Denoon I'd like to call the November 26
Financial Standing Committee meeting to order
and begin by taking roll.
I'm Terry Singer, a board member.
Kip Shaw, Board member.
Mike French, Business Manager
at G4 Advisory Committee.
Jeff King of Azure. Comments.
Joe Macfarlane Superintendent.
Kathy Seger School Board.
K One of our school board members, Lindsey
Drew, has an excuse absence as well as
Davi, one of our citizen advisors, and Faisal,
I think we're expecting
the meeting is being recorded.
So when you speak, please turn on your microphones.
First order of business will be to approve the minutes
from the October 22nd Board meeting
and I have a motion
to moved.
Todd Schaefer's name is Tom Shaver.
His name is spelled wrong.
We'll correct that time.
Thanks for bringing that to our attention.
Got a second.
Second on favor.
I know.
Okay. Unfinished business.
I sent out a
pretty comprehensive package
maybe a week ago to everybody that included the minutes
from our Finance Committee meetings
of September and October.
And quite a bit of information
on our our finances.
And I hope everyone had a chance to look at it.
At this point.
We want to
discuss making a recommendation to our full board of directors
on living within
the budget index this year of 2.3%, Correct?
Mike Okay.
So what we'll be doing is making a recommendation
to our board of directors at this evening's meeting.
They'll have to make the entire board will have to make its own decision
at that time or at a I guess, the first meeting in December.
So I guess I'll just
open the floor for any, any questions.
So what we're talking about is making a recommendation to that.
We will live in the 20 1920 year
within the 2.3% allowed index.
Doesn't mean that we have to increase our budget by 2.3%,
but it means we can increase it up to 2.3% without
going to the Department
of Education and
in seeking approval for for an increase.
So anybody have any comments or observations?
I just have a comment.
I think we knew this has been coming, that we always knew
we could live within the in the index, but we did know there was a possible
tax increase coming this year because of full day kindergarten initiating it.
This is our first year running it.
This is my third year on the board.
First year I was on the board. No tax increase.
But then going into full decade, we knew we would probably have two years
in a row of going up to the index.
And you've indicated like,
I don't know when we had the conversation possibly that it probably won't be 1%.
You're looking at possibly going the whole way to the index, but
those are conversations we can continue to have.
But it's going to be something like that, right, Mike?
That is correct.
Massacre at this point, it looks like we'll need the entire 2.3% increase.
But those are the things that our process as we gather the the actual information
on the needs of each of the departments for next year,
that that would become clear.
And normally we work those numbers closer together
as we get through that actual information.
But yes, where we sit today, we'll probably need the entire
tax increase, not necessarily for all the things that were done
for full day kindergarten, but some of the things we have on on our plate
coming up for next year or at least being considered.
Okay. Thank you.
Kip or Todd?
Just Faisel.
Any any questions?
Yeah,
Yeah, I'll go here.
I'm not sure if I fully read everything correctly.
So should we operate off of this?
Is it?
I mean, is this include 2.4 or was
I put as good as should a 750 short for next year.
It does and I'll pull it up here on the screen
just so we can all look at the at the same information.
This is where we
pulled up on the wrong
with Todd's.
Referring to is the the initial information
that we look at from our five year budget projections.
And as we look actually look into
what you're looking at for for 2019 is actually the budget that we
we approved that had about a $740,000 deficit
included.
Now, that is a very much a worst case scenario.
There are a lot of one time revenues,
one time in the essence of like real estate transfer tax.
The amount of money coming into the school district is completely dependent
on how much real estate Trent changes hands in Derry Township,
which we don't have any control over whatsoever.
These numbers are assuming that those those revenue streams
stay flat, even though maybe last year we had a large increase in those
because of how they're generated, it does not necessarily mean
so we stay very conservative with those numbers.
So that's why this year would be showing about a little over
$700,000 deficit next year, looking at almost $1.1 million.
That does include the 2.3% tax increase.
So essentially, that's the work ahead of us as we pull together the actual needs,
because this is just based on history of what we've done in the past
and then now increased
for future years based on uncertain terms.
So this this kind of gives us that starting point
that we use this to say, well, if this is a deficit,
we're pretty sure we're going to need to look at a tax increase.
We've never only one time
in the district's history have we gone above the index.
We only did that in the year that it was essentially a brand new index
as well as we had done some things in the prior years in bringing
staff on board and not associating a tax increase with them,
which you always need to do if you're bringing new staff on board.
So we caught up that that additional year.
So all of that to show that this
and if you'll see the same form over the years
those deficits into the outlying years are somewhat normal
and from a worst case scenario normal that if these one time revenues
don't come to where they need to be, if we're not able to control
our expenditures as we normally do, normally we don't expend
the amount of money that we have approved there
because we're up,
even though it's approved in the budget,
we're continually making sure that it's needed and it's done
for efficiently, which which enables us to save money throughout the year.
Those are the types of things that that we as the administration say
from the year prior.
I'm comfortable with the $700,000 deficit because I know there are certain things
that are going to come up that we can control
and I think we can do a better job at controlling those.
Now, saying that if we have a terrible year in health
insurance because we're self-insured, we might get to that that deficit amount.
But that's why we have fund balance.
And we would we have some, you know, associated with
increases in health care costs that we'll pull from that if that's over.
This.
So good good
questions, because I know when people look at this, they they say,
like you're showing me that we're we're in a deficit the next five years.
We need to do something about that.
And we are we continually discuss how to drive down our expenses
and deal with the revenues that we're given.
But we're also honest, transparent.
I guess I should put it in that
when we make certain decisions that make it seem like we're going
to go over our budget or that we're going to spend more money than we receive,
we want to make sure everybody is on that same page and sees that
so that there isn't this understanding or thought that we go into this
with revenues equaling expenditures.
Meanwhile, administration
is doing some work behind the scenes to actually make that that work
under the budget and get us to work.
I understand
there's a lot of uncontrollable variables and budgeting as well as budgeting.
So the 750 that is what, 2.2
That's so that's the 1919 budget that we're already in.
We increased our taxes by 2.4%.
And we still we still
we're looking at that that budget deficit.
Now that's
I told the board I could easily have manipulated
the numbers to make that zero, but that's not the way
I'd rather be more transparent and that's what we're seeing there.
So if we go over to 2020 and look at that one, almost $1.1
million deficit, that does include a 2.3% tax increase.
So that's us going up to the index as much as we can.
It does not assume a large increase
for state subsidy, which may or may not be there.
So there are some other things. But yes, this does assume
actually in every year
up to 2024, it assumes a at least a 2% tax increase.
But part two going up to 2.4 brings us ballpark next year, 2 million.
And so to think about that, no.
So the we go from 60
I think back 63 to 6, 63.2 to 64.9 right.
That already includes that that Yeah.
That increases just to correct that.
Correct. Yes.
If we did not
if so, if I didn't include that, that deficit would be about $2 million
instead of the 1.1 that it's showing for for 2020.
Is that tax increase a combination of increased enrollment
or purely a year over year tax increase, too?
It really is
when we put together
our larger contracts, most notably the
for for teachers.
Obviously, our labor contracts are our most expensive because that's what we do.
We assume that our revenues have to grow
by at least 2% per year to be able to afford those.
So those contracts
we start using that 2% with the real estate tax because that's the only thing
we can control and say, okay, I know this will increase by 2% per year
because we can we can increase it to do that.
What it does not take into account is there are other things like state revenue,
like one time revenues that
that as we get closer
to the end of the year, we'll feel better that those probably will increase,
providing some more of that revenue that we may not have
to provide from a tax increase standpoint, if that makes any sense.
So this model assumes that the other all the other revenue
stays very, very flat and the only thing really
increase again, any
substantial rate is the real estate taxes
planned out from there and how the model works.
We PFM a bunch of data and they plug in sugar is how this works.
There's a lot of
I have access to the entire thing
and actually the board members do as well.
But we provide them all of our data.
It's basically put into the spreadsheets here
and then there's places that I can go in and manipulate
where maybe the history says this will increase by 10% a year.
But I know we've done some things to
make ourselves more efficient and to to stave off those increases.
So I may go in and say, I know past years are saying this will increase by 10%,
but I believe it's only going to increase by five because of what we've done.
And so it allows me to manipulate those things
more as well.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
The first year being a business manager, this would make absolutely no sense to me.
Fortunately, 15 years in, you get a lot of of those things.
You understand what you can manipulate and what things do change
and the other things that that unfortunately stay fairly constant.
I have one more question.
If you were to go back to 2016, November and to project, how would it look like
for 2016 to 18, but you have projected the two lines on top of each other.
Would you still have project? Is this big of a difference?
The those two lines would be in actuality
the revenue line would actually be above
the expenditure line with with that.
But those notes are because the revenue increase
within some more areas that we were not necessarily counting on for those
got I
mean our our unwarranted financials for 1718 that we reviewed
maybe last month
shows I don't know 700 and so is a deficit.
I don't remember the amount
but we know once everything is accounted for,
we're not going to be in a deficit position for.
That's correct. Okay.
So even though they show deficits,
you know, when we get the compare
actuals at the end of the audit period,
we wind up usually
having more revenue than we initially correct show?
Yes. Yeah. Okay.
And just a reminder, this is,
you know, so 1% of our expenditures is $600,000.
So if I'm 99% correct, I'll still be off by $600,000.
So just putting that in some perspective, when you're looking at these
numbers in that way.
To put a little context,
you know, concerns about this
isolated one year living within the 2.3% index.
However, you know, in an oversight role,
how are we supposed to handle this unsustainable vignette
that is presented to us with we're just supposed to say, well,
given the variables, we probably won't have those budget
deficits and the general fund won't be depleted by 2024.
I mean that to me that wishful thinking
is not a proper way to plan for the future.
And, you know, you're assuming a you're
assuming a 2% increase, which a tax increase, which I think is
is is very reasonable to start getting the public
prepared for annual tax increases really as far as the eye can see.
But that's a good point because these are things that we've been able to
use those variances essentially to get ourselves out of this.
But that's not operationally necessarily the way the way it will go,
which is why I like this tool to continually bring this back
each year to say, okay, maybe next year we will be okay.
But I can't say that 100% guarantee you five years down the road
if we do not continue to assume that we're going to need a tax increase
and as well as is the oversight
of our expenditures, which, you know, we spend an awful lot of time
making sure that that we can afford
the things that that we're doing, which we're fortunate here to do.
And we certainly appreciate your candor.
But this this I think people ought to be very concerned.
We can't be just kicking the can down the road every year.
I mean, this is this would clearly this vignette is clearly unsustainable.
And if anybody thinks
that we're going to be getting substantial help from the federal state,
haven't been paying attention
to the fact that the state is running $1 billion budget deficits into perpetuity.
And and it's just it they're
it's just unsustainable. So
we really need
to pay attention to everything that we can do
to reduce expenditures
and not to incur additional debt.
Is there is there one or two items to point to
is on the expenditure front as to why it's going up so fast
or what part of it is, is
the the retirement
so contributions that now those are not
those have leveled off too.
So to say that those are forcing it to go up as fast is not that way.
If you were to look at 16 and 17, definitely that would have been it
were to the top of that that now,
no, there wouldn't be one.
One thing that jumps out at me and specifically
because we put together a budget, if you look at 19
specifically, well,
even going back to 18, so 18 we had a $459,000
deficit plan will end up the year $2 million to the positive.
So we didn't have a deficit at all.
We actually our revenues
exceeded our expenditures by about $2 million.
As we get into 19,
I foresee a lot more of that squeezing closer.
So I don't foresee a $2 million overage.
You know, it's probably closer to two $1,000,000, but once again,
that's probably half a percent
on the expenditure side and half a percent on the revenue side.
That that pulls those together.
And so when you're looking for those, there's not one thing.
Health care is another item that,
you know, we assume it's going to increase by 10% a year.
We've been doing
a little bit better than that in
So since 2014 we've tried some different things
and from 2014 to about 2017, we were doing really good.
2018, it wasn't the best year, but that's some of that's
just health care in the whole.
You can't really determine when those large things
are going to hit you, especially when you cover a thousand people.
So those are some of the things that extrapolate it out.
10% every year are showing some of those.
Is it realistic that it's 10% every year?
That's a tough one because it could be
a 5% increase one year and then a 25% increase the next year.
So you just try to to focus on those
from that standpoint.
One thing we'll be looking at this year
or for next year that's a larger line
item is the transportation for our special needs students.
We currently go through our
our intermediate unit for those services.
They provide fantastic services for those students,
but we know that we're paying a premium for their services as well.
So we're going to take another look at that this year, for next year,
to see if we do not want to reduce the services at all.
But at least looking to see
if anybody else can match with what the IU is doing for us.
So that would that would be one that sticks out to me.
That was a larger that we may be able to to save 50
or $60,000 switching
any more questions or discussion,
We have time to have more.
Well, I mean, 50 or 60 grand
obviously, is a drop in the bucket when you take a look at these numbers.
So it's.
Yeah, and that's what we're down to, though, when you look at
we had a we had a really good windfall last year
in our savings that we had for our medical insurance.
We negotiated with
with Highmark and received about a $200,000 reduction
on services that we already had.
No, tentatively, I'm not sure that that equals saving money
because we may just spend that on other things in health care.
But we just there are a lot of large line items like that available to us.
So we are to the point where we look at those
individual budgets, individual departments, and see what we can
we can kind of squeeze out from from there.
And and to that point, a couple of our other goals as
as a committee, Todd will be to look at of many of the contracts we have in place.
I mean that's 15 I don't know how many percent of our budget
that would total, but obviously the
staff costs and
health insurance and all that accounts for 70%.
So but at any rate, as a committee, we're going to be looking at
working with Mike and looking at all of the contracts that we have
and seeing if there are there are any that might be worth looking at in terms
of opening up competition to seek new bids.
That's one thing we'll do
going forward from here.
Once we once we go past
making a recommendation to our board on the on the budget.
Also, we were going to look at the Hershey Trust,
which is it's just one contract, but
this is a significant management fee associated with that.
So there could be some savings there. But
and we have talked in the past that it's tied to the contract,
but looking at limited service contracts,
you know, to see if there's
any kind of governance by the by the contracts.
So I don't know if we can have any impact there or not.
But but to Kip's point, I guess the question I would have, Mike, is
what would
need to happen this year or next year that would cause you to think, oh,
my goodness, you know,
we're not going to be able to just live within the index year after year.
We're going to have to look at a,
you know, a tax increase above that.
What what you know, what would you have to see to make you start to feel that way?
I think it would have to be, you know, a
large a much larger investment in our our personnel,
whether that be
because of a change in the contract or are a lot more people
coming on board.
I think as long as I've been associated with we're all on the same page
that if we add people we have to raise taxes.
There's no there really is no in between
in that scenario because of the ongoing.
And I think as long as we're going down that road,
we should be okay.
In all honesty.
But it is are those times, Terry, that if we get to what we'd like to do this
and this, but we're just not raising taxes, that's when it becomes
something that because you missed that one year
and you'll you spend a long time catching up for that.
Okay.
Anybody have any more questions or
comments?
All right.
I guess I'm just looking for a feeling
from from the board members as to whether will
recommend to the full board this evening that
that will live this year within the 2.3% index.
Yeah, I'm supportive of that.
Agreed. Okay.
Any other thoughts?
Okay.
Thank you.
Next item on the agenda,
technology presentation,
just as a little introduction.
And Joe and Mike, you can expand on this, but
we moved into
I guess over the last couple of years, we've sought to equip, I think first our
high school students one on one with iPads and then went down to middle school.
Middle schools first and then high school.
Okay, sorry about that middle school first, then high school.
And now they're looking at a slightly different plan
for elementary school based on the experiences they've had so far.
But this is part of the strategic plan for the district
to equip our students with with this kind of technology.
And and we're pleased to have you here to talk to us about that.
And just just one more piece there for the rest of the committee members.
And sometimes
we get into this with timing of our committee meetings,
but we're really focused on it for our purposes here on
how are we going to pay for these, how are we going
to afford these computers moving forward.
David Tracy will be making a presentation to our curriculum committee,
which they would obviously make the decision or recommend to the full board
whether or not elementary iPads are appropriate at all for usage and needed.
So just want to make sure we we stay focused on the
the financing of it and with the understanding that if
and I don't believe this in any way is the case because I think they're
a really great tool for us.
But should the curriculum
committee say, well, we don't believe this is a good idea?
This, of course, may not move forward after this,
but just needed
to get it on certain calendars so we can make sure each of the committees
heard the presentation.
Is this from a is this linked to $185,000
in 1819 for replacing elementary MacBooks?
Or is that a different line item, Different line, different items?
And this may change some of those as this gets implemented,
whether or not some of those are are done in future years.
But I think that was one that had already been done.
Jack, thank you.
Okay.
Well, good evening
and thank you for allowing Dave and I to be here tonight
and thank you for your ongoing support
for technology integration at Derry Township.
We would like to provide you with an update
on where we are with technology for learning at the elementary
K through five and a potential for an iPad refresh.
We are currently considering
and looking at potential options to refresh our elementary iPads
at the elementary school and kindergarten through fifth grade to include
new iPads for the 1920 school year.
As Mike said, we are we are seeking your your support for that
and just to explore how we could move forward with it.
We always like to start with why, from the words of Simon Sinek.
So our focus on technology integration has always been around and continues
to be focused on sound instructional practices in the classroom
and how technology can be leveraged as a tool to enhance teaching and learning.
We believe that technology would not replace good teachers.
However, technology in the hands of a good teacher
can be truly transformational in the classroom.
And this is a quote from Michael Fulton.
Tech pedagogy is the driver.
So good instruction should drive everything first.
But technology is the accelerator.
Technology allows us to accelerate and deepen that authentic quality
of learning in the classroom.
So we'll start by talking about goals.
Obviously, some of the text on this slide focuses on instructional practices.
So really it's about what an iPad
refresh could truly give to our K to five teachers.
And obviously some of the things that they're going to see right away
would be near real time data to guide instruction
and other other things, such as the ability to
look at student performance and other areas
like that as well.
Conversely, for students,
it allows them truly to engage in higher level thinking.
Sometimes we talk about the forces, which would be
critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.
Actually, a fifth one right now, they actually call them that five C's
would be citizenship.
So and it's really a necessary tool and teaching area
in K to five to learn that citizenship piece.
Good examples of things that they're doing right now with what they have
are the creation of content, not just consuming it, but actually creating it.
So just for your knowledge,
we might share a little bit about where
we've been with the deliberate and planful rollout of technology, why
this vision actually started six years ago at the elementary school
where we asked the teachers to imagine the possibilities.
And as to Mr.
Singer noted, this is part of our strategic plan.
So this is something that we have been working on for a very long time.
In July of 2012,
we we put 4 to 5 devices in each classroom,
and it was a combination of iPads and computers.
And working with the
current director of technology at that time and the principals
and the classroom teachers.
And so that's the format of what that would look like.
And then in 20 1617, we were able to repurpose
some of the iPads
from our previously existing 1 to 1 program at the middle school and move
some devices down to the elementary school to get some more life out of them.
And that's when we were able to move to ten devices
per classroom, which is where we currently are with those devices.
So those devices are quite getting old.
They're they're pretty aging at this point.
And these are this is an example of what our original iPad looked like.
It is is the iPad two, I believe.
So a very, very old iPad.
Some of these were still in classrooms recently.
I think one was in a speech room.
So we we still have some of these out, but they can't be updated.
And then this is the the the the current configuration in the classroom
are the minis that sort of we repurposed from our
from when we went one, two, one six through 12,
we were able to reuse these devices and get a few more years of life out of them.
But what we're seeing is that they are ending.
They're ending their usable lifetime span and the teachers
are having struggles with them and they are impact in fact,
impeding learning at some points because they are freezing up.
We're having to intervene with them quite a lot.
And again, we
do provide support for the teachers to integrate technology with instructional
coaching with that ongoing job embedded professional learning and that support
so that they have the tools and training that they need to adequately,
inappropriately use the technology in their instruction.
So to focus on expanding this technology
or doing a refresh, but adding more devices to the classroom,
we did a pilot last year, so we actually put more devices
in the hands of different grade level teachers.
One of the things we saw that was kind of neat was actually
the ability for teachers to push content out.
So instead of a teacher being at the front of the classroom guiding instruction,
the content can be pushed out to the classroom on these iPads
and they can actually do it in small groups.
We refer to it
as a hybrid station rotation, so it gives them the ability to do that
a lot better.
And you can see some of the other things that we talked about, the forces
and access to some of the diagnostic programs
and curriculum based products that we have.
So to do all that
precision, I actually sat down with Mrs.
Castleman, who's here with us tonight, and we kind of dissected the elementary
and looked at all of our neat areas and what it would take.
Mr. France also sat down
with us as well, and he weighed in where we're needed
about what would be appropriate in certain places.
And the number at the bottom really comes up with what we were talking about.
It would take about 1066 iPads
to basically refresh what we have out there.
Just understand that literally everything we're holding in front of you,
with the exception of the purchase
we did in 2012, we've not bought anything for the elementary.
Everything has been in, I'm going to call it
hand-me-downs for lack of a better term, from the secondary
and mostly the middle school down to the down to the elementary.
So what we're looking would actually give us a brand new homogenous
set of devices that we could put in the hands of these students.
And it would give us the ability to actually put devices
in intervention areas to that we haven't necessarily always had in the past.
And we talked with our
our salesperson from Apple, and he recommended a 32 gigabyte iPad.
We actually were going to come out and do a 64
and he actually talked us down.
So he actually unsold his product or reversed sold it.
But then we have some numbers here.
So these were some rough numbers based off
doing that number and looking at that.
And that actually gives us an iPad.
At the time it would be an iPad case.
And what Apple calls is a crayon, which is a handheld device
that they can use to to manipulate on the iPad.
So why not purchase?
Well, the benefits of at least we're already seeing at the secondary level
and and again, it really offers us some options.
We have flexible timing and payment schedules that are always
apparent during a lease.
We'd also be looking at a fixed line item in our budget.
So something that we can expect every year and plan for resale
options, the benefit of buying from is these devices actually retain their value
and have resale.
So if we ever wanted to do that or in the case of what we've been doing is
we could reuse the devices.
But if you know, in this case, we're going to be set up very well, that
we're probably going to be able to use them to the end of their life,
which might be a three or four year lease budget offsets to.
So by doing this, we we may be able to cut other areas of our budget
because of what we're doing with the iPads and that might look like different.
We're not buying certain devices for certain areas
or not having standard computers in place
and really
at the end of the day, it also gives us that homogenous set of learning devices
for the students and for the teachers as well.
I think in closing, we just want to point out
that so much of the access to the students curriculum materials are now digital,
that that having a device is almost it's is an essential it's a learning tool.
It's like what we had in the eighties of the Trapper Keeper.
While the iPad is your your modern day trapper keeper
is that's how you access everything and even at the elementary level.
And we're not saying we want students to be on devices
every minute of every day at the elementary level.
We want them collaborating.
We want them working together.
So sometimes you see we call it shareware, where they're,
you know, to which students have an iPad and they're sharing and working together.
And that's sort of where we see this going.
And we see we don't see that lessening in future.
We definitely know we're looking at other programs
that have technology pieces and they need to be
have the students need to have that access.
So we're just close with
you know, we are preparing our students for their future,
one that will demand them to be ethical, digital citizens. So
that's all we had formally for you tonight.
Do you have any questions for us?
I do.
Have you discussed how we might pay for this?
Have you thought about the fund balance or because it's a reoccurring expense,
do you want it in the general?
That's where I'd like to see it in the general
because it is an ongoing need and not just a one time expense.
And that's the the issues this creates.
If we see we could just pay for those out of the fund balance,
that's great for these computers for these four years.
It doesn't necessarily set us up long term as we've done
with our lease at the secondaries level.
So we currently have a three year lease for all of the computers
for the six through 12 program that we have.
I think that really provides us,
one, the guarantee that every child has the same device in their hand,
which is it needs to happen for for the education
to happen in the correct way because you cannot have a teacher say,
well, this is where it is and have two students say it's not there.
What I'm looking at, it just creates too much confusion.
So in doing the lease, it creates
that space in the general fund budget
for that ongoing refresh to occur.
And that's why we would recommend looking at the lease to begin with.
Now, however, that's from a philosophical standpoint,
as you noted, Kathy, we could purchase these outright as well,
but we're looking not only at getting them this time,
but but every other time that that would need to come up.
I have one more question.
Does that include the Apple care?
I mean, because at the end of the day, I mean, we're getting these devices
to less than ten years old kids and
there's any clue that or not.
And one more thing.
I mean, I, I work at the mess center.
So we had this deal with Apple similar to yours for ten years almost,
in which everything we get leased out and it gets replaced.
They included AppleCare as well.
But I think now this year they've changed the rules for us Now because of time,
they somehow came of a conclusion that that was deficit for them
and instead would be buying and use it as long as it takes.
The live breaks down.
They've done some sort of math, which I don't know,
maybe if they maybe includes getting a quotation from them.
Asked if that's cheaper in the long term and also depends on
how much how frequently we break them. Yeah,
we've been fairly lucky at the elementary school
with a minimal damage because they don't travel around a lot.
They stay in the classroom.
So the teachers train the students pretty well to take care of them.
We also put these really rugged cases on them.
So in terms of AppleCare, we always consider it
I don't know that we always purchase it, but we always consider it as an option.
We're also able to do some in-house repairs,
which is also a huge cost savings for us.
Just to jump in, and this is one of the things
that's really hard to do to deal with that.
Apple is one of the few, if any,
retailers, distributors, however you want to look at Apple
that basically says this is my product, this is what it costs,
you can buy it from me or not buy it at all.
So we do go in with what we call the value ads,
which would be things like AppleCare and the cases, and try to at least
get some of those additional things put put on to this.
So we do go about that process.
But I know it's it's extremely frustrating for me because
every contract we have is negotiable
except for apples. Yep.
So as far as true.
This is very exciting.
I think it's the great equalizer for our kids.
You know, if a child has a, you know, low economic status
and they're not getting this at home, they're getting it from us.
And the kid that does have it, you know, so we know all of our kids will get it.
And then it builds on elementary to middle, because in middle school,
in sixth grade, there's an expectation that you know how to use an iPad
because you get one and you use it for probably all your classes.
So I hope that we can figure this out and put it in the budget
because like Mike said,
we have a couple of kids in the classroom and an iPad is freezing in.
A teacher can't work with it. That's extremely frustrating.
And they've been dealing with hand-me-downs for six years.
That's a long time to use technology.
But so thank you.
I hope we can figure it out somehow.
Kathy, That's another part of the team at this point saying
this is how we'd like to do this moving forward
and memorialize it in a way
that that that we can count on because the technology department and the
the elementary have done a great job with with what has been given to them.
And we just want to take that next step now and say this
this is something that they should be able to count on year to year,
not necessarily just what we may have being kicked down from the other levels.
So a question from a committee standpoint, not this because this is fantastic.
So the question would be from a budgeting standpoint,
but I'm used to would be a question.
The question I would get would be, this is fantastic.
Now, what are you not going to do to before but you want to do
so yeah, how do we go about, you know, hundred thousand dollars
a year to your point, carve that out so it's there in perpetuity.
What We're going to look at in the technology budget for for for about
half of that is what I would like to see that operating budget be be reduced by
that does bring up some of those other wants and needs because,
you know, a large portion of their budget is is all the
the apps the things that that are used in the classroom.
And so we may have to go to somebody and say,
I know you really like this one, but can you just focus more on that one?
Because we may be you know, if that's only serving one teacher
or something like that, we may look at it in that way.
But the other portion of that will have to come from an understanding that,
you know, this is part of the need for a tax increase,
the understanding
that, you know, the technology budget comes in.
So if we use the four year lease comes in $80,000 above where it was last year,
that should be expected
and we'll work with it within other departments to try to reduce that.
But initially we want the technology department
to take on about half of the the responsibility in their own budget.
That's the goal.
I'm not saying that that's what we're telling them.
That has to happen because once again, we go through this based on needs.
And so we're not going to pull something out of the budget that that is needed.
I think I have a nephew in fifth grade and he started here in kindergarten,
so I because my kids are older, so I haven't necessarily seen this,
but my sister in law always forwards me emails at the teachers sent home
about what the kids have done and little videos and what was
I was most impressed
with last year when he was in fourth grade is that they sent a video home of him
doing a math problem and it was a screen capture video and he had to explain
how he did the equation and how he got the answer.
So he was working on understanding math.
He was teaching it to somebody else, the listener.
And he was it was like a public thing.
So he had to speak.
And I thought that was incredible because that's how you learn
when you have to teach someone else something.
I was just extremely impressed with the things that they sent home.
It's just that higher level of engagement and that piece that's really authentic.
And you can see that deeper learning and understanding
through that example is really perfect.
So thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, I mean. Just retelling a story like that.
Absolutely. It's great.
My kids have rave reviews for it as well.
But beyond Jeff's point,
beyond buying or leasing, there should be a simple financial matter.
So one is cheaper than the other when it comes
to what our cost of debt is versus the implied cost of leasing.
So look, what we do want to include in that.
The top is that on going
that and you run into this
a lot in school districts, is that not necessarily to saddle
a board in, say, eight years when a refresh comes up
if they don't have the money to actually afford it at that time?
Is that the best decision that we could make for the organization as a whole
is just say, well, buy it right now because we can afford it right now
when that does not necessarily look at how is this going to be done in perpetuity.
So that's why we know the cost differential.
Yes. Will provide that there should be no more.
Any other comments or questions
like what is
are you looking for us to do to take any action tonight?
Or is this just for know, just for your information?
And as you know, we start to look at the the actual budget information.
I think it's just something as well, too, that we would begin to talk about
in in March or so when when all the actuals in specifically, you know,
that this is why the technology budget is going to be increased by this
and we talked about it may be the best way to afford it.
We'll have some additional information.
I think Dave and Tracey have what they need to continue to do.
We have what we need to continue to work with Apple and move
continue to negotiate with them and move down this road,
assuming that we're going to to be doing this.
So that'll be extremely helpful.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much, David and Tracey for coming.
We appreciate it very much. Thank you very much.
Okay.
We've got about 15 minutes left.
As I said earlier, the goals
we set for our committee
included
trying to equip the full board with the information
they needed to think about any priorities that they may have
for budget year 1920.
I think we've we've done that.
We've offered to answer questions, provide additional information.
We haven't
no requests have gone unanswered.
So hopefully we've we've accomplished that goal.
We've decided
tonight will recommend to the board that will live within our index this year.
And then the other two goals of the committee really had to do with I'm
outside of
personnel and related costs
looking at the contracts that we have.
And Mike has provided a list that is attached
to this presentation to the agenda if you got your computers open
and also looking at the Milton Hershey Trust,
there are several
documents that have been provided to give you the history
on the Milton Hershey Trust.
So why don't we take a few minutes?
I'd like to start with the contract list,
Mike, if you have something to say about that,
we could open with that. Or I could just
lead with a couple of questions that I have, whichever you prefer.
Okay.
So in looking at that list,
there's quite a few of them
that don't have the actual contract numbers listed.
So I guess what I'm wondering is if we can
we can get those numbers or not.
Well, so what I did, Terry, for the kind of those fill in the blank ones
was look at
the entire So here for Apple
rather than provide what that is in the detail that was in there
provided what we spent based on that contract in the prior 12 months.
I'm sorry I'm actually on Avalon.
What number is that number? 14.
14 Avalon.
So that's
so in each of the cases
now, like for example, the ACT 93 agreement that covers
35 employees, I didn't stick any of that information in there.
Was this different than the list that was that you sent us previously?
It was with the additional contract
or the year I spent year to date information included.
So that is new
to provide some context of, you know, the size of the contract
or the amount of money we're spending per year.
So I think that probably would help,
as you noted, guide some people into
this.
We spend about 50 $800 a year on airborne contamination.
I don't know that we want to spend too much time discussing that
because there's really no impact or not a lot of impact.
Even if we had a large amount of savings from there.
Okay, well, why don't we just go through it?
Does everyone have their computer open?
They can see it.
It's old school, hard copies.
Oh, okay. Yeah.
So we don't we don't have numbers on ours if we printed it.
Right. Okay. Just tell us the names.
I mean.
Well, if we could just go through it and make maybe,
you know, with your guidance.
But Mr.
questions that anyone has regarding
additional information they think would be helpful
for us to better digest what the contracts are,
what the periods for the contracts are, and what the cost of the contracts are.
We're kind of short on time, aren't we?
I would think I would recommend
addressing this at a later date and ranking these according to Span.
Once we have all the information
and then rank it according to respect, we want to spend, you know, 20 minutes
debating our Verizon Internet $600 a month contract, Right?
Yeah.
I just wondered, do you have enough information?
Do you think you have enough information for us to begin doing that
at the next meeting? And also, what how about the contract end date?
Like something when we want to look at something that ends like this spring
or do we want to prioritize it that way as well?
Well, you definitely would want to look at the things that have a renewal
or an end date coming up,
a contract that we, you know, we may have for two or three more years.
Not a lot of
I don't think we need to spend time because we're under contract
and we really can't do much to change those.
So, yeah, I think that would be the other thing
is to to look at some of these on here have already
the their the contract end date has passed but there a contract that essentially
then reverts to month to month or in in sometimes year to year.
So you may want to look at, you know, some of those
that have already come by, come and gone.
Do you feel like anything needs to be done about those?
And so I think it's a combination of of what
everybody here has noted, just putting in that order
and then bringing things forth
that you feel are things that we should be
specifically seeking RFP or new contracts.
Most of these are some of these we, the administration,
may come back and recommend that we negotiate with our current vendor.
But what we've tried to do in recent years is provide
information for what we're seeing, you know, based on the economic structure
of what's available to us out there
saying, well, this is what we're seeing is available.
What we have is really already comparable to that.
We'd like what we have.
So we want to just continue to negotiate versus
going back through it through an entire RFP process.
Okay.
Well, why don't we leave this with we can all think about how we want to
slice and dice these in terms of which ones
we might want to look at a little a little deeper
with my sell by date, by amount by type of service.
So any
you know, if you have any thoughts or questions between now and our
our meeting, when would we meet again?
Mike Are we meeting and.
Meet every month. Yeah. So December.
December, right.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
So do you have any thoughts on which way to
prioritize?
Prioritize these.
Just share them the January 1st.
Yeah.
And just so the citizen advisors know, like we,
we have renegotiated some of these and saved money like the boiler and Ridder,
the auditing service we saved what 20,000 or so with that going out to. RFP
that's the current one that you're seeing there used to be it was $46,000 for.
23 for that one.
We we have, you know, put things through the ringer already.
And you know I know for the Bali Snyder are our solicitors
we've reviewed that now that does they are a very reasonable
and great attorney so we've looked at a lot of these
but I think it's worth continuing the look.
So I'll send
out an email to everyone suggesting they think, start thinking through
and any thoughts you have on prioritizing how we want to tackle this.
And I'll just send it out to everybody.
So any responses, everyone you know can see and just continue to reply to Mike.
Just one other question.
If we have a three year contract, is there ever an option
in there to
and not that we would, you know, would see to but
end early or is it always, you
it be a case by case basis?
Normally the contracts do not provide for normally early termination,
but we have a we have a few that that do okay.
Okay.
And I have one more question about this.
There was that article in that on the CBC 21 investigates in November 19th
about competitive competitive bidding versus cooperative purchasing.
And when do we ever do cooperative purchasing as a school district?
Have we recently done that? We Yes, we do.
We use costars
for cooperative purchasing.
I think some of the technology that we get
is normally done through the CO-STAR'S program.
We use Keystone Purchasing Network
have not really done anything with them recently
recently within the last 12 months, but we have used them in the past.
Did you see that article, Mike?
I did.
It was it struck me as extremely one sided,
but having a vendor tell me I can save you
this amount of money on a project I did eight months ago.
I get those phone calls almost every day, and I believe almost none of them.
But it talked about roofing in school districts that some area school districts
got a better price per square footage when they took it out to like an RFP
and competitive bidding and outside of the cooperative purchasing network.
Correct.
And that's always the availability because the cooperative purchasing network
is essentially already negotiated it with a certain vendor.
And so they come up with time and materials for essentially
the costs associated with them.
One thing that wasn't noted in there is most times
that CPN encompasses all of your needs, which includes architectural engineer.
You pay one lump sum for an entire service
where the process, they said would be cheaper.
Going to through the RFP may have been, but then didn't include any architect
or any of the other fees that the school district would have paid
to prepare any of those and said, okay, apples to apples, all costs included.
What all you saw was the I can do this contract cheaper, but
did not necessarily include all the things that go into a contract for that.
So I see those as a once again as a means to an end.
You can get pricing in sometimes will start with those.
And when we're checking
with other school districts or checking what our regional economy will provide
if that price is right in the neighborhood, we're going to take that.
If it's out of whack and we know we can get a lot better price
going somewhere else, we'll do that once again based on the amount of money
we're spending because there's time and other resources from the district
perspective that go into the RFP and some of the other processes.
Okay.
Well, what caught my eye is that our KPN was
the one that gave us the concession stand estimate, and that was high.
But once again, it included everything that was needed
to go through There you see, as we started to
pay who
other architects or engineers for those fees that, that Yeah.
Those, those costs are real.
We were just seeing them from a from another, another perspective.
They.
Might be the contract with.
I don't know if it's the energy savings
contract is when is that one up.
We have two, we have one.
Our gas is purchased with South Jersey Energy,
which I think is December of 19. Now.
I mean the energy savings company that comes in and tries
to work with you to
reduce energy costs, was it NRC or what's the name of that?
Oh, no.
They they they don't know.
That's not what they do.
We go on a different route with that.
I don't know if I'm all right.
Don't look at it. Know,
could we
just and Mike, could you explain what you explained to me
regarding what would be involved if
we we chose to look at
finding someone, a new company to manage the Hershey Trust.
Sure.
And will conclude with that.
That was a line item on here.
We've got some guidance from our solicitor
in the
I believe in 2012, the Milton Hershey Trust,
who administered the trust at the school district, had
said that they really just wanted to focus on the
the Milton Hershey School Trust, which they believe was the real reason
they were in existence, is to ensure that and to keep going.
So they resigned as trustee.
And we went through a process.
The district went through a process where they submitted or accepted RFP
and took the lowest the company with the lowest fees,
which was Fulton Financial, and provided them as trustee.
Our attorney
provided us information that that was a
very specific issue because the trustee at the time was resigning.
So someone else had to to step in and provide that.
His advice is at this time that the current
trustee, Fulton Financial, would have to agree to resign.
We would also have to get the attorney general of Pennsylvania
their approval
to have a change, move forward.
And he said, as part of that approval, the attorney general's going to ask you
why you're switching our responses because we think we can save money.
We won't know that, though, until we go out and solicit
for four additional prices.
So the attorney said that we would probably have to issue a nonbinding RFP
in which everybody knows that we're just gaining information,
see if that is any different than what we're consultants charging right now.
At this point, obviously probably give Fulton the ability to match whatever
is there.
And if
Fulton did not want to match that and we wanted to move on,
that's where it would Fulton would have to agree to resign.
The attorney general would have to agree to allow us to move forward
and then we could go through the process of changing the trustee.
Okay. Thank you, Mike.
We're a little bit over, so I just want to thank everyone
for attending and particularly particularly
thanks to our citizens advisors for for being so active. And
do you have a question, Todd?
I just want to make sure it was clear the information provided from Fulton,
granted
they're charging is 30 basis points, but there's all types
of other fees baked in there that we don't have transparency to.
So based on what is here, I don't think it's enough information
to be able to say whether they've done a good job or not, as there's
there's not full transparency as well as it's not necessarily the fees.
But are they are they performing well or not?
And I can't really tell from this.
So I don't think they're saying the returns are but relative to what?
And they do have what they call benchmarks,
but they don't have weights in there.
And I'm not sure exactly how they're constructing that.
So, okay. I don't think is enough to.
Okay, we can we can decide on what else we think we need.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And that might know very expensive funds as they have in here.
Okay.
So I just look at them here.
Yeah, well we'll have plenty of would not be shown that 30 basis points
but we'll have plenty of time to talk about it and decide what you know,
what we need to be asking for so we understand everything.
Can I have a motion for adjournment?
So moved Second on favor.
Okay. Okay. Thank you all again.
Thank you so much,
Alan.
It's interesting that.
We get a little bit of a break
and you may as
well, right.
So it. Sounds good.
So that was how
you went from.
High school and.
We must be still dealing with some issues.
I took a position
I should have
just had
a part of.
This is obviously to be a
certain and
does have expertise in a school district.
In school itself.
I can't you know, I've only been doing this
my whole life to comparison.
I don't know.
I think it's
because I didn't learn how
to even maintain.
Yeah, this guy, you know.
But I think the
Boston
Youth Academy for Alzheimer's that was was great.
Thank you very much.
A little taste.
Thank you so much. You just come a balance.
Oh, really? All right.
So you didn't get set and stay downwind. Terry.
Got to see if it stay downwind.
All right,
so how do I pass
that away
with employers out
above
graduation?
Zero.
This is easy to say.
Yeah,
let's hear about that. Yes.
So, like I said, my.
It is now it's time to time to pay you guys back.
Sorry.
Thank you very much.
Oh, this is the good.
And that's the question.
It needs to be clear that it's not just.
All right.
It's not.
It's okay.
Well, we can
that job
exactly.
At least 35,
right? So that's.