001e all right good evening and welcome meeting of the Cleveland County Board of Education for Monday April 8th 2024 is called to order I'd like to call on Ernie Blandon uh family pastor at Hope Community for invocation thank you before I pray I'd just like to share one scripture um as I experienced the eclipse today I was reminded of a scripture out of Psalm 191 it says the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork and I couldn't help but think about that as I witnessed the eclipse today so I just want to share that with you guys let's pray father God we we thank you for every seat that's been filled here tonight God for each uh mind and heart that feels the presence of this room God we
002thank you only you truly know God what we're setting out to accomplish this evening God you have a an idea and a vision and you give us daily instruction and God we have talents and abilities that you've blessed us with and time to work God however you only you can see the perfect detail the end of every beginning got every project every season every life God nothing is ever in vain for even mistakes and missteps can be used for your good God your righteousness transcends all our efforts and understanding and father God we pray that you forgive us forgive us when we become prideful forgive us God when the that Pride Puffs us up and maybe that Pride even threatens to unqualified just help us to turn to you to try to emulate you you
003and how we serve one another how we love one another God strengthen our confidence in who you've made us to be and father we pray that you set us free from comparisons God in order that we may work together efficiently to serve your purpose God you are The Giver of all good gifts and we do thank you we thank you for all your blessings God for all the successful outcomes in our schools and for all of our staff um the board members the administration the teachers all the support staff God we thank you so much for them and God just pray that you bless them and their families and we ask that you God not only bless them but bless them abundantly as we continue to seek your wisdom your guidance your courage and your
004strength we pray this in Jesus name amen amen thank you Mr SP if you lead us in the pledge please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all next we have our special recognition uh Miss Ronda Benfield good evening Mr chairman members of the board Dr thank you for the opportunity this evening to recognize three of our CTE students spring is a busy and rewarding time for our ctsos and that stands for Career and Technical student organization we have 12 ctsos that are active in our high schools and middle schools and 10 of those are involved in competition at this time of year ctsos are a great experience because students plan
005and Lead their meetings their events they learn Robert's Rules of Order public speaking leadership communication even interviewing skills all of those things are actually part of the curriculum so students have opportunities to then apply what they learn in the classroom and compete against students from other school districts on a regional state and National National level tonight we're recognizing three students from the DECA Club at Burns High School these students competed last month in the North Carolina Deca sales project category they wrote a 20page paper and then they gave a presentation before a panel of evaluators in Greensboro and they earned a second place finish in the state for their work and they have earned the right to compete at the national level so in just a few weeks these students and their teacher will be
006traveling to Anaheim California to compete for us all three of these students are freshmen so we're expecting even greater things from them over the next three years so if they will come up as I call their name Dr fiser has a certificate for you and then uh you can be congratulated by our board and we'll pause for a a picture Julia Cornwell [Applause] Gracie [Applause] linhard Turner [Applause] Morris and then the marketing team teacher and deca advisor is Amanda moris if she'll come up [Applause] too you don't get off that easy thank [Applause] you it looks like they have three more years to get that first place in state so no no pressure uh next we have Mr David pleas with some athletic announcements chairman members of the board Dr Fisher thanks for uh giving
007me the opportunity to recognize one of our student athletes uh we have with us state champion swimmer Alex Ty singer Alex is a junior at Burns High School uh second year in a row we've gotten to recognize Alex uh she won to state championship in the 50 meter freestyle as a sophomore last year and this year she won the 50 meter free and the 100 meter freestyle in addition and this is a tremendous honor Alex was named the most outstanding s swimmer at the 2A meet so what that means is we pretty much have the best female swimmer in the state right here in Cleveland County um Alex's parents Joey and Jenny Ty singer are with us tonight and also her Burns High swim coach Dan MCC um lastly I want to say that Alex
008has over a 4.5 GPA she's in the top five of her class and she is an outstanding student first athlete congratulations [Applause] congratulations [Applause] congratulations yes Cleveland County students continue to bring back trophies everywhere we go so congratulations to all you students uh before we adopt the agenda there are a couple of changes uh we need to have a brief closed session so I'm adding that in at 12.01 and we'll move the Personnel report from 5.09 to 1301 so that closed session will be for a brief Personnel discussion then we'll have the Personnel report after that and adjourn after that does everyone understand that change all right uh do I have a motion to adopt the agenda as modified motion by Mr Bridges second by Mr un any questions or discussion those in favor you
009raise your hand that carries 8 Z all right we got two sets of minutes for approval first is the March 11th 24 business and close session and the March 11th 24 close session what's the pleasure of the board make motion approve v motion by Mr Shore second by Mr bridges any questions or discussion all right those in favor if You' raise your hand and that carries 8 Z we'll move on to committee reports first is finance and personnel Mr Shores thank you Mr chair the finance committee met on March 28th uh Rob McDaniel shared a budget update and Esser update Finance has been working on documentation required by the government related to the federal interest and Esra funds Mr McDaniel discussed a 2023 2024 budget amendment this will come to the board for approval tonight
010Dr Fisher shared an update on prek budget and the need for additional front funding for prek there are some options that are being considered such as private pay options Dr fish also shared an update on Transportation funds and expenses over the past couple of years we have raised bus driver pay and reduced the number of buses being used however the funding for transportation has not kept up kept pace with the rising cost of transportation and we expect transportation to be over budget by $1 million this year this will have to be paid out of local funds Mr McDaniel Dr Fisher shared information that is being considered and including and creating a proposed 2024 2025 budget which will be submitted to the County Commissioners in May Dr fiser shared funding on ADM history along with our
011budget needs and per pup ranking he shared that our cash flow has decreased by $2 million over the past four years which has significantly impacted our budget Mr McDaniel shared a detailed draft of the proposed budget with special attention given to local funding specifically Mr McDaniel shared that about 3.9 million and additional funding is needed for us to break even Dr fiser shared four contracts that are being requested for approval the first is the annual required audit contract the second is the happy vision service contract for EC Services the third is the CTE Soul Source contract with Pon Patterson for summer camp which will be used funded using eser funds the fourth is the Viv technology which will be funded using the safety grant funding Ginger Jackson shared details on the uses of a VV
012technology and how it meets our safety needs the commune unly approved and will be up for the board to vote on tonight communities and schools has requested that we continue to fund them as we have in the past for their services which include Ed graduation coaches at high schools and programs at two of the middle schools due to our budget concerns Dr fisherman staff recommended that we cut funding to communities and schools by 25% the committee agreed unanimously to to a 25% cut and an allocation of $125,500 to increase the number of after school programs they are offering to our students while we greatly appreciate their service due to our budget issues the committee and staff felt that we were unable to provide any funding at this time however the district will continue to help
013them through in kind assistance such as the use of our facilities Dr wler shared a brief Personnel update the district is making significant Staffing cuts for next year as we discussed in the proposed budget the cuts will be made through attrition with no new business the next finance and Personnel committee meeting will be Thursday May 2nd at noon thank you Mr Shores we do have several action items and finance and Personnel first will be the budget amendment number one Mr McDaniel Mr chairman members of the board uh in your packet tonight you'll have an updated budget amendment from the uh finance and Personnel subcommittee meeting the majority of the Amendments that are on there are derived around Personnel where we move folks based on state funding so if State increases or decreases a particular program
014code or object or or purpose code we have to move Personnel around to make sure that we keep all the purposes in line um page one of that amendment is your local budget amendment and you'll see where we are actually adjusting down just a little bit based on some moves some additional funding that came from the state which allowed us to move some folks uh over to State funding page two is your state public fund you'll see the adjustment was upwards of $3.2 million but there's also funding from the state to match that as well pay three is the federal budget again those are primarily uh Personnel moves moving folks in and out of particular programs and purposes and it's all it's matched by the funding that comes from federal government page four is uh
015Child Nutrition no changes in their budget page five is special Revenue funds donations grants gifts uh a few changes there um primarily based around some additional funding that came in for Mor 4 Head Start and jcpc uh we also had some additional e- rate funding and a Child Nutrition grant that was awarded and then we've had to allocate some additional money to cover utilities and um an item on the agenda tonight which was a bus that got uh Mr P applied for a grant several years ago and the grant came through so there'll be an activity bus delivered and that funding was received in fund eight so we've accounted for that in that budget page six Head Start funds no significant changes there other than adjustment in the indirect cost page seven is capital outlay
016couple of changes there based on uh buses that the state delivers to us we have to account for those in our budget even though they pay for them so that's um one of the increases in the budget side and also on the revenue side we also received some additional funds to cover the uh skiff athletic grants so that's accounted for on on the budget side and the revenue side as well and I believe that's it yes sir yes if we knew how this budget was going to turn out why did we give those raises here a few weeks ago in the upper levels when we know that we was going to be losing teachers or teachers assistance how how could we do that we do we not know in a two-month period of how much
017money we got this is last this is the current year budget 2324 this is not next year and he just mentioned that you just mentioned that we was talking about from the committee Mr Shores did that we were going to be short we're not going to be restaffing some if we're not going to be restaffing then why did we put out uh those uh several big raises on uh Administration uh our staffing needs to we need our staffing to teach these kids do you know how much we've done in total raises on Administration since we've been here well it's only $130,000 divided over about 25 people that 130 will get you one teacher one and a half one teacher one teacher assistant well you got to start some that amount of raises did not cause
018any kind of big budget shortfall so any other questions on the amendment I I would just like to say something just we maybe clarify I think we also had a discussion that Gaston was losing a top a lot of their top administrators and we were doing everything possible to keep what we had because of the amount of money that some of the surrounding counties were paying their administrators we were just trying to stay keep be competitive and not lose so many people so that's the reason that we're trying to give raises is and this budget is so complex that You' got to understand what's paid for by state what's paid for by federal what paid for by local funds um so I think the main reason I remember having this discussion uh about we wanted
019to keep our folks here and that's and that's why we gave the raises well why uh we need to keep our teachers too but the thing about it um uh I'm I'm not uh I just don't understand some things uh you know uh of losing our staff and I know that we're growing uh I don't know are we short on kids coming up year or this coming year are we going to be short short from the past uh here it comes Mr blon if you'll wait on those questions we're going to give a 24 25 budget update as as in your uh in your I was going saying your bulletin your program but on the agenda we're going to do that moving forward and I'll be glad to address those questions to you at this
020time but this agenda item is a 2324 budget amendment that is from the current budget has nothing to do with any of that kind of information we're taking funds that we have got uh and that we need to make sure they're in the right areas because of adjustments at the state level and information we have I'll be glad to address those questions as we talk about the 2425 budget presentation and point 5.08 okay Mr Mr Queen yes um we mentioned about Staffing Cuts now where where is that going to come from where where exactly is or is that something you want be in his discussion of the 23 of the 2425 the year okay all a budget amendment does is we get we get new money in from the state sometimes they take it back
021from a different category th this is balancing what has actually been sent to us getting it in the right CS so any other questions on the budget amendment uh so this was updated today to make sure we had the latest numbers so the committee has not seen this actual one so we need a motion to approve motion to approve second you have a motion by Mr un and a second by Mr Taylor any further discussion those in favor if You' raise your hand and that carries 8 Zer thank you Mr McD but I want to make sure that we're bringing it back next we have the audit contract uh this is with Anderson Smith and white P LLC uh this will be for 42,500 this does come from committee recommended for approval any questions or
022discussion on the audit contract Mr BL one thing I think these committee meetings need to come back to the open uh we have a board meeting once a month to do at and the whole board together uh out of order we're on we're talking about the audit contract right now any questions on the audit contract all right those in favor if You' to raise your hand any opposed what was your vote Mr B uh with y'all that carries 8 Z next is the happy Vision contract Amendment this is an hourly rate contract $85 an hour hour it has a not not to exceed cost of $127,000 for the year and this provides visually impaired and orientation and Mobility Services to EC students this does come from committee recommended for approval any questions regarding the happy
023Vision contract yes I have a question there we have other people that drives their vehicle they don't get that kind of money uh for driving their vehicle to the uh different 85,000 that contract was readed 85,000 for the vision and 85,000 no sir it's not to exceed it's $85 an hour $85 an hour excuse me and they are they are paid for their time driving to the first school and their time from driving from the last school they're not and then obviously they're paid during the day while they're on the job and I can't well and like it or not when sometimes there's only one group out there providing the services and we're required by law to provide it we have to you have to pay the market rate and that's what it is any
024other questions those in favor if You' raise your hand carries 8 Z next is a CTE Soul Source contract this is with Paxton Patterson amount of the contract is $38,600 and4 cents uh this will be paid for out of erra funds and it's for summer camp Learning Systems uh through our CTE program any questions on that all right those in favor if You' raise your hand that carries 80 next we have the uh Vivy purchase this is paid for through a safety Grant again this is with Vivy technology the cost of that is $74,999 and again that's out of safety grant funding does come from committee recommended for approval can you explain exactly what that is so with the I think we got to be careful I mean you think that CL is over in
025well Des I I saw the presentation that was described and I don't want to give away our secrets very it's very good trust me it's it it's top of the Notch and I just I just think we got to be very careful okay okay any other questions on that purchase that's a yearly contract all right those in favor if You' raise your hand it carries 8 Z next is the communities and schools funding request uh as mentioned in Mr sh's report that has been reduced by 25% I do need to correct the number reported uh we had a typo in that so the final number is $17,542 12751 since that number is different than what we had in committee I'll ask for a motion to approve the communities and school contract is that you Mr
026brid any questions on that I'll have one there too uh are we getting our money's worth there versus what we get out of the boys and girls club and things like that uh and what what we're getting are we getting our mone's worth as I understand yes the gr the graduation coaches yes Mr Bridges Mr ERS yes um our primary services from them are the graduation coaches and they are very helpful to our students any other questions I think there's information on that and educational programs committee report from the month before those in favor if you to raise your hand that carries 8 Z all right Dr fiser looks like it's your turn for that 2425 budget presentation thank you Mr chairman members of the board do have a a budget presentation for you tonight
027um this is not the budget uh this is just a budget update uh that was shared with our uh finance and Personnel committee uh in conversation with Mr Shores uh chairman of that committee and our staff we felt like it was probably important to to bring this in conversation tonight just to kind of update you with some information as we finalized our budget uh proposal as you know uh we will bring a budget proposal to you uh superintendent's proposed budget comes to you and may uh you have the opportunity to approve that once you approve it it comes the board's appr uh proposed budget that proposed budget goes to the County Commissioners uh that by Statute has to be in the County Commissioners uh Hand by May 15th so that would give us plenty of
028opportunity to do that uh that is just proposed budget once once the county approves their budget once the state approves a budget uh the short session uh then then we'll have an actual budget sometime in June uh we will bring to you A continuing budget if if the state do not approve their budget by the end of June we'll bring a continuation budget to you just so we can get the year started and operate uh come July one and this is not anything new we've done this for for for many years once the state approves their budget and once uh we have technical Corrections and go through that process of implementation then we'll present a full budget to the board uh tonight the data is just I'm presenting you some data uh that that we're
029using to drive uh our budget requests uh at the end of that um I'll give you some some you know three scenarios that we have you know communicated in terms of budget proposal that we would like to see obviously you know um we we are uh accomplished a lot of stuff clev County Schools um you know I'm not going to stand here and and talk about all those I think in one of the presentations I had several slides of of things that we have going on in CL County schools that are really really good some highlights that uh that that we would want to mention things like aoral projects some capital projects uh some programmatic successes just like the internships at our at our schools CTE Focus you saw some of that tonight uh the
030literacy work that we're doing in our elementary schools uh robotics programs the stem Focus uh just lots of different things that are really good and highlights that I can spend time on uh that have been presented to to the Commissioners but tonight I really want to highlight a couple things that I think are are very important uh and the first bullet talks about cash flow versus rising cost of doing business um as you know the cost of doing business is increasing um even if you're doing the exact same thing you were doing before the cost of doing business is increasing uh if anybody is shopping at a store you're paying bills you're doing all those things it is increasing if you were going to the store and getting 10 items for $10 and you were
031doing that in 2019 today you're going to either need more than $10 to get those 10 same 10 things or if you only have $10 you're going to get less than those 10 things and that's just the reality in which we live uh from goods and services to Personnel cost is is more expensive so we do talk about cash flow versus rising cost of doing business we know that the cost of doing business has increased so if the cost of doing business has increased your cash flow must increase correct if not then you're going to have to do some things that uh do without some things you're not going to be able to get those 10 things with that same $10 that you did in 2019 one of the factors that drives our uh funding
032is average date of membership ADM uh that's the number of students that we have in school that are enrolled um and so I've given you a 5-year history here you know we could give you a longer history uh you've seen that uh but in 2019 2020 um that was the year prior to co uh Mo coming out of Co school districts uh across the state dipped in enrollment you can see a dip from we went from 1920 to 2021 um let me get let me first highlight uh the the two columns in each year uh I've given you month one and month two those are important for us because they drive funding from DPI those are important months as we look at what's our ADM um so as you go through the year if you
033look at month five or month six ADM goes down because we have some early graduates have different things happen but month one and month two drives that so you can see Cleveland County Schools is very very consistent over the years with month one and month two we don't have a lot of variation to that our schools work extremely hard to make sure they get the students in enrolled C mark one ADM so we did see a little bit of a dip after 2019 2020 after covid uh to 2020 2021 um and then it's hard to see on this chart but if you look I know You' got a paper copy at your at your spots uh we have seen an increase in enrollment in ADM since 2020 2021 um now in 23 24 we're not
034um exactly up to the pre-co enrollment but we're pretty close that's a good sign so if you look at this from a historical perspective if you go go back 15 20 years you will see a steady decline in enrollment in Cleveland County Schools really through Co um and then over the last four years while it's not significant increase in ADM you are seeing some some increase a slight increase in ADM which is good that's a positive thing uh for for for us from a funding standpoint but also a growth standpoint um again you've got that data you can can look through that um I did provide a budget update in the funding history I'll go back to 24 uh excuse me 2014 2015 in this uh you can see uh the different funds that we
035get supplemental tax has increased there was a little dip there uh 1516 and and it has gone up uh from from the beginning of that uh this chart 1415 to 23 24 it's a 10year history there um County appropriation is essentially flat it hovers right around that $10 million um the sales tax relatively flat uh over the last 10 years there isn't a little bit of an increase over time you can see it though it's flattening out everything is flattening out on this back side um that you can you can see the flat now um findes and forfeitures the orange line at the bottom uh it's hard to predict that that is just you know what we get in fines and forfeiture so that's really not it is a funding a piece of funding that
036we get uh but but we budget that uh not knowing from year to year what that will be um and then the red line is capital outlay funds uh just as a reminder you see a peak there in 2122 and I'm sure if I ask you what that Peak was all of you would remember that was part of the auditorium funding that came in that we drew down some of that money um to to finish our portion of the auditorium funds there uh with that Peak um so you know really relatively flat funding um supplemental tax has has has increased a little bit um but it did dip there after 145 and it's gone back up uh but it has flatten out over the last couple years um now this is a really good chart
037to break down the types of funding that we get this is a really good chart to say what's total funding because whether it comes from sales tax whether it comes from um uh you know property tax whether it comes from appropriation those are funds that we use to to pay bills if you will in a cash flow situation and so you can see there uh from 2019 2020 um we had a little bit of an increase in cash flow to 20 2021 uh and then we had a jump in 2122 but remember that cash flow increase was because of that Auditorium um bump there and capital funds that were using our portion to pay that and then we've gone back down to 22 23 and 23 24 into actually a cash flow situation that's a
038little bit less than 2019 2020 and 2020 2021 and that's when I go back to the Avenue of cost versus cash flow our costs are increasing but that cash flow is is as at best very consistent over time um and and you've seen in that time you've seen salaries increase whether it's bus driver salaries teacher salaries um our everybody's retirement um matching benefits have increased not to mention just the the price of doing business in terms of ordering trash bags paying electrical bills doing all those things uh that we've seen an increase uh since then okay I I will pause just a second here it's not in your slides we talked about this before we really h on it in our finance Personnel committee meetings about Esser funding Esser funding is not in here um
039if you remember we've made a concerted effort with erer funding to not have reoccurring cost um because if we have reoccurring cost and Esser funds we've got to find a place to pay for that now that Esser is going away so our cost and Esser have been non- reoccuring spent um the board has approved a lot of capital projects in that and really done a good job of of focusing on improving our facilities but that that Improvement is is a smart purchase in our opinion because those are non-recurring funds funds that we don't have to pay there um so I've also given you a budget update this is using table 24 um I know you probably say well what is table 24 well North carine Department of Public Instruction their business services office they publish
040on their website they publish lots of tables um there are probably 40 or 50 tables on there some of them have to do with enrollment some of them have to do with with graduation rate some of them have to do with suspensions uh some of them are Finance related so table 24 table 24 is referenced in the the district mou with the county uh this is a a funding table but table 24 is the rank of local expenditure now it's important that you know what we're measuring here is expenditure it's not a level of funding it's what we're spending per child and so you can see um in 2022 2023 we were about 59th in in local expenditure and that table um here basically is it's good if you go down because that is your
041your your percentile is is better so um you can say our average we're about 57th or 50 56 or 57 in average um I give you that exact number hang on just a second so our average is 54.78 so you rank all 115 leas we're averaging 54th in um local expenditure as as described in in table 24 um we've been as high as 70th which again high is not good that means we're spending less money uh per child and we've been as low as in 2020 2021 we are 33rd okay so that's when the mou came into that uh category but you can see the volatility of that especially when you look at 2020 2021 um uh if you take that out you probably have a pretty good uh you drew a line of best
042fit you would probably be pretty flat there uh in terms of that a better way to look at funding in my opinion is table 30 table 30 is local allocation this is the money that we get not the money that's spent because we could spend fund balance we could spend grants we could spend lots of different monies that weren't allocated necessarily to us so my opinion table 30 is a better appropri a better interpretation of how we're funded uh we average if you look at the far right our average is 72nd in terms of local allocation um this past year we were 69 and again this this table really shows the consistency in funding and and really highlights if you go back to uh a couple slides I showed you earlier you look at consistency
043of funding uh the table the the slide with just the blue bars it really highlighted how consistent that funding has been over years and and while we appreciate local consist consistency in local funding you know as costs come increase that creates the the challenge that we have so I I I talked to you about you know some proposals we have um uh we we have three proposals that we're really working from proposal one is to increase operational appropriation by 4.5 million uh and local Capital by 700,000 this would put us in the top 40 and T as as defined in table 24 um now that we're looking in a year in in in in behind because the the right now you could see 2022 2023 data so you're never going to know really know where
044you are till the next year when that data comes back up uh proposal number two is increase appropriation by 4 million and local Capital by 700,000 and that would if we look at table 30 would put us in the top 50 um and then proposal three is increasing local appropriation by 3 million which would put us in the top 55 uh in table 30 and increase local Capital by 700,000 again this is using the data we have now so that's assuming that no nobody else funding goes up because if everybody else they're moving up on the chart and so we might not move up on the chart as much as we think we're moving but using this year's tables if we ever all things consistent then we would that's where we would uh a goal
045to be um and again I hope that makes sense because you're you're you're shooting at a moving Target because you don't know what other people are appropri spend um so that's a a brief budget update um again our our staff continues to work uh on finalizing budget proposal uh I believe our next Finance Personnel meeting is May 3rd believe that's the date Friday May 3rd uh so we'll have a draft uh for the committee at that time and then we will have a um uh superintendent proposed budget to present to the full board at our next meeting uh here in May so Mr Queen be glad to try to answer your questions that that you board members may have any questions for Dr Fisher Mr BL what would it take for us to go back
046to a workshop once a month that all the boards together on instead of these committee meetings I don't have a problem with the committee discussion is out of order we're talking about the 2425 budget meeting schedules has nothing to do with the budget well it does no it because uh we talk about them in the Committees you need to talk about the 2425 budget Mr spur so uh I just want to make sure I'm right with this so where where does uh teacher raises and Personnel raises come from so they come from a variety of sources um the the the the main source of that let me let me clarify your question when you say where do their raise come from where does the money for the raise come from or where does the uh
047what the teacher raise is come from well both okay brought so that's that's that's a great question I just want to make sure I answer the questions you're you're asking and giving you your correct information so the general assembly sets a a teacher salary schedule okay and they set that schedule um and I believe last year it was depending on where you were in the scale um over the last several years uh North Carolina has given some significant raises to the people on the bottom end of the scale and people on the top end of the scale have gotten very little raise and that is a concern for people that have been teaching for for an extended period of time it is not does not incentivize people to stay in the business definitely after 30
048years but even after 20 years when you're flat and and you don't see a race but that's probably a discussion for another day um so the state sets that salary schedule they set the raise what's going to happen money comes from a couple different sources money comes from State positional allotments the state says okay Cleveland County Schools is X big and we are going to loot you x positions and so we take those positions and we we put people into those positions and now we have other funding sources well just to clarify on that so when it's an an allocated spot just so folks understand the state pays for that spot fully whether it's a beginning teacher or a 25e teacher that is absolutely correct so let so it's about I'm going to say 875
049okay it may be a little more a little less but for argument sake let's say it's 875 so we have 875 teacher spots that that we don't have to pay dollar for dollar the state's going to pay those 875 teachers regardless of who we put in that spot so obviously we put our most expensive teachers into those spots and let the state pay those dollars okay so then we also have a a a a variety of other funds both at to state and federal level that we pay teachers with whether they be whether that is an at risk fund whether that is a low wealth fund whether that is program funds um EC CTE um we title two title one we have a lot of funds that we put teachers and our finance department does
050a phenomenal job of making sure that we value the dollar at to the best way possible what I mean by that is we're not going to let the state pay for a a zero a beginning teacher out a state fun out of state uh uh positional allotment and we pay for a 30-year veteran out of local dollars so we move people around throughout the year now unbun to the teachers at the end of the day they don't care where their where their fund comes from as long as that the end of the month that check's there and that Check Cashes and it it's all green spend so at the end of the day we move those folks to maximize our dollars once all that has been done then we roll into local dollars to pay
051for some positions now there are some positions regardless of where the salaries that we cannot place them just anywhere so you take a a a social worker or a counselor for instance student services we can pay them out of 07 which is a student service code we can pay them out so if aie was here she'd probably correct me and give me the exact codes but I'm giving you 50,000 foot view okay but we can't pay this counselor social worker out of some of these other teacher codes so what we may have to do regardless of this school counselor is it hits local dollars so we at once all that state federal budget has taken care of now we have a local budget that we pay for local Pay Teachers Mr sping the state does
052not appropriate enough money to adequately staff our district you know they don't fund for small schools they fund the the appropriation is like 1 to 800 or 900 for assistant principls and and that means our high school would get one assisted principle or maybe one and a half take our two biggest high schools and they get one split up that's that's not enough to to adequately fund schools not to mention the fact that you you know you have some smaller schools that it just doesn't work that way um and I won't get into the K3 class size issue that creates a strain on additional resources in this we don't have that long unless you want to go to breakfast um so what happens at the very end then we have local dollars that we have
053to spend and sometimes we're spending local dollars on assistant principles and counselors and they're they can be more expensive employees cuz they their assistant principal extra you know additional employment you have counselors you have advanced degrees all this kind of stuff you're paying those out of local dollars and as you see in the chart we only have so many local dollars and we have to pay a water bill we have to pay the heat bill we have to order trash bags we have to order supplies we have to do all these things that that organiz that the largest employer in Cleveland County School in Cleveland County has to do plus we have to pay these employees now one one final thing I think final is the positional allotments are covered but when we pay employees
054now we also have to pay benefits retirement Insurance all those stuff so you got a teacher that cost let's say it's a beginning teacher at at $440,000 that teacher doesn't cost $40,000 the teacher really cost and what we budget is $80,000 benefits ins all those other things that go along with paying that it's just not the teacher piece you have to pay it is um it is all the other stuff so that's why sometimes when we say and we've done this recently we'll cut a position and and add responsibilities to another position and give that person a pay raise because it's so much cheaper for the district to give employee a $10,000 more dollars to do two jobs than it is to to hire a a $330,000 employee plus pay another $330,000 for benefits so
055we try to do that in in in cost benefits and understand if you reduce the number of employees you reduce not only that salary cost but you reduce the the impact that retirement has Insurance all those other factors that go into that can and to add to that when you're talking about the raises the supplements that we talk about that that go out late in the year and and in the spring right so all those teacher supplements which are nine and a quarter we pay all of that across the whole board so whether it's an allocated spot or a local spot or a federal spot we pay the local supplement and all that comes out of local dollars so that's why that that supplement is so expensive for the district and and you've gone in
056the last four years you've gone from a teacher supplement of 5.75 to in the budget year 2425 a supplement of 10% so while you're paying more supplements the 1% of a supplement just think just that 1% is more expensive because the state is raising the salaries of those employees so so if 1% cost you 700,000 last year 1% is costing you 800 or 850,000 this year so it's costing more to do the same thing can I follow up yeah yes sir so so just make sure I understand all this so uh we are dependent on not only very little on federal funds correct a lot on state funds and somewhere in the middle for local funds and uh we're the cost of living if you will is going up for not only operating our schools
057but our our employees feel the cost of living going up so so so we're trying to give pay raises not I mean we're giving supplements uh at the same time we're still we're trying to pay higher payer uh Power bills water bills insurance and everything so so uh so either like you said either we have to pay less or we have to make more and or pay less yes pay pay out less bring in more yes sir and and so the the the school we don't have any way to make money right I mean we are not a taxing Authority we don't have any way to make money so so there there again we're dependent on federal state local right okay just want to make sure corre Mr I guess I just want to make
058a statement and follow up kind of in layman's term because I said this was um a very complicated budget that the point that most teachers most teachers are paid by the state and we have nothing that we can't we can't control that where our teachers come from on the and I'm going to ask the questions while I'm leading up those where our question where our teachers come from on the local side is we want to reduce our reduce our class sizes so we hire more teachers out of the local budget if we did by what the state wanted us to do says well this is then our our class sizes wouldn't be as small what we can do in the local budget is the supplement that we've went from to 9.25% that's really all we
059can do to help teachers on in in the local because if you have a teacher that's in the local fund that's getting paid out of the local fund and the state comes in and says we're giving teachers raises we have to give the teachers in the local fund raises as well does that make sense so my question is to to you well I guess I kind of want you to explain where everybody else will understand number one is how much did those teacher supplements cost us uh if you would share that and I think it's always been the priority of mine as the finance and Personnel chair is to look after our teachers uh I I want our teachers to get paid and we want to be very competitive and but that's where we're hitting
060stoning blocks here I will say this Mr Rob's here and shared with me in 2020 we were averaging $250,000 a month on our power bills it's 56,000 now it's more than went up 100% 100% in four years in our power bill guess where the power bill gets paid local funds so people don't understand what the position we're in as a board we're wanting to keep teachers we're wan to keep class sizes small but again explain to them the cost of the supplements and so that what we are doing what we can for I don't want people to think because I get that question all the time why aren't y'all doing more for teachers well that the state really controls what we do for the teachers except for supplements so so the so you're right Mr
061sh the state sets that salary scale they said a a you know a four-year teacher license a general license year scale they have ma a teacher the Masters national boards all that paid on the scale so we do again 2425 will be in your budget uh for approval for recommendation to to move the current supplement of 9.25 to 10 uh that 10% supplement will cost us right about $8.5 million to give it 10% something and you know that is again don't quote me on that number that's an approximate number we won't know that until we actually know what the what the Personnel cost is and and and what comes out of general assembly uh but I would say about 8.5 is that pretty close Rob about 8.5 million to give a 10% supplement so you
062know we we could do a 20% supplement but youd need another you need another $8.5 million to to add to that a 10% supplement for Cleveland County you know while you know I would love to even increase higher than that but that is very competitive especially if you give the the supplement history in Cleveland County you know we we had one of the lower teacher supplements um uh in the in the region look back five years ago five or six years and explain that and I think you have a little bit about that could even go up if the state comes along and says we're going to give a 4% increase that bumps the salaries up of everybody now we have to do a 10% on all that 4% increase does that make sense and
063and you're looking at like also you know um if you remember usually about November um every year the last couple years you've you've app approved an additional Supplement Plan that the state gave supplement money too if you remember we gave like this past year if you had 15 years or more you got the Max and then if you had less than 15 you got you know an equal share and again that's put another two you know 2,000 plus or minus dollar supplement that's not included in this so so those things are going there now when when we get that the the interesting thing about when supplements like that come in is we cannot by law Pay pre- Teachers out of that fund so we can't figure prek teachers into that fund so once once we
064do our K12 teachers we have a choice to make we can not pay prek teachers that supplement and say you know you're you're you're instrumental in the work you're doing with foury olds or we can take that out of local funds and and in the years that we've had that supplement state desille state supplement we've gone out and said okay let's just take that out of local funds and pay those supplements now I know districts that are very close to us that have said sorry prek if you can't pay it out of your budget then they don't get it and so they've not got and and and nothing against our prek but it was in there you know we're we're our prek is underfunded so we have to take we take a certain local amount
065out of local dollars to give to pre because we're overfund I mean we're the pre costs more than the money they're bringing in for for outside allocation for for prechool again and I want to say something about the preschool and not you brought that up because and if anybody would in the sound of my voice can hear this that has any um clout with any legislators they require the state requires assistance in prek you have to have a two-year degree in childhood early development that specific degree you can go you can go have a degree in Psychology you can have a four year degree in this no you have to have an associate degree in early childhood development to be an assistant there that's crazy I mean to me we're going to lose prek because
066of the state and we're going to lose bus drivers because of State because I ain't going to get on my soap box but I do this in the finance committee they tell us how much the most we can pay a bus driver and we had a bus driver that when we wanted to move up to $17 an hour we had a bus driver been driving the bus for 25 years we couldn't even give them a dollar raise because the state says we couldn't that's why I'm telling you how complex is there's so much that the state and the FEDS there's so much red tape that oh well and one more thing to add the U classified salaries have gone up about 50% in the last three years so I think we were averaging around uh
067well not quite 50% probably 40% averaging around $12 an hour for bus drivers da cafeteria workers State mandated a $15 an hour minimum I think we averaged a little over 16 an hour and so we also went from a 1% to a 3% supplement on that so now we're paying 3% on $16 an hour instead of 12 so it's all compounded think did one of you I asked earlier you mentioned Staffing cuts and you know for this new budget um for this year can you kind of explain to me where those Staffing cuts are going to go come from they're going to come from a variety of of sources Mr GG and that's always a good question it's always a question it's got a long complex answer you know we've already started uh with some
068of those cuts with not hiring people we just recently you know had an administrative assistant retire here that we didn't replace um and so we look at Staffing and say where can we cut Staffing how do we uh eliminate that some of it does come from classroom teachers you know we look at an appropriation model and we look at an enrollment and say what is student enrollment what does the state appropriate you at and then what do we um uh how many teach are we going to give you uh K3 we're locked in uh because of class size and we that is again that's a complex model because some of our small schools we actually have to put more teachers in the state of lots because of the the school is small and you can't
069exceed class size so you end up with class sizes of 13 or 14 because you can't put 19 in the class so you get there uh We've tweaked uh we'll be tweaking our high school funding model uh to to you know again our class size is better than the average uh but we'll tweak that to where at the high school level um you know while we'll still over funding them as according to the state ratio but but we will cut some positions uh from a high school teacher position there uh we we will cut um some some general purpose budgets uh we're looking at uh special funds um such as uh our Title One Fund title two funds how do we maximize those things and how how do we put people in those funds instead
070of doing some stuff uh and and it may come into uh a reduction of resources uh it may be a reduction of Staffing um we at the elementary level we hire I shouldn't say just at the elementary level across the district we hire a lot of tutors at one time we were pushing 120 or 125 tutors across the district we will not be able to afford to continue to do those tutors uh as as we have been uh We've cut some uh Administrative Assistant positions not just at Central Services but at at our schools um what we're trying to avoid is to cut some things like that we have out of local that we're paying out of local funds for example guidance counselors and social workers this year we paid roughly 15 student services positions
071out of local funds well it would be easy to say well let's just cut those 15 cut that local funds and that saves us local money money well I don't think in 2024 it's a really good idea for us to be cutting student services positions so the budget work then is how do we find a way to put those in and pay those with some State funds and what adjustments do we have to make is it that we have to to to reduce allocations do some Le do less things um you know we we allocate Monies to our schools dssf money at risk money uh there may be some things that we don't allocate to school schools and that that information is being communicated we have communicated Staffing adjustments to our schools and principles understand
072that they they get the budget picture they understand that um because within our schools they have funds that and it's a smaller version but like I use elementary schools for example our elementary schools have a pot of Title One money so they're they're trying to do a very similar thing that we're trying to do out of title one they're trying to hire title one teacher they're trying to hire some interventionist they're trying to hire all these positions out of that and to realize okay the the that cost of that employee is increasing so you know they're going to see less flexibility in that and at the end of the day less tutors and some of that because we're having to take some of those funds to put uh student service workers because we don't want
073to you know we we want to have every Elementary School with the counselor and the social worker we don't want to get back to the days that we were you know five seven 10 years ago where you had a split position or you had a half a counselor and a half a social worker you know that that wasn't great then but in 2024 it's definitely not great at this point um you know assistant principal we we we pay for 22 assistant principles out of local funds because the state says here's how many assistant principles we give you which is which is a pitiful ratio uh quite honestly so we we need to support those schools and those students from a curriculum standpoint from a discipline standpoint from an operational standpoint and so you know you
074could cut those but if you cut those assistant principles who's doing the stuff at the school you know who's doing the work the the workload um and I'm getting on my Soap Box a little bit I apologize the workload it decreasing you know um there there are over 600 reports that we have to turn into DPI the workload doesn't go down you know somebody's got to get the work done and and so what you try to do is is is is ver by those cuts that way you're not left in some areas without and other areas where we heavy in okay question real quick uh the proposal budgets that you gave to us tonight proposal one two and three can you just explain a little bit to so just for some transparency so people know
075these budget proposals go to the county is that correct that that's correct well that's that's what we're proposing to the county of an additional 4.5 million right and funding would get us to to hear on the charts and and the chart you can ask why to use a chart well the chart 24 is reference in our at the account so we take this you know we're saying we we want to be here in the chart this is what we've got we want to be here on the chart this is where we're going we want to be here on the chart where we're going you so we're we're we're proposing number one first to the county is that correct can you explain just for transparency to the public uh what happens if the county comes back
076and says we're not interested in doing number one we may not be able to do number two let's look at number three explain like what happened to our budget locally if we don't get at least something from proposal number one something in that range so um let me try to answer that with in in one answer okay so we're looking at our budget and this is preliminary Mr Bri is really preliminary is uh if we do everything that we've done this year we we just run the same playback we're going to need somewhere between 3.5 to 3.7 million dollar to run the same play we've been running MH that's not is that more huh more yes that's not adding anything that's not you know adding positions that's not do anything different that is running let's
077run it back same team let's run it back we're going to need some somewhere between 3.5 and 3.7 so if if the county does give you know let's say four and A5 million dollar hey now we don't have to make those cuts now would we still make some um adjustments based on ADM sure if your school is down 50 kids we're we're going to staff your school differently than the school over here that's up a 100 kids so you know you still may say well I heard their school still got cut well they got right size they got adjusted based on the size of that school so we wouldn't have to go in and say you know right now we try to fund a school at 115% a secondary school at 115% but moving forward
078we're have to reduce that to we're funding you at 110% so you know if we get 4.5 we may say go back and say hey we can go back and do 115 we'd be able to put some things back into that now it's smart for us I think to be really smart with that and and say when we add that back is that something that's the value out of it right and what's the RL that so anywhere on that Continuum is you know not having to do that we we're saying the 3.5 to 3.75 because that's if if we get if that flat number stays flat that's the deficit that we have so there there is a chance like if we didn't get option one we'll say that we could face some hardships next year
079so I think it's imperative to that hope that we hope for the best that the county would give us option one okay that's that's my only question and I just felt it was prudent from our standpoint that we we look at that to say hey if if if not this then as you go down that continue we could put four five and six but but as you go down that that row it it there's going to be more Cuts than than there and until we know we can't wait till May or June to start making that we're we're we're going down this path and then if we need to deviate it's easier to add by than it is easier to to cut left Mr chairman if I Mr um I'm not going to get on
080this suck box CU we'll wait a month and it's going to look like Ringling Brothers if I get on the save box but the NEX is of this mou was Cleveland County correct the County Commissioners came to us and wanted to do this mou is that correct they set the top 40 from table 24 correct that was their their decision so they made a promise to Cleveland County Schools and the students of Cleveland County they promised that they would pay to keep us in the top 40 which is essentially the top third is is that correct well that's that's according to the m yes sir and they agree to it and we agree to it so that counts as a promise so I'm just laying some groundwork as a Leo Would S okay I'm good
081well I've been sitting here about 20 minutes with my mouth shut uh now when a teacher gets in that 20 7 28 29 to 30 years worth of service state pops up a a bonus raise this that and other then we give a raise I'm not wanting to take away from them but that person is going to go into a spiking mode very easily teer is that teacher is not going to go into a spiking mode in other words they'd have to come from a from a teacher to Administration to go in that spiking mode right so spiking spiking at it core the definition of spiking is when you have not paid enough into the retirement system to to be able to get out your last four years of retirement so you're correct in that
082but a principle will go into that right necessarily okay not necessarily if your salary increases dramatically in the last couple of years where your retirement you know what you put into the retirement system is based on 50,000 and then all a sudden the last four years you made a 100,000 then there's a difference there in what you put into the retirement system and what they anticipate you pulling out so that is called spiking well that sounds like somebody got a a big jump right and and spiking if you go back and do the history of spiking spiking had nothing to do with Public Schools Pik spiking originally started with our friends at the community college um but we got all we got roped into spiking spiking comes from your age spiking comes from your salary
083spiking comes from what you put into the retirement system so what we've had we've had very few spikers if you will that caus the district to spike but if you look who's on the spiking list it is people that and and not trying to to hate because I'm one of them is when they get to almost 50 they get on they get in that spiking range now what you as a board need to Hope is that those people work long enough that they put more enough into the retirement system that now they go off the list we've had people that were on the spiking list and then they go off the spiking list because they're what they put into the retirement system is greater than what they're anticipating to pull out so the the you're
084right in concept that the spiking was put in so you wouldn't have this employee in the last four years somebody all of a sudden said oh we're going to give them $100,000 a year raise to boost their retirement and and it cre issues but but we have very few spikers I've got two more little things okay and I know probably each one of us board members uh received this public schools grading scale a 84 to 100% I'd like to know if North Carolina has got this in their in their picture to to Doon we need to say that that we're on the budget talk for 30 minutes and I haven't said anything well we're talking about the budget we're not talking about grading scales my gosh well y'all talked about everything too y'all didn't just
085talk about budget was on the budget you can you can recommend that for the committee you can recommend to be I'm not going to recommend nothing to a committee because this Board needs to let the people know what they we're saying all right that's enough any other questions I'm not through said I had one more thing well do you have a question on the budget I don't know if it was or not well are you done or not I just well be cuz you going to call me out of any other questions again this is just a budget presentation we're not approving anything tonight this is just to bring you up to date on what's been sent to the C I ask for the salaries question that's got something to do with the budget and
086I got I'm not recognizing you right now because you're Mr I'm going to speak so you give me time sir no sir we uh so it seems we're walking a a tight rope and uh Mr bridg has asked questions about the county uh supplying money things like that so if we it so really if you don't get the extra money then then uh you have a choice either don't pay people as much or or uh or hopefully through attrition we we get rid of some salaries so we can continue to pay what we're paying correct and and and in reality Mr Sperling option one is not an option option two is the option of you just reduce staff you going back to my analogy of of 10 items for $10 if you only still have
087that $10 you don't get you don't get all 10 of those items you got to prioritize which of those 10 items you're going to get for the money you have so so so as as a school system sorry my chair went down sorry so as a school losing I don't know what happened myop it just dropped we don't have that in the budget um so so as a as a board as a school system I mean unless we can somehow do car washes and make more money we we don't have a lot of choic anything to do with the budget you're right Mr sping we we we are we are dependent upon as you said state federal local funds to the tune of plus or minus 65% 10 to 15% 25% is there so you're
088tune to that and what we try to do is make sure we really are good stewards of that and put that money to the best use possible to attract retain um and hire good talent and good talent comes at a price and you know uh to be to be able to balance that to make sure we're we're providing for resources so so bringing that up if you don't pay uh I know Mr blinton had a problem with giving some pay raises earlier but if if you don't pay teachers enough what do they do they go to South Carolina right that's one the reason you don't pay administrators uh competitive wage what do they do they go to where they can because the their cost of living is going up also so they're going to they
089have to figure out how to make more money to sustain their their living it's supply and demand attract Talent attraction it's it's it's you go to green Haack you go to Clear Water you go to any company they're doing the same thing college is doing the same thing um we're we're I I will tell you we are barely barely keeping up uh in terms of that and and I will say and many of your staff um that you you get a home Hometown discount um but we're barely keeping up across the across the board thank you thank you Dr Fisher thank you uh as we approved at beginning we'll be moving the Personnel report to the end uh the educational programs committee did not meet this past month the next educational programs committee will be
090May 3rd at 10:30 a.m. and next we have operations committee report Mr T thank you Mr chairman the March 28th operations committee meeting was called to order by chairman Greg Taylor Ronda Benfield shared a list of CTE equipment that is broken or no longer useful and requested these items be declared Surplus by the board the commit the committee unanimously approved the CTE Surplus list for approval by the board at their April meeting Dr for Wampler and Chip cheler shared a capital projects report for review the committee discussed the report this report will be attached to board to the board's agenda in April as an information item Dr wamper shared information related to five cap capital projects over $75,000 which which require board approval those projects are Grover Elementary Roofing of the prek building at $117,450
091Kings Mountain Middle painting project at $90,500 James Love Elementary HVAC replacement at $91,200 and Bowling Springs Elementary painting project at $84,900 the committee unanimously recommended these Pro projects for app approval by the full board at their April meeting Daniel Sherman shared three change orders related to some of our ongoing large projects these were shared as information since they are over 30,000 but less than 75,000 the first was for additional Paving to be to be completed this sum summer under the current mobile units at Crest High School which will be paid using Auditorium Grant funds the second was for the addition of a classroom HVAC unit at Shelby high school and the third was for additional controls in the pool area at Shelby High both of these will be paid using Esser agency funds Dr Wampler
092shared a list of Maintenance equipment that is broken or no longer useful and requested these items be listed as Surplus by the board the committee unanimously recommended to maintain the Surplus list for approval at tonight's meeting Jamie Courier shared a list of school nutrition equipment that is old broken and no longer useful and requested these items be declared Surplus by the board the commune unanimously recommended the school nutrition Surplus equipment for approval by by the board at their April meeting Brian mclung shared a request for the approval of a PO in the amount of $9,844 for an activity bus the system will be the system will be reimbursed for the expense of the vote for this expense by the Volkswagen settlement Grant which was a grant Transportation applied for and receiv Mr McClung also shared
093a list of DWI seizure and County vehicles and requested these vehicles be declared Surplus by the board committee unanimously recommended approval of the transportation's list of procedure and County vehicles by the board at tonight's meeting Jinger Jackson shared information about Technology's Vivy request which was which will address safety needed and be funded through the safety Grant this request was also presented to the to the finance Personnel committee and will come for approval at tonight's meeting the committee reconsidered the previous decision to declare two mobile units at Crest Middle School Surplus due to some questions in the end the committee decided not to recommend a change to their decision to declare the unit Surplus Dr fiser shared concerns he had received related to the solar eclipse today the district plans to continue on a regular scheduled
094as we did and to communicate related information to parents with no additional new business the meeting was adjourned the next operations committee meeting is scheduled for Friday May 3D at 12:00 p.m. thank you Mr Taylor we do have several action items under operations first is the East Elementary house as you recall we declared this property Surplus and put it out for the upset bid process I do have a resolution uh that I'll read into the record so whereas the Cleveland County Board of Education owns property located at 701 Cleveland Avenue Kings Mountain North Carolina whereas the board has declared the property Surplus and no longer necessary for public school purposes whereas the board has offered the property to the board of County Commissioners pursuant to North Carolina General statute 115 C- 518a and the Board
095of Commissioners has declined to obtain the property whereas the board finds that the best interest of the Cleveland County Schools would be served by the sale of said real property as is in accordance with the North Carolina General statutes whereas the board wishes to dispose of the property to General statute 16- 269 providing for the sale of real property by negotiated offer advertisement and upset bids whereas the original offer of $50,000 to purchase the property has been upset the most recent qualifying bid was in the amount of $70,000 as of Tuesday April 2nd 2024 the 10-day upset bid period had expired with no further qualifying upset bids were received whereas the board accepts the high bid offer as the final sale amount now therefore be it resolved by the Cleveland County Board of Education that
096the superintendent is authorized to proceed with the final sale of the above mentioned property in the amount of $70,000 in accordance with state and local laws and Provisions and if approved that be adopted this 8th day of April uh do we have any uh this closed out after committee meeting do we have any questions or let me before we do that what's the pleasure of the board motion to approve second have a motion by Mr Taylor and a second by Mr Bon any questions or discussion on that property sale all righty those in favor if you raise your hand that carries a zero uh the next five action items are capital projects uh that were recommended by the committee is anybody have any objection to taking off five of those at one time I'll read
097through each one and make sure you know we know the amounts but all right so the first one is the grover Elementary roofing project that is to Carver and Sun's Roofing that will be for the prek and kindergarten building at Grover at a cost of $117,450 second one is uh painting of the interior exterior entres walkway canopies poles and handrails at Kings Mountain Middle school that would be to Daniel's painting for $90,500 next is the direct replacement of three heating and air units at James Love Elementary those units service the dining room and the multi-purpose room that contract would be with uh Gast and Sheet Metal for 91,92 next is a direct replacement of the CEST Middle School cooling tower and that is with pite heating and cooling for 96,2 120 and the last project
098is removal of wallpaper finishing and smoothing wallpaper walls painting for the interior all exterior entrances walkway canopies and handrails of Bing Springs Elementary at a cost of 84,85 th000 from the county each year year uh it's been our practice to hold off until about March or April to make sure nothing breaks earlier in the year and so far it's been a good year things have held together so we do have this money available for these projects uh the total is just North of 470,000 for all of them so any questions about any of those projects those in favor all five if you'd raise your hand that carries 8 Z next we have uh four sets of surplus equipment if there's no objection we'll take all five of those or excuse me I'll four those at
099one time so we have maintenance Surplus equipment CTE Surplus equipment Child Nutrition and transportation vehicles and those Transportation vehicles are the uh DWI seizures and and excess County vehicles so uh any questions on any of those all right those in favor of the four uh Surplus list if you'd raise your hand that carries 8 Z last one is the activity bus purchase order this is to whites International Trucks in highp point that's for $ 99,8 42 and again that's paid for out of a Volkswagen settlement Grant I don't know what Volkswagen did but it got us a free bus uh and just for clarification typically the white buses we have to pay for out of local funds so we did save 100 Grand by getting that Grant so thank you to the transportation department for
100doing that any questions on that purchase order those in favor if you raise your hand we can argue over which school gets it later I guess Mr f is smiling right there uh next is our policy committee report Mr offers okay so the policy committee met on Tuesday March the 26th excuse me at [Music] noon Dr fiser led the committee and reviewing policies 4130 4150 415r and 4155 regarding School assignment student transfers and athletic eligibility the committee had a lengthy discussion related to our policy and practice around athletic eligibility and transfers District staff will work on a policy update for the committee to consider in the future as part of the ongoing policy manual review Dr fiser and myself led the committee and reviewing policies 3120 3120r 3132 and 3135 these policies are part of
101the 3000 section of the board policy manual manual which is educational programs no changes were recommended to these policies by the committee Dr Fisher review policy 6140 student wellness which relates to physical education requirements this policy has been discussed in relation to middle school schedules and elective options in new business Dr fiser shared some information related to the recent restriction of supplemental digital resources in alignment with the parent bill of parents Bill of Rights specifically related to K4 this restriction does not impact the abundance of resources that are offered to students in K4 or limit teacher resour sources for instruction with no additional new business the meeting was adjourned the next policy committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday April the 30th at noon thank you thank you Mr rers we have one policy for approval
102that's policy 4400 which is our attendance policy if I remember correctly we deleted two words to uh we deleted the requirement to notify by mail any questions on that uh that policy does come from committee Rec commended for approval already got it all right those in favor of uh the revision to policy 4,400 if you raise your hand that carries 8 [Music] Z and there's no the Safety Committee did not meet this month the next safety committee meeting is scheduled for April 30th 2024 at noon so Dr Fischer we're ready for your update I was up here about 45 minutes first time you guys I'll take another 45 minut we'll deduct that from your time now got five okay three from the vice chair I'll be brief uh so uh most of you are able
103to attend the Crest High School ribbon cutting uh a great day to finalize those two projects longstanding that's one of the conversations I've heard is 10 years of superintendent is is the the auditoriums and the burns and Crest Zone uh it's a picture from from the center of the stage at Crest uh there great picture there to show the carpet and and the highlights there uh you can see the back two classrooms open in this picture um just just a really really really good um facility there um done our folks have done a good job of getting some aerial photos uh I thought this was a good picture showing uh the building as it sits on that campus uh and there there's a good campus wide shot so that's it's pretty impressive looking at that
104uh they campus there so really appreciate the work there um really appreciate our our state legislators for their sport speaker Moore had a big hand in that and and was able to do that uh here here you guys are with with some uh some of former uh some board members that were on the board when that's projects were approved and Mr Shields from Crest High School able to cut the ribbon I think there was a little bit of issue cutting that ribbon I'm not going to say who's to blame Mr Shields is not here today so we'll blame we'll blame him on on that uh Commissioners that one went a little bit easier with the Commissioners and state representatives so I really appreciate your support of those projects projects um it is good to kind
105of have have those projects complete and handed off to the schools and look forward to uh to that being used by by our students and staff and here's one last picture I believe of Crest uh with with students performing there at Crest um three things to highlight to tonight is senior Scholars banquet make sure you have that on your calendar really a highlight Crown Jewel of what we do highlighting seniors at the end of the year that have over a 4.0 uh so make sure you you know put some put some light on your elbow make sure you got your arm loose that day for for all the hands you get to shake uh May 9th cev Community College graduation last year over 11% of our students graduated from the community college prior to high
106school so uh we would anticipate similar numbers to that this year uh for the for the college graduation and May 23rd is our uh retirement banquet for folks that are retiring uh the graduation schedules have been in your email uh for the last couple weeks um and they're in the Friday update uh if you'll go and click on that link um you can either type your name in there which graduations you want to come to or if you'll send me an email I can put that in there if you don't want to mess with the with the Google link to to to do that so you've got that information there um I know um North Shel will be coming around um probably miday um soon and then those other all other on will be Clos
107to the end of May so you've got that information uh in your Friday updates um that's all I have Mr chairman uh I'd be glad to tr to answer any questions about those anything for Dr fiser Mr spur so shouldn't ask so we've been talking about budget all night and you just showed auditoriums can you very quickly explain just for transparency where did the funding come for how much were those and and where did the funding come so we wrote we wrote an original needs-based Grant uh for those auditoriums original needs based grant was 7525 Mach uh which again a 3 to1 Mach it's a pretty good deal uh I'll spend a dollar for somebody else's $3 all day uh but when we got the bids back this was after covid prices have spiked and
108gone crazy um so uh the original needs based grant was not enough to cover that so we write wrote a second needs based grant the good thing between needs based grant one and needs based grant two is the max for us had gone from 3 to 1 to 5% so we paid a nickel on the which is an exceptional deal to do that so we spent $30 million 28.5 million from the state 1.5 uh from local to be able to do those auditoriums to to do the the the the drive the parking and all those uh projects at at the school while I'm on that subject we also are continuing with the uh uh Fieldhouse not the Fieldhouse but the um Press Box concession stand and restroom at Burns and Crest High School and that
109was a part of an athletic grant that we wrote three or four years ago um and received that Grant was for $4.9 million and we've slowly uh done some projects we still have a little few projects left in that Grant uh but we've we've uh lit some fields and uh we've done some building stuff with with those grants thank you thank you uh next is our public participation Mr shers gotar public comment should not address any specific confidential student or Personnel matter specific concerns related to confidental student or Personnel matter should be directed to the superintendent or design KN comments must be relative to matters that are within the authority of the board speaker shall refrain from personal attacks and threats directed to board staff elected board members or members of the public speakers shall
110be courteous in their language and in presentation insults profanity use of vular langu language or gestures or other inappropriate behavior are not allowed the board vest in its chair or other presiding officers authority to terminate the remarks of any individual when he or she does not adhere to the results established above any person who willfully interrupts or disturbs a board meeting may be directed to Le the meeting by the presiding officer any person who refuses to leave may be prosecuted for disrupting a public meeting persons appearing before the board are reminded as a point of information that the members of the Cleveland County Board of Education or without authority to act independently as individuals in official matters immediate answers are not generally possible must be deferred depending investigation and consideration by the full board thank
111you Mr Shores we do have one person signed up for public participation Miss Nanette lenhard okay good afternoon chairman and board members I have in my hand a Christian magazine it's from the American Family Association I'm going to hold it up it's referring to Target pornography okay and find my place in here 1962 pornographic images were set outside a local elementary school in Manhattan New York distra many concerned members of the community rallied to have the material removed their goal protect children from being prematurely exposed to graphic porn together they contacted Mayors and brought up the incident via radio and television in hopes to have the graphic images removed and further actions taken I say this just because um we have a lot going on in our schools we have a lot going on in
112our nation and this was printed October 2022 this magazine and I have in my hand an U an email that I saved from February 20123 when I came up to the board and presented superintendent resigns after student dies by suicide following on video bullying incident let's hope we just we need to get a hold of this in our school system and I'm just speaking for our school system also in my hand I have a u email it was referring a formal complaint against Burns High School coach and all others associated with the burns High School vandalism and subsequent coverup this was dated May 30th 2023 so raise your hand if you seen hundreds of houses being built and apartments single family homes and dwellings so we know that we're going to get some more kids
113I think out of that so uh I we as taxpayers don't need another half a million dollars organization to tell us that more kids are coming to our schools I mean that's a given so I appreciate your time this evening thank you Miss lenhard just for a matter of clarification do do you have any examples of the pornography or bullying here in Cleveland County Schools or oh I don't no no I don't just for thank you we've been over that before all right thank you uh we'll proceed on to uh board member comments Mr Spurling so uh first of all I'd like to uh congratulate our uh our student athlete the state champion uh pretty and above all for her grade point average uh very very very impressive um uh I'm uh thank you Miss
114Benfield for bringing the CTE uh again our our accomplishments in CTE uh I'm a big advocate of CTE as everybody should know uh I do want to point out uh I even though all of our board members don't all always agree I I do think we would always agree that our teachers do a good job they deserve as much as we could offer them uh we we they deser they work long hours uh I I've been there I know how much they work uh we say a 40-hour work week no way they put in way more than that uh at one time I had aspirations to be an administrator um and and and I did that until I figured out how many hours they put in uh even more seems like even more than the
115the teachers uh go to a ball game go to a dance Go I mean everything every activity that that school has has an administrator there uh and and there's only at the high schools there's four I mean and and and I mean that ever ever yes events uh teachers go to them but there's how many teachers compared to those four administrators I mean there's there's an administrator at every event and then we talk about uh our staff here here at uh Cleveland County Schools uh at look at this I mean they're here on a Monday night every board meeting they're here uh every time we go visit the school they'll go with us every every event they go to I I go to football games I see I see them at the football games uh
116uh I I just think I our staff our whether whether you're all the way uh Dr Fisher all the way to the newest Personnel uh uh we owe all of them a gratitude of thanks I mean we pay millions to see entertainers ball games singers whatever and and and every one of those whether they're an actor singer ball player whatever at some time in their life they were touched by a teacher or an administrator and we and our teachers administrators get paid a a a fraction of what those people do and uh and but so so the best I think we can do is uh uh we'll continue to pay you as much as we can uh at the same time keep the lights on and uh and and just accept my uh gratitude thank
117you Mr Bri I I've wanted to bring up this while ago and I'd like to know if North Carolina is going down this line too with our Public Schools uh a 84 to 100 a b 64 to 84 a c 44 to 64 a d 24 to 44 a f 0 to 24 this has been sent to me by three different people I know that y'all probably got it from uh a person too some of y'all did uh but this also Dr field is the one that put this out uh that that this one particular one that was sent to me that's where I read that but is North Carolina drop in our scores if we are we need to leave North Carolina and start operating Cleveland County and make our academics much better than
118this I'd like to get have that answer if if North Carolina is bringing our scores to Public Schools down the numbers like that what's a a what's a b what's a c what's a d what's a f okay I know this just me talking now I can talk I can just talk about anything I want to so uh can't no stop me here because long as I ain't I'm not running nobody down and I did ask for the salaries in December December 17th I think January the 8th and January the 17th I believe that's right I finally got him a couple weeks ago talk about three months I got them in alphabetical order by the first name and I don't know a third of the People by the third by their first name that's in
119our school system we've always I got 21 by their last name in alphabetical order oh I could just look it right up but I know very few people by their first name uh because they might go by their middle name I'm Danny Lee most everybody knows me by Danny so I'd like to have those in alphabetical order by their last name and I'd appreciate it and thank y'all and appreciate everybody coming tonight Mr Mr GRE I just want to say congratulations uh like Mr Sperling said to the athletes that were here tonight and the teachers that brought them in here and helped them get to where they were or where they are and you know the other thing is um Cleveland County should really be um a proud County right now considering the fact that
120we have two of the best looking auditoriums that I've seen in a very long time if you hadn't had an opportunity to stop by there you probably want to do that and take a look at what we've um what we now have to offer the kids I just hope that the kids will take and respect each and every one of these places uh the way they should and the same way that we would so thank you Mr Bri um we've talked about budget all night and and finances and so my my board member comments tonight are going to be to Rob McDaniel and his team and our finance committee um they do a good job stretching the dollar um and looking for ways to save and and to move money so I just want to
121say congratulations and thank you guys for what you do uh and our school system wouldn't be successful without you guys so we appreciate what you do thank you Mr Taylor no all right uh Mr Bridges thank you for saying that uh you beat me to the punch but uh it's it's amazing what our finance staff pulls off and how they rearrange and jogle and what they can quote from memory and all those purpose codes and and where the money comes from so yes thank you to our finance team uh Mr Shores do you have a motion to inter close session yes I do yes I do Port the general statute 143-30570 no matter we have a second who' I hear first we go Mr GG those in favor if you'd raise your hand that carries
1228 Zer all right e