Independent and perfect government. Establish justice. Ensure tranquility. Provide for the common defense. Promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. do ordain
and establish this constitution for the state of Colorado. Thank you. You have a seat. I miss a lot. Okay. Approval of the agenda. I make a motion to amend the agenda.
Do I have a second? No, not necessary. No, no, but sorry. just to say what it was. I need to amend the amendings. Need to amend the agenda to we were supposed to have the
varsity baseball team come in with their coach and we were going to do some congratulating under the circumstances of weather and us not knowing what it was going to look like this afternoon. Uh the baseball coach opted to move this
to another time probably in June. uh for to recognize them. They're doing very well. Um could I have a motion to approve? Second. Our motion. The motion. You want me a second? Yes.
Second. All right. Roll call, please. I hol. Motion carries. Okay. Um, board of education reports. Does anyone have anything? Yeah. Sorry, we
need to we need to approve the action. Okay. A motion to approve the agenda. The move. Second. Roll call. Hardly. Hi. Bates. I. Kimbell.
I Holtz. I. Motion carries. Thank you for Thank you everyone for keeping me in line. Okay. Board of Education reports. Um, so first I I actually had an inerson uh meeting for work or on Monday, which
doesn't happen all that often, but while we were chatting, uh, one of my co-workers lives in Colorado Springs and her son is in eighth grade and does, um, travel basketball. and uh she said that she had run into um a middle school team
from Woodland Park um coached by um Ramon Sodto and she just expressed how impressed she was with our basketball players um what a great job the coach was doing and um how wonderful it was because they're pretty new to the travel
scene um and and just you know how she was really just very impressed with with how they were showing up and able to compete at that level when they were so new. Um, so I wanted to share that with everyone. Um, that's wonderful. Yeah, I was really excited to hear it. Um, and
then the other thing is just kind of a a reminder. You know, the parents and students and teachers probably don't need a reminder for this, but it's a super busy time of year for everyone. Um, and there's a tremendous amount of effort going into all of the end of school activities and concerts and
performances and um, projects. And I just um want to express my appreciation for everyone for all the hard work that they're doing. Um and just a reminder that school is almost over and have to hang on a little bit longer. There's light at the end of the day. Yes.
Thank you. Others? Well, um, on Monday, Mick and I attended the teacher appreciation lunch, and we were just really impressed with all the teachers, impressed with the staff, the smiles, um, especially our staff and Candace, Jinder, Aaron, Patty,
Lindsay, and if there's anyone else I'm missing, um, yeah, there's people missing, uh, the cook, Jason. Jason. Yeah. And so, they did all the prep work, all the stuff. It was just so awesome to work there with you guys. So, thank you. And it was good to see just
the kids and everyone. Um, you can tell everyone's sort of sensing the end of school and excited about it. So, appreciate your comments, yes, it's very much noticeable, but we had a great time and I Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I'm going to
piggyback that. Uh yesterday they we had the barbecue at Summit and the weather was not cooperative and uh Jason and his helper cooked burgers. Fortunately, there's a little oneman car garage, so they
weren't out in it, but it was course and uh it it went very well. I was just sharing with with Miss Rexford that uh they were I mean everyone was happy and laughing and and teasing around with one another. There's some games going on in
the building that they're they're participating in and uh it was a it was a wonderful environment and we had a lot of fun. And again, asa as uh Cassie said, uh the girls and the guys worked
their kesters off to to pull that off. And it was much more difficult under the circumstances yesterday, but all we still lack is Coline. And it's sounding right now talking to Candace that probably next Tuesday we'll get Coline
in. Sue, anything? I'd like to report that Mick and I on Monday evening went to the high school and saw 13 um seniors going into juniors going into
to be seniors um inducted into a ceremony for the National Honor Society. 13 students and we're very proud of proud of them and they all and the outgoing seniors were very um very very kind to the ones that were
coming up and they they they they took their um keys yes off and then and and and laid them over the shoulders of the new so we had 13 students who were pretty proud of them. I thought that was a wonderful idea that the previous
year's honoral did the presenting. They were very good at. That was nice. Anything else? Okay. Well, I can hear you. I can hear you. All right. location.
Thank you for that, David. And I apologize for not sharing that you were remote today, but I'll bet everyone knows now. Thank you. All right, Mr. Salt. Thank you. So, I think probably the the
first and most important thing on my list is uh update on the CFO search. Uh we interviewed four applicants. Uh Courtney and I did a couple weeks ago. Of those, uh two of them we decided to
to kind of put forward as finalists and invite them in. Uh one of them is out of state, the other is uh local to the springs. And so we'll have them on Monday to do interviews. Um, inerson interviews will be a little lengthy. I
kind of explained the process in the email I sent to the board, but we'll have um breakfast with one candidate, lunch with the other board's perspective, so you guys can get a chance to to meet them and talk with them, ask questions that you have, and
then we've got more time scheduled here for them to to meet the team, the finance team, and then to work with the executive team. So, we'll have plenty of opportunity to to grill them and then we'll have hopefully a single finalist coming out of out of that group that we
can move forward with. Um, that's that's very good. Yeah, we're we're excited about that. Any questions? Uh, I do. Do you have notes from your interviews earlier? um from like the initial interviews that we can take a
look at going into it just to see what their answers were to whatever questions you already asked. Uh I have the questions that we asked. I actually didn't take a lot of notes on that. Um Courtney and I just kind of recaped afterwards. So um I don't have
the resumes I can send you if you want to take a look at the resumes. Yes, please. Um we'll get that over to you guys ahead of time. Okay. It's a good idea. Um, with that, it's been busy. It's been teacher appreciation week. We've gotten out to two of the three schools to do barbecue or, you know,
burgers and hot dogs uh for staff. Um, as Mick mentioned earlier, we'll be doing Combine next week. It was supposed to be today, but that didn't work out. Um, we've had uh had lots of fun going to other events. Um, at Coline, they did a math
title night. had lots of fun games to help encourage kids to to work on math. They were using playing cards and dice and coins and fishing in the dark and all sorts of other exciting things. Um, and we kicked off, I know we had talked previously
about doing some parentmies as far as outreach goes. And so we had a a kind of a kickoff with that where we um Ginger had some books that she was able to provide to students there at Coline and then we were able to get some feedback from them on we had a form for uh
parents to fill out on what parentmies would be helpful or interesting to them for the next year. Uh we also had a bingo card that she put together that kids will be able to take and complete over the summer and if they complete it they can get a prize and they come back. So ways that we can incentivize uh reading and literacy over the summer and
try to minimize the the slump um we typically see. Um trying to think uh we had prom. I did not attend but we had other people who attended. Lindsay was there and took lots of pictures. Uh
it was dark so I don't know how the pictures turn out. Yeah. Little dicey. It didn't snow so that's a plus. That's always a plus. Um but yeah, it's been busy with awards and we did CTE awards, we had the honor society and lots of
other evening activities. Um you know that's most of what we have going on right now as far as that goes. I know Courtney's been working hard on the budget and she'll give that presentation shortly. Yeah. And it's not done yet. They're busy. No, that's why I called that out.
All right. Is anything else? Good. Thank you. Okay. We are at the uh point of public comment. I'd like to read the public comment issue uh guidelines. Please be aware that any personnel or individual
student matters are considered confidential under Colorado law and it is out of respect of the law and our employees and students that we require those discussions take place privately in executive session. Individual comments are limited to three minutes or
a total of 15 minutes for a particular topic. The intent of public comment is to give the board of education the opportunity to hear your comments. However, the board will make no decision or take no action on public comment during these meetings. Do do we have a
list? We do. All right. Go Michaels. a long time county res tonight once again to thank you our local school board for all that you do. You are not only direct you have not
only directed direct sorry you are not only directly responsible for improving the academic scores of our community you are also directly responsible improving our financial scores by reducing waste and combining schools to
save money, our taxes. Over the past several years, you are directly responsible for removing pressure from outside unions being forced upon our teachers, enabling them to decide whether they would join or not.
You are directly responsible for reinvigorating the social science of civics, dealing with the rights and duties of American citizens. Prior to your your involvement, our graduating students knew more about Antifa's
objectives than the objectives of our founding fathers. They were taught more about social justice for illegals than the origins of our justice system in America. I challenge you, our individual members of the school board, to put the students
before your individual social media status. One or more of you has been using your position here to denigrate the others. Make yourself out to be the one who is on the board to stand for progressivism. Remember to put the students before yourself. Again, this
board is here to ensure that our students learn how to think, not what to think. We pray to our father in heaven that you will continue to be successful in your endeavors to make our young men and women successful. There are few callings greater than the importance of what
you're doing here today. Thank you. First, I'd like to say I have something in common with Mr. Le. Sometimes my old ears fail to hear it adequately. In error, I mentioned at the last meeting that Miss Wagner from
Merit's board mentioned the word faith at the work session. I take to verify statements, but this time several reviews and even a second opinion did not catch the error. I apologize. That said, it's a reminder
that statements here shouldn't mislead the public. At the work session, merit representatives mentioned several times that persons were shocked at the school. That dramatic statement leaves a memorable negative impression. I will
have to say too, it was mentioned at the task force meetings, but Mr. Salt said the following board meeting two days later that the problem had been taken care of and he didn't know why it was mentioned.
Another example is when the district sent out a statement saying the auditor found no fraud. Yes, but the auditor found 16 deficiencies and verbally stated several areas that could be looked at with a forensic audit, saying
a more accurate statement would have alerted the public to the significant problem with the district's handling of finance reporting. And finally, for Mr. Rust Holtz, I can answer his question about
the cost of legal expenses last year. Legal expenses were $183,213. It was spent on that was the total for the legal fees. $117,143 went to Brad Miller's law firm. That would have paid for a few teachers
salaries. It's unconscionable that this occurs making Brad Miller wealthy and shows teachers and students they aren the first priority of this board. Thank you.
Thank you. That's it. Okay. Uh moving on to the consent agenda. I'd like to like a motion for approval of the consent agenda. So
moved. Second. Second. Roll call. Hi, Bates. I Patterson. Hi, Rester. Holmes, I. Motion carries. Okay, on to the next item. You're up
again, Mr. Soul. Annual audit proposal. Thank you. So, every year do an annual audit. And I know we've been talking a lot about audits, but that was for last, well, last year. Uh now we've got to do our audit for the 2425 year. Uh the
proposal that you have is from holting the ones who have been doing our audit for several years and so this is just an agreement uh an engagement letter uh to continue working with them as we move forward. Um any questions?
Um the only question I had I know um when they they gave the report um was that last month it's been a couple meetings since I think it was only just last month. Um that they mentioned um a couple of things that that I think we should make sure we're
paying attention to. Uh one the fact that it took so long made made it so that it cost double. So, just making sure that we are I know you're all working on it, but just making sure we have our our ducks in our rows so that we don't wind up paying double again or
more than what is proposed here. And then the second thing they mentioned um was that they had had been giving reports to some of the board members. Um so I was not part of that group who was getting reports. Um, so just making sure
that this coming year if they're providing reports to the board that were all included in that information. Um, all the information I was getting was was from Mr. Bay at the meetings and apparently that was extremely
inaccurate and I wasn't aware of all the issues we were running into. So just making sure the communication is there so that we can act on things when we're running into issues earlier. Well, and my hope is that we're not running into so many issues that need to
be discussed, but I I hear what you're saying. Thank you. And I can tell you that our finance team is working on that. I know Courtney has already either is it scheduled for next week or Yeah. talking to to from the auditing
room just so we can start getting things situated and make a game plan so that we don't have to worry about it dragging on. or starting late. We started extremely late and so if we can hopefully start earlier than that. Yeah. And we have some continuity
here. Even though we're looking at, you know, hiring a full-time permanent CFO here, Courtney still is involved and we'll be able to help bridge that gap. And so, uh, we don't expect that this CFO transition is going to cause delays in the auditing process, um, because of
how we're we're currently situating ourselves with the auditors to be able to to bring everything together. Yes. A whole a whole different set of circumstances this year and a lot was learned and being learned. So, I'm more
optimistic as we go into this new audit here. Anything else on that? No, just Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the annual audit proposal? So, move. Second. Second.
Roll call, please. I mean, I hold. Motion carries. Okay, moving on to discussion and information board governance policy EE7. Mr. Soul,
thank you. So E7 um is really talking about the communication between the superintendent and districts and the board. And so we have E7 here lists eight different ways that expectations in that communication.
And so with this, I focused really just on the time since I've been in this role and not previously. And so based off of the my tenure here, uh we believe that
um the district is in compliance with EU7 and it is presented as such. Were there any questions? Well, I have heard that I received a text about you attending Kanas. So, I know that you're out there and about and um meeting with the community members
and parents. I know with the parent academy that you're working toward that as well and the staff. So, um is there anything else you guys want to ask? Didn't you attend Rotary as well or We did um I did Rotary. I've done
Kuanas. I've met with um Sheriff Mike S and Chief Diesler uh earlier this week. Um we have our um stakeholder groups that we talked about that'll start next school year. So probably August or September.
Um but this report really focuses more on communication between me and the board and not so much the community engagement piece. It mentions that as well. But yeah, number five is just you've been doing weekly communications with us and I appreciate that.
Yeah, I think that's a that's a big facet for the community. Yes. Not in here. Uh, does the format of those weekly emails does that work well for you guys? Yeah. Okay. Everyone Okay. Ask while we're here. Thanks. Any
other questions for Mr. Salt? Moving on. the preliminary budget and scheduling of a public hearing. Let's crouch. All right. FY26 budget presentation.
Um, I like these to be informal. So, if you have questions while I roll through this, feel free to stop me. A quick agenda overview will So this is a presentation that I prepared. It's different from what is in your board
packet. What is in your board packet was created for your consumption but also for public review as well. Um so uh what I will go over is all contained in that package just maybe a little bit
different format. Um we'll talk about the major assumptions typically revenue and expenditure. Um we'll talk a little bit about what the impacts on the budget have been as a result of loss of city sales tax revenue. We will talk about
budget summary. So at the end of the day, all of the inputs that go into this thing, what are the revenues? What are the expenditures? What is our net? What is the projected net income for the year? Um and then key performance metrics that I track in budget
two. summary of assumptions. Um, based on the April 2nd publication of CD's uh, funding estimates, um, PTR is coming in for Woodland Park School District at a little over $12,000 per student. Um
they are estimating funded pupil count with a four-year student average calculation of 1,775.7 students four of whom are classified as extended high school. Um
total program funding is 21.9 million um almost 22 million that is subject to the hold harmless list that was part of the new school funding formula. What that means is the amount that was calculated
for FY26 based on the $12,000 per pupil revenue amount and the other adjustments that went into it actually ended up being less than your FY
2425 total program funding. So, it resorts back to your FY25 total program funding. That's important to keep in mind because even though PPR went up, you're not actually getting to recognize
that for the next fiscal year. Uh total local share is coming in at over 13 million. And so your total face share is coming in at 8.5 million. I have some questions there since you're being informal. So the the estimated
estimated um students that's there the 1,700 that's higher than our current student count. So are we saying that we're using that number because the state is funding pupils based on the
rolling number and not on our actuals. Correct. Four fouryear average. Okay. Um that was part of the um funding. No, that was part of this year's school
finance act that they would continue to recognize that four-year average. They will consider reducing that to a three-year average. Possibly next year um as a
mechanism to then be able to incorporate a larger percentage of the new funding formula. The new funding formula is going to cost about $581 million over six years. What they've done is they've
bro they've decided to extend that to seven years so that they can reduce the implementation cost this year from I think 18% or 19% down to 15%. This isn't a one forone swap. What
they're trying to do is increase the amount of money that all students receive for special education. It's going to cost the state money. They just can't afford to do it as quickly as they would like to given the deficit that
they face this year and possibly future years. But they'll they'll think about that tomorrow. Does that answer that question? Yeah, I was when I saw that I was like, wait, I don't think we're going to have that many students. So let's not overestimate there. No.
All right. And these numbers are coming directly from even the total program funding and the total state share numbers are coming directly from CDE. Okay. So I'm not doing any calculations other than to walk myself through
understanding how they're coming up with their numbers. Um and then on the expenditures side, salaries uh reflect an approximate 10% reduction in workforce across the entire
organization. Um and then when we move beyond salaries which also directly impacts benefits um other assumptions other expenditure assumptions have been calculated in this budget based on previous year budget. So
what I do is I I look at the previous year budget. I look at the previous year audit or expected year-end totals and then I take a snapshot of yeartoate actuals and extrapolate it out
and then I do a comparison. um when I have more years of very granular data, I can look account by account and go, "Yeah, that might be a little bit high this year, but I know that year over year, we've done this or we've done that." And so I can safely assume that
the assumption is correct. Um this tends to be a little bit more reliant on the audit um than it does and and the actuals than it does maybe what the revised budget had been. um simply
because that's all I have to go on. Um so I don't want to underestimate expenditures just like I don't want to overestimate revenue. How close would you say our estimates for the 24 25 year were to what our
actuals are you know we're almost to the end of of this fiscal year previous year's budget using the previous year's budget. Well, just like no, just in general, right? Like so we we we we approved a budget for this school year. How close was were our estimates
estimates there to what our actuals are looking like? Um I think you end up coming under in under appropriations. However, there are some accounts that were underestimated on the expenditure side. Property was one of them.
Um, and then the 0400 and I think 0700 accounts were a little underestimated. So, I'm working to make adjustments back up to an amount that makes sense. In general,
your total property costs should be about 20% of your entire budget. Um, and it was well below that. So yeah and and property that means like repairs, maintenance and things. Yeah.
Acquisition, repairs, all of the all of those types of things. So it brings it up to the to the actuals then. Right. Yes. That that's where I'm working to get you. It it can sometimes be a little
iterative through these budget um processes. Any others? Okay. Um, with that said, however, uh, one time outlay expenditures, so like if you did a roof
repair that was incorporated into the actuals, I removed that because that's not something that you have to do in yours going forward. Um, this kind of goes ahead of of you, but in one of the information pages,
there's um some discussion on facility repairs and costs there. Were those Have you seen that? And are those currently included in the proposed budget? So, I can speak to that. Uh, they were not included in the proposed budget. Um,
we had to make sure that our our expenses met what our projected revenue are and so we just don't have the deep pockets to handle some of those expenses. Um but there are things that we're tracking. Uh we're looking at um we talked about it last year. We did some information into like the best
grant is one that we're looking at applying that would help with some of these expenses. Okay. Um among other grant opportunities and we're looking for other ways so that we can actually address these facilities issues. Yep. We just can't do it in our operations budget right now. Okay. I was just curious if would be great. I know we
spoke about that, but have you guys actually reached out for estimates or that for that information or is that just sort of um some of those? Yeah. So, that came from Jason. So, some of those came from estimates that he had received. Some of those are just Okay. best guess based
off of his experience. Okay. I was curious about that. I didn't want to jump ahead, but yeah. No, and I will say the best grant doesn't solve problems because it is a match grant. So, we have to have 50ish% of what we're getting. So, when you look
at saying, you know, it's going to cost us, I'm making these numbers up, you know, $5 million to replace roof X and we're getting that from the best grant. We still have to have $2.5 million to to put in that. So, um, we talk about some of these grants and they sound great and
they are great opportunities, but we still need other funding sources and ways to be able to to match and be able to meet those expenses. And so as we're still looking for a CFO and those are in
incorporated salaries and Y I maintain placeholders for funded but unfilled positions. So of note CFO and our grants position are both placeholders in this budget for next year. Very good.
Assuming the full year. Yes. Oh, yes. Yep. The full year. Well, I mean, we're anticipating hiring early in the year. Sometimes you budget for half year because you think it's going to take a while. No. And especially because we're
I believe we're very very close on the CFO search. I'm optimistic that the of the two candidates will have somewhere. Um, so they would be in here uh presumably before the end of the year. Uh, one of them, like I said, is an out ofstate candidate, so not sure exactly
what timing that looks like. It may be closer to the end of the school year, but we anticipate before July 1. Um, the other one works locally and so there's some more flexibility in how how that gets handled. The grants position, um,
we're anticipating, uh, July one start date. We haven't budgeted for that. Uh but we have not posted or hired for that yet. Like I said, uh I think we talked about this before that we have an internal um employee currently that we have talked to about transitioning into that role.
Um which then we just want to know which positions we need to actually post and fill or fill through that. Um but we are anticipating the full full school year for both of those positions. I would only make an adjustment in the
budget for a salary related expenditure if I know for sure in going into the revised budget if I know for sure that we're only having to pay for 75 of the year or something like that. Again, conservative budgeting says you
overestimate your expenditures. I I have a this isn't well I mean it is a big issue the athletic but do you anticipate the athletic piece to go up and is it incorporated in the like that
um that would be reflected in probably a 1,700 like participation fee but I didn't see any sort of granular data on how that's calculated. No. And and we don't collect those directly. They go through our school for collecting those
fees. Then we get checks cut back. And so um that would be in the revenue side. We're not expecting much change in in how that participation and and I have just one more. Yeah. The the the the cash flow loan is that
um being paid off? It's supposed to be what we have till June. Uh yeah, but it pays pretty immediately. So it they know when you get your property tax payments. Um and so it's it's almost within weeks
that they're uh asking for repayment of of the loan. So it doesn't hang out there for very long. Okay. So it's already been done, I assume. Yeah. Yes. And so that's what I was gonna ask about if that actually went through. Yeah. And so then that's actually really nice
because it doesn't carry over on your books. So it's done by the end of the fiscal year. You don't have to worry about it existing as some sort of payable out there um in your audit.
All right. Um impacts on budget um as a result in a loss in revenue. Um couple of things we're going to talk about. I already mentioned the 10% reduction in workforce
um more of a restructuring uh across the entire organization to take advantage of efficiencies um while also maintaining all academic and extracurricular activities. So no impacts there um limited impact on
student and student opportunities um while reducing the entire workforce by about 10%. Um what that ends up resulting in is a reduction in total salary and benefits expenditure costs to the district of over a million dollars.
Um so that was a pretty significant pretty significant chunk. Um along those same lines, uh no salary increases going into next year. Um so this proposed budget does not accommodate any salary
increases that would be in line with enclosure. Um and then the other Can I ask a question real quick? Yes. Uh when you said reduction in our uh
income for the school district and is this directly responsible for the 10% reduction in workforce, no raises for our teachers. Is that reduction the direct decision of
the Woodland Park City Council to repeal our sales tax funds of over $3 million or is that something else? It is driving this. Okay. So their unilateral decision to
stand against the voters cost us that 10% reduction in workforce letting teachers go and they are the ones responsible for not giving our teachers raises just you don't really have to
answer that. I'm not going to and I would I would say that as a board we should probably just focus on working with what we have instead of pointing fingers. Uh it it makes us look childish and it doesn't help us achieve our
goals. Well, I absolutely disagree with that, but um I understand what you're saying. It it I'm going to speak up here. it it's having a profound impact and we are of the opinion we're not being babies
we're we were following that the IgA to a tea and when we had a problem early on we had 30 days to cure that and we cured it in 13 days so I it's not being a baby at all that they were outside of their
jurisdiction pulling that monies because they are tasked primarily they are the person that collects the money and brings it to us and that's all. And uh for the many of the things they did in my opinion were way out of line. So uh
but that I don't think that's being childish, Keegan. Well, that's just the facts on the ground. Well, they did they did repeal it. That is a fact. Yes. Um but I I think there's a lack of accountability when we say it's their
fault. And I don't want to get into it. more because there is current litigation. I don't think it's appropriate for us to discuss it any further. So, I think we should just stop pointing fingers and look at what our budget is and work with the numbers we have. That's all.
Yeah, I would disagree with that. But I I respect you. Moving along. All righty then. Uh the next um area of reduction or um will target um more
deliberate expenditure allocation is going to be deferred maintenance. Capital outlay for maintenance has either been greatly reduced or cut all together. Um and this is going to I think what this ends up doing and
what I like to do is instead of allocating fund $43 at the beginning of a budget year, I like to to allocate fund $43 at the end of a budget administration period when I know what
the projected net income is and what the projected net income margin will be. And so what you're doing is you're grabbing some of that change in fund balance at the end of the year, putting it into your fund 43 account or
fund so that you can then allocate that amount in the next fiscal year without it impacting your operational budget. Right now, because you're pulling it out of your operational budget at the beginning of the year, you're taking that money away. So, if we can start to
shift that fund 143 allocation towards the end of the year when we know exactly how much you're going to have at the end of the year, then it's more of a pay it forward for the next year rather than paying it back to yourself all year long. So, we'll work on this throughout
the year. Um, but uh as the result of some of these other areas where we've had to cut um fund 43 allocation for this fiscal year was reduced to 250,000. Okay. I can't remember what it was for
last year. Um, all right. Any questions there? Um, so that 250,000 is that based off of the excess we think we're going to have finishing this year? Yep. Yeah. I
whittle I whittleled it down as low as I could go without making myself sweat. All right. Um All right. So you guys do have the budget summary and that's what this is. It's just a cut version of it
showing total revenue total expenditures. Um when you look at it looks a a little bit deceptive here um because I show the transfers out of the general fund separately from total
expenditures because that's not what they are. Um they're just simply interfund transfers. Um so at the end of the day, your total expenditures are not just 19 million. It's 19 million plus that 9 million in transfer, leaving you with a change in fund balance, positive
change in fund balance of uh $22,55. It looks a little scary, I know. Um, but what I have found in actual budget administration when you have strong financial leadership is that this number
ends up at the end of the year being significantly higher. Um, but this is also a reflection I don't want to make any promises. It's also a reflection of very conservative budgeting. Um, I never like overestimate on the revenue side
and I never like to underestimate on the expenditure side. And I'm going to just cut in here and just remind everyone that we will do an amended budget in January. That's the way that normal process goes. So, as we get through the first half of the this fiscal year,
we'll have a better idea of how all of these numbers are starting to shake out. Any, you know, um any positions that we might have budgeted for that we didn't get filled 100%. we'll have some deltas in there and so we'll be able to come back to the board in January with that amended budget and give you a better
update of kind of how things are going and where we can reallocate some funds if needed. So if we need to put some more in 43, we can do that. Um I don't want to say much more because I don't want to jinx anything, but uh all that to say I appreciate the work that
Courtney's done in creating this budget. Um, I I appreciate the work from the building leaders and the principles. Uh, when we talk about staffing cuts, this was stuff that we did in conjunction with them. This was um really more of a a partnership and conversation through this and not just
saying, "Hey, we've got to get rid of people." Um, that wasn't our intent. That wasn't just the result of trying to balance the budget. So, I do want to recognize and just appreciate the work that we did both with the principles, with Courtney and some of the other uh leadership team across the district to
to make this happen. Um, these were steep cuts. These were not feel-good um things, but we got where we needed to go, and I'm hoping we've got some good news in January from an admitted budget perspective that we will have some extra dollars that we can we can reinvest into
different funds uh for the district. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing I would add during that revision process I mentioned very briefly in preparation of this budget um I look at actuals year-to- date actuals and then extrapolate. I do
the exact same thing when I revise the budget. And this revision going into or this fiscal year budget revision um will be very deliberate, very painful because we will
go line by line by line. Um we'll just go through that rigor. Uh one for the benefit of the new CFO. Um, I can't always answer questions about every single specific account, but I can come pretty darn close. That is
where he should be or she. This is sort of off topic, but how is things going with the new system and the transferring over for accounting? Um, it it is going
um yeah um there are going to see some pain points um with respect to data migration. Um and I'm working on that right now just to make sure that
everything that we know to be true as of the date of migration is reflected in the new system so that that doesn't become a pain point for the audit. That is my main concern and that is primarily
why I'm going to start a conversation with our auditor next week. Um so that he and I can outline the best way forward knowing that that transition took place in the middle
of the school year. Yeah. Yeah. And kind of going along with that, I have a couple questions, but going along with that one, um I did have a couple of teachers reach out with concerns about um reimbursements and and payments coming through that some of it was delayed and and the reason given was
because of the transition. Is that still true? Have that been taken care of or when they're they're being taken care of on a case-byase basis? I'm seeing the emails coming through and the um
financial accounting payroll vendor uh K12, I'm seeing those responses and I've tracked every single email with a question or a request or anything like that and I've seen a positive response come through and if I haven't then I
reach out. But they've been really good about um responding to those issues. Yeah. So, couple things I was going to say. one, every issue that we're aware of, I believe, has been taken care of. So, if there's other ones, uh, reach out to us because we are getting them
handled fairly quickly once we know about them. The other thing, and and I know this has been a pain point for a lot of staff, our, um, uh, payubs are not available. We have copies of payubs that we can send to individuals. Um, effectively, there's two spots for
emails. What we had in the old system were all personal emails. Um, we want account tied to personal emails. So if you depart from the district and you want tax information, you can still access tax information. The problem is if we only have personal emails in
there, then if you submit a PO and you get PO requ, you know, confirmation back, then it goes to your personal email because that's the only one for that account in the system. And so we're having to go uh employee by employee to get their district uh emails put in. And
so there's two different email boxes effectively. And so that's the delay in trying to get the the access to the pay subs into the system is so that we can make sure that we have it appropriately bifurcated between official district business going to district accounts and
then the personal tax pay time off those things available in the personal accounts. And so it's just taking a little bit of time based off of the data we had in Alio and how they got migrated over. So we're we are working on that actively. We're getting through it as quickly as we can. and it's just taken
some time to get through. We had 500 some odd employees that were in the system because it covers the past year. Um, and so it's just taking time to get through. So those are the big issues that I'm aware of that we're still trying to aside from the migration piece, but that we're working through, but again, we've been able to handle
those one off as they come in. So if anyone needs copies of your payubs, we have them and can send them to you. Um, we've done that for many employee. Yeah. And then just the general wpsdk12.org is the best way to reach out
because K12 has access to those emails so they see them come in as well. Okay. Thank you. Um so the other question I had um when we're talking about or when you know obviously you have to work your your
employees based on your your budget um and riffs are are never fun. Um I'm curious though when we were looking at what we're reducing, did we um discuss and by we I mean you all who are working on the budget um discuss our our lawyers
at all? Uh no, but I think there's probably some opportunity there to pull back on some of the expenses that we currently have. um and you know maybe be able to do some of the repairs that the buildings need
or um fund some of the extra activities by being smarter with how we're spending our money there. So I can I can jump in and say we're not um we've reduced the amount
of workflow between the district and the attorneys since I've taken over. as an example, the attorneys were involved in agenda setting meetings before. They're not involved in that now. So, so we've been working to to chip away at some of
um pull back the core requests. Uh we have seen a fairly strong reduction in the core requests that have been coming through. I think some of the efforts we've gone to just trying to be more transparent, making information available on the website has really proven like the information is
accessible. Yeah. Um, we still get them. I'd say we're probably averaging one a week, maybe two a week. Uh, it's a pretty substantial reduction um, over the last few weeks. So, all of these are are things that will roll down and and
make an impact on the budget. Um, yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing too because I know um we've had some of the lawyers help us with like contracts in the past as well, but they're not necessarily experts in employment law.
Um so some of our contracts have not been as favorable to the district as they might have been. Um and so one of the things I had looked into and I sent you information on this was partnering with employers council. Um, so they're like the
leading employment law specialists here in Colorado. Um, the company I work for utilizes them as well just to make sure we're you know on the up and up and have lawyers backing us when when we write um, you know, our handbooks or things like that. Um, and for because of the
number of employees we have, we could get enterprise membership, which is unlimited access to all of their templates, unlimited access to lawyers for consultations, um, on employment, they'll read over contracts, they'll help us write it, they'll do training
um, sessions, and it's um, like eight little over $8,000 for the year for unlimited access. So, and and to be perfectly honest, your CFO should be able to to generate contracts. Maybe a
template is reviewed by an attorney once and then from that template all contracts can be generated. Um, your CFO should be very familiar with how to write HR policy so that
you're in compliance with state law. Um and so it takes a lot of the burden that you place on consultants in the form of lawyers when you've got a CFO who can capably handle those tasks as well. Were
you asking questions about that when you interviewed the CFO? Uh not yes. Um but uh I think more specifically along the lines of How familiar are you with contracts
and how familiar are you and comfortable are you with HR functions? So yeah. Yeah, I was going to say we we asked some more general questions. A lot of the questions we asked on the specific side was really around finance policy uh fund accounting the
the parts that we really need. um we asked some more general questions and uh both of the individuals that we have coming in have some HR experience and and oversight and so we'll be able to dive a little bit deeper into that in the the next round. Yeah. Um but uh each
of the individuals that we have do have experience there uh that was part of the that initial round. Yeah. And just saying, you know, even companies like the company I work for, we have a pretty expansive HR team really for the size of our company and we're still utilizing
these experts in employment law to make sure you know we aren't making a mistake by having like the wrong one word in a document or um you know saying the wrong thing, right? It's just it's nice to have that backup. And for 8,000 when you look at the fact that we spent you know
over 183,000 lawyers for various things, but $8,000 would be minimal. And if that can reduce some of the lawsuits we've seen over the last few years, I think that's a something good spend. Something we're working on is to break down those
attorneys fees to some degree. I mean, for example, we don't turn all Cororus over to the attorneys. It's just something where there's some liability or, you know, some risk involved. We we don't engage them on each and every kora
but we and I also had hoped to break this down for what expenses that we have no control over for example lawsuits and various things that we had that we well well we're I'm going to work on getting that
breakdown and uh we'll we'll see what it says. I don't know what it's going to say. Yeah. But, you know, we hear this question a lot about our attorney's fees. And, you know, I mean, our attorneys just had to go to the Supreme Court of Colorado regarding an older
older case. And, uh, we I don't I don't take full responsibility for some of the things that we're having to spend on attorneys. Of course, there are needs for them and they they do a good job of it. But I I'm working on those numbers and we'll
follow up as soon as we have something. Yeah. I mean, just when we look back a couple years before we hired Miller, our attorney's fees per year were somewhere around 17 to $20,000 and you know, this last year we spent 183,000. So like there's room for
us to cut back. We weren't in all these lawsuits prior. we we weren't getting sued. So there are things we can do and we can take responsibility for to make sure that we are doing the right things so that no one has a reason to sue us.
Well, there there was there were some big changes to the approach on some issues regarding the whole district. So, you know, when it's business as usual, uh those things don't necessarily come up, but clearly there have been some changes that that have dictated some of
that. Uh, so you know, we can look back at the past, but you've got to include all of the facts around what's going on versus what we're spending. Thank you. Great. And the last thing I'll touch on are the key performance metrics that I
track and budget to throughout the year. Uh, projected change in fund balance 22,55. Um, that is a positive change in fund balance. So that will increase your year end fund balance to 8.28 million
8.29 million. Um salaries and benefits as a percentage of total budget CDE recommends anywhere in the range of 50 to 70% and you are sitting at 51%. Um so that is good. Uh
instructional spending and support spending. This is a big one that I like to track and brief to during monthly financial briefs, etc., etc. Um 5743, that's a great ratio. Um I like to
be as close to um uh that 6040 range as possible and and this budget is putting you right there. So that's great. Any other questions? Um, the other question I had
was around uh the transportation. I just curious if if there's been any discussion with the transportation companies to make sure that we can get neighborhood buses for the kids that no longer can go to Gateway. We sent them
to Summit. this year there were no neighborhood buses for a lot of those kids and so you know they had difficulty some of them choiced out because of that. Um just curious if you're addressing that at all this year. We haven't started the um the routing side
for next year yet. Uh but we'll bring it out to the busing company and we'll be giving I would say that yeah we should make sure we're giving equal transportation at least opportunities to all of our students. Thank you.
Thank you, Courtney. Good job. Okay, next item is uh the superintendent search process. I read I sent out an email to everyone that I was hoping that we planned it out a ways for
June 4th to interview. What we have right now are two candidates. Uh and so to to interview so you know I will have to have a discussion about when people are available at that time.
One of the firms uh he's hoping he can do it as early in the day as possible and the other one's going to be flexible. So, we're I I spoke to them today. Uh so, take a look at your calendars and uh tell me what your
availability is on on June 4th and you know what parts of the day you're available and then I'll respond to these people. But we have a couple of pretty good search firms in line. One uh most people in our region are familiar with. The other one's a newer one that was
recommended that I did have a a Zoom meeting with. Um I I thought I I appreciated it. I thought they had done a pretty good job. So, we'll be doing that on June 4th and as we were hoping
to. Um, other than that, I don't have any other updates on. I It's something we've been working on, but it's just not something that uh Can I I don't know. This might have been part of the email thread, but I just wanted to make sure if anyone had additional firms they wanted to make
sure were included in that search to make sure that they got sent over to Mick so he could schedule that. Well, and there there would still be time for that. I don't know of a third, but maybe someone else does. If you do, bring it to me. will we'll try to get them in there to give us proposal. Yeah, what
you're right. We've talked up to three to look at. I just don't have a I don't have a third. Uh one of the two was recommended first. Um so I I can be if we book things early, I can make myself available for
the whole day. So just let me know. Um, and then the other thing I would request is that we work on scheduling a work session prior to that so that we can have a pretty solid job description ready for them. Um, so that they can take a look at it and and we can ask
them to for suggestions if they have any. So um, just speaking from my experience when we hired in 20 that was part of the the fee that you paid was helping develop that job script. You can have something to propose. I'm not telling you not to. saying that's usually part of the services they
provide is helping to create that. Yeah. Well, that's my understanding. One of the the end up using did a lot of stakeholder meetings and interviewed board members and uh leadership from across the district. I think parents and some other with all was involved, but I
know the consultant we had probably spent two or three days at the district office with one-on-one interviews going through to try to gather information to help develop just a lot of the the information, not just to um it was partly for the job description, but
also, you know, what kind of questions because they developed the questions for the interviews and and the whole thing. And so that was just sort of them getting that community feedback to best serve the district that they're in. So if you're going to pay for it, you may as well let them go. And the one group that that we did I did have a Zoom
meeting with talked about their their what they can do on the front and then after you've got your superintendent hired, they've got a program to go to go along and see how things are going. But they had suggested that they would provide the service that you just asked
for. And th this is the first the very first time that Warren Park School District has hired an outside consultant to hire a superintendent. Correct. Well, yes, because I mean the last time one was used was for Mr. Neil, but this one Yes.
I think we paid a fee to Miller when you brought in, but even even with um Superintendent Neil, they've done this previously. It's not been like a new thing. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Most school districts utilize search firms.
Yeah. I mean, I' I've learned a lot about that. As Keegan just said, uh you know that McFersonen is a is a commonly known name and uh that's pretty typical to hire one of these groups to help in
that process. Okay, any other questions before we move on? All right, then Mr. Salt, let's talk about our forensic proposals. Thank you. [Music]
So, we provided one forensic audit proposal back in April and um it was requested to get a couple more uh proposals. Uh we reached out to three uh different I see wait
Candace reached out to three other uh firms. Uh she had reached out to CDE and a couple other people to get get names. Uh we ended up speaking doing meetings with two of them kind of giving the same speech that we had given uh I Bailey that initial proposal that you got so
that we're as apples to apples as we could. Um one other firm we spoke to but never got anything scheduled with they just didn't reach back out to get something scheduled. um they reached out I think it was earlier this week uh and
said hey if you want to get something it's like we're kind of late here so all that to say they were still interested in engaging this third firm that we haven't spoken to so if you want a third proposal we can push this out more that's fine but only one of the other people actually provided um a proposal
for this that's why there's only one more here is uh we just no one else provided proposals I would be interested and the third one. Okay. Only because this one has um like a
phase two as well where I don't think our first proposal did. So, I wasn't really interested in this one as much because of that. But I do say the pricing the initial pricing was about the same. Yes. But then when I saw the phase 2 product, I was like, I don't
know about that. Yeah. Where that was not offered. That was something that that Candace and I kind of talked about was um it was a little unsettling to say kind of how open-ended it was. Yeah, it's very open-ended where there was no other estimate of it. There's no pricing and to sign something and still not get
a completion of what you've paid for. I don't think that would be appropriate. So, I I would not vote for this one at all. Um it it almost seemed like though um again with the with the two phases that we already kind of have completed phase one
um with our initial audit like our initial audit identified high-risk um you know financial irregularities which is what they quoted us for in in phase one where it looks like we only actually need the phase two because we've already
pulled all that information. That's actually what I was going to say is the the first proposal we got was effectively a phase two approach where they didn't charge us for phase one. We sent them the audit. They did a full review of the audit and they came back and said, "These are the risk points we see and here's what we're going to charge you to do the forensic audit side
of that where this group is saying we're still going to charge you." Basically, they're doing the audit again and then digging in doubling again and then not even giving us an estimate for phase two. So, I when I read all that I was like I have no vote for this. So
that's fine. So we'll reach out. Uh Candace was like I said I think it was earlier this week they were talking. So we'll reach back out to them and see if we can get see how quickly we can get another proposal and then we'll try to bring that third one at June. If we get it earlier, can we discuss that earlier? I don't think we need to wait. We can send it out, but you won't be able to
make a decision till June. Unless we I mean we could do a special meeting if that's what you wanted to make. It it could come to that. Um we'll just let you know once we get a Okay. We'll put pressure on them to get it to us as soon as possible. Yeah. All right, that was it. I just wanted to make sure you
understood why we only had one extra proposal and see if you guys wanted us to continue to pursue the third kind of engaged a little. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Uh that's all that's all we have. I'm sure everyone probably looks at the
operations report there. There are a lot of expenses coming up this summer and They're important ones. I Jason is actually doing a very good job of prioritizing things. Uh we've got some boiler issues right now. The high school has two down. He stayed here till 9:00
the other night and got one of them going. So he's a superhero. 10:00. Yeah. And then that was after he had been the chef for one of the one of the bar appreciation. Yes. Yes. And uh
So, you know, I mean, I I want to say something that I've said before, but for almost two decades, property maintenance was kicked down the road. I mean, they didn't have the money either, and it was kicked down the road. And when this board came in here, we
said, "At some point here, we've got to start paying the fiddler." And and we started doing that. But the list is long. I don't know how many people have looked at that report from 2022, but there are a lot of needs and I spoke to
Jason uh at one of the barbecues and he wants to take a couple of us board members on a tour and just show us all of the things. So, it's going to help us get our hands around it. And I doubt we would change the priorities. He knows better than us. But, uh I appreciate
him. He's he's he's on top of it and I was totally impressed. He got got one of them going. The other one he's got to wait for parts or he might have stayed till 10 the next morning. But uh and then today he was over at Merit working on a boiler. So there there's no
end to maintenance. Everyone's aware of that. Anything else from anyone? There be Mr. Holtz. Anything? No sir. Thank you. May, can I can I can I just add that we have posted on our school website the
opening for the atlarge uh the new board member that for the Boseies board um will be a five member board with the new AU two from Creek two from the park as and one at large and there there is an opening posted for um and the
criteria to to be eligible to be on the board and that will do we leave um we will do the interviews I'm not sure yet I think on the 20th um and so we can have this new board member in place by July 1st when the AU
takes effect very good point okay there being nothing out do nothing else do I have a motion to adjourn motion to adjurnn do I have a second second roll call I Patterson Hi, Mr. Hulks. I motion
carries. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Candace. Yes, sir. Why is it so peaceful? No. Australian.