a very happy New Year to you all and the people at home. Buenos dias. My name is Grace Rivera-Oven and I'm the president of the Board of Education representing district one. I want to welcome all of you to the first work session of the superintendent's recommended Fiscal Year 2027
operating budget. And I will begin by asking my fellow board members to please introduce themselves. Am I right? Good morning. Laura Stewart from district four. Happy new year. Julie Yang, district three. Good morning. Happy new year.
Brenda Wolff, district five. Good morning. Anita malu, student member of the board. Thank you so much. So today's. I'm sorry. Oh, that's right, I forgot. Hey, ladies. Happy new year. Go ahead. Rita. And then
Natalie. Good morning, Rita montoya at large. And my apologies for not being there today. I am home with the flu, so we'll be only joining things virtually all week. Okie dokie. Okay, here we go again. Today's
work session is the first opportunity for the superintendent to share with us the detailed information. And what is he recommended for FY 2027 operating budget, and for the board to ask questions and also provide feedback. The
board will hold public hearings in January 15th, so get your pens out at home. January 15th and January 27th at 6 p.m. here in the boardroom. Information regarding the schedule and sign ups for these hearings are
available on our board's website. On January 20th and January 29th, the board will hold two additional work sessions to receive additional information from administration and to consider the feedback from public hearings and
responses to board member information requests. Then we move into February. At its February 19th our business meeting, the board will take action to approve the superintendent's recommended
fiscal year for 2027, and that will be our final adoption of FY 27 operating budget at that time. Then we will take place. The operating budget will take place June 25th, and that will
be done at our board business. Okay. Well with that, we have a lot of exciting stuff to cover. I'm going to turn this over to Doctor Taylor. Well, nothing says excitement like the budget. And today we are narrowly
focusing in on two topics for the board's review and consideration today. The first is revenue and the second is our non-discretionary expenditures. And we've actually pulled out one really big topic, which is staffing. And we're saving that for its
own work session because it's a very large and meaty topic. Without further ado, it's my pleasure to reintroduce you to someone who should look familiar to the board. Shannon Foote, who is the director of
budget for the School System and formerly of the board office, and this is her first budget as our budget director. And joining her today is my chief of staff and Essie McGuire. So we'll kick it to
them to lead off today's conversation of revenues reductions and nondiscretionary expenses. Thank you, Doctor Taylor, and good morning, board members. We want to start with a brief reminder that we are
still eating vegetables in this budget. It is a salad budget, so we have a few elements to our recipe. As folks may remember from Doctor Taylor's presentation, but we are still eating vegetables and that continues to be the theme as we focus on our fundamentals. And
this year, we are really looking in this budget to take those those fundamental principles that we initiated last year with the current year budget and enhance them by really working towards accountability for our high expectations. We will continue
to work to diversify while we support team M.C.P.S. as we recruit and retain the best employees. As we know, the only the best work here at M.C.P.S. we are going to be structuring our supports for schools and
and all the elements of the budget will align with the strategic plan. You will see that as a very consistent theme through today's presentation and the subsequent presentations. We really are working to align with the strategic plan that the board adopted earlier this year, and a huge part of that. Of course,
we want to be focused on instruction, instruction, instruction, leading us into our academic return on investment. We know that is the core of our mission. It is the core of of all of our efforts and what we work towards. And we will, of course, continue to be closing those equity gaps.
So we're really, again, taking that next step with our fundamentals, continuing to lay that foundational groundwork with the 27 recommendation, as we initiated with with the board's action on the FY 26 budget, and we're sticking with
our bold commitments of bringing all of our schools up to the four or more stars with of the Maryland report card and making good progress there. Our schools are making great progress. And of course,
continuing to work towards ensuring that every student exits our system ready to take on what they need to take on in the next stages of their lives. So with that overview, we will jump into the key elements of
the budget and begin with revenues. Revenues are, of course, the foundation of our our budget that we put forward. What you see here is our summary of revenues and the change from year to year. It shows that the overall total
increase in the budget is 179.7 million over the FY 26. You'll also notice a couple of highlights one, you see a red number next to federal revenues. That's an $8.6 million
reduction in what we anticipate receiving from the federal government. I also would point out that the state numbers relatively flat. We're projecting about 5.6 of an increase there. Of course, we will know more shortly in the next few weeks about what is actually going to happen in the
state. But given the uncertainty and unpredictability at the state level, as well as at other levels, we wanted to begin with a cautious assumption and that we will reflect any changes that we learn of through the board's process. So our overall
increase that we are requesting or recommending is 5% compared to to last year to the current year's budget. And we would just point out that while these numbers are big because the system is big, it is significantly lower, over 100
million less than the increase we requested last year. So we really are working to be tempered and constrained to reflect the uncertainty in the economic conditions that we know we are experiencing locally, state level and
nationally. This just shows a little bit pictorially some of the charts. We've been looking at. The bulk of our funding does come from local resources, our county government and the county funding that is assumed in the FY 27 request at this
time is about 66.7%. It's not far off of the 2011 proportion of 67.3, and it's the same proportion as last year. Now again, revenues. As you saw, we had a decrease in the fed federal revenue. We're still
waiting on the state. So this reflects the assumptions in the budget. And of course again revenues will always have to true up to our actual experience. Are there any questions on revenues before we move forward? I have one. Sorry.
No, this will be a good time for us to actually have questions asked if you have any. If not, it's okay, you can hold it. But I know that Vice President Wolff has a question. Yeah, we know that the county funds the majority of our our
our budget, but I noticed that there's a fairly large amount, 8.6 million from the federal government. How are we going to ensure that our underserved students still have equitable, equitable access to programing if we take that much of a
reduction from the federal government? So that's a really important question, because it is a challenge that we are facing in this budget. And one thing that you will see at various points in this presentation and subsequent presentations are areas where
we are asking to shift some of those to the local budget to be sure that we can continue to support them. Some of the federal programs have rules where we where we have to be cautious about that. And some of them we are able to to support. So we'll we'll look at
that holistically as well as individually to each funding source. So just very briefly, the federal government funds on a very different cycle than how our county and state fund our fiscal year begins in July 1st. The federal fiscal year begins
in January 1st. So the good news is in in one regard, we have a heads up a little bit further in advance. But the bad news is, is that we are often times find ourselves six months in arrears when they make a change at the federal level.
That negatively impacts us. A lot of the change in federal revenue for this particular year is actually not as directly tied to policy, as much as it is tied to changes in enrollment. So as our enrollment has gone down in a
number of these critical areas, it's been reflected in in the federal expenditure that that we're anticipating for the next year. I will say this to couple, along with what miss McGuire had just mentioned, about
moving a handful of things from the federal expenditure to local. You're going to see that as a common theme throughout, because I do see that this is a little bit of a troubling sign of what's to come with this federal administration in
particular, and changes to the Education department in particular. We know that that certain things that even though Congress has, has allocated and and has voted to approve somehow get lost in the shuffle
with this executive branch. So we are trying to take some proactive steps this year in moving some of those federal things from from title funds to local, and you'll see that reflected in a couple of places.
Thank you. Miss. Miss. Yes. Just to follow up on that. So one request is as we go through the work session, I appreciate you mention it. If it's specific funds that have been moved from federal assumptions
to local based budget, I would like to know that. And second question is. How we still keeping a good portion of in the federal funding right here.
So I want to understand how quickly can we, you know, adjust our staffing or services if if that funding does not come through, what is the resilience level of this budget?
It's $99 million of lack of resilience. So you know there are some things that Congress has allocated to to states as flow through to school systems.
And and those entitlements are tied to congressional acts, for sure. But whether or not the the administration releases those funds from the Treasury, you know, it is a it is an area that has great concern for us,
and it would be in our best interest to take a look at not just things this year, but for the next several years to insulate us from from some of the potential harm. But we can't make $100 million correction easily anywhere
without making a reduction to personnel that are funded by by federal dollars or to services that are provided by federal dollars. So Miss Wolf's very real concern is a valid one, and one that we need to
continue to monitor. And candidly, if they make a change that impacts the following fiscal year, we may be on the hook for for six months worth of being able to respond to things in, in, in the middle of
a year versus at the end of a year like we would normally do. Thank you. Does Miss Montoya have a question I cannot see? No. I have a quick just a quick follow up, following up with
Mrs. Yang's question about where we have to make up some of the funds. Could you also do the blueprint, which. Yes. And actually so we will take a deeper dive into blueprint in our next work session with the
board and be able to go through those pieces a little more carefully, and we can those will be highlighted next time. Okay. Thank you, miss McGuire. All right. With that, let's move on. Thank you. So we'll move now to talk about changes
to the base. We always start, of course, with a scrub of our base budget to really ensure that we are operating at the level of efficiency that we that we strive for. Doctor
Taylor has has instituted a zero based budgeting approach, where each year, each office is expected to really take that hard look at what would what would we need to do to build this budget up from zero, which is sort of what zero based
budgeting loosely refers to, and that helps us really analyze our expenditures to say, what is it that we can do without? We also knew this year that we, with a declining enrollment, needed to really be cautious about our resources
and about our resource allocation and to ensure that central offices are, again, operating as efficiently as possible. In total, we were able to see a reduction of $11.5 million to central services and 50 positions
reduced. So again, what we've really been working for, these reductions that I just referenced do reflect central services and not direct school staffing. When we talk about school changes related to enrollment, that will be in a subsequent section. Part of what the reductions came from
was a reduction in the number of cross-functional teams from 13 to 12, which really aligns with our six region model. And and also again reflects our enrollment experience. And so we feel good about that restructuring. We also again
centrally took a deep look at combining and reducing positions to really focus on priority system priority functions, as well as to realign where necessary and where possible. So when we talk about the cross-functional teams, there is a reduction of
19 positions related to the cross-functional teams. They're listed here. And again, it reflects sort of that team structure as well as proportional changes related to enrollment. And I can't emphasize that enough. That is the theme that you'll be hearing as we go through all of
these reductions, both here and at school levels. When we're looking at a large reduction in in enrollment, there is a corresponding proportional reduction in personnel that that makes sense. We also, as I said, went through and this
slide and the next really highlight the positions in each area that we were able to to see as a as a savings. Some of it again is very tied to enrollment, particularly the teaching and learning positions
relate to enrollment decreases as well as some changes required by the state. And then again, human resources. We were able to see some some savings there and realign some positions to help us focus on
the structure of work in that area. So in total, we saw a total of 50. As I mentioned earlier, positions reduced from central services. 19 of those associated with cross-functional teams and 31 associated with reductions by
area. So that's a summary of the changes to the base budget. And we can move on to the non-discretionary connected, happy to keep moving. If
anybody has any questions I'm going to start with Miss Stewart. First of all, I'm sorry, I was I'm going to say that again. I was not on the mic, miss Stewart thank you. So looking at the 19 positions,
ten of those are people personnel, workers. I see some signs over there. I'm sorry, I can't read all of them because we're very small writing. So later we'll I'll find out what the signs exactly say. But I'd
like to know how these align with the cross-functional teams versus enrollment decrease. Can we dig into the peep? Yep. Absolutely. So this is a position that when we were first bringing forward the
cross-functional teams, this is a position where each team has a significant number a large number I think they range from 3 to 5. And so reducing one of the teams does reduce a number of people for associated with
the reduction of a team. And then again we are seeing a very significant enrollment decrease. This will be on a subsequent slide. But we are projecting a 5000 student decrease from the FY 26 budgeted projections to
the FY 27 budgeted projections. And so again, we had multiple people on each team and the reduction in enrollment. It's a proportionate reduction relative to, again, the reduction in students across the district and across all
levels. So it was both the the the factor of eliminating a team. And then again, there are some areas including the as as you're highlighting where the reduction enrollment again leads us to a reduction in staffing. Thank you for that
answer. I'd like to know if there's services being provided, how we can continue to provide those services. And absolutely. And we can bring it back more detail. But I would just highlight that each cross-functional team will still have multiple people. So
no team will be reduced to, you know, one or certainly none. So there will still be multiple on each team because this is we are fortunate to have a large number of people in our in our system. And again, this is this is an approach in this moment.
Thank you. Yes. Thank you. One of the things it's a request but not for today is I understand the cross-functional teams was a new way. We are supporting schools starting
last year and and in future Doctor Edison is here. I want to understand that. How are we evaluating its effectiveness that to know that it is a better way to support our schools and and so that is not
for the budget purposes, but for this year's evaluation purposes. Yeah. Loosely, I'll say that a lot of it is tied to performance indicators. And probably the hardest one to pin
down are probably the director who supervises the principal and the professional learning specialist. Although the professional learning specialist has a role in supporting some of the other areas. But ML performance within the area of supervision
is part of that evaluation. Literacy and math performance for the specialists that supervise those areas. Definitely a part of that special education compliance as well as special education academic performance is a part of that. And of course, critical incidents for the
security members. So percent staffing for the staffing coordinator, those are all metrics that are driving whether or not there there has been a successful team or not. I appreciate the overview, and I think as a system, we really need to get used to that.
Whenever we have a new initiative, we need to get on a regular continuous evaluation and to see whether it's working and where area of refinements that we can do. Right. So, so definitely interested to see
this as an ongoing evaluation. First year, third year. You know, as we move forward now for for the budget purposes, I have a question about the reduction in the human
resources and talent management area. It says FTE ten. And in the notes area it says reduction of one. Director, just help me understand that line item. Yes. So there is one director that had been added to
the budget wasn't filled. And we are again going to take that as one efficiency. So that's one of the ten. Some of the other positions there are related to a change in the structure, structure and number of of the staffing complement
in Hrtm. And so did you. Yeah. I'll just I'll just add that this is one half of the equation. The other half of the equation is in the non-discretionary expenditures and discretionary expenditures, where they may be adding back some of those positions. And so
and so it is it's a combination of it. So that one director is for sure a savings with this other reduction. It is a combination of a reduction of number but also a restructuring. So we are adding back some positions that will focus more on the the transaction and
system work of the, of the staffing work to really help focus on that and help bring that should help speed up some of our processing and really help move that work more smoothly and allow people to focus on different aspects of the work. I see that there is a
reduction for Pugh. Mr. just mentioned that line item. Are they and is there any reduction for our parent community coordinators? They have a new names now it's family engagement specialist. Yes, there is the family engagement
specialist. And that is an area that we will talk about more related to the school staffing and staffing standards, which will come forward later. But yes, there is a reduction in the family engagement specialist as well and a change in the allocation patterns to
schools. Okay. Thank you, Miss Wolff. I, I'm listening to the reductions and the thing that always concerns me through all of them is the people that are left behind to pick up the work. You know, we go through this
every year because is the question Julie just asked about the family engagement specialist. You know, I was with them recently, and I have to tell you the incredible amount of work they do. I'm very concerned about any
reductions. In fact, they seemed so overworked, if I could use that term loosely. And I know you hate for me to use that, that I wanted to go and visit and do a day walk through with them. So it's very
concerning the people that are left behind. You expect them to do their job. Plus, I mean, I see here where you're talking about, you know, reductions in the number of students, reductions in this and that.
But I just want you to be very cautious that the people that are left behind are not overworked. And we absolutely are sensitive to that. And I think you've got evidence of that here today with very dedicated folks that are, that
are here to communicate their thinking on this as well. So thank you for being here today. Folks in our audience. I think that that in a perfect world, we would present a budget that did not have any reductions. And and truthfully, it would be
our objective to do that every year, that we would find ways to to find the right, perfect mix of how we can leverage the resources that we have. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world. We are very resource constrained and that
we do have to evaluate everything from a holistic view as well as down to the granular level. And I think that you're exposing a really critical weakness of ours as a system, and something that we have an opportunity to fix in the next
several years, because it will take several years for us to address. This is what are the appropriate workloads and appropriate staffing guidelines that would drive staffing every single position in the district, and that includes central
office positions. That includes, you know, clerical and paraprofessional positions, bus drivers, classroom teachers, administrators. Because right now, to be very candid, it's it's very loosey goosey. And it's not it's not set in stone
as to the rationale that drives how we staff our positions, a lot of our staffing decisions were made based on an available pot of money at the time that they were created, not necessarily based on a metric that that's driving that work.
And so I think that the experience that you are hearing from our very dedicated workforce and our very dedicated team is a very real experience in terms of their workload. And I think that that will help inform us in the
future in terms of like, what is that right balance and what does make the most sense and what and how do we counterbalance that with the fiscal responsibility of trying to create a balanced budget too? Well, I want to thank you for that, because we go through
this every year thinking about the burden that's left on the the employees that remain. And it's never clear to me how we decided that. So I'd be very interested in in having that discussion. I'm going to ask my question now, and then I'll go
to you, miss, Miss Yang. So I would like to echo a few things as well. Not not to be repetitive, but and I'll focus a little bit on the family engagement specialist, since I
have known that position from day one when Doctor Vance was actually superintendent. So this is going much before you 30, I think. I think even before Mrs. Zimmerman, to be quite honest, 30 some years. So
I'm just going to do a little, you know, just so people understand why this position was created. The first original family engagement specialist was the wonderful Teresa Wright, and that was at a time when we
had such a great need to ensure that our parents were connected to our school system and how the school system worked and ticked, and that they felt welcomed you. Many of you know,
I'm originally an ESL student, I'm an immigrant, and the first one in my family to be able to graduate and go on to college and so on. So navigating the system in the early 80s was not an easy thing. And as a
population grew with more immigration from from Laos and Vietnam and Central America, mainly in this area, there was a huge need to ensure that we were connecting with our families. It was not just connecting, it was building
trust with our families, which takes years to do. And I can tell you from my background and my work and my current background, trust, especially today, is not an easy thing to do. There's many factors where
our families are feeling under siege, and that they are feeling fearful of even applying for farms when they can, when they're qualified. So for me, a family engagement specialist is a lifeline
between the community that we serve and our students and our teachers and our principals. So although I totally understand that we are in very hardship times of budgeting and that,
you know, we should cut across the board, I am very leery about cutting certain positions that we have built on for decades to ensure that we have that trust of the community, and there are certain areas in this county where the families
are feeling that distrust and fear. So I really, really would like to have a broader conversation. As Miss Yang said, about the effectiveness, about the workload. We have more
mckinney-vento students than we have had ever in the last decade. These are students that need a special focus, a special concern, special love, special TLC. We have more students with special education needs. We
have more special education needs who are ML more than ever. So family engagement specialists are very vital in those roles to support all the infrastructure of our school
system. It's kind of like the oxygen in the blood, in my opinion. So I just, you know, would like us to just I'm interested to know what is the workload for PA, what is the workload for a counselor, what is the workload for a forum?
You know, for a family specialist, right. And I hope that we get to do that for the sake of ensuring that we keep that communication line open for our students and our parents. As much as I know
these are tough times, there's just certain positions that we need to be very careful about cutting because honestly, I can tell you, the folks that I work with, with family engagement specialists and my other hat during my full time day are a
lifeline for these families to be able to get services from rental assistance to Snap, to emergency cash assistance, and so many other things that our family are hurting day to day. So with that, if anybody I'm going to go to Miss Yang and
then I'm going to go to Miss Stewart, right. To be additive, not repetitive. I urge the system, when you look at staff reduction, we serve a very diverse community, staff members that not only know the
school system, but have ties to our community and also have the language abilities. That's talent that's hard to come by. So during this process, I want us to be very mindful of how we
approach it so that we retain the talent that that can best serve our population. And my question is related to me taking a picture of the signs.
I was able to read one of them. And so it brought up a question before we move on, one of the signs from our PP says that Pbp's are school based. So how is this a central office
efficiency? And so before the cross-functional teams, I was under the impression that Pbps were school based. So I guess could you explain that? Certainly. And so I can see that we do have individuals who are budgeted centrally, but who
work in schools, and I think the PBP are in that category. Social workers are in that, well, social workers actually, I'm sorry, are are in the schools. So but the reference here is the cross-functional teams are budgeted centrally because they are not assigned, for example, to an individual
principal and an individual school site. So that is that is the key difference here. And and so certainly PBP is work in schools. Everyone on the cross-functional teams works in schools. And their job description actually specifies that they need to be out in
schools. So being a central office position does not always mean that you work, you know, in the administration, for example, bus drivers are actually central because they don't they don't again, aren't assigned to an individual school. So it is a budget
reference, but it does also reference who is assigned that. When we look at school based staffing, we're talking about the people who are assigned to a school or sometimes multiple schools, but specifically on those school personnel assignments. Thank you for that
clarification. I do think maybe we're probably going to come back to this in another work session. So to explain the the duties between our different positions, for instance, the
blueprint has community school coordinators and different schools, and then we have PWS, then we have the family engagement specialists. And I think maybe there's even there's social workers and other positions, therapeutic counselors. And so there are a
number of support positions. Right. So if somehow I think would help us as a board to understand the duties of a quick synopsis, synopsis of each of those positions, duties.
Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I will move on to the non-discretionary portion of the budget. And this this is a large section, but it will conclude our our presentation. We again are grouping the
budget into areas of non-discretionary, meaning things that we have to do by law, by policy, by virtue of keeping the lights on, like paying our utility bills. So we will just cover some of these, a couple of these areas in broad strokes. And then miss Patty will walk through some of
the details. First. When we talk about non-discretionary, we have to talk about compensation and benefits because we are a system of people. Everything we do, as we've been discussing is, is people doing it. And we rely very heavily on all of our
staff to to again carry out the mission. Nearly 90% of our budget supports our staff and of the requested increase that we are asking for in FY 27, 78% of that relates directly to to
salary and benefits. Compensation. We are in the second year of a negotiated two year contract. So the second year looks a lot like the first year, and 189 million is required for the salary and step increases. We would point
out that these again, this is the second year and the negotiated agreements are very much in line with our county government colleagues working to stay sort of again in that in that ballpark, when it comes to lapse and turnover, this is
the amount that we assume for savings related to the time that positions are vacant. We know that not we are not fully 100% staffed across the system every minute of every day. And so we do need to assume a percent of savings. Our budget assumes 70 million in savings.
That's not a change for FY from FY 26. And in fact, that savings assumption is higher than we would like. It is something that in coming years, we want to work to align it more carefully with actuals. But in order to do that, we need to add money to the budget
going forward over the coming years. So it's something that we watch very carefully. It's something that we will manage to, but just want to highlight that this is something we want to address in future year budgets. Benefits, of course,
is a significant and ongoing concern and important expenditure of the system. The budget recommends 40 million as a contribution to stabilize the employee benefits plan as. As the board is unfortunately
aware, we do continue to struggle with the health of that plan. We are continuing to work in partnership with our associations, who, of course, came to the table last year and continue in this dialog with us. We are all in this together,
and there's a long standing assumption. This goes back many, many years where the county contributes a portion of the Opeb trust, which is other post-employment benefits. It's a future accounting trust so that we can have that support
for our ongoing retiree health benefits. Even with all of that said, this is a conversation that again, we'll need to continue with our county partners and we'll need to continue to invest in in coming years as well. When we talk about the pension, we do have
sort of a good news, bad news, interesting phenomenon with the pension shift from the state pension shift. This is the shift of the state pension costs that the state previously had paid, that the state is now assigning to local, local,
local education agencies and governments. We still have what I will refer to as the old state pension shift that's still in our base budget. In the last year, the state also shifted an additional portion of the budget of sorry, of the pension shift to locals, and we
had put that in the M.C.P.S. budget because that's what people were assuming. But the state actually would like that to come from local government. So you do see this shift of 20 million. And it relates again to this, to this dynamic with with the state requirement. Summing all of that up, what
you see is that with the pluses and the minuses, we have a total increase to the budget of salary and benefits, net of nearly $140 million. All right. Before you move on, miss
McGuire, I'm going to take this moment to chime in. This number should be much, much higher. And I'll tell you why, not necessarily at the general wage and benefit increase, because those are negotiated dollars with our associations. But to
actually fix the benefits fund repair, we could have easily added $100 million to the $40 million listed here today to set us on a path to correct this issue. It's significant. Something else to be very
mindful of are two negative numbers. The 70 million in lapse and turnover, very realistically should be 35 million, not 70 million. We could have cut that in half, which would have added an additional 35 million to this number, which would have
effectively doubled the dollar figure that you see right here, just on those two items. But to make matters worse, I would even make it even more significant than that because the pension shift that goes from our books to the county books, that money has to come
from somewhere. And that money does come from our county coffers, which is also funding two thirds of our budget. And so that is even a more significant dollar figure. So realistically, this could be
upwards of $300 million just on setting salary and benefits straight without any of the other considerations in this budget. And this is really the lowest figure that we possibly could derive. And and candidly
not recommended. It's we're putting it forward in this budget to to stay as fiscally responsible in tough economic times. But this is not the path forward to a healthy financial standing for the school system.
Those issues are not going away. They do need to be corrected, and it's not going to be corrected anytime soon. If we continue to operate at this snail's pace. Thank you. Jump
into another Nondiscretionary. This is a very large portion of our budget, of course, relates to our enrollment experience. And as I've as has been mentioned, and I know folks are aware, again, we are in an in an environment of declining
enrollment. And so I want to just walk through a little bit of the puts and takes. Related to that, if we took our existing staffing guidelines and applied the enrollment numbers to them in broad strokes, we would reduce 518
FTE and $50 million. What we also know we want to do is be judicious with our valuable staff, resources and dollar resources at the same time. And we know that the that we want to retain a lot of those staff
and at the same time make positive improvement towards both class size and other school based staffing standards. And so we take that negative, and we are recommending that we put back 420 million, I'm sorry,
420 FTE and 34 million in in in again retaining and not cutting those staff in order to be able to again make that positive improvement in class size and school based staffing standards
without having to actually increase our budget request. It's a little bit of a of an opportunity to again, be able to make that progress and sort of lemon lemonade out of lemons of declining enrollment. The net FY 27 budget impact of
doing that is still a reduction of 97.5 FTE and $15.5 million. So there is still a savings in this budget related directly to school based staffing related to enrollment. But again,
working to really leverage the positive staffing experience that we can have. What you will see, too, is that the reductions in those positions are proportionate adjustments in school based positions that reflect the enrollment patterns
across the levels. And so here we've broken out those net reductions by level and by special education. And what you see is again, the reflection across the three general education general education levels that reflect the 5000
fewer students that were experiencing from a budget perspective. But you also see a significant increase in special education positions, because what we are seeing, even within that declining enrollment, is an increase both in the number of special education students
and significantly in the complexity of the needs, which often, again, has a staffing increase that may not, you know, equate to a 1 to 1 numbers increase because of the complexity of the needs. So wanted to just kind of give a
little bit more of a breakout behind those enrollment, those big, big ticket enrollment numbers so that you could see again how the levels and services mirror that experience. Two just really quick, other
enrollment based changes relate to we do have positions in to begin that planning and support work for the opening of Crown and Woodward high schools in 28. We do need some of those positions to come on the year before the schools open to help prepare and get ready for that,
and this is one of the places where we see grant changes. As we discussed earlier, the grant changes do relate also to enrollment decreases because, again, as Doctor Taylor highlighted, some of some of our federal funds are directly
tied to enrollment. And as those numbers go down, so do the grants. Okay. So we're going to have a little break here to see if any of you have any questions. I will swallow my right, Miss Yang. Oh thank you I have questions about the
enrollment decline. So we project we are projecting continual enrollment decline 5000 a little bit over 5000 students. How confident are we in these projections and how
quickly staffing and services can be adjusted if enrollment trends change again? So we unfortunately are very confident in this. If anything, this might be a conservative
number. Keep in mind that this is reflective of a change in what was budgeted from the previous year to what is projected. So it's projection to projection. Our actuals came in much lower than our projected number. And so even
though the year over year change might be less than this, the budgeted amount that we had planned on for fiscal 25, for fiscal 26, and now for fiscal 27, this is reflective of that
change. So unfortunately, we think that there is the potential that this actually could be more significant, not less significant. And in terms of modifications and adjustments, it depends on how significant that swing is. We
think that in collaboration with planning that we're right at the right range. But but every year we have surprises. An extra kindergarten classroom, two fewer kindergarten classrooms, an extra third grade classroom that we have to
adjust for in the fall with shifts in enrollments. Very seriously, Montgomery County is growing in several areas, and we need to be sensitive to the fact that we are both growing and declining simultaneously, and that both things can be
true in different pockets of the community at different times. Overall, the net is down, but there are communities that are seeing growth and that we have to be sensitive to that as well. So to follow right back
at that. Now, this is the major staffing standard review for 20 plus years that we have, and I support because it has been, in my view, long overdue that go back to my theme that if we are
going to implement something new, what outcomes will we use to evaluate whether this is, you know, a working class size, services, student outcomes. So it's not a conversation for today, but I would like to see
it if we have this implemented, that we have a regular ongoing conversation about its effectiveness. Thank you. Thanks, Miss Yang. I'm going to go to Miss Montoya. Thank you. I have a question. That's kind
of a big question. Big picture question, because each year we have proposed reductions in some fashion or another for a variety of reasons, which make sense. But then at the end of each year, we also ultimately
come back and say, well, we had this much money left over because we didn't actually spend as much as we needed here or there or there, and it ends up adding up to tens of millions of dollars. And so I'm just wondering, and this is not to minimize the efforts of the folks making these projections,
because I know they're you know, it's a projection. It's unpredictable by its nature. But is there a way to somehow tighten that up in such that maybe we don't need to make so many reductions in spaces? Or maybe just operationally, that wouldn't be sound either. Can
you just please, I don't know, explain that a little bit. It is an excellent question. And when you're dealing with a budget this big, even small amounts of money can add up to be big amounts of money currently. And what Miss
Montoya is talking about is our annual fund balance. Our fund balance is less than 1%. At the end of the year. Our target fund balance should be a percent and a half. To be more fiscally stable than we are
right now. And the reason for that is we also need to have cash flows to pay our bills in a timely manner, to make sure that we make payroll. So a 1.5% adjustment could swing hard
multiple ways. And it is important for us to be sensitive to that. We do financial monitoring every month and the board receives a report. You may recall last year we were projecting a negative in our financial monitoring. And and it really
forced us to to go back and look, we should never be projecting a negative. But to Miss Montoya's point, we may budget $500 for an item or $5,000 for an item, and the cost of the item is $4,950. And
what do you do with those those $50 savings? A lot of that does end up as part of our laps and turnover as part of that, you know, kind of anticipated overage expense. And I would say that we we are dangerously
close to cutting it too close as we are right now. A better target for us would be to be about at a finish with a fund balance for at about a percent and a half, not less than 1%, which is where we are right now,
which is less than 1%. That that is the board's money. The the board does end up with those funds that that can be expended and with authorization from county council, could go to capital projects, could go
to a whole host of other things, not necessarily extra, but it is really hard to gauge a year in advance as you're creating your financial spending plan, what the actual dollars are going to come in at. To be
specific, one of the internal controls that we put in this past year was we prevented overspending in sub accounts, meaning that you you needed authorization to do that, that that actually was not a financial practice that we had
before. But the reality is, is that this routinely happens because there are tens of thousands of subaccounts within our, our school system, and that some things you may budget for $5,000, but it really comes
in at $5010 or $5100. And and so you do have to have some allowances for some of those adjustments. We have unfortunately cut it really close for a really long period of time. And we're probably as
tightly budgeted as we probably can be. If anything, my my best advice to the board is to look for opportunities to to increase your laps and turnover and increase your fund balance, not go the other direction. Okay, so technically,
technically we could, but that wouldn't necessarily be the best choice because we need that bit of cushion to, like you said, pay bills. Sometimes we're waiting for a grant maybe to come in. And actually we would want our fund balance to be larger than it even is right
now. Right. Well, I think that this is a particularly good looking board. And I got to tell you, none of us would look good in orange jumpsuits. And we are prohibited from overspending. And the danger that this this brings into to
play is that we could we could overspend without intending to. And and we're cutting it so close that that I that is a routine concern that we would want to be ever mindful of. And that's why we have to do the financial monitoring because it
is so close. Thank you, Miss Stewart. I just wanted to know back to vegetables 19. The page 19. We mentioned that we aren't
probably going far enough here. And so what is the risk of not going far enough or the risk if we don't adopt these vegetables, so to speak? That is a fantastic question. My
obligation to this board is to present a needs based budget, not a wants based budget. This is reflective of the bare minimum needs. So going below this funding level you have a couple of challenges. One is exactly what Miss Montoya just
brought up, which is that you could be in a position where even though you're following your budgeted spending plan, you could potentially overspend, which which is illegal. And we don't ever want to make recommendations that could
position the board to do something illegal. So that's one concern. The next concern is that we could default on our benefits fund, and we are self-insured. And so we would not be able to pay our our
bills with our self-insurance. And as a consequence of that, we would not be solvent and we would not be able to offer employee health benefits. That is a very real possibility. Okay. The the last one is in the general wage and benefits
line, where we have a negotiated agreement with our associations. And just like as a law is written, you know, we are compelled to to fulfill our
contractual agreements and or otherwise be in breach of those contractual agreements and then have to to go back and revisit those contractual agreements. And there might be consequences that, that come with that. So I think that these numbers
represent a very realistic look of where we are financially and what would get us by to live another day, not necessarily what would position us well to, to thrive in the next several years. Understood. I think it's
important that the public understands that as well, and that we we have more work to do. And so it's hard to kind of eat those vegetables. But thank you for explaining it so well. Okay.
One last question. Yeah. Let's stay here. Thank you. Let's stay here for a bit, Doctor Taylor, just for all of us to understand exactly. Let's stay with the benefit and the lessened turnover. What is the current size of our benefit
plan deficit in your long range planning? How many years are you. You know, it's realistic timeline for returning the plan to the structure. You know balance. At this rate it will take us a lot longer than than
just a couple of years, is what we were initially projecting. Right now, we're at about $160 million in terms of the whole. And it's going to take a lot of different things, not just us filling the hole with budgeted
amounts, but we may have to go back and revisit how that plan is constructed and the type of benefits that we offer and what the employer rate is, and the employee rate, which would have to be negotiated with our our associations as well.
Realistically, at this rate, I don't know that we will ever fill it. Okay. It will take a more substantial investment to make sure that we can actually catch up and fill it, because the the size of the hole will continue to amplify as long as
we're chasing it at this lower rate. Yeah. I think it's helpful for all of us to understand this deeply. Now, also, the 70 million in lapse savings and and and and then the plan to reduce the
assumption over the next few years. So in terms of our own operation. So what do you think are the operational changes are needed. So that will realistically reduce our reliance on this without like
disrupting school functions. So candidly I think it's going to require two things. It's going to require some sort of additional revenue or a reduction somewhere else. And then the discipline for us as a school system, not to go back
to this piggy bank when times get tough. Okay. And it's that lack of discipline that has really hurt us in recent years, because this has been kind of the area that we have gone to to say, oh, don't worry, we've
got plenty of laps and turnover or we've got, oh, we've got plenty of fund balance that we should be able to to, to handle that. We've got my, my favorite thing that I love to hear and I'm being sarcastic when I say this from community members, is you telling me you can't afford
this? You've got a $3.6 billion budget? Well, the reality is not as long as we continue to double budget for things, which is exactly what laps and turnover is, is that you are accounting for the same dollar twice in your budget. And so this is almost equivalent to
how much federal funds we receive. So this is 70% of what we receive in federal funds that we are effectively double budgeting for every year. It's not very responsible. And and we would either need to come up
with additional revenue or come up with additional reductions to to reduce that. From all you said, discipline is the word we like. Thank you. We're going to move on. Miss McGuire, can we move on to non-discretionary instruction, please? All right.
So I'm going to take you a bit through some of the details here. So for non-discretionary under instruction we're seeing a $1.8 million increase for both Ela and math curriculum implementations. About 7.2
million for non position increases. These are your teacher and paraeducator substitutes. Additional class coverage. Our our contractual speech therapy services extended school year programs and graduation costs.
Additionally a $6.5 million increase for nonpublic educational placements. This is a result of an increase in tuition for non pups. For school leadership and improvement. We're seeing about
3.2 FTE or about 2.2. This is a projected revenue reduction to the title one grant. That's that is a result of expenditure decreases for professional and supporting services, part time funds being used to address
spending priorities in our schools, as well as funds realigned within the pre-K programs as a result of converting our classes from part day to full day, which we know our community is asking for to provide those additional supports for schools.
Additionally, we also have the speech pathologist, speech pathologist position salaries here, and the rotating Paraeducator coverage. Which one's speech pathologist good for teaching and learning? There are positions that are
supporting the implementation of all of our initiatives across the region and countywide academic programs. We also have additional funds here to support the Ela curriculum and the state changes to the math curriculum. This is an integrated math
being implemented in FY 28. Additional funding to support the Children's Opportunity Fund, as well as additional funds for the reconstitution of the four positions from SEIU to MC to MC, which is now a requirement for those assessments of our ML
students. There's position and non position adjustments as well in instruction, ensuring that we are aligned to central services resources to continue administering and supporting special education services both
effectively and efficiently. Projected revenue and expenditure increases to the Medical Assistance Grants that supports increased increases in our private duty nursing, as well as the salary and benefit increases associated with that.
In terms of equity and organizational development, we are realigning performance matters to where it actually sits, which is in schools. We are also doing a shift for the consulting teachers and data management positions. So this is another one of our grants to
local funds. So currently under title two our title two allocation is decreasing. So we are moving those over to the local budget. The local budget for title two is now associated under the professional growth system. And so that sits in human resources and talent
management. And that's where those are shifting to. I think this is another good place for us to stop and see if we have any questions from my colleagues. Go ahead. So
obviously slide 23 three. Could we go there. And I wanted to ask about graduation costs. That is obviously very close to home for me. And with that being said, I noticed that additional resources are going to be allocated at the district level to decrease the out of
pocket expenses at the school level related to related to high school graduations. So what types of out-of-pocket expenses do high school graduations incur, and how would that actually centrally support schools? By consolidating them. Total cost.
It's a reduction because we had separate contracts for separate schools to use separate facilities and putting everything in one contract actually created a little bit of a savings for us. This is something that is funded out of
school based materials accounts. We didn't feel like that was appropriate. We felt like the schools needed to have the money in their accounts to actually use for students and, and student activities and materials and supplies, and that if we had the expectation
that high schools were going to graduate students, that we should probably take a central role in financing that and having some quality assurance and and covered as well. One of the challenges that we've observed, and I think each of
the board members can reflect on this as well, is that there's often a variance in terms of what each high school graduation provides and, and some of the the extra things, niceties, flowers, programs. There's a there's a wide
variance. And so we wanted to make sure that cost wasn't really an issue and that there was greater equity between what the graduation ceremony output would look like, relatively speaking. Okay. Hey everybody.
I had my I actually had the same question about graduation costs. I was just trying to understand why they were located where they were. So I think you answered that. But I do want to make a point that you just made, that the
graduations are not consistent. How they appear to people, particularly at some of our special needs schools and our alternative schools. So I would like to see that fixed if you could do that. And certainly
something that we hear, because we offer a myriad of programs that we often have, parents that have children that attend different high schools, and they have a wildly different experience at one high school graduation versus another high school graduation. We feel like we can level the playing field
a lot more significantly. Good to hear I'm going to go to Miss Montoya. Thank you. I just want to elevate the comments about equity and graduation ceremonies. I appreciate those, especially by Miss Wolff, but my questions are a little bit
more focused on, for example, math or our nonpublic placements. I do have three, so I don't know if you want me to give you all three or go one by one. Why don't you just go for it? Okay? I'm wondering why we
don't have math specialists in each school. We have reading specialists in each elementary. We have a variety in cluster, the cluster teams. I know that we are including in this proposed budget. I believe some cluster math specialists, which
I think is fantastic. But I'm just wondering why we're not just going a little harder on math. The short answer is resources. The the long answer is I think that there is a desirability to to have that
expertise be effective and thus having a metric to measure that effectiveness. This will be a part of the staffing conversation at your lastk session, for sure, because this has been something that we've identified as a, as an area of,
of need, and certainly something of contemplation. In the future. I will say that different than reading specialists, there is not a a set methodology that has universally been endorsed as an
approach like science of Reading has on the literacy side, where, where there's a a strategy that's, that's, that is consistently implementable across a wide, wide and deep
scope. So, you know, there are some challenges doesn't mean don't do it, but there are definitely some challenges that are probably worth it for us to think through before we we go in that direction. But I think we do want to go in that direction, okay. Because I do get really concerned when I see
our testing scores. When I hear from families, I have my own experiences with my own children. Also, as a parent who's constantly looks at the math like, how is it that they want you to do this? So we just haven't seemed to really bridge that gap between home and
school. And so it just seems like the kids aren't necessarily getting what they need. And I know we're working through a plan and there's new standards coming down that we have to work through also. And again, I'm happy to see that we're making a start in this budget. But I just would like to, I think, see a little more
energy behind it. If it's possible. My next question has to do with nonpublic placements. I know we see that increase. And of course, if that's what the invoice says, then we have to pay it. But I'm wondering if there is or what is the review
process to determine whether that is a continuing need or is it just it gets approved, perhaps in kindergarten, and then it's just assumed year after year that that gets continued. So this is actually a little bit of a burn from
from the state House. This is reflective of a change in the percentage of what the locality is supposed to cover versus what the state is supposed to cover in private placements. This is not reflective of
growth in private placements per se, outside of any kind of proportional changes that we have, the the and there are proportional changes because our our special education population is growing net across the district. So we are
sensitive to that. But this is really this big dollar figure that this is a change at the state level that is being added to us. And because it is a part of a state budget, it falls
under the non-discretionary space because we don't really have a say in whether or not we pick up the tab for this. To your point, though, we do have a say in terms of IEP meetings and meeting individual student needs as to whether or not
private placement is the appropriate placement. And I got to tell you, I think that there's some growth for us in that space as to whether or not our private placement is the right answer for for a lot of our students. But I know for a fact that it is for a lot of
our kids. So, you know, this is something I think that the board may want to hear a little bit more in depth conversation from our special education team, maybe even a separate work session topic, just on private placements and meeting the
needs of students with severe disabilities. Thank you. And yes, of course, we absolutely want all of our students to have what they need. I just do want to also make sure that if we can provide that, it's not just a basic assumption that M.c.p.s cannot provide what a student needs, because maybe,
perhaps previously prior years, prior administrations, we were not able to do so. And I think that your suggestion about having a separate work session just on this topic might be prudent. And my last question and I forget, forgive me if this is not within one of the
categories. It's a little tricky to know when to talk about a category A line on the budget or not, but we have some money in there for non m.c.p.s or outside like third party
contracts for speech, occupational therapy and physical therapy. Now I know there's a shortage across the nation for these services. It could be whether you have private insurance etc. I'm just wondering if we've explored
decreasing M.C.P.S. employee caseloads or increasing pay to try to attract folks as employees rather than contracting out. So short answer yes. Longer answer. This is, as you pointed out, Miss
Montoya, an area where there is a national shortage and it is a challenging area for us. We absolutely would like to bring folks in-house and continue to work on that. We do, though, of course, have to balance that with the need to provide the services. So that is something
that we are continuing to look at. I don't really have a great answer for you now, other than it is something that, again, we want to take a hard look at what we can do to improve it, understanding that we are also just in a market challenge. So I'm going to add one quick
piece to that. We are exploring what it might look like to make adjustments to the speech language pathologist position and contract length. That is something that we would have to go to our associations and negotiate to make a significant change. It would have a budget
implication. The the real rub here is that no matter what, we're going to provide the service the most optimal way for us to provide the service is face to face, in person, with an individual that works for M.C.P.S. We get the best outcomes with that, but when we
don't have that, we're still we haven't abdicated that responsibility to to provide that service and we have to provide that service. So this is accounting for that as well. But to your point, I, we see the impetus and it's a it's a
real call for us to, to work with our association partners to revisit this, to see what even working conditions might look like, that we could change in terms of extra responsibilities and other things that we could be
modifying to to make the speech language pathologist role a little bit more attractive so that we are fully staffed. And that's what I'm looking towards. I hear from our community, whether it's families who need these services, folks who forego them from the school system because it's just going
to take too long to get it in place. Or some of our employees themselves who are working maybe at three different schools. So every day they're basically somewhere else, which makes it really challenging for them to really show up fully for our kids. And they want to. So anything that we can do, I think to make this a more
attractive position so that our students can receive what they need and that our employees don't have caseloads that are unmanageable, I think would be always appropriate. But of course, yes, we have to contract out when we can't. Thank you. Thank you, Miss
Stewart. Okay, all my questions stem from slide 25. The second bullet point, additional funds to support Ela curriculum and the state changes in math curriculum to be implemented in FY 28. First of all, the Ela
curriculum. I'm hoping some of those funds might go towards secondary Ela. Yes, secondary specifically high school because we we rolled out middle school this past year. Additional supports for for
high school Ela curriculum. And then of course, given the changes in standards at the state level for mathematics, we would want to procure a new math curriculum this upcoming year and start doing the training and implementation
going into fiscal 28. So we will be prepared. I think that's really important. There's a lot of anxiety around the new math curriculum. So what being able to start that and engage community will be
very much appreciated. And one of the focuses of mine, besides algebra for high school, which is key, is also ninth grade literacy because I think it pivotal to success for high
school students as they get into more advanced material. So I would appreciate doing some work there. Thank you. Thank you to my colleagues. I'm just going to echo about the speech pathologists to really
encourage the system to look at making them full time, year long employees. We lose them a lot to other jurisdictions, and it is an area of huge need. So
thank you. So let's move on. Sorry. There we are. Moving on to operations. We're looking at a $10 million increase in about 16 additional FTEs to support facilities, transportation,
food services and safety. This includes $3.8 million in utilities for an increase. We continue to see increases in utilities, as well as 1.9 million to meet new fire code regulations. We're also seeing
a slight decrease in fuel, so that's accounting for $1.1 million there, 9.2 million and 38 FTE is for for all of finance, HR and technology. This is including positions and funding to support the HCM or
hub. Plus we're in year two of that now. Operations, cybersecurity Ada accommodations and are increasing Mpia workload. More
grant shifts here. We're seeing a stronger connections grant, which is a part of title four ending in June 26th. So we are we are shifting those positions over to our local budget and supporting the training and use of platforms such as Parent Square and Synergy. We've also
added positions to support cybersecurity, project management and our overall HCM system. We're seeing inflationary costs, including current telecom services, Synergy analytics, our ServiceNow ticketing system that we use to help us in supporting our inventory needs
for our Chromebooks across the district. We're adding building services positions to support our increased square footage at Lilac and Broad Acres, as well as Kensington Park Elementary
Schools. Parkwood. I'm sorry, additional funding for contractual increases for leases. This is including our new warehouse as well as additional funding again required as a result of our new fire code or the state's new fire code regulations, and still seeing inflationary costs
for utilities and food services, we are adding new positions to support more efficient food program operations. This includes reconstitution of lead positions from ten months to 12 months. This is helping ensure
that we have coverage when our students come back to school, as well as during the summer school programing. This is also supporting more efficient operations throughout. Our transportation. We are adding new bus routes, supervisor
positions effective January 27th. This is to help us plan for our revised routes. As a result of the final boundary and programmatic changes, as well as a cluster supervisor position to help us plan for the opening of Woodward and Crown High School. So these are
some of those positions that we talk about needing before school actually opens. In addition to that, bus attendant positions to continue supporting the transportation needs of our special education students. We also have positions supporting the increased needs of Mpia
requests. You might wonder what that looks like in terms of transportation. A lot of times that is going back and reviewing camera footage on busses and as you can imagine, that takes some time. Also, funding critical needs such as bus drivers, attendants,
substitutes for when our drivers or attendants call out extra extracurricular activities, as well as bus repairs, and still seeing a reduction from our anticipated lower fuel costs. In terms of
human resources positions to support labor relations, as well as our HCM, our HCM system implementation and maintenance. Our budget reflects a shift of those consulting teachers and data management positions that I talked about earlier. So that
is a grant shift moving off of title two and onto local funds, a new position to oversee Ada accommodations for staff, as well as increased funds to address the increased need for sign language interpretation,
accommodations and ensuring that we are compliant. Across finance. You're seeing positions to support payroll operations, including customer service support, finance training for school based and central services staff, making
sure that we are efficient and timely in terms of processing staff reimbursements and vendor payments, as well as support for financial staff across all of our school levels. And communications and community engagement. We are realigning
with that six region model increase here and family engagement special specialist positions to provide support for parents, students and community. This increase in positions allows for team members that are fluent in our main languages across our
school communities. This is really ensuring that we are aligning staff to the offices where the work is being done. Out of finally, a position to support the increased request for Mpia. So you've heard me say that quite a few times now.
Mpia requests from FY 23 were 334 and an FY 25. They were 534. So not only is it a huge increase, but the level of the request that we're getting, meaning the detail, the time that's being spent to respond
to those requests has also increased significantly for legal services looking to support our reduction in relying on outside legal counsel, as well as supporting the increase again, in those
mpia requests, we're looking to increase by two FTE, which should reduce our need to rely as much on outside legal counsel. And in addition to that, there are funds for staff to complete their continued legal education requirements,
as required by the Maryland State Bar, and to remain current with case law and and legislation for K-12 schools. This is a great question. This is a great place to to stop.
And what I would say, as you're using your budget decoder ring here, is to match up reductions that we had fromhe base to increases that are aligned to some of our departments. And a
good example here is we're at the legal services slide. We showed actually a reduction in a supervisor position for legal services in the base budget. But looking ahead, we're realigning a lot of those services through an ad. So it's
actually a net change of one position, not a net change of two positions. So one of the things that we're striving to do with a lot of our budget documents is to show our work. We've heard that from our community of a number of times that they want us to show our
work. And so it looks a little messy because we have to show the credits and the debits. But it is really both of those two things together that paints the clearer picture, so that that our community can see what we're taking away and what we're adding and where we end
up and, and the end result is really what our goal is, is to create a more complete picture of where we are financially, not just not just one, one viewpoint. And to show you a net number and say, here's our net number, we really want to
show you both sides of that, okay. Thank you, Doctor Taylor. Miss Stewart, I'd like to. Highlight some of the ads. So on slide 32, busted bus
attendant positions to support the transportation needs of special education students. Is that an actual ad or just a transfer? It is actually an actual ad because even though we are declining enrollment, we are adding special education
students. So consequently, there's a proportional ad to account for that. I'm certain that Mr. Lewis in the Division of Transportation Services would be happier with a lot more special education bus
attendants and would would need the would feel the need for for more than than just the nine. But given the economic conditions, we we added a very parsimonious number that aligns to our current guidelines. So until we change those
guidelines, we're offering a change that that reflects just just the the bare minimum based on on what we are seeing in enrollment projection. Also in this was a position to address
safe routes to schools. And we've had a number of pedestrian collisions this year that have led to loss of life as well as injury. And that's something that no community should have to endure. And it's
been a very long time since we've really evaluated in earnest what are the safest routes for our young people to get from point A to point B and and just to improve pedestrian safety and, and and even road
safety in our community. So we see that as a, as a pretty distinct need and, and something that not only for compliance but also for community safety, we didn't really highlight in the last section the addition to this of the special education teachers.
That is extremely important to this board and that we have that support also on the busses is important. So I do think at some point to look at if that is staffed appropriately, you mentioned, you know, we're doing that in several positions. So I, I would like to see that
come next to take a look. So thank you Miss Yang. Yes. On the vein of showing the work, let's stay on this slide 32 for a second. Transportation. First of all we support that I
support that the safe route personnel increase. It's a good investment. Now we say 9.5 full time equivalent. But the budget item is 2.9 million. That's
about 35 350,000 per position. So are there things not included in this? So yes, the what you see here and this is there is more budget detail both in the book as well as if
anybody's playing along online. The the budget table one a, which we also call the macro has exhibits on every line. So just again, for those playing the home version, lines 34 and 35, as you see at the bottom of the slide here, if you click on
the exhibits that go with those online, you would see some of the detail. What we've done here for the board presentation is really just to give the the summary with some examples of the changes. We didn't try to recreate it. We'd be here for a
long time. But to your point, Miss Yang, the 9.5 FTEs and the $3 million are not like those are the net changes of positions and dollars. That's not $3 million for ten positions. That $3 million reflects pluses and minuses.
For example, it reflects the decrease in fuel costs, but it also reflects increases to costs of substitutes, which, you know, so there's a lot of there's a lot of puts and takes in those numbers. And so I'll also add that bus maintenance and repair is a big part
portion of this dollar figure. And you'll see that in exhibit 16 and 17 is is how significant our our bus repair costs continue to go as our fleet continues to age. I wanted to point that out so that there's no misunderstanding there. But
I have a comment to make about slide 29. In slide 29, when we talk about technology, we say positions shifted from the stronger connection grant. And in June 2026 to the, you know, our base budget. I know that
these positions are very important to the system, but what my comment is about how we do budget and in the for the future, it is not a good idea and sustainable practice to use grant money to fund ongoing
expense. Grant money should be one time expense, and I think we need to learn this lesson and and and accordingly in the future. We agree and we agree enthusiastically, so much so
that even things that are not necessarily threatened by loss and potential federal funds, we're even looking at potentially deciding whether or not to sustain them and keep them as part of the local budget, or to let them go and let them expire with the, the,
the time that the grant and the purpose of the grant expires. If we hire staff with grant money, it should be understanding as a contractual, you know, services, not as, you
know, sustaining member. Thank you. Can I add on to something that's unsustainable? Can you do it quickly so I can ask my question? Yes. Slide 31. Food Services Enterprise Fund. So we
just received a generous donation to cover debt that's related to our food operations. There's were multiple reasons why that that was accrued
because kids don't necessarily have the money that they need to eat. And eating is fundamental. And therefore we're going to feed them no matter what. So we have this debt. This seems to me somewhat unsustainable. I mean, this is
built as an enterprise fund, but are we thinking of a strategy going forward? Well, the as it's presented right here with the enterprise funds, there's a revenue to offset the the increased spending. So this
is actually a wash as it's presented. But you're absolutely right. Shout out to the Darvish family and Darcars for their over $200,000 donation to the Education Foundation to help fund this year's expenditures for dine with dignity. And it is also
state law that we are we are compelled and as well as the right thing to do to make sure that that we have students with full bellies, because students who are hungry don't learn as well as students who are not hungry, and making sure that that's a priority needs to continue to be a part of the
system. I think that this becomes a bigger issue in terms of what you can and can't spend with your enterprise funds, in terms of offsetting that meal debt the way that it is set up right now, that is not
something that we could use the enterprise Fund to, to support. We would have to use other local budgeted tax funds or recoup the dollars somehow. And we're we are aimed to be in the
education, teaching and learning business, not in the in the debt reclaiming business. That's not a good space for us to be in, and it's not the right lane for us to be in. And I don't think we'd be any good at it anyway. So this is maybe
a bigger problem that is stretching into millions of dollars over many, many years. And that may even require some kind of collaboration with some of our funding partners at the state and local level to think a little bit bigger right now,
your enterprise fund can't be used to to offset that expense. And I just would want to clarify, too, that a lot of these regulations are federal law because we participate in the federal lunch program. So I just want to make it clear that we're not making these decisions because we want to
collect debt. But but it is because, again, we are part of that. And as Doctor Taylor said, there would be a number of both structural aspects as well as looking carefully at the revenue to to stay compliant with federal law. Thank you. I'm going to just say a few
things. For the people at home. This is where the details are. I don't want anybody doing the math and dividing, you know, and saying, oh my gosh, we're overpaying people. So the details are in here. Please look at them. They're very
accessible online. But we do have in this budget a lot of stuff that is being given to the local, you know, the fire code, the title one, the I mean, there is I know you gave us a,
an idea of how much that is going to be our responsibility in a sense that we need to come up with. And a lot of these things are things we have no control over that we have to provide and we have to do. I just want to very quickly, there were a couple of things Tim and I were talking on the
side here. The food enterprise that I'm really happy to see that we're actually making a shift with some of those positions. You know, the addition of positions tied to the Enterprise Fund is actually a reflection of the fact that more people are accessing our
lunch program and our breakfast program, which is actually great because as there is the additional work that's generated from additional meals being prepared and sold, that does generate a revenue that is then offset to afford those
positions. It's one of the few things in our, our, our budget that is offset by a direct revenue. And and that is one of the things that's a little bit different than other budget elements that we have. I'm also
very happy to see the whole non-discretionary communications with our family engagement. Do you want to say a little bit about the increase in family engagement specialist? Yes. So even though there's a proportional reduction in family engagement specialists that are out in the field and serving schools relative to our
population decline and student enrollment, there is also an increase for that services being done centrally, where we can leverage some language expertise of some of the folks that we already have in the
field. So even though there is a reduction, there's also an addition that aligns with some of the needs that both you and Miss Yang had pointed out as necessities for our our district. And we we typically target our top seven languages
that are spoken at home, not just 1 or 2. Of course, we we provide services to almost over 160 plus languages that are that are spoken in homes. But there there are seven that it really is an advantage for us
to have some in-house person person personnel to, to cover a lot of those needs. And I'm very thankful. I have been advocating for this position for years, even before I was on the board. About the pedestrian safety expert. It is time. It was time a while ago, in my
opinion, especially now that we're doing all this redistricting, making sure that our kiddos are not crossing major artery lines, and that we get a really a good idea of the safety for for our students.
Well, and, Madam President, something that oftentimes doesn't get considered in that conversation is that our roads change over time, too, and that what might have been a safe route to school one year, just a couple years later, that road could be widened or there could
be increased traffic. And we need to be sensitive to that. And I'm sorry to say that we really have not done a very good job at the county level to make sure that we have evaluated those routes for for our school system. The Ada is amazing. And as a former
interpreter, I love the fact that we are going to be increasing the interpretation accommodations that should never be an option, but that is that is a must for our for our young people. With that, Miss
Montoya. Thank you. Before I ask my question, I just wanted to thank you for highlighting on slide 28 the increase in utilities. I know we had a significant increase last year as well. Yes. And I highlight this because these are the items that we don't really
think about. Absolutely right. The electricity, the lights literally have to stay on. And if there are energy issues at the state level, that absolutely impacts us. And there are energy issues at the state level right now. So if anyone feels the need to advocate from the community,
that's another space. But the question I have actually relates to slide 27. If we could put that up, please. And slide 27 relates to line 30 on table one A and line 30 is
Division of Equity and Organizational Development. Now in line in table one A it shows a reduction in overall reduction of three FTEs. But when you drill down into some of the individual departments, I'd like to actually ask
attention to chapter five dash 15, which is Department of Student Conduct and Appeals. That's not really highlighted here on this slide. But what I do see is a $300,000 increase
across six employees on one line, and then a $78,000 increase for one employee on another line, where it kind of goes line by line in terms of positions, how much those positions cost, etc. I also
then see a couple lines down later to a $200,000 increase to stipends. So I'm wondering if you can just help us understand those increases in light of the fact that we're also then doing a lot of reductions in other
spaces. So while the budget team is looking up some of those other pieces, the if there's a stipend change, it's tied to something that's been negotiated as part of the contract. So. Right. But I guess I see such a huge difference. Right? I see
$29,000 to 230. And I know it's one. It's hard to also know where the stipends live. Right? Right. If I were to ask for a list of stipends, you could give them to me. We have that I've solved from this past year, right? Sure. But it's hard to know where they live within each department to know which
stipends were even talking about, I guess. And when I see a $200,000 increase in one department, that seems a little off. Yep. So we're calling up some subject matter experts here. So a couple of things and I apologize. I think we may
need to bring out the big book. But the in terms of the stipends. Yes. The only stipends in this particular service area department are related to hearing officers. And that is, again, we do bring
in outside folks to help us. That's what we sometimes call TPT temporary part time. So those are non-position dollars essentially. And so that's that's those are the dollars that you see there in terms of the numbers associated with the individual positions. We may
have to get back to you. I, I'm going to struggle to pull that up off the top of my head. There aren't new positions in that unit. And so, you know, I'm again, not sure I'm going to be able to recreate. I'm
going to have to look up the specifics of what you're asking for. I apologize, but I can say there are not new positions in that area. And so you can always be you can always get back to us with that information. Yeah. It just it would seem like we're looking at a $50,000 salary increase
for six individuals and a $78,000 increase for one individual. And again and so, again, just in light of reductions in light of other employees who have maxed out their steps, perhaps those just
seem like significant increases. And even with the stipends, if that's for the pay of hearing officers, quite frankly, that just brings up a whole other host of questions. As someone who reviews the work of those hearing officers and have wondered how we come to select
those hearing officers and how much they get paid, so and we can certainly talk more generally about. The hearing officer process, but I can say that it's been a long standing practice of the district to
have a combination of in-house staff and individuals that come back because the hearing, in part because the number of hearings and the and the cadence of hearings does fluctuate throughout the year, and there are ebbs and flows with that. All right. So while miss McGuire is actually looking this up, because I
actually don't feel like this should wait for another board work session. Thank you. I do want to put this to bed at least a little bit and say that we're not doing sizable increases to one individual or
two individuals salaries. That's that's actually not how any of this works. We have a very transparent process of of following pre-negotiated salary scales and steps and a process
that that has to be followed with that. So our our viewing pu can rest assured that that singular individuals don't get huge pay increases as a result of a budget line. But as they're looking it up, hopefully we can get to the
bottom of giving you a better answer. And that's why I wanted to ask, because when you just look at the lines, you can see how it might seem like what's going on in student conduct and appeals. So I'm sorry. And, Miss Montoya, you you're referencing the table on page 515, is that. Yes. Sure. Okay.
And so so keep in mind as well I do see what you're saying, but this is. This really reflects the puts and takes of a budgeting process. And so this table is a summary table
that has the that 77,000 that you're seeing as the FY 27 change. While while you're right there's only one of that type of position. It reflects the the the overall net change to the 26 budget to the 22nd 27
budget, which includes everything from benefits and. It includes everything from benefits and the compensation changes one year to from another. It includes. There's just a lot of variables there.
This is also one where, you know the position was vacant for a period of time, and we did have an individual come in. So there were some pieces there that it's not one individual
who went from salary to salary. Why? It reflects the puts and takes of changes in that office. We also restructured that office last year. So it's not really an apples to apples comparison. And I do appreciate what you're saying. But this this summary table is a net
that reflects a lot of a lot of differences that happened in the office over that time. Yeah. And what I but there is another line for insurance and employee benefits. And in other tables you will see that there are monies in those spaces. So it sounds like what you're saying is next year there will be an
employee in that position who makes $197,000 and that there were $50,000 increases for six employees in the line above. If not, I'm just again, I'm just trying to understand because. Right. That's what's in the table. Yeah. And and they'll they'll absolutely drill down and get that to you. But it
also may reflect budgeted to actuals. So what you may have had budgeted may have been at a lower dollar figure versus the actuals of who the incumbent was that filled that position after it was vacated position that was budgeted. But isn't
that the FY 26 current? So the current or the actuals. But again, could be it is a combination of things. Just again, thinking about this office, there were changes in the personnel. There also were
changes related to the. Related to the fact that there was a vacancy for a period of time. So the actuals would be off by that as well. And the, the six, the there's a $300,000 change
for the six individuals I think. Right, right. So which is about $50,000. Again it's, it's the puts and takes of a lot of pieces. It also does reflect a reorganization of that office during the year. Can I ask a favor. Because I really don't want to debate this back and
forth because you have the questions. I talked to Doctor Taylor. You guys will get a breakdown specifically of everything, but it is a little confusing when you're looking at it because it was confusing to me. So if it's confusing to me, it's going to be confusing to the public. So we need to do
our diligence to ensure that things don't look, you know, you know, because here we are, you know, cutting, you know, certain positions. And then it looks on paper that we're adding, you know, $90,000 to an individual. So you know what I mean. That just is not a good look. I appreciate the explanation. Some of it went
right over my head because I'm not you know. But but I do appreciate it. But we have asked for a breakdown and and it's on the record. So we will get that next time because this is not the last time. This is the first time we're meeting on the budget. So with that, I'm
going to close down this meeting. Oh, miss, is it last question. Yes. And because we have a member of the community that came to the meeting that mentioned. The mpia costs, do we ever look at Empire's that
we get consistently to see if there's any reports we could present? And I thought we had already asked this question several times. And the answer is yes. I believe the answer is yes. We absolutely. If it's something that either we get a lot or frankly, just something
that we think we should put and compile, we're happy to do that publicly. We've done that in a number of, of cases. I think part of what you're seeing in this increase in Pia is we are seeing an increase in essentially legal requests. And
so that is obviously not something that we would post. Correct. Thank you. And we are a big system. So okay with that. Ladies and gentlemen we have come to the conclusion. So I am eagerly waiting for a motion.
Motion to adjourn second. Okay. And all those in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you all very much for the people at home watching. And I wish you a very happy New Year, and I will see you next time. Don't keep us in suspense, mom. You told
me about.