001Welcome to the Madison County Board of Educational special meeting here on September the 25th beginning at 4:00 p.m. First, we'll call the meeting to order and we'll read our vision. Miss Berford, would you care to read the vision? >> Sure. Madison County Schools in partnership with the community strives to equip educators and students with the skills to lead by example, develop and speak a unique voice, and explore their academic curiosity to make a positive impact on our community and world. >> Thank you very much, Miss Wilson. Do we have any Thank you. Moving on to our action agenda. First is uh to approve the minutes of the September 11, 2025 meeting. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Rford, second by >> I'll second by Miss Cobb. All in favor say I. >> Motion carried. >>
0024B is to approve the 2025 2026 working budget. And we have Mr. Mark Woods. >> He's got his homework. He's got a lot of papers. There's a lot of stuff there. >> We're gonna be here want to hear this. >> We got some audience members that are going to love this. >> Y'all didn't know you were coming to a finance meeting. >> We got to go through this page by page line by line. >> You can't leave early. >> You're gonna do that. Let me eat this. >> So, thankfully, uh, you all have a summary report that we'll go through. This is what our actual budget, the full budget looks like. Um, that's what I've been through to get us to where we're at. So, uh, I'd like to start with a little bit of
003data. Uh, I know last time I pulled some charts and some other data for you as we've worked through, um, the annual reports, we worked through budgets. So, thought it'd be a good time to just kind of go through this before we get into the actual budget itself and go through some of those items. So looking at this uh next year's budget, uh this is what our revenue looks like. If you break it down by funding source, uh 50.47% will be uh local, so that'll be our tax dollars. Uh the state is 48.51% and then about uh half percent each for federal and then some discretionary items. That's trending with where we ended last year. um you know we've hit that point where as a district um we have to fund more locally than the
004state does because uh they consider us to be a propertyrich area. So uh they lower our seek uh distribute that out to other districts and uh we make up the difference in local uh you can see here I pulled the uh main expenditures of the budget uh by category. uh we put our money in instruction and that's our number one goal around here is to make sure that we're funding instruction as high as we can and because ultimately that's uh we're putting dollars into educating kids. So you can see uh this is pretty consistent as we've been uh really high there. Other high areas as you can imagine will be uh student transportation and then um your uh operations, plant operations, maintenance. So u repairing our buildings, doing uh electricity, all of our utilities. Other
005looks a little high if you see that there. When you pull this into the budget, our contingency is a budget line item. So, uh, that inflates the other because we have our contingency money in there and you actually have to put it in as an expense. So, that's why it looks a little high. Otherwise, though, uh, the categories, you know, district admin, we're keeping that low. Uh, we're keeping our business support, that would be my department, HR, um, it, we're keeping those budgets in line, keeping them low. We run a very lean lean um, budget and very lean on our expenditures. We we try to maintain that and make sure that we focus all our dollars in the proper area which is instruction. All right, that's what our salary infringe looks like for this year.
00678.28% of the budget, the general fund budget. Um it's a tick down from where we ended last year, which is good. Uh I I like to see that number lower. You all know I like that. um just because I like to make sure we have plenty of operating money. Uh Mr. Neely and I have talked, he's been to several superintendent uh meetings across the state and everything and we we run really well. Um most every district is well over 80%. So, uh we're doing really good. We're maintaining making sure we pay our people well, but we're also maintaining a good level there so that we have money for emergencies and other things that come up. [Music] All right. I know this one is um a little hard to see. Um but what you're looking at
007here uh back in May, we brought the allocation reports to you after we'd been through all of our meetings and you approved all the positions based on allocation based on the allocation formula that is approved by the board. This is how that actually pans out. So, when you're looking at this, the blue um that would be certified staff that are funded through allocation. The uh orange piece would be uh your classified staff and the red is their section six money that they are allocated through that. Um section six is discretionary. It is the school's decision and their site base how they plan to use that. Um, just to put a hard number on it, I did and keep in mind when you see the numbers there, that does not include the fringe benefits. That is
008just the salary alone >> for the admin that are in that. So, um, your principles, system principles, guidance, um, um, library, media specialists, uh, that have extended days and extra duty increments. Those are not in this is just their base salary in this. that is what is considered part of the allocation. Uh when you pull that down, the final number there is 40 million $40.25 million. That's just to have our schools up and operating and staffed from the general fund. Now, that's not all we do. We also have special ed departments. So, I did the same thing with our special ed. Um this is based off looking at case loads and what we um pay out of the general fund. Um this is above federal dollars that we receive to be honest with you. Um
009that is the worst written grant ever in history for special education uh IDAB funds. We get $2 million. We spend about 14 million of our own money. >> That's what we are required. And each year there's a maintenance of effort on that. I have to report on that and we're required to keep the same match maintenance of effort as we did the year before. So we spend 14 million of our own to get 2 million federal dollars. >> Really good. >> Those numbers are not in your previous slide. Correct. >> No. No. No. And uh you know so that's a six to 700% u matching. Yay. Uh really good grant. Um but so this is on top of the allocation. What I showed you before is generally is just solely if you take the allocation
010formula, you put the number of kids in, you do all the math, that's the number of general fund teachers you get. This is on top of that. This is looking at case loads and what we give them out of general fund dollars um for staffing for um special education. You can see there it's another uh 9 almost $9.1 million. Again, this is uh salaries only. Does not include the fringe benefits on that. When you're talking classified staff, that's another uh 27.5% to add on to that number. Um so it it's a the benefits start getting pretty high as well. This next slide, um, this is utilities. So if you look there, um, water, gas, electric, garbage. That's that's another, um, $3.1 million of your budget. 3.15 almost >> For utilities, just for our schools. Now,
011keep in mind, this does not include our Ignitemies. This does not include include any of our district facilities, any of our um >> this office uh does not include anything at Belleview. This is solely just our elementary our well NKA our kindergarten academy, our elementaryaries, middles, and highs. So when you add that all together, um just that portion alone is half of our general fund budget. So, if you want to know where your general fund budget goes, that right there is half of it. Just to operate the schools, just have the lights on, have people in the building ready to see smiling faces and teach them. >> Do you have a different one for the Ignitemies? >> No, I can pull that at some point for you guys, but it's not too bad. Um, those
012aren't utilities are fairly stable. Um, things like that. um we get some CTE funding that helps offset a lot of the costs there. >> Why do you not figure that in there? It's because it's another building from the central's campus. >> So, uh we didn't put those in there. I didn't put those in there because I wanted to mainly look at what does the allocation piece. Basically, that's the piece I took from this is start with the allocation. We don't allocate teachers for there. Um we put teachers in there based on the program needs. >> Okay. So, uh, since it's not part of the allocation each year, we, um, that's the approach I took was just looking from the allocation piece. >> Mark, I might be getting a step ahead of you, but do you
013have just a roundabout figure about how much benefits cost us? I mean, I know we're looking at just allocations, but >> for this piece, >> uh, >> no, I didn't run those numbers. And >> that's fine. >> I'll be honest with you at this point. Um, the time I put into this, I I do good to do two plus two right now. >> And I don't I don't remember ever seeing this. This is >> right. I like how you have a breakdown and I like your graphs. This you it just keeps getting better and better and better for us. So, thank you. >> I brought this into Mr. Neely today. I I yesterday I just got to thinking about it. I was like, you know what? What could be some good data? And I think
014this is good data for um our community as well, right? you know, we've still got supply costs, equipment costs, other things on top of all this that we have in each of these buildings, but you know, sometimes um you see the news, you see the bad headlines that say districts are wasting money. We're a service industry. We are here to serve families and to serve students. Where are we putting our money? Well, right there you go. just to have the lights on, have people in the buildings teaching students. We spend over half our budget just doing that. Um, just for these schools, that's not uh that doesn't even account for all the countless people on the district level that provides support for all of that educational support. They go in, they help teachers u with
015needs to meet the specific needs of kids. You got, you know, this doesn't even touch transportation. That's not one of the lines up there. We get up there, we add that in. Uh we run transportation the last I pulled the total numbers two years ago and looked at them as compared to the what the state funds us and we were running at that time about 14 million total dollars. So you had another 14 million in there and the state at that time was giving us five. Well, you can't negate the fact that 78% of our budget goes to salaries, which is real jobs for Madison County. >> Sure. >> I mean, that that is >> that is huge. It's not just taking care of our students, it's taking care of our community. >> Yes. Uh
016we are second largest employer in Madison County. full-time um people, we're running real close to 1,700 when you count our classified and our certified. When you add in all of our subs, we're running about 2320. >> One of the last pools I I did, 2,300 people that we are providing some type of position to some kind of work in our county. That's a pretty big lick. Um, I've got a magazine that came in upstairs and um, we were the I think it said in our region, which includes Faget County, we were the fifth largest employer. >> You know, we're talking about allocations. We try to get so precise so we don't have extra spending that we have at least three meetings with the festivals in the spring. And we're going to have one coming up
017next month with all administrators individually to show them the actual calculation. You know, what does it all mean? Because it it's a lot. >> And to these to these new principles, a lot of times they just come in and we say, "Here's what you're getting. Here's what the money, okay?" And they leave and they're like, "I I don't think I I don't understand it." So, we're going to bring them in here uh in October and go by their school and show the calculations and and show them exactly why apples to apples. This is the way you get it. Number of kids >> so they they can understand them and they can tell their staff. >> I think that's great questions >> and it's full transparency. >> So many of our school systems right now are
018not transparent in what's going on with the budget. So, I think >> well, I think one of the reasons that we've been able to stay so fiscally conservative is that you all hold so tight to those allocations. It's nothing to hear us come in and approve new positions as the need arises, but you all do such a nice job >> holding to that that it's really helped keep us on track. And when you look at that when so our average teacher salary so you're averaging the high end with a brand new 55,000. >> You add the benefits on that you're at 60. So every time we add a position basically you have to think about it from that standpoint. Anything we add above and beyond allocation you're adding $60,000 to the budget. >> Three of
019those 180. You're almost $200,000 >> just like that. And that was only three people. >> Yeah. And it's recurring. >> And it's recurring. >> Yeah. So, >> I think that's what's got a lot of districts in the news. >> Yes. >> You know, these are not one-time expenses. And I think we've all with your help, you know, we're very measured. >> You know, we'd all love to pay all of our employees way more than we pay them. >> Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, >> got the pie can only be cut so many ways and we can't bake any more pies. >> No. Well, in the in the pie of the ESSER funding, you all were so meticulous and so strategic on how we spent that that it didn't turn around and then caused the big
020deficit that a lot of districts are seeing because >> it was so well thought out and so well planned. And that was our fear going into that whole scenario was, hey, we have all all this money thrown at us, but how do we make sure that long term it doesn't become a negative? >> Yeah. >> And and that's where unfortunately I think some people um that has happened to them and it's become a negative and now they don't know how how do we fight out? How do we claw out? And it's a long process. >> We should have t-shirts made. the Mark Woods fan club. >> I wouldn't go that far. >> It just it would be wrong those ESR funds to spend it on people and that's what we didn't do. >> Yep. >>
021Right. We we tried to focus it on, you know, there were some but they were needs. We looked at needs. We looked at targeted intervention >> and ways that and working with schools that hey, if you're going to need that targeted intervention, how can you support this past three the three years of these funds, >> right? And you know, a lot of them are still funding that position. They're still keeping that because they found a benefit in it. >> And that was our goal going into it was how can we provide resources and some specialized people but not get us so overweighted that as we used to say um the tracks were ending and it was the last station uh on the trail run and how do you get off the train? you got to
022get off on time because you don't want to miss that train station and keep driving. >> At the end of the tracks, you're just gonna crash. So, >> um so yes, we have we've stuck to our allocation formula. Um that that's very beneficial. That was done prior to me. I I know Debbie Frasier and administrations way prior to me, they were very good about watching that. And that's why the district's in a position that we're in today. is because we had people that had the foresight to know that this is what you do. And um uh you know, but I thought this was really good because sometimes we get in these big numbers and we just look at the budget and you know, we think, oh well, they've just got all kinds of cash or
023oh hey um are the schools really well, we're putting a lot of money in schools and we try to that is our goal because if we're not then kids aren't being educated proper. >> A general fund's different than building funds >> 100%. Yeah, we can't >> pot. Yeah. And we've been able to leverage that um find ways find things that maybe uh might qualify in those pots that you can, you know, rearrange so that your general fund doesn't take a hit. >> But but once they're restricted funds, that's that's what you have. you can pay bonds or you can build facilities. And sometimes people look at that and they go, "Well, they're doing well, that's what the money's there for, and we can't do anything else with it." Um, but we don't want our facilities
024to get bad anyway. >> Yep. >> We want to keep them up because if you keep them up over time as they're needing to be repaired, then you're not in despair when because you got, oh man, how did I come up with this? So, you know, that that's another thing. And all of this watching our financials, it plays into our bonding. This plays into our bonding capacity. Uh when we get rated, they call me, we go through the financials, they ask me the strength of our general fund. They want to know all the numbers. And thankfully because people before me have set the stage, we've been able to keep it up and we get a better rating than most districts in the state because most districts in the state have to take uh what the
025state qualifies for and we're getting better interest rates which then saves us money on our building. So it's a balancing act >> at the end of the day. Any questions over that piece? >> Very informative. >> Yeah, it's a lot of good information that to us. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Are we putting that on our website or on our social media pages so people can see it? >> I mean, >> I don't know if you want to. >> I don't know. We got to have some cont, >> right? You don't want to just throw it up and people >> Yeah. It would have to have a whole lot of context that could >> It could go negative. Yeah. Yeah. >> Because there's a lot of keyboard warriors. >> It could understand it. >> They could
026say we're wasting a lot of money on utilities at because this is that's what it is, right? You know, they don't understand it, >> right? >> I think somebody asked why did we spend so much on milk once and they had to figure it out. That milk well is it is >> high quality milk. >> It is right. That's right. We're serving the best. >> Yeah. So if you don't know the back of it, you don't know. >> Yeah. So I I probably I probably wouldn't recommend that we do that just because the context. >> Um it could cause cause some issues of people maybe not necessarily understanding. It's a little different when you have me able to stand up here and give you. >> So we'll just tell people to watch the meeting. We
027talked to anybody. >> We Yeah. So, >> you can, can't you? >> All right. So, now we'll jump into the meat and potatoes of the budget. >> We'll start there on page one. Page one starts our revenue portion of the general fund budget. Uh you can see there at the top, we are starting with the amount that we ended from this last year. So, our contingency held strong for last year and we're bringing that into this year's working budget. Um, you can see we do have, as we talked before, funds that we committed for salary increases that we're bringing in there to to make this budget. And it is a balanced budget. I do want to make sure that I say that this is a balanced budget and we are not projecting to touch our
028contingency. >> Um, >> yeah. >> So, I want to point out something. So, When we give raises, our raise that we gave this year cost us $3 million. >> It's a portion of it. We had some other signatures in here and that's actually um down from >> but yeah, >> it's a large. That's what I want people to understand. It's not just a 2% or 4%. It's we're talking millions of dollars is what it adds up to. >> Yeah. So, so when we look at our when we give a raise to the general fund um out of the general fund, a 1% for every 1% you give just the salary side of it, it's about a million dollars. So, you give a 2% you're looking at 2 million plus the benefits that go along with
029it. Like I said, classified staff. Um the state does not pick up any portion of their um they don't provide any on behalf towards their retirement towards any any of that piece. So we get to pick up that. So um that means their benefits cost us 27 a.5% of their salary. So you take whatever our classified is all the way down the line, multiply it by 1.275, and that's a big number. So, I mean, when you take a it it just is. So, and then on the certified side, it's uh runs about 6 and a half%. Even with what the state kicks in, it's about 6 and a half% that you have to cover. So, you know, you start adding all that in and yeah, you get up to around $3 million to make it
030all work out. Then you factor in on top of that that uh step increases for us are running about a million dollars a year right now. So you take the it was just shy of a million. Um so you're looking at just shy of the three million just to cover steps and 2% raise. >> And that's that's one thing that I have to I always have to look at as we're approaching the new year. The step raises when they're a million dollars. That's a million dollars you got to come up with that you didn't have last year before >> didn't have in your budget last year. >> And when you say instead, you know, when I >> when I started 10 years ago, 31 years ago, you knew you were going to get a raise
031at 5, 10, 15, 20, and that was it. Now you get one. >> Now you you get one more often. It's way more often. And so those are really those are raises. They're longev what you would say longevity raises um for staying with the district. You're rewarded for staying longer and getting experience and being a more experienced teacher or a more experienced parah or what have you. Um and you know we try to reward some of that because we want loyal people. >> Absolutely. >> Uh we want people that know our district and people that know our kids. So that's why those are built in that way. But, you know, we used to have there was a time when I first started up and through COVID where your retirees kind of offset a bunch of
032that. People aren't as retiring as much as they were before. >> 33. >> They, you know, and we're we're seeing that um we're some of our experienced people are like, you know what? I'm gonna stay another year. I'm gonna stay another year. Uh I like what I do. I'm going to stay another year. Um there used to be there was a point where they hit 27 and they I don't blame them. But um now more and more they're saying, you know what, I I love working with these kids. I want to stay another year. Well, you're not getting the benefit of now you're hiring in a lesser experienced teacher and it offsets quite a bit of that step. We're not having that. So, you know, automatically when you start looking at a new year budget,
033you got to, you know, that there's a million dollars tacked on just before you even start. >> And those are in addition to the raises. >> Yeah. >> Yes. So, you had the steps that are automatically built in and then we did a 2% on top of that which actually made that 1% a little bit higher because it got multiplied by the 2%. So, >> but steps is a raise. >> Yes, it is. say that >> I don't know. >> It is a race. >> I know. They don't look at that. >> It's a race. >> It is. >> I just think sometimes it gets forgotten. >> Yeah. All right. So, moving on down the page, you see um we have our our numbers for our property tax. That's our next biggest area that we
034collect revenue from. Uh I always estimate those at 97%. we could have a little higher collections, but 97's a good number when we start the budget. So, um I have done that. I did increase the motor vehicle tax based on the new assessments. Um that was $300,000 increase. Um moving down, you see utilities. I didn't change it. We've been kind of steady in that upper uh about 5.6 to 6 million. That just depends on the weather, depends on the usage and you know, so I try to go a little conservative when we start out till we get several months in, see how the collections have been, you know, when we come back in January and we do adjustments to the working budget. If it looks like then that collections are higher because of utility rates
035and everything, you know, the usage, then we'll adjust it at that point. But that's why we didn't make any changes there. Over on page two, um, omitted property tax. Those are based on state revenue audits, but that's kind of consistent where we've been, right around that 200,000 mark. Uh, on down, I made no change to the, uh, interest on investments. Last week, uh, rate cuts happened on the Fed level. Uh, I talked to all my people and um, we instantly lost 1% on on anything right now. They're locked in. I've got several maturing uh, in October, but you know, I I won't be able to get the 4%s that were they everything went down. T bills went down to lower threes. Um, I'm CDs will follow. So, you know, we're going to see that number
036trend down. That's why I wasn't going to make any adjustment. You can see compar as compared to prior years, >> we made a lot more money on that. >> Um, people don't realize that that's a hit to our budget. Um, we try to maximize our money because we do get our property taxes, a big lump of it upfront right at the end of November. Well, we don't need all the cash flow right then. So, what do we do? We invest it to try and earn off of it so that we can find other ways to generate funds. Okay. we're gonna cut into it this year. Um they're projecting two more rate cuts over the year. So hopefully those hold off. Uh but we'll adjust that as needed. Uh moving on on page three. Um one
037of the areas you may see um in line 1980 refund a prior year. I don't have a budget in there. Uh those are things like KI dividends and KSBI KSBA unemployment surplus funds. We won't know that until year end if they decide that there's any dividends to give or if there's surplus funds because everybody in the uh unemployment trust fund has kept their claims down. Uh so that's why I never budget for that. Um, we just look at that as a bonus to help us out. Uh, throughout the year, you saw that number we brought in to help us out the salaries. We would reduce that and put that back into um our coffers for future if that happened. Seek I made no adjustment um versus the tentative. Uh this uh this does reflect the
038base funding increase to 45.86 86 for this year. I didn't make an adjustment because my fear is they're going to cut our transportation funding. So I I've made a projection. I think our seek should be based on our ending year AADA from the SAR and our assessments actually came in lower than what I projected to KDE to get our numbers in uh May for SEK. So those lower assessments means we took we would have a little bit less um taken off of our seek. So it should generate us a little bit more seek money. But my fear right now is that they may >> Yeah, that's going up. But hey, we're pulling your transportation funding back and we end up at ground zero. >> Well, they do it every year. >> They do. And >>
039and they're actually supposed to have had our tentative seek to us already. Uh I look back last year uh when they they gave it to us last year on the day of the budget meeting. They're supposed to provide it to districts so that we can do our budget that's mandated by September 30th to be approved by you all and submitted to KDE. And here we are. I don't have their data. So that's where we're at. That's I decided that it's best for this round of the working budget. Leave it stagnant, leave it flat, and we'll see what happens. Again, we can use that to offset some of the money that we brought in to cover salaries. And on that that money, we had that money put back. That is not contingency. I do want to
040make sure that that's clear to everybody because some people may say, "Oh, yeah, he he's just" No, this was not contingency. we were looking forward and we had put back some money knowing that we were going to need to do raises and we would need a little bit of help with that beyond what our property taxes were going to generate. So that is that's what that money is from. Um moving down to page five, you'll see the note there uh the on behalf we've kind of talked about that that's what the state provides for towards health insurance and uh retirement. we have to record that as a revenue and an expense in our budget. It just makes our budget really odd looking. But just knowing that's in there when I do some of the figures
041for you all, I take those out because that's not really our expenditure and I take those out so that we can get true numbers of what we are actually doing. Um 4,300 line there that's restricted direct federal. Um that did increase versus the tenative. We have now filled all of our uh JOTC instructor positions. So, we will be getting um they pay us half of the instructor cost. So, that will go up. So, I adjusted that up to account for that. On down, uh you'll see sadly I removed the line item for the CET bus lease. It is no more. So, um we have plans to auction. I think the auction is scheduled to go live soon uh to have those uh final buses sold off. So um no more CE that's been a good
042run in our budget. They've provided a lot of support for us over the years. Um they've been really good community partners. So I do thank them for that. But all things come to an end. >> So on page six uh you'll see the top line there. That's Medicaid revenue 4810. Uh that's dependent on unfortunately that's not just dependent on our billing. So we do a lot of numbers to bill for Medicaid. Uh there is there are factors built into that that are based on everybody else's billing across the state that determines what we get paid back at. So it there's a lot of factors in there. We call them haircuts because uh we give them the actual numbers and they just keep trimming and trimming and trimming until we get a nice haircut out of
043it. And you know some of it our biggest >> about my bonuses >> um our biggest um piece of Medicaid billing we get about 30 cents on the dollar of what we build. So, it's great. We get it, but when you look at it and you run the numbers and you're like, "Wow, they they keep cutting it, keep cutting it, and uh it's the Fairbanks report." And at the end of the day, we get about 30 cents on the dollar. So, uh fund transfers, uh I increase that because that's based on the actual budgetary numbers. So that'd be money where they uh we charge indirect to food service and a few other um programs, the MOAS with uh KDE for staff that are working for them. Uh they keep them on our payroll. We do
044all the financial side of it. They stay our employee until the MOA contracts over with. They pay us a little bit of indirect offset. It is it doesn't offset much. Um but supposedly to offset some of our costs. So that's what that line is. Page seven, you'll see there are totals. So uh total revenue um our receipts which are actual money coming in plus uh the items we brought in $146,817,39.80. So that's your general fund what your general fund budget's going to be based off for the year. Page eight starts our expenditures. Um, so I've kind of explained the process the way this goes. You know, we do our um allocations like uh Mr. Neily said, we meet with them about three times. We get that all ironed out. Uh I usually start right at
045the end of July, beginning of August, I send all of the principles their staff listing uh that we have from those allocations. I I work with HR to keep those updated and to show as we have people leave and this person replaced this person and uh Dr. Bruma is great about writing, hey, this person replaced this person. So, I can go right to that list and I can drop it in there and and we try and keep those as update possible. Well, then I send those out to all the principles to say, "Hey, please take a look at your staff listing. Let me know if this is really who all you have." Um it it provides an internal control one. It is one of our internal control features so we can verify that people we
046actually have valid people on our payroll. Uh the second piece I is for budgetary purposes and I actually um that's what this report right here would be. That's every staff member in our district um by where they're coded at in there and how much they're coded to each section. I go through that with the staff list, make sure we've accounted for everybody and that we have them properly coded to the proper funds and how they're supposed to be flit split between funds and everything. And that's where you see all these lovely little tabs. That's all the changes that we make throughout the budget. So it gives us a good internal control because I actually get to see everybody that's on payroll go through make sure that everything looks and is in good order. Um we
047do all of that that starts building this at the end of the day after steps after um the salary increases we did this past year the net change in the general fund salaries was a reduction of 247,000. So, we did a pretty good job estimating where we would be. Um, benefits were slightly up, but um, most of that is due to sick leave payouts that we had to make an adjustment for. Um, that's when people retire uh, through the system. That's one of the benefits that you get paid out on whatever sick leave you have banked up. So, um, and that gets to count towards your retirement. So, it's uh I did have to account for that, but it went up 189,000. Overall, I feel pretty good about how we estimated our salaries and benefits
048in the tentative. I think we hit pretty close. Um some notable items throughout here. Uh certified subs, uh in the salary and benefits, we did have to increase that almost $185,000 to account for our actual sub costs. and classified subs. We had to increase that. I don't know that I'd looked at it in a couple of years in great detail, but it's about $384,000 that we had to and that's just to get us to where we can cover and have enough to offset um where we had a little bit of raises even in those to make sure that we can cover our sub costs for the next year. Um, moving through here, I I gave you all some pretty decent notes. Um, on page 10, the supplies category under business support services. I didn't want
049you all to think I was going hog wild spending out of there. Uh, part of what software is what's included in that category. Munis um Munis self-s serve that our employees use frontline um I can't remember the name of the company it used to be talent ed and I can't remember the name of the >> school >> power school thank you um that we do our uh online our application our all that stuff through um that's in that category and of course you know software companies they raise their fees every year so uh I did have to increase that line versus the tenative budget it on page 11. Um, we get in plant operation maintenance. Uh, 0600, that's one of the big categories. Electricity and, um, natural gas are in the 0600 codes. So, we
050did have to increase that. Uh overall our utilities uh we had to increase close to $300,000 uh in our budget for this year based on uh what our actuals ended up last year. Um 0400 that's where some of your other that's where your water garbage and natural gas fall into and water costs everything. We did have to increase some of that. We've had rate increase notices from a couple of our utility providers recently. Uh moving on down, you'll see under student transportation, there's your um your buses are under property. If that looks a little high compared to prior years, um I've got that note there. You see that we have carryover POS. Yes, we are still trying to get buses from fiscal year 24 years ago. We're still >> We don't have all of them
051yet. No. And uh Mr. Cash is he stays on them and uh we had two delivered. Uh it's either beginning of this week or end of last week and he rejected them. They were terrible. Uh they had windows not sealed. They had wires hanging out everywhere and he was like that's not a finished product. So we had to send them back. So that's we're dealing with some of that. Um but they're coming off the line and we can't even accept them to get them in our fleet. We're >> This is a different company that we're dealing with. >> Same company we've bought from for years. >> Wow. >> Turn around a PO in a in a year. >> You would think they could. >> That's what they say. >> Yep. So, we're working on that.
052>> Maybe we need to look at a different >> Well, and that's something we've been talking about. >> So, I'm thinking on the flip side of that, I mean, if I've turned out a product, I'd kind of like to be paid for it. >> Yeah. And you know, for us, we don't pay till we get product in hand. So, uh, >> they they send us invoices all the time, and I'm like, "Yeah, no, sorry. We're not paying that." >> How many are we talking from 2024? >> From 24, I think we still have four of those that we're waiting on. I think we've gotten it down to four, but it >> Do we have like a statute of limitations on how long we can accept those? >> Yeah. Bad part about it is we need
053them. >> Yeah. >> We seriously need to consider looking at when it when the time comes. Look at >> And he is he's been talking to some of the other providers. The problem is they're the only company that offers the was it the 84 passenger. >> Oh, the large one. >> Yeah. >> The other 76. >> So, we've not received the bus. No, >> but if we can't get the bus, we might as well. >> I thought they just hadn't build us for them. They >> No. Well, they try, but >> they tried to bill us. No. >> I'm sorry. I totally >> This just accounts for the PO expenditure that hangs out there so that we make sure we have funds obligated to cover those. >> I totally totally >> No, they they brought
054some really faulty products and we've sent them back. So, >> so if they still 2024, what about all the 2025 10? We still got some buses off of it, too. >> How many How many are we lacking? Do you know? >> I don't know the full total. I think there's about four from 24 and then maybe close. We started getting some of the 25s in. It was like weird. And we were still waiting on the ones off the 24 PO. Um so, and I think we may be around six of those. I'm not for sure 100% for sure. I'd have to ask Mr. Cash. So at what point >> That's crazy when you think of we're buying 10 each year. Yeah. >> And we're behind six. >> We're now it's behind 10. >> So at
055what point do you cancel the PO purchase from someone else to catch up? >> Problem is some of those others are backed up because everybody's bought from them and we're we're still kind of sitting >> because from what I'm understanding, we need to buy more than 10 buses >> this year because we're we're behind. We're going to be behind from like >> we're okay >> 15 years. >> No, we're going to get these. Once we get these in and we buy our 10, we'll be on schedule. >> On schedule. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> It's just where we don't have these. And we still have money in the budget to cover what's hanging out there so we can get those paid. >> So, are these going to be 24 models or are these going to
056be 25 models? >> No, they're just now rolling off the line. So they'll be newer models >> which is where we order some handicap buses, some some of the shorter bus and we order the 84. So we order like three different models. >> We do >> and we always vary >> how many from each year. So >> yeah, based on our needs and what what's depreciating out and getting ready to come off the schedule, we try and make sure we replace those. >> Yeah. Well, >> so does it seem to be just the one particular type of bus or all over the 24? >> I'm not sure on that. I I haven't I haven't been in the weeds that far with him. I've been letting him. He can have that fine. >> Yeah. >> Blue's
057just the >> You just don't pay the bill. >> I just don't pay the bill. >> There you go. >> Till somebody can confirm to me that we have a big yellow bus sitting there that's operable. I do pay the bill. Of high quality. Yes. >> And we drive it. That's why I find it has been test driven. >> That's right. >> So, >> I did not know that we were messing up. >> All right, moving on down page 13. We're getting towards the end of the general fund budget here. Um line 090 about middle of the page there. Uh that's our match requirements. Cats match. Um we have another grant that we have to shift some money over to match. It's $5,000. So, um that's what that is. And then you can see we
058are projected to end with our full contingency with a balanced budget and our full contingency in place. So, um that's my goal every year is to keep that contingency in place. Um the other day I was running payroll. So when we run payroll, we have process where um my two groups, my classified and certified, they do their entering, they get everything ready. Uh my person that does certified um gets another portion of the processing ready and then they tell us to look through it and then um either uh I either go through it or a lot of times Nina um our director of financial services will go through it. Um, there's some reconciling that we do, look at everybody's payrolls, things that are out of place. We look for those. Uh, we get it to
059another step in there. We send it back to the certified person who finalizes it. And then we call the bank. We do everything with transferring the file, that type of thing. And and when I was going through there, I pulled and we're now at about $3.6 million per payroll. So, um, 3.6, you know, that's that that 11 million doesn't go very far when you're turning out 3.6 every time you roll a payroll. >> So, um, >> four months maybe. >> But you always said you wanted to try to at least have three months. >> Yeah. >> In case something happens. >> Well, not hardly there. So, >> but hey, we're we're keeping it back. We're keeping it steady. We're keeping what we've got and I feel good about that for for this budget. Um, couple
060other things it when you were looking at it in your packet, you may have noticed that fund two was way less this year than it was last year in total. Uh, last year we had a gear up grant. Uh, gear up ended at the end of the school year. Uh that was $951,000 in the budget last year and we had the last little bit $5.6 million of um Esser money that we spent out by September. So those were in the budget that accounts for the big changes in there. The rest of it is pretty much just balancing. Um, fund 21, that's school money that they sweep over. I've decided, um, now KD lets me get that through without putting a budget in. So, there's no sense of me budgeting that. I don't know how much
061they're going to sweep. They don't know how much they're going to sweep. So, uh, it just makes sense to leave that as zero. um fund 25 that's in there. That is where we have to bring in um all the student activity funds that we house in a different accounting system that I monitor um and the schools cut checks for. That's where we bring that in. I do that entry once a year. I just finished that in the last two weeks. That was a fun entry. Um, I had to get that done so we could get our, uh, AFR to the auditors who came in visiting us in the middle of budget. So, uh, it's been a little bit busy. Um, 28 starts capital outlay. Um, that's the restricted funds that we talked about restricted for
062building. Um, that's $100 per AADA that we're required to set back of our SEK funds in that. That's just taking what our um the main changes in theirs uh on the restricted state revenue and lowering interest. Um but uh the restricted state revenue is based off of our AADA from our SAR. So that's what we should receive. Uh page 30 starts the building fund um our nickels taxes. Uh so uh about right right around 18 cents of every dollar that we collect in taxes has to go into this fund. So we don't get a dollar for dollar on our taxes. It has to go into this because that's what it's uh established for and that can be used for bond payments and building projects. So, uh you can see there that uh I made adjustments
063to the to the taxes uh for the year. It's actually a decrease in the budget because um we had estimated our our everything a little bit higher um to KDE and when they told us what our requirement was for this um it was based on a higher um assessment data. So, it should come down. This is what I'm projecting it to be. Moving on through the rest of the budget. Um fund 360, that's just to show where uh the money from 310 and 320 that do not go to bond payments, we have to budget it in construction for the budget process. So it's just an in and an out. Um doesn't really have a lot other than that. After that, you have fund 400. That's on page 37. That's your annual bond payments. I work
064with our advisors to uh keep those up to date um of what those cost. And then fund uh page 40 starts fund 51. We've went through there made adjustments for salaries and other things and equipment different things and um Nina does that budget for me and she's worked through that. So in total you get down to the end you can see our all of our summaries. Um, page 51, I do believe. Yep. 51 starts all the summaries there. I will take any questions you might have, uh, anything I may not have covered that you may want to know. >> Fabulous job as usual. >> Thank you, Any questions? Great job. Back in my day, I would love numbers like this, but yeah, way over my head now. Okay, there's no questions. Then we need to
065approve make a motion to approve the 2025 2026 working budget as presented. Do we have a motion move? >> Motion by Miss Brock. Who said that? Miss Bob and I'll second it. >> Second by Miss Berford. All in favor say I. >> Motion carried. >> 4 C. To consider the bids for the Clarks Middle School dugout project. Do we have any questions? Chris is here to answer anything we have. We >> Are you happy? >> We got some information earlier. Yeah, he's very satisfied. This is different. >> Get up. It's your chance. >> Come on. It's your chance. You got less than >> Yeah, come on. >> So, yeah, I feel like all the numbers were good numbers. We we fished a little bit ahead of time to see what we thought costs were going
066to be and they were about the 150ish range. And then we did the RFP, put it out, solicited bids, divided the bid packages up into three bid packages. Allows a little more participation. It also allows, which is something I like to do, is allow some of our local smaller contractors that can't bond big big projects, but this gets uh the jobs and the and the numbers down there where they can handle it. So then this, you know, the people we go to ask support our kids, ask support our schools have an opportunity to compete and and apply for some jobs and make some money. So uh the total cost ended up being 135 176. So we saved 15 20,000 over what we had originally thought it would be. That's 33,794 a dugout. Um so I
067I think it's a >> a good number. We have to do a lot of things now for the city and the codes that um we wouldn't have done probably in the past for a dugout, but they just require it. We have to do it. All those things add expenses and add cost. I'm not going to say it's unnecessary, but it's expensive. >> What's this projection of getting these done? I know this. >> Great question. Well, you all hopefully approve it tonight and then the timeline would be based off your all's approval. We're going to do a pre-construction meeting September the 30th, which is next Tuesday, >> and then they will be able to commence work on October 1st. Uh hopefully we have them done before the beginning of the year and it's not these will
068be different. These will be different. And there's four total, correct? >> Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Two for the top on baseball and two for download >> for softball. >> That's good. I was going to have you say that because I'm sure they're wondering like who is this for? >> Yeah. So, everybody gets the same thing. Brand new equal fair, right? >> Right. >> That's right. >> Any other questions? If not, let's entertain a motion to award the following bids for the Clark Moors Dugouts project. Bid package number one, concrete and structural steel to Circle G excavating for $53,560. Bid package number two, unit masonary with grouted steel reinforcement to Macintosh Masonary for $37,296. Bid package number three, wood framing, shingles and roofing sheet metal to Steuart Contracting for $44,320. Do I have a motion? So move
069>> motion by Mr. Rutherford. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Miss Brock. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carried. >> 4 D is to create and ratify LBD teaching position and that would be your homebound teaching position. So >> do we have a motion? Any questions? >> Do we have a motion? >> Our district or assigned to a particular >> it's for special needs kids who are on home value. >> We keep uh keep adding them. So, >> so move >> motion by Miss Brock. Do we have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Mr. Rutherford. All in favor say I. >> Motion carried. >> 4E. Create and ratify two athletic site managers. Of course, this is um this is uh 0 52 of the high
070school athletic director stipen. I don't know what I was supposed to say there, but it's part of the athletic stock. That's what I wanted to say, but I didn't know where the 52 come from. >> All right. So, the motion would be to create and ratify two athletic site manager positions at Madison Central High School at $1,500 stipen, each paid for through their school athletic funds. >> Do we have a motion? >> Move. >> Motion by Miss Burer. Do we have a second? >> Second by Miss Cobb. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carried. >> It's called your soul. >> That was >> quiet. I can't tell who it is over there. >> You need me to speak up a little bit? >> Yeah. Put the mic down. >> All right. 4F.
071Create and ratify two paid football assistants. This would be an entertaining a motion to create and ratify two paid assistants for Madison Central High School football at $1,177 each to be paid for by school athletic funds. Do we have a motion? So move. >> Motion by Mr. Rutherford. Do we have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Miss Brock. All in favor say I. >> Motion carried. Do we have any comments from the board? >> Mr. Woods. We're so appreciative. >> You're I feel like our board is always in great hands um financially because a you're extremely conservative, but you're a leader in the field. I know the other districts look to you for advice and we're just very very fortunate to have you on our team. >> You know, he gave praise to
072the past two, >> but it takes somebody to follow that to be >> just as good. So >> my team, >> well, you do have to have a team. That's true. >> But we'll give you the credit and you can give it to them. >> And we'll thank them all. Good job. >> Take it because you'll get calls tomorrow. >> All right. Any other comments? >> If not tonight and Central's homecoming tomorrow. >> Everybody smile and wave at us when we go get on the street going >> some candy. Looks like we got a bunch coming. But yeah, big night tonight and tomorrow >> and a big game. Yeah. >> Friday night. >> Here we go. >> Can we entertain a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. Motion by Miss Brock. >> I'll second. >>
073Second by Miss Ber. All in favor say I. >> I'm louder. >> Motion carries. >> We are now journed.