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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=OEAhoxeCd_4

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Don't Don't be afraid. I said it Mary. You got it. [snorts] You bounced right back. Never mind. Crier doesn't work. We're done. [laughter] Wow. That would be a lot of we're done.

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My husband is a lawyer and he's like, I don't have my ID. I'm sorry. We're done. You can't say that. I'm sorry folks. I'm running on fumes. This this will be our new thing. All right. Okay, it is Tuesday,

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June 23rd, 2026 and I call this business meeting of the Elizabeth School District Board of Education to order at 6:03 p.m. Can I get a roll call? Director Fletcher? Here.

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Director Hunt? Here. Director Olson? Here. Director Powell? Here. Okay, let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with

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liberty and justice for all. Okay, I move that the board amend this business meeting agenda for June 23rd, 2026 to move consent item 8.3, the superintendent contract, to action items, uh

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the action items portion of the agenda, and approve the remainder of the agenda as presented. Second. Any discussion on that? No? Okay, can I get a roll call? Director Fletcher? Aye. Director Hunt? Aye.

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Director Olson? Aye. And Director Powell? Aye. Okay, I move that the board approve the minutes from the Board of Education special meetings on June 9th, 2026 and June 12th, 2026. Can I get a second? Second.

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Any discussion on those? All right. Can I get a roll call? Director Fletcher? Aye. Director Bow. Hi. Director Olson. Hi. And Director Powell. Hi. Okay. So, next up we have um board member reports. So, who

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wants to kick it off? [laughter] I will I will kick it off. Get this elephant out of the room here. So, um I wanted to speak directly to something I know is on people's minds. We've had a lot going on in the district over the

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last few weeks. Um we evaluated our memberships and our partnerships and we left the ERG BOCES. Um we're pursuing legal representation and we have um new leadership. So,

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we've also had executive sessions to meet with our attorneys regarding the AC case. Um and so, I think that logically people are thinking, "Okay, what's going on? Um is next up you're you're dropping your defense of the case?"

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And I just want to um make it very clear that no, we're not dropping our defense of um our position in this case. Um one thing that one thing that I think

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gets overlooked, I think people get focused on the books, the content of the books, and there's a lot of argument back and forth. Should they be on the shelf? Should they not be on the shelf? And regardless of the position on that, I think the big picture is getting

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overlooked. And the big picture is a matter of local control. So, if you take away local control and you start dictating what school boards can do as far as what's granted to them, the the rights that are granted to them in the state constitution,

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you basically steal the local voice. You steal the voice of the community. So, I I would really like people to understand that this this goes beyond the books. It goes beyond the books. It's It's a matter of people vote to put you in office to do their will.

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And when you have someone from the outside coming in and saying, "Well, no, you can't do that." You're basically stealing the voters' will, the voice of the community. So, that for me is why I remain whole heartedly committed to the case, and I believe that it is the board's position

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as well. So, I just wanted to, you know, clear the air and and, you know, take the speculation out of it. So, so that we're not we're not stepping away from the case. Um so, elephant gone. Um one elephant.

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[laughter] So, anybody else have anything they want to add? I just want to say well said. Thank you for saying that, because it is very true. Um we are still completely supportive of staying in this case, staying the course.

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But, it is a twofold battle. It is. Obviously, we made the two the the choices that we made because we felt that the books were age inappropriate. That is a choice that we as a as a local control board made.

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And if we allow that to sort of just be dissipated, and we let it go, we are losing the strength of the local control that we do have as our right. So, um well said. Thank you for for clarifying that. And the only thing I would add is that,

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you know, all three of us ran on a campaign of continuing to support that case and what it stands for, uh including local control for all grades. And so, I think that that's something our community spoke loud and clear when uh when we won that election. And so, I

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think that we need that um it's a matter of being faithful to the call of the people who elected us as well. So um got that elephant out of the way and um

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something very important tonight and I want to take a moment. We have several people here with us tonight. And I want to say a very heartfelt thank you. A public thank you on behalf of the board. Um as we know and we'll be talking about a

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little bit more tonight, the district has been working through a series of financial issues. And I want to be very clear that we would not be in a better place had it not been for people coming out and speaking up and letting us know what we needed to

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know and that takes guts, it takes integrity and I want to let you know that we really and truly appreciate it. We thank you from the bottom of our Um we have some certificates tonight which

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is, you know, by no means um it can't equal, but we owe you um in gratitude, but um we want to say again, thank you um and I just want to read a little one

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little one little snippet here um so people understand what's what's on here. So um each of you are getting a certificate of appreciation which reads in part in deep appreciation for your exceptional dedication your resilience

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and outstanding contributions for the focused attention to detail and commitment that safeguarded this district and exemplify exemplify true leadership during a critical time. So, you know, we have people here who have come forward. We

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um, you know, former former staff members, employees who came forward and they shared their expertise and their historical knowledge. And we have people that just sat around the table, including you, and, um, you know, hunkered down and and

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and helped work through this. So, I do want to say thank you very much. So. And you have to come up here and give your speech. I don't know what to say. You're up for whatever. And I will say, well, we'll do announcements in a minute, but Fran is, um, out of town on

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a well-deserved vacation, but and so is Jamie, as well, but we do have the rest of the team here. So, we'll start with Andrea. And Genie. You got to come up here with me. Yeah, I should be. All right, here you go. No, I ran away too quick.

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Me, please. Michelle. Sierra. And Tracy. And I do have another one here, but I didn't wasn't sure if you wanted to be acknowledged. No, that's okay. Are you sure? Okay. Word knowledge. We won't make you walk.

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They have to get their picture taken. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That's some blessed and some wonderful people here. Yes. Yes. They are all working very hard. Okay, so now you have the

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Yeah, just a a couple of quick uh reports. Again, thank you to the business department. I know often times in school districts over the summer, um there is a little bit of a break and people get a you know, find a little more of a work-life balance, but this group here has been working like crazy. We sat in a

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room last week happy half the day and then they all went back and worked and they just continued to keep us updated every day, crunching numbers, looking at spreadsheets. Um so they've been doing a lot of hard work and I appreciate them. Our maintenance and ops folks have also been working

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really hard this summer. I think the district's looking better than it's looked in a while. Um and so we've got a lot of a lot of people working. Um our literacy coordinator has been doing uh training for our health for our dyslexia specialist. Um Cindy Conyers, she's been

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We've got three or four teachers that are going through training. Some summer school things going on at the high school. So just want to thank all of the staff that continues to work over the summer. Um there is a lot that goes on even in a a smaller rural district like ours that I think sometimes gets lost. So I want to acknowledge everybody for

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that. Um I also want to make sure that everybody who's watching at home uh has has checked out our horses' mouth part of the webpage. Um Jeff, our communications director, has done a great job getting that up and running

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quickly. Uh there've been a couple questions about its purpose and its purpose is to be transparent. Um we live in a world where sometimes people get their news from social media and it's usually not all of the truth if any of the truth. It

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often times just gets us riled up and so we're trying to help our community understand if you want the truth, just come to our website and we will post it there. I've already had a couple uh community members just reach out to me personally and email and ask me

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questions and we'll reply back. We're going to give people the truth. CORA is of course there legally if people want it, but people can also just email the horse's mouth, ask us questions. We've had that happen already. We post them We're getting CORA

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requests posted on that page. So, I just look forward to continuing to give our community an opportunity to come straight to the horse's mouth, hear what's going on, hear the truth as we rebuild that trust. We haven't always been as transparent as we need to be. So, look

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forward to just continuing to see how that how that evolves. I want to thank Jeff for his work on that. Um and then I've got a few more comments that I'll keep for when we start the budget. All right. Any public comment? No sir.

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Okay. All right. So, next step, we have uh consent. So, I move that the board approve consent items 8.1 through 8.2 as presented. Second. And can I get a roll call?

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Director Fletcher? Aye. Director Vance? Aye. Director Olson? Aye. Director Powell? Aye. Okay. So, on to action items. So, first up, we have the Just cops, right? Not c o p s.

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Cops grant. SVPP grant approval application. So, I move that the board approve the application of the cops SVPP grant. Can I get a second? Second.

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Okay. Any discussion? Do you want to comment? I can if you have questions. Yeah. So then you just give a brief overview, maybe? Yeah. So currently in the district we are working with a very old antiquated PA system.

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Um the purpose of this grant is to allow us to make significant upgrades um primarily in the areas of emergency notification. Um there are added bonuses to that where our bell schedule, things like that were about operational operationally.

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Um currently we actually have the Valcom system in the district, but it's only at the Signal Hills location. Um a good example of this uh where where we desperately need it is one of our newer buildings, the high school. They're

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currently operating on the bell schedule, but anytime we have a a power outage or anything of that nature, um our office manager has to go in there and re-enter the entire bell schedule you know, the day or or even the week. Um so a lot of work that goes into that

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and we're also identifying gaps where the PA system is connected in ways that shouldn't have been. Um the way it's wired, powered, it's where even at the [snorts] high school in in the gym, there is uh a closet where it says do not power this

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down because it'll basically short circuit the like half half if not more of the PA system that's in place. So that in turn those are uh emergency notification. Um there's a lot of really cool things that we can we can

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continue to do with the Valcom system. So early on, it really what we're trying to do is just start to get the rest of the district on board. So it's not a complete rip and replace, it's nothing like that. It's more of a slow integration into it and then expanding

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on it over years. Um how this is being done, uh we're still working on the finer details of that. We We conducted a walk with Valcom and Convergint who are going to be the two integrators that would help us accomplish this. Um they're working this week to get us

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the final numbers to identify what that looks like. Uh financially, the goal with this uh the ceiling is $500,000 with a 25% match. However, um Francisca and myself will be working to apply for the waiver. Um now, with that

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being said, if we don't get the waiver, there is a second secondary option that's the microgrid. The microgrid, if you spend under uh or $100,000 or under on this project, then there's no match required. So, we're going to run basically two projects side by side and they're not dependent on one

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another. So, whether we get the full 500 or we're able to get a portion of that 500 depending on what's chosen, we can start to to make improvements in our district where it is needed. Um Other cool features that Valcom offers,

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it's one of the only systems uh in the country that we have found that has the standard response protocols already built into it. Um not only that, but we have ways that it can or it can incorporate into our

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existing system very very easily. So, it's it's again it's a very seamless process. Um by doing it in the way that we're we're looking to do this, um we can utilize some of the analog

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technology that we have and then start to make that transition to an IP-based system, which is ultimately what our tech department likes to to do. Um we're also looking at at what our current infrastructure is for tech and if we need to if we can with that money make

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upgrades on switches or things like that, we're also going to consider doing those things, which would really help make improvements uh for the district's network infrastructure. Um it also helps out with ADA compliance, so there are digital

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uh boards, which I can I can pass this along to you guys, and it'll kind of give you a little bit of a layout. Um there's digital boards that we can put in the corridors and eventually into the classrooms themselves. And so, if an emergency panic button is hit, uh it would then on these boards it

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would uh a light would indicate um and you would also get the digital um messaging saying lockdown lockdown lockdown. And completely customizable, you can even do it for great normal daily operations that you can use these things to get messaging across. Um for our sped department, you can

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increase decrease volume levels for those um in our district who might be sensitive to sound or or may need that reduced volume so that way it doesn't create uh it doesn't it doesn't trigger or do anything that we don't want to happen.

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Escalation doesn't make sense. Um so, there's a lot of different things that we're looking at. We're trying to build the framework on what our capabilities are based on the current funding. Um this will hopefully be a long-term plan

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of we'll we'll come up with our initial project plan for this year if it's approved, and then going forward we'll create smaller projects to eventually have a complete system overhaul. Um but it'll just be taken in chunks. Does the federal grant

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Yes. You don't know. Cuz sometimes federal grants come with strings. Are there any strings that you have to Not that I have seen. Um the only string that I have found is if you spend $350,000 or above, um

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and you choose a single vendor um or sole vendor, you have to complete paperwork. That's That's That's what I know. That's the only thing that I know that's going to apply. So. And then if if we were able to get a $500,000 grant

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with a waiver. So, it sounds like there are different pieces to this project. And so, the $500,000, do we have to spend it within X number of years or something? And we would spend it across however many of these projects that we could find using that. Is that correct?

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So, the way that it's laid out, the way that cops wants us to spend this is we could spend it over over a period of 3 years. Or we can take it all at one time. Um so, for those who are seeking out a um a waiver or don't get a waiver, and

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they're just going to go ahead and complete that match. The way that I best understand it is over 3 years, while it is 25%, that 25% would be divvied up over the period of 3 years. So, it would kind of lessen that blow on all those districts. Um obviously, in our case, that's we're

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we're going to be applying for the waiver. If we don't get the waiver, then we'll be aiming for the 25% so. We're not interested in having any kind of financial responsibility on the district. This is just we're going to do what we can with the grant. If we don't get it, we're going to continue to apply

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um through some more other grants just continue making efforts in this direction. So, are there So, then would the approach be like structural with cabling in place, you know, get everything stable and electric? Much smaller scale. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yep. Yep. So, at least get the foundation, get the framework, and then build onto that over a period of time. When will we know? Uh so, the first portion of the grant is due August 4th, and then the final deadline is August 11th. I would suspect

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about a month or two after that we would we would hear something. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to work pretty hard over the course of July and so to get this and so we've already with with Convergent and Val Com actually coming out it looks like we're in pretty good shape with our existing infrastructure to make

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some pretty big improvements initially. So, I'm excited about that even of room to grow? Yes, there's a lot of room to grow which is which is good here. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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I'll call Director Val Com. Director Fletcher? Hi. Director Hunt? Hi. Director Olson? Hi. Director Val? Hi. Okay, so next up we have Chromebook purchase authorization. Do you want to talk about this a little bit first?

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Yeah, so we put this on the agenda to have a very transparent conversation about not only Chromebooks, but I think just in general where we're going with technology. This specific resolution is to purchase the Chromebooks for sixth graders and ninth graders that they

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would then keep as their one-to-one devices as they go through middle and high school. We've talked over the months, I guess, about the role technology plays in elementary school and trying to move away from

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technology in K2 and and 3-5 maybe just to a cart here or there if if they need it, but not have it be a part of their everyday life. We haven't talked a lot about what that looks like in middle and high outside of the work that we're doing with the AI group in freaking

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review council, but this is the time to have that conversation. I mean, we're getting ready to possibly spend $80,000 on a set of Chromebooks for sixth graders and ninth graders in a time when we're in a very severe budget crunch. These

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Chromebooks come in at about $277 a piece that basically students use for either three or four years and then it's not that they're useless, but from a value perspective they're useless. We can't sell them and get anything back. Um

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we're not charging a fee for that. We're not allowing parents or students to bring their own devices to school. So, we're really locked in and this is not uncommon. Um many districts did this with our funds years ago. Several did it with COVID

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funds where you get this big infusion of one-time money. So, you go to a one-to-one initiative and then as you find out year after year after year pumping 100 grand into this gets very difficult to do. So, I think this is a great time not only as we're kind of

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going back to basics, focusing on reading, writing, arithmetic, but also where we're at with the budget to really talk about what role do we want technology to play in middle school and high school? Do we still one-to-one want a one-to-one initiative in middle

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school? Do we still want a one-to-one initiative in high school? And if so, do we want it at this cost? Do we want to talk about fees? Do we want to talk about um allowing students to bring their own devices? So, I've talked with Marty. Marty's talked with his team. So, I've

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got information if you need it, but um kind of we can open it up to a larger uh transparent discussion so that the community can hear what we believe um what what role we believe technology should play in the education of our K-12

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students. Well, I know personally, I would like to get I'd like to get some feedback from the parents about what they want. Um I do like the idea of the YLD because you know, sitting in on the tech meetings, I've heard some

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some comments about you know, for some of the kids it's you know, hey, how can I how can I break this? Or, you know, see if I can take this bezel off and put it back on. Um, so, it's maybe it's because of the school's normal that they have their own which

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they prefer to be using. So, this isn't taken as seriously, but um, I would I would like some feedback from parents regarding if they had that leeway with the option with the understanding that the tech team would not have to support the hardware on their device. Um,

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you know, if if it's a matter of a student's having trouble logging in um, to the to the coursework, to the software, then, you know, that that's something that could be supported. But, I've also heard that, you know, a lot of time is spent

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demonstrating to get signed in and, you know, what it's wasting class time. So, um, I think we need to look at at the the benefit of having them. Do they want them? Would they prefer their own? And we still have the firewalls in place. Firewalls in the place and

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someone tries to do something on their own laptop, you know, the firewall should catch it. So. But, I I question the value of a computer at all at these early grades.

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Um, I took a physics class in college. They didn't even allow you to use a calculator. So, I thought you did. [laughter] If I can do calculus-based physics without a calculator,

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I think we need to our children need to expand their minds. The and they can't do that if they are tied to a device. And and with AI, we we need to go back. We got to go back. Um,

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the the computer, having access to the computer, allows them to basically offload all cognition to a machine. And the more we allow that, we're not teaching them anything. And if we

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I would challenge any lesson below definitely below ninth grade. Any lesson, why or why does that even need a computer? What is its purpose? Yeah, I I I really think that kids in elementary

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school shouldn't have a calculator, much less a a computer. But the I and I don't even think in middle school you need a calculator. I don't even think you need a calculator until you hit algebra two, maybe trig. Trig, you need a calculator.

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Just because you're so gifted in math, do you think that Yeah. [laughter] We don't We don't know how to use slide rules, so the uh in order to you know, it's either a calculator or trig tables, right? Um but uh the if we

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We can't We want our children to get better at math. We want them to get better at reading, but they can't do that with a computer. It It [snorts] is a substitute. For you and me, that's fine. Um

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we can offload some piece of the thinking to a computer or calculator, whatever. But we still know how to do it. They don't. The children do not know how to do these things, and the more you allow them to use the technology, the less

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they will learn. And that There are so many studies at this point that have proved that have proved my point. Even in college, like as the teach as the professors move away from technology, and they get back to a pencil and piece

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of paper, the kids are they're being more creative, they're learning, they're they're mastering their subjects. And I I just I question the use throughout at this point.

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That's that's my position. I know that's speaking for myself, but I think I have a dearth of of uh scholastic proof to show with data to show that we we simply got got there.

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So. I'm very interested in surveying um parents and maybe even students and teachers to see what they all think about having this one-to-one policy in place. Um I I particularly think 6th,

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7th, and 8th grade are years where we probably don't need to be forcing a computer into the kids' laps, um into the classrooms. Maybe there are a couple of classes where it would be helpful. Maybe we have that cart available to teachers who um who potentially need

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that for certain times of the year or exercises, but but I just think there's a lot of distraction that can take place, especially with 6th graders and 7th graders and 8th graders. Distraction on the computer, using the computer, not knowing how to use the computer. Um and I also think there's a lot of parents

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out there who would also like to see less technology at that middle school age level. Um I think there's probably a case to be made for the high school, but I also would question whether or not parents would be open or want to do a a bring your own device to school. And if that's something that we could do, these kids

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are going to be able to continue using that computer for much longer than just the period of time that, you know, we loan it to them to use. Um and it would be something their parents can actually help them with, too, right? A computer that their parents know how to use versus a computer that is owned by the school and maybe has different protocols

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and or safeties in place. So, um all in all, I think we should hold off on placing any orders until we can do some surveys or at least know for certain how we're going to potentially, you know, if we need a year year to kind of figure it out, then maybe we can recycle some of

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the computers that have been returned to incoming students, but I would like to understand better what our community thinks is the right approach, particularly because we are facing the financial issues that we are. I I agree first of all, I think we definitely should survey the

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the parents and and the teachers. Um I think some of them are probably would be happy to get rid of devices. I absolutely agree that um I really believe for the whole K-5 that we should not have technology going on at

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all, I personally believe. K-12, absolutely. 3-5, I believe absolutely also. Um I uh I believe that middle school is also an area where I think we absolutely need to ratchet it back if not not have

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it at all. I I have recently spoken to a a parent who who has a has a student who's very very bright. Um and when they I guess there are some games or something on these devices that are learning games.

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But uh they kind of feed the addiction to these kids. Uh they're devices are an addiction. I mean, we all know that ourselves, you know, we have to look at the phone continuously, we have to see what's going on on the phone. We all know it for ourselves that that can happen to us. Games are gaming

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is a is an addiction. Um but this here and I spoke to her her student was doing it during class because it was easy for him to keep up. He's very He's very bright. Um and then

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it was such an addiction that they were finding out at home. He was kind of hiding under the covers and doing some stuff at home as well. It was becoming an addiction and they caught it luckily and they are dealing with it and kudos to them. But I'm sure that this student was not the only one where that is happening. It

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is absolutely an addiction and we should not be we should not be reinforcing that. If we could um I do I agree with what you said Nicole about I I really do think that we should hold off on ordering any more. Um this is a huge expense and I don't I just don't know that it's

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an appropriate expense at this point particularly but really at any point because we need to ratchet back on the technology for sure. And high school I think to your point too high school is kind of a different event. I mean we have to prepare them for

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the real world as they say. Um and and it's not like they're not going to be using devices at home. So it's not like going to be oh what is this? I've never seen such a thing before when they get to ninth grade. They're going to know and they're going to have stuff at home. As far as allowing their own devices, I

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mean I think that's a that's a you know, definitely survey question. Um I always feel bad for an IT department when they have to uh have students who are coming in with who knows what device. We will have a firewall. We will have different things.

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But we've kind of been talking about AI lately. We have to be sure that the AI controls the AI walled garden that we talked about the other day is in place even if they're using their own devices. Um and so there's just a lot to consider with regard to allowing students to use

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their own device. On the other hand you would save a lot of expense for the district. So um there's a lot to consider and I think a survey is definitely a way to to start. Um teachers and students because the teachers would need to shift their mindset if they didn't have the

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technology. So there's a lot to consider and um I know that you know, what does that where does that leave our teachers with right now? Um so we need to get a survey probably sooner than later, but um um we may end up having to start the

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semester with we're all going to be a little bit less technology for now, and we'll we'll revisit this in, you know, at each quarter or something. So, I guess the question is you have teachers, they have lesson

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plans right now. It's too late to just you know, rip it all away. Yeah. Yeah. Um that would be too too traumatic, but this is something that needs to be needs to be planned. So, I guess the question is do we have enough

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if we shop around and just buy what we need? Yeah, so I am talking with Marty and he got with his team. A, we have a decrease in enrollment, so we have fewer kids next year than we had this year. So, we're going to have some extra devices no matter what. Let's say

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a sophomore left, that's an extra device. Um and we've got enough shifting around from elementaries, we could replenish 6th and 9th to get by one more year while we're studying this without having to go out

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and buy new Chromebooks. Um so, we could keep the one-to-one in place in middle and high, not spend the money, survey, see where we're at because yes, if teachers have their whole first semester plans through Google Classroom and everything laid

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out, and then we pulled that away, we're we're asking them to build a house and taking their hammer away. Like, we've got to get them a different tool first. So, I guess maybe there's a survey two surveys. One on teachers and one on

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parents. Yeah, I think we've got to ask our teachers how much you use it, what would you need if this went away, like how much planning do you how much interaction do you have with with your students on that laptop? Um and then parents, what level of technology do you

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really want your kids engaged with? That's right. Cuz I think even if some even if there are a good number of middle school teachers who are using Google Classroom, I would question, maybe we ought not be using Google Classroom when we're in person with each other. I mean, I know we did that during COVID. You know, there was maybe not

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here, but I know schools in general did that during COVID, but when we're here at class together, maybe we don't need to be on Google Classroom in order to go over the material that we're learning at school that day. Yeah, and we've already made that decision with like iReady, right? The 15

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minutes a day K-8, I believe it was, spent on literacy and math is we don't want that. We want teachers instructing our kids during that time. We think our teachers are a heck of a lot better than a computer is at at teaching our students. And so, by that same token, it may be that that we look

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back and we are doing, as you know, a lot of work on curricular alignment and improving instructional strategies with literacy and math. So, if we do start to pull that away, we could easily spend the year reinforcing other ways to not

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use technology and really get back to I think what most of us were doing before this craze kind of hit, which was just what ways make sense to integrate technology into the curriculum. Not that technology was the answer, but you know,

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years ago, right? When you you wrote a rough draft and then you brought in the computer cart to type your your finish, you know, your final draft, so it was polished. Um, where does technology make sense? And there's several different There's the SAMR model. There's models

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that education has used for years to talk about where technology makes sense. And I can tell you I think you guys know this. You're not the only school board having this conversation. I mean, this is a wave right now in education of a lot of us think we went way too far.

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It's still looking valid. It's removing. Technology. Yeah, I mean, if that didn't tell you anything. Well, yeah. Right. No, you can't get the technology. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, I was just going to say maybe you could speak a little bit to the backlash cuz that right when you talked about it being a craze and so people would get

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the flip side money and they invest into it. But what are you hearing now from the flip side of it as folks are reconsidering? I I think a lot of it is just this we've we've now seen I'm trying to think of a nice way to put this. We've now seen

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what happens to people who spend their whole life on computers, right? Whether it's social skills, whether it's a lack of critical thinking because or the you know, the addiction just constantly needing that. I think as as parents and

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educators, we've just seen that needle move way too far and you know, we're missing that. When I got into teaching, it wasn't necessarily about the curriculum, it was about that teacher-student relationship and I think even technology has stopped some of that a little bit.

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Um it's probably, you know, at least some level of causation um if not a correlation that as technology integration has increased, test scores across this country have decreased. Um I don't think any teacher is good at

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teaching the content as a teacher. You need that relationship. That's that matters. Teachers need to be able to, you know, judge where a kid's at. Use that computer to look at data to make instructional decisions, but not necessarily teach the kids. So, to me,

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ideally, um the educator in me, I I like the idea of no technology K2. I think kids should be reading and reading and reading and reading and playing. Um and I think 3-5 it might make sense occasionally to bring it in. We are going to have to have that discussion

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about what C mass looks like. I believe the new rules are you can request, it's not automatic. You can request CMAS to be pencil and paper for third and fourth, not for fifth. So, I don't want to go so far that our fifth graders sit down to take a reading and math test in

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March or April. They not on a computer enough that it doesn't give us the data we need. It doesn't really show us what they know. It shows us that they don't know how to use technology. So, there probably has to be some type of ramp up as kids get to fifth grade of at least

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making sure they understand how to use a computer to take CMAS. Um I That's easily taught. Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do that. It's almost more of an awareness. Yeah. Um you know, we'll take some assessments on the the computer leading up. Um

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middle school, I taught middle school and I taught STEM where we had computers and I tell you back in the day, the kids enjoyed the non-computer things a lot more than the computer-based projects that we were doing. I think at the middle school and high school level, I really think we

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need to ask the kids. I think we might be surprised how much um they don't necessarily value that computer as a learning tool. They use it for a lot of other things. I'm not sure how much they use it to extend their learning, but I I absolutely love the

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idea of getting feedback from parents, students, and staff and not spending the money right now, continue kind of where we're going with middle and high, being honest and letting the staff know this is where we're likely to to move to unless we hear

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data that's completely different and and we can start working through that and make that decision early enough that if we're going to remove one-to-ones in middle or in middle and high, that we would have the whole spring semester to do some professional development for our

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teachers who maybe have become pretty reliant on that technology. So, I want to just confirm my understanding at this point then. So, um so we have already decided and K through 2 at least for sure will have no technology.

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That's my strong recommendation and I've heard zero pushback from board or staff. Okay. I I think most people are in agreement. Yeah. And then third third and fourth are probably dependent on whether we can get the same as waiver to do it with pencil and paper.

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But fifth grade we would probably have to have something. And you've talked about this cart thing. Yeah, sort of like some ex- some ones that they can bring in, use for a day, and then take them away, and then they can be used by another classroom another day. Exactly. ones. Yep. Um and then right now you have said so

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the ones that would be have been being used for K through 5 those are the ones that we can kind of redistribute for sixth grade use this coming year. And ninth grade use. And yeah, as well as just some extras we have. extras, yeah. So, um so

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so that would that would take care of our cart situation and that would take care of our sixth and ninth grade situation without buying any more new ones. Correct. And it would also hold off not on the discussion but on the implementation of a bring your own device because that is a big shift and

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it would give us some time to work with our IT department, to work with parents, to create protocols and practices because we wouldn't need it. And then if we decided let's say we decide next spring we only want one-to-one at the high school and we don't want bring your

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own device, then we need to revisit where we come up with $300 per device. Is that a Is that a fee? Um what do what do we do because I I think it's very difficult to continue to basically lease every middle and high school student a computer that's worth

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$300 and then they give it back to us and it's worth zero. Um And then do we ac- I mean like when a senior graduates, do we actually get that back? We do. And that's what we've been kind of been taking down to the grade school, right? A little bit, but there's no value

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Yeah, those are really the ones that they used to fix the other ones. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're still parts. Yeah, if we could at that point resell them for $100 or something, they had some use, but there's they have zero

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value in in in terms of economics. And so, I think that's a discussion we've got to have is do we continue to We're going to have a lot of those conversations tonight. Do we continue to supplement some of these things through the general fund because you are robbing

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Peter to pay Paul um if we continue to do that. And I guess I've always wondered how I think I Correct me if I'm wrong, but did the Did the middle schoolers Did they actually have it continuously when they take it home or do they leave

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it at the school? So, it is one-to-one, but it's left at the school where they But in high school, they have it they travel back and forth. I always wonder how many really really get back to where they're going, how many are lost in transit, how many are broken, how many throughout the

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year. I mean, how many did we lose and we have to replace? Yeah. And we do have this kind of graveyard of parts and pieces, I guess, but but this that's only going to go so far. Well, in the middle school students, as you can expect, are pretty rough on those devices. I can't imagine like that. Yeah,

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schoolers were so gentle. [laughter] them. Those are They They are pretty rough. I If we sent them home, I don't know that they would I don't know that if when I was a sixth grade boy if I'd have brought that thing back. No, I don't I don't think they would. I'm I'm just surprised any of them ever get back in ever the first place, but

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anyway. Well, I I think this is a great This is a good plan. Don't you know, don't Don't buy them now. Use the ones that we have to fix the ninth and consider this whole next year a surveying and making a plan for the next year.

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That's what I I just had three really quick points. Um Maine is the first state to do this one-to-one state-wide. Yet, but the numbers, by any measure, do not add up to the money that's been spent to give

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these kids one one-to-one give them a laptop. All, by any measure, that has not been fair. Um the computer will only give you an answer. A teacher will force you to use your mind, which is what we need our kids to do.

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And uh the budget is a zero-sum game. There is there You want to buy computers? Well, that's a teacher that the that you don't get to have. So, I I just I I put that that's pretty simple in my in my mind.

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Good point. So, no further discussion, we can do a roll call. Director Fletcher? Aye. What? Wait, I'm going to I'm going to ask a question. need to verify the motion? Yes, because the motion says we approve the purchase. That's what the motion says. Oh.

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I'm sorry. Would you like to [laughter] We don't get to say nay very often. Yeah. We don't want to say nay very often, I hope. What was the motion to not approve? To not. Yeah, sorry. Unless we want to amend the the motion to the plan, or I could just take the plan forward and we can vote

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down the motion. Either one's the same. This latter is the easier one. We might as well just go for the voting down the motion. So, let's do it. Yeah, we'll just vote it down. Director Fletcher? Nay. Director Hunt? Yay. Director Wilson? Nay. Director Paquette? Yay.

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My first solid nay. [laughter] Who seconded it then? I. I'm not sure we did a first and second. We're trying to go over Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did not do it. I started. Yeah, I think you did. All right. So, I move that the board

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I move that the board approve the purchase of Chromebooks for the next coming school year. No, I don't want to SECOND IT. [laughter] SAY IT AGAIN, LORI. I SECOND THAT. IT'S ALL RIGHT. WE'LL DO that again. Director Fletcher. Nay. Director Hunt. Nay. Director Olson.

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Nay. Director Powell. Nay. Look at that. We got to figure it out. So, we got to do it twice? [laughter] Okay. So, next up Uh in 20 minutes. You ladies are I I don't want y'all to

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think you're trapped here. If you need to go or whatever, you may. Thank you. They're probably waiting for this discussion right now. I see what y'all feel like is trapped. [laughter] All right. So, our 2026-2027 proposed

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budget and appropriation resolution. Do you want to talk about this first before the motion? All right. You know what? Let's uh go ahead. I move that the board approve the 2026-2027 proposed budget and appropriation resolution. Can I get a second?

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Second. And discussion. All right. So, um I prepared a a brief statement for everyone. Um so, I I ask you to to bear with me. Um and I'm reading from my computer a little bit,

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so I apologize. But, tonight before I present the budget, um I need to say something that is probably not very becoming of me as a superintendent. And that is I'm frustrated. Actually, more than frustrated, I am angry. I'm angry because I do not believe that

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the situation that we find ourselves in today was inevitable. I believe many of the painful decisions before us could have been avoided had past leadership been transparent and addressed these concerns sooner. Over the past several months, there were repeated warnings about the district's

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financial condition. Multiple staff members raised concerns regarding our budget, our various spending commitments, the hiring decisions that were being made, and our long-term financial sustainability. These concerns were raised through appropriate channels by people whose

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responsibilities included understanding the district's finances. Unfortunately, those warnings were not acted upon by past leadership with the urgency that they deserved. I know members of this board, including our board president, urged caution.

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There were requests to slow down hiring decisions, delay commitments, and wait until we had a clearer understanding of the district's financial position before making decisions with long-term consequences. Those concerns were continually met with

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assurances that the budget was sound and that there was no cause for alarm. Some may ask whether the board bears any responsibility in this situation, and I think that's a fair question. The board does have oversight responsibilities. The financial advisory

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committee and the board treasurer had a responsibility to monitor the district's financial condition and to report any of those concerns back here to the board. However, and this is a big however that I hope this community understands, oversight only works when the the

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being provided is accurate. I've seen emails from board members requesting budget information, asking financial questions, seeking clarity regarding where the district was in its financial position. I've sat in meetings where that data was

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requested from the board to past leadership. Time and again, those requests were not met with complete information, but assurances that everything was fine and sometimes just flat-out lies. The FAC and board treasurer both

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relied upon information that was provided by district leadership. The board then relied upon that information um that was provided by district leadership, by the FAC, and the staff in the community relied upon that information that was

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provided by past leadership. The problem is that the information that was being provided was not an accurate reflection of our financial reality. I can say this because I personally witnessed board members being told that the budget was sound. I personally

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witnessed concerns by staff being minimized, and I personally witnessed requests for financial information being answered with assurances rather than data. Today, we obviously all know that those assurances were wrong. The narrative that the board simply

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failed to act ignores a critical fact. Before action can occur, decision-makers must have accurate information. When accurate information finally reached the board, the board acted. Once the true extent of the financial situation became clear, difficult but

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necessary decisions began to be made. Likewise, staff members repeatedly raised concerns. Financial warnings were given. Questions were asked. Some employees even continued to raise concerns when doing so was uncomfortable

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or unpopular because they knew that the district was headed towards a financial crisis. [snorts] In some cases, many of those cases, those concerns were dismissed. In others, employees were actually discouraged from continuing to raise

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those concerns to levels where they thought they could get answers. So, rather than confronting the problem, the focus too often became on controlling the message rather than solving the problem that was before us. This was not a situation where nobody

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knew. This was a situation where the people who knew were not listened to by a person who continually made the conscious decision to not face reality, to not choose transparency, and ultimately lead us to the situation

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we are in tonight. That is why I believe this crisis was preventable. As a result, we are now being forced to make decisions in the middle of the summer that affect people's livelihoods, their families, and their futures.

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These are conversations that could have occurred months ago, allowing employees more time, more certainty, and far more dignity than what this current process allows. I want to be clear about something tonight. The employees who are affected

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by these reductions did not create the problem. The board members who are now being asked to make these difficult decisions did not create the problem. The staff who sounded the alarm did not create this problem. Past leadership created this problem, and now we are

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being asked to deal with the consequences of decisions that should have been addressed much earlier. That is why I'm angry. Not because we have difficult decisions to make, being a leader often requires difficult decisions. I'm angry because many of these

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decisions could have been made sooner, with more transparency, more honesty, and especially more compassion for the people who serve the district every day. I want to close by saying that I do not enjoy talking about the past. Anyone

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who's worked with me knows that I'm not someone who likes to dwell on mistakes or assign blame. I believe in identifying problems, fixing them, and moving forward. But, I also believe that people deserve the truth. The employees whose lives are impacted by these decisions tonight

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deserve the truth. The community and our taxpayers deserve the truth. And our board deserves the truth. The truth is that this situation did not develop overnight. Warnings were given, questions were asked, concerns were raised.

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And over and over again, opportunities existed to make different decisions that would avoid much of the hardship we're facing tonight. I felt it was important to say this publicly because accountability matters. Learning from failure matters, and if we

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are going to build trust, it has to start right here with honesty. Having said that, I'm not interested in spending the next year looking backwards. This is the first and last time I'll have this conversation. My focus will be on fixing the problem,

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restoring the financial health of the district, rebuilding trust with our staff and our community, and on making sure that we never find ourselves in this position again. What happened needed to be acknowledged, the truth needed to be told. The people

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who are going to be affected by these decisions tonight deserve that much. So, now it's time to move forward. It's time to do the difficult work of repairing the damage, making responsible decisions, and building a stronger future for this district.

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The truth needed to be told. Now, the problem needs to be fixed. That's exactly what I intend to do. With that being said, I would now like to take the board and the community through the budget revisions that the team and I have created in an effort to

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start to balance next year's budget. I I think the easiest way to do that is to try and look at the two postings, the posting of the budget that was presented earlier on and the budget that um

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was just presented. So, as you kind of look at those, you'll get an opportunity to see the changes that the the staff and I were able to make um and I can tell you the internet's down, so this is going to be fun cuz I don't have my Google Doc, but I think I remember it. I spent a few hours on it.

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Um but I kind of want to just open this up to an opportunity. You guys have seen the original budget, you've seen the revisions that the team and I have made to bring you a balanced budget tonight, but I want to open it up for questions. Again, I think the the staff, the community, our

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parents deserve to hear this transparent conversation about where we're at and the difficult decisions we're going to have to make in order to move forward. So, we're actually going to get our tables this time. So, the budget that we've presented is hitting TABOR. It is That

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was our goal. It would be great to end with some extra unassigned fund balance, but yes, and that TABOR amount might be a little less because it's 3%, it's a percentage, but yes, the budget that we've created, that of course will continue to ebb and flow, but we'll

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actually monitor it and pay attention to that. Um is that is the goal is to hit TABOR. If we hit TABOR and have a penny left, I think we're in good shape when you look at the cuts that we've had to make in one year. I do want to I appreciate what you just said and

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I I do want I know all y'all are here that I want the truth no matter how ugly it is. If I can't make a decision for our constituents if they don't have the truth. If if it's being hidden from me then I I don't I

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don't know what I don't know so it it I'm not going to shoot the messenger or anything else. Like I don't I don't care what it is. Just as long as I know the truth then we can move forward and deal with it. We don't have to we may do a retrospective on how we get

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here but that's just to understand why so we don't make that mistake again. But the truth is truth will set you free. So looking looking at this one question question that I have noted here is

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So a single assumption that hurts most if you're wrong. Um So what what is the single assumption that's most if you're wrong and you'll probably So it's if

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I I think the most difficult part of all of this is understanding the riffs. Right? We have to reduce we have a reduction in force. We have to reduce the number of staff that we have. Um we have tried very hard to go down to the penny to make sure we don't have to cut

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one more staff member than we have to. Your point of do you want to hit TABOR? Yes, if I hit TABOR and we've got $100,000 left at the end of the year and that meant we didn't have to cut that one last person, that's something that would be difficult. Um we have tried to

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get this as close as we can because as a, you know, a lifelong educator and former teacher myself, it's hard to find a job at the end of June. That's why you make these decisions early. The decisions we're making tonight are very difficult and so we

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have literally, this team has spent hours amongst hours looking at exactly what benefits someone took. We're not using averages, we're looking real numbers. Um, so that we try to get as close, I mean, I'm getting numbers every day. Here's the checks that cleared,

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here's the money that came in. We are watching this like a hawk because you don't want to have to cut one more person than you have to. Um, and so to me that's we can't make a mistake on that. We've got to be as close as possible. So, if we end up with Tabor in $1, someone

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might say, "Why didn't you have more?" Because we don't want to cut any more staff. Um, so that would be So, other than other than RIFs, what other areas got cut to balance So, there's there's kind of three areas

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we looked at. Um, there are work positions that we just simply did not refill. Um, if we knew we had a teacher retiring and maybe the the class size coming up was lower, um, we made some decisions early on on

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things like, uh, recess paras and instead using staff to do that. We chose not to rehire a CFO, a CAO, positions like that. So, those were reductions, but they weren't legally a reduction in force because we made those

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decisions before contracts came out. Um, we also did some transfers. So, if we had an opening at one school and an overage at another, we simply moved people around. Um, so that people kept their, you know, you might have been driving to Singing Hills and now you've got to drive to Running Creek, but

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your job stayed intact, your benefits, your pay. Um so, when you look at the total cuts that we made, and I will pull it up so I get the numbers exactly right here. When you look at those reductions,

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we reduced $2,517,127 of total comp. So, that's salary and benefits. Um in transfers, you know, we don't necessarily count those as a savings because they're already counted in the reduction, but we

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transferred several people. So, it allowed us to not have to reduce as many employees because we were able, and I tell you I have to thank not only um the ladies in finance and HR, but all of our directors and building leaders who I've

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never seen a group of people more flexible, just willing to do whatever. Conversation after conversation, phone calls on vacation, late-night texts. Hey, I'm looking at this person, what's this salary, what do they do? Could we reduce from four teachers to three

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teachers? And then as those leaders went and talked to teachers, the flexibility of our teachers to say, "Yep, if if if you can't rehire this person, the four of us that are left will will each work a little harder." Like, you don't normally see that, but I

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think everybody realizes A, the situation that we're in, and B, that they don't want to see their colleagues cut. So, really everybody in this district has stepped forward, they've been flexible, numerous people, people in this room have taken on extra roles

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next year. This is what happens when you have to cut. Everybody takes on an extra role. Um we're seeing that in schools, we're seeing that with leaders. So, um overall, we are looking at a total of $3,150,000

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in total comp cuts um from last year into this year. That is a significant amount of money um and a significant amount of people. And again, we only got that done because of the work of our

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staff really digging deep, this team finding the actual numbers, our leaders being courageous and having conversations and then our staff members being willing to step up and maybe take on extra roles, take a little bit larger class, whatever it is to try to save as

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many positions as we could. But when you decrease in enrollment and you increase in expenditures, something's got to give and in a school district where 80% of your money is staffing, you don't foundationally change your

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budget unless you change structures, which is usually salary. 81%? Yeah, it's 81% of the budget is salary. Yeah, you you can only, you know, I don't know, cut down on paper towels and save so much money. It just it's got to

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be staffing, unfortunately. So, with this um deferred maintenance so there's not much left. No, and there hasn't been. Yeah, well, that's that's just kind of the way it's been forever. It's just

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we're leaning um and we have to prioritize which is difficult to What do you foresee the probability of having something come up? I know you're sitting on a loan. Um

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given the other the other issues that we have as far as deferred maintenance goes, are we going to be able to address those? So, one of the things that we're going to do a little differently is when you get impact fees, improvement fees, different um you know, fees that builders and individuals have to pay

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that allow us to, you know, to help repair district facilities, that money is supposed to go away into a capital facilities fund that's kind of locked away, right? It It is a a reserve account that should not be touched.

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In my research over the past couple years, we have constantly used that to backfill the general fund. Which is what happens when you have too many staff or you spend more money than you're bringing in, you've got to pull from somewhere. We've used that along with

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other areas as a savings account. We have built a budget that allows us to live within our means and keep that capital reserve account. So, as those fees come in, they won't all come in day one, but we're anticipating somewhere between $750,000

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should come in over the course of '26, '27. If we're truly living within our means, we shouldn't have to transfer that money to the general fund to make up for other areas. So, we should be able to start rebuilding that and have that savings account for

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capital facilities. Now, I think that's different is sometimes school boards, and you guys have done it before, will say, "Well, we want a 10% reserve. We want" You have to understand that money would be earmarked. So, if we say, "I want $1.5 million in reserve so we have a month of payroll

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in case something happens." You don't get to count the $800,000 you have in facilities. That should be earmarked. There's a difference you guys have heard me talk about assigned and unassigned reserves, and I think we use those a little too interchangeably. We would have an assigned account just for

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capital reserves. We shouldn't touch it unless they are capital projects. We should be aiming for separate reserves for things like a month's payroll in savings. We should have $800,000. We should have more, but $800,000 in the

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capital reserve fund. We should also be aiming to get a month of salary and benefits in a separate you know, reserve for us. So, we are working through it. Our Our maintenance and operations team, I think, have done a really good job of

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trying to get things done on a shoestring budget. Um we've had a lot of conversations lately with different partners. As people want to partner with us, we can make this budget work. We can increase student achievement. It's really hard to get chunks of money for

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capital. Um so, as community partners have come forward, we've been saying, "What What can you do for us, um you know, in terms of capital?" Um I know Nicole has had some great ideas of working with the town and the county in terms of what we can do um to make sure

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we're getting the appropriate amount of fees in from builders. Uh again, I don't think we live in a community where the average person wants to raise their taxes for everybody for a few people who have bought a new house. So, we have to use those impact

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fees, and we've got to make sure they are the appropriate amount. You guys had a demographer in here, I believe, earlier this year, who suggested raising the cash in lieu amount. Those are things I think we've really got to start looking at is are people coming into our community,

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are they giving us the fees that we need to actually sustain our facilities? Are are more people going to kind of, you know, put more wear and tear on our facilities and we're not getting any more money? Because that $12,000 we're getting per pupil funding from the state, we

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really like for that to be able to go to teaching and learning, not supplement capital. I have a question, and this kind of goes back to your beginning statement, but I think it's just worth spending a little time to talk about it. As we're looking at this new budget, looking back at the last one, what were some of the

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decisions or solutions or even failures that were made that created the crisis that we're that we're in? And I've heard you talk about, you know, the enrollment loss. I've heard you talk about the inability to kind of right-size once that happened and overspending. But, can

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you maybe just kind of summarize it so that our community can understand how did we get here? Because I think understanding those red flags is going to be really important for us as we're walking into next year to make sure that none of that happens again. I I think a bit of a perfect storm. You've got a

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lot of other districts right now that are struggling financially. You've got a lot of districts that are coming down off of a COVID high, right? You had a lot of extra one-time money's infused in public schools. Those are gone, and you have to cut those positions after that money goes. We have grant funds, and

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after those grants leave, you've got to decide are you then going to um you know, to keep those employees? So, what Tyler did a great job of explaining, we're not doing matching, we're not doing things where 2 years from now after the grant's gone, we've got to pick up the salary. But, we've

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got to start looking long-term and not just short-term. We didn't right-size. We've continued to lose student after student. Um you guys were told that I this is, you know, my opinion. Um

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I don't think you guys were properly illuminated as to the impacts of having one of our charter schools increase enrollment by adding a teacher at nearly every grade level the same year we opened up a new charter. When you look, one of the biggest

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differences, and I I thank Ron for pointing this out, between the initial budget that the past superintendent presented and the one we just presented, is no one changed the charter allocation. I don't know why we would think we could lose 150

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kids to Legacy and ICA and that that wouldn't increase our allocation to charters. We have to give 97% of the money to them. So, every kid that leaves one of our neighborhood schools and goes to a charter, and this is difficult for I think a community

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like this, a board of like you guys, and a superintendent like me that 100% believes in parental choice in education, we still have to face the fact that if 200 students choose to leave our neighborhood schools and go to those other choices,

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we may personally think good for those parents. They were able to make the choice for their kid, but at the same point we have a fiduciary responsibility to understand what that does to our district. And when you lose those 200 kids, I mean, the allocation that that

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was not changed to Legacy alone was, I believe, $1.8 million. We had to cut an additional $1.8 million in the last week and a half because that allocation is going to change when they get more kids because most of those kids are coming from our neighborhood

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schools. And so, you have a lot of things like that where we brought in competition, which again, we may personally agree with, but we have a responsibility to understand how that impacts the schools that we have. If you lose 150 kids just in general, if you

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think 25 kids to a classroom, wouldn't you think we should cut six teachers before I bring those teacher contracts to you and before I suggest raises and before I say you've got to pass these contracts today, we've got to know,

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might you not stop and think that, wait, we probably need less staff if we have 150 less kids? Those types of decisions, and I can't for the life of me understand why those things were not shared, um those have put us in this position today

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because again, we could have cut those six teachers. We knew this was coming for months. We could have cut those six teachers before they ever had contracts. We could have non-renewed people who were in their first or second year. We could have done a lot of things that valued our

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employees. Um we're making all these last-minute decisions because we weren't transparent or we didn't understand the budget or something. Maybe we didn't need a calculator, David. I don't know. The math they math'd it. And so It smells fresh.

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Yes. It's in there. It wasn't very accurate. Um there were I mean again, I don't want to dwell too much on the past. There were a lot of mistakes. And I don't know how many of those mistakes were lack of transparency, how many of those were lack of understanding.

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I for the life of me can't understand some of the assumptions that were made. Um and that's just this year. When you look at the audit over the past couple years, I mean we've been overspending every year. Um tonight with the budget, you get an

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appropriation resolution. That is where I'm asking you to basically allow us to spend the money in those areas. I believe last year's appropriation was overspent by like $6 million. The budget itself was The budget itself was overspent by two. It It's just you can't keep doing that.

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I've explained the you know, your own personal finance thing. If you're bringing in a thousand dollars and your bills are twelve hundred and you got a thousand bucks in the savings account, come month six, you're in trouble. And we hit month six. Everything hit.

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You just We had um a fund balance here, I I believe of like 1.8 million. And I might have these numbers off a little bit. It dropped to like 800,000 and then last year negative 131. Um those things should have been brought to

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you. The truth should have been told. Our staff should have known. Our community should have known. Instead, we sat up here and said, "Yes, we met Tabor." No, we didn't meet Tabor. Tabor was $800,000. We put $600,000 and a $131,000

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IOU on a bar napkin in the account and tried to say we met Tabor. It's a lie. We didn't. And so, we are in this position because of poor leadership. And and one of the things I heard you

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talk about was just accuracy in numbers. What kind of confidence do you have that the numbers that we have in this budget now are accurate? So, the ones that we've seen, I feel very comfortable with. When you look at salaries, they are straight out of our system. When you look at benefits, it's

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exactly what what people asked for. Many of the assumptions that were made here were inaccurate, and the staff here was able to go in and say, "No, let me look at the last couple years, and let's actually see cuz some of the numbers, they didn't make any sense to some of us." We were like, "Well, why'd you put

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$130,000 there for?" So, for example, the transfer of fund 23 athletics, you'll see it's $585,000. In the initial budget, it was $500,000. Tracy actually pulled up fund 23, and we actually looked how much will we have to

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transfer out of the general fund to actually balance the budget. So, these are real numbers. Some of the things we don't know finishing out '25, '26 is what's still going to come in. We've had some pretty loose spending rules that we are going to tighten up.

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We're getting in some receipts, some reimbursements. Um, we're hearing some things that all of us are like, "Yeah, that's not how you do it." But, they've been allowed, and there hasn't been accountability. So, we still have some expenditures coming in that we're working through. There's

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still a lot of promises, as you guys know, that have been made that we're working through. Um So, the expenditures to finish out this year, we're still watching very closely, but when you look at the numbers that we're

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putting in for next year, um I think they're as close as you can get right now. They'll obviously change over time. I I keep joking, I got the budget balanced at zero, right? We had Tabor and like nothing left over. Michelle puts in a new hire, the new hire decides to take benefits when the

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employee they replaced didn't take benefits, and now I'm 9 grand in the hole again. And so, this is going to change daily, but we're actually looking at it daily, so we're going to know. So, I feel very confident that the numbers that we have, what's going to be interesting moving

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into next year is when you look at the revenues there at the top, we're going to have to look at true up those revenues that the state gives us on the spreadsheet are based on enrollment, and we know we're probably going to be about 200

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kids down. So, those revenues there are going to most likely drop. Now, there are some um averages that the state lets you use use where you don't lose all your enrollment in one year, but if we don't improve academics, improve

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budget, improve our reputation, get the chaos out like you guys are doing, we're going to continue to lose kids, and those averages, we're just going to continue to bleed staff. Um we turn this around, and I think we'll start getting kids back, and then we're

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not going to lose staff. Um and so, if we follow this and we continue to update it as we get the real numbers, I feel confident that we are as close as we've been in a long time probably. It's good. At what point do you think we'll kind of be through the residual

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effects of this year's budget, where we're still trying to figure out, you know, what other expenses are going to potentially be impacting us further? I would probably say we'll probably get a month or so in the school year and then some of these things will get journaled back to 25 26. As it sits

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right now, 25 26, we have I we're estimating, you know, maybe $800,000 cash on hand. It's different than fund balance. Once all the things that have to be accounted back to 25 26, we'll most likely, I believe, probably

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end up in the red, which means we won't be able to pay for it. I mean, if the day ended today with our fund balance, we'd barely be able to pay for it if we made it at all. But, we still have a lot of things that will get journaled back to 25 26, but I would guess sometime late summer early fall we'll have a

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better accounting and then of course we'll have, you know, the audit that will come out and tell us, you know, later in the winter exactly where we were at. Um but we've kind of been watching when you look at the past budget, our goal was hit June payroll, which we're going to

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do again thanks to I don't know that we would have, but thanks to the hard work of these ladies like watching every dime and when do we send this out, when do we pay this, when do we hold that, we'll be able to make June payroll and that was our goal and really then shifted our um

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our efforts to this making sure we hit July and August payroll. The interest interest-free loan isn't available until, you know, late late late August 1st of September. So, we've got to make sure we're creating a budget where we hit July and August payroll. So, that very quickly

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once we knew June payroll was going to be okay, we moved to July and August payroll. I have a couple of questions about a couple of specific numbers on the LEA expenditure page. So, number one is on the technology line 628.

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Um so, the 25 26 expenditures said 149,000. For 2627 it says 74 with a reduction in expenses of 75,000. So now considering that tonight we just voted to basically not buy Chromebooks,

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is that like sort of a pre like assumption that we were not going to buy the Chromebooks or was that something else? It was. We don't get another 80 something thousand off of that. I had a feeling we may go that way and so I well and again had I had I felt

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during that conversation the board was going to go the other way I might have had to say just so you know we don't have the 80,000 dollars. If you want to [laughter] if you want to purchase those I'm going to have to go back and amend the budget. Okay. Well thank you. I I thought but I just This is the fun part about doing all of

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our business in public is you guys find out when everybody else finds out. Um is yeah I I had already cut that and a few other things that I just wanted to be sure. Yeah. So I make that point. And then my other question relates to the unassigned fund balance line.

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So the 25 26 budget says we had a 1.6 million dollar fund unassigned fund balance and then now we've got the 1677 1,637 dollars. So um so just if you could just how did we

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what was unassigned that we could all of you know that we could that all of a sudden that number is so much lower? Just you know walk me through that if you would. So it's it's just lack of accuracy. I mean part of when you look at the at the whole budget um

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that amended budget assuming we were and again we heard it all year long right? We're going to end with two million. We're going to end with four million. I mean I remember that number. Yeah it it was faulty assumptions. It was numbers in here that were just flat out wrong. Things that weren't accounted

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for. There were areas in here where we literally budgeted, I don't know, $900,000 and we knew it was going to cost us 1.5 million. I'm like, why wouldn't we just put it in there if we know that's what it is going to cost us. So, there were

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areas that were under-budgeted. Um there was money that quite honestly was moved around in a shell game that was moved from one area to the other. Um it was very hard and it was I had a a great conversation with Tracy at one

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point where I'm like, Tracy, how do I rectify this budget? She said, start at zero. Like, don't don't bother going there. And it's true, as we've gone along the line, it just hasn't been um we didn't adjust revenues at true up. So, some of that should have dropped.

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That was um you know, another I think over million-dollar error. Um there was a lot of errors, a lot of faulty thinking um and lack of accuracy, I think, in some of this or lack of truthfulness and transparency. Um we may

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never know the answer to some of those. So, one thing that may come up um and I can I can see it on here because uh like special services. Special services if it's if it's

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what I'm thinking that it is, it's only 10. Special Ed, GT, and all that. it's been absorbing it, but there is a substantial reduction. Can you explain how that's been achieved? Yeah, so the initial proposed budget showed special education special

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services costing us about 5 million dollars. That is a huge chunk of change, especially when MOE maintenance of effort, right? The government basically says, you need to spend about the same amount on special ed every year as you did the last year unless you've shown a reduction in students who who have

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disabilities. It was about 4 million. Um we were able to sit down and they did a great job of looking and saying, "Where can we cut and still make sure that student needs are being met?" A lot of that was in paraprofessionals. I

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think um Linnea inherited a culture and now I have as well where maybe the answer out of a lot of IEP meetings was we just need a para. We just need another adult. I think the original budget for Singing Hills showed 14 paras.

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I I've never seen that in my life. Um so we've made some significant cuts in paras. Those are often times cuts that a lot of districts will make. They hurt. They're real people. They do a great job with kids. Um but they get added into

315
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IEP meetings when they might not be a necessity. Um we also had situations where we had a social worker at every building. We were able to go back to let's just have two social workers and maybe you know, one can do the middle school in Singing Hills, one can do the high school in Running Creek. We also have

316
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counselors, we have school psychologists. Um we had the HMC program at um Running Creek where I think we were spending I don't know, several hundred thousand dollars on a program for three kids.

317
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What was that HMC? HMC Happy Medium something like that. It was a program that was brought here by past leadership. And it literally had probably three or four hundred thousand dollars of salaried employees in there for three kids. So we were able to move

318
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away from that. Those kids are definitely supported um very well in our center-based programs um at a significant reduction to the district. Um so yeah, I would definitely that would point that out as well,

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Director Olson, because those are our students who are most needy. We absolutely have to make sure we're giving them everything we need and they will and more. Um you guys have heard me talk a lot about the program we're putting in place at Running Creek. That is not expensive.

320
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We will make sure we don't over staff students in the special education. They have about 20% of our kids on an IEP. That is not accurate. 20% of our kids do not have a learning disability so that it impacts their education so much that they need an individualized education

321
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plan. I I would bet money on it. Or they have given them a learning disability by using a computer. By using a computer. Very good. You never know. Too many calculators, too much calculator use. Um but as we improve our tier one instruction, as we actually create an

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RTI/MTSS system, we will be limiting the number of students we staff into special education and hopefully staffing students out as we demonstrate that they are at grade level. And so it is a significant chunk of money. I think when

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they when you look at contractors, salaries and benefits, and you know, just departmental spending, I think she cut about $900,000. So a huge amount that really it's again, you have so many

324
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funds here where we were supplementing with the general fund where you just can't do it all. So that is now I think more in the line and [clears throat] then as we do a better job with tier one instruction, get kids staffed out of sped, we might not need that much sped

325
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in the future. So um I feel 100% confident that we have made the right cuts there. I feel 100% confident that students with an IEP and without an IEP will thrive more moving forward than they ever have

326
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or I certainly would not have recommended or or even approved myself those those cuts. Um but a lot of them I want to say it's going to be I mean a huge percentage of those where we cut 12 paras because we were just Look real

327
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quick so I get the numbers right. Yeah, $390,000 and um the reductions were 12 paras. And I just I and I've seen other systems do that. They just think you know, a para is the answer. And if

328
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we give this kid a para, it'll help. I I've rarely found that to be the case and so So, how many paras were we and which was this at Running Creek or or all together? Um No, this was at at Singing Hills we had 14, I think. I We're down now to

329
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um like six or seven at each school, which I think is a more reasonable number. And we have center-based programs at each one of our schools. We have some students who do need a one-on-one para maybe for medical necessity needs or things like that. We're at a much more reasonable rate,

330
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but when I first got here as academic systems consultant, there were times I walked in special ed classrooms where there were more adults than children. And that's just I don't think that's best practice. I just I don't I don't think that that's the best way to spend

331
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our limited amount of funds and so we're It's another area we've right-sized. And Bonnie has done a great job of leading that effort. And is is that also helped by that we have kind of centered kind of the more severe needs into kind of one school and

332
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the less severe needs? Isn't that what we've done to sort of separated them out a little bit because because the staffing needs are different. So, we've spread the programs out. So, we have an [clears throat] affective needs class at the at Running Creek. We'll have a an SSN class at Singing

333
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Hills. The middle school has all of them and the high school has all. Um but again, even though efficiency given efficiency to the staffing for those. Correct. And even those programs, as we continue to grow in our academics, we will probably have some of those

334
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students we want students in the least restrictive environment possible. You don't want to put a kid in a center-based program unless they have failed with multiple interventions in a general ed classroom. So, hopefully as we improve some of our other classrooms, we can even move some of those kids out

335
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of a center-based classroom back out with their peers. Um, you know, if you have a kid who's leaving a center-based classroom and they're out with their peers and they need a one-to-one para, that actually might make some sense. But to have six kids in a center-based classroom and then give all six of them

336
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a para, it just doesn't make sense. It's not a good a good use of our funds. So, moving forward, questions. So, if there's quite a decrease in curriculum and instruction, so what does that mean exactly? Um, so

337
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we cut Kim Morris's position as chief academic officer. We didn't replace my consultant position. And then we cut a lot Now, we did increase the math coordinator, so it's not a I want to make sure we're transparent showing both sides. We cut an employee and a

338
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contractor, we added a contract or added an employee. But a lot of it is in department spend. We were spending money on outside consultants, we were spending money on outside software programs, i-Ready, um, things like that that to me

339
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are not needed. Um, you've heard me say, as I presented some of the other plans, we have the expertise within the staff, the distributed leadership team is a much better place to put our our money and our time and our effort into allowing our own people to

340
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to help each other. And so it's a it's it's a decrease in giving money to outsiders that were intended to come in and help us grow our scores and obviously did not. Um we can do that ourselves internally much better and much cheaper. So, a lot

341
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of that is is external costs that we were paying outside people to come in and do what we So, Kim's salary was included in the curriculum and instruction expenditure line? It's um Let me see which one you're looking at because you'll see staffing

342
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on expenditures. So, the one that dropped from 300,000 to 60,000? Yeah. That is um that is not the staffing. So, that is just in um stuff we quit stuff we quit buying.

343
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Stuff we quit buying and is that like the consultants and things is that getting rid of or and your your consultant fee is in there or not? Um No. No, that you would see in the other file on staffing where we cut some of those positions. So, what you're looking

344
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at the way these um the way these are set up is you get a salary and benefit expenditure. So, that's salary and benefit, but then the expenditures by location that's the the stuff I guess you would say. Yeah. That was a lot of stuff that I would

345
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like to see some detail on this. Absolutely. Yeah, I can print that out and get it to you guys. Yeah, please. Um you know, we were worried about what we've been doing for this year for a couple of things and Yeah. Yeah, there's there was um

346
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With the i-Ready i-Ready contract was in there. Yeah, that was have enough for new math curriculum. Yeah, do we still have So, that's what I've got left in there. I don't know that we're going to be able to afford to buy much more. Um

347
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So, that but it is that is what that $60,000 is for. That is what That is what I would suggest we spend it on. Yes, it could be for any number of things, but that would be my suggestion. I don't see

348
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a lot of other curriculum needs that we have. Um You know, there's a couple You know, we're doing changing assessments, right, to dibbles, but we got the C-Lab grant to do some of that. So, we're also going to some more

349
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research-based materials that the state supports that we can get grant money for. Um and so, we're able to save some money there and still do some of the other expenditures, but a big chunk of that is what I would

350
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consider contracts for stuff. I can give you that breakdown. Where's all of the like printing that We usually have a lot of that in the first two and a half of the year. Sometimes it's curriculum related, but um just with buses and things like that. Would

351
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that fall under each individual school's Yes, so Yes, so when you look at there, again, not the salary benefits, but the expenditures by location, they get an allocation for how many students they have in that fund. So, like Running Creek, $270,000,

352
01:39:03.320 --> 01:39:19.040
you'll see something for their copier, you'll see something for supplies, you'll see their workers comp insurance. Like, you name it, it's all throughout there. So, they don't have to worry about that being cut from the curriculum line since it's Correct. It is out in schools. Yeah. And

353
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most districts did this a few years ago. They tried to take most of their centralized spend and put it out in the schools where it's actually being spent cuz otherwise it looked like, "Why are you growing administration? Why isn't the money out in the schools?" And so, we've changed a lot of our accounting

354
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codes over the years to try to demonstrate where that money is actually being spent. It's still not all perfect, but it's much closer. So, another question I have is on 623, expenditures by location, Board of

355
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Education, $191,000. We're going to get accused again of all of a sudden voting ourselves a salary. So, please describe that. Well, [laughter] that's because you only have four board members now. So, I only have to like salary rate four. Yes. No, you'll notice there is no Board of

356
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Education under salary and benefit expenditures. The board, um the board expenditure is anything from, um, CASB fees to election costs, um Yeah, I'm trying to And when you say that, I'm just going to

357
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clarify the CASB fees that we have to pay for having our names on a ballot for the for the whole That's all that is. We do not We're not supplementing your supplementing our our campaigns. Just saying that. No, but the [laughter] if we put people on the ballot, we've

358
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got Yeah, we have to pay We have to pay our share of the election fees, yes. Correct. to clarify that. Yes, so that's a good clarification. Um, we'll have to answer that on the horse's mouth tomorrow. How do we go? So, [laughter] I better do that here, but you know, you have that. Um, I'm trying to think what

359
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other There's five or six line items on there. If there's any travel reimbursement, you know, sometimes boards will want to go to um Like a training or to like a training, if we wanted to bring someone in to train the board, those types of things. There are some, um

360
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I don't know, general supply line items in case you guys need need something. Um, but to me, yeah, we dropped that. It's a very reasonable amount for a a board of education. it. Just to clarify because that was going to come up in my head. Yeah. And actually, while we're on the topic

361
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of that line item, I think it's worth it for you to potentially take a look at all of our membership organizations that we are a part of, that we pay to be a part of. Cuz I I for one would like to understand how much we're paying for that if it's something valuable to us as a board, if

362
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it's not, I think it's worth reconsidering our membership. Okay. Yep, I could The only one I have budgeted for next year is CASB. And a lot of that is not necessarily because the board needs it, but the board clerk, Jamie, needs it to be able to get some

363
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support on if the legislature changes policies for her to have to go through and research all that, get legal review. It is well worth CASB sending those out, and then all we have to do is tailor them to our community. Um and so, I

364
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That's a huge benefit. Yeah, in my experience, that's probably more for the board clerk than the actual board, but it goes under your budget. also a good place. I mean, they have a lot of model model policies, and we I mean, we are going to edit them most you know, many of them at least.

365
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But it's a place to start instead of starting from scratch. And that's for the board, that's that's invaluable. Yeah. Well, then in that case, I know that we've been a part of CLASS. We are a part of CLASS right now, but I don't know when it's up for renewal or how much it will be needed, or even if the board wants to continue to be a part of

366
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that organization. So, if you would look into that so that we have, you know, can make an informed decision moving forward. Yes, I can look that I can tell you I did not put that in the budget. So, if the board would want that to come back, I can certainly do so. Um

367
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I put CASB in there cuz they're the ones that help us with board policies, and that's what we needed. Yes. Thank you. So, it looks like transportation has gone up quite a bit. So, were you under before, and it's just right sized?

368
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So, transportation is as it sat on the original budget, and I think this is another one that's definitely worth having a public conversation about. We spend on salaries and benefits as well as expenditures about $2 million a year in transportation. We only bring in just

369
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under 500,000. So, that's a $1.5 million transfer from the general fund. Um this next part that I say I I just say for clarity's sake. For a expenditure that legally we don't have

370
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to provide. We have to provide transportation for students in special education if it's in their IEP as a related service. We do not have to provide transportation. I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm saying some districts don't. I happen to think we've got to

371
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shrink that delta somehow. That 1.5 million is too big of a general ed or general fund transfer. Um Jeff Canella, our transportation director, has done a great job kind of I think changing the mindset. He did a wonderful job with the CMP. We were able

372
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to help out the community. We didn't lose money, that's a plus. Um he's done a great job trying to get some of this lined up, but there's only so much you can do. I also know that um and I agree with this philosophically,

373
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I'm not sure I can support it monetarily. We've provided, you know, basically free transportation for our charters. Um I think that is really probably difficult um when you're looking at a budget. Um we're not even

374
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charging them for field trips. And again, if we were flushed with cash, I think I'd be okay with that because, you know, we're [snorts] all trying to help out all the kids in our community, but when we don't have any money and we're transferring this much of a general

375
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fund, um I think we have to have a a hard conversation about what transportation looks like moving forward. That could be reduced service. It could be not you know, transporting charter school

376
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students anymore. It could mean charging every student who takes transportation a fee. Many surrounding districts charge a transportation fee, not every student, but the students who use it. Um we need a long-term solution that

377
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this board can support, that this community can live with. Um because it's just such a huge expense. And I think transportation's done everything they can. We've got great partnerships with the city and the police department. Um and I think we've bent over backwards to

378
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try to be everything to everyone, but that's expensive. Um we're not appropriately um charging from an accounting perspective even our own schools. Right? If we transport the football team from here to La Junta,

379
01:46:15.640 --> 01:46:32.160
somehow or another, that accounting needs to come out of athletics versus transportation because we need to know how much we're actually spending on athletics. As you see, a lot of athletics is another one. $580,000 transfer. We need to take an honest look

380
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at are we charging the right athletic fees? Because we keep again, you heard me say, general fund is supplementing, general fund is supplementing. Um so, we have to look at are several of these areas um are we getting what we need? Do we need

381
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to increase fees? Do we need to decrease service? So, yes, transportation we've um we've looked at everything we can do. We've got, I believe, 12 general ed routes. We've got a handful of sped special education routes. We have a

382
01:47:02.880 --> 01:47:18.240
couple students that we have by law to transfer to um schools that that more meet their academic needs. So, there are some things we have to do, but we also have to do some things we probably don't have to do. Kids are on the bus for a long

383
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time because we make a a of stops. Maybe we do fewer stops in the future. Um we shuttle kids back and forth from Legacy to the high school. That creates more wait time, and it's also something that I don't believe we're getting reimbursed for. So,

384
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and again, this isn't a an anti-choice, an anti-charter conversation, but we've been giving away the farm on some of these deals, which again, when you asked earlier, how did we get to this point? Well, I don't think we've always negotiated from a point of strength,

385
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and I think sometimes we've let our philosophy get in the way of good business. And at the end of the day, something like transportation is a business. Okay. Well, and and to be clear, if this board when we agreed to transport

386
01:48:07.520 --> 01:48:24.640
charter school students, it was presented to us, and we understood it as it would be it would be no extra expense to the district. We were going to be able by their route. go to the stops that were already there. And then, over this last year, I've

387
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heard some parents talking about how long the kids been on the bus. Is that contributing to that time that they're on the bus? I think there's a couple things that are contributing contributing to it. One, you've got to be able to line up all your start and end times. If you're

388
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doing multiple stops, if if, you know, if the bus that takes kids from the middle and the high school out to their neighborhood is waiting on the shuttle, I don't know if they are, I'm just saying hypothetically, if they were, that could increase wait time. If we did have to add more stops, um or didn't

389
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eliminate stops because we've got a lot of kids getting off, all of those things could increase wait times. And so, I heard that the Legacy was unwilling to negotiate their their uh let out time in order to

390
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I have I have heard that there that that was a difficult conversation. I did meet with them today and said that depending on what happened today, we would have to look at starting in times. I did not get any push back. I have heard that that wasn't always the case. Um but I did not today.

391
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My understanding too is, you know, on Thursdays, now we aren't going to have this next year, but on Thursdays we've had up to this point we've had late start days. And my understanding from somebody at Legacy is that on those days Legacy's students weren't transported by

392
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bus because they you know, they didn't have they don't have a late start day. So, that was kind of interesting that they could work it out for one day. Well, my priority is the kids that are going to the charter

393
01:49:59.520 --> 01:50:17.360
schools and their transportation. If there was a way that we could make it work that would not inconvenience and keep kids on the bus longer or cost the the district money, um then I I I would be okay with that. We have

394
01:50:17.360 --> 01:50:34.560
to find alternative times. Well, we're dealing with hard budgets. Yeah. Yeah. That's a That's a pretty easy one. Yeah, we've got to My understanding, um I mean, you you you like we have room on the bus and I do like I can understand

395
01:50:34.560 --> 01:50:51.200
the philosophy, right? There's five seats empty on the bus, let's just put these five kids on. They can go to an existing stop. They can go to an existing stop. What I don't know is, well, what if it was six kids? Did we add another route? Like, I do know Jeff is working right now to try to figure out are there any routes that

396
01:50:51.200 --> 01:51:08.560
have any efficiencies in them at all? I can tell you having done a little work in this area, that's difficult to do the more kids you have riding the bus. Um does every bus need to be the full, you know, 60 70, you know, person bus? Um could we save money if we had, you

397
01:51:08.560 --> 01:51:23.400
know, some of the smaller buses because we might have smaller routes going out to the outskirts of, you know, of our boundaries. I think it's a conversation we've got to have because again, long term. And when you look at it, and

398
01:51:23.400 --> 01:51:40.560
again, I look at all of this in in a rob Peter to pay Paul, I mean, every dollar you save is a dollar we could put to teaching and learning. It's a dollar we could put towards staff salaries. We need to recruit and retain the very best staff there are. It's tough to do that

399
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when I, you know, transferring 1.5 million out of the general fund to transportation and 580,000 to athletics. And right, I could go on and on. These are all And I think some of the decisions that have been made in the past we didn't always tell people that, like,

400
01:51:57.920 --> 01:52:13.800
"Oh, you want this? That's a great idea. However, it's going to be at the expense of this." You You needed that second piece of information that I'm not always sure you got. And if you want this and we don't want to cut that, this is going to be what it's going to cost. Correct. This is the fee, right? It's

401
01:52:13.800 --> 01:52:28.600
like the computers, right? Okay, if everybody comes back and says we want one to one at the high school, okay, do you want one to one at $300, you know, your freshman year? Some of these things we again, if and if we're not going to increase taxes, which

402
01:52:28.600 --> 01:52:44.800
as I said, I cannot in good conscience ask our taxpayers for another dime, we might have to use fees for use. Not fees for everybody, but if you're going to play sports, we need to look at the sports fee. If you're going to ride the

403
01:52:44.800 --> 01:53:00.800
bus, we might need to look at a bus fee. If you need a computer, we're going to look at a computer fee. I just feel like we've been the central bank and the you know, the expenditures just keep building and the revenues aren't coming because we're losing enrollment.

404
01:53:00.800 --> 01:53:18.400
Um and so, we're just swirling down the drain on some of this stuff. So, how are we like the transportation and and and the sports. How are we doing in comparison to the neighboring districts? Are we being competitive? So. Well, I think there's a couple things. One is the right way to do it is

405
01:53:18.400 --> 01:53:35.480
whatever that transportation cost is shouldn't go to the transportation budget, it should go back to the actual athletic event or the team so that you can actually look and see what does football cost us, right? If you look at the budget, you might see the head

406
01:53:35.480 --> 01:53:50.320
coach, you might see the assistant coaches. Should we see the transportation costs for all the games they have to travel to? Should it be a portion of the athletic director, a portion of the athletic trainer? Should it be a portion of the stadium lights or the water for

407
01:53:50.320 --> 01:54:06.760
the stadium? We don't account for some of this stuff in a way where we can actually see what something costs to then take that fee and go, all right, so if the fee is this and 100 kids normally come out, I guess we're taking this divided by 100 and that's the fee.

408
01:54:06.760 --> 01:54:22.880
I mean, you could look at some of these things as an average over two or three years and get an idea of what your fee should be. So, Ted, are you saying we should do that moving forward? Is that your plan? going to say you can't do that if you don't have If I don't have the data. Right. Yeah. I think we've got to look at that data, and then we've got to make some

409
01:54:22.880 --> 01:54:39.480
recommendations and some difficult decisions of do the people who are using the service need to pay for it because we're not in a position where we can raise taxes and ask everybody in the in our boundaries to give a little more. I

410
01:54:39.480 --> 01:54:54.320
I'd say So, what does that look like? Is that like a a fee for playing football? And it all goes towards the we have, but it might need to be increased. I don't It's obviously Our athletic fees are obviously not covering us because I'm having to transfer

411
01:54:54.320 --> 01:55:10.800
$580,000 from the general fund just to break even. Um so, it could be looking at, you know, any number of things of what it cost to get a proper accounting and then divide that out. And again, there's ways districts do this, right? You could

412
01:55:10.800 --> 01:55:26.320
still, you know, you scholarship in students who are on free lunch. You do a reduced rate for kids who are on reduced lunch. You don't want to raise fees to the point where some kids aren't aren't able to participate, but in my experience, um

413
01:55:26.320 --> 01:55:41.880
people will pay for those things that they value. It's just like transportation, right? If I were to say, "Let's raise taxes for this 1.5 million." Why should you have to raise your taxes for a bus your kid doesn't ride on cuz

414
01:55:41.880 --> 01:55:59.280
you get up and drive them? Like we I really think we've got to start addressing whether or not these are the right thing to do. And to that point, how do the neighboring districts handle the commuting to school and home on a bus? Are Are they a subsidizing like we are?

415
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The The So, there's there's a couple different ways. Several charge fees. Some charge, you know, uh a trip there and a trip home, you know, they'll charge a round trip fee. You get a little key card and you buzz it. I don't think we have to be that

416
01:56:15.000 --> 01:56:31.320
sophisticated. I think we could say, "Here's your bus pass, you know." $200 would not be unreasonable. And if you think about it as a parent, if you had to drive your kid to school and pick them up 172 days or 166 days a year,

417
01:56:31.320 --> 01:56:47.920
um when gas is $4 a gallon, $300 is a bargain. Um and you're going to get parents who go, "Yeah, but what about my taxes? My taxes already paid for that." Well, transportation isn't a right like education. Education is a guaranteed

418
01:56:47.920 --> 01:57:03.200
right. You have the right to a free and appropriate public education. You do not have a right to and I just I know this sounds brutal to say, but we're talking about budget here. You don't have a right to be transported to school. Um we might have to look at a fee for service.

419
01:57:03.200 --> 01:57:18.160
Well, and I can imagine a couple of things I wanted to point out. The one was I was so surprised when I learned that there were some routes that are 2 hours for these kids to get to school in the morning and then to get home later in the day. So, total 4 hours of being

420
01:57:18.160 --> 01:57:34.520
in a bus. And on top of that, a majority of them are elementary school kids. They're coming, you know, from Running Creek, and that's how long that commute is. I can't imagine, you know, if I had a kindergartner or first grader or second grader. Aurora and I only spent 2 hours So, being on a bus for 4 hours, that's

421
01:57:34.520 --> 01:57:50.760
just so long. And so, I I would imagine, too, that there might be a good number of parents who, but you know, are like, I don't want to submit my kid to having to be on a bus for 2 hours. That's just too much time on a bus, especially that little. But, um so I just wondered, too, if you felt

422
01:57:50.760 --> 01:58:07.880
like this might be a good area to survey parents on to find out whether or not, you know, folks really need / want this type of system that we have in place, how they might be open to some changes, um and or, you know, what what what

423
01:58:07.880 --> 01:58:24.080
would it look like if we space some things out or change some things, what would their response be to that? Um I just wonder if it was up to me, you know, if I knew that paying for my bus, if I wanted to have my kids to ride the bus, was going to

424
01:58:24.080 --> 01:58:39.520
have open up, you know, several hundred thousand dollars worth of salary that could go to better teachers or to get great teachers or or to give our great teachers raises, um I would be open to that. But but I wouldn't know that that was an issue unless this school

425
01:58:39.520 --> 01:58:55.360
presented me with that type of a scenario. Um and so, especially in situations that we're in right now, I just want to be as wise as we can be with the money that we have. And um to to you know, putting money into a program where I'm not even sure how many, you

426
01:58:55.360 --> 01:59:11.320
know, if it's a if it's a very large, significant percentage of students. If we're just talking about commuting back and forth from school, like how many families, you know, are aren't even a part of that altogether. Their parents are driving them anyway. Or the kids walk to school

427
01:59:11.320 --> 01:59:27.920
if they live close enough. So, anyway, I just like to have some more information and maybe even get, you know, a a feel for what the community feels um is is the right path forward. Yeah, we can find a way to gather data.

428
01:59:27.920 --> 01:59:45.080
I just want to be transparent that if if we don't change something for the long term, we just need to get used to the fact that it's one and a half million dollars every year that we're going to be transferring over. Um and we can do the same thing for athletics, right? We can we can dig in a

429
01:59:45.080 --> 02:00:02.640
little deeper, we can do some surveys, we can look at actual costs. I think we should start tracking the actual costs so we know exactly what it's costing us. We do. I'm going to ask a little more detail on the on the transportation numbers, both both the salaries and the expenses by

430
02:00:02.640 --> 02:00:17.280
location. Yep. Now that I know the college. Now that you know. [laughter] And if there's no opinion further, I'd love to see some options for even just modest reductions. If there's just hey, if you did these

431
02:00:17.280 --> 02:00:33.680
two things, that's $300,000. Okay. So, on the on the salaries, it looks like the the salaries have have been reduced by $400,000 from the previous budget to this. The

432
02:00:33.680 --> 02:00:48.960
So, the salaries have been reduced. So, then I'm and I'll ask a question about that in a minute, but then the expenses for um transportation have increased by $322,000. So, questions on two of them. Have we got fewer employees in transportation now that the salaries are

433
02:00:48.960 --> 02:01:04.800
reduced? Um do And how come we have so many more expenses? Is it because gas prices and what? Bus leases? Yeah, so Yeah, but the bus lease is huge, 300 and some odd thousand in the bus lease. Employees, yes, that's my recommendation

434
02:01:04.800 --> 02:01:20.320
is to reduce some staff there. If we have low-hanging fruit in terms of routes, we might, you know, not need as many routes, those types of things if we cut the number of stops. So, yes, I think that is an area where we do have to Um and again, this is another one of

435
02:01:20.320 --> 02:01:37.000
those, like I talked about, it is very difficult to have to make this decision this late in the year, but I think that's an area where we probably need some some vacancy savings. Um but yes, so when you look at um the actual, you know, supply

436
02:01:37.000 --> 02:01:53.240
area of it, it did increase. A big chunk of that is that bus lease. Um and again, I believe we only have a year or two of that left. Um I've also talked with um Jeff recently about, well, if we lease all these new buses,

437
02:01:53.240 --> 02:02:08.240
have we sold the other ones? Can we get anything for that? We met with the insurance company today today and some of those buses, the old buses, we're even still getting charged for on our insurance. So, we're going to expedite that a little bit, like, okay, if we have new buses, these old buses, we

438
02:02:08.240 --> 02:02:24.280
don't need. Let's sell them. Let's get that cash in. Let's get them off our books so we're not paying insurance on them. Um there's a lot of little cleanup stuff like that that when you get in tough budget years, you need to look at. Well, it should be anyway, but

439
02:02:24.280 --> 02:02:41.600
especially now. How many buses are we talking about? I don't know, but I think it's probably three to five um that we could, you know, um so we're going to look through some of that. There were, I don't know, 46 vehicles on our insurance. Makes no

440
02:02:41.600 --> 02:02:57.120
sense to me in a district this size. Um I don't know where they're all parked. No, it's there's Are they all in the lot over there? Yeah, I need to look. There was like a van from 1996. I want to know where that's at. Um

441
02:02:57.120 --> 02:03:13.640
But yeah, so we've got some cleanup on some of that type of stuff to look at. Um going through insurance today was a really good way to see what assets you have in the district that you're being charged for that maybe we can go look at. And insurance isn't cheap these days. No.

442
02:03:13.640 --> 02:03:32.320
Nearly half a million dollars, no, it's not. Speaking of insurance, I do have a question on money um looking like that's going Are they going down? Going down. So, part of that I think is an accounting thing. So,

443
02:03:32.320 --> 02:03:49.720
there are our parts in the budget I talked about earlier where we're taking centralized costs and actually accounting them to the schools. So, if you were to look at the spreadsheet behind this that shows the individual schools, that go up to those budgets up above,

444
02:03:49.720 --> 02:04:05.880
right? 270 for money, 3420 for Singing Hills. Some of those costs now live there. They're the property insurance, the workers comp are living in the schools. I I can't 100% say for sure, I'm pretty

445
02:04:05.880 --> 02:04:24.080
sure that's why that dropped is they got moved over. Our utilities certainly are not going down. Not what are utilities going Our insurance is not going down. Our insurance is So, this line would represent any utilities or insurance that does not exist in high school. For the most part, yes. There are a few

446
02:04:24.080 --> 02:04:40.400
here and there that for some reason, the way this original budget was built, for example, transportation has a line item in theirs for workers comp. I don't know why their workers comp is in there because the business office workers comp isn't in theirs, the superintendent's office workers comp

447
02:04:40.400 --> 02:04:55.360
isn't in theirs. There's some interesting things as we work through the budget, but it's what we were handed and we could not completely rebuild it. We will be using a completely different format next year. We'll be starting from scratch. Andrea is already working with

448
02:04:55.360 --> 02:05:13.080
CDE to get the right templates, but some of this was just okay, if that's where it lives, that's where it lives. Um we have to get this approved by June 30th. We can't rebuild the whole spreadsheet. So, for the most part, yes, it's either there or in schools, other

449
02:05:13.080 --> 02:05:29.440
than there's a few areas where it is in a department, but those are very few and far between. And maybe there might have been a good reason for why that was in there at one point. I don't know. It doesn't make sense that it's in some

450
02:05:29.440 --> 02:05:50.440
and not others to me, but But yes, both of those costs have gone up in totality. And this is another thing where hopefully as as you know, Andrea starts new working with CDE to get this stuff in templates, you want to see that same template every year, so

451
02:05:50.440 --> 02:06:05.760
it's apples to apples. I mean, when you're looking at something different every year, it's really hard as a board for you to go, well, why did this go down? Like, you can say, I remember last year when we used the same template, you said this. Um it's hard when the

452
02:06:05.760 --> 02:06:21.960
you know, we keep moving the target on you. So, we're going to get to one and use the actual templates that CDE recommends, that their people use, so we're all on the same page. What's another thing that these numbers are correct? The schools themselves, you

453
02:06:21.960 --> 02:06:44.840
know, can constantly know, okay, this is how much budget I have left on track. I'm 3 months in and I've spent half my budget. Okay, Better slow down. I'm on track. tablets chisel Yep. And then general fund stipends and

454
02:06:44.840 --> 02:07:02.880
benefits. That to me appeared to be a catch all. Um where again as I've said before, I think one of the mistakes that put us in this situation is we had a lot of promises going on. Um a lot of individual stipends, a lot

455
02:07:02.880 --> 02:07:19.640
of individual raises, things like that. I have to assume those were in there. Um I'm hoping they were budgeted somewhere, but we have a salary schedule that we are going to stick to. So, I slashed that

456
02:07:19.640 --> 02:07:35.280
immensely. So, we do have some stipend an example of something that I'm I'm proposing. Um I haven't shared this with staff yet, so you guys will hear first. We spend $15,000 a year on cell phone stipends.

457
02:07:35.280 --> 02:07:51.520
It just doesn't make any sense to me. 10 years ago if people were still being charged by the minute and I said, "Hey David, I need to be able to call you if, you know, the boiler goes out." I could maybe understand that. It makes no sense to me that we're giving several

458
02:07:51.520 --> 02:08:07.240
employees $40 a month for a cell phone stipend for this idea that I need you to be available 24/7. Um we all have cell phones anyways and again I would think if staff members knew "Look, this $15,000 could have kept us

459
02:08:07.240 --> 02:08:23.240
from having to, you know, um riff a para." I think they would be okay with that. Every um I verified with Tyler that every employee has a radio. So, you already have a radio in your classroom. You've got, you know, a radio on your belt if you're an administrator. Cell

460
02:08:23.240 --> 02:08:39.160
phones, everybody has them. If we quit doing $40 stipend, people aren't going to get rid of their cell phone. They're still going to keep it. It almost feels a little bit like we're enriching people personally on taxpayer dollars because I don't know that there's a

461
02:08:39.160 --> 02:08:55.120
business purpose. I mean, I didn't ask for a cell phone allowance in my contract and I'm pretty sure I have to be available 24/7. Uh there are just some stipends like that that don't make sense to me in 2026

462
02:08:55.120 --> 02:09:12.680
when we're having to riff people. Um there are some other stipends we've got to look at and see if they're in there. There's stipends for various things um that um HR and finance have done a great job of putting some processes to. We were handing out stipends for hard to fill

463
02:09:12.680 --> 02:09:27.680
and as you saw, we got rid of that policy because it wasn't being followed. We'll have to put in place uh an internal procedure for what actually is hard to fill. Um just have a lot of money. And again, my feeling is if we

464
02:09:27.680 --> 02:09:43.560
added up all that money, we probably could have given everybody $1,500 instead of $1,000. Like again, we got to help people understand when we're being nickel and dimed with all this stuff, it hurts our ability to give real compensation raises to the whole group.

465
02:09:43.560 --> 02:09:59.400
So, I decreased that quite a bit because um and I've got a a document I'm working on that I'll send out to staff closer to the start of school that kind of says, "Guys, please quit doing this." Like the answer's always going to be no. If you walk into my office and say I need

466
02:09:59.400 --> 02:10:15.640
$2,000 or I'm going to go get another job, I'm going to say, "You have to do what's best for you. I have to do what's best for the system and I can't meet everybody's individual needs um because there's a lot of great employees in this district who chose not to do that and now they're getting paid less

467
02:10:15.640 --> 02:10:32.240
than people who chose to do it. And I think in some cases we're encouraged to do that by their leaders and we need to stop that. So, I don't see the need for that large of an of an account there um because it's not something we're going to use moving forward.

468
02:10:32.240 --> 02:10:48.040
I have I have a question though on the numbers on that general fund statement and debits. You were saying you reduced that, but it actually looks like it's increased. So, it says $300,000 for this 2016-2017. It was $116,822. Yeah, that

469
02:10:48.040 --> 02:11:03.920
Didn't you say earlier that everyone will buffer because we don't know the unexpected? Yeah, but no, that I'd have to go back and look. We absolutely dropped that. I'd I'd have to go back into my notes and see um where that too. I was waiting for a

470
02:11:03.920 --> 02:11:20.560
where that came. Good good catch there. Speak to David Clark. Um yeah. [laughter] No, I'd have to go back and look cuz we dropped that pretty significantly. And I'm wondering if that's in the Well, if I could get into Google Docs, I could look. Um it might be in the newest update.

471
02:11:20.560 --> 02:11:35.920
Well, where are you accounting for you know, new employees who might take benefits that you didn't account for before? So, in that that's what I was joking about earlier when I said every time Michelle hires someone, if they get benefits So, it changes So, when you look

472
02:11:35.920 --> 02:11:53.040
Um no, that would be in the actual salary and benefits line Yeah. of each department or school. So, if you look at the very end where you see our reserves and you see $755,000. Um and you see I have a unassigned fund

473
02:11:53.040 --> 02:12:08.840
balance of 1,677. That number continues to fluctuate because as new people come in and get benefits, so if someone comes in right now and takes $10,000 in benefits, I'm now going to be in the negative, right? I was just wondering if you if you were

474
02:12:08.840 --> 02:12:26.040
accounting for any like little bit of room in any of these other categories for those types of situations. So, as they come in, we're adjusting. Yeah. Yeah, we are trying to stay to the penny. So, that idea of, you know, do we leave a little bit here or there? If we

475
02:12:26.040 --> 02:12:42.120
do, I think it would mean cutting another person. So, if push comes to shove and when we're all hired out, we're 80 grand in the red because eight people chose full family benefits, then we're going to have to go to department budgets and cut.

476
02:12:42.120 --> 02:12:57.760
I see. When are we going to know that that final number? Closer to the start of school. We're still doing some hiring um in key positions like language arts, math, stuff like that. So, we're getting closer. We will have to come together at

477
02:12:57.760 --> 02:13:15.280
some point in July and approve um new hires. Okay. Even if just real quickly, but there will more do you expect? Oh. Eight-ish maybe? I'm trying to think. That's not including coaches. When you

478
02:13:15.280 --> 02:13:30.120
look at our website of how many open jobs we have, most of them are coaches. I don't know, Michelle, what do you think? Eight, 10, somewhere in there probably still open? Yeah, there's still some movement because we've made offers and then rejected and

479
02:13:30.120 --> 02:13:45.960
there there's some movement going on. Um as far as benefits go, anybody that starts in July, they're eligible for benefits um September. And so, for the benefits, that number's going to push up.

480
02:13:45.960 --> 02:14:01.320
Might be 7,000 instead of 8,000 or something like that, but yeah, that that is where and that's another thing where it's like we're we're so tight, we are going to have to like this Google Doc will just stay on my computer constantly. We are just going to have to

481
02:14:01.320 --> 02:14:17.360
be on top of it. It will be a living doc. It's going to be a wallpaper. Um yeah, it it's going to have to be because we're going to be that tight. Um and so, I and And the only other way to do it is to not be that tight and possibly have to rip a couple more

482
02:14:17.360 --> 02:14:32.920
employees so you don't have to watch it as closely and none of us want to do that. Hopefully new one and done. Yeah, really one and done. Um that actually brings me to a question that I had just generally speaking now that we've talked about a lot of the specifics, but you know, as we're moving forward, what what types of reporting

483
02:14:32.920 --> 02:14:50.520
mechanisms are going to be in place so that we're monitoring this living document to make sure that we're going to end up where we want [clears throat] to end up. Look like presentation. Yes, I already told Andrea we'll be you guys will get to get to know her. I think some updates specifically on I

484
02:14:50.520 --> 02:15:06.760
mean very early we're going to have to watch cash flow and I think that's something as a board again um you've got to hold us to. We want to see it. What's our What's our cash cash flow? Where are we at? Um how much is coming out every month in in

485
02:15:06.760 --> 02:15:22.800
pay and benefits and and those types of things. And yeah, I think some type of overall health report. CDE has been very helpful um when they met with us of being able to sug- suggest some things that we could provide.

486
02:15:22.800 --> 02:15:38.720
But it's really going to be staying up to date like you said if we're 3 months in and we've spent half our money, you guys need to know. I can tell you prior to that there's a lot of other things that we're already working on to try to clamp down on some of that. Um

487
02:15:38.720 --> 02:15:55.040
you know, I I think having done this before in another place, things like no overtime without prior approval, no travel, no conferences. I mean, we have employees a community member pointed this out on our P-cards. We have employees purchasing hotels in Denver.

488
02:15:55.040 --> 02:16:11.800
Like most of us would not spend our own money to stay in a hotel 30 minutes away. We just wouldn't. And so, um you know, stopping overnight travel, uh halting conferences, uh no reimbursements without prior

489
02:16:11.800 --> 02:16:27.040
approval. Genie's got a whole list for me. She sees it all coming in and she she knows where we've got to clamp down. I think we've just gotten very liberal with our spending. It's It's like we're not even paying attention in some cases. And so we're going to implement some

490
02:16:27.040 --> 02:16:43.160
things that put some better guardrails up um so that when we show those numbers to you every month, um you know, if if I tell you we're going to put some guardrails on P-cards, you guys should be asking every month, "Let's see it. You said you were going

491
02:16:43.160 --> 02:16:59.160
to stop this. You said we were going to do this. Prove it." Um I would some of those things where we've spent money where we've gotten a little out of sorts, when we hit true up, I'd be asking us in October what October count is. Are we up kids? Are we down

492
02:16:59.160 --> 02:17:14.679
kids? How does that change your projections? Um I And I think CDE has a pretty good layout of the types of things we should be focusing on every month. Um and it's one of the things we've talked about if we're able to get the retreat together this summer to have them come in and

493
02:17:14.679 --> 02:17:29.920
share. And the nice thing is it's a calendar and it's a routine, right? Every September, you should do this. Every October, you should do that. Um but really, I In my opinion, we should kind of have two standing discussion items and one is budget and one is academic

494
02:17:29.920 --> 02:17:45.480
achievement. Those things should be discussed at every meeting. There's a lot of other work that we have to do, but the rest of it doesn't really matter. If we can't make payroll and our kids aren't learning, what are we doing? I don't I don't care about a policy if if my kid if the kids are failing. Correct. And so we kind of need those

495
02:17:45.480 --> 02:18:00.639
two standing agenda items. Um and I would expect that you ask us for real data and then follow up. Um we should be able to prove some of the the assessments that we're going to will be quarterly, but there's other stuff we should be able to show you

496
02:18:00.639 --> 02:18:17.040
pretty early on um in terms of where we're at, Um and get a gauge of of how that's looking. I'd be asking schools to come in and present. Hey, we know these changes were made. How are academics looking? How is that? I mean, I would expect Ronnie Green to

497
02:18:17.040 --> 02:18:32.360
be able to come in here and show you how much better this new system is working. You might ask principals or operational directors, you know, in October how are, you know, these new budget parameters working? Are you getting by

498
02:18:32.360 --> 02:18:50.280
without a phone stipend or, you know, do we need to do something different? I mean, we can set up a lot of different reports. I think part of it is don't take my word for it. Ask the people who are actually implementing this. Ask these ladies um for updates.

499
02:18:50.280 --> 02:19:06.960
And I've shared with them and I've shared with Jamie um I don't ever want any of these people to ever feel um any way about coming directly to this board. If they ever feel I'm not doing something right, they should absolutely feel they can come straight to you.

500
02:19:06.960 --> 02:19:23.280
Um Michelle in HR should absolutely feel she should come straight to you. And you guys should remind them that if they face any retaliation at all, they should come right back to you. Um we have to change, you know, some of that culture. Um I want the board hearing from the

501
02:19:23.280 --> 02:19:38.480
people who are just do who are doing the work, not just the superintendent who might not be telling you the full story. Dig dig a layer deeper. It's great that I'm sitting here, but and I don't mind presenting the budget, but next year it should be Andrea.

502
02:19:38.480 --> 02:19:54.080
Right? We should be go a layer deeper and actually ask and make sure I'm telling you the truth. So, we can um I think easily set up a routine for that and what that looks like, but I would I would caution the board, don't stray

503
02:19:54.080 --> 02:20:11.560
from budget and academic achievement. The rest of the stuff we can figure out, but it really doesn't matter if those two and if those two aren't getting better, you should have someone else sitting here. So, I would continually ask difficult questions about those two items.

504
02:20:15.760 --> 02:20:41.960
Thank you. I'm trying to think if there's any other I'll talk for a little while. That's all the notes that I had to make sure that I that I shared. And again, you'll continue to see updates there. Even in this budget, Ron

505
02:20:41.960 --> 02:20:58.160
was already to point out a couple things that we've got to come back and fix. So, we will be continually this is going to be an ongoing conversation. Ongoing. Yeah, the things that were brought up I didn't see it till right before I came in here, but I'm like, yep, we'll get those fixed and we'll figure out like when it's

506
02:20:58.160 --> 02:21:15.720
appropriate to bring back revisions or you know, does it need to This budget you guys you guys have to do Yes, we've got it by June 30th to pass the budget, but we'll also then decide and and talk with those who have who have proven that they've done this work, right? Like Ron, like what do we do? Is

507
02:21:15.720 --> 02:21:31.480
this just a board memo to update the board? Does this need to be a transparent conversation? Does this actually need to be resubmitted? Those types of things. So, we've got a lot of help. CDE's offered to help. We've got people again in the community who have done this job and done it well who are

508
02:21:31.480 --> 02:21:47.400
willing to help. So, everybody wants to see this succeed. So, I think you're going to get a lot more transparent communication and if it's not going well, you're going to be the second to know before I do. And I know we've mentioned it a few

509
02:21:47.400 --> 02:22:15.640
times, but I do just want to say thank you to all of the folks So, of the room who I know Tycoon has done it without your help. So, I'm very grateful for your expertise and your knowledge, your long historical knowledge, and I thank you. Dr. Fletcher?

510
02:22:15.640 --> 02:22:36.520
Aye. Dr. Hobbs? Aye. Dr. Olson? Aye. Dr. House? Aye. Okay, so next up we have the 2026-2027 interfund borrowing So, I move that the board approve the

511
02:22:36.520 --> 02:22:55.200
2026-2027 interfund borrowing resolution as presented. And please can I get a second? Second. [laughter] Who's seconding, girl? [laughter] Okay. So, um

512
02:22:55.200 --> 02:23:12.280
Do you want to explain this? Yes, so this is another one that um by law we have to do, and it's really kind of letting the board know {slash} getting permission to move amounts between funds. Um you saw on the budget,

513
02:23:12.280 --> 02:23:29.240
I mean, not only do you sometimes um use the general fund to supplement one of these other accounts, but you know, by law, I think uh like a nutrition account, you can take like 10% transfer it to general fund. So, this is and

514
02:23:29.240 --> 02:23:45.520
these numbers, I can tell you, will get better and better and more accurate as we get closer, but it's really being transparent and that we will be moving money around from fund to fund.

515
02:23:45.520 --> 02:24:01.280
And that's just a typical financial practice, right? Yeah, it's shady or anything like No, no. This is I This is your notification. Yeah, this is something that I mean, every district has to do. The the number of funds are different,

516
02:24:01.280 --> 02:24:17.840
the dollar amounts are different, but my understanding is it's really just um allowing us to be transparent that you'll move money from one fund to another occasionally. You guys will be able to see that live and in living color other every month um as we present

517
02:24:17.840 --> 02:24:33.200
these. I think you'll be able to see where we've transferred um money, you know, if if we hit May and the $580,000 wasn't enough for athletics and we got to, you know, say, "Hey, as we're finishing out the budget, we think we

518
02:24:33.200 --> 02:24:48.920
got to transfer more money over. We'd have to transfer more money over to put that account in the black." Those types of things. Um we'd want to be transparent about. So, basically, what you're doing here according to the book of chairs is you're borrowing and you have

519
02:24:48.920 --> 02:25:04.120
3 months to pay To build that up. And then I think you answered my question. So, borrowing from the food food service fund because I was always told that's not an option. But that's my understanding is you can do some. Um and again, part of it like,

520
02:25:04.120 --> 02:25:20.800
you know, we've said like I don't want to ever borrow from the capital reserve fund. Um you know, we're we should be putting money in there, but I think it's more I don't know how I'd categorize it. It's more of a uh a transparency heads-up that this this may or may not happen.

521
02:25:20.800 --> 02:25:37.240
And it's 3 months after the beginning of the next budget year. It's not just 3 months from when you do it, it looks like according to what it is. You have to repay it not later than 3 months after the beginning of the following budget year. Yeah, and I think what you'll what I've seen in the past is sometimes

522
02:25:37.240 --> 02:25:55.160
here, some of these were nearly wiped out to transfer over to the general fund to try to balance that budget and then going into the next year you might see some of that money come back to start them out and make them whole. Um

523
02:25:55.160 --> 02:26:12.360
I some of these like I've said I don't want to ever have to do that. I was just going to say I know we're in a pickle right now but generally speaking I'd like us to be able to to not have to do that. To do that correct. You know what I mean first first choice for sure. Okay so

524
02:26:12.360 --> 02:26:32.640
any further discussion on this? All right can I get a roll call? Director Fletcher? Aye. Director Hunt? Aye. Director Olson? Aye. Director Bell? Aye. Okay. Sorry that's going to be a long time. Uh 2026-2027

525
02:26:32.760 --> 02:26:48.840
beginning fund balance resolution. So I move that the board approve the 2026-2027 beginning fund balance resolution as presented when I get a second. Second. Okay. You want to break that streak? All right.

526
02:26:48.840 --> 02:27:05.000
Any discussion? Is that right after the other one? I'm not Yeah it's not in there. So this is kind of a a strange one um because we put it on to be transparent and I'm not 100% sure um

527
02:27:05.000 --> 02:27:21.880
as we created this budget we created this from a zero base perspective meaning in the past there there's no way you can have negative $131,000 in unassigned reserves and then say

528
02:27:21.880 --> 02:27:37.120
you're build the next budget saying we're putting four we're starting with $439,000 in nutrition and we're starting with $300,000 in um athletics and so from a um I think it's a difference between as

529
02:27:37.120 --> 02:27:52.520
as Tracy continues to explain it to me between cash flow and fund balance, but we literally built the budget and so we put it on the agenda when we posted the agenda to be safe, but as we dug in, it's just

530
02:27:52.520 --> 02:28:09.480
something I don't feel comfortable asking the board to which is why we didn't move forward with it to approve that when we're starting at zero. We are most likely you know, on paper going to end the year the fiscal year once everything's

531
02:28:09.480 --> 02:28:25.360
journaled back in the red. So we're not starting with any beginning fund balance. So yeah, on paper I suppose you could say we're starting out with $400,000 in nutrition and $300,000 here. I want to be transparent with you guys and the community. We might start

532
02:28:25.360 --> 02:28:40.560
out in the red. What We're not going to be Tabor we don't think. We're probably not going to be in the positive. Um so we're starting at zero. That's how we built the budget. There is nothing in that 26-27 budget where we assumed we

533
02:28:40.560 --> 02:28:55.880
were carrying over even a penny. Um so we didn't move it forward in terms of formal but since we already posted it on the agenda because we were looking at it, I wanted to be transparent that I don't I don't see how we can move forward, you

534
02:28:55.880 --> 02:29:13.240
know, asking the board to approve a beginning fund balance of zero. Like it's we built the budget based on where we think we're actually going to be best case scenario. So there's no formal action that needs to happen, but I wanted to be

535
02:29:13.240 --> 02:29:29.680
transparent with you and the community because I don't whether it was done from an accounting perspective correctly in the past, it wasn't transparent to this board. You know, you were sitting there thinking we're starting off the year with 1.6 million.

536
02:29:29.680 --> 02:29:45.600
No, we didn't. Um we didn't even meet Tabor, so Some of these types of things um I think will be a little more routine for us next year, but it's it's been a weird

537
02:29:45.600 --> 02:30:02.240
spring budget season in terms of trying to be transparent versus trying to do things the way they've been done the past couple years, and I would I'd rather rely on transparency than um than anything else. I mean, next year we're probably going

538
02:30:02.240 --> 02:30:18.120
to I mean, assuming this budget goes, then we've already met Tabor. Correct. Mostly with the next year. Yeah. And then we can say we're starting out the year with $800,000. Well, we are, but we aren't, you know? It's like

539
02:30:18.120 --> 02:30:33.320
And again, that's why I always I I think to be transparent, you have to talk unassigned Mhm. reserves and cash. So, it's just I think that's how most of us live our lives. And we have to make that clear to the board versus you know.

540
02:30:33.320 --> 02:30:50.040
Yeah, just cuz I have $400,000 in my 401k, it doesn't mean I can just go take that. Yeah, you don't you don't tell people you got $400,000 in the bank. And so, um so, yeah. So, we didn't actually bring the resolution forward because I don't think it's needed if we're not Sounds like we get to vote nay again.

541
02:30:50.040 --> 02:31:06.160
I'm not sure that we just Yeah, yeah. Or we could we could just withdraw the motion, too. I mean, since there isn't anything to vote on. That would that might be I would rather do that. Appropriate on this one is to just withdraw the motion. Okay.

542
02:31:07.200 --> 02:31:23.760
I know. I got four no's and a withdrawal. [laughter] Woo. What am I doing now? I know it. Where's Jay when you need her to be writing up these notes? She's yeah, she's She told us to showing us how valuable having one clerk is as I messed everything up.

543
02:31:23.760 --> 02:31:42.440
But you did great. I mean, you've kind of whipped through our roll calls really well. I'm trying. Well, she wrote it all down on the form. I know. I know. I could not have done that. She uses them herself, so you have to have those things in front of you to just do. So, anyway. So, um

544
02:31:42.440 --> 02:32:00.840
with that, I I move to withdraw my motion. I'll second that. [clears throat] [laughter] So, can I get a roll call? Director Fletcher? I. Director Hunt? I. Director Olson? I. Director Powell? I.

545
02:32:00.840 --> 02:32:22.400
Okay, so we have one more item, and that's the one that That's the one that I moved from [cough and clears throat] um What's that? Yeah. So, um the superintendent contract, um there's a couple of amendments I want to

546
02:32:22.400 --> 02:32:40.960
propose and you're not going to see them because they're on But, um you have the original here. I think it was at the very very beginning. Okay. So, on 1.3,

547
02:32:40.960 --> 02:32:56.240
basically read that out and um instead put in there renewal of agreement. This agreement shall not renew automatically. The term may be extended only by a affirmative action of

548
02:32:56.240 --> 02:33:13.920
the board taken at a public meeting and reduced to a written amendment signed by both parties on or before January 31st of the applicable year. Absent such action, this agreement shall expire on the termination date set forth

549
02:33:13.920 --> 02:33:30.440
in paragraph 1.1. Um above, superintendent shall, by placement of the topic on the board agenda on or before November 15th of each year. Remind the board to consider whether to extend this agreement which date shall be

550
02:33:30.440 --> 02:33:46.640
which date shall be at least two months prior to the board meeting where renewal or non-renewal is to be considered. So, this is basically just keeping up with the the tradition that we were doing with the We would add it to the agenda. Just It's just everybody an affirmative thing rather than just a

551
02:33:46.640 --> 02:34:04.880
rolling on Well, and and we did you know, we agreement of consent. We approved the consent. Yeah. So, it's basically just keeping up with the way we've been doing it. So, um You okay with that? Yeah, I Yeah, Rhonda had shared this with me. I think it's almost defaults to

552
02:34:04.880 --> 02:34:20.640
no versus yes, which I absolutely would suggest as a board. Like um that that is absolutely okay. And then the only other changes I have

553
02:34:20.640 --> 02:34:41.040
small comments. That's probably the last one. So, in 8.4, I know there were a few cross references. Changes that it fixed. Fixed versus over paid. Um So, in 8.4

554
02:34:41.040 --> 02:34:58.600
um I added mitigation and offset which basically says any amount otherwise payable shall be reduced dollar for dollar by compensation Superintendent earns or becomes entitled to earn for other employment or consulting during what would otherwise

555
02:34:58.600 --> 02:35:14.640
have been the remaining term. Superintendent shall use reasonable efforts to secure comparable employment and shall report such earnings to the district. So, basically you know, what if there is a decision to terminate

556
02:35:14.640 --> 02:35:29.720
um it's you know, it's basically you're not just paying out for a year and then they can go on and do whatever they want. And also wasn't there something about no lump sum payment either, right? Um well, and that's that's how Sorry. Okay.

557
02:35:29.720 --> 02:35:45.080
So it's So it's it's basically it's basically no buyout. I thought that was on my list of things to do. Um next is installments. So payments under this section shall be made in regular installments over the offset period rather than as a lump sum

558
02:35:45.080 --> 02:36:01.720
and it shall cease upon superintendent's death or material breach of any obligations surviving termination. So rather than a lump sum, it's, you know, it would only be paid out monthly like it is. Makes sense. Um

559
02:36:01.880 --> 02:36:18.000
and then Notwithstanding any other provision of this agreement, all payment obligations under this section are subject to the annual appropriation limitations set forth in paragraph 1.1. Such obligations constitute a current

560
02:36:18.000 --> 02:36:33.240
expense of the district payable solely from the funds appropriated for the then current fiscal year, shall not constitute a multiple fiscal year direct or indirect debt or other financial obligation of the district within the meaning of Article 5 Section

561
02:36:33.240 --> 02:36:52.400
28 of the and shall be payable only in installments not exceeding the amount appropriated in the fiscal year. It shall be paid in installments only. Um Those are the Those are the changes so far. And Yeah, I The only thing I would just

562
02:36:52.400 --> 02:37:09.880
clarify for the community is any of that like buyout language is only if I'm fired without cause. That's only if the board just shows up tomorrow and says, "You know what? We've changed our mind." I can still be fired with cause and I walk away with zero.

563
02:37:09.880 --> 02:37:27.280
Um I can decide to leave and I walk away with zero. We can mutually decide that I leave and I walk away with zero. You know, most of these contracts are written this way not for the current board and the superintendent, but for if another board comes in. So many

564
02:37:27.280 --> 02:37:42.920
you know, districts that's how it is. You're not negotiating a contract with the board that hires you. You're in it's for the one who later might fire you. And so that would just be a you know, let's say another board comes in in 2 years and says you know, we don't we don't like you. You're gone.

565
02:37:42.920 --> 02:38:00.040
Superintendents want some type of income insurance. As as I've shared with Rhonda, I'm not too worried about this. As I told you guys before, I wasn't ever interested in being superintendent again and don't want to be superintendent anywhere else. So it's not like if this doesn't work out, I go look for another

566
02:38:00.040 --> 02:38:15.800
superintendent job. So I am perfectly comfortable with all of those things. I don't think it is smart for a school board in a financial situation like this to try to do some golden parachute for a superintendent. That makes no sense at

567
02:38:15.800 --> 02:38:31.760
all. So um I'm more than than happy with with the revised language. Right. So any other discussion on this one? Okay.

568
02:38:31.760 --> 02:38:50.800
So we will um I have a meeting motion here. So I move that the board approve the revised superintendent contract for Dr.

569
02:38:51.720 --> 02:39:11.480
Ted. For Ted. [laughter] Okay. I'll second. Okay. And any further discussion on this? Okay. Can we go ahead and Dr. Fletcher. Aye. Director Hunt?

570
02:39:11.480 --> 02:39:26.360
Aye. Director Olson? Director Powell? Aye. Okay. And with that, um, our next board meeting, believe it or not, is, um, August 11th. Our next regular meeting.

571
02:39:26.360 --> 02:39:40.560
Regular meeting of the Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, August 11th, 2026, here in the board room, district office, and with that, I adjourn this meeting at approximately 8:42.