I'd like to
call the finance meeting to order.
On September 27th, 2020, at 5:00
in the Derry Township Board of Directors Room.
I'll think it just go around the table and state your name
and your relationship to the district.
I'm Kathy Stricker, Board Member.
Lindsey Drew. Board Member.
Singer Board Member.
Stacy Winslow.
Superintendent.
Regis. Byron Administration.
Michele Agee. Board Secretary.
Mike Friends. Business Manager.
Typical board member.
Okay. Thank you.
And then I'm just joining the online.
We don't have anybody as a panelist.
Okay.
So we are able to livestream this meeting as well.
So nobody's there but us.
Okay.
Attached to the Finance Committee meeting,
minutes for the August 23rd, 2020 meeting.
Can I have a motion to approve the minutes from the August 23rd meeting?
So move. Lindsay drew.
Second.
Kip Shaw.
Is there any discussion?
Okay.
All those in favor say I, i, i.
All those opposed say no. Okay.
The minutes are approved.
There's no unfinished business.
So we move on to new business.
Today we are going to do a review of the Esser
three funding plan.
And this is the district's draft summary plan
on how to spend our grant money
that is allotted to us for learning loss.
There is an attachment to the agenda to review.
This was reviewed previously in at Curriculum Council
because it is related to curriculum and staffing of teachers.
Curriculum did push this to the Finance Committee since it's also
related to the budget of not only how we spend the money, the grant money.
Now, but how it impacts
further budgets down the road because it is a payroll issue.
So Dr. Winslow or Mr.
Friends, would you like to provide a summary.
Just to start off?
And then, Dr.
Winslow, you can go through the learning loss
with just an overall four for the entire Esser three grant
or our funding use thereof.
So a breakdown.
So. Esser three.
We are set to receive just a little over $4.3
million.
877,000 and change must be spent on learning loss.
And that's the plan that Dr.
Winslow will review.
We are proposing that.
So in the current year's budget, we use $2.1
million of Esser two funds to balance our budget.
And so we're proposing that again, 2.1 be used
in that same manner for the same positions that were covered under the grant
for the current year, that that would also be done in the 2223 year.
And so that leaves about $1.3 million
of what we plan to use the remaining funds for our.
We know that we're going to
or we hope that we will will increase our substitute costs
as those have been held artificially low by our processes and our procedure.
And so we know those costs will increase back up to their normal amount.
We continue normal operations.
So part of the money we used for that and then finally whatever's
left over for our increased costs in cyber charter schools
so that the grant funds would be used to cover current expenses
and with the exception of learning loss, wouldn't add additional expenditures
to to the district's future budgets other than what
we're already incurring currently.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Everybody had a chance to process and see if there are any questions.
And then we went to the learning loss. Good.
As Mrs.
Dicker shared, this was initially presented at Curriculum
Council as a draft plan for how to address
our funding for learning loss.
And the beginning of the document that you have there just has some of the
the questions that the grant process led us through,
as well as some of the data that, um, that we pulled
just as a quick snapshot for, for where we are as a district
as well as to be able to indicate what data we are still missing.
We have not received any of our middle school standardized
testing data back at this point
just because of the way the testing window was this year.
So, um,
ran this through our cabinet process after Dr.
Shuman and I sat down
and fleshed out a plan and then brought it to curriculum council.
There were some pieces that we targeted very quickly,
which are listed here and there and a chart.
I'll just walk through those very,
very briefly, and I'm happy to answer additional questions.
We have spent 126,000 and change
so far from the learning loss funds.
The first piece was in Summer Standards Remediation, where we addressed
middle school and high school students who were in danger
of not moving on to the next grade level or not
passing a keystone required course.
That was $83,571.43.
We extended our Read 180 contract,
which is our already used
Reading intervention program at the middle school.
We purchased math student licenses
to address math learning gaps
at the middle school for $11,000.
We purchased no red ink.
Also, middle school program
to be catch up readers for the elementary this.
These were new purchases for
the elementary school for books that I'm sorry
I needed to remove that and I forgot
the JP Lily and son does not belong on here.
So now.
So the catch up
readers were for a reading intervention at the elementary school,
and the core project is the high school
and addresses social emotional learning.
The JP lily and son speaker system needs to come out of there.
That's not part of learning loss, and I think that was my mistake.
I forgot to check it out after we discussed
all of these, except for the read 180 or new strategies.
The remainder of the learning loss
plan is an expansion extension of existing strategies
because we already have strong evidence of their effectiveness
and we'll look to the 2223 school year for implementation
because they are staffing strategies
and I did want to share that in.
If you'll recall, as we were working to
balance the budget for this coming
for this year that we are currently in, we had to offer the retirement incentive
and there were several positions that we did not replace
through attrition, through retirement, so that we did not have to furlough anybody.
There were four grade level teachers at the elementary school.
There was an elementary librarian.
There was a special education teacher,
and there was a counselor position where we shifted.
Instead of replacing a counselor at the high school, we shifted the career
college counselor back into a regular counseling position
and did not fill the career.
And so the career counseling position is currently open.
So that being said,
strategy number one is to maintain small class sizes at early grade levels.
You can find
conflicting research
on class sizes and whether or not there's an impact
for learning achievement on class sizes.
What the research does very uniformly share
is that if you have small class sizes in early grades,
K through two in particular,
you can see a significant difference
through the ability to personalize instruction and deliver
personalized or direct instruction with students as they need it.
So we would be looking at smaller
class sizes in grades K through three.
That would be approximately.
And I am using very round numbers for this simply
because we do not know what staff would be coming in at.
But on average, new
staff with benefits is around $100,000.
So using the number $400,000 for that,
for those four positions,
we would look to maintain and expand a focus on quality
mathematics intervention with an emphasis on acceleration.
This would support our multi-tiered system of support.
There is a ton of evidence
that multi-tiered systems of support are an excellent way to address
student learning gaps, and we know that our current systems,
as they have been
restructured with the guidance of our instructional math coaches,
are making a huge difference for student learning.
There was a time when I would not have been confident
in what we were doing to ask for math interventionists.
Some of you who were on the board several years ago may remember
having some of that discussion and and us not being able
to really justify that because of the changes that we've made.
I feel very confident
that this is something that would be beneficial for our students.
So we'd be looking to add two math interventionists,
one elementary and one at middle school, which would give us five mathematics
interventionists at the middle school, at the elementary school, and one
at the middle school
for approximately $200,000.
And then we would also look to maintain and expand a focus on student mental
health and well-being, as well as future planning via college and career counselor.
So it would be looking to put that college and career counselor position back in
place and hire a,
for lack of a better term, regular school counselor
so that that position could be focused on the college and career piece.
And we would have that additional counselor helping
to work with students on on other pieces.
Again, looking at about $100,000 for that
approximate cost for a total of $826,000
plus change, which leaves us a little bit of leeway
for if someone comes in and costs a little bit more than what we expected or
or does not.
But really wanted to bring this to finance because ultimately what this is doing
is bringing those positions that we let go through attrition
back into the budget.
And of course, it's assuming that our revenues have picked back up
and that we are able to support that once the grant funding is gone.
So wanted to be very clear about what what exactly this ask is
and what the ultimate impacts are.
Can we just
thinking about,
I guess, my understanding when the early retirement
incentive was offered and those and some of the positions were not filled,
that it was not just for a one time
savings, you know, for one year budget, it would be
for longer than that.
And so while I recognize some of these funds are doing that,
it would still become a budget item through the general fund
once these dollars are not there. So
can you touch on that a little bit, Mr.
Friends?
Of just like I mean, that's almost $1,000,000
that comes back into the budget
without anything else changing.
Yeah. And we can we can
when we look at the five year budget projection, we'll walk through a couple of
of scenarios that that are happening.
But I think the easy answer for this is, is that
if these positions would be added, we would then assume we would be adding
the additional millage as if we would have kept those positions.
So there would necessitate a tax increase.
Now that tax increase can be spread over time because we have the grant dollars
to fund these positions for next for the 2223 year.
But we would want to be prudent and put taxes in place at that same time
to ensure we're accounting for this when when the grant dollars roll out.
So some of this may allow us a similar to when we rolled out
the new programs for for kindergarten full day.
We may be able to
through a multi-year tax increase
kind of catch up or provide for the the revenue guaranteed revenue
that would be necessary to continue to support those positions.
Okay.
Because I guess that's just where I'm I'm just trying to follow the process of it.
And while I'm not opposed to staff, you know,
especially dollars always being spent for that direct student impact,
trying to think of bringing those back.
We were also talking about the fact that the agreement is
being renewed
for next year. And so that
would anticipate,
you know, with the new agreement that would
you would anticipate some millage increase for that.
So when you start kind of
looking at the different areas of where millage continue and that's not even
there's nothing even facilities wise, you know, put into that.
I'm just trying to get my wrap my arms around what
we would be potentially committing a future board to.
And like I said, well,
the during the next item, we'll we'll walk through that in a little bit
more detail. Okay.
Well probably easier than than answering that.
Question and this has kept showing up and I share Ms..
Drew's concern.
So what we're doing here is we're this catch up learning is transient
because by definition it's related to the pandemic, which is transient, and
the funding is also transient.
So we're using
we're bringing back permanent full time positions,
which we just did away with because of a transient phenomenon
that has some transient funding.
And I you know, my additional concern as expressed in curriculum
is this is the year of greatest learning loss.
And I understand the logistics, but this isn't going to start until next year.
The staff.
And so, Mike, you're going to go over the approximate millage
increase that we need for this.
Is that correct? Thanks.
I would just thank you for Dr..
I appreciate what you're saying there.
I would just remind everybody that we would not have offered
that retirement incentive or not replace those positions if it weren't for
the pandemic and the and the revenues that we lost because of the pandemic.
Otherwise, all those positions would have been refilled.
This is Cathy Seger.
I feel the same way that we went through
a incentive program to offer retirement
because we were under a huge, enormous pressure
with our budget of
much lower tax revenue streams coming in.
And we made the decision to offer some retirement incentives
to not lay off staff.
But optimally, I think we should have the staff
back that we had in 2019
and be the school district.
We were prior to a pandemic and get back to smaller
class sizes and what the kids need for direct learning
and not move forward smaller and just to save
the money.
I think the money is well spent when it goes to the kids directly for education.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that.
I think it's more just the anticipation of those numbers
in the budget, like the revenue numbers returning to pre-pandemic.
And that's where it's really there are so many variables with the amusement tax.
And, you know, we took the extra money last year from the trans
transfer that it's hard to grasp inside of how we balance
last year's budget and how we built this year's budget,
that that doesn't give false sense of protection
and of what those numbers are going to look like when all of these dollars.
That's why I'm here at Finance, because we felt the same way at curriculum.
We have to know what the budget impact is.
And I also think we have to be very clear that we are very likely coming up
into a tax increase after not intact, not increasing taxes for two years.
I mean, if you look over the historic timeline of taxes
increases with this district, we've never taken five years off.
We've always done small ones because you don't want
to not do one for five years and then do a 15%.
Like, that's not fair.
It's better to do some small ones, one, one and a half, 2% under the index,
then put a future board into an enormous one and really hurt people.
And being mindful of
anything we're doing now for the future budgets
that have not yet been voted on, there will be a new board.
So wanting to, you know, to make sure
that it all just makes sense so that when we get to that budget
approvals, you know, phase that that it's not
something that,
you know, another board could not be comfortable with.
Do we want to maybe we can skip ahead.
We can.
We'll pull up the five year
budget projection and that might help in this current conversation.
So just.
Just to be clear, we got eight people
to do early retirement, but you're asking for seven to return.
Correct? Okay.
Correct. I thought we had.
You just switch over to. The.
312 early retirements.
We had a lot of early retirements, but some of them had to be replaced.
Some of them okay. I was thinking it was
that we replaced six
functions.
But I just
I can just
imagine. Hmm.
That's really
well.
So this is just the start of our five year
budget projection model.
And so
if we're looking at the projected year
2023, that's the budget year
that we're looking at, and that's what this is mimicking moving forward.
So the shows the last three years of our last 1920 actuals
we've sent in where we estimate
we think we're going to be essentially our unaudited information,
the budget for 2022 and then so projections
for 23 and beyond
the expenditures in this,
do assume
to assume the increase
in the teacher contracts that we were discussing prior,
as well as the seven additional positions
that were just referenced here. So
what what what was being asked to refer to, You can see that as
as we're looking at next
year's budget with those assumptions already in place,
the the budget is balanced
or essentially $800,000 to the good.
That includes $4.3 million of Esser three funds.
So one time estimation of $4.3 million.
If we look to 22, 20 or 2324,
that assumes the extra dollars are gone.
So but assumes that the positions are still staying in place.
That would have been in the 23 projections.
So as we're looking to 24 and beyond,
it is essentially and not a surprise because we used
we needed approximately 3 million or $4 million,
three and a half million dollars this year
to two of that through Esser funds
an additional 1.5 million through our our our trust.
We needed those funds to balance our budget.
So we're not going to take obviously, the we know the Milton Hershey Trust,
we're not going to take any more funds from that.
That's not in availability.
So that is shrunk back down in in 23
and 24.
And so showing that that is that is what we're missing.
When the Esser funds go away in 2024.
But our costs still remain.
We are at about a four and a half million dollar loss
in 2024.
So that is essentially what we need to look to make up,
hopefully prior to 2024.
One thing this
this thing allows us
to do through the budget projection is, as we talked about, not only look at
we don't want to get caught up in looks like next year's budgets
kind of already balance that's but it has that $4 million hole in it.
So as we look to to 24
and to shrink that deficit not only for 24,
but 24 and beyond
that,
we can look at.
One of the things I didn't start with is.
I'm sorry, what tab are you on that? I'm just trying to follow along.
I can't see the TVs and blurry on the zoom.
Real estate planning is where is the tab I'm at right now.
Okay, we'll walk through how
pizza's on September.
The sorry, not Peter's PPE-DE on September the 18th
certified the act one index for next year.
That's 3.4%.
So we know we're working essentially that 3.4% is our ceiling.
We can't go any higher than that.
But for argument's sake, let's assume
that the taxes were increased
for 23 by by that 3.4% amount
does two things.
Not only shrinks
the the projected deficit for 2024 by about $1.2
million, that's what 3.4% would bring us in additional tax revenue.
But because we would do that in the year prior, in 2023,
you can see that that takes our fund balance.
Prior to me changing that, the fund balance was about $850,000 to the good.
You can see if we raise taxes up to 3.4%, that would push the fund
balance up over $2 million.
I would show that in a way that
that difference between this 2.1
and the 850,000 that was there was additional money.
We can essentially look at that as if we created it in this fiscal year
and put it in the fund balance.
It's there to be expended in the next fiscal year.
Once again,
the deficit still remains, but we have additional years.
Say the next year was a 2% tax increase
will shrink it further.
And then, you know, we say 1%
every year thereafter.
Obviously,
the the the sooner the taxes are put in place,
they have a cumulative effect moving forward.
But we started out looking at
that $4.6 million increasing taxes around 5%
would shrink that to about $2.4 million.
This is a model.
And when we get down, when we take our model from a year to year
basis to what our actuals are,
we have some wiggle room in in those numbers.
So I don't want you to get distracted as we get out to 26 and 27 as those grow,
because this really does look more at 24 through 25 and where we would be in there.
But once again, showing that
we would need to to increase taxes now
have to have a couple other caveats of the assumptions that were made in here.
So assumption one is that until 2024,
we don't have.
Excuse me.
That assumes the giant center
payment does not return until the 2324 school year.
So it assumes we know we didn't get the payment last year.
We know we're not getting it this year.
It assumes one more year.
I'm very hopeful that that is an incorrect assumption as we continue
to move forward and one of the things I'll share with you is amusement
tax is very helpful with that because this does also assume
as of
next year, 22, 23, that amusement tax returns to normal
and normal for us is about $1.5 million per year.
We've seen anywhere from 1.3 to 1.6.
And so 1.5 is our normal collection.
This assumes that gets back to that
by 20 actually next year, 22, 23.
Really good news.
So, you know, last year, the 2021 year
we collected just over $500,000 in amusement tax revenue.
The great news is between
July and September 16th
of 2021, we've collected
$550,000 in amusement tax.
So we're already up.
We're already equal to the entire amount we collected last year.
Collections are currently running
about 80% of if we look back to 2019, what a normal collection
year was up through August, we're already collecting 80% of that.
So looking very good, very good.
From an amusement tax standpoint that H&R is getting back
to from a ticket sales standpoint, their normal operations
as that starting to pick up.
So it does assume that amusement tax returns.
But once again, there would be an additional
approximately $800,000
that would be added in 23 and beyond
if the giant center pilot were to return a year
earlier than than 24, which which is the assumption is made in here,
once again assumes the trust payments go back to our normal 4%.
So that assumption is made throughout that additional revenue was only shown
in the budget year that we have
and then also cuts the Esser funds off
after the 2223 or so, once again showing that deficit.
If we change these back with all zeros
to really get a clear picture
of those dollars,
one of the things when.
Mike raises questions is also assuming that the
million dollar reduction in the debt service, correct?
Yes. Yes.
Just as that is in the budget for the current year.
And that assumes that that stays in the budget moving forward.
So this projection is just looking at all of those things, the the return
to staffing levels, It's not anticipating any increase to debt service.
That is correct.
So anything
for that would be above and beyond.
Well as we talked we yeah.
So any any of the large projects that we have, we have a large
we have the ability with our debt service because of the years that we can
add debt, we add years that doesn't add additional yearly cost.
So I didn't assume that we were going to have that increase at this point
because we still have, you know, a small portion of money that we could
borrow as long as we're
willing to extend the debt and not change our yearly operational expenses.
Do you know what that number
in total.
If we go out 25 years, it's we can it's $75 million we can borrow up to
as long as like you said, it would be extended out that 25 years
to be able to do.
That without offsetting the.
Debt would not change.
It would be the same essentially $4 million figure that we used for our debt
service payments.
Now, that would not change,
but obviously the impact
of the the elementary facility
may be more than we're willing or able to absorb just through that.
And so any additional millage that would be needed
for that building project would has to be in addition to this.
None of that is assumed in here.
I think that's a good point. This is Kathy Seger.
That's because we have a very low debt service
with of short span of years, what, five or less or seven.
We extended it to.
Seven, seven, seven, nine, seven term.
If we have to do a large project that is $1,000,000 project,
we can put the debt out 25 to 30 years without a tax increase.
Now if we have a $100 million or something, then that's a different story.
But we can go up to $75 million out, 25 more years
and still not do an increase because we are on the verge
of making some big decisions about some buildings that we own.
Yeah. Yes.
And so any decisions that those make would have to whatever tax implications
made with that decision would have to be added, were carried forward.
On top of what we're looking at right now.
Mike Capshaw
Just to make sure that I'm clear on this, the
the calculations that you just ran
with those hypothetical tax increases
so that beginning in the 22, 23 year,
despite a cumulative
tax increase of 8.4% over the ensuing five years,
we would still have an approximate $5.5 million budget deficit.
Correct.
And I think that was just.
One to make sure.
Yeah, I think I want to make sure I said make sure I understood
and read that right.
If you're looking out to 2027 and I think that's what you're referring to that.
Yep, yep. I would agree with that.
But you qualify
that by saying that this is a model that every year back
prior to a pandemic, you know that when the numbers came down to the end,
there was change left over and change
I mean, up to $1,000,000 that we couldn't.
Yeah.
And that's why I can we can revisit some of those KIPP
to get an understanding of the correlation between this model and, you know,
where we actually end up, because that's every time we're starting it.
This is the beginning of a process.
And then, you know, our final is the end of that process.
And hopefully we've gotten better to go through that.
But as Cassie noted, I can show you pretty much
this model has always shown out in those very outlying years that
that large amount and that's more or less to kind of correspond to.
If you do nothing, then you're going to have a huge cliff
As we're working towards dealing with those and reducing those,
it becomes less of a concern about those those current years,
but also with the same understanding that we're moving.
You know, one of the assumptions
that if when we get into contract negotiations is we assume
our revenue is going to increase by at least 2% a year,
whether that's local state, just the combination of everything.
The last two years we've gotten into this place
where we can't bank, we can't guarantee that happening.
And so we're trying to
to re level or make sure we're stepping through
this very important, very difficult time
so that we get back onto that track that we were on,
essentially being able to realize or bank
on a certain level of revenue that we can also then push out in the future years,
have contract negotiations and such to be able to do that.
So we can do that during the next next meeting.
I also wanted you to provide this to the group.
This is attached to the agenda.
You can manipulate this anything in blue.
The numbers can be changed and they're meant to do that.
They're meant for you to be able to to kind of manipulate, go through,
talk through some scenarios.
If things that you're seeing as you walk through, if you don't mind,
you know, sending me a note, if you've gone through some exercises and
what you're seeing, what you're doing, just so I can I can get an understanding.
But I wanted to provide this
to spend some time reviewing it.
Obviously, we needed some more time to go into the depth because of the
the learning loss and kind of understanding that from there.
But we'll be reviewing this document again.
I'll be updating it little bits
over the next 30 days with certain pieces of information.
But also, like I said, want to put this tool in everybody's hands
so that if you get an idea or want to kind of
revisit it as you're getting more comfortable with certain things,
feel free to run through here and see what the effect is.
Mike Does this assume in the expenditures the $1 million transfer
to the capital fund each year?
It does.
It does not assume that that grows.
So it stays at $1,000,000.
But it does it does have it in there.
Each of those years.
One of the thing, like I said, it
adds these seven additional positions that were noted here.
It does also assume, which this could be a change in, in effect, health care.
But as part of Esser two funds
in in the in
trying to make the bus driver position more enticing.
We've made that a that
position receives full benefits medical dental vision
that was just done through Esser two funds.
My assumption moving forward is that stays in place so there could be
a reduction of some of these expenses if that were something to change.
So that resume resumes, that stays in there
and a modest increase through a health care cost around 5%.
So once again, if we do some things that may be able to adjust that
through negotiations or changes, that would be a place to effect
that moving forward as well.
So I think we have
we do have a lot of work in terms of what
not necessarily
about balancing next year's budget because of the extra
three funds kind of made that easier for us.
This year's budget process
about looking down the road a couple of years to make sure
that we know we have a $4 million deficit that we've been
manipulating or dealing with.
Hopefully that shrinks as to be a little less
than $4 million as our revenue returns to normal.
But I think our expenses, you know,
as you're seeing them grow on this, are not final whack.
That's probably very close to what we're going to be experiencing
from an expense standpoint, just making sure we're matching our revenue.
Now, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind and know
I've said this a few times along the way, but it is difficult with the
the as our funds to not get a false sense of security
in that because, you know, we're looking at the the end of day numbers
and those for last year and this year will include one time
Esser fund dollars.
So I don't want to lose sight of those deficit numbers
and what it takes to to balance those
and from the perspective that to create the budget
for this year to balance, you know, to get that to a comfortable place.
It was an ask of, you know, reductions
in not just the staffing level,
but also just departmental budgets and building budgets, you know,
going to those I think it was 10%, if I'm remembering correctly,
you know, so what does that look like on the go forward?
And as
you know, things are needed
that that we're going to have the room there for it.
So just one other item that I wanted to make sure and this really
is probably going to be in these days 25, 26, 27 outlying years.
But the the Hershey West Project,
at some point we're going to see some some homes and some things
being built there.
I've seen estimations where that is going to add.
You could add assessed value that turns into two and a half, $3 million
in real estate tax revenue that we don't have right now that we don't.
So as those as that project gets back,
we're kind of gets underway from those homes standpoint or the,
you know, some of the businesses that we're part of that are in place.
But a large portion of the construction that's supposed to happen with that
has not been undertaken yet.
And so that also
this projection allows you to look at assessed growth
or growth in assessed value and where normally around half a percent.
But that may be something that spurs, you know, 1%
or above when those projects actually come to fruition.
So something else that is not in here that may be a benefit to us
as we look to planning forward.
And Mike,
regarding that, the West End project, I know we had talked once before
about the number of students that might bring with it.
I don't recall.
There was 97.
100 and 170.
I thought it was 97 students over seven years.
Yeah, I thought it was think
because it left capacity of current space in the district.
We had 250, it took 97 out of that. Okay.
We have capacity.
So we were thinking that our.
Current thinking that we could absorb.
Like 150 more. Yes. Okay.
Thank you. At the time we looked at that. Yeah.
And we were still we're, still trending in that way.
I think we're our highest
we were about 3600 kids.
We're just at a little over 3400 right now.
So that's where the additional hundred.
Project was going to bring us a lot more revenue
than it was enrollment because it is largely geared towards
different lifestyles than families, young families.
Yeah, some of those some of the projected housing was only one bedroom.
So we didn't anticipate any students coming from a one bedroom.
It's the boomers.
We're happy to see it.
Happy to see it when it gets here.
Mike, are we seeing a large
I know a couple of years ago we had a large increase in real estate
transfer tax that was unexpected because there was so much
there are a couple of very large parcels transferred,
but just knowing the housing boom that we've seen in in real estate,
you know, locally, is that trending ahead?
That probably is not reflected in here
as from probably 2025 and beyond.
So with the way the the projections are used based off
the budget, you're so the current budget year was increased
because we saw we saw that coming from there.
So it's in smaller increments or at least we're starting from the larger number
that we budgeted for this year.
But again, is true, that contains continues to be extremely strong
and surprising Almost every month that we see
the transfer tax come in
extremely strong, we're seeing not only largely.
Just the retention of home value.
Mike, going back to the learning loss
piece, it's my understanding and I just want to confirm this.
I believe we talked about it previously
submitting this now for the grant.
Other than the pieces that we've already identified curricular early,
we could if revenues do not project out
the way that we expect them to, we could change that plan, correct?
My understanding is yes, as long as it falls within the same parameters.
And we'd also have to go back through some of the
like what we're doing now, sharing publicly and then going through that
process.
But yes, but my understanding is that it's something that we can we can change.
The some of the closing piece of it. Correct.
And I did want to I know to Dr.
Shaw's point that this year, you know, there's we want to be addressing it now.
I think, through our structures
and our processes, we're doing a really nice job of addressing it because
we, quite frankly, had not nearly as much learning loss,
actually wouldn't even call it learning loss.
We had learning lag compared to what urban districts who were virtual
the whole entire year, for example, or kids just dropped off the the scene.
We have a couple of kids who didn't show up, but we didn't lose track of them.
We know where they are and we know what needs to be done with them.
And we know exactly who it is
and when.
One of the
conflicts,
I guess I'll say I have with the learning loss plan
is there there often seems to be a.
A thought.
Among those who aren't working directly with kids
and create these regulations
that there's some kind of magical programing out there
that you can buy a program that's going to fix all of this.
And that's just not the case.
Programs are not magical.
If programs are magical, we'd all be using the same ones and all the kids
would be proficient and advanced that that's just not how they work.
It's people that make a difference.
It's teachers working with kids directly that makes a difference with learning.
And it's and it's good structures and good processes,
which we already have in place.
We're so fortunate that way as.
A district it coming into a a really well could potentially be
a disastrous situation like we've faced in the last year and a half to two years.
Is that we had really good structures in place like multi-tiered systems
of support, like professional learning communities and collaborative teaming,
like really solid interventions.
Those pieces already exist here and we know that they work
and that they do a good job for kids, but they only work with people.
And that's so just kind of wanted to address
some of that piece of it and where our thinking is with that,
but also knowing that if we needed to adjust the plan
because our revenues did not bounce back
the way that we anticipate, we can adjust that plan
so that the district does not incur that ongoing expense.
Well, when is your you have to apply for this now.
That's why we're reviewing this.
Now, correct? Yes.
Yeah, we have to we have to submit the plan now.
Yeah.
But we have the opportunity to adjust it if needed.
Okay.
And some of the necessity whether to submit it now is, as
Dr. Winslow showed, we've already spent about 120,000.
So we haven't we haven't got that reimbursed from the grant yet.
We've just identified it.
So we need to go through this so we can, we can start and get that reimbursement
and move those things forward, at least from from that portion.
But obviously, as we also look at
difficulties, we're not in hiring.
So one of the reasons the figures are so round with
with what we're budgeting is because,
you know,
it's it's going to be interesting how how it moves forward
and how we're probably all going to be competing
for very similar services from same individuals.
And in our great country that usually ends up in the price going up.
So just some of the things that as we move through and get
can continue through our process, get more knowledge, some of these things
will all get filled in or hopefully filled in a little easier for us.
Do you where do we go from here with.
This.
Plan?
We our understanding of the plan
is that we needed to
share it with stakeholders and get feedback and input
and but I don't believe that there is an official board approval.
Is this. Correct? Correct.
Although without having citizen she was here today.
I don't know that we've.
We definitely got we got so.
We're in the way.
With curriculum council. We definitely got teachers,
administrators, citizen advisors and students.
That. We did We did get those stakeholders and.
That like when is your grant, when are you sending it in like next month.
So the the deadline is essentially
the end of the year because the deadline is the end of the grant.
It's essentially just reporting our plan.
We've already been the money has been set aside for us.
We need to go back in and say, here's how we plan to use those dollars.
PD Then approves that plan, at least being in line with with the funds
that are with the grant and then releases the funds from there moving forward.
So there isn't a huge necessity to
to finalize this.
But we can't we can't collect any of the funds
until we get the plan in full,
you know, kind of record it or registered.
And that's, as Dr.
Winslow noted, would be the ability.
Then as other grants, we have the ability to make changes
as we work through the grant, as things change.
That's not an
unusual process for us.
We would just have to look. Obviously anything change.
The change has to be
within the same grant guidelines that we already were operating under.
What would we want to do a presentation at the full board on this,
or would you want me to update the board?
Because This impacts this doesn't impact this year.
It impacts 2023, 2024.
But we also have an election this year.
So, you know, there's four seats up
and the first week in December the board's going to change.
So no matter what you do,
if it's due by December 31st,
you know,
a new board is brought in the first week in December.
Four weeks is typically not enough, not enough time to really for people
to understand this budget process.
So it's a non. Meeting.
As if you
go with the plan, with the idea that you have to
you might have to edit it, but you won't be hiring.
You won't put the word out for hiring until the spring.
We will be.
Mr. Friends, just for clarification, do we have
until the end of this calendar year or the end of the fiscal year?
I don't.
I'm not sure I would have to go.
Look, I don't know that there's a deadline that if you don't apply by
you don't receive other than September 30th of 2024,
the grant and the funds can't be spent.
So I don't know that we're operating under any strict guidelines
from that standpoint is if we don't report by this day, we lose the grant.
I don't believe we have any of those restrictions, but I have to
to look for that.
The I mean,
the grant funds can still be used for what we've noted.
It's can the district continue to support those moving forward.
So if we're not making those decisions, maybe these are
well, essentially those are the commitments or
or what has to be discussed or undertaken, you know,
moving moving forward.
Also, this is this is a draft.
This this was where we're starting administratively
bringing this to you as our recommendation.
So we're going to continue to work through it and discuss,
you know, as needed.
So the funds are available through
September of 2024, as my understanding, correct?
That's correct.
So then presuming that there's no
fiscal calendar year
deadlines, wouldn't when this be more properly
something that was just added into this next year's budget
as positions and then
we get the funding from us for for a year and a half or two years.
And there was in other words,
put there, we're putting the cart before the horse and positions
in the upcoming budget and then apply for the extra funding.
Can we do that?
The only issue with that would be the the commitment to the employee.
So unless we're hiring somebody as a long term sub
in which we tell them you're we're only committing to you
for a certain period of time, when we hired employee, it's
we all anticipate they're here for their career
and so that wouldn't be doing it in that way I don't believe would allow us
to to have that same process or provide those same guarantees.
So that's just
kind of the response of we're where it is from there.
If if we're saying we're okay, adding the positions because they're
grant funded, but then do the positions go away when the grant funds go away.
That's what I understood.
What your I don't think anybody is planning on that.
I don't think anybody's
planning on these being long term subs, from what I'm hearing.
I mean, I think it's I think it's crucial and it's it's overstated.
But but given what budgets look like
and what the tax burden on the the taxpayers look like,
it's crucial to be able to distinguish
between what is important and what is vital.
For example, what mentioned earlier about the bus drivers, Bus drivers are vital.
You can't run the school without bus drivers.
Got a ham shortage.
Of course you're going to give them the benefits because they're vital.
Some of the things which are important
really, unfortunately, it's not a simple or an easy decision,
but you've got to look long term at these finances.
So just a thought.
And I guess
just to make sure we're on the same level of thinking, Kip,
I don't believe there's a way for us to to add $800,000
in salaries, benefits in staff and expect we're going to cut that somewhere.
That number is just too large to find to find other places.
So once again, getting back to the commitment
being we're hiring the people,
then we have to make sure that the taxes are in place.
But once again, we're going to go through those processes
and make sure that we're as efficient as we possibly can be.
So according to the budget timeline,
as we start the full board reviews,
the 2223 proposed budget in January.
That's when they would have to
provide their decision of not going above the index, which.
Yes, yes.
But so from a a standpoint, we were we're definitely
today's review of the five year budget projection and the was just our initial
this is
we were going to have a plan to have just as much time available at our next
finance committee meeting.
And, you know, maybe this is something we we focused
solely on these discussions and working through
to get an understanding or what that comfortability
might be to be able to move forward because you have the
the anticipation
is that at our November meeting,
the Finance Committee would be making some sort of recommendation.
The recommendation only being
do we have to go above the index or can we stay within the index price?
And so, you know, we're working towards that for the community
to be able to provide that recommendation to the full board.
The full board, though, would not see
the the budget really until March because we don't get
we'll have our staffing pretty well
figured out by January, but we don't ask the building
departments for their budget into my information until February 1st
and then gives us some time to go through that.
We review that at the Finance Committee in February
and then ask the Finance Committee to recommend.
But once again, we'll have a lot of discussion
on the salaries and benefits which are, you know, the large, large portion.
Of the budget.
Just just so I'm clear, even though.
The this.
Year, not the next year's budget, will balance with the Esser three funds,
when you put in the 3.4%,
you put that in to the 2223, because the sooner you do it, the better.
Absolutely.
So it's very it's a there's a possibility that when in 2022,
when the board in March, when the board sees the budget,
the Finance committee could be recommending 3.4%.
They could could and in addition that that 3.4% will
just add to the fund balance for that current year. It wouldn't be to
to offset
any or reduce the fund balance in that specific year,
it would be put those taxes in place now because we're going to need them
in these future years as these extra dollars.
Run out, right? Yes.
Okay.
So are you comfortable doing
whatever you need to do with the Esser three application
without any thing formal?
We're still working through the budget process.
We're still this is the draft plan that we are considering.
Yeah, I'm comfortable with that. Okay. Yeah.
Is is the Finance Committee comfortable with that?
That just understanding
what's coming down the road?
Okay.
That's right.
Because the other option is use the grant money for a one time thing.
And what we're hearing is there's no software system or
you can't we need our staff.
So that's where we are.
Okay,
well, we are.
We have a minute to talk about one part agenda item.
Mike, can you do it in 60 seconds?
It's that one agenda item that I want for the 12th straight.
We never forget.
We haven't got there yet, so we'll keep it on there and eventually,
eventually we'll get to it.
All right. Well, thank you so much.
May I have a motion to adjourn the Finance Committee meeting at 5:59 p.m.?
So move. Lindsay Drew.
Second. Terri Singer.
Hey, all those in favor say I.
Okay, The meeting is adjourned.
Thank you all very.