Okay, everybody, we're going to get started. We do have a quorum. U most of the budget advisory committee members are online. So, I'm going to start with introductions. And we're going to start with Mr. Mayor, uh who is a a new committee member, so this is your first meeting. So, welcome to the budget
advisory committee. And you're Mr. Lane's uh representative. >> All right. So, I'll let you start with introducing yourself. Oh, >> thank you. So, John Major, I'm a tax partner with RSM and uh
excited to to be here. >> Dr. Ordonius. >> Good morning everyone. Dr. Patricia Ordonius Feliciano. I'm the executive director for uh um multicultural education and school transformation. >> Good morning everyone. Kevin McCormack,
executive director, exceptional student education. >> Heather Frederick, I'm the chief financial officer for the school district and liaison for the budget advisory committee. >> Good morning. My name is Leanne Evans. I'm the treasurer for the school district. >> Good morning. Nicole Smith, director of
uh federal and state programs. >> Mine's dead. Was it >> good morning everyone? My name is Philip. I am the principal at Western Pines Middle School. >> It's hot. >> Good morning everyone. Corey Brooks,
principal, William TWire High School. I also serve as the administrator's president for the association. >> Kim Thomasson, principal, Gove Elementary. >> Brian Mlen, principal, Ocola Creek Middle School, also middle school um
division chair. Gordon Longhoff for Classroom Teachers Association President here to observe. >> Good morning. Patricia Morales from the Office of General Counsel. >> Okay. And then online we have Dwan Moore
Ross um principal. Uh Eugenia Smith Feeman is a principal as well. Dr. Yolanda Morgan. Um Katherryn Coiner principal. Um Mr. Parks is a committee member. Uh, Miss Nancy Samuels um works
for the is in the the district. Miss Rebecca Zizzle is the vice chair of the uh budget advisory committee. Mr. Rossi is a committee member. Uh Sandra Edwards, a principal. Uh, Miss Sherry Brown uh is the chair of the budget
advisory committee and Stephen Fe um is a member of the budget advisory committee and William Defrain uh works in the uh the budget department of the district. Um so we do have a quorum. Um since Miss Sher Brown is uh virtual I
wanted to ask her if it would be easier for me to run the meeting um just since she is virtual today. >> Yes, please if you can handle that today. >> Okay. All right, thank you and thank you everybody for joining. Thank you especially to the principles um for
taking the time out of their day. I know that they had an important meeting scheduled today that they rescheduled because of the budget advisory committee. Um the reason why we have such a a heavy uh principal um uh attendance today is because we do have to make some some changes to the school
budgets and we convened a principal committee and so all the principles in attendance today are were part of that principal committee and they're here to provide um any context or feedback um that's asked by the the committee members. So thank you for taking the time to come today and thank you for the
time for participating in that in that committee. I think it was very helpful and you brought a very thoughtful approach and really what was most needed for your schools. So, thank you for participating in that. Uh so, we've gone through the welcome and indu uh introductions. U let's see if we have
any public comment. Uh we have no public comment. So, we'll get started uh with the update. >> Excuse me, Heather. >> Yes, >> this is Katherine. Can I just publicly uh thank you and your leadership team for allowing us. I know you're you're giving us credit for having thoughtful
conversation and we you know we really did take the opportunity seriously and conducted meaningful dialogue at all of our groups. But we just want to publicly say thank you for allowing us that opportunity rather than making decisions
and just letting us know this is what's going to happen. the chance for us to provide input as to how the budget was going to be realigned was um was just really appreciated by all. >> Okay. Well, well, thank you for that. Uh
so, we're going to get started and I do have to apologize up front. This is a very long meeting. It's a very long presentation. It's over 70 slides long and the reason for that is we're this is the time where we can go over the whole entire budget and the components of the whole entire budget. Uh so I wanted to
let the committee members know that if there are any questions you know please ask them feel free to ask them throughout the presentation to stop because I don't know you know what will happen by the end of the the presentation um you know might get lost in thought or whatever so feel free to
stop us uh throughout the presentation if you have any questions so if I want to start with the legislative outlook um then we're going to go through how schools are funded uh in the state of Florida uh and then looking specifically at the budget within the school district
of Palm Beach County and all the different components of our of our budget from the general fund to the capital projects fund uh to the special revenue funds and then give an overview of our budget timeline uh and and what I mentioned that the
different components of the the district budget. So taking a look at our statewide economic outlook, uh it is it is a little bit dire when you look at those out years. So we do have a surplus in FY27 and a lot of the reason why the
state of Florida has that surplus is because of changes that they made in the last legislative session. Unfortunately, those changes were more just for uh one year. Uh but if you look in the outy years in 28 and 29, the state is facing a pretty significant shortfall. And the
reason why that's important uh for uh school districts in Palm Beach County is because the state uh funds uh education. And so they do use uh property taxes to offset the cost of that. Uh but whatever uh amount the the increase in property
values or whatever millage rate is set by the state legislature, whatever amount that doesn't make up within the state education budget, the state is required uh to cover that shortfall. Uh Amy Banker, Amy Baker is the state economist. U as the state of Florida is
required to have a long range financial outlook. Um they prepare that uh every year. Um and it's a threeyear uh outlook. and when she presented to uh the uh the legislators, she said that we really have to make sure to align our
revenue with expenses. You know, you can't continue to outspend the revenue that you're generating. Um she did give them credit, like I said, for making some changes in the last legislative session which turned FY27 from a uh deficit to a surplus, but they need to
continue to make those changes um going into 28 and 29. U when you look at statewide um our personal income growth is is um continuing to to grow. So we're at the
state average. It is strong. Housing on the other other side is we are starting to see a correction. It is starting to stabilize. Um and then when you look at our population, our population is continuing to grow. But the components within our
um uh within the population, you can see that those that are 65 plus are growing at a faster rate uh than the when you look at those within the workforce age as well as the youth age. Uh when you look at um youth, you know, that's
what's impacting our schools and our enrollment. Uh so children's school age are continuing to grow, but they are continuing to grow at a much uh slower rate. And when you look at the rate of seniors and seniors, the growth of seniors, the older you get, uh the more
of the higher cost of burden on the state as well. So that's being taken into consideration uh when uh looking at the the state budget and why it was um something that Amy Baker wanted to make sure to to highlight. When you look at
the state of Florida, uh the state of Florida has pretty high amount set aside in reserves. you know, they have 15 billion dollars or nearly 30% of their general revenue uh is set aside in reserves and it is important that the
state um as well as all entities have a certain amount set aside in reserves uh because of the uncertainty that we're facing. So, I wanted to make sure to highlight that u that the reserves are a uh and and setting aside reserves are a
priority of of the state. When looking at the uh when looking at what are the different components of the state budget and which ones have the the most significant u impact uh within the state
uh budget, uh prek to 12 education is normally one of the top drivers. uh prek uh continues to be a top driver although has dropped um um since last year and the reason for that drop in in need in
prek12 education is the decline in enrollment that we saw um this past year and so based on the prior year three-year outlook that's that blue bar you can see the need over the next three years for prek education uh was 3.8 8
billion. Uh now looking in 2025 that dropped over a three-year period to 2.3 billion and that's a result of the decline in enrollment. Um so for uh FY26 the state saw a decline of 46,000
students below what was projected statewide. There was a increase of um a total u decrease of well actually it was a total decrease of 50,000 within traditional uh uh public schools and an
increase of 4,000 in vouchers. So a net decrease statewide of 46,000 students. Um so that's what's helping to lead towards u not needing uh reducing the the actual fiscal need over the next three years. Um in looking at the other
components, the other large drivers are health and human services um and that's primarily Medicaid um services and then statewide services has increased uh and that's due to a new driver that was added for the emergency preparedness
response fund. Uh there have been a lot of natural disasters um at the state level and they were setting aside and transferring funds in order to cover um those uh types of natural disasters and the state economists felt like since it has been a recurring type need that they
needed to set up a actual and build that into the budget going forward and into their forecast going forward. So you can see the shifts from pre preK12 and others getting shifted into that statewide issues which is primarily due to that u emergency response uh fund.
When you look at the uh the Florida Department of Ed legislative budget request uh for education funding, they used to be on the high end. You know, I've I've been at the district for nearly 19 years and the legislative at
the FDOE used to be the who was really spearheading, you know, an increase in funding in education. Uh with their legislative, uh budget request, they came in at just a 2% increase in per student funding or $195.
they are recommending um to remove family empowerment funding which are those the voucher funding out of our funding formula for um FEFP um because right now that those vouchers are embedded and it is more difficult to see
the amount of funding that is being set aside um for fees. Um so that is a a recommendation that we support and was also included in the governor's uh budget proposal as well. Um they're recommending a $50 increase in the base
student allocation. The governor is recommending a $200 million increase in the uh the teacher salary uh allocation and that equates to only a 1% increase in raises for teachers. This year the increase was 100
million statewide which was a five.6% increase u for teachers. So it sounds like a lot of money you know when the governor is about it. It just But when you divvy it up across all the districts across the state, it
really is a nominal amount. And looking at the projected um student growth, um it is it's 18,000 um and then but that's a reduction within the districts of 27,000 and then
increase in uh voucher students. Um there was an enrollment forecast update and I know that that's going to be um adjusted you know based on the impact of the um third revenue calculation and finalizing the actual enrollment for
districts across um the state uh after the October um enrollment count. So when you look at how schools are funded in the state of Florida, it is in the constitution that we should have equalized funding across the state of
Florida regardless of whether a student lives in a propertyriich district like Palm Beach County or or not that they deserve um to receive the same funding. U and that is something that was placed within the the
Florida Constitution. Uh the FEFP is the way uh that the state administers funding for K12 education and the way for them to equalize the funding across the state. Um so that was established in 1973.
and the components of the F FFP. It's a per student funding, but there are some variables uh related to the um the types of needs of the student and also the different counties within the state and whether you're considered a small district or large district. So, there
are different um components and adjustments that are made um to that per student funding. When you look at how the state funds uh education, uh it's the state portion is funded primarily through state sales
tax. So state state sales tax makes up about 70% of the state's general uh revenue and then education is the largest component of um the revenue that's uh applied from that general revenue.
And when you look at the drivers of the FFP uh like I mentioned form uh previously it's state as well as local funding uh the legislature sets the per student funding and based on and as part of that they also set the required local
effort at each district which is the millage rate that you see on your tax bill and whatever amount those local property values don't make up the state makes up whatever that shortfall is. So when you look statewide at the average
54 of that per 54% of that per student funding comes from the state which is primarily that state sales tax and 46% is coming from local funding. When you look at Palm Beach since we have higher property values in Palm Beach County 6%
of our funding is coming from local and 34% is coming from the state. And so if you're in a lower property uh value district, you would see the reverse of that. And we talked about I already talked about um the different drivers. Um so
you can see that the um the workload and enrollment for FFP is now the third driver. In the past, it was always between um FFP and Medicaid were always the largest drivers of the state program
um of the state budget. So, we dropped to three this year. U and a lot of that is has to do with the um the new emergency uh preparedness response fund that was created. And then the reason the additional reason is because of the drop in need over that three-year period
because of the decline in enrollment. and the when you're looking at that forecast there are different assumptions uh that uh the state economist includes uh within what are the projections of FEFP and increases in per student
funding. Um so those assumptions in include um seeing enrollment um adjustments and declines um going forward um as well as maintaining that required local effort. So assuming that the state legislature is going to keep required local effort where it is even
if property values um increase that they're not going to they're going to take in um the benefit of that increase in property value. So they're going to maintain that RLE and that the increase in per student funding would be 3% each
year which is not likely uh because the um this last year we had a 1.1% increase in funding at the state level. Um the for the forecast, they're using a three-year average and there were some spikes in the in in the uh per funding
uh the increase in uh per student funding and that was when they uh legislature was expanding the voucher program. So at the time they were expanding the voucher program they were they also increased the u per student funding by 5%. And so when you're
looking at that average over the past three years, that's inflating uh most likely what the reality is going to be um for the increase in per student funding going forward. Uh the m this is the the taxable um
millage rates uh that are set for let me see for um Palm Beach County uh school district and the majority of that mill rate is set by the state legislature. So when you look at that it's either state set by the state legislature or it's capped by the state
legislature. So if you look at the required local effort prior period adjustment um those are all set by the state legislature. When you look at the discretionary operating and local capital improvement, those are capped and so we cannot levy more, the board cannot levy more than the 748 mills or
the 1.5 uh mills. And then for the voted millage, the additional operating millage uh that is uh has to go back to the v voters every four years uh to be approved by the voters. Uh and that is used to supplement our our budget. 50%
of that funding um goes to teacher pay um teacher supplements. 25% is to cover over 900 fine art teachers as well as choice and career academy. So all of our elementary art, music and PE teachers are funded from this add additional
operating millillage and then the remaining uh 25% is to cover additional security. So the general fund uh covers the the first officer that's required at each school site. Uh we use the additional um uh voted millillage in
order to cover any additional officers at the school site as well as all the additional security costs that they have at the school site as well. Um for having security at um athletic events um for additional wanding. Uh so we have a
specific allocation for each of the schools to cover additional uh security. It also covers mental health. Uh so it's uh one behavioral me uh mental health uh position at every school uh within the district. Um as well as uh additional
colllocated services. Um this millillage we're going to um have to go back to the voters in November of 2026. It comprises um nearly 10 over 10% of our general fund operating budget. Uh it's about $360 million a year and about
$40 million of that is passed through to charter schools. Uh but we are very fortunate to have support of the community and it's something that that provides much needed additional investment over the the small amount of increases that we've been receiving um
in per student funding at the state level. and it has helped to like I said 50% of that is allocated to teacher pay and has been able to provide um you know 1,005,000 and $10,000 additional bonuses
um based on uh years of not only within our district but just total years of teaching experience. So has been a not that teachers we do agree that teachers are not paid enough but this has been able to at least close that gap um
somewhat when looking at property values um we were seeing pretty significant increases in property values when you look at 24 25 23 24 25 we're seeing you know 22%
increase um 15% increases in property vales that has started to um stabilize. We are projecting um an increase in 26 of 5%. So we're no longer going expect to see those doubledigit increases in property
values. But it's important for me to note again that the taxable value is not aligned with per student funding. So like our municipalities, like the county where the county's funding increases based on if they were to keep their require their
millage rate exactly the same and property values when they went up 22% they would see a 22% increase in their budget. At that same time that property values were increasing 22% that's the year that we received an increase of
5.2% in per student funding. Um, so you can see that the the increases in taxable value do not align to that per student funding. And it's often a a misconception um in in not understanding that, you know, because we're receiving uh more in
property values, then we're going to end up receiving less um in uh state funding to offset that difference. These are all the different components that go into um FFP. FFP, which the is the Florida Education Finance Program.
Uh you start with your um your unweighted FTE and that's the number of students that you have in the district, not considering what their actual needs are. We then multiply that times a cost factor. Um the cost factor is the weight
that's established, you know, at the state level. There's a very detailed program cost report that all districts prepare and then the state uses that cost report we prepare to establish the cost factors and adjust them each year. That then comes up with what our
weighted uh uh the weighted number of students that we have within the district. That weighted the weighted students is then multiplied times the base student allocation. And then there's what we call the uh the state calls the comparable wage factor.
And that's pretty much a cost of living adjustment that you have between uh counties. So in Palm Beach County, we receive 3.5% over that amount because there it is it does cost more to live in Palm Beach County than say Klay County.
Um there was an adjustment to uh the uh FFP calculation where now no district is below one. So, every there used to be some districts that were below, some that were above, and there was a a change made to the uh the formula a few
years ago that brought everybody up from that was below one who was receiving a negative adjustment up to one. Um, and then the formula was changed um somewhat and we did we used to be over 4% and so now we're a little over three and a half
percent. And the comparable wage factor is adjusted each year as well. and is also based on a a three-year average. So from there that you have your base funding and then we add on additional uh categoricals. Uh so we have the educational enrichment fund and
what these categoricals are the the state sets aside the state legisl legislature uh and state statute establishes how we can utilize uh these funds. So we have our educational enrichment supplement which used to be
known um as uh supplemental academic instruction or SAI. Uh we have and by uh changing it to educational enrichment, it did expand uh they did expand some of the uses of of those funds. Next, we
have what's called the ESSE guaranteed allocation and that's for all of our special needs students that are on the lower end of the needs spectrum. So there's five different matrix levels um from uh 251
uh through 255. So the ESSE guarantee covers the first three and it is honestly a way for the state to cap the amount of funding they're giving us for um those uh uh exceptional students that we have in the district. And the ESSE
guarantee not only includes those uh it also includes gifted students as well from a federal uh perspective. U gifted students are not included uh within our um the the federal allocation that we receive but the state allocation the
ESSE guarantee does include um gifted students as well and does not at all cover uh the additional costs we spend the the actual costs are approximately three times what we actually receive in revenue from the state. Uh the safe
schools allocation is the state categorical u to help cover the cost of the officers that were required to have we're required to have one um officer per school site. You can also utilize guardians. Our district um school board thought it was a priority that we have
school police officers at each each site. Uh so the $19 million these al these amounts include the pass through to charter school um do not cover the amount that it truly costs uh for us to operate our security program. We spend
over $40 million uh in security and our safe schools allocation is 199 million including the pass through to charter schools. Uh we then have a mental health categorical allocation that's dedicated to be used for certain mental health initiatives. And if there's any money
remaining at the end of the year, those funds have to be set aside um and then so that we and carried forward to the next year and used for the same purpose. We have a small amount for DJ uh DJJ supplemental funding, small amount for the federal connected student
supplement. Um and then uh academic accelerations option is the new um is a new categorical this year and that is took into consideration and and combined
um I count um AP so our advanced placement funding ACE industry certification um dual enrollment and I'm I'm actually and and I and it is and including IB as
And so it took what we used to be funded for. We used to receive an additional amount based on the number of students that passed uh each of those each of those tests. We'd receive additional funding based on the FTE associated with
each of those students. We'd receive the base student allocation times the number of whatever proportional FTE of the student that passed. U the state legislature last year and there's a significant amount. Um our district is one district that has highly invests in
um all of the advanced uh curriculum at our high schools and feel that it is it is extremely important and we are one of the districts that has the highest pass rate. Um and as the state legislature when they were going through the FFP the calculation last year felt that there
was too much um being um u paid out for that particular um uh for that particular it wasn't a categorical well it was somewhat of a categorical but at least it was tied to the base student funding so they voted to eliminate it from FFP that was a s would have been a
significant impact to our high schools um and when it ended getting added back. It was added back at the last minute, I would say, right before the budget was passed and they added it back as a categorical. And the reason why they did it is similar to the reason why they
made ESSE guarantee a categorical is so that they could cap the increase each year and have more control of it. So instead of every time the base student allocation increases, um, your AP allocation would increase, now the state legislature can decide
whether they're going to increase it or not. we receive a separate allocation uh for transportation which again does not cover the cost of transportation um and then uh there are two other components as and there wasn't an impact uh but the proration to appropriation so
that's the way for if enrollment comes in higher statewide than the state projected uh they will then look at every district uh across the state and they'll reduce our funding per student if it's the reverse and like this year where the number of students came in
less than what was projected they don't give the money back to us you know so um but so we have there for the past several years we have had a proration to appropriation uh because there has been the projected enrollment has exceeded statewide but this year we were we were
well below that and there's an additional $500 million sitting in the state budget right now um that we're hoping will somehow be reappropriated u back to districts whether they take half of that funding. Uh we feel like it's important because uh all districts
and the state were caught off guard by that decline in enrollment and it is important um to help offset that that shortfall that we're facing. Although it would be one time um it is something that we're hoping at a legislative level that they will look at reappropriating for FY26.
So that comes down to our total amount um set aside u that we're receiving from FFP. And when you're looking at a a $3 billion operating budget, you know, the majority of that is coming from uh the FEFP uh funding formula.
These are the cost factors um that I was mentioning. So we receive the the there are different weights based on uh the different needs of the student. So when you look at a K3 student, they're weighted slightly higher than a middle school student. Um
and then the middle school students are slight rated slightly higher than a 48 student. Um the reason for that is because of the class size mandates and um it's a much uh lower class size mandate at K3 than it is for 912. There's a lot more flexibility in the
high schools than they have at the elementary level. Um ESSE students are weighted um as well as ESOL um students and career ed. Those cost factors are adjusted uh each year. Um and you can see the prevalence factor is the average
of those based on the number of students we have within our district. And with the increase of the fees um uh students into uh the enrollment statewide, you can see the amount of the weight has gone down and that's because of that
increase in in students from from the vouchers that don't um don't fall within those other higher needs categories. You know, not as many falling in with the uh higher needs C categories like the ESC and the ESOL.
And looking at our per student funding uh across the country, uh we are the state of Florida is funded 46th in the country in terms of per student funding and the states behind us, you know, it's
Utah, Idaho, you know, are towards the end. uh but the fact that we have the um one of the largest GDPs across the country yet we are funded 46th in the country in terms of education funding.
Our per student funding allocation has not um has not continue to keep place pace with inflation going back to 2028. Um that is 2008 sorry. So going back to the great recession,
um that is what I uh started with the district was back in 2007 and you can see looking at if we had uh because we had a pretty significant decline after the great recession in per student funding and we just have never caught up after that significant
decline. uh taking into consideration of the increase in CPI, we should be at 11,739 and we're only at 9,635 uh per student. And you know, that goes back as to why it has not been a
priority of the state um to invest in education. In looking at how uh the timeline of how we develop our budget, uh we start in September. So after our budget adoption um in September um that's when we have
final adop budget adoption uh for the year we start working on the next year. Uh we what happened this past year during count is we were um caught off guard as well as all most other districts across the state with a very
significant decline in enrollment. So, we lost 6,000 students and that is something that has not happened um to the district since um the pandemic. And during the pandemic um all districts were held harmless. Um and normally uh what happens and and what happens what's
going to happen this year is when you have a decline in enrollment, we our revenue is adjusted that same year. uh in prior years there was a declining enrollment supplement that would help to offset at least 50% of that loss to help
give you a step down um in districts stepped down from um having such a significant loss of enrollment. Um but that was removed from that FFP calculation um and is not something that is a component of FY26. So we knew that
our funding was going to be adjusted this current year based on our actual enrollment in October and actual enrollment in February. So on the 11th day of school, uh we adjust our funding. Um we adjust our our allocation based on
actual enrollment. Um but unfortunately that that change that we made wasn't enough to cover uh the loss in revenue that we're facing. So when you look in that September December um time frame, we received the long range outlook um from the state. So that gives us an idea
of what challenges the state is facing um to know to give us an idea what our increase in per student funding may or may not be. Um this the the legislative budget um is request is released which I went over. Um and we also start looking
at our revenue projections for the next year um coming up and that is a challenge because there is no trend based on what happened this current year. Uh we also started going through the capital review um
which will be um uh to start the process for the upcoming year. It's a 10-year the capital plan is a 10-year plan and so it's more of just a a rolling look of what potential changes we're going to have in the upcoming year. and we had our first board workshop on
December 10th and I shared that link with the committee u for uh for you to have a look at what was presented uh to the board. U so starting in in every uh even year the legislative session um starts in January. Every odd year it
starts in March but the legislative session started this week on January 13th. Um, and I'm trying to be optimistic that it's going to end on March 13th as long as there's not a special session. January is also the month we're required
to finalize our enrollment projections with the state. We do our own enrollment projections. The state has state models that we're required to review as well. And we have to come into we have to come to agreement uh with the state on what our projections are expected to be. Um,
so we're working through that process right now. and I expect to have that finalized by the end of of next week. But we are looking to have an additional decline in enrollment um in the upcoming year. Um it's just taking into consideration the challenges of um the
impact that immigration had um this past year and and how to include that um on a go forward basis. We're also working through all of our department reviews um and continuing to go through on a parallel basis the the
capital plan. U in February, no later than February 20th, we we release school budgets. Uh and we um you know continue to monitor the legislative session and the different bills that are released to try to give an idea of u what our final
per student funding is going to look like. And we have to release um well internally we release our school budgets prior to knowing what our actual funding is going to be uh because we need the principles need to have some sort of certainty as to what their school
budgets are going to look like so they can plan for the upcoming year. Um and even though we are facing declining enrollment, we hire on average 1500 teachers per year just through normal attrition. uh retirements, you know, choose to leave for another career. So,
even though we're going to have declining enrollments and even though we're having adjustments um to formulas, we do know that we are still going to be hiring and still have a need to hire teachers and we want to make sure our principles have access um to the um the
highest uh quality teachers. So, it's better for them to be looking for teachers earlier in the process. Uh so we're going to be hopeful that by March uh we'll have an idea of what we will have our what our final per student funding will be. We will have finalized
um all of our department reviews because we will have to make departments at our um reductions at our part uh department reviews. So when we have that advisory committee u meeting in March, I'm hopeful to have more of um hopefully we'll be finalized uh based on where we
stand um from a budget perspective. Um and then April will just be finalizing, you know, if there are any changes. Um just working through whether there's any um you know, last minute adjustments. Um related to what came out of the
legislative session. Uh we the state uh provides the taxable value. Um that's actually it by the end of uh they provide an estimate in May and then the final taxable value is provided by uh July 1st.
We approve our tenative budget and this is all statute driven um July 29th and our final budget adoption um is September 9th. So is after um I mean it's it's after the start of the of the school year. And
when we have those u those odd years where the legislative session doesn't start till March, you know, we we don't know. I mean, we've already released school budgets before the the legislative session has even started. And looking at our district budget, it's
5.9 billion. This is based on our final adopted budget for FY26. Half of that is in our general fund. Um when you look at our food service is a is 160 million. Uh special revenue other is
160 million at the time of budget adoption but it will increase throughout the year based on uh when awards are received. So it will be pretty close to what we received in um uh in FY25.
ESSER um has uh finally ended. Um so there's no that ended in September of 2024. Um so there's no additional u funding that we'll be receiving related to ESSER and we fully spent um by the required date. We have debt service and
uh capital projects which make up the total budget. And looking at the components of the general fund, it seems like a lot. Um it's a $3 billion budget, but the bulk of that budget is in schools. Um, so we'll start on the on the graph and then
I'll explain the uh the the little charts on the the little text boxes on the side first because the numbers don't agree and they don't agree for a reason. But in looking at our total budget, schools comprise 77% of the total budget. So that's our district operated
schools. The chunk of the referendum uh which is 11% when you in of the general fund budget when you include charter schools. Um we have our pass through of the FFP to charter schools and there's also the pass through of fees which are
vouchers um to uh as part of the budget and the vouchers are now larger than charter schools in just the five in just five years of them being um in operation not the schools being in operation but the fees funding mechanism being in
operation and so they will exceed far exceed charter schools in the upcoming there. 7% of the uh of the general fund budget is departments. And you look at when you look at that department piece of the pie, a third of that is trans is
comprised of transportation and maintenance because we do have the the largest or the largest transportation provider and logistics within Palm Beach County. When you look at Palm Beach County geographically, uh we're the largest land mass east of the Mississippi. We're larger than the state
of Rhode Island. We're larger than the state of Delaware. So geographically we are very large and um so that that provides some challenges you know for our transportation department. Um so a third of that uh department budget is for transportation is comprised of
transportation and maintenance. We then have 4% of the budget is for um non-K12 components which is our adult and community ed. So we receive uh u adult funding which is workforce and that can only be used for adult students. It
cannot be used for K12 and K12 cannot be used for adult. We have the community school which a feebased program VBK which is fee fee based and voucherbased program. Um and those funding fundings have to be set aside uh for those those
purposes. Um property insurance makes up 1% of the total district budget. Uh utilities um phone internet um that's 2% of the district budget. Employee leave payments payments 1% capital maintenance
transfer which is the amount that we transfer from the capital projects fund into the general fund to cover things that per statute were allowed to pay for but are things that we couldn't record within the um uh the capital projects
fund is is 5%. Um and then the contingency reserve is uh 3%. So that's the amount we're required to maintain under our uh state board policy where we um have a minimum amount set aside of of 3% of total revenues appropriated
revenues and that also aligns with the minimum requirement at the state level when you look at our our then if you look at that total budget and that's for the chart for the school budgets where I say that school budgets represent 78% of
the total budget But the reason why the 78% and 77 is um slightly different is because when you back out those things that um cannot be applied to offset the the $40 million shortfall we're facing when you back out the pass through to charter when you
back out the pass through to fees when you back out cap cap u capital maintenance transfer nonk12 and referendum schools just schools represent 78%. And when you're looking at the shortfall we're facing of $40 million,
um 78% of that u would need to be the proportional share to go back to schools uh would be that 78% and that's that represents 31.4 million and departments 8.6 million. Um so that's what we're looking as our financial objective to to
cut for this upcoming year um to just balance the shortfall we're facing in FY26. When you look at staffing and enrollment across the district, this is a historical look back going back to 2015 and it's primarily to show that the bulk
of our positions when you're looking at the general fund are in schools, which is where they should be. Um, so 90% are school-based when you're looking at the general fund, 5% transportation, and 5% all other departments. And when you look at our actual spend, not just the
budget, but when you look at our actual spend for FY25 in the general fund, taking out taking out charter pass through and the pass through to FES. Um that represents 80% of our budget, 80% of our actual spend
last year in FY25 was on salary and benefits. When you look at our enrollment, um the blue bar uh represents district operated schools, the orange bar represents charter schools, and the gray uh represents McKay, which then morphed
into family empowerment scholarships. And you can see how quickly that gray bar has increased. Uh we still have I have not updated the FY um 26. Those are our preliminary um uh enrollment numbers
based on um our c our district count from uh October. We are still waiting for the final recalibrated numbers from the Florida Department of Ed and we expect to receive them this month, but for district operated schools, we had a decline in enrollment of 6,000 students.
Um charter schools uh were down about um 300 students. And then the family empowerment scholarships, I I don't will not have a a number for that until we receive that from the state. Uh but there was an increase, an anticipated increase of 5,000 students. I don't
anticipate uh with the decline in enrollment that we saw in Palm Beach County that vouchers had um that much of an increase, but won't be able to finalize that until I received that report from the state. We were expecting to be down uh 400
students. So to to be down 6,000 students um that was uh truly um uh unanticipated like I said not only by us by by districts throughout the county uh both uh Broward and Dade were down over
10,000 students but they've been facing declining enrollment over the past uh several years. This ended up just being a larger decrease than what they had anticipated. And then statewide, when you look at it, we were down 46,000 from
statewide projected enrollment. U that that loss of enrollment equates to a $40 million shortfall in FY26. Um that and uh it's a $30 million impact uh in FY26. And then in addition to
that, we had an additional $10 million u that DOE that we did not receive an adjustment for until this year until FY26 related to FY25. Um and that was also related to um to vouchers. So it's a total shortfall
we're facing in FY26 of $40 million. Um and we're still waiting on the third revenue calculation. Uh last year we did not receive uh uh we did not receive that. Uh the third revenue calculation is finalization of the actual October
count. We normally receive that in January. Last year we did not receive it until March. Um this year we're hoping that we'll receive it um uh within January, at least help for planning purposes for the upcoming um the upcoming year. When you look at the
impact of the loss of 6,000 students, when you increase 6,000 students, we would have gained $50 million. When we came to count and made adjustments to allocate staffing based on an increase of 6,000 students, uh we
would have only had to spend an additional 20 million, which would have left $30 million of additional revenue that we would have been able to put into salary increases. With a decline in enrollment, it's the exact reverse of
that. We're losing $50 million, yet we only save $20 million from the changes that we made. Um because you're losing 100% of the revenue, yet you're not losing 100% of the expenses because the students um are going to be lost
throughout um the district. And all the same mainly all the same overhead is staying at the schools and potentially a a lot of the teachers are staying at the same schools as well. So we're facing that's where we have the loss of $30 million again plus the additional 10
million where that was related to FY25 that we did not receive until November 5th which I' I've been in this position for a long time now and even talking to the the superintendent who was the CFO previously we've never been in a
position with DOE being so behind in sending us final revenue calculations you know to be into the next year and not know what our actual revenue was for the previous year and what adjustment we were facing. You know, it's it's really unbelievable. Um but we know that it has
been a challenge at DOE. Um and DOE is doing the best they can with the staff that they have. Uh but the growth of the voucher program was just more than I think was anticipated by the legislature and they they just they don't they didn't have the foundation in place and
uh FDOE is doing the best they can with the resources that they have. So we're facing a $40 million loss. You know, a lot of times the the first reaction is, oh well look, you have $450 million in fund balance as a as a as a
district. That's a lot of money. Go use that. you know, you're not, you know, you're not cash poor district. You have more than enough money. But when you look at the fund balance, the fund balance is set aside for certain purposes. And so $71 million is set
aside for things that we've already purchased that are going to be to be expensed later. Um we call those non-spendable items. So like textbooks and fuel. So we've already purchased those. they're sitting in inventory and we expense them out uh once they're utilized. All of those state
categoricals that I talked to you about, we have to carry those funds over and use them for the purpose um required by the state. So $71 million is set aside for that purpose. We have another 131 million set aside for
specific purposes as well. So several years ago um when we had that increase in per student funding of of 5% and the state expanded um the voucher program, they also took a lot of our categorical programs and they put them into the base
student allocation and they did that as a way because they wanted to make sure that that funding would follow the student and would go out and and be allocated for those fees um vouchers u scholarships um for each of those students. But we still as a district,
even though they're not a separate categorical and they're embedded within the base student allocation, we still have to report to the state. Uh we still have to say what we're using, how we're using it, and those things include like school support and there used to be a reading categorical. There's no longer a
separate reading categorical. It's embedded within the base student allocation, but we still have to give a budget each year and say how we're spending that money for reading. instructional materials used to be a separate categorical that's now embedded with the base student allocation. We
still need to purchase um uh adoptions and the the state has us on very specific timelines of when we have to do those adoptions. the instructional materials. To put in context, the categorical when it was a categorical was about $15 million a year. And that
included the amount that we'd have to pass through to charter schools. And it cost us on average 30 to $35 million to do a regular textbook adoption. So it didn't even align to what the categorical was. So we have to set aside an amount for the instructional materials. Um after school and summer
camp, the schools run after school and summer camp programs. the amount that they've generated. Um, uh, those schools are allowed to keep those funds and use those funds, uh, to support those programs. Uh, preK and VPK, uh, fees set
aside, um, settlements, purchase orders, um, uh, different donations that are set aside for certain purposes. Those all total 131 million of the district fund balance. We then have the board contingency of $91 million. Uh, that's required by board policy, which I
mentioned. which is 3% of total appropriations and also Florida statute uh which mandates that we have no less districts have no less than 3% set aside. Um and and if it goes drops below that 3% that's when they potentially are
going to declare the district is in financial emergency and may come in for a financial takeover. So that is a minimum it's not a maximum. Um, and so the amount that we really have set aside um um as a contingency to cover next
year's budget is $160 million, which also sounds like a lot, but when you think that our payroll is just our normal payroll is $80 million of pay period, that is only enough to cover$ 160 million is only enough to cover one month of payroll.
So when you look at um our financial condition ratio, which is the ratio that's used by uh the state of Florida to determine uh whether districts are close to being in a financial emergency, and that in includes when you're looking at the fund balance, the what's called
the assigned and the unassigned parts of the fund balance. Our district is at 13% and this is through FY24 um because they haven't released the FY25 for all the districts. If you look at the average, the average is 12.8%. So where we are
within our fund balance align with the the state average. Uh Palm Beach is that orange line when you're looking at it. And when you look at that orange line, you can see that it bumped up from FY10 to FY 13, FY12. And that was, you know, after
the Great Recession, uh we received the ERA funds. And so we intentionally took those funds, built up our fund balance, and we slowly spent them down because when you're receiving those one-time funds, you want to make sure you're being very strategic and you're not using them on recurring initiatives.
when you look at that purple bar. So the purple bar is Hillsboro County schools and at one point they had the highest um fund balance when you when you went back to 2008 and you see they had a pretty significant decline and a very quick decline in their fund balance ratio and
how that happened and they went all the way down to 4% and they were very close to being below that 3% and the only thing that saved them were the esser funds that were released after the pandemic and the problem that they had
um was that you know it just goes to prove where you have recurring um expenses. So they had recurring expenses from a grant um that went away. They didn't make changes quick enough and so they were spending recurring expenses. They didn't have enough revenue um to
offset those because the grant had gone away. They continued spending exactly how they were spending. So it shows how quickly um when you spend one-time funds for recurring initiatives, how quickly um it gets depleted. Um and so we we try
to uh and our goal is to um maintain um healthy reserves. Um and it you know not only for uh purposes of of of being able to when there is a time of uncertainty being able to work through it u but also for bond rating and other
factors. It's it's very important that they make sure that that we are not in in a situation um like other districts have been in the past. Uh when you look at the bar at the top, orange um orange is the one at the top. They have um uh a
mil they have a referendum as well. They initially were not using that referendum for recurring type costs and so that's why they have such a high fund balance. they have now started using their referendum um for like we do um for teacher pay and most other districts
across the state and so I do anticipate we'll start seeing them spend spend down their um the fund balance that they have uh you also you know first thing you do when you're looking at a large district too um and our priority is schools and
is always schools and and we always try to do whatever we can to minimize the impact to schools it's important to see how we're spending our our money um and be able to compare us to our peers. Um so one thing that uh we're very fortunate in the state of Florida um
it's very transparent. There's a lot of uh information that's provided by the Florida Department of Ed. So we're able to compare ourselves to our peers. We consider our peer districts Dade Broward, Hillsboro, Orange County, Duval, and Penllis. It's those districts that have enrollment of greater than
100,000. Um I I believe Penllis might have dropped below or do one of them dropped below but it's slightly so we still use them as part of our peer group. Uh when you look at the comparison in 2024 because that's the most recent information available on the DOE website you can see that um our
district in Palm Beach were spending 2.97% on general support admin. So real that overhead piece um compared to our peers spending 4.6% and that's an average of all the peers and when you look at our instruction we're investing
that within instruction. So our in the amount of investment with instruction is is much higher um than our peer districts. We also want to look at our student teacher ratio and compare that to our our peer districts. and we spend more on instruction because we have more
teachers. Um and and you can see that by um the comparison of the um student teacher ratio where in Palm Beach ours has uh remained uh around 15 um and dropped to 14.9 in 2024 whereas the
average for our peer districts is um 17. So we are well below our peers in terms of um student teacher ratio. So, in looking at our school budgets, um, we needed we haven't made a change
in our school budgets in in probably close to our school budget allocations in probably close to to 10 years. The allocation formulas um make up about 70% of our school budgets and they are driven by enrollment. Um, so it's it's a
uh staffing and we have staffing and non salary allocations. And there are two different ways that you can look at it. You can have staffing formulas or we could allocate the same way looking at enrollment, give a dollar amount per student, and then we're allocating a dollar budget to the
schools and then we let the schools um tell us each year what they're going to purchase based on the budget that we allocate. Since most of the budget for schools is in teachers, we choose to do a staffing formula and we feel like it makes it easier on the principles because we know
that most of their staffing is going to be in instructional positions. Um, but what we do is we still give principles the u the ability to trade off positions. So they're given a budget and instead of them having to say, "Okay, this is every position we're going to
purchase for the year," we give them the positions and then we say, "Now you can trade off what positions you'd like to trade off." We have certain rules and restrictions on those and the trade-offs go through their regional super regional or instructional superintendent. They go through the deputy superintendent of
schools and they go through um me as well. I review um the deputy superintendent and I review every single trade-off that the schools um submit. Um so we release um the school budgets um in February. So we release them um no
later than February 20th. So this year they're going to be released on February 20th and we do that based on a projected enrollment. Uh and then we adjust them based on actual enrollment on the 11th day of school. So we go back through and then
say based on your current enrollment um this is what your your formula should be and we go back through the process again. The problem that happened this year is we had a 3 and a half% reduction in enrollment and once we went through and made the adjustments using our
current formula that only equated to a 1.4% reduction uh within uh within the the budget when you looked at the dollar amount. So we needed to close a gap of 2.1%. Is the gap that we had to close and that
was due to our formula now no longer matching up with the revenue we were receiving. So if we were doing this based on and we were allocating a dollar amount per student and then um the number of students for each school and giving them a budget we would have just gone through and they we would have just
taken that budget and reduced it by 2%. Um but since we do a staffing formula we had to do that a different way. and we had to then adjust our our staffing formula in order to get to that 2.1%. Whenever we make changes at the school,
uh we make sure to bring in principles u because it's very easy for me to make changes. It's very easy for for me to look independently not being at the school site saying, "Okay, these are the changes you're going to make because I'm not the one who has to implement them." Um so we've always been very fortunate
um you know with our principles u that they truly take a very thoughtful approach when going through this. I I always present this is what the this is what changes I recommend and then they provide feedback as to why they will or will not work. Uh and then we work
through it in a very collaborative way. I mean we we know so we knew our our objective was to get to a savings of 3.1%. Uh so we convened um we had a committee of nine principles. So we had make sure to always have all levels representative represented. We always want to have
title schools and non-title schools. So to get a good representative sample of of um uh of all the different issues that we might have at school sites. I walked through what each of the objectives were for each of the levels because we I did differentiate between
elementary, middle, and high. And the main takeaway that came out was the principal said since we have this trade-off process already, they wanted to make sure that we would consider giving them more flexibility in tradeoffs u because we have some
restrictions on those trade-offs. So to relook at some of those restrictions and to be able to provide them if we're going to if they're going to have to to put these changes through, they wanted to make sure they had the flexibility to make changes um that would best meet the needs for their students.
And so that's what we agreed to do. So we're going to um continue with that trade-off process. And um like I said, that goes those trade-offs go all the way up through their regional uh the deputy superintendent of schools and and me.
When you look at the flexibility at the levels, elementary schools have the least amount of flexibility and I would say high schools have the most amount of flexibility and elementary have the least amount of flexibility because of their size. They're a lot smaller. So
when you look at the average size based on the FY26 budget, the average uh elementary school is a little less than um 700 students where a high school is 2,300 students. Um, when you look at the staffing, the staffing at an elementary
school is 75 on average compared to a high school of 188. So, just the size of the school lends itself to having, you know, more flexibility. The the more staff you have, the easier it is for you to to to deal with um changes. And then
elementary has a lot more core restrictions for instruction whereas high school has a lot more flexibility with the different electives that they offer. And so that's why I differentiated uh and in working with the deputy superintendent of schools uh
the the dollar impact um between elementary, middle, and high. Um, so if we were to equate u our school budget allocation that we have right now with with elementary, middle, and high, taking that staffing formula and equating it to a dollar amount, on
average, uh, elementary school is $6.4 million per school, middle is 8.8. High schools is a little less than $20 million on average per school. Uh once we went and made the changes to um the formula, we were able to generate that
2.1% just a little bit less than that two 2.1% that we were looking for by adjusting the elementary school regular teacher allocation by 6. So just changing from 18 to 18.6, 22 to 22.6,
which equates to $95,000. And that's an average impact per elementary school of 1.4 for 1.5%. Middle schools um making a minor change from 21.35 to 22.5. And then the the media clerk um that
will of trigger once a middle school has 751 uh students or more, they'll receive a media clerk. So the total dollar value of those changes is $221,000. and for high school a change from 25 to
27 which equates to 534,000. So that total um impact is is uh 2.7% um at high schools. Uh so the average we were able to get to that um that gap that we were looking for of 2.1% a
little bit short of that because we were um uh the objective was 31.4 before we were able to get to 30.7. And so those are the changes that we're making at um the school level. So I'll I'll stop there, see if there
were any questions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was just curious I with the loss of the students enrollment do is it to any particular geography in in
the county as well as um what level you know elementary mid middle school or high school. >> So it was primarily um our English language learner students is where we saw the most significant loss. um it was
primarily in our central region schools, but it was across all of our schools, but those that had high English language learner um student populations saw the biggest reduction. Um we had we had it at all levels, but it was just schools
that had a higher concentration and there were some schools that lost, you know, 200 students. Um we were already seeing um uh a decline in enrollment uh previously but it was offset by the additional growth
that was coming into a in to the county. It's just that growth stopped because of primarily because of immigration because we h we have been seeing a lower birth rate. Um and so we were and we were already facing that. We were already facing um the cost high cost of living
it is in Palm Beach County. But whatever we were losing, we were making uh we were making up by that growth coming in. And we've been able to maintain our enrollment, which a lot of other districts to the south of us have not. Um and so it it really is that impact of
immigration as to why we had such a decline in enrollment and why it's so difficult to forecast it going forward because we have nothing to trend at this point. Um so the state modeling has several the state has nine different models that they they use. Their most
aggressive model is weighting um the prior year so this current year FY26 by almost 70% and then the previous years by 30%. you know, and um and then internally, you know, we're we do the
same, which is a similar cohort model where we roll each grade forward, but then also look to try to see, well, how much do they normally lose when they go from we lose from second to third or third to fourth. Um, and where it gets challenging is how much of those were EL students, so we don't double count them
because we're not going to lose some of that. We didn't get some of the growth, you know, so how do we make sure to somehow take those out of the formula? Um and that's the challenge. Um so we uh we're working right now because there is a difference between our internal
projection and the state projection and we want to be as accurate to the schools as possible. Um because that's we were all caught off guard and um and so we want to make sure that you know they look to us for projection. We also then look to them to say how's it going? You
know we released these in February. What are what are you seeing? And so we're going to take together a much more proactive approach as to what we're seeing going into the summer. Are you seeing registrations decline? Are you seeing certain populations decline? We all learned a lot um from the experience
this year. So I don't I can't answer your your question 100% because it was it was a it was a mix and it was primarily um those with the high ELLL populations. >> Heather, it's Gloria Branch. Uh, I just want to thank you for your detailed
presentation. I know this is a lot of work and um I appreciate the detailed description of our reserve because a lot of people look at it and just see money and don't understand that some of it's already earmarked for expenses. So, thank you. We were up in Tallahassee. I'm actually still here fighting for
Palm Beach County, [laughter] but thank you again for your presentation. >> All right. And thank you for being in Tallahassee. And I I did see and and something that I I should have mentioned um too was you know there is a lot of legislation coming out about um property taxes and
eliminating property taxes in Palm Beach County, eliminating property taxes across the state. Uh a most of the proposals exclude um schools as part of the proposal and the reason for that is because the state is required to make up the shortfall. So where are they going
to come up with that money? um you know but it it is going to have a could potentially have a tremendous impact on the municipalities that provide supports you know as well as the county you know so um you know that when you look at how
much property taxes comprises of our budget you know and then it's 100% of you know almost 100% of a lot of the municipalities and and counties you know what they would do in order to provide services um is is definitely a challenge and we need to make sure that schools
stays out of that u that calculation even though we have not our increases have not at all aligned with increases in property values you know it makes up a s I don't see how the state would be able to make up that shortfall >> yes mr long hoffer
>> thank you Heather um do you have any idea how many or what part of the enrollment decline this year was as a result of the increased voucher program >> so based on our analysis as a small amount of it. It was primarily
immigration related when based on students that were in our schools previously that went to voucher was about 1300. >> And the second question has what is the trend? >> Second question. There it is. It was
already on. Uh what has the trend been since the 11-day count up to this point with respect to enrollment? >> We actually had a decline from the 11-day count to October. So, I didn't have that slide in here. I probably should have. Um, I think I had that one when I did the board workshop,
but this is the first year that we had a decline from Octo from count day to October of an additional 500 students. So, that's included within the 6,000. So, we were down 5,500 at count and we lost an additional 500 um through
October. Normally, we end up seeing growth. And so when I when we do the adjustment of school budgets um on count day, I project out I have to project out because we're being funded based on the actual students that are sitting in those seats in October. U and then from
there because I don't want to take the the units the the positions away if they're going to generate them back based on the number of students. So this past year I projected we would be flat and we lost an additional 500. All right. So that the schools piece is
only one piece of the $40 million. Uh we still have an additional now 10 million since we were a little bit short of our financial uh objective. Um and now we're looking through departments and we're going through a very detailed review of our departments. Um it's something we do
every year. Um and we're continuing this year. Uh the departments are uh the budget manager is actually in the reason why he's not here today is he's sitting in um some department meetings going through their budgets. Um and each department each division was was tasked
with u coming up with a three and a half% reduction. Schools already took part of the reduction when by just the essence of of aligning um uh resources on uh to enrollment come count day. It's just that current form for formula
needed to recalibrate to cover the whole 3 and a.5%. But departments uh and divisions are now required to come up with a three and a half% cut. But it's not across the board. Um it's being looked at by each division uh because we want the divisions to take a strategic
approach and look at where there ways that they can u find efficiencies. How can we leverage all the new technology um coming out? Can we look at sunsetting programs that are not working? you know, how can we internally look at ways to
restructure um to to save funds? Um you know, one way we were able to do that, we shifted um uh EDW and we're we're our goal is to shift it into our um SIS system. By doing that, we'll be able to to uh uh potentially
save um some additional costs um going forward. uh we were able to recalibrate um the school budgets. Um and so that was what we represented today. That was the largest uh part of that that shortfall.
Um but that's just balancing this year's shortfall for 26 going into 27. You know, if we have an additional decline in enrollment and uh the allocation doesn't fully align, we're going to have to look at making changes in um going
into 28. uh it does not incorporate any increase in salary. That's going to be purely dependent on whether um what our funding increase looks from the state and what happens with actual um enrollment. We also don't know what's
happening at the federal level come u with our federal funds. Um so we're going to walk through several different um grant funds um that we receive. Um title one IDA are two of the largest. Uh and there was the potential last year that many of the federal grants were
going to be eliminated, you know, coming into um into July. Uh there was a pause uh that was placed by the federal government on many of our grants. And the question was, do we include that in our budget going forward? Um but if we
don't receive those federal funds, that would have a dramatic impact of positions lost at the school sites. We use those for supplemental funds um and have a significant ne negative impact um and uh so we continued to keep those in our budget and they were thankfully uh
reappropriated. Um but we don't know what's going to happen going into to next year, but we are budgeting like that we're going to receive them based on information we're receiving from this the state. We will see some declines because we've had a decline in enrollment. So the title one allocation is going to go down because it's tied to
enrollment. we'll probably see a decline potentially in our uh immigrant funding as well in ELLL funding because of the decline that we're seeing um not only in Palm Beach County but but statewide. So, it's an it's an ongoing uh process.
So, now I'm going to pass it over to Miss Evans and she's going to walk through the capital projects fund part of the budget. Okay, good morning everybody. So, we're going to switch to the other side of the budget. Um, and the capital budget is is very different. First of
all, we're required by state law to have a five-year capital plan. We expanded that several years ago to 10 years to encompass the entire sales tax referendum and we've continued to do that. We found a lot of benefit in doing a lot of long range projections with
capital trying to figure out when we need to build schools, when we need to renovate buildings. Um, buying computers, we had spikes. It's not the same amount of computers every year. So, a lot of that planning is built into the capital plan. So, we are looking at a 10-year capital plan. Every year, we go
through and look at that. We look at projects that need to be added, deleted, changed, moved up, moved back. Um, there's a very detailed review. And I know it sounds like with the capital plan, we should just be adding a year at the end. And it's very simple, but we don't take that approach. We really do
revisit every line item in the capital plan to see if things need to be changed. Um key factors to be considered, you know, we're looking at enrollment projections. Do we need to build schools that we thought we were going to? Do we still need to build them? Academic program change. We're
doing a comprehensive facility condition assessment. It's underway. Has been underway for a year. Um still looking at when do roofs need to be replaced, when do air conditioners need to be replaced. We want to make sure we have a safe and comfortable learning environment for our students. I mean, that's what we're all
here for. Um, and market conditions, revenue forecast, legislation. Um, what we're closely monitoring what's happening in Tallahassee right now. So, again, all the considerations, the board priorities, aligning things with with the strategic plan, again,
enrollment projections, program, I just went through the same these same slides, um, same information. So, these are all the things we take into consideration. And this is ongoing right now. Um, our facilities team is meeting every week. I'm meeting with our IT departments once
a month, with our police department once a month, transportation once a month, and really going through their budgets, what do they need for next year, what changes are happening, looking out for over the 10-year window. So, we don't have a capital plan yet. Um, I don't have a lot of projections,
but I can tell you where we're at for revenues for 26 for the plan that was approved. Um, it goes through our property taxes. Um, lots of discussion about that at the state level as Miss Frederick has has already explained. Impact fees, those come from the state. We're expecting that to come down. Um,
the county is starting off their every four-year review of impact fees and they're changing the focus based on legislative changes. So, we expect those numbers are going to come down. Interest rates, I expect that's going to come down as well. um sales tax that was
recently approved thanks to the voters. So the new tax is starting just started in January. So that that's staying constant. Um state sources and then we are expected to do a borrowing um for we call it cops but certificates of participation for some construction
projects that are planned. We had some carry forward balances. That's a lot of the reserves that are set aside for the sales tax projects. We know they're coming in above budget. we have money set aside for those. So th those are all earmarked. A quick update on the existing sales
tax. This is the tax that was approved in 2016. Um this is the revenues received through December. We will get two more months of revenues because there's a two-month lag um of when we get the money. So we've received 1.5 billion versus a projection of 1.16. And
I'm going to skip a little bit down to that sunset provision. The tax had a sunset provision that if we received a certain amount of money at September of any year, it would sunset early. And that is exactly what happened. We reached our goal early with that sales tax. It ended in December. Um we have
two more months of revenue coming in as that trail as that two-month lag um happens. Um final revenues will come in in February and in March we'll receive the first money for the new tax that started that was approved by voters in 2024.
um sales tax expenditures, the the construction department, it edtech, everybody spending the money as quickly as we can. Um there's still some balances. They were expecting this to last 10 years. Some of the projects were funded in year 10 and may take two years to complete. So we fully expect it will
take another two to three years for all the dollars to be spent. We're required when we're building a school, all the money has to be there on day one. Even though it takes two to three years to build it, we're required to have the money there up front. So sometimes people say, "Well, you had this extra money. Why did you need the sales tax?"
It's all earmarked for ongoing projects. So what's in the capital plan? Um construction projects, that's the most obvious for everyone. Um facility projects, that's the ongoing maintenance and improvements. So planned, maintenance, facility improvement, site acquisition. Then we go into furniture
and equipment. We have money in the budget. We didn't used to do this, but now we know student desks have a useful life of 10 years. We need to plan to replace them every 10 years. So, that's now built into the budget. Um, musical instruments, there's money there. We have to replace the AED AED devices on a
regular basis. Um, lots of furniture and equipment at the schools. That's a focus that all everyone's looking at. Technology, we break that out separate. It's not only buying the technology, but also the ongoing maintenance of it, replacing it. uh maintaining the cyber
security, all the ongoing infrastructure for the district, servers, routers, switches, all that is in here because you can have the best computers in the world in the classroom, but if you don't have the internet behind it, it doesn't matter. So, it's all of the technology,
security, um that's pretty self-explanatory. Everything related to security. um the the the function not the police officers that's funded out of the operating budget but for capital it systems fences gates card access um video surveillance that's all in capital
transportation includes the purchase of buses support vehicles and contractor transportation debt service is paying off debt for when we borrow to build schools um so that that happens we're trying to shorten that um our most recent debt issues
instead of being 25 or 30 years we borrowed over 20 over a 14 to 15 year window. So we want to clear that out and there'll be a slide coming up about debt service property insurance of the reserves we talked about and we do have we are required to transfer money to charter schools just like we do in the
operating budget. Um the capital outlay millage is transferred to charter schools. The new sales tax is also shared with charter schools. So this is just a graphic to show what it looks like. Again this is the FY26 capital plan and it was 11 years last
year. It'll scale down to 10 for 27 and then we'll stay at 27. So you can see the percentages. Debt service went down and that that came up on Miss Frederick's slides as well. There was a significant decline in debt service from
25 to 26. We did a very large refinance of a construction project and the escrow balances showed up in the FY25 budget. They're gone for 26. So it's not the debt service really went down that much. That's the way it's presented. But our our debt service is actually pretty
level until we get to 2030 and 2032 and we see a big drop there as we pay off a lot of old debt. U but this really breaks out the components. A lot of it's with facilities um debt service and technology and then the rest of it spread based on the needs of the
schools. So, some of the funding challenges and this was really important when we were trying to explain to people why we needed the 20 that's the sales tax that was recently approved. Um, we have to maintain over 30 million a square feet and 9 billion worth of buildings. So, we
align that with recommended best practices of how much money we should be spending to maintain these schools. Um, Miss Frederick said she'd been here 19. I'm at 29. I've been here for a long time. Um I was here when we went through the great recession and there was a a
big change that happened then back in 2008 n we saw declining property values that everybody experienced the state also reduced the taxing authority for the school board from two two mills to one and a half mills 25% reduction um
together I mean that was a huge change the amount of revenue we brought in in 2008 dropped significantly we didn't get back to that level until 2022 and that does not account for inflation. So that sales tax that we had was really
there to try to catch up with things that we deferred. And I'm looking at the principles and they're all nodding their heads. We had air conditioners breaking. We had tile ripping off floors. We weren't able to maintain our schools. And that sales tax, the sales tax that's winding up was focused on dealing with
deferred maintenance. The new sales tax is there to make sure we don't get behind again. We're following best practices that's coming out of the great council of great city schools to tell us how much we should be sending on ma spending on maintenance. These are taxpayer funded
buildings. A lot of them are used for hurricane shelters. Our kids are most valuable asset in the county is in those buildings. We need to maintain them. And then we also have unfunded mandates such as sharing with charter schools. Um that money going out there. So it's that's a
$600 million reduction over the 10-year window. um sharing the c the sales tax with charter schools is another 200 million on top of that that'll be going there and and those are our kids too. So it's important that we are sharing it but it is a big change for the district
to to to deal with. So I've mentioned accounts of great city schools and this is the cover of the study that came out um and it's from 2014. It's 10 years old now but it still applies. It really was focused on all the schools districts throughout the
country deferred maintenance because we weren't nobody was getting enough money to pay for these things and they came out with guidelines that we should be spending between two and 4% of replacement values every year on our buildings. We did not do that.
The sales tax helped us get it caught up and the new sales tax is making sure we have enough money to do that going forward. Um, they also recommend a facility condition assessment every five years. That's ongoing. Uh, we have a company going out and visiting every school and I don't know if the
principles have seen that. They're coming out and looking at the air conditioners and looking at the roof. They're looking at all the components of the building. We're about halfway done with that going school by school. Um, it takes time going in there and they're also tagging all the assets while
they're there. though that that work is ongoing and we're loading all that data into the capital plan and updating as we get information. It's being added in overall and normally our chief of facilities is here or our chief operating officer is here. They're at
the grand opening of one of the media centers that was funded by um local donors. It wasn't district funds. It was local donors that paid for an upgrade to a media center. So, they're not here. I'm going to do my best to cover the slide for you. Um the plan with our
facilities is this called re refresh renew refresh and replace. So every 10 to 12 years going forward we're going to refresh the schools. That's painting. We had not painted the exterior and interior of our schools in many many years. That's happening now. Um
selective ma mechanical electrical plumbing has to be updated. Restroom renovations. Furniture. Kids are rough on desks and chairs. They had to be replaced every 10 years. ADA and CSR compliance. That's going to be every 10 to 12 years depending on the school. It
will be very customized, but that's the the general way of looking at it. And then we'll do a facility renewal. And that's what we've been doing over the last 10 years going in. We do the refresh, but we also replace mechanical. I had to ask. MEP is mechanical,
electrical, and plumbing. Um, and FA is fire alarm systems. Intercoms. Those are the intercoms are all being transitioned to electronic and online. um over a period of time. Those are going to be fantastic once they're all done. Updating the interiors, roofing, doors,
windows, parking lots, play courts, all those things. That's every 20 roughly every 25 years. And then we'll do another refresh 10 to 10 to 12 years later. And then we're going to look at either renovation or replacing it 50 years. I don't think we're going to be replacing schools every 50 years. We
honestly can't afford to do it. When you go back 50 years ago and over the last 20 years, we built a lot of schools. And when you factor that out and look at the long term, we do not have enough money to replace schools every 50 years. It's going to be very selective looking at
schools, looking at specific buildings that may need to be replaced due to security concerns. Um, but that's the the overall framework of how facilities is looking at um the capital plan and the components of it. This was the 26 capital plan. I've done
a little bit of updating here and our facilities department helped me, but these are the big construction projects. Um, and a lot of them were completed this year. Saddle View opened. Um, I see Miss Miss Ross is here and she's the principal of that school. It's beautiful. It was completed. Um, we have
um the construction project at Windbrook was completed. Uh, Pinerove is complete except for the parking lot. So, a lot of the projects that were in the capital plan have been completed or work is underway. So, this is just the list and this list will change for next year's
capital plan. Maybe only slightly. Dates may be updated as we continue to work through when projects will be done um and when they're needed. But these are the projects. For instance, some of the schools that are out there, if you look at North County Area Elementary under North under North County, that school
and I'll give you a little cheat sheet here. the the number after it 04A 04 is the first year project that shows up in a capital plan and then the letter designation if it's a single letter is an elementary two letters is a middle three letters as a high school it just helps us separate them so that North
County elementary school it was in the first sales tax referendum we did in 2004 it was supposed to be the Scripps area elementary we never had the growth in children there that we expected it was delayed and moved into this current referendum that's about to and we're
probably going to come through and that that's been pushed out now to 2033. We're probably going to come back and say we need to take that out of the referendum project list. We don't need it and if we don't need a school, we shouldn't be building it. And that area just has not grown with elementary
schools. So, we will see some shifts in this. We saw Westlake, the school um next to the last one on the lefthand side um 23H is which is the school that's going to be built in the town of West City of Westlake. um that was moved up because of the growth the student
growth in the area. So all of these may be tweaked and adjusted as we do the capital plan and when we bring the full capital plan back to you you'll see this slide modified and adjusted based on the current needs. Um these were some of the lists of things that we were looking at last
year. So I'm just going to tell you the crossroad academy the master plan is underway. Lakew Worth High School swimming project swimming pool replacement. That's in the capital plan, but it's still being looked at, you know, looking at where does it need to be? Are we partnering with the city of Lakew Worth? What how much will we fund
versus how much they will fund? So, we have money in the plan for it, but there's still a lot of work going on there. Um the DD Eisenhower um there's an old building at that campus that when we built the new school, that building was new enough that we couldn't tear it down, but it's not needed by the school
anymore. It's being converted for ancillary space and we have the architect on already working on that project. Um the acceleration of Westlake that was done the master plan and is is underway for River Beach High School and in Lake Grove. Um for High School the
parking improvements is is getting started. There's a shift with River Beach and Mary Mloud Bthoon. We're shift changing that school to where it's going to pre Well, River Beach will be a pre-K2. Mary Becclab Bthoon will be a grade three through
five and the students from Lincoln are going to be moved into these schools starting next year. So there's a big shift. The the Lincoln Elementary School is going to be used to house Inlet Grove in the future where Inlet Grove is currently at. Once the students move out, it will be torn down and will
become Riverier Beach High School. So there's a a domino effect of kids moving around. Um and the focus really at the elementary school level breaking down by pre-k to two 3 to five that's coming from the academic side is a better way um for those students. We're really
looking at school by school of of the for these changes. Um transferable development rights that that's money that came from the sale of air rights above Drifus School of the Arts. It's being used on historic buildings in the West Palm Beach area. So some of it will
go from Drifus. Some is going to go to Jupiter, the Jupiter Elementary Auditorium and the Northboro Elementary School has a very old historic building. So that money is being used specifically for those schools. Um and then old adult edit ed center. We're trying to figure out what to do with that. We were going to tear it down. Now it may be used for
something else. There's a lot of study being done on what to do with that building. So, the other facilities, I'm going to go through each one of these and I'm going to do it really fast and I please ask questions if you have them because otherwise I'm very good at getting into
the weeds with things. So, chime in if you have questions and I'll try to keep it high level. Um, the other facility projects is facility renewals. It's maintenance, whether it's planned maintenance or facility improvements. Um, this is a big focus of the upcoming sales tax referendum. So, we want to
make sure we're maintaining these schools. Um, for security projects, birectional amplifiers, that's that is a system that goes into the building and runs a ground wire from the roof down into the ground so that when firefighters need to use their radios to
talk within a building, they will be able to do so. So, in case the principles have never heard that, that's what it is. You'll start seeing there's studies being done in each school to figure out where we need them. Um, we're hoping at the same time to add in um
enhancements for cell phones so your cell phones will work better in the schools. It'll be done at the same time. I saw happy faces over there. I knew you I was looking your way. I knew you'd be happy. That's part of the birectional amplifiers. >> Well, [laughter] >> yeah. Um, guardouses and sally ports. I
I know that's that the high schools are all looking for guardouses um and entrances to make sure we have um secure entrances. The schools, fencing and gates, card a lot of this we've been doing, but some of it is coming up and you'll see more and more money going towards security
technology projects. EdTE is does a great job at at bringing in those interactive flat panels that the schools have and the teachers use. Um they're maintaining those. There's a lot of work being done right now to replace the computers that go behind the scenes on those flat panels. Um, and all the other
document document scanning systems and things that teachers use. It is doing the computer refresh with the new sales tax. Those Chromebooks the students are using are going to be replaced with touchscreens. That's becoming more and more important as they're working with AI and some of the new technology. They
need touchcreens. So, that's coming. Um and the ongoing support of the technology system. Cyber is a bigger issue every day. Um wanting to make sure we have a safe infrastructure, we have the technology to meet the needs of the students and staff.
And this is the slide on debt service that I update every every year. Um this is looking at our outstanding debt is the gray bars um vertical bars and the blue is the proposed debt service. And um we're trying to keep it to where
everything's maturing. We're not running out 25 years. We're very cognizant of the fact that we're paying off a lot of debt for schools that were built from 2004 until 2020, 2021. Um I talked about all the schools that are going to hit 50
years that will need to be significant dollars spent to refresh them and renew them. I want to make sure that we are leaving the board as much capacity for the future as possible. So, it looks like we have a lot of capacity.
The sticker shock is that high schools are now costing about $200 million to build. So, while it looks like we have a lot of capacity, it will go very quickly. So, we're being very careful about when we issue debt and what it's for. Um, we do have the ability to do some short-term debt. We're not planning
to do any of that in the coming years. The remaining projects, transportation, that's buying buses, maintaining the vehicles we have, um transportation equipment, and then equipment is becoming a bigger portion of the capital plan every year, making sure we have the
money there to replace furniture, but also other things. I'm looking at the principles again because we're putting money in there to replace the washers and dryers at your school, to replace those big ticket items that we just didn't think of. So the principles committee when you all are giving us
feedback, we really do take that to heart and make sure we're building that into the capital plan long term. Property and flood insurance is funded from the capital budget. Um our reserves um it's there to deal with revenue fluctuations. It's also specifically
dollars to finish off the sales tax projects that we know are coming. Um and then a large amount of money goes to charter schools every year. So that's set aside in the budget going forward out 10 years. Um future considerations. I've talked
about charter schools. I'm going to stop. Um legislative changes. We have to watch that um to see what that looks like and have if we're shifting more and more to charter schools. Could it be going to private schools? What what's going to happen with the legislative um
initiatives that are coming? Cost increases due to inflation. When you hear about inflation being at 6% and 5 percent, at construction it's 10 to 20%. It's very different than normal CPI. We're seeing that level off a little bit, but when we built Garcia High
School, it was at $105 million total project budget. Sarasota's building the same school. It's over 200 million like three years later. It's significant increases in construction cost. And we're also seeing equipment not last as long. The old saying, they don't make it
like they used to. Air conditioning equipment used to last 15 to 20 years. Now we're lucky if we get 10. So we're having to factor that into the budget as well. And I think that covers capital. So is it coming back to you, Miss Frederick? Are there any questions on capital
before we move to the next section? Okay. Thank you. All right. So the something I else I wanted to mention is our funding is restricted for specific purposes. So what Miss Evans just talked about with capital, capital cannot be used for
salaries, teacher salaries. It has to be used for capital uh related items all spelled out within statute. So DOE sets our funding and they also dictate how we spend the majority of our funding. Um you know the next component is special
revenue. Again the special revenue is all of our federal, state and local grants. Um, our largest grants are Title One and IDA are our two largest. Uh, we also have uh food service which is outside of this and and follows uh with
USDA. But those are our three largest grant funds that we have. Uh, title two, title three, and title four are about 15% of the total special revenue fund budget. And those were the the grants that were mainly targeted uh by the the
uh uh by the current administration uh that it those funds might not have been used for uh initiatives that they they felt they should be invested in. Uh so there was a detailed review that was done at the federal level. Those funds were the ones that were those programs
were the ones placed on hold um that were then subsequently released. That doesn't mean that they won't make changes in the upcoming years. uh and that's why we're continuing to monitor, but that's approximately 15%. Uh and then when you 21st century uh
21st century programs are all of our um uh afterchool programs that we have and in Palm Beach County, we have one of the we're one of the the largest providers um and award recipients of those 21st century. It's not just you know an after
it's truly an afterchool program um providing academic and student supports. Uh and then within the u the federal the other federal we have seven grants that make up other within the other state we have 11 state grants that make up the
other portion of state and we have 69 local grants. Uh so we monitor and are required uh to uh report and utilize uh a lot of different grants uh within the special revenue fund and they all
provide you know supplemental supports uh to our schools. >> Okay. Uh yeah. So and uh and looking at the breakdown of of the category within the other uh we have uh stop violence grant.
That's one of the grants that is going to sunset this year. Perkins is a is it deals a lot with um like choice uh type uh programs portion related to adult ed. Adult Ed was one of the uh grants
that was also targeted as well and primarily for the English language learner part of those grant programs. Uh Head Start is a is a prek program. Uh but I just need to reinforce the same as with the capital projects funds with the special revenue funds. We cannot utilize
these funds in order to cover any shortfall within the general fund. They are supplemental supports. Uh so whenever these funds are targeted uh those are funds that would be lost from our district as well as all the programs and positions that are within those those grant programs.
Uh the uh the grants I mentioned that the stop grants we have those that are suns setting. We're requesting an extension on one. Uh we're uh not certain we'll receive it. So, we're reviewing that impact and it's something that I'll bring to future meetings as to uh what the impact of of the uh the
sunsetting of that program will mean on the district. Uh the uh tobacco education uh that one we're requesting um in in a a nocost extension. So, we'll see if that grant um is able to continue. Otherwise, it will end uh in June 30th.
Um Stronger Connections Title 4 uh that is ending September 30th, 2026. uh supports uh nine full-time and 17 temporary positions. And then looking at all the changes, I'm sure you've been hearing a lot at what's going on at the federal level and the
elimination of the US Department of Ed. Uh so you can look at title one, two, three, four, five, uh 8, nine, Perkins, adult ed, family literacy, and workforce are now moving um over to the US Department of Labor. Um and we're
continuing to monitor. So not much has changed from our perspective in terms of because the funds most of the funds pass through the Florida Department of Education and that nothing's changing there. But what we have noticed is that since there are there's different oversight at the federal level, we're
getting some additional questions um explaining why we budget things the way that we do, asking more questions as to uh you know just because it's a different perspective from the US Department of Labor than it's been under the US Department of Ed. So, we've had no issues. We've been able to explain
all all the questions, but we have that's that's the only um uh difference that we've noticed with this shift from the US Department of Ed to the US Department of Labor. And we just need to continue to monitor what's going to happen at the federal level. U they've kind of just kicked the can down the
road. You know, we just want that to be able to continue as is um and be able to at least have our funding just maintain what we have and at least at our per student level. We understand there will be adjustments based on the decline in enrollment. Uh but we don't want these
programs to be eliminated because they provide such good supports to our our district. Um so I'm going to that's why I have uh Nicole Smith. Yes. >> If we go back to the previous slide
um can you talk a little bit what is the stronger connections? It says there's nine full-time positions there. That grant is gone. >> That that is going to end uh September 30th. The Stronger Connections grant. >> So those three grants are gone
>> for are they are there three within Stronger Connections or you're saying the three at the top? >> No, I mean the top three the DOJ, the I mean the tobacco, the stop the violence and stronger connections. >> We did request extensions so we're waiting to hear. >> Okay. uh the stronger connections one
that one is definitely uh ending on September 30th and I think Miss Smith you can speak a little bit. >> Sure. So stronger connections is um part of title 4 in uh ESSA. It was a
competitive grant and it had specific uh targeted populations um ESE English language learners. Um so Mr. McCormack and his shop. They have an initiative within stronger connections that is um MTSS
so school-based teams and then there's an attendance initiative as well as the student voice and so we're working through that. So we're working through the impact and once we find out whether u the other
grants will be whether the extension is um uh going to be granted uh we'll then continue with and we are internally reviewing what the impact will be. There is no additional money in the general fund. We are facing a shortfall. Uh but
we also do hire like I said over 1500 teachers per year. So even though we are going to see a a decline, we are still hiring. So we don't currently have a hiring freeze in place. Um we have at the department level but not at the
schoolbased level. That was something that we had through count day once we had placed all of our positions. Uh we we did um uh remove that hiring freeze because we know we're still going to hire. uh you know we have over 13,000
teachers um and so there is just normal attrition um and then we have over you know 22,000 employees we will continue to to hire and so I did ask each of the specialists in each of the the larger grants that we have um to speak to what the supports
are you know the purpose of those programs and what supports they provide um so I'm going to start with Miss Smith and then I also have Kevin McCormack um who oversees IDA and Dr. Adonius who oversees the title three uh immigration grants and migrant grants.
>> So good morning. Um in my department we have the pleasure of working with title one part A, title two part A and title four part A. So we have u some of the bigger programs. The purpose of title one part A is really to ensure that all
students have an equal opportunity to succeed. It provides funding um to what we like to call level the playing field. So it ensures disadvantaged students have access to all the same quality education components as any other
student. Um title one part A the majority of our title one part A funds are distributed out to schools in form in the form of a title one um allocation. Title two part A is to really ensure that there are effect
effective highquality educators in front of our um neediest students. And then title four part A is to provide students with access to a well-rounded education, a safe and supportive learning environment, and to improve technology
literacy. Um those funds are held at the district level for district-led initiatives that support teachers and students. So with title one part A, our allocation, the guidelines for how we operate title
one part A are codified in law. So the um every student succeeds act dictates how we administer this program. Um on top of that the state has um further restricted how we operate title one part
A through um legislation of our own state statewide. So in title one part A there are required um and allowable set aides. So right off the top there is 1 to 2%
that's taken for parent involvement or family engagement initiatives. There is a necessary and reasonable amount for the administration of the grant that includes indirect costs and then our staff who help schools administer their
title one programs. There's a reasonable and necessary amount to provide um academic and identification supports for the McKin Vento homeless students program um neglected and delinquent. We
spend um a significant amount on pre kindergarten so prek programs and transition to kindergarten programs. We are required to proportionately share our funds with private schools. So title
one um eligible students attending private schools receive services administered by the district. There's transportation for foster care children to their school of origin or choice program.
So we can also hold a little bit at the district level for what what they like to call educational services. So if we were doing a giant tutorial program, we could hold those funds. Um Palm Beach would rather see those funds go to schools to meet the individual schools
needs. So we do not reserve 1% And then uh just for um all of us roll forward dollars are not part of these restrictions. So if from one year to the next the
district carries forward funds these restrictions are not applied to those funds. So after taking the required and allowable set aides, those remaining funds um as stated in state law have to
be distributed to all eligible schools um based on federal and state restrictions. And an elig eligible school is one that meets the thresholds established for um eligibility. So if um
every year the district captures the um direct certification data the Friday of survey three weeks. So that's coming up for you principles. I'm sure you're all watching your data. On that Friday the the data is captured
and then the direct certification is multiplied by 1.6 and we look at where all the schools fall. We this is the eligibility thresholds have been the same since 201617 and that is because that's what's in state law. So we cannot
raise the thresholds. Um the elementary, middle, and combination schools the threshold is 70% direct certified times 1.6 and for high schools it's 67%. Within the district there are five
uh tiers. So according to law, you must provide an allocation higher for the higher concentrations of poverty. So the tiers establish different per pupil allocations within um the eligibility
thresholds. The schools are required to develop a schoolwide plan and our team assists in the development of that schoolwide plan. um reviews initiatives for allowability, assists the schools in overcoming any
barriers when they want to implement their plan, and then we monitor school compliance. And um school compliance is a big piece and I know it's probably a timeconsuming piece at the school level, but for the benefit of receiving those
dollars, we must maintain compliance. Um after those um allowable and required set aides, we actually um end up allocating out quite a bit of
the roll forward dollars to schools. So when schools um do not use all of their allocation, say there's a vacant position, unfilled position, lap salary rolls into the next fiscal year, those dollars are aggregated and then we use
them to enhance the per pupil allocations. So a lot of times there's questions about will I lose these dollars if I don't spend them in this year. The answer truly is no because because in some form or fashion they do
come back to the school. Um there's title one part C. Do you want me to skip to two and four and then come back? >> Okay. So title two part A the funds are available title one, title two and title four all have the same um project period
July 1st to June 30th. This grant also has roll forward. There are several district provided services um using title two funds. Um just as an aside, we are required to proportionately share
these funds again with private schools and charter schools. The district uses these funds for um recruitment initiatives, teacher ambassador programs, the K5 literacy staff, secondary curriculum. You'll see
there's 25 FTE um alone in those two different initiatives. There's leadership development, so growing our own uh leaders, professional development. the regional uh instructional support teams are
provided with title two um mental health professional development and principal development and coaching. So there is a lot of professional learning that is um funded through title two and the other big part of course is recruitment
and then title four part A. Title four part A has some additional restrictions on how we allocate the funds. They um have thresholds. They want 20% of the funds for well-rounded initiative, 20 at least 20% of the funds
for safe and healthy student initiatives and then um there's a cap on technology. So we have to work very carefully to ensure that the initiatives that are funded at the district level do fall uh within those thresholds.
There is a lot of school-based supports um with title 4 including global education dual language and world language instruction. Reading recovery intervention is funded through title 4. Gifted endorsement support. Um there are
IB language teachers, steam integration, behavior coaches and case managers and the skills for learning and life that resiliency programming is also funded through title 4. Um in the safe and healthy there are PBS
supports uh case managers for attendance and single school culture coordinators to build effective um support wraparound support systems within school centers. And there um the literacy the technology literacy part is kind of the train the
trainer trailblazer initiative. So whatever um this year there's been a very big focus on AI and the use of AI and that is supported by title 4. Any questions on title one, two or four?
Just real quick, looking ahead, you heard Miss Frederick talk about shifts in um populations, shift in poverty levels. That does impact the allocations that the district will receive for title one particularly. Um in turn that
decrease in the amount that the district is allocated combined with the loss of enrollment in school centers will have a negative impact on title one allocations in FY27. >> Yeah. because it's more of a lag u for
title one because the date certain is uh the allocations are based on date certain as a the students sitting here in the seats that are registered in February is what's used for the upcoming year. So since we didn't see that decline decline until over the summer the schools that had declining
enrollment won't see an impact until this upcoming year. Um let me see. Uh so then >> and so the main funds that that were targeted this past year were title two
and title four and title three and um uh was it no was it head start? >> There's been a lot of talk about Head Start. Yes. And then there were adult educ some adult education programs that were held as well
>> and also the 21st century afterchool programs as well. So one of the first pro first to be added back was the afterchool programs and then a month later I would say the other programs were added back. >> Just from my standpoint this has an impact on the schools as well even
though there's not a you know some of it is direct support to schools but it will have an impact on a lot of things in regarding educating certain students. Um and so the impact would be large to lose this and I know
that's not our any of our capacity but I just wanted that noted. Oh, it would have a significant negative impact u to the schools. Uh professional development um was one of the areas targeted and for a lot of the reasons um it was they they
felt like that there were things being um taught um and as part of and being promoted as part of professional development which was not not what we were doing here in Palm Beach County but you get wrapped up in it when they're looking at it at a federal level. Uh so right now there hasn't been a decision
made which is almost puts us in a better position at least it's you know we you know the longer it goes on the better chance we have of keeping it and at least maintaining it at a flat amount although impacted by whether there's a decline in enrollment like I mentioned but at least maintaining it. I they're
not going to increase any of these awards most likely at the federal level. Uh we just need them to maintain it. And then Dr. Dr. Donius was just at a high level going to go through the ELLL programs which this was one of the ones that was was targeted you know just focusing on you know what supports that
are that are provided through title three the ELLL and then for the migrants. >> Thank you so much. Uh title three is a grant that provides supplemental funding to districts to improve the English language acquisition and proficiency in of students as well as the academic um
achievement. We want to support students to improve their academic achievement and supports also immigrant students. Uh we do allocate we actually uh this title three funds everything that we get is is uh is uh allocated uh to support schools
in our district and and that that includes uh charter schools as well. But some of the things that we do, we uh we purchase licenses for two programs, achieve and benchmark, which are programs that really support the uh language acquisition of students. We
also um provide additional materials and supports for schools. Uh we um focus also in uh professional uh development. One of the biggest things that we do is the tutorials throughout the year with during the school year. uh we do uh that's where schools are encouraged to
uh uh apply for those mini grants where they can uh provide those tutorials that that tutorials also in include the the resources the curriculum that they'll be using uh during the summer also we do offer a tutorials uh which is part of
the summer school for our students and again that includes the curriculum that we purchase through that. We also use this funding to fund uh the uh language line translation services. We do have uh translators, a team of translators in
our department that helps with the four uh most used languages in Palm Beach County. Uh but we do have uh over 143 languages that are in present in our district. So we um sometimes need additional support from the language
line translation services. Um we also have instructional personnel as you can see there. We have uh social service facilitators. Uh we have also uh uh bilingual counselors uh a dual language um manager as you know we have 38 dual
language programs in our school and we have resource teachers as well that uh help us support the curriculum u in terms of the Spanish and the Haitian creole which are the programs uh that we uh we do have in addition to the other support for the other languages. Um we
do have a welcome center which uh some of the staff that you see listed there uh collaborate collaborate with the district to ensure that our families receive the support that they need when they uh arrive first to our school system and uh we facilitate all the the
completion of forms as well as uh getting the uh services that they need in terms of vaccinations and physicals. Any questions on that? Okay, let me I talk about this one. There's one more. Uh the immigrant uh is a subgrant that
we don't we don't know if we're getting it until probably a a month before school starts. It really depends. It's a subgrant as you see there. Uh and when we uh receive that, uh some of the things that we do uh cover with that is we have uh software uh language licenses
that we uh use. Uh we have a newcomer um program that we use for our students to ensure that they're acclimated not only with the system but also start developing their uh English language development as quickly as possible. We have additional uh support materials as
well. Um and when we do have uh because we we service over 31,000 students in in this category. So I want to make sure that uh that I I highlight that. But uh when we do have uh PD for our teachers, we cover uh we provide substitute uh you
know funding for that as well. And definitely we do have a a lot of professional development that um uh focus on all the needs of our students that are incoming through this immigrant grant. I don't think I have anything else.
Okay. for the for IDA. Fortunately, this has been maintained over the last uh recent years. Um it is specifically allocated for students with disabilities. Uh also students who have
individualized education plans. Uh these funds uh may roll forward each year. Uh but we have been successful in expending IDA annually since I've been in this position. Uh IDEIDA is supplemental. It
is not intended to cover the full cost of providing special education for students with IEPs. Uh we are responsible to make sure that all the funds are used to be able to cover the additional costs that are above and
beyond um the general funded um allocations that come in that um Miss Frederick had talked about earlier on in the presentation. This uh grant is designed to be able to provide goods and services above and beyond in order to
meet the needs of the students with individualized plans based on their disabilities. When students receive services outside of the general education classroom, uh general fund fund dollars do support them. So there is a saying that we say
within the exceptional student education department is students with disabilities are general education students first. So everything that students with disabilities or general education students or students without disabilities receive, those students with disabilities receive all of that
and then IDEIDA provides goods and services um based on their individual needs. Beyond that, uh this slide here talks more specifically about the goods and services that I was talking about. At the top we talk more about services. These services come in direct hired
staff but also contracted staff. Um we provide um you seebas those are staff allocated to be able to provide behavioral intervention and support to students with disabilities, students with autism, emotional
behavioral disabilities and really any other eligibility that requires the behavior support. uh pair of professionals are allocated based on individual student need and the overall need of schools. Uh the supplemental services that you see in the middle
there, those are all of the specific specialized services that we provide as a um public school system. Uh public schools are required to meet the individual needs of all students within their school districts from most
restrictive environment or most intensive needs all the way to the least restrictive general education environment with minimal need. Um the challenge with all of this has been um the idea maintaining which is a good
thing but goods and services has been increasing over time which has provided us a unique challenge to be able to adapt and evolve working with our school leaders and our finance to be able to um
really analyze over time and make small shifts to be able to continue to go above and beyond and meet the needs of our students. students with disabilities. On the bottom, uh they're uh really obvious examples, but good examples of the equipment that we buy
for students with disabilities, including wheelchairs, walkers, positioning equipment, uh for our kids with vision or hearing needs, um hearing aids, magnifiers, orientation, and mobility. A lot of the equipment you see
here, uh we have students who don't have functioning of their body, but their minds work. So we have eye gaze devices to allow them to communicate augmentative adaptive communication for students um u with disabilities such as autism who don't have a voice but do
have the ability to communicate. We purchase those devices to be able to assist both high-tech and low tech. Uh the staffing, the majority of IDA is spent on staffing and we utilize that staffing to not only provide and um
support directly with technical assistance and um really hands-on type service with staff and students at schools, but also to provide professional learning to continue to improve our practice and innovate to um obviously evolve with the times as
technology uh evolves, but also as we see um disabilities within our community uh increase and and the perfect example of that is our students with autism. We're seeing the identification rate increase and we're working um with our
our teams at schools to be able to adapt and meet the need the needs of our students as we see those needs increase. 20 the 21st century program. I mentioned that earlier. Um this is an afterchool program. We are one of the largest participating districts. Uh it's not
just it it's truly a an u afterchool um school enrichment um additional tutoring academic support uh program. Uh I wanted to go just over that the next uh uh budget advisory committee uh
is scheduled for um let me see uh February 6th um at 9:00 a.m. Um and then uh then we're just at that point going to be updating and providing legislative updates. the session the legislature
session will have been in in session for you know a little less than uh a month at that point you know three weeks I'll be able to provide more of an update of what bills look like they're gaining traction so be provide an update and each of the meetings will be providing legislative updates as well as um any
changes that we're looking at um proposing for the capital plan uh because it is rolling that forward with any changes um that based on uh additional work or items identified um that need to be added or adjusted to
that to that capital plan. And then from a legislative perspective, if we hear anything at the federal level, making sure the committee's aware of any changes of any uh federal grants that may sunset other than those that that we're aware of. And then being able by that March 31st or April 3rd uh meeting,
I have two uh tenative dates as to which works best for the committee. uh that's where I'll be able to bring back uh the final results of the department uh budget reviews and what uh changes we'll be making at the department level. Um so if we we have May 7th and May 28th if
needed um you know both of those meetings if the session really truly ends on March 13th we may be able to be finished on that March 31st. Um, and the reason why I had the option for April 3rd is because the the committee is responsible for submitting a report to
the board. Uh, so if we we start drafting one on the 31st, the the third would also give us time to to finalize that um as well. Uh hopefully the session will end on the 13th, although we are hearing there is a strong possibility, especially with all
of the impacts with uh property taxes, that it may extend into a special session. uh tenative adoption is on July 29th. Final adoption is on September 9th. The latest that we've received, the budget was uh an approved budget from D uh from
the legislature was on the date that they're required by the constitution to provide it to us uh which is the by July 1st. Um so we did have that we're pretty close to that last year. Um so you know hoping that they can still you know stay on track for this upcoming year. The
priority is really just looking at enrollment. Truly the uncertainty um of of challenges we're facing of not being able to trend out what our uh projected enrollment is going to look like for next year. So putting in a lot of uh extra effort into trying to be as
accurate as possible because we know that how important that is for the principles. Uh so working through the uh the differences where we have between the state allocation model and ours and hope and that will be finalized by our next meeting as well. And then what's going to come out of the state uh
legislative session? What is the per funding increase going to be? The state sets our FRS rates. You know, how much are they going to set aside for teacher pay? whether we're going to be able to get back any of that $500 million that's now sitting in the state education
budget to help soften uh the shortfalls that most districts uh face this year. So, we'll continue to monitor, you know, everything going on at the legislative session and then what else they can come up with that could potentially just dilute public education even more than they already have uh in the state of
Florida. Uh the federal legislative changes have a direct impact on our budget as the the principles mentioned. uh we provide direct supports to the schools and uh those are supplemental funds and we're already facing a budget shortfall. There's no way we can address
absorbing any additional cuts that are made uh with those any other uh federal grant programs. And then we have a lot of other uh considerations. I mentioned instructional materials. the cost of instructional materials uh adoptions
going forward um are significant and um uh cost of health care. We have a three-year agreement with our employees and uh their uh employee increases as well as district in increases. So in FY27 uh the district uh share of
increase is 8 8.6 million. So we're starting off uh with an additional cost that we're going to have to add to our budget. And FPL has also uh released uh rate increases um which are less than what they had projected last year but
still increases uh in uh electricity. So put it into context, we spend $34 million a year on electricity. So when there's an increase that has a a significant impact as well. We have to make sure to align our budget with the
board uh priorities which align with uh the five-year strategic theme uh which runs through FY27. You know, primarily our number one focus is on academic achievement and growth. that's our priority uh is always our fi our
priority but it also is tied to the funding we receive and that's why I also take it down to you know resource management and we need to make sure to have a structurally balanced budget and ensure that we have sufficient reserves um so that we can keep our our district
uh financially healthy uh for not only this year but uh future years uh to come. I already went over the timeline because that was just an overview and we're done. So, I'm sorry we did go a little I was hoping we'd be done by 11. So, we're a little bit over from where
we thought. So, I will propose um to the committee that uh we table uh the discussion of the chair and vice chair to our next meeting. Um as because we'll most likely have more people that will be in attendance. Um, and we can also uh
for the the action items too, we can also uh move the minutes to the next meeting as well if if everybody agrees with that. Um, I do want to make sure that uh Friday, February 6 is a good meeting date um for everybody uh for the
the the actual committee members. So, please send me an email if that date is not going to work. And after this meeting, I'll I'll send something out to so you can respond so I can make sure that these upcoming dates work and uh because I do have time to still change them if they're not going to work for
the committee members. >> Hi Heather. On February 6 is the counselor's breakfast. So many principles will be attending that and from 7:30 to about 10 >> on February 6. Just so that you're aware. Okay. So some principles may not attend or be able to attend.
>> All right. And I think that's I think that's okay because this was the main one for the principles and now next will be updates from the legislative session um as well as any updates from the department review. So >> thank you. >> All right.
>> All right. So I guess with that um I can adjourn the meeting and I want to thank everybody for u for attending and staying because this was a very long meeting and the future ones will not be as long because they're just going to be updates. So all right so thank you.
Thank you. Right. Thanks.