit for us and so unless we're constant stly evaluating the size of our schools the size of our um our class sizes our staffing in general our biggest cost center right um that that number is always diluted but it's been a priority for us to invest those dollars in wages for our staff um and so in total our wage packages over the last eight years have been 37.9 five% this math is not perfect because it's not compounding and Lauren will appreciate that um I said that just for you um don't come at me and so we have done more than we've gotten in base state aid even in spite of enrollment decline so we want to continue that trajectory where we are not making
082the wage package pick up the the enrollment decline piece and so I I wanted to share the the history of our wages with you all this evening so to kind of wrap us up um we heard a lot tonight about our state legislation and how that's going to impact some of our budget planning some of it we know and it's helpful to know early what's going to happen with special education funding we still have so many other factors that are coming at us that we're trying to balance in our upcoming budget base state aid per pupil will that number hold will it go down sped funding um what is that going to do this year and in future years property value caps um Sean mentioned some legislation this is the the session of property taxes
083right are are we going to cap aesh valuations our state grants um our safe and secure schools Grant was cut from the budget in the house and so um what's going to happen with our state grants and how will we backfill the the budget that those funds were helping to cover Transportation contract Federal Appropriations um the house passed a federal budget that has a significant cut to various title programs uh and we have a huge federal budget in this District um with high poverty what are tariffs going to do Union negotiations Insurance markets you guys are getting the just gist right we're paying attention to so many factors that are coming at us um that we are going to have to balance in that new money coming in in addition to all of those cost
084items that I mentioned before that we know we have coming every year um and so there's just lots of pressures on our budget lots of press pressures on the that new funding coming in and and before we get to the last slide um I do think it's easy for a bystander I'm kind of editorializing here but it's easy for a bystander to oversimplify this process and just say well just worry about one of those boxes right that's all you got to do just figure that one out right all of those are a web right they're all intertwined and connected and when one thing hap you know enrollment decline affects Staffing challenges and that fects um facility needs and right like they're they're all interconnected so it's much more complex than you can get through a
085sound bite or a text message or a blurb on a on a flyer it's and I know you guys know that so that's why I say I'm editorializing a little bit um because it is a it's a complex process that I I take a lot of pride in I think Addie and Susan before her do an amazing job of putting all the pieces together for us so it makes sense um and and uh and showing all the different factors and how they intersect um we don't always get it perfect right it decisions have to be made and you can judge those decisions um as good or bad but we're making the best decisions we have considering all the different factors so so taking all of this into consideration and looking at our budget in totality
086um we still have pressing issues to address and so I want to just discuss briefly um next steps for funding our needs um before I go into some of the details of some next steps we're taking uh as a district um there's still votes to be counted so we're not making um decisions either way on how the bond election went last Tuesday February 25th we need to plan either way and we need to um start to deploy our plans regardless and so um mentioned some of those those pressures and all those factors that are impacting our budget and so what we'd like to do is establish a financial oversight committee that will help us to review the cash balances we have on hand our incoming revenue streams and our future anticipated facilities needs specifically to
087make recommendations on how we're going to fund those needs um right now we don't have the the specifics of the makeup of this committee but we'd like to include District leadership board of education members independent financial advisors our Municipal Finance Finance adviser um parents and students to help guide this work um and help us figure out our path forward in funding those facilities needs um we do want to enact a focus group for constituents that cast a ballot on February 25th to help us get objective opinions on our education efforts to date um and the facilities master plan and so we have an independent moderat it's a a research group that will come in so District administration will be very lightly if at all involved in this process um they'll be looking for constituents to
088participate in this on Wednesday March 26th at 6 PM so more details will come out about that as we have it um we'll also be sending out surveys to constituents um the timeline for that is looking to be March Sunday March 30th um we're looking for about 350 responses if you recall back to some of the survey work that um creative did that number is essentially our safe margin for error um so that's the the right number of responses to be able to apply an executive summary across essentially and so we'll present those findings back to you all as we have them um and obviously going through this process we realize the need to continue to communicate both our budget um and educate on our facilties needs um I commend all my colleagues because I
089think we've done so well for so long making the really really hard look really really easy right um making our facilities challenges and kind of sweeping them under the rug like we're going to you know we're going to do what we can do and we're going to do the best we can at it um and so just making sure that we're spending time communicating and educating on these issues that are very real that are not going to stop coming at us I think is a priority as we move forward so with that I will finally pause for questions and discussion okay are there any questions okay wow see oh Stan so to summarize we're looking at new monies I and I appreciate you every time the first year at the first budget report this is
090the base things can change before we finally adopt the budget in August but this is a good base for this board to understand we're looking at probably $28 Million worth of new money minus $6 million unless we wanted to carry try to carry for it which I can't imagine we would but so that knocks it down to $22 million of new monies for the new fiscal year and that 28 million is iffy because the legislature very likely could reduce it so let's go down to uh $2 million just for a nice round number $20 million of new money and that's where we generally and I think it's about the only way you can do it that's that's where the uh uh raises come from so the the raises will come if you know whatever we
091decide to do it will be out of that 20 million so that's why the operating budget part of our operations is is not going to be affected by the new monies um just to clarify excuse me that $28 million I we did if we did nothing we would be taking our existing $6.2 million deficit against that 28 but we have a plan we have a plan to fix that so it will not be a factor um but you're absolutely right the the new money is what we start to take into consideration for how much of that is for keeping lights on at the current levels how much of that is for keeping Transportation at its current service level um and then looking at remaining for the for the wage package I appreciate clarifying that because
092I made it sound like it was all about wages and and the benefit package but that is the money that we will have to spend for inflation uh like you said keeping our transportation plan the same uh all our operating situations so I I just I just anticipated some questions that I may get from constituents that you're talking about uh pressures to the U Capital outlay part of our budget this new dollars is not going to relieve any of that um $20 million sounds like a big number it's it's small for us so it won't relieve a ton of pressure in capital Outlet I have to go back and look back see what we thought new monies were going to be in previous years but this 20 million sounds fairly you know you hate to
093say it's small like you said but it actually when you're looking at our total budget it is a small number it it's smaller than it has been in in previous years okay thank you Julie I guess I could have lowered my hand I just wanted to give a caveat to stance thing of well you got to take it account Transportation utilities insurance cost goes up Julie has done this before anyway so sorry S no no I simplified it way too much yes is that it Julie okay Melody so we're we're referring to this as new money where is the new money why are we calling it new money uh it's the essentially the increase to the base state aid so it's new money that's being funded by um the legislature meeting its constitutional obligations to
094increase the B State a amount so we're going for from 5378 to 5611 and so that change is what we refer to as new money for the district and we are not um did we use uh contingency fund we did use contingency funds in our last budget we have budgeted cash to cover this this year's the deficit remaining in this year yes is it only for the projected six million um I think our budget was around eight so but as Revenue estimates have um have been realized that the numers lowered a bit and you're saying you have a plan we have a plan we have a plan so it's possible that we won't have a budget deficit in fiscal year 26 essentially so it truly will be additional dollars yes that's all I needed to
095understand thank you awesome okay thank you KNC what's the uh timeline for the financial oversight committee um we'll probably wait to get some feedback from our survey results uh and that way our Municipal adviser can start to run some numbers and and get some pencil to paper for some details um will start to work on the makeup of the committee and hopefully shoot for something in April and then uh would the financial oversight Committee just be focusing on facilities needs or needs in general it would be everything so looking at all of our cash streams all of our Revenue sources to to determine what we can do to fund our needs and then not not a question a guide re I would like that Financial oversight committee uh to be as Community oriented as possible
096so uh how do we meaningfully engage uh the community um and making sure like you know it's not just a bunch of yes folks but again folks that are going to ask the tough questions but at the end at the end of the day you know that support public education that support our strategic plan to support our students so I I I think you're hitting on the theme of the next few months that what we'll be talking about so right on okay very good any further questions okay Addie thank you very much for your presentation this evening we appreciate that Lona next item superintendent report excuse me um I don't have a whole lot uh for tonight other than just to reiterate a little bit of what Addie had talked about um you know we
097we still have from what we're hearing from the election office uh over 500 votes that are yet to be canvased and decided um those those votes would probably have to tip uh in a direction other than the trend in order for um to change the results of the election but um you know at the point at which we had the press conference Tuesday or Wednesday morning um you know about 4% of the overall vote four four to five% of the overall vote has come in since then so I think it was prudent uh because it's still a less than 1% margin to kind of um let all the votes be counted let it let it all pan out um I don't think there's a reason to rush into a lot of uh decisions you know
098right right away to make a decision uh what comes next um based on what what Addie proposed um we will um gather feedback and then share that feedback with with you all and process that as a team you know I'm I'm getting you you guys might be getting the same thing but I'm giving several emails from community members of of all kind of different Persuasions uh with uh I don't know if advice is the right word but you know here's what I'm hearing here's what people are saying here's what we think so um every every uh every challenge is an opportunity and this is another opportunity to get better and do better for kids um we're not going to quit doing great work uh we're not going to quit um showing up for kids every
099day um but we will need to to make more decisions down the road and that's um uh April May June July somewhere somewhere later on uh we'll have more guidance on uh what we would recommend to the board to do so um I'm going to stop there for my report okay very good um Tona next item new business and Board of Education requests okay Kelly so um under new business uh we wanted to um make sure that we address something in the community um or something that's been going on in the past six weeks or so um when the new uh presidential Administration took over um in January there was executive orders that were written about uh Dei or diversity equ inclusion um and that impacted us as a school district um on February 14th
100uh so in mid-February uh witto Public Schools along with all other public school districts received a letter from the US Department of Education this letter required uh WPS to remove certain words and phrases from board policies and the website and possibly discontinu programs initiatives or practices according to the letter non-compliance would risk millions of dollars and federal funding uh that WPS currently receives the deadline for making these changes uh was last Friday February 28th so we received the letter on the 14th had two weeks according to the letter to make these changes after many hours of discussion review uh and seeking further guidance from the state and federal levels we determined it was uh we needed to comply with the doe guidance as best we could given the tight turnaround however on Friday February 28th
101after 5:00 p.m. Central Standard time we received additional information from the US Department of Education that makes the initial letter unclear we having spent uh the last three day we have been spending the last three days reviewing the latest information to help determine the best path forward and we've provided this information to you the usd259 board of education so you can digest it and guide accordingly so as the Board of Education of the witch toop Public Schools we have worked diligently and remained committed to providing an impactful educational experience to every student in our district so that they can be future ready we know that actions speak louder than words and we are committed to serving every single student we are and will continue to be law-abiding and by we will be reviewing policies that
102the US Department of Education believes may be in congruent to their current guidance we look forward to getting Clarity from the Department of educ education any other reports uh from the board okay seeing none Lona next item executive session negotiations I move that the board go into executive session to discuss matters relating to employer employee negotiations whether or not in consultation with the representative or representatives of the body or agency to protect the district's right to the confidentiality of its negotiating position and the public interest for 20 minutes the executive session will include all the board members present and general counsel Dan Lawrence and superintendent Kelly beeld the open meeting me will resume here in this boardroom at 9:41 9:41 second motion made by Diane seconded by Stan motion carries 70 we are in executive
103session the board is back from executive session no action was taken Latona next item adjournment I move we adjourn motion made by Stan seconded by Kathy motion passes 70 we are adjourned thank you e