She didn't answer me. Will she answer some of you guys? No. >> Give it to me. >> Okay. >> Jimmy, would you agree that's process? Would you agree that's the process? She shall try to gavvel the meeting open as the only officer. J
>> then we can have Don work with the board that's here. >> Yes. >> You can as long as record. >> Yeah. Record there's no um so Brad you want to start it. Okay. I did not get
any answer back. Are we up? >> Are you going? >> Turn your microphones on, guys. >> Yeah. >> Call to order at 4:03 p.m. a special board of education workshop meeting of the Hazel Park School Board.
Roll call. Eden here. Becker >> here. >> Fortress >> box boys >> here. >> Okay. We do not have a quorum present so
we cannot hold a meeting. Um our special order of business our presentation from Don Soie uh can take place as we're not having any binding decisions at the close of Mr. So's presentation. We will vote to adjourn the meeting.
>> Go ahead. >> Hello everybody. Good to see you. >> We're in the middle of the budget process right now. And today was the first day of uh having discussions and hearing from the
cost center leaders. And uh I have to tell you they were amazing today. They're taking this process very seriously. Uh if you recall this is a training. It's a training. We're not actually putting the budget together. Your business office and superintendent will
be putting the budget together. But it opens all of the input right at this time. And it's not a time to say, "Oh, no. We can't do that. We're not doing that." It's a time to listen and put that into the tentative draft budget.
Once that tenative draft budget is put together in total by the business office, we'll see what the balancing looks like. We we surely hope your your budget is going to balance going forward. It's it's not an easy year. Um
but we're listening to all of that input so everybody gets gets to be heard. I'm going to ask you a few questions in a little little bit. But uh the process we're using is through GFOA, Government Finance Officers Association. That's part of it
with the zerobased budgeting. And we explained today it's really about bringing the finance office and the instructional office together to be partners. And if the the meeting today was any evidence, you know, that's working very well because it was great communication
between finance and instruction. We heard from special services today and everybody we heard from is taking this process seriously. Uh worked with Monica by Zoom on on Friday to look at the revenue budgets.
The revenue budgets are not easy. They're very difficult and we're still working through that. We'll know where those are standing, but no grants are going away. That's going to have the effect of lowering your revenue going forward.
The cooperation was was really great up to this point. We expect it to continue like that. But at this point, uh, for the board, the board generally has a few areas in the in the budget that are really under under your your category.
One of them is audit, another is elections, and another is legal fees. And then there might be some supplies. So, I'm here to take any feedback or input that you might have on that. I know you're not going to be making decisions right now, but we can take
input. Uh, I know that you bid your audit out and I saw on the agenda that you have a recommendation. I I know that firm. Um, they're very reputable and they do many, many school district audits. I think they'll be good for your district if you decide to go with the
recommendations stated in the agenda. >> So, do you have any other comments on on audit is u it's an area in the board of education. Any other comments? >> You said that you have worked with Manor Costarian before. Costian, I'm probably
pronouncing it incorrectly. >> Mayor Mayor Costar is pronounced and they're they're excellent. their their reputation is is just stellar in the state. I I can't imagine would be disappointed. They're they only help
their clients. And then during the year, I would reach out to them, both the board and and the finance office to build a relationship and be able to talk. If you have questions, you can call them. They they ought to be a contact. And I think their their fee
that I saw from last week was very reasonable going forward. >> That's good to hear. >> Very good. Is there anything on elections? Any input on elections? You may not have a lot in your budget. Is there anything that comes to mind?
>> Not that I can think of. >> Legal fees is the other one. That's that's another one that is usually under under board of education. anything that you would suggest the administration look at as that goes forward?
>> I mean, I we certainly have spent quite a bit on legal fees over the past 12 to 18 months. It would be nice to see that number go significantly down over the next school year, but that is unlikely given our current situation.
So, it seems that we will be spending quite a bit of money on legal fees going forward. I don't know that that's something that we'll be able to effectively save any money in. >> Well, it's a number you have you have to work with. It's um certain things happen in districts at
times, but on an ongoing basis, you need to figure what should our legal fees be. >> Mr. Soie, can you maybe um I mean, knowing that we likely will have some pretty excessive legal fees over the next school year, um can you let us know how that may impact other areas of our
budget? We will as it as it unfolds. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> That whatever the number that goes into the budget is going to need to be there until it's adjusted downward or upward by the business office as that goes up.
>> So with that the process is going well. Um communication is good. >> Do you have any other requests questions that I can help you with today? Since we have you now, can you explain the audit process a little bit? I think
we talked a little bit today at the last meeting when we talked about when does it start September. And I think that's important for the community and the board to know really how that starts from your professional opinion. >> If you if you take action as indicated on the agenda today, that relationship,
>> we won't just to be I just wanted to be clear that we won't take action on it today because we don't have a quorum to vote. >> Okay. you don't you don't expect your form that um when you have a form and you vote on it that that needs to take right away because you're going to need advice. When I was sitting in in the
business office, when I was in Monica's job, I would contact the auditor quite a number of times during the year. That's perfectly acceptable um because we don't want to make judgment errors. So, we you rely on another professional from the audit side
of the house. that's going to have to audit what you're actually doing in in the finance office to, you know, give a little input. And you know, sometimes you say, okay, if I treat it this way, is that going to be acceptable? And you want to you want to learn from them.
They they deal with dozens and dozens of school districts across the state. So, they've seen it seen it all before. So, you need to have that advice available. At the same time, the board needs to have that relationship with the
auditor. Um, you're the entity that is hiring the auditor. You ought to be able to talk to the auditor and run some things by and you know, the auditor is generally happy to do that because they don't want to see issues. If they can
keep issues in a low point, that's that's the best thing. Uh, so the finance office and superintendent need a relationship and the board of education needs a direct relationship and I've talked with the board before about
developing an audit committee. Okay. I gave you some documentation on that so you can talk directly with the auditor without any concern. >> Thank you. >> So that's that's all I have. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
>> All right. Thank you. Doing very well. >> Thank you, Mr. Soie. I'm sorry that you waited [clears throat] so long. >> Uh the only piece that I would have for you guys as a as uh individual board members that are here, not a meeting, is that uh failure to approve the food service bid tonight will cause us to
move that into May because it has to be approved before I can go out to bid for our processes. And so, um our food service vendor is done in June. So, it was scheduled to go out in April. If um we do not get this approved soon, it won't go out in time and thus we may not
have uh food service depending on those time frames. Um and I'll have to rechange the bid and correct it to the state. So, okay. Okay. I think for the purpose of discussion, in addition to food service, uh which could definitely impact food service over the summer, we just uh
received our summer school packets today. um they're available to sign up for both the summer discovery programs. Um that does put food service at risk. Uh we were also scheduled to vote on the EV bus purchases, which is an expiring grant. Um a security guard who has now
been waiting almost two full months in order to um have his employment approved at the high school. Uh supplemental pay for teachers that are working on some really great curriculum um initiatives that we're trying to move forward. and
staff for those special education students that qualify through their IEPs for the extended school year will not have their staff approved today. Um, with that, we do not have a quorum, so I will take a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Support.
>> Roll call. >> Yes. Becker. >> Yes. >> Yes.