[Music] I'd like to welcome everyone uh to the Thursday, July 17th meeting of the Independent Citizens Referendum Oversight Committee. Uh we are going to
start with the Pledge of Allegiance. So I ask everyone to stand and join us in the pledge. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. So, I would like to uh welcome everyone uh members and guests. Uh, I think we have Deputy Superintendent White House here uh on behalf of the interim superintendent and then um I don't know if board member Cummings is here or not,
but he was uh hopefully going to join us and then all district personnel. So, thank you guys for being here. Deputy Superintendent, floor is yours. Good afternoon. Thank you, committee members. I appreciate you all being here this afternoon. Um, I want to take a few moments before we get started just to highlight some of the successes we've
had from the 24-25 school year as we wrap up and look forward for a new school year for us. Uh, I'm sure you heard the news that our district grade has improved to a B-grade for this year. So, we are definitely excited to see that positive trend. Uh, we know we have a lot of work to do still this year, but
upper momentum is upward momentum and we're we're excited about that. We had five schools that maintained an Agrade this school year. We had 10 schools that improved a letter grade this year, including Belleview Middle School and OciOla Middle School improving to an Agrade this year. So, um, excellent work
from all of our staff at all of our schools, uh, and the success they saw this year. And all that, of course, is not possible without community support. Um, even though we're talking with the referendum about very specific programs, all of it factors into the success of our schools. whether it's PE, the arts,
our career and technical education program, the access to all those programs yields the success that we see for creating well-rounded students in all of our schools. We also had our advanced placement results come in this summer. We're really excited about the results for from that for for our
schools. So, we had over 3600 AP exams taken this year. That's the most exams we've ever given in a school year. We had over 1,800 students taking an AP exam. That's the most we've ever seen in a school year. And of that, 69% of those exams earned a three or better, which
means 69% of the exams taken were passed and college credit was earned for those. That's seven points higher than the prior year. And that's the fourth year in a row that we've improved both our number of students taking exams and our pass rate on the exams. So, that's a testament to the hard work of our teachers for creating greater access to
some of these programs, but also continue to raise the bar of success for our students. So, we're we're very proud of all that work. and actually 14 of those exam categories, subject areas exceeded the global pass rate. So, our teachers did some phenomenal work this school year. We certainly want to thank
all of you on the committee for your continued commitment and support to the work that we're doing here with the referendum and our schools in general. Uh, and we certainly look forward to continued success in the coming school year. I'd also like to thank our team this afternoon that's going to be sharing some of the highlights with you.
We've got a lot of exciting information to share as we wrap up our school year in each of these areas. Um, and I thank them for their hard work. So, at this time, I will turn it over to Miss Boston Ellis who can No, that's great. Before that, we have a couple of house cleaning items. So, thank you so much. And then,
um, before we get to Mrs. Boston Ellis, uh, let's do a quick roll call. Uh, Melanie, if you don't mind. Okay. That sounds perfect. Yeah, that sounds good. Melanie, Jennifer Edgars, Ken Osley,
Lloyd Magwood, yes. Okay, with five, do we have a quorum? Okay, good. All right. Okay. Uh and then uh the minutes from the last meeting, they're in your packet. Uh hopefully you guys have had a
chance to review those. Uh if there aren't any changes or corrections, I would entertain a motion to uh approve those minutes or accept those minutes. I make a Go ahead. I'll make a motion to approve uh the minutes from the April 17th meeting.
I'll second. All right. Uh we got a motion to second. All in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Okay. Um, with that, Miss Boston Ellis, we'd love it if you'd come up and start
us off. Good afternoon. Afternoon. Afternoon. As usual, I come with a lot of friends to help you uh understand what we're doing with the referendum funds.
And in addition to myself, we have uh Brooke Hutau who is not only uh going to speak on the visual and performing arts, but also she's going to speak for Miss Cornelius's who is our coordinator of
education, Kathy Audi, the coordinator of career and technical education, Braen Hughes, our coordinator of media related instructional services, and Twilight Tus, who is our program specialist for professional leadership and learning and
our anchor Mr. Dennis McFaten our executive director of safe schools. So while we call this a quarterly report, it is really the preliminary uh full year. Uh as you may be aware, we
uh takes us about two months to close out uh our accounting year. So these are preliminary numbers but once we do the quarterly report uh for September we will bring back to you the final numbers
for the year 2425. Again the referendum is a 1m valorium tax. It was voter approved November 2022. It's effective July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2027. So, we're about halfway
through uh this particular ad valorum tax. Uh as usual, all of the the allowable uses of money include art, music, library, media, vocational programs, meeting class size, retaining state
certified teachers, pair professionals, and school safety. Uh what we have done differently for the 24-25 year is that our board has had asked us to move all of our teachers the class size reduction teachers over to
the general fund. So we did that but in we also moved some of the fine arts uh that were currently being charged to the general fund to the referendum fund. But as of the preliminary June end
uh all the way through from 201516 to 2425 and we're using the budgeted number there. We've spent or we've received 235.8 million. We've spent 230.2
million for the 2425 year. We've received um 102.19%. Uh this is a little bit over what we had budgeted. A lot of times that is uh when late taxes are paid or if there is
additional interest charged. Uh so this is not unusual to actually receive more money than what we had originally budgeted. Also, our expenditures to date are 84.35%
and that's uh probably about yeah 37 million. So, we have roughly a balance of about 6.7 million. Again looking at budgeted expenditures you can see uh what we had budgeted
based on the program that it is uh associated with and it ranges from 2.4 million in our vocational programs all the way to 9.9 million for school safety and again this is the budgeted
expenditures. This particular slide just gives you a synopsis of all the actual expenditures from uh 201718 all the way through the 2425 year
and this is actual expenditures by year by program. The ending fund balance at 2324 which is carried over to the 2425 year was 11.8 million.
We budgeted 37.2 million for the 2425 year. In terms of revenue, we budgeted expenditures of 43.3 million and our estimated budgeted fund balance for 202425
would be $6.7 million. When I went back and looked at actual uh again our beginning fund balance would be 11.8 million. Our budget our actual revenue would be 38.1 million.
our actual expenditures 36.6 million. So instead of the budgeted fund balance of 5.6 million, we're looking at a budgeted fund balance of $13.3 million. And just a reminder, anything
that is left unspent rolls over to the next year. The referendum funds are a restricted fund and it can only be spent on the items that are referendum related.
I do have a question, Miss Boston Ellis. Um, it was mentioned at our last meeting that there was money owed back to the charter schools from previous years. How does that factor into the budget? Was that taken into consideration from the very beginning? Uh I think it was two
years out when the law actually changed. Okay. And there was a couple of school district who challenged that law and the school district lost. So uh uh we were approached by an attorney that was uh representing a couple of our charter
schools and uh through their work as well as uh finance department and our attorney uh attorney powers they worked out a plan. Okay. So you'll see here uh that they did receive those additional dollars
during that time for that time period. And now we share $1.5 million with the charter schools. We share the sales tax um and also the impact fees.
Thank you for bringing that up. Okay. We'll begin looking at all of the different programs. The first set of slides deal only with uh the general fund uh and our school district dollars.
We'll look at the charter schools a little bit different. And as I stated previously, the kindergarten pair of professionals are the only uh staff that is charged to referendum now in terms of class size. So all the class-sized
teachers were moved to the general fund operating and these particular uh pair professionals support the kindergarten classes in the district. So they had a revised budget of 6 million um and they have spent almost
everything. There's about $264,000 remaining and this paid for 170 pair professionals and we have seven vacancies. Their total spent to date was 5.8
million which is roughly about 96% of what their revised budget is. So now we will move on to physical education and Miss Brook Hoto will come and have a discussion on those.
Good afternoon. I am here on behalf of Charity Cornelius. Um and we are going to talk a little bit about our PE department. Um, to keep students motivated and moving, our PE coaches are getting creative because let's face it, video games and our AC is tough
competition. At Belleview Santos, our educators took a local spin on fitness by tying into Marian County's equestrian pride. During the derby season, they built a DIY herd from yard sales and Facebook marketplace. And just like that, GL gym class turned into a
racetrack. Students were engaged, active, and galloping toward fun. Did I go too far? I don't even know if it's clicking. Here we go. All right. Um, so we have every year, um, we have our elementary track meet and this year after a twomonth weather delay, our
annual track meet crossed the finish line post testing and it was well worth the wait. Hosted at Forest High School, this exciting event gave young athletes a glimpse of a real high school track meet experience. Students from across Marian County came to race, showing off months of training, commitment, and
focus. But this meet was more than athletic achievement. It was a celebration of hard work in the classroom and good behavior. And for many, it was the ultimate reward for staying on track, both academically and personally. This year's meet brought together 12
different schools, 343 student athletes, nearly 200 family members and spectators, 32 physical educators and MCPS staff members, and 36 high school student volunteers. The success of this event is a true testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire team.
Not only did elementary students have a chance to showcase their athletic skills, but high school volunteers also gained valuable experience as mentors and event coordinators, playing key roles in managing a large-scale athletic event. After months of planning and plenty of Florida heat, this annual
tradition continues to be a fantastic day for everyone involved. Thank you. It's always the clicker. I thought you were going to say the uh person who was using it. So all of that energy, what did that
cost the the referendum? They had a revised budget of $9.6 6 million and they spent most of that budget with about 192,000 remaining covered the cost of 104
PE teachers and 28 PE technicians they spent to date about 98% which equates to seven excuse me which equates to about 9.4 4 million
and that included salary and benefits as well as some capital outlay which could be in the form of uh expenditures, equipment and also materials and supplies. And um just to remind
everyone, each of the elementary schools get about $2 per student for them to uh use for equipment and uh also for supplies. And this is in a supplemental form um to what they already get from
their schools. Next, we'll have Kathy Audi who will talk to us about the vocational programs. Good afternoon. We are fortunate to offer 40 different CTE pathways to students that encompass 14 career clusters ranging from health science to
engineering. We have over 15,000 students enrolled in these programs across the district. This year we had 748 seniors who graduated with the ability to earn career pathways articulated credits. That means these seniors completed three courses within a
CTE pathway and maintained a 3.0 GPA in those courses. Overall, students with this distinction are able to obtain free college credit if they continue in that CTE program at one of our local colleges. We are still finishing up our industry certification reporting for the
year, but we currently have 2,176 CAPE recognized industry certifications earned by students. This is a 15% increase over the 2324 school year. Industry certifications are recognized credentials students can use both to
obtain jobs or to further their education as they continue schooling. Many certifications also articulate for free college credit. We also had 961 middle school students earn digital tools, which was a 37% increase over the
2324 school year. Digital tools are a way for middle school students to show digital literacy and are stepping stone to future industry certifications. Excuse me. Could you clarify what is cape? Um,
career accelerated program. I can't remember the e, but basically it's um a program that the state puts out and what they do is career source verifies that these certifications are certifications that students can use in the workforce to obtain high-skll high
wage jobs. So the certifications that are on that list require over 150 hours worth of training for students to obtain. So you'll notice like a lot of certifications you hear about like OSHA is a common one is not on that list because it only requires typically 10 to 30 hours to receive. So that cape
recognized industry certification credential is one that requires over 150 hours and relates to a high skill high wage job. Thank you. Welcome. I have a question. the 150 hours do they earn that in by participating in uh with
industries working or is it in the classroom settings? In the classroom setting. So to um be on that list uh the certification should equate to at least 150 hours of learning in order to earn that certification. Gotcha. Okay.
Although the school year has wrapped up, we still have tons of CTE activities taking place this summer. where many of our career and technical student organization competitions are taking place. We have students traveling all over the US this summer for these events where students will have the opportunity to compete and show off the skills
they've learned in their respective programs. Over the summer, we have students attending the Florida FFA state convention which took place in Orlando, Florida. Students at this event culminated all of their skills to compete in their state competitions. We also had our HOSA or future health
professionals students. These students were competing at the international competition in Nashville, Tennessee this summer. We also had Skills USA students who qualified at the state level traveled to Atlanta, Georgia. Um we had students competing in the areas of
culinary, video production, and robotics and design at Skills USA. And lastly, students who qualified at the state Future Business Leaders of America competition are traveling to Anaheim, California for their national competition this summer. We are excited to be able to support Marian County
students in attending these events. Once all of the events are wrapped up, we will compile the results, but we're proud of them just for qualifying for these national level competitions. Our teachers are also hard at work this summer. Every year, we offer the teachers the opportunity to complete what we call a teachers and industry
externship. During this program, we pay our instructors a stipened rate for up to 32 hours to spend at a business learning hands-on skills. This gives our instructors the chance to learn new skills related to their industry and to stay upto-date what's going on in the workforce. This summer, we have eight
teachers who are completing this program. Referendum funding supports all of our CTE programs, whether it be through the teacher unit or providing the equipment and items needed to learn hands-on skills. We are fortunate to be able to provide our students the opportunity to work with industry level equipment and
support business and industry interactions through referendum. Can you give an example of which industry we're talking about? Yeah. So, um it depends on what the teacher teaches. So, um without within our CTE programs, we had an agriculture
teacher who did um an internship, a horiculture internship with Wet. Um our business teachers will typically go to a business office setting. Um sometimes our engineering teachers will go to places like Loheed Martin. It depends on what subject they teach and then we send
them out to um we actually allow them choose what business they'd like to go to to learn more about in their area. Gota thank you. So, vocational programs um are predominantly budgeted in our
general fund, but the referendum has allowed them to expand programs and have more offerings for our students. So, this is uh very very important to school district. Uh their budget was $2.4 4
million and they spent the majority of those funds uh albeit $170,000. The referendum funds uh actually 20 teachers but we had 19 uh that had a fill position and one vacancy.
They've spent to date 92.88%. And uh when you see utilities, people always ask about that. That's how we record fuel um when there's a field trip or a uh trip where we need to use the uh buses.
As you can see, a lot of their funds that are just not salary and benefits, but a large portion of their budget is capital outlay. A lot of the equipment that they use is very expensive. And so again, this is why it's so important to
have the referendum funding. It just opens the doors uh for our students. Next, we'll have Breaken Hughes and she'll speak to library media. Just a reminder to the board, they have some of the capital outlay expenditures so we
can look at them. Good afternoon. Afternoon. In our media centers throughout the 2425 school year, 49 certified media specialists supported the needs of students and teachers across their campuses each day. On a monthly basis,
our media specialists came together to receive professional development and collaborate with their colleagues to create innovative and special learning experiences for everyone on their campuses. Media specialists were trained on updates provided by Flet Destiny and Worldbook throughout the year through
conversation and collaboration. and our media specialists work together to best support the needs of each of our varying student populations. Always keeping in mind the focus of building a love for literacy, starting with even our youngest learners. Media specialists at each school
celebrate the love of reading in a variety of fashions from reading a theme for to opportunities to earn books for the number of words read. Our media specialists are creative in keeping students engaged in reading throughout the year. At the end of the school year,
Lakewear Middle, it's still the same slide. Lakewware Middle and Forest High Schools hosted district-wide book bowl challenges. The students who participated read the books included in the Sunshine Sunshine State Reader Book List that is published each year.
Students worked in school teams to compete against one another to show who knows the best about each book. winners took home the traveling trophy that goes from winning school to winning school each year. Along with school-based reading
initiatives, Beanstack challenges, and cultivating a culture of reading, media specialists also discuss circulation data collection throughout the school year. Shown on the slide is a year-over-year comparison of circulation data for each grade band. As you can see, the number
of checkouts from the 232 24 school year to the 2425 school year increased by approximately 40,000 checkouts. As we continue planning for the 2526 school year, I look forward to discussing how we can continue to support reading and checkout rates at each of our schools.
I am excited for the 2526 school year with two new media centers, two new media specialists, and the planning for a new high school. Our media specialists play an important role on our campuses and they continue to be thankful for the referendum dollars that support their positions as well as their space on
their campuses. Thank you. Thank you. So, our library media had a budget of $4.1 million. Um, and that uh funded 48
media specialists and they've spent a little bit over their budget um about $4.1 million and it included salary benefits, uh, materials and supplies, capital outlay,
purchase service, and dues and fees. I think Mr. Osley mentioned to you that there is a handout that gives you examples of the kind of items that they spend. We're excited for the program because
I'm one of the folks that remember when uh we had one teacher to two um schools and it really posed a lot of problems. So, we're definitely grateful for the referendum for the library and media.
Next, uh, Brooke will come back doing the visual arts as well as music. And then I'll come come back and provide, um, a discussion analysis on what they've spent. Hello again.
The fourth quarter of the 2425 school year was an exciting one for our MCPS fine arts program. In the visual arts, we concluded the year with the young and art program held annually at the Appleton Museum. The program features six pieces from each K to2 art teacher totaling over 342 pieces of art on
display. The works are on display in the education wing and the auditorium for about a month and we have an open house for families to visit and view the artwork. This is another wonderful example of how important our community partnerships are to promoting the arts in Marian County. The image in the middle that you see is of Miss Sarah Cox
from Oyola Middle School. She was our art in the capital winner for this year. Her artwork was selected by Maring County Art Educators to represent Marian County and was on display in the capital rotunda during this year's legislative session. Finally, we held our annual superintendent art show at the Appleton
Museum. Pictured here is Abigail Shank from Hillrest School. Her artwork was one of the 54 honores who were on display at the Appleton. And then they were also recognized at a reception that we had in April. In the performing arts world, we held
our Marian All County High School band at the Riley Arts Center with 110 students representing all of the high schools in Maring County. They were thrilled to have as their clinician Dr. Ralph Jean Paul, assistant director of bands and director of low brass at FAMU. This event is an amazing way for
students across the county to connect with one another and play higher level music literature, challenging themselves and their musical growth. This year we also held our first annual elementary ORF day at Reddit Collier Elementary with a guest clinician Miss Rosemary Pillano from Lady Lake. 32 students from
12 schools were able to sing, play, dance, and create while experiencing the ORF approach. It is a dynamic child- centered music education philosophy emphasizing active participation, creativity, and the integration of music, speech, movement, and drama. They
concluded their day with an informance, which is an informative performance for their friends and families. And we're looking forward to our next ORF day, which is going to be held this year on October 17th. This year has been a wonderful showcase of talented artists, musicians, dancers,
and actors. And I wanted to present to you a brief wrap-up of the amazing district and state accomplishments of our students this year. To point out just a few, we host five allcount ensembles annually. This year, those encompassed 520 musicians and 34 schools
represented throughout those ensembles. We had 17 students from seven of our schools participate in Florida allstate ensembles. 2593 student entries across band, vocal, and auxiliary represented Marian County in the Florida School Music Association
events, including their music performance assessments and solen ensembles. And Marian County received their first ever Florida Music Education Association Enrollment Award. This was presented to Howard Middle School for having 53% of their students enrolled in
a music course. This is an amazing accomplishment. And so we were very very excited to show this um one number that I happen to leave off our slide. Uh this year was the first ever um basically the the institution of the Florida Seal of
Fine Arts. Um and that was put into legislation this past July. And so we had our first group of graduating seniors that were eligible to receive the Florida Seal of Fine Arts this year. And we had 71 of our graduating seniors that met all the requirements and were able to earn that. So we're looking forward to increasing that number even
more this year. This all is an amazing accomplishment and a true testament to the benefits of the 1m mill tax funding for the students of Marian County Schools. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. For the art, um the total budget was 4.8 eight
million uh um and they spend about almost all of those dollars. I think there's about 77,000 remaining covered the cost of 53 teachers uh.5 of the coordinator and
10.5 uh paraprofessionals for music. The total revised budget was 5.2 million and they've spent about 97% of that budget. Um about 153,000 remaining covering the
cost of 56 teachers. They had one vacancy uh.5 of the coordinator and 11.5 pair professionals. Uh, now we'll have Miss Twyla Tus come speak to us about professional
leadership and learning. For the 2425 school year, our department generated 336 professional educator competency forms. These forms are generated after two years of participation in our district induction and mentor program and as one of the
steps towards earning a professional certification. 95% of the PEC participants in the 2425 cohort met the requirements and PES were submitted to the state. 5% will continue a third year in the monthly professional learning with a sitebased lead to
strengthen the skills to earn their PE this year. When you look at the visual image, this is our projection for 2526. We're projecting 406 participants. This year the amount of novice educators is 7% and the amount of early career
which is years 2 to year five is over 80% which is a testament to how well we're doing in retaining our early career educators or our novice educators, new teachers through the induction and mentor program. So, I was
excited to share that. We're very excited to continue to build on the work that we have begun. In the 2024 2025, we introduced a new facet of induction and mentoring the new teacher academy. In year 1, over 150 educators
participated in courses to build skills based on the Florida educator accomplished practices. This year we are going to continue to offer NTA and we are adding NTA 2.0 for our early career educators that attended last year that want to level up their skills.
These programs are offered both in person and virtually. The academy occurs once a quarter and for our alternative certification teachers starting this year our NTA courses will allow them to work towards alternative certification. So it will count towards their credits
to alternative certification. This sets us apart from neighboring districts when it comes to supporting new teachers on the path to professional certification. This table is a projection for this year for the cost of induction and mentoring. These numbers can fluctuate as new hires
are cleared and an attendance to professional learning opportunities. Novice educators that participate in NTA, which occurs after school, are eligible for a stipen for attending class. NTA is only open to teachers in their first three years of teachers. Mentors receive a stipen of up to $1,250
for supporting novice educators for 30 hours and attending mandatory quarterly professional learning where they learn how to best support their novice educators. Sitebased leads receive a stipen of up to $2,410 for program documentation supporting our
early career educators hosting monthly professional learning opportunities. In 2425, we added a specialized cohort mentor for the arts. Novice and early career educators could elect to attend monthly virtual meetings with an expert in the arts and they learned skills that were unique to their field and reported
out that they really enjoyed the program and felt that it helped prepare them for the unique needs in the fine arts classrooms. This year we're hoping to expand that support to include the special education and physical education cohort. Thank you for supporting our novice and early
career educators. Thank you. the professional development uh budget was about $627,000 and they've spent about 60% of that budget. Um as as Miss Tus um explained,
there is a lot of activity going on in the summer. So we expect to see uh some more stipens that we'll have to pay and acrew back to June uh within the next two months. Our last subject is school safety and it
will be led in this discussion by Mr. Dennis McFaten. Good e good afternoon. As we close out the 2024 2025 budget cycle, our commitment remains steadfast to ensure a safe and secure learning and working
environment for our students, staff, and visitors. A key component in achieving this goal continues to be the safe schools department's participation or partnership with various internal and external stakeholders. One of them being
Raptor Technologies. The tools they provide are an integral part of our day-to-day operations. To maintain continuity, we keep a supply of new printers and scanners on hand, allowing schools to quickly resolve equipment issues and continue their standard
safety procedures with minimal interruptions. Through Raptor platforms such as visitor and volunteer management, drill manager accountability, and reunification, we are able to sustain a high level of campus security across the district.
These tools have enabled us to provide a secure and accurate online system that ex expedites visitor and volunteer screenings. The system generates detailed reports at both district and school levels. And last year we processed more than 13,000 volunteer
applications which resulted in over 92,500 volunteer hours. We're proud to say that four schools had over 4,000 hours. Two schools had over 5,000 hours. One school had over 6,000 hours and one school
surpassed 7,000 volunteer hours. It's exciting to see the increase in volunteer hours and the efficient process that Raptor provides with the funding provided through the referendum dollars. As with previous years, do I have the Okay. As with previous
years, we faced the challenge of adapting to evolving best practices and measures that increase the safety of our students, staff, and visitors. One such adaptation was the introduction of miniature red sites, red dot sites on
safe schools officers duty weapons. These enhancements are vital in a school environment where rifles are not issued and not readily accessible. In high- stress situations such as active asalent on campus, innocent lives, especially
those of children, the red dot sites provide officers with faster, more accurate target acquisition. This tool will improve visibility in tight lowlight areas such as hallways and classrooms, ensuring that officers can
respond swiftly and effectively without relying on rifles. Officers will participate in an extensive training to be efficient and familiar with the invaluable resource. Referendum continues to fund long-term safety priorities, including our school
resource officers. SRO's are instrumental in maintaining the safety and well-being of our campuses. The previous three-year SRO agreement, which concluded on June 30th, 2025, cost the district over $12.7 million. The renewed
agreement effective July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 202028 is projected to cost over $16 million. This increase reflects the ongoing need to meet the state mandate of having a safe school officer on every campus and the growing
cost of doing so. In addition to personnel, we've invested in infrastructure to strengthen emergency response capabilities. We purchased and will install a mutual link interruptability system at the Marian County Communications Center. This
system enables rapid response when panic alerts from Cintigics or Raptor are activated and integrates with the communication centers at both the city of Okeella and Marian County. The system enables access to the district's camera systems which allow law enforcement,
fire, and medical personnel to respond in an efficient, safe, and timely manner. Finally, we allocated over $4 million for birectional amplifiers to improve radio communications within our schools.
Fortunately, recent enhancements by the Maring County Board of County Commissioners to his radio tower significantly improve first responder radio coverage, exceeding a 92% testing rate, which is required by the state. As
a result, the number of BDAS needed across the district were was reduced to just four at a cost of 1.2 million, freeing up resources for other safety initiatives. The work we've accomplished during the
202425 budget cycle reflects the district's unwavering commitment to keeping our campuses safe. Through strategic planning, the support of the board, and administration, our community partners, we will continue to strengthen the systems that protect our students,
staff, and visitors each day. These efforts would not be possible without without your support and the community's investment through the referendum. Thank you. Thank you. I was teasing Mr. McFaten uh when we got
the report about the expenditures and as you can see um that uh the safe schools uh had a budget well over $9 million. Uh but they spent about only 41% of that
and I said you're going to have to explain to them and he can and I want him to go ahead and do that. Um, thank you. So, we under the budget. Good afternoon again. Well, the first explanation was again we
had budgeted $4 million for what we call the BDAS, the birectional amplifiers. And again, when the county commissioners came out of border county commissioners, they upgraded their radio systems. And basically what happens is when law enforcement, fire, medical, my team go
into a building, a school building and try to use the radio as what happened in Parkland, there was no response. The radio um system inside of the buildings by with the steel, the big brick, the concrete wasn't allowing the signal to
go out. So in this case, the county improved the tower system which improved the radio system within our buildings. And we had essentially budgeted $4 million each year over the next four or five years to put these birectional
amplifiers in really every high school and a lot of our middle schools. But once they updated that radio system, what we had to do was pay a company to come out and do what they call a radio testing in all of our buildings. and we only had four buildings after the radio
tower uh improvements by the county that didn't meet the the testing. So that $4 million that we was going to spend end up only costing us $1.2 million. So essentially we saved $2.8 million by having the county upgrade the radio
system. We also budgeted about $800,000 for some new cameras cameras for our schools. Um, one of the things we talked about was when we first got here, when we first started this whole camera process, we
were putting and installing cameras and it was it was real slow process. And what we found out last year was we put so much strain on our technology department, asking them to install these cameras, and they done the best they could. But with new schools being built,
all the different technology in the building of a um a new technology center, can't think of the name of it. They're building the technology building. Yeah, this technology building. Uh it took up a lot of their time. So what we end up that $800 and
something,000, they were only able to spend about half of that. So, the remedy or the solution to that in the future, we hired a third-party vendor, Miller's Electric, and they're going to come in at a at a cost which we thought was
going to be really expensive. Um, but they do this all across the state, and they're the ones who's doing all of our access control and our camera system in our two elementary as well as is our high schools. and they're going to come in and install those cameras, which takes a huge burden off our internal
technology department. So, in doing that, we weren't able to spend all of the $800 some thousand that we had allocated to the camera system, but we'll install them as we approach this new budget year. So, the big hit was the savings of $2.8 million for the
birectional amplifier. By all means, we want to spend the money, but in this particular case, not spending the money saved the district $2.8 million because the county and their redoing the radio towers and the infrastructure actually saved us money. So, we by no means want
to overbudget. It wasn't intentionally, but I think in this case, saving $2.8 million was worth the overbudgeting. You also win the award for the most striking visual on the uh
I wasn't expecting uh Glock when I was you know looking through this. I should have heard the conversations when they put the requisition in. We were talking about that. Um, so if there are no more questions on the
district, we'll move on to the charter schools, uh, which we can go through pretty quickly. Uh, the charter schools, their total budgeted expenditures were $917,000. [Music] And as you can see, um, these are the
same criteria. They had to use the same criteria of as the of the referendum language that the the school district used. their actual expenditures were 92,000. Um and within this actual expenditures
the amounts that they were due from uh prior years uh that was a part of that those dollars. So they did use uh funds for class size about 89,000 and um spend 100% of that.
Uh physical education they budgeted 225,000 and they spent about 98% of that budget. For art, they budgeted 60,000 and um spent about 99% of that budget.
The music 107,000 and they spent uh to date uh the 100% of what they were allocated. Professional development 142,000 and they spent 95% of that budget to the
tune of 135,000. Their safe schools budget was 292,000 and they spent about 98% of that budget uh to the tune of 289,000. And as I stated uh before they are
eligible for all of our uh funding as well uh impact fee, sales tax, and the 1.5 mil. Are there any overall questions? I don't think so.
Okay. We do appreciate and I know we say it all the time, but we really really do appreciate your uh volunteering to be on this committee and we're open to any questions that you have, not just uh at the quarterly meetings, but uh we you
know, you can give us a call. I think the program is very robust and I I believe that we have done a really good job uh monitoring and spending the funds that the the uh community has entrusted
um to us. Sure. Thank you. Mr. McFaten, I have a quick question. Um so you had a lot of savings. Do you guys have any needs coming up or are there any things that you have on the docket as far as school safety that that haven't been done that you plan on doing or what what look
ahead? What's going to happen? Right now is the obviously the biggest thing we're doing is making sure we meet all of the mandates which is one obviously as you can see to have a school resource officer in every school
um a safe school officer. So we're meeting that mandate. the other things such as moving towards more access control. I went out and I visited um the now Winding Oaks Elementary and Ross Prairie Elementary. And once I got out there,
it's exactly what we envision and what we planned where the push of a button will lock the entire school system down, the whole school. And if an active asalent or some person comes onto the campus, they push a button and all the doors lock. that will be ideal for all
of our schools, but unfortunately with the um um the makeup of some of our schools, the old the age of some of the schools, we're not guaranteed to be able to uh use technology to do that without a huge cost, but we're going to make
every attempt to do that. Uh afford them those same opportunities to where if something happens, push a button and lock all the doors on the campus. So, that's our next biggest project. Uh we're working on that again through the same company that's are working with us on our camera installations. Uh we've
got cameras installed in every schools, but now it's just a matter of going back adding those additional cameras to cover those hard to see areas or those areas that's not u maybe clearly visible to someone just walking up those hidden
spaces. So, those are our two biggest projects is access control um moving forward at all of our older schools or current schools as well as installing those cameras. Great. Thank you. Yes.
I have another question for uh Miss Boston Ellis. Um and this is with regards to the movement of the use of the salaries to the general fund. Um I just wondered I well I don't know. I'm just assuming
um with the with the addition of the new schools, how does that stretch this referendum? Like how is that to kind of make up for that? The I don't know. Um well, with the two new schools, um they will be charged to the general fund as
well, their art, media. No, no, I understand that. But now we have four schools, so everything is between each school. I guess it's spread a little bit more thin. Correct. Yes. If you're talking about fixed costs, yes, our fixed costs have gone up
since we've added two new schools, right? But overall, even spreading this referendum money through that too, correct? Okay. So, I didn't know if that was why the movement of the of you know what I mean, just putting it in another category. Is that Yeah, that was a decision of the board u
before we started um the budget process for 2425. They wanted all of the uh teachers moved to the general fund and so that um my understanding um so
that we had for the most part other than vocational we would have the fine arts, the music and the media in in one funding source. But that was um if I could say a directive by our board. Okay. they felt like that would be more
important. Um but the the new schools uh while you know theoretically you're just taking some kids from uh one one school and moving them to another it's not it didn't quite work out like
that but the additional cost that you have or what we call fixed cost another principal another AP and the office staff. Uh but um we were talking about how really good the schools look and uh
we think that once we get through these two schools and do the high schools and we can look at what else we need to do and a lot of that is winks. We have the um the middle school lake rear middle
replacement school that's coming up as well. So there's there's a lot of uh work to be done. Uh but again, the referendum provides the support that is needed to all of these programs to keep them going. But we've got two years, so
next year we'll be talking about how to renew it again. Yes. With the help of the community. Thank you. Any more questions? All right. Great. Um, I think I failed to put the next meeting on here. Um, if
I'm not mistaken, it would be October 23rd. Oh, is it on 16th? Okay. All right. So, next meeting is October 16th. Same time, same place, everything. And um, any other matters before the
board? Any other questions? No, I think they're doing good. All right. Um, all right. With that, um, I don't even know how Robert's rules of orders work on adjournment, but with that, I think we're adjourned. Thank you.