Good afternoon.
I'd like to call the August 26th
Finance Committee meeting to order at 4:01 p.m.
to do a roll call and just indicate if you're a member of the administration,
a board member or citizen advisory.
Regis, could you start?
Regis Barr One Administration Tip Shop Board Member.
Darby Blago sent us an advisor.
Terry Singer Board member.
Kathy Sicker Board Member.
Craig Hummel Administration.
Mike Friends. Administration.
Thank you.
Welcome, Greg.
It's good to have you here.
Jeff King and
Dr. Oz's both indicated they wouldn't be here.
We may still be expecting
Todd Schaefer and Lindsay Drew.
Yet Lindsay is getting her son off the bus for the first day.
So she'll be here.
Okay.
I know the busses run late today.
Okay. All right. Well,
that's roll Call.
That minutes were sent out.
Everyone had a chance to review them.
If there's any suggested revisions or questions or changes,
could hear them now or just have a motion to approve them.
Motion to approve as submitted.
Second. Okay.
All in favor.
Hi. Okay.
Thank you.
Unless anyone has any objections.
My preference would be since
Greg is here that we start with that item
was when I won't be okay with that.
Sure. Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Back in April,
we had some board interest where Ms..
Drew, Mrs.
Steiner and Mr. Abell
joined myself,
Mr. France and Mr.
McFarland
to further discuss
why we're off the program at the high school.
Every year I ask the board.
Late winter, early spring
for their support, moving forward into the fall,
the next school year to continue operating off
the National School Lunch program and Breakfast program.
So there were some questions and those three board members
met with us.
And when we went off the program back in 2014,
it was due to the changes in the school lunch regulations.
It really was never about finances,
though.
It has a huge financial impact
and did back then and still does today and says the reason
I believe I'm presenting this evening here at this meeting,
just to kind of explain a little bit and to
look as we move forward.
If there was ever a decision
to go back on the program by the board,
there's a timeline that would be greatly needed.
I'm on my part
due to some purchasing of food items,
food, you know, bed items that we would need to secure.
We purchase and box.
So sometimes we could have an inventory of a few months of food items
and then also so that I can work with Mr.
France so that we could look at capital equipment,
we would need to purchase additional equipment simply
because of like eliminating our fryers or when we do fryer
French fries.
Also,
we'd have to try to get the students prepared
and I would really would like to try to get them involved, if at all possible.
If the board decides to to go in that direction
just to get their input.
They only know what they see.
And so I don't think they understand that we operate differently
in their food selections to meet their diverse
needs or wants are quite different than local school districts.
So I just
wanted to kind of update this committee
on some of our conversation.
Basically, if we went back
on the program, about 90% of the food and beverage items
that we currently offer would have to change and be eliminated.
That would just ask one question.
You said the original notes.
I just want to make sure I understood what you said,
something one of the variables in the decision
to go off these the school lunch program at the high school level,
you said initially was not financial know we knew had a great impact,
but we wanted to continue to meet the diverse needs of our students.
Back when the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was being implemented,
the second piece, which really impacted the Our Cart was in 2014,
but in 2012, students were boycotting and turning to social media.
Our students didn't see a huge change because we were able
to continue serving a variety even when we were still on the program.
Correct.
But then in 2014, the federal government then regulated our our cart.
Please don't get confused because it can be confusing.
Some folks think, Oh, our cart is your snacks and your cookies.
And sure, we sell plenty of snacks and cookies, but any meal that doesn't
fit the
requirement for the National School lunch program
could be a complete meal on that we sell.
But under those guidelines, it's considered our cart.
So when I say that we have over
$380,000 in previous school years that of items
that were sold, our cart, that's also complete meals.
It's just complete meals
that don't meet the National School Lunch Program regulations.
So we can identify looking at
looking at data, going back even two years ago
that we sold over $380,000 worth of items
that we would not be able to sell.
So we would have to, of course,
makes make some huge changes in our menu selections.
We would gleam some some additional sales, but that's hard to pinpoint
how much
we still presently do give away meals to our free
and reduced students, even though we're not receiving federal assistance,
and that that will be over $90,000 this school year,
there's still a net of over $290,000.
Also, another concern that some of us have
is the change in how the students would react.
So there's really a lot to take into consideration
when you're you know, and I understand
the viewpoints of some board members
looking at the middle school we did that day
and they have some very nice selections.
The high school students are just
they're older
and they're a little bit more demanding of what they're accustomed to getting.
I have some pictures if you want.
I wasn't able to go on that April food tour, but Tricia Steiner took really
nice pictures for me of the high school cafeteria and the middle school.
So so we participate in the middle school program, but we don't at the high school.
So obviously the food options are healthier at the middle school.
That is correct. Yeah.
So instead of fried chicken, it's baked chicken.
Is that right? Yes.
And sometimes different products entirely.
Sometimes it's well.
And it's brown rice instead of white rice. Correct.
I guess the idea is that if we're getting our students
accustomed to this in middle school, the change is so enormous.
When you get to high school, it's like going from healthy to junk food.
It can be viewed as such.
I mean, we do offer a wide variety.
There's still
a wide variety of selections.
If I could interject here, one of the things we talked about at that
April meeting
was a lot of how how do you know?
How do you know this will happen or that will happen?
Fortunately, we have somebody who's been operating our food service program
for quite a few years
and is very
well-respected within our state in terms of food service.
So we place reliance on
knowing what our students are consuming now, how they're consuming it,
and what those changes may or may reflect moving forward.
And that's really kind of what I gleaned from those meetings,
was figuring out a way to get the board
the information they need so that we can say, I'm pretty confident.
I know because what we're doing right now
is relying on
information of what sells may do if we make these changes based on
how students have been purchasing food from us in the past
and having someone that knows our students
and student population and has seen a change over the years.
The reason we brought it to this committee
is to go through and determine what that process looks like.
What what are school board members missing?
When we ask you to make this determination each year
whether or not we're going off or staying off of the high school program.
And in past years,
we've gotten to that decision making process and school board members
being because they were new, kind of honored, what we had been doing
and the recommendations that were there.
And I think as more of you were on the school board longer,
we're getting more of those questions and good questions as to, you know,
part of this process has been about trust thus far.
And now we're looking to make it, you know,
concrete in terms of data.
And so I wanted to bring it back to this committee to talk about that
and put together something that would get the board members
the information they need in the way that they need it
and would be able to see that with the understanding that if,
as Greg noted, one of the decisions to go back on the program,
if you
told us to do that right now for next year,
there'd be a lot of scrambling going on and heavy lifting.
And what Greg is noting is we want to make sure we go through this
in a way that respects what the school board members need to make the decision,
but also that there's a lot of large timing framing there
in terms of how that change may occur and what we may see.
So really just starting this conversation today and this
I foresee is something that probably is one of our goals
and something that's probably on almost every meeting.
Until we get to that solution point of what are we looking for,
what are we looking to change?
Or from a school board members
perspective, what what numbers do you need to see that,
you know, if we change this, it may have a grave effect on school food.
And one of our concerns
is that any change we make in the food service program, especially
because it mostly only serves students,
is that those knee jerk reactions, those you're just changing this.
And now we don't want to be a part of the food service.
We don't want to buy lunches from you anymore because we don't like this change.
We want to be able to work through that with the student population
and whatever solution we get to and hopefully not have that knee jerk
reaction, have everybody understanding why these changes occurred
in the way that they did and having that that time to communicate as well.
So in my mind's eye, and this is just from a starting point, from from Mike's
perspective, is that a little bit of this school year was about
gathering that data
and there wasn't going to be a necessarily that we would get to that answer
so that you would have
your decision to be able to be made by the end of the school year.
Maybe that is two school years from now that we would say, okay,
if we're going to change this, go on or off,
here's the date in the future that we're looking at so that
when we make that decision, we we can communicate it well.
We can do everything that we need to make sure
that we have the least impact on our food service program, because we know once
we start losing people, no matter what we do, it's really hard to get them back.
So sorry.
I think that's well-said. Thank you.
That's helpful.
Well, I've been on the board now for four years, and I've always agreed
with forgoing the federal dollars as 92,000.
Right.
By opting out roughly 92,000, we opt out to be able to provide
whatever we want at the high school
because we don't want to follow
the federal guidelines, but we do it at the middle school.
The only the only reason I'm changing my mind is I think that the kids
are changing their minds.
I think what you see in their community now with the foods that are offered,
they're changing.
And like I've had Kit, I had my daughter went to the high school.
My son is a senior. They don't eat at the cafeteria.
They pack.
That's not reflective of the foods
that I serve at home or that we eat when we go out.
I know that there are kids that do eat it, but I feel like they're getting used
to eating it.
It's a middle school and then we totally change and go to like the opposite end.
And I've always gone along with that because you've explained it
that we're going to lose revenue with the ala carte options.
So is there a
way that we can discuss this this year with the Finance Committee deci
that we might want to opt in and we decided to board a whole
maybe not for the next school year, but then you show
us, can you merge it next year?
Like what?
What could we do to see more data?
Like, could you merge some of the options in for the next school
year to gather data if students are actually eating it?
Or do you just have to go cold turkey
100% to the middle school?
Federal guidelines.
We could
we could start making some changes where we decided where,
you know, we're not going to offer, you know, pint drinks
or we're not going to offer this
up, up upscale meal selection because a lot of our upscale
meal selections are the find our selection and
so we could do that and track.
What I did do for the start of the school year
is that we call it the Daily Specials.
So it's like the main school lunch option.
Keep in mind, we do offer about 12 different entree selections
that are middle school that entail a day and over 20 at the high school.
And that's when you're counting all the different sandwich selections, the pizza.
And so we're bringing in line the daily special
to be precise to the middle school this this year
we're going back to whole grain pastas and once we deplete some inventory
that we've carried over from last year
so that we can start
looking at that and we can do that in other areas
at some point, though, then we're going to have to jump in
and decide if we're really
going to make some big changes.
We have, you know, three or four other items on the agenda.
So to Mike's point, we want to start,
it sounds like by identifying what kind of information
we feel we need.
And I just want to welcome
Joe McFarland and Todd Shafer
and Lindsay Drew, who all just joined us recently.
I'm glad you joined us, Lindsay,
because we started with the school lunch program presentation.
But anyway, the idea is to identify
what type of information we think the board member board,
the board would like to have available
and understand in order to make a decision
what are we trying to figure out what categories of information
we would want or what specific type of information we want?
I think I think one of
the first things would be to get at Greg,
you know, has already started this work, as he noted.
Our concern is the drop in sales and what does that change?
So maybe Greg pulling together, here's some of those changes
that either we've done or will be doing in the next month or two after, you know,
we work through some inventory that we that we currently have.
We don't want to waste food,
but maybe we could identify.
Here are some areas that we've made changes,
pull together, some sales figures maybe.
I don't know what's reasonable to look at what
the sales have been for those items
and what the sales will be after
six months, seven months,
that those are the kinds of things that that I heard from
from some of the board members that were that went through
that is just kind of verifying what we think or what our fears
were in terms of sales being reduced or participation being reduced
and really going
through and seeing, you know, on a limited basis
trying some different things to see if all that
that did affect ticket sales the way I thought it was going to affect them.
And then we can talk about what that data means, what that,
you know, what that looks like,
because that's from
from the business manager perspective of this process.
That's really what I'm interested in seeing, is how much more support
we may need to give to the cafeteria.
And if being on or off of the program
has a significant effect on our on our sales.
I do we do have the numbers of what we've sold in the past for ala carte.
I have a sheet here.
All the cart items of revenue 2017 2018, like for example, food bar
combo was 127,000 and you say on here
we would not be able to serve those if we went on the federal.
And it adds up to
383,000 or 296,000.
So so from what I understand, you will not be able to serve these,
but you can't substitute anything else.
So for that food bar combo,
that's basically the fight our upscale
selection
in the center of of our food court.
We could scale that back
so calorically it means and nutritionally it means
it's basically going to
totally change the selections.
But you could still offer some things
We can't.
I think we should get to the point, though,
where Greg is picking what those are, because one of our concerns
was was having a detrimental to the effect of the program.
So I think
as we talk through these, Greg can provide examples of how he would change that.
But if it's a larger selling item, I would have some trepidation to say,
we do want to test this,
but I don't think we want to take anything to wholeheartedly
just from the standpoint that if
if the students and we don't want to kind of let them know
this change is occurring, I wouldn't think you'd want to kind of have it be,
Yeah, a process to see if it really if it really has an effect on those sales.
I could be wrong.
I'm throwing out ideas at this point, but
I wouldn't want to make a change to every item that's on this list.
My question was just can you replace it with something?
And the answer is you can.
So we're not going to forego this entire amount of our class
because you're going to be able to put something in its place.
Make that. Yes. Okay.
And it would be for a lesser amount because the
the quantity and quality of the food would change.
So we would have to decrease some of our sales up sale price.
I mean, I can interject.
I just wanted to say one more one more thing.
Just in general,
my feeling
and I know this is jumping way ahead, but
my feeling is that at a minimum, we should try to meet the
the standards of the the
food lunch program at a minimum.
And if that results in us needing
just like we want clean water in the school and we want clean air
in the school, we want food that's not toxic or poisonous, right?
So if that cost us more money, as you know,
to help support that, I'm just saying that's that's kind of where I am.
I appreciate that, Terry, but I can't let that go with
I mean, we're not talking about dangerous food.
We're not even talking about unhealthy food.
We we're talking in a more compact spectrum of opinion of
what's happening there.
We are not selling unhealthy things to our kids.
Could it be healthier? Probably.
And yes, but to say that it's unhealthy
lunch is is is the wrong way to describe the poor choice of words.
I know it's not toxic or poisonous, but I mean, unhealthy is better.
But anyway, that's just my general thought of silence again.
Sure.
So if I can just back up a little bit because I was in the agenda
where it references several board members toward the cafeterias.
I was one of those board members and it was initially
it was initiated because when we came time to
look at the opt in, opt out of the food service program for the high school,
I had brought up some questions of needing a better understanding of why
we we would be opting out of the program and opting out of the federal funds
that are received by being part of the program in order to provide something.
So we started at the middle school and looked at
everything that was offered there, understood what makes up
a meal inside
of the program, the pros and cons of that, what the selection and choices
look like, and were incredibly impressed at the presentation
across food services in general, but particularly in the middle school.
And when we got over to the high school again, impressive selection.
But one of the things that
prompted the conversation we were having and my takeaway from
it became more the concern not about whether or not we opt
in on the food service program, but are we making sure that
we're hitting the needs of all, you know, of the students
and understanding that in the high school because
they're not on the program.
So some of the sourcing of food is different, which does provide
for a different quality
in the meats
and the portion sizes and those things.
But there is also somewhat of the concern from the nutrition standpoint of
while we're not on the program to be able to meet the needs of students
who are in athletics and need a higher
caloric intake, we're not
giving students who are not in athletics any different of a portion.
And how does that look?
And if it's the same meal in essence as the middle school,
it's just that the portions and the sourcing are that much different.
Is there a way that we could drive parts of it back to be there
now with that understanding is that Greg has built
a successful program based on years and years of feedback
and input from the consumer, the student buyers
and the risk variable that is there if we were to jump completely back in.
And so the conversation started of, well, what if we tested,
you know, different things and looking at it and
and where the conversation came back around for it to be
in a committee level, we were kind of going back
and forth between general services or finance.
And ultimately, you know, finance does make sense because
I think my perspective on it is more
is getting comfortable in allowing Greg to not change
everything all at once, but test and see what are the most vulnerable areas
for potential loss of revenue that would drive
the program to be not sustainable
and understanding as a board and from the Finance Committee
that there may be some times over those few years of doing this
that there would be an impact where the operate the general operating
fund would need
to contribute to food services, which has been completely self-sustaining
for all of these years.
And so looking at it
from being supportive as the board of, we want to be able to offer students
what they want and have that as close to self-sustainable
operation as possible, but also make sure that we're hitting on the needs
from preference as
well as because some of these things just haven't been changed in a long time.
So it's amazing to me and I'll use the example of pizza in the middle school.
They make the pizza right there and it's the
the program nutrition compliant pizza in the high school.
It's actually frozen pizza that's heated up.
And so my thought is, is are we just doing what we've always done?
And if we started making slow changes
over time so that it wasn't a drastic impact,
could we evolve to our kids that are in elementary, middle school
right now and loving the pizza there would carry on with that
so that within four years we would have an entire turnaround
of student population where maybe our drop off in our cart
or those types of items would not be as dramatic
because we've slowly moved them through.
But would you say that?
So for me it's more looking at the different areas
and how and understanding the budget implications of that
and the
we won't know until we try
and where can we be comfortable
in the fluctuation of revenue?
You know, and loss of sales.
And in the interim, more so than just the food program
opt in opt out option?
Well, I feel like this is so complicated
because for you to embark in a transition
to possibly opting in, you need almost board approval.
Right.
Because you of like maybe a future date when we might opt in
and then also board approval that what
if the budget goes awry and you lose money for profit.
So how does this work then?
You Hadi what is your vision for it?
Mike If we if you get the sense and I don't know
if there's a majority support that someday we would opt back in,
we would kind of need to figure that out
and then ask Greg to do a transition and maybe
take items
where he could see if he doesn't lose money on the avocado.
I mean, I don't how do we do work there if I'm not?
I wasn't even positioning it from a
so many years until we opt into the program so much as
a timeline of over several years that we're just
taking a turn towards healthier options in the high school.
So that program, you know, off the table of how can we ease that change in
so that it doesn't have the drastic scaling because we know that
if we were to go straight to the program
next year or five years from now, that we would have a loss
because it would be a flat there, but somewhat organically,
we would almost end up meeting some of the compliance
requirements of the program just by making some of these changes.
But ultimately we're doing something
that's for the betterment of the health and nutrition of the student body
versus just the program itself.
And to answer your question, Cathy, I think
I think it's going to take us a lot more to talk through what this what this is,
because
I think Lindsey, you know, hit the the approach
accurately.
The the problem is, is
what are those changes have on have on our school our operating budget.
And if Greg makes a couple of changes in this year and we look at it and it
you know it dropped sales by two or 3%, well, maybe that's not a big deal.
But if it's a higher amount than that,
you know, I can't sit here and say the the general fund has unlimited
source of funds to support what's going on in the cafeteria.
And that that was the concern we were trying to work through is is
how do we make some of these little changes so that we're not
hampering
hampering Greg or to Lindsay's point, finding out what that
what that amount is, that that is going to be a cost difference
to ensure that it continues to operate the certain way.
And really, depending on what that amount of money is, could be, hey,
we we really can't do that or this is something
that we could foreseeably make do within our operating budget,
you know, for for a couple of years or something like that.
That's the information we're trying to to to glean
at this point from those of us on our side that are looking at how history happens.
We're concerned from they're willing to work, though,
with what those changes mean, that they may not have the same financial
implications that Greg and I think they have.
I guess that's what we're just trying to figure out.
What's the the best way to go about that, to figure that out or to find that out?
And maybe is that having some of these changes
on a slower basis?
And to Lindsay's point, not even looking at this from the terms of,
hey, we have to make this decision
in a couple of years, but have it more of a natural,
Greg, to bring forward some of the things that might be
easier to change at the beginning,
rather than at the end and start start there with,
you know, if we've looked at this more of instead of if we're not
if we looked at it more of, you know, five years, we're going to
be compliant with the plan.
That's just
as well as well, because it provides here's what we're working towards on that.
Administratively, we can decide the best way to to actually get there.
And Tricia had joined us.
That is John, Tricia and I that day.
And Tricia actually put together a really great PowerPoint.
I just passed it around. There's okay.
And I have it electronically, if anyone would want to see it that way.
Pictures. Yeah, that
that it talks about kind of at the end we got down to nutrition
versus cost versus the unknown, you know, what kids will buy.
So I'm happy to show because I feel like it
puts a little bit more into perspective, even just the thoughts of
we don't want to get in the weeds of
saying what
items you should or shouldn't be selling, but it's more the global, again,
you know, talk of what is the actual cost impact of if we're doing all white rolls
at the high school only and wheat rolls everywhere else,
what does it look like to to make that type of change?
Because it puts us on the path towards being, you know,
more compliant.
I like your idea of engaging the students.
If we could get the consumers on board and find out what they're thinking, like
if they knew
that, let's say you brought the middle school
homemade piece at at high school, would they buy it more
or would the kids who are buying it now will actually buy it?
Because it's it's less sodium, has a better fat content?
I mean, I don't know because for me, as I knew that I might buy it
if you told me it was like a whole grain crust and it was so know.
We did try to
we actually switched a couple of years ago because we had a staffing issue.
And then when we went back to making it, there was no difference.
They didn't prefer one or the other and we would do both.
Now we can try it again.
I mean, times change.
So trying to get a group of high school students together, I kind of smile
because that has been like my wall the last few years
and I've even had some board members try to assist, to no avail.
It's so difficult and, you know, and I understand they're busy.
Yeah, I got it.
It's just it's frustrating when you want someone's opinion and it's hard to get it
because they they just can't give the time.
So if
I know
they're going either going or not going back on the school
lunch program, isn't the driving force,
but the using the the health standards of the food,
you know, as as the baseline.
I would like to know, you know, if you have any idea
if we just did it cold turkey, we just next year
we let people know or the year after, whatever it is
we're going, you know, this is the standard of food we're providing
and we just lived with the consequences.
What do you have any idea what they would be?
I mean, would we lose a half a million dollars in revenue?
Would we lose $1,000,000 in revenue?
I mean, what could I mean, based on the data that we have,
we know we're going to lose over 300 and some thousand
for sure worth of items that we're presently selling.
The unknown is what you replace it with and how much the.
Comparable over it will the comparable compliant version sell at the same level?
And and,
you know, of course the
profit margin is different on some items it could be more or less.
So we might have to sell even more
of a particular item to make the same profit.
So there's a whole bunch of different variables.
Yeah, I mean,
I thought I remembered someone saying
maybe I misunderstood this somewhere along the way that
not all school districts require
schools, food services to be self.
And I know we're not totally self-supported now,
but to be so supportive is that. That is correct.
There are some schools that
that receive from the general fund.
Well, we do You do two now starting this year. Yes.
I mean, I know I kind of said it earlier.
I'd rather
the best health of our students be foremost
in our minds and
have the the financial
ramifications
be the lower of the two driving forces.
But but obviously, we have to be able to pay for it.
Yeah, I think I would agree with that as well, Terry.
That's what we're trying to to move forward here.
Unfortunate in all cases.
We can't ignore the finances.
I would agree for you this with you that student health and nutrition
is the driving force that's what part of this is.
And I wish we lived in an environment where we could say,
I'll make this decision and I'll live with those consequences.
You know, that's hard.
That's hard for me to sit here and say right now, if we were adding
$200,000 more to our operating budget next year,
you know, we can do that.
But there would be the associated tax increases
and we wouldn't expect to reduce any of our other programs
or anything else we're doing to make up for that lost revenue from from that side.
So I you're very accurate there.
I just
yeah that's I think we're trying to get to is
I don't want to see it go cold turkey because of that shock
factor and I would rather see us move through it
if I had if I had the ability to to say how this change was going to go.
I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I would much rather
go about this process as we've discussed, rather than
just moving over all at once because of that.
You know, worst case scenario, it's $300,000.
It's probably not that much when you get down into,
you know, when we get some federal revenue coming back in and students
will obviously eat, there's a necessity for them to buy food.
And so we also make sure we're giving them something that they want, need
and should have, and not just because they're
required to buy the food here or have to keep in mind
if we would like sweat, I'll use the cookies for quick example.
At the at the middle school, there are a whole grain.
They have to be under 200 calories,
under 30% fat, 200 milligrams of sodium.
If we switched our cookies at the high school,
there's about a 75 cent difference of cost
are 75 cent cookie at the middle school, dollar 50 at the high school.
But there are no limits to how many of those
healthier cookies the students could purchase. So,
you know, there's loopholes and anything.
So same with low sodium french fries.
We could sell a low sodium, three ounce French fry at the high school
that's compliant.
They could just buy whatever they have like them.
So can't they just add salt to it?
We don't offer so.
Oh, you don't have to bring it in.
Where do we want to leave this then?
I'm I think I'm a little.
Well, I just have one more question.
You said that we you would have to work with Mike on
for capital equipment, and that's because of what you would need to buy.
Well, if
we were eliminating some of those options and some of the items that were frying,
we'd still have to have food, print out food prepared,
just alternate means to prepare that.
So we'd
eliminate the fryers, have to purchase
convection ovens so that we could still
keep up on other food items that were no longer frying.
So the French fries would be baked.
We could do that. Yes.
And I think that's where,
if I remember correctly, the the thought was of
kind of finding several different avenues and then deciding
which one to start down that would have the least potential cost impact.
So maybe it's not the fried food, you know, because that's
going to trigger a need for capital purchase.
But making some of those other changes, seeing how that goes
and then kind of bridging them along so that we don't have to go down
the road of of spending to find out, you know, the what if.
So, would that be a
place to get adequate guidance from the two of you to think about
different strategies for moving toward
healthier food?
Not that you know.
I know it's not.
Yeah, I think we could definitely
Greg could identify some things in terms of what those changes would look like.
And we can come back to the next committee meeting
and kind of say, here's the changes we're looking for
and here's some of the outcomes that that will report back to you with.
You know, where where, where this ended up, how this may have changed.
I leave it up to Greg and we may need to talk through this.
How much has to be a period of time in which he's gathering the information
after the changes made and I don't know what's appropriate.
So we may not have anything for you at the next month's meeting
other than here's where we started or or here's we're looking at going
for that, that it would be sufficient for the next meeting.
That sounds good to me, unless anyone has any other suggestions.
Okay. Thank you.
Very often.
And yes, yes, yes.
I'm not sure how many or where there's a handful times.
You got to use your microphone there.
Thank you.
Now, based on my my Google average,
that's what I was getting to
for. Yeah, that's okay.
Well, thank you very much.
No, the number of kids who are buying like what percentage of the student
population is buying compared to packing if they're on there.
So there's like so many different ways we can drill down and probably
make a case on either side of it right.
Thank you for the effort.
Thank you.
Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Mike. Okay.
We have
one other we got two unfinished items.
Maybe we can hit on one of them quickly.
The Milton Hershey Trust discussion.
We had a proposal
for I think it $18,000
from PFM or an associate of PFM
to take a look at the benchmark returns versus
the returns that we got and the associated fees and so forth.
And I think the the the
my assessment of the of the pulse of the committee was
we should kind of maybe let things ride for the time being.
But my recollection is anyway, it was reflected in the minutes that we wanted
the input of one of our citizens advisors, at least to weigh in on
his assessment of the proposal and and whether
just your thoughts on it thought
not to do it.
I mean that you have a $50 million asset 1718 grant.
I mean, I know you guys are debating the school lunches right now.
We refinanced that last year to put a building on.
There's a $50 million asset you guys have.
The nobody is looking at
18 grand.
Is money well spent to go ahead and protect an asset like that?
When I first got here last fall, I tried to look into it.
There wasn't enough information to actually look into it.
So I realize we're, you know, cost conscious,
but this is the school districts don't have this asset.
And right now we just have it
sitting blindly with somebody else because nobody here is looking at it.
And I try to look at it and this is what I do for a living.
And I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
So Mike might have a slightly different opinion, but where I was and said,
hopefully not no one in this room and hopefully at least one or two people now.
But there was there was some information that Todd was requesting that because
of being a citizen advisor and not being under contract with the district,
that I was not willing to to share in that great level of detail.
I do know he had the
opportunity to meet with with PFM that was on the refinancing.
Nothing to do with the trust from there.
So this is a board decision.
I you know, I provided my $0.02, but I can see the value
in reassuring that Fulton
Financial is doing the best job possible with if there's ways that they can improve
what they're doing and we can flesh that this out through that process
and would also be sufficient as well in
my concern is looking at it,
you know what the courses are charging us.
But that's that's the headline cost.
There's a lot of a lot of fees baked into it that we don't see.
Mm hmm.
So is it being implemented in the most cost efficient way possible?
Well, did you read the proposal that they gave us?
Does it does it hit those points?
So PFM has some bullet points here?
Yeah. It wasn't
it was Vegas.
But that would be the number one thing of a review like that.
Review fears managers and of the trustee for services
and compared to institutional peer groups.
So but we already know the fees So you're talking about the fees
that are baked into the when you purchase the mutual fund to the staff.
Exactly. Exactly.
So there's alternative investments in there.
I have no idea what fees are.
I don't know what the alternative investments,
the loan, what they're typically they're an expensive asset class,
but it's a
it's a large asset of the school district.
I think it should be.
There's no downside to looking at it.
Well, I just want to make sure that our agreement looks at
what we want it to look at.
And I don't I didn't see that exact wording that you were saying.
Well, there was two things, Kathy.
I think one was the they just used the general term fees,
which I would assume would be all encompassing of every single fee.
Maybe some them are rolled up, but it would reflect the total fee structure
and then benchmark the returns against, I guess, industry standards for.
And Mike, I know and it would
be, you know, foremost in my mind that
you value the relationship
and that we have with the, you know, the current provider and
that,
you know, there's there's value there.
And it's not just
we're not going to be looking to
the lowest fee.
And, you know,
sacrifice anything on the return or the quality of service
that I, I don't want to speak for you, but I know that's. No.
And I think that's what this well, we talked about that, Teri.
It was it was how we were going to make a change or
how we were going to even write an RFP for the current vendor that we have.
And if there's
concern that there's things underlying and things that we don't see,
then that's why we need to pull in the experts to pull this together
so that we can bring everything to the top of the level.
And then if we don't feel
if we feel there's a better deal out there, then we can put together
the proper RFP that would reflect what is going on in there.
I was honest in the point of,
you know, I can see the dollars coming in, I can see the dollars coming out.
I'm 100% confident I know where our money is going,
what they're doing with it
when it's in their hands or however certain things may be occurring.
That is something, as Todd noted,
it is a little bit harder to to understand or see what's going on.
Are more focused on what those returns are and what we're, you know,
what we're actually charging or paying for those essentially returns.
I think this would
would be the only next step if we want to continue to look at this
as that we get that so then we can have those benchmarks to then say
if they're they're doing a good job, then we've we have that reinforcement
and we know the answer.
And if they're not, then we have what we need to go through
to do a proper RFP to get the best deal that's out there.
Okay. Well, it would be good to have the.
Do you want to say something?
Well, Mike, it looks like you need to go back to PSM
and get this rewritten anyway because it expired.
So if do we want to take a vote on the Finance Committee?
If we want to move forward on this and then ask Mike to have it
rewritten with the correct timeline on it, and then just
make be more specific in that it has specific focus areas.
And for the whole fund that is manager that we get,
I don't know how to say it, but that.
We want to make sure that whatever they're looking at is what we want.
Looked at. Yeah, yeah.
No, we know that.
That's right from the in my world, the benchmarking of the indices,
Paul pulls that together for me.
But if there's some more in-depth that I'm not seeing,
that's why I want to make sure this isn't just to satisfy Mike.
This is to satisfy everybody here.
So if we want to see some of the things in there,
we can definitely ask for that to occur.
I think an amount of $18,000 is certainly well within the boundaries
of what I think is acceptable for taking a look at something like this.
I mean, you don't
drive a luxury car without putting money
in, you know, to the maintenance and getting things checked.
You know, as a as an example,
I think it's more to the understanding of
some of this, I know for me is beyond the scope of my knowledge.
So I don't know, you know, what the potential would be,
you know, for them to find or for them to suggest could be done.
But I think that
it could be a, you know, a worthwhile
invest payment to make in such a large asset
and what that looks like and how we make sure
that we're protecting that for the future.
Okay.
But if it's not going, you know, if something like this isn't going to produce
consumable information that would allow us to make a decision
on how to move forward
and what to do and what not to do,
then I also don't want to have a frivolous spend either.
When I first came here, you guys were discussing
RFPs for this, and I made it clear I don't think there's enough information
to say whether Fulton has done a good job or not.
So this is.
The first that would get us. There. Yes.
To say whether they've done a good job or not,
I'm sure Fulton will tell us they've done a good job.
Maybe they have, but maybe they haven't.
It's good to get somebody else to go ahead and check on that.
Okay. It's not like this is a small asset.
This is
this is kind of like taking a temperature gauge
to determine whether we need to go down the RFP project.
And keep in mind, this is probably three basis points,
0.03% of the fund.
Who knows, maybe they've underperformed their benchmarks by 100 basis points.
That's real money.
And this is stuff you should know.
Okay, well, why don't we get to that?
Do we need emotion or just get the pulse of the committee
on whether we'd like them to update the proposal?
And just that's what I'd like to get is emotion in that,
and I'll get them to update.
But essentially, the committee approved this
and I will get them to update it with the current dates.
The price won't change.
We would need the full board to approve this, correct?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Refine it.
That would be normal.
Part of our process, though, is if the committee
then referred it out of the committee or not.
And that, you know, that's part of the process as well
if it doesn't get out of committee.
But that would be the first step.
Normally, we have the committee approve exactly what we want here would be just
they're okay with your okay with the process of updating
the current proposal and as I noted, the amount of money won't change.
You want a motion on that?
Well.
Can I put you on the spot and ask what your thoughts are on it?
Mm hmm.
It's not often that we have a citizen advisors
whose life work is this, and I think we would be remiss
not to take his recommendation, all things considered.
Okay.
So then I would move that we
renew or update the proposal
and then would move it to the full board for discussion and consideration.
Second,
on favor.
I thank you, Todd, for work again.
All right. Thanks.
I'd just like for timeline wise,
depending on when you get it back, Mike will usually
give it to the board in a board brief and then vote on it at the next meeting.
So if you
if you got it back before September 9th,
we would then vote on it at the second meeting in September.
But if you didn't get it back, we then, you know.
I'll have it for I have it for the board before September.
Ninth and then we'll vote on it a second as a member.
Okay.
I just like that the that it's coming from PFM because, you know, there are a
trusted partner in in a lot of the financial things
that we do for the district.
So it makes me even more comfortable.
Okay.
We have about 5 minutes.
The vendor fair we've talked about,
Mike said he's putting some thoughts together to do.
I have time to do that, Mike, that you want to share with us?
Okay.
So I just put together a quick
summary, I guess.
So the proposed purpose of the vendor fair,
I really do see this as a local community service.
We're doing this for our local businesses.
This isn't for
businesses as a whole, but this is so
if there are businesses in our community that, for whatever reason, are
intimidated to do business or don't quite understand,
we can go through the process of what it takes to provide that for us.
How we'd go about that is we talked about having something in
in January for me mid to late January,
we select that date.
We're able to get all the local businesses within Derry Township and i.e.
those would be any
that have payroll taxes being remitted to our local tax collector.
We did something a little similar a couple of years ago in which we asked
the tax collector, identify all businesses located in Derry Township,
and that's what we received as anybody that was remitting payroll taxes.
We received
their names and addresses
and then we would send the mailing out to them informing them of the fair
when it happens, inviting them in, those types of things.
Just a really quick draft agenda at the bottom.
Welcome, everybody.
Very quickly, just describing our goods and the services that we use,
reviewing our budgeting and purchasing timeline
and then getting down into some of the specifics for the school district.
There's a definite way if if we purchase services from you,
if you have somebody coming into our school building,
you probably have to have them have all the same clearances
that anybody else would have.
So we would start informing people of that process.
And here's what you would need to do to get all your employees able
to even come do business with us so that they're aware of that.
And then if they're someone that sells goods, talk to them about how we purchase
goods, how we budget for them, the timeline that we go through.
And then at the end of that,
essentially all of the
documents that would be developed for this vendor fair
would be then placed on our district website
for future reference that we wouldn't
necessarily have to have this vendor fair every year or something like that.
But I think a good way to get everybody introduced and a good way for us
to get all of our our thoughts and our information sorted out in a way
that will be easily understood for someone online.
We would look to the vendors to say,
you know, give us some feedback, here's some information.
How would this be helpful online?
Or see it in a different way.
Just use them in those way.
So just a
quick summary of proposed vendor fair.
That sounds right. Right on.
As far as you know to me,
how long do you think that would take, Mike?
How much time do you think the event itself Oh, 45 minutes,
maybe an hour at most I honestly it would probably be more
like Greg and Mark
with buildings and grounds, some of those that buy some of the more normal
non educational type of things that are very just you know
everybody a lot of people sell them not just specific to schools
but no more than an hour.
Okay.
So in order to move forward with this, would you like
would it need to go to the full board or just have the, you know, think so?
I think I could come back to our next meeting
with a proposed date in January after I look at my calendar
and the district calendar to obviously try to find a date that
has the least amount going on
overall would be our my goal at that point.
It sounds great to me.
Anybody have any comments or observations?
Okay.
Last item just real quick and we'll close out four General Services
20 1920 goals.
We we canceled our last Finance Committee meeting
of 20 1819 years, so we didn't get a chance to set goals.
What I was thinking since seeing that 2 minutes ago.
Here is Mike.
You'll share with us the budget calendar for 1920
or would you be prepared to do that at our next meeting where we would know,
you know, all the dates and timeframes.
We know one of the goals will be to solicit
any input from board members on priorities that they might have.
And there may be other goals that we would want to set for ourselves,
that we could set them in the context of you presenting to us
the budget calendar for 1920 at the next meeting when that.
Okay.
And just one last item. I'm sorry, I forgot.
I believe there are a few
citizens advisors whose terms have expired.
I think we got a little behind on the paperwork
and I'm not Joe to you know, more specifically I do.
There are two, I think, Darby.
I think yours is up in the end of 19, the end of June 30th.
We usually we send out letters beginning in July
with the turnover in my office that got missed.
So you'll be getting a letter from Cathy and I just thanking you for your service.
Citizen Advisors roll off every after your two year term.
So you. Only got a one year, you.
Only got the right.
Finance Committee was new.
So I hope you apply again.
Yes, you can apply again. Then it'll be a two year.
And then application process will be rolling out here in early September
through the month and then reappointing them in October for new.
So please encourage you to apply again.
So Todd and Jeff has a two year term. Yes.
Was there another one year?
There were a couple on different committees
because of vacancies, we filled with one of Dr.
Diseases rolled off that he'll get the letter.
So the letters will come out this week in that.
All right.
Terry, we have one minute, but we we do want to establish goals
for the entire year. So here's my quick list.
The Milton Hershey Trust Fund proposal as a goal,
the food services slash federal nutritional guidelines as a goal,
the budget and board priorities as a goal.
And then I would like,
which I always thought we were going to do, is report on the finance report
that we usually just approve at the consent agenda.
I thought we were going to do that in general as a finance committee.
Like instead of doing it at the full board, we would do it here more.
So if we could do something with that.
Like I know we approve like the general funds,
cash balance bills, paid active fund.
If we could put that on the Finance Committee, review it, ask you questions
and then it goes it go to the full board anyway, under consent.
But I'd just like to highlight it here.
Okay. I was going to say, Yeah, yeah, no problem.
No problem at all.
I wasn't going to report out on those goals tonight.
I'd rather us earlier.
Would you like more time? Well, just
since we didn't really have time to hear from everybody around the table.
Well, we were.
I was just thinking we were late.
We should have done it this in June.
But do you want to just continue the conversation in September?
Yeah, my Preference would be in the context of the 19th
and the 1920 budget
time frame, but those could very well be the goals.
But just just that we do it more formally then and then.
Okay. Okay.
Thank you. Any other comments?
Not a motion for adjournment.
Second.
All in favor. Hi.
I thank you all very much.
So that.