WEBVTT 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:10.000 Good evening and welcome to the January 27th, 2025 finance committee meeting. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:17.000 This meeting is being live broadcast and video streamed for the public. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:23.000 We will go around the room for roll call, including your name. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:30.000 And your position. I'll start off and go to my right, Mike Rizzo, school board. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:37.000 Stacey Winslow, Superintendent. Lindsey Drew, school board. Jennifer Wren, school board. 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:42.000 Michelle AG, Board Secretary. Mindy Bell, Assistant Business Manager. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:49.000 Is there anyone online as far as citizens that would like to announce themselves? 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000 Parker Davis, Citizen Advisor. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.000 Joseph de la Sega, citizen advisor. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:02.000 I'm still a citizen advisor. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Thank you very much. Just a reminder, as we're talking, make sure to announce yourself, who you are before you talk so Ms. Ag was able to put down who is talking during the meeting minutes. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:25.000 So move on to item number three, approval of the January 13th, 2025 finance standing committee meeting minutes. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:30.000 Could I get a motion to approve? So move Jennifer Renz. Second, Lindsey Drew. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:36.000 Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carries. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:42.000 To unfinished business. There's no unfinished business today. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:59.000 We will now move on to new business. And there'll be five items here for new business. And all of those will be presented by Ms. Pitts. And she will start off with the December finance report. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:07.000 Okay, thanks. So we'll look at the December finance report and we'll just take a real quick look at some of the highlights for the month. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:16.000 Let me pull up my report. So if you look at overall, we received just shy of $5 million in revenues. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.000 And 2.2, almost $2.3 million of that was in local revenues. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:29.000 Of that 1.5 million was in our real estate taxes, and December is the end of the penalty period. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:36.000 So we'll probably still collect a few in January, but that's going to slow down quite a bit for the remainder of the year. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:03:01.000 And we also received approximately 400,000 in earned income tax. For state, we received approximately 2.1, almost 2.5 million dollars in revenues and 1.15 million of that is our retirement subsidy, which we receive quarterly. And it's for the prior quarter. So what we receive in December is for 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:08.000 The retirement the employer's portion that we paid In the quarter that ended in September. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:19.000 And we also received $811,000 in basic ed subsidy. In federal subsidy, we received approximately $37,000. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:33.000 And approximately 30,000 of that was Title I and the remainder was Title II and Title IV. The grants have been approved for that, and now we have started to receive the monthly payments that we receive for the title grants. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:44.000 For expenditures for the month, there were approximately 5.4 million. And as in all months, or almost all months, maybe unless we have a debt service payment. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:54.000 Salaries and benefits are the largest portion. And that's approximately 5.4, I'm sorry, $4.3 million in salaries and benefits. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:02.000 So those are the highlights for December. Does anybody have any questions? 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:08.000 Okay, I'm going to move on to the next item. I better double check myself. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:20.000 It is an update on the status of the audit. So you're going to see when we look at the fund balance, there is a slight difference from what I showed you on those draft numbers. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:39.000 On our last meeting two weeks ago, Mrs. Bell, yay, was able to balance all of our cash. It was a struggle because it was a difficult year, but we got within $56 and we thought that was pretty good. So I think we'll be getting ourselves current for this year and we'll be in a really good place for next year. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:48.000 So there was some adjustments for that as well as I had been in discussion with our lead auditor and initially he had said. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:05:11.000 There was a portion of retirement on accrued wages and he said, no, don't worry about it. We're not going to accrue it. And then I guess the more he looked at it, he thought we should. So we did accrue an additional portion of retirement, but we also accrued the associated revenue that would go on with that. So last month, or I'm not last month, our last meeting, I think our 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:19.000 We changed about 70,000. Our surplus actually went down a little bit so You'll see that when we look at the committed fund balance. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:28.000 So the lead auditor has indicated to me that we are done with our general fund entry. So unless something big comes up. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.000 This should be the numbers that we're going to be seeing. 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:46.000 He last week had asked me for some information to do the completion. We have footnotes and other things that he needs information from our office for, so we have provided that to him and I did the last item this morning. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:58.000 He indicated that they're good, but he did send a request for the single audit, which is something that we have to do because we do receive federal money. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:06.000 And the program chosen for this year's single are they usually they focus on one program is the child nutrition program. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:16.000 So we have sent that request off to Mr. Hummel. As always, he's very responsive and he's gotten us quite a bit of the information already. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:26.000 And, um. The lead auditor indicated if we can get him that information by the end of the end of this week, which I think we will be able to do. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:38.000 That we should be able to continue moving on with the with this calendar that I requested. And one of the last things they're going to need from me is management's discussion and analysis. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:46.000 I did ask about that and they put together a lot of the tables that go in that. So I'll just be reviewing that. There'll be some updates. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:57.000 On our financial, I took a look at them. It's called an MD&A and it didn't look like it would be a tremendous amount of work for me, just a little bit of thinking about saying what the highlights for the year were. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:12.000 What I had requested. Was that we could um Well, one of the pieces that you'll see in a little bit will be a recommendation for what to do with the surplus this year. They're going to need the board's determination on that. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:19.000 That'll probably be the final item for them. So I have let them know that I would be presenting it tonight. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:22.000 And asking the board to vote on it on February 10th. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:30.000 And I will let him know whether the board has approved it as recommended. Probably as soon as the meeting is over or the next morning. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:40.000 And they should be able to finalize the audit. So I've asked that if they could have it available for us to present at the February Finance Committee meeting. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:50.000 And then to be voted on that evening. So that is where we stand with the audit. I feel good about it. Hopefully there won't be any unexpected surprises. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:57.000 Does anybody have questions about where we stand with the audit status. This is Lindsay Drew. 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:20.000 Were you able just to kind of close the loop at all on what we had talked about at the last meeting with the fund transfers that Yes, you know, and I apologize. When I looked at that, it specifically said what fiscal year right at the top. So you are absolutely right. So thank you very much for that. Yep. When I looked at it, I went, well, what a 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:25.000 What a silly mistake. So you were absolutely right. So thank you. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:38.000 Okay, so no other questions on audit status? Okay, then we'll move on to the internal budget timeline. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:50.000 And in November, I had because of the limited time that I had to devote to this, I did present the deadlines that are required by Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:57.000 So… Last week, I put together a draft and then Dr. Winslow and I took a good look at it. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:03.000 I think it was Thursday afternoon. And we aligned it with our schedule. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:12.000 This is our internal that meets our own meeting schedules. There still are things on there that have already passed. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:16.000 And you'll see color coding. There's sort of a light orange. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:24.000 And that is for if we were to have gone down the, we are going to request exceptions, which we did not. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:36.000 We went with the green coded adopting the accelerated budget ops out resolution that says we will not be increasing our taxes above the Act 1 index. 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:51.000 Anything that's in orange is not going to apply to us. And pretty much I have already submitted the the copy of the opt-out resolution to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So we have already done that. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:10:01.000 Some of the highlights are when Dr. Winslow and I really took a good look at the calendar and what the Commonwealth requires. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:21.000 My initial draft said I would be presenting the proposed final budget in May and that we would be voting on it on June 9th and then We realize that there has to be 30 days between the proposed final and the final. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:25.000 Because of the way the meetings felt, there was only 28. 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:37.000 So we are going to be presenting the proposed final at the April 28th Finance Committee meeting, and then that will be going to the board. So it's going to be a little bit earlier. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:44.000 It will be a little tight. But I think with some hard work that we can do that. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:59.000 And we do, I'm sorry. I just want to say if that's something it seems very quick for you to have to put that together and have it essentially 30 days earlier for that. 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:10.000 We could also always consider holding a special. I know that we want to, we try to get the budget approved within those first couple weeks of June so that we can let the county know for printing tax bills. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:16.000 And time for preparing the submission. If we would need to hold a special meeting. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:23.000 To approve the budget after the 30 days is complete, that's something the board could also do as well. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:35.000 To not move your calendar back so far. Yes, we could. Dr. Winslow and I discussed that a little bit. We kind of did not want to. 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:45.000 Change our meeting schedule. There's pros and cons, I guess, over both. 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:58.000 I don't know if we want to like evaluate where we stand maybe at the end of March and see whether we actually think that that's a realistic a timeline and if we find that it isn't, there will be a few things that 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:07.000 Will not be announced to us by April 28th. This is one of the cons with that. We won't have the homestead. Well. 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:17.000 I say that. We might. The deadline is May 1st. So some of those things would have to be estimated for the proposed final if we do it that early. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:28.000 And we really do want to do it. Early in June because we want to be able to get that information to the county so that the bills can be prepared and out to our residents and taxpayers. 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:37.000 In a timely manner. So it wasn't ideal. I don't think that was the happiest afternoon, Dr. Winslow and I have ever had. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:51.000 But this was the proposed. And I appreciate you offering that i'm I think maybe if we can evaluate that at the March Finance Committee meeting and see where we stand. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:59.000 Okay, I think. Miss Pitts. Ms. Easy, just for the record, Dr. Mccarver has joined us, school board director. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:04.000 Thank you. 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:21.000 Okay. And one of the other items that you'll see on the time count or the budget calendar is the meetings that we have with the building principals and department heads. And that was what I did on Friday. I scheduled all of those and it 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:42.000 It says on the calendar February and March for those. I was able to get them all in February with the exception of Mr. Frady, who has the extra joy of being my one and only budget meeting in January, which will be a little bit later this week. So I knew he was had worked very hard on his and I think he's going to be ready. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:52.000 And also it gives us some flexibility in case we have any snow days in March that we will be able to move them. I'm sorry, snow days in February, we'd be able to move them to March. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:00.000 So that's all for the budget timeline. And then probably We'll move on to the next item. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:05.000 Which will be the most important, I guess, on tonight's agenda. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:19.000 So we had looked at that surplus last month. And as I had mentioned, what we expect to be the final surplus Given the fact that the auditor had told me that there would be no more general fund entries. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:24.000 We are looking at just shy of a $4.3 million surplus. 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:40.000 We already have committed for health benefits $2 million and for retirement stabilization, half a million dollars. And I do believe that those are reasonable given what we know that's going on in the economy and with those two items. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:57.000 We had… $7 million already committed for capital reserve And we do have to make sure that our fund balance is below the 8% of the budgeted expenditures, which would be the $6,028,000. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:06.000 So I am recommending that given the fact that we do know that we have a building project coming. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:24.000 That we would commit an additional $3.6 million into committed for capital. And that would bring down our unassigned fund balance to $6,500,000, which would be underneath that 6,028,000. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:36.000 Required unassigned fund balance. So that is my recommendation. I don't know if anybody has any questions about that. 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:50.000 And that would be going then on to the February 10th board meeting for For approval. Okay. And Mike Rizzo, could you break down um how we have a $4 million net revenue. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:59.000 Oh, yes. Thank you. So we did talk about that at the last meeting, but, and I'll have to refresh my memory because two of those items I know very well off the top of my head. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:13.000 Already budgeted was $750,000 with the intent of committing to capital. So that was already factored in. And then we also had the last year of our ARP ESSER. 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:39.000 And that was, I think, 2. $225 million sticks in my head. So that is a last year and the way we had plan to use those funds was towards salaries with the intent of using the money that that freed up for other things. And in this case, I think it's a good idea to use it for capital, given that we know we have some projects coming. 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:57.000 And then the remainder, and I am going off memory here, but I think it was like 1.3 between after you take out those other two items. And that was primarily in salaries and actually retirement. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:06.000 I'm sorry. I'm sorry, what was that last? Salaries and retirement. Oh, retirement. Thank you. 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:24.000 I wonder if I have my notes here from last meeting but I think, oh, I might. 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:29.000 Yes, that's primarily what it was. Okay. Thank you. Any additional questions? 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:50.000 I just wanted to note, because I'm not sure if it carries over in future things under fund balances for 630 22 We had restated that when we approved the fiscal year 23 audit. So the health benefits was actually 2.1 million and retirement stabilization was half a million. Oh, thank you. That was… 00:17:50.000 --> 00:18:02.000 Something we had identified through the process and had the fiscal year 22 restated. I will correct that for For when it goes to the meeting for the 10th. 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:10.000 Thank you. Any additional questions? 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:29.000 Okay. Anything else? Oh, no, nothing for me now. Contracts, Dr. Winslow is still taking care of those for me. So I'm going to defer to her on those. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:35.000 Thank you. These are the listed contracts that you would expect to see then for the February 10th meeting. 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.000 Do you have questions on any of them? They would have all been in the board brief. 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:47.000 Correct. 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:52.000 This is Jennifer Rens. Dr. Renzel, I did have a question about the one, the Go Sports turf. 00:18:52.000 --> 00:19:05.000 Yes. I looked at the brief and the breakdown listed the turf field and the track field maintenance And then I did go back to the Hellas contract for the new track. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:33.000 Trying to find what the warranty was for the maintenance on that. I guess we don't have anything built into the purchase of the stadium field for As far as maintenance is concerned. Right. With the Hellas contract, there was not maintenance in that contract. That explains why I couldn't find any. Yes. Thank you. That's why you're welcome. 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:52.000 Any additional questions for Dr. Winslow? Okay. At this time, I will open it up for any public comment. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:57.000 Okay. At this time. Someone say something? No. 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:04.000 At this time, then we will go to item seven, which is adjournment. Could I please get a motion for adjournment? 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:10.000 So moved, Jennifer Renz. Second, Stuart McCarver. Any discussion? 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:20.000 All in favor? Aye. Meeting is adjourned at 5.23 p.m.