001Good evening everyone. I would like to call this special board meeting of September 9, 2025 to order. The time is 5:05 p.m. Chief, has the lobby been attended to? Yes. Thank you, sir. The purpose of today's meeting is to hold a public hearing to consider the adoption of the 2025 2026 final millage rates and the 2025 2026 final budget. For points of reference, board member Jordan and persons will be participating via teams. Pursuant to board policy 0164.1, they are eligible to vote on items during tonight's action meeting. So, Mr. Jordan, Miss Miss Jordan and Mr. Persons, are you both on the line? I am. Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you both. Okay. At this time, we request that all all mobile devices be put in a silent mode. I'd like to take this opportunity
002to remind the members of the public of the district district's mission, which will ensure that each student achieves his or her his or her highest personal potential and the district's vision to be a world-class school system. On today's agenda, it includes presentation on the percent of increase or de decrease over the roll back rate, proposed millage, budget overview, proposed fiscal year 26 final budget public hearing on the proposed mill rates and final budget and adoption of required local effort mill basic discretionary mill outlay mill resolution determining revenues and millages and resolutions adopting the final mill rates for fiscal year 2025 2026 fiscal 26 final budget and related resolutions adopting the final budget and then board member comment. So board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda as presented? I make a motion. Okay.
003Moved by M. Chaviano. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Ribble. please vote. Do we and Mr. Persons and Miss Jordan are they going to have electronic voting? Okay. I'm not. Yes, we are able. I am I am able to vote. Thank you, Miss Jordan. Mine just came up. Yeah, I do not see electronic voting for myself. So, but I am a yes. Thank you very much. And it's my pleasure to introduce our team, Miss Lecher and Miss Cox, who will be leading us through our presentation. Thank you. Good afternoon again, board members, Superintendent Carlin and Attorney Depri Bruno. This hearing is the second of two public hearings required under Florida statutes to give the public an opportunity to provide input into the proposed millillage levy and the budget for this fiscal year. The superintendent
004submitted her proposed tenative budget to the board on July 22nd, 2025. The tenative hearing was advertised in the news press on Friday, July 25th, 2025. The first public hearing was held on July 29th, 2025 to discuss and adopt the tenative mill rates and tenative budget. On Tuesday, September 2nd, you received information on the final budget for 2526. The second and final budget public hearing being held today was noticed through a direct mailing from the property appraisers's office. That mail document is known as the truth and millage notice or trim notice and is sent as required by law. At this moment, I'll turn it over to Mrs. Lecher to go through part of the presentation. Thank you. So, as out outlined by term requirements, we first must discuss the roll back rate. And the roll back
005rate is the millillage which when applied to the current year's tax role net of adjustments for new growth would produce the same dollars that we received in the previous year. The calculated roll back rate is 5.2441. The proposed millage rate for 2526 is 5.319 and that is an increase of 0033 mills from the 2425 millage rate of 5.286 and an increase of 1.43% over the roll back rate. The new money will generate $49 million more than it did last year because of the increased tax role and millage rate. However, we will not see that full 49 million from that required local effort increase. as what happens is when the required local effort increases the state portion decreases. So we will not see 31 million of that. that will be the state would reduce it by
006the required local effort is 3.071 and as we said that's a 0.033 increase from the previous year. I'd like to point out that the required local effort is required for the board to approve. You don't have an option if we want to participate in the Florida Education Finance Program. If that's not approved, we would lose $422.5 million from the state. The 748 is the same as it has been in past years, and that's our discretionary. And the capital mills is at 1.5, which has not changed. And we have a total mills of 5.319. So, as you can see, millage comparisons over the years, our mills have been reducing, and this year just was a slight increase over previous years. Normally in this slide I would be showing that as the tax role goes up the
007millage rate comes down. This is the first year that when the tax role went up our millage rate actually went up just a little bit. The tax ro is estimated to be about $169 billion which is an $ 8.6 billion increase over FY25s and it represents a 5.39% increase. So, what does that mean for our taxpayers? So, if one of our taxpayers they had the 5.39% applied to their value of their home and last year's value was 100,000, this year's value would be $105,390. At last year's rate and the 100,000, they would have paid $528.60. This year, with the new value and the new tax rate, they would pay $56057. So, they would have a difference of $31.97 over last year's amount. If they had the Save Our Homes on their property and it would
008lock it in at no more than 3% increase, they would have seen that 3% increase and that would have been $100,000 last year, 103,000 this year. The amount they would have paid last year would have been $39645. And their new rate would be $414.88. So they would only be paying $1843 more than they did in the previous year. Of course, this all depends on the individual's property value. So on the millages, the required local effort this year will raise for the leak for the school district $498,68,981. Our basic discretionary will generate $121,445,626 and our capital outlay at 1.5 will generate $243,540,694 for a total of $863,595,31. So when you're looking at our total budget, it's made up of six parts. The total budget that we're recommending to you tonight is going to be at about
009$2.9 billion with the general fund and the capital being the largest two pieces of that. So, as I was saying, the budget is made up of six different parts. There's the general fund, which is the day-to-day operating expenses of the district. Our debt service, which pays for our debt or our cops payments. I'd like to point out that the debt that we have in there is kind of like doubled because it's a transfer from capital into debt. So, it's really showing twice in the budget. And then our capital budget is there which we of course as you know use to build schools, buy equipment, provide maintenance and safety. And then we have our food service which provides breakfast and lunch for all of our students. our special revenue funds are our grants that come in
010from the state basically like IDEIDA and title one and then our internal service which covers all of our health and property insurance and this again is a transfer from other funds. So it is a duplicated number in the budget as well. So as we go through the different parts our general fund is our major source of revenue. it's budgeted at $1.3 billion and is 44% of our total budget. The fund balance that we have was reduced by the previous year of about $18 million. That doesn't include our state grants and our hurricane funds. That's just the general fund. We are, as we spoke before, continuing to bring our fund balance down, and we're trying to do that in a fiscally responsible manner. we are continuing to realign our resources by looking at places that we
011can reinvest money, you know, cut make some cuts and reinvest it into other areas. And our budget supports over 100,000 students. Our general fund focuses on the classroom. We do have reading initiatives at the elementary level. We take care of our students in every way with mental wellness and we look at any additional interventions that are needed and supports and provide those for our students. We're also focusing on employee retention and we're focusing on some academic objectives this year. We're looking at core instruction. We're benchmarking alignments. We're looking at lesson planning in collaborative teams and looking at professional learning communities. So, the Florida Education Finance Program is a big part of our general fund. It's 1.043 billion of the total budget. It is that what we received from the Florida Education Finance Program. About 90
012million of that total is for family empowerment scholarships. So, we don't even see that piece of it. The budget is a $39 million increase over the previous year. And just to give you some bearings on last year it was 60 our budget was 67 million more than the year before of the increase 15 million of that is for the family empowerment scholarship. So only about 24 million is actually coming to district schools and charter schools. And just so you know as well we have a 2 point the Florida retirement system had an increase which is going to cost us about 2.5 million as well. The Florida education finance program generates about $9,331 per FTE, which is a $90 increase over last year. Our base student allocation is at $5,37260, which is a $4162 increase over
013last year. And the FEFP is right now for Lee County 40.52% state funded and 59.48 48 locally funded. So when you look at the budget the operating budget, we can break that down and this is the total operating not just the FFP. When you break that down, the local funding is at 64.91%. State funding is at 34.63 and we have a very small piece of 46 federal. So you might ask where does all that money go? Well 71% of it goes straight into instruction and direct school expenses. We have a very small piece 1% that goes into what we consider other which is basically our feebased programs at our schools. We have our contingency and reserves at 3%. We have our support services at 4%. Our operations and maintenance is 16% and our student transportation
014is 5%. So we need to make sure that we are we keep ourselves in a good place so we always have contingencies and reserves in place in order so in case something happens we can try and cover it. The state requires that we have a 3% contingency and we do we have 29.8 million set aside in contingency as required and then we have a 12 million extra set aside in order to help meet with needs that come up that we could not plan for. So the next part of our budget is food service. It's currently budgeted at 69 million and it's 2.35% of our budget. It includes breakfast and lunch for every child at no cost to parents. We are participating in the community eligibility program this year as well. And within the superintendent's reinvestment
015plan, we found 778,000 in this fund that we could realign into another area within the fund. our special revenue, which is our grants. It's 2.16% of the budget. It's currently budgeted at $63 million. This you will see continue as the year goes on. As we receive more money in your monthly budget amendments, you'll see that increase every month. and this one, we receive these dollars and we have to spend them based on those grant guidelines. I will tell you that we are in the process of reviewing these grants very closely. We do expect that in 27 we're going to see a change in the amounts that we're receiving and so we're looking at trying to be fiscally responsible and making sure that we can cover everything that we need to cover. Our capital funds are
016budgeted at $1.2 billion. They are 40.47% of the total budget. it is basically funded from our capital I mean our local property taxes and our sales tax. The major focus of our capital is safety and security upgrades, maintenance, renovation, and technology, and new classroom spaces. The five-year capital plan includes three new elementary schools in the east zone, a new middle school in the east zone, a new high school in the east zone, a prek to 8 in the east zone, one addition, two rebuilds, four remodels and renovations, and additions at our technical centers. Our debt service is currently budgeted at $99 million and it represents 3.39% of our total budget. the statutory debt service usage is at 31.3%. That is the state says that you can use no more than 75% of your capital outlay
017funds to cover debt. And so we like to let you know where we are at all times with that. And while the state says we can't do more than 75%, the board has recommended that we don't do more than 50%. And so at that recommended rate, we're at 47%. I do want to point out that this is solely the debt that's being paid back from the capital outlay. Millage does not include any debt that's being paid out from sales tax. And then we have our internal service budget. It's 7.73% of the budget or 226 million. This covers our health and property insurance. And currently the board covers $9,21360 for each employee for health insurance with an additional $4,000 for dependent care. And they also cover $20,000 for employee life insurance for every employee who works
01830 hours more or more a week. So, with that, we are honored to present to you our final budget that supports over 100,000 students at 120 schools. This budget was developed not only with district administration, but with school leadership as well, centered around focusing on not only our district priorities, but state initiatives as well. Thank you, Miss Lecher. Thank you, Miss Cox. at this point, we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda, which will be the public hearing. So, we'll now recess this special board meeting and open public hearing to consider the adoption of the final proposed millage rates and the final budget for 2025 2026. The time is 5:23 p.m. So now I will ask Dr. Carlin please continue by stating your recommendations. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Recommendation number one, I
019recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the 2025 2026 final budget or proposed required local effort millage, excuse me, of 3.071 mills with a proposed amount to be raised of 498,68,981. Recommendation number two, I recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the 2025 2026 final proposed basic discretionary mill of.748 mills with a proposed amount to be raised of 121,445,626. Recommendation three, I recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the 2025 2026 final proposed capital outlay millage of 1500 with the proposed amount to be raised of 243,540,694. The total millage will equal 5.319 mills with a total amount to be raised of 863,595,31. The total millage rate to be levied is more than the roll back rate. It is an increase in the roll back rate of 1.43%. Recommendation four, I recommend that
020the Lee County School Board adopt the resolution determining revenues and millages levied and the resolution adopting the final mill rates for the fiscal year 2025 2026. And finally, recommendation five. I recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the final budget and related resolution adopting the final budget for the 2025 2026 school year as follows. Number one, general operating 1 bill281,739,638. Number two, special revenue budget 131,75,825. Number three, debt service budget 99,18,536. Number four, capital outlay budget 1 bill181,726,237. Number five, internal service budget $225,64,837 for a total final budget of 2 bill919,795,73. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. This time we're going to open up public comment. the time allowed for public comment for this hearing will be 3 minutes. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to address this hearing and give public comment? We
021have anyone miss. Anyone else wishing to address? Okay, please just wait for the clock to begin. Please. Hello, I'm Kathy Wyn. I've spoken to this board three times since my prevention services position was eliminated. The teacher in me always wants to ask at the end, are there any questions? But since that's not allowed, I'm going to answer an answer the unasked question. Why do you care so much about your job being eliminated? Most of the jobs I've had, and I've had many, were in the nonprofit sector. That's because it's important to me to help people. I worked at AgeLink, an information referral service that later became United Way 211. I worked at Senior Friendship Centers as a case manager, helping coordinate services for the elderly homebound. I worked as an independent living counselor at the
022South Carolina Commission for the Blind's Older Blind program. None of these jobs made me rich, but I made a difference in my clients lives. When my children were little, I stayed home with them. But once my youngest started kindergarten, I volunteered at the school and then started substitute teaching. I did this until she could drive herself to school and to her activities. I was even named a high impact teacher in 2017 for a long-term sub job I had. Once I decided to work full-time, I was hired by Hanley Foundation and trained as a prevention specialist. The next year I came to the district in the same role. Before then the focus had been more on peer mediation and bullying and outdated and an outdated course on Blackboard about cigarette smoking was used for infractions. My
023colleague and I worked tirelessly to create all the resources that are now found on the district prevention drive. We made those presentations. We gave those presentations. We kept them up to date by making any necessary changes. We were asked to create something to educate students about social media and school threats. And we did. We have created videos about empathy, bullying, peer pressure. We work with students to create PSAs. We wrote quarterly newsletters for the past four or five years. All of these are in our drive. We did what was asked of us and did it well. I challenge you to look through our district prevention drive and not be impressed. If I didn't know we could make a difference by utilizing all the resources my colleague and I have created, I would simply retire. I
024specifically became certified through the altser course offered here for my prevention specialist position. There are no con health K through2 teaching jobs at the district. Currently my teachers, many teachers are leaving because they no longer have the passion required. Others are teaching without passion. I'm here before you with the passion to give 100% to my job. I'm not in it for the money. In fact, I've offered to work a 4-day week, save the district 20%, and still get the job done. The jewel settlement money makes it possible for you to keep me. I hope that you will and allow me to continue my work for the students. We are not done. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience else wishing to give public comment for this hearing? Okay, seeing none at this
025point, I just do want to put out there for the public that the public may ask us questions, but we are not going to respond as a whole as a board. Thank you. Okay, I am now going to reconvene the regular special meeting and the time is 5:29 p.m. the board will now consider each of the superintendent's recommendations. So, again, whenever you're ready, Dr. Carlin, please restate your recommendations. Yes, sir. hold on. Do I do have a question. Do I wait till the end? Each item. There'll be discussion on each item. Thank Thank you, sir. I recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the 2025 2026 final proposed required local effort millage of 3.071 mills with a proposed amount to be raised of $498,68,981. Okay. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Board members, is there a
026motion to approve the superintendent's recommendation? I'll make a motion. Okay, I'll second. Okay. Moved by Mr. Ribble, seconded by Mr. Javiano. I will now open the floor to any discussion. My Okay. Mr. Persons, Miss Jordan, is there any discussion? I have none. No, thank you. Okay. At this point, then we're going to move ahead and move to a vote, please. I am a yes. That was an I. Mr. Persons. Yes. Okay. Recommendation passes 6. Dr. Carlin, please please present recommendation number two. Yes, sir. I recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the 2025 2026 final proposed basic discretionary millage of.748 mills with a proposed amount to be raised of 121 million445,626. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Board members, is there a motion to approve the superintendent's recommendation? Mr. Ribble, I'll make a motion. I'll second.
027Okay. Moved by Mr. Ribble, seconded by Juvenelli. Do we have any discussion? Mr. Persons, Miss Jordan, any discussion? No, thank you. Okay, at this point. No, thank you. Oh, sorry. Was that it? No. How's it No, thank you. Sorry about this, sir. Thank you. We're going to move to now vote on recommendation number two. How do you vote, Mr. Persons? How do you vote, Mr. Persons? I Okay. Recommendation two carry 6. Dr. Carlin, please present recommendation number three. I recommend that the Lee County School Board adopt the 2025 2026 final proposed capital outlay millillage of 1500 with a proposed amount to be raised of 243,540,694. The total millage will equal 5.319 mills with a total amount to be raised of 863,595,31. The total millage rate to be levied is more than the roll back rate.
028It is an increase in the roll back rate of 1.43%. Thank you, Dr. Carlin. Board members, is there a motion to approve that item number three? Make a motion for number three. Mr. Ribble. Is there a second? Okay. Moved by Mr. Ribble, second of Mr. Javiano. Any discussion on recommendation number three, Mr. No, thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. What about you, Mr. Persons? I have none. Okay, let's proceed to vote, please. On recommendation number three, Mr. Persons, again, could you please? I'm able to vote electronically now. Okay. It was a it was an I, but recommendation number three passes 6. Dr. Carlin, please present recommendation number four. I recommend that the Lake County School Board adopt the resolution determining revenues and millages levied and the resolution adopting the final mill rates for the
029fiscal year 2025 2026. Thank you, Dr. Carlin. Board members, is there a motion to approve recommendation number four? Make a motion to approve number four. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. I moved by Mr. Ribble, seconded Mrs. Chaveiano. Any discussion? No. Thank you, Mr. Persons. Any discussion, sir? None. Okay. We're going to move on to vote on recommendation number four, please. Recommendation four carry 6. Dr. Carlin, please present the final recommendation number five. I recommend that the Lake County School Board adopt the final budget and related resolution adopting the final budget for the 2025 2026 school year as follows. Number one, general operating 1 bill281,739,638. Number two, special revenue budget 131,75,825. Number three, debt service budget 99,18,536. Number four, capital outlay budget 1 bill181,726,237. And number five, internal service budget 225,64,837 for a
030talle total final budget of 2 bill919,795,73. Thank you, Superintendent Carlin. Board members, is there a motion to approve recommendation number five? Make a motion. We have a second. Moved by Mr. Ribble, seconded by Mrs. Chaviano. Is there any discussion? Go ahead, Mrs. Oh, Miss M. Jordan. Any discussion? Mr. Persons? I have none. No, no, thank you. Okay, go ahead, Miss Juvenelli. So based on the budget, will any of the schools in Lee County be making any staff re decreases or on teachers or administration? I understand that the budget is based each school has their own budget, but are they having to decrease staff based on this budget? And if so, like what happens to the contracted those that are contracted? Like what hap because we pay it regardless. They're all in contract. So my concern
031is the school each school may have a decreased budget. So is that and that's my question generally or they going to be decreasing their budget. So yeah when we do the day 10 count there was reduced number of students than what we had projected at some of the schools and so there will be some realignments at the schools. HR is working diligently with each of the schools that are losing to place those personnel at schools where they are gaining and they need the resources. So HR is working with people to make sure that we get placement for them. And if I may just add to that, thank you very much. This is very common at this time of the year. over 18 years of leadership experience here in the school district. Every year we looked
032at what was projected, what we actually had in terms of students in the seat. Sometimes my school was were the winner and we would inherit some additional teachers from around the district. Sometimes we didn't have as many children show up so we had to actually give teachers to other schools that had gained. So again, very typical for this time of year. Thank you very much for that explanation. Thank you. Okay. Anything else from anyone else before we proceed to vote on recommendation number five? Okay, please vote. Recommendation five passes 6. So I want to thank Miss Lecher, Mrs. Cox for your hard work. I also want to thank Dr. Desamores for her hard work as well. So I appreciate you. We're now going to move on to item E, which is board member comment. Miss
033Juvenelli, any comment? I have a little comment. You know, I'm I'm proud that we were able to pass this budget while responsibility during my time and staff work together in finding meaningful cost savings while supporting all our students and staff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Juvenile. Mr. Ribble. Yeah, I want to echo what Mr. Juvenelli just stated. I thought we did an excellent job working together through the processes. I know we had a lot of cutbacks, some right sizing. We were critiqued pretty heavily on some of those things, but I think the end result will show in in how we spend our money this year, 2026. I do want to give a lot of kudos to the finance department and the communications people. As you know, six communities in Lee County are waiting for us
034to have this meeting tonight so they can do their their their budget and conclude their assessment millage rate. And I thought we did a great job putting out to the community over the weekend all these numbers. So there wasn't any mystery on what we were doing and how we figured out what our outcome was going to be. So I think a great job of being transparent and communicating. Thank you for all your hard work. Miss Jordan, do you have any comments? No, I just want to say thank you. I mean, we're up here talking with a lot of other districts and everybody's going through this right now. So, I just really appreciate the finance department and everyone doing the hard work. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Jordan. What about you, Mr. Persons? Yeah, again I
035want to thank the staff for the work they did. This year was especially hard due they didn't get the final numbers from the legislature until much much later. So they had to really rush to get this done and they did an excellent job. And again, thank you. Kudos. Thank you, Mr. Persons. Mrs. Chaviano, I think I want to like ditto everything everything everyone said, but thank you, Mr. persons for mentioning it. We did not get our numbers until later. and so that is a lot more work and timelining and extra math. So, I do not envy any of that. So, thank you for all of the hard work and getting us here and all the budget and right sizing that we had to do to get here. so, yeah, looking forward to this school year
036and everything else. So, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Chaviano. Again, I just want to say thank you for that. But I also want to recognize under this superintendent as well as our finance department that every single workshop we've had over I would say at least since Dr. Carlin has been superintendent we have had an item relating to the budget and I think that's impressive and I want the public to know that we're discussing this minimum at least once a month. So I appreciate that. Attorney Brie Bruno, I have no comments. Thank you. Superintendent Carlin and I will join the chorus on the praise that is being leaped upon or or felt upon our team. Just a very special thank you to Dr. Deemore's who know is not able to be here tonight but certainly led
037the charge and really worked very hard also Miss Cox and Miss Lecher always there for us and just thank you very much for all of your hard work. Thank you madam superintendent. At this point, having no other business to come before this body, and seeing no objection, this meeting is hereby adjourned. The time is 5:41 p.m., and I will see you all at in 19 minutes 6:00.