Good evening. I'm calling to order the special board meeting of Tuesday, April 14th. Mrs.
Shope, can we get a roll call? Yes. Carol Fox. Here. Tom Hankins. Amy Levy. Megan Miller.
Present. Brian Nichols. Here. Joanne Ruhl. Here. And Tia Johnson. Here. All members are present
except Tom Hankins and Amy Levy. Thank you. May I get an approval of the agenda? Second.
Motion by Joanne Ruhl. Seconded by Brian Nichols. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any
opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Tonight we have a workshop style meeting and our first item
we're going to discuss is a budget guidance. The purpose of this is to have the board provide
guidance to the administration to develop a comprehensive written 26, 20, 27 budget plan. We
started this discussion at the last regular board meeting and Mrs. Fox has updated the
recommended guidance to district administration. Mrs. Fox, do you want to walk us through some of
your changes? Yeah, the changes aren't terribly significant, but I did. I wanted to sort out, you
know, what really we were talking in terms of what our priorities might be. And so I kind of put
those at the top. And if anybody wants to add anything, but I put the maintaining existing pupil
teacher ratio guidelines preserving the staff retention and recruitment by providing the 2.63 CPI
increase and prioritizing district programs and initiatives that help drive our student enrollment,
like the academy's model and the DLI programs. So then the next section is, you know, some of the
documentation that would be needed in order to make some good decisions. And that's pretty much the
same. But it's, you know, the written, written plans, comprehensive lists of attendance contracts,
the plan for the legal services and IT services, etc. So that wasn't changed. I did put the, you
know, short term, the facilities things kind of at the end. And I think I'd explain that the last time
is like, you know, facility, especially selling facilities takes time and effort and may not be
helpful to us at the, in the short term, maybe a little bit in the long term. But, and then again,
a recommendation that a district finance committee be, be formed so that stakeholders have more
opportunity to weigh in on what some of these decisions are, and make recommendations.
Thank you. And the district finance committee is not a board ad hoc committee, correct?
Correct. No, that is just a district committee. So it has, there's another name for it. But it's,
it's less formal. And you can have a whole bunch of different people on it without having to
have board approval every time you want to do something.
Megan. Thank you so much. Are you able to hear me? Okay.
Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Foch, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time
to incorporate the feedback that, you know, we discussed like last week and just, this is really
well organized. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into this. The only other thing I would,
I'm on the wrong screen here. Here we go. Looking at documentation, excuse me,
I love that you are looking for a written staffing plan as well as program plans. I am curious,
I guess in your vision, Ms. Fochs, and certainly anybody else, where do you think like some process
reporting or like audits for like our current HR practices and things like that might live?
Just because I know it's very expensive to recruit new staff and like we've gotten,
I think it came up at this last meeting and it's come up at other meetings,
some ongoing feedback that there are issues, I guess, with maybe the process or pipeline of
how we recruit staff. I mean, I'm going to just kind of pause there, Ms. Fochs, for your thoughts or feedback.
I think they can live in conjunction with some of this. Some of the things that we're thinking
about changing may need more time and be looking, you know, we got two things going on here,
the one we've got to get ready for next year and then beyond that, you know, the tail of two
budgets, he said. So as we continue to work on budgets, we do need to be looking at processes
for sure. We may need to get a little more into what we need to do for next year's budget more
quickly because we need to take some decisions quickly. But that doesn't mean we ignore that
other stuff. Does that answer your question or get to what you're driving it?
No, absolutely. And I guess I just wanted to make sure that like, you know,
sometimes like this is really, I think you did a really good job explaining and detailing all
this. I want to make sure sometimes when people hear like staffing plan, we think we're talking
about the same thing, but we're talking about different things, you know. So I just just to
clarify, I wanted to make sure that that's sort of like in orbit of what your your concept is here.
And I agree with you, it's going to take time to work on some of those processes. I think we
just did a good stewards of not just financially, you know, just all of our district resources and
respecting people and their time and their desire to work in the district. That should just be sort
of part of this discussion. The only other thing, I was looking at, now I just lost my train of
up though. Sorry. Oh, there it is. You know what, let me pause and I just want to hear from other
people because I don't want to dominate them. But I did have a little bit of, if you could
you circle back to new board president Johnson at some point? Sure thing. And this is the workshop.
So we're just talking through things. Joanne, did you have any thoughts on this?
So is it just thoughts about this recommended guidance document at this point? Or are we discussing
the other things that Dr. Anderson brought up that he would like for us to say, yes, explore this
option or? I have that one as the next agenda item. But if any of them you feel applied to this
or should be incorporated, let us know. No, I'll save mine for that agenda item, I guess.
Brian? I agree with Board Member Roo. I'll wait till we get to the other section.
Okay. Yeah, and I'll echo Megan Miller. I thank you, Carol, for doing this. I really appreciate it.
The develop and update a short and long term facilities plan to respond to facilities and
maintenance needs. I think one of the things that we need to decide probably sooner rather than later
and this hopefully will involve some community discussion and dialogue. But
are we going to start closing schools and which ones make sense? We're going to have to consolidate.
I know people don't relish the idea of having to close more schools, but it's the reality of
the situation we're in. I agree. I also was looking back at reviewing what we discussed and what
the questions are. It's like, do we let the roof go on these two schools? Because I know it's a
million dollars, but do we look for other ways to cover that? Because I'm not sure we want to
let that go. But we were just at the Eldridge parking lot the other day, and
you know what? That parking lot needs to be begun. And how long do we not do those things and make
our facilities worse? I don't know what else to say, but we can't let our facilities go either
until we sell them. We can let them grow then, I guess. Megan?
Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you so much. Sorry. I double clicked there. My apologies.
Thank you for bringing up the school building potential closure piece. I'm really glad that
even though I understand this facts, what your intention was with the facilities notes that you
made. I think that's really important just to keep that in the conversation, because of course,
that would make a dramatic impact, not just on our kids, right, but just on the entire city.
So since you clarified that our next agenda item will be just to go through those delineated
questions, I guess I have three more sort of just like broad topics that I think should be part
of the conversation that we don't necessarily need to deep dive into. One, building off really off
what President Johnson is saying. And I think I brought this up last time too. I think we also,
in addition to this guidance, as a board need to be prepared to work with the administration
to put together some kind of a communication plan. Now that could miss Fox, like I'm not exactly
sure the scope of work that you're envisioning for the finance committee that certainly could dovetail
and be part of the same kind of initiative. But as a board, I think we need to be very intentional
like right now about setting a calendar for like where and how frequently will we be
putting together, whether it's around table or just listening sessions to get people's feedback,
whether it's about the budget, whether it's about potential referendum stuff. I think it's a bit
premature. I'm not saying like next week, I love that we're doing this tonight. So we can really,
everybody can get on the same page, at least in a large level, so that we can take something
to community and say, hey, so here's the scope of what we're looking at. We really want to hear
from you. Also, like here's some amazing things that are happening that we would like to continue
to fund, et cetera, right? So I do think that within the next few weeks, it would be responsible
for us to put together some kind of communication plan in partnership with not just the board,
but with our administration as well. So that's one broad piece, another broad piece. I remembered
my train of thought from last time. I know that this is not ideal, but in the spirit of a tail of
two budgets, I'm going to throw a third concept in there just to spunk it up. Short-term borrowing
is not fun. It's not ideal. It's not terribly responsible, right? Because we end up paying interest.
When it, I think as part of our feedback that we get from the community, we have to kind of keep
that in orbit. Maybe it's far in orbit, but if push comes to shove and there is some kind of harm
that could potentially come to children, maybe it's like a program that deals with nutrition or
whatever it might be. I think I would really like to hear from Dr. Anderson and Ms. Ellwood and the
team about, and I realize it's not something we want to do, but if for some reason we had to
incorporate that in, what a good range or what our expectations should be for how best to
utilize that option. I'm not saying right now that we should utilize that option, but I think it would
be responsible for us to have considered it and to think about if we did this, how would that
factor into the next three, five, et cetera, years down the road because that has long-term
impacts. So I did just want to bring that up. And then the last thing I just want to throw in here
before we get into the next agenda item, just because it's specifically reflected on this
extremely beautiful document that I absolutely love. Thank you again. Just like urging us to
think creatively too, so I don't want to mislead people by saying, here's how we're going to avoid
ever closing a school again. At the same time, I also don't want to limit ourselves. So I think
if we could just adopt a mentality of as we're looking at these very difficult choices that we
will absolutely have to make, asking the question, what possibility, even if it feels like a long
shot, would there be to be creative about mitigating harm to kids in these cuts? For example,
with our DLI situation, we had asked that, or I call Dr. Henderson and Carol, you were in that
conversation too, just to ask, could we reach out to the DPI to see if there's potential for a
waiver that has yet to be determined? The answer might be no, we don't know. But I really am so
grateful to Dr. Anderson and all the administration that's helping him do that work, that he's even
making the effort and getting something out there and creating a possibility where we thought,
like, maybe there was no possibility. So again, I want to be really careful about misleading
people. I don't want the message to be, oh, we're going to have like all these magic creative
solutions and nothing will be cut. But at the same time, I just don't want to make sure we're not
limiting ourselves. So those are all of the kind of the pieces that I wanted to just sort of like,
you know, weave into the conversation. And again, just a lot of gratitude for the work that you put
into this and for everything that people shared tonight. Thank you, Megan. Mr. Hankins, we are
looking at the recommended guidance to district administration in response to
potential budget shortfall. Would you like to make any comments or have any questions?
I can excuse my absence. I'll have to tell now, but so I heard a little bit of what Megan was
talking about. Where are we at? We're just at the, you know, and looking at this piece.
We're looking at, do we, as a board, agree this is a document that we should give Dr. Anderson,
so he can work with the administration. Understanding these are the priorities of this board.
Thank you. I understand that. So this was draft was developed by Carol Fox and other people.
And we're approving, because I remember, correct me if I'm wrong, I guess I'm catching up,
there were some tweaks to it. So this is kind of a different, but it's kind of the same thing.
So are we looking for, yes, I know I have no more questions. Thank you.
Anything you wanted to add or any other suggestions?
Well, if you allow me,
it's a workshop style meeting. So thank you. Get it off your chest.
Okay. So I just want to go back to our last meeting, and there were several items on our
agenda that we did not address that Dr. Anderson, I believe, wanted us to address.
And there was like four or five bullet points. Yep. And that's the next agenda. That's not part
of this. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, right. But I'll say to you the same thing I said to Joanne,
if there's anything on those on Dr. Anderson's questions, bullet points that you want incorporated
or embedded in this, let us know now. That is not this. Right. Thank you. No, I have no more
questions. Okay. May I say, though, that when I looked at that list, there are some things that
I think, you know, might be part of one of these things that, you know, we may, we might just say,
well, that, you know, when we're looking at that, we want that to kind of go back and be part of a
bigger picture. Okay. Go ahead, Joanne.
So just listening to what Megan was saying, something that stuck out to me was a communication
plan. And as boards change, I've, especially in doing the dual language decision making,
there's holes where we don't have communication with different groups in our community. And so,
I love the idea of really thinking about our communication plan and maybe, like,
figuring out what those groups might be and how we can, as a board, as a district,
make sure that we're listening to all those different voices too when we're making these
decisions. Thank you, Joanne. Anyone else?
Tia for me. Go ahead. And just, you know, not say anything against what my colleague, Joanne,
said, but type of the essence, and we have to make a lot of decisions really quick.
And, you know, to, yes, we'd all like to have community involvement in doing this and doing that,
and I'm with that. But we are at what, April 14th right now, and we have decision-making for
athletic department by May 1st. We have referendum questions, but we all know that. So,
community involvement is very important. I agree, but we have to temper that with
getting our business done. Thank you. So, this being a workshop, I can
respond. Yes, the referendum question, absolutely, we need community involvement, though. Like,
right now, yep, May 1st come and tick-tock, but the bigger stuff, like, I think that will help us
in the long run. I think it's very, very important. I've already made some context,
so I'm trying to work on it from my end, but I think it's a group problem, like, a group
project if you will, so maybe we can figure something out. Can I just, I think that is one of the
beauties of a district committee, because you have representation from, or should have representation
from every building, every grade level, you know, involve parents, and then those people's
tasks would be to go back and make sure that that information is shared with their building
and with other stakeholders, and then you start involving community members as well.
And so, that's a good way to start sharing information and having it disseminate.
Was that what we had when we passed that? The referendum, our last referendum that passed,
is that what we had, Carol, because you were, were you, you were still? No? No? No? Does anyone
know? Michelle, do you know? Is that what we had? Because we, I mean, we, we had a huge group of
people that, like, went into all the different schools, that went into the library, had all these
different roundtables, and it wasn't the superintendent. It was firefighters and police officers and
PTO presidents and things like that. I believe that was a group independent of the school
district of Deloitte, because we can't do that. Board members on their free time. No, no, I'm not
okay. Right, right, right, but I'm just, I'm letting, I'm letting board members know, and
new board members, incoming board members, on our free time, when we're not wearing our board
member hat, and we're individual citizens, we can promote or advocate one way or another,
but when, when we're board members, and when we are administrators for the district employees,
you cannot. So, so, yes, there are different community groups that are,
in your quotes, the yes groups or the no groups and more power to all of them.
So, again, just for information sharing, you know, you, you get your groups going and they can
share information. We're not talking about, we're talking about budget cuts and things like that,
not necessarily a referendum thing, but referendum makes it a different level.
But information sharing and talking about, you know, direction of what we want for our district,
that's a different thing.
Correct. And, and I don't know of any groups that went to any libraries or anything to talk
about our budget unless it was a referendum. So, Carol, do you mind if we ask to have
incorporated another item for developing a communication plan, and then Mrs. Shope have this on next
Tuesday's regular board meeting for approval?
No, that's fine. To present to the district administration?
Yeah, that's fine.
Okay. Tom?
Yeah, I just have one question and maybe it was covered.
Ms. Fox and Tia, was this run by admin, i.e. Leah and Dr. Wayne, you know, these, you know,
it's just something that we're asking them to do.
At the last board meeting, and I'm sorry, Dr. Malan, I did not ask you your opinion.
I figured you would have jumped in if you wanted to say something.
And do you have any things that you wanted to add or any questions or?
Okay. Tom, does that answer your question?
Yes, it does. I just want to make sure. I mean, we are separate. We are together.
Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Oh, Megan?
Thank you so much. I'll be brief. I just just, I really enjoyed like the last conversation
there, and I just think a nice way to sort of braid, braid those kind of those different
conversations together is just under the larger concept, right, that like the budget is a tool
that funds a vision. So while we may not in the past have gone out to the community to say,
hey, here's what we're going to cut. What do you think? I think if we frame it as,
what is given the scarcity of resources we have? What is the vision that you want to see?
Like, what should we fund, right? Because the budget should be shaped around and the mechanism
of forwarding that vision. So to that point, I do think it's important to get community input.
And maybe as we move forward to it, the superintendent selection, it's a nice way,
and I'll just use this word again, to braid together community feedback on superintendent
pieces, right, but potential referendum, and the inevitability of some big budget changes
that are going to happen. Also, Dr. Molot, thank you so much for getting the staff survey out to
folks. And assuming that like what we put forward from a board perspective, like this document,
is that going to go in tandem with feedback that you get from staff? Or is that something that we
need to include in our document? I'm assuming it's the former not the letter.
We have that available if you would like it.
So is that something that like you'll be, I mean, you obviously have received that feedback,
is that something, I mean, we would love to see it, I'm assuming as a board, I certainly would.
But that's not something you need us to put into this document, like for the purposes of today.
We'd be happy to share it with you today. Sounds great, thanks.
Okay, thank you. So our next item is the one that Joanne, I think you want to talk to,
and this is the 2026-2027 budget. On Monday, March 30th, Dr. Anderson reviewed different budget
options with the board for balancing the 26-27 budget. This board discussion is to provide
administration with how they would like to proceed budgeting in the following areas.
Does the board want administration to add 100,000 to athletic budgets so that all current athletic
teams can operate at the 2526 level, or does the board want to have administration work with
Dan Graz to reduce our current athletic offerings so that it can operate under the budget levels
established for the 2425 and 2526 levels. Vacant properties, does the board want to sell vacant
properties currently owned but not being used by the district? Fund 80, does the board want to
proceed with using fund 80 as a means to provide after-school programming for local students at
boys and girls clubs? Legal counsel, does the board want to create a job description and posting
to move forward with hiring an in-house attorney to assist the district with current and future
legal assistance? Communications director, does the board want to restore or create a new position
to deal with district communications and OPEB funds? Does the board want administration to use OPEB
funds to help balance any projected budget shortfall for the 26-27 school year budget or does it want
to retain these funds to help alleviate projected shortfalls in the 27-28 budget? If the second
option is chosen then additional reductions will need to be made to existing staff and programming.
Mrs. Elwood, was there anything that you wanted to add before we jump into discussion?
Just that we do have prepared tonight the survey that has gone out. If you want to go through
that first or if you want to wait and do that after. Yeah, let's go through that first thing.
So that's a lot a lot I'm not sure if you want to speak or don't. I think we can just do it
in tandem I think. So we were asked to put together a survey for our staff. This survey went out to
all district staff. I believe we got about 290 total responses so this went out to our
SCB staff so not the AGS staff or Chartwell staff just our our SCB staff groups
on the survey. You can see it's broken down by grade level or excuse me school bans sorry
elementary middle high school and district office.
And this was by groups by the major groups that responded the majority of the responses were from
teachers. In our survey we asked what the district's top priority should be when making
budget reductions we asked staff to choose their top two. So the priorities were
protect classroom instructions with 122 responses, maintain student support services
at 156 responses, preserve class size, 92 responses, maintain extracurriculars, 44 responses I think
I can't read that. And retain staff positions 114 responses and then not too far out of the box
was maintain facilities operations. And then the remainder of the responses were people filling
in the other and this kind of summarizes what the main ideas were from people.
I ask a question. What does it mean retaining staff positions when we talk about we're talking
about protecting classroom instructions and preserving manageable class sizes and maintaining
student support. And then what else I mean retaining staff positions is what else.
Retaining staff positions would be the positions that we already have staff in so not cutting
positions that we already have staff employed in. So that would be looking differently from
reducing the positions that we have not filled.
How is what was the question? How was it framed?
This is the question. In your opinion what should be the district's top priority when making
budget reductions and retaining staff positions was one of the items that they can choose to of.
What are the things at the bottom of that? I wasn't understanding the rest of that slide.
So there was an option for other. So that was where people okay so because some of these look
exactly the preserve prioritize class size is listed again. So is retained staff class size like
it's the same things isn't it or are they just people commented and some of them were the same
ideas over and over again yes and that's why we did kind of the summary here but the majority
of staff were looking to keep the staff that we currently have. So it was basically
a force choice to pick two out of six things and the rest I mean they they picked two out of those
one one two three six things that's it that was the survey no no this is one question out of the
multiple questions. Oh we're not okay we're just getting so they could take two out of those six
things yeah this is just one question of I think there were ten okay ten or twelve ten or twelve
okay. So this is the second question.
So out of all the budget reduction strategies which were the ones that people were supporting
and the biggest support was for non-essential funding such as travel material subscriptions
reducing central office or administrative costs and eliminating unfilled or vacant
commercials.
I was trying to get on my microphone but too many mics were on fire. I'm sorry Michelle.
Is it did the staff have an opportunity to write their thoughts or is this just a check this check
that? No this one also had the option to to write in an other and that's all the all of the
other ones on the bottom that have one person the ones that have the most responses are the ones
that were pre-filled and then the other is all of the responses and this doesn't have all the
responses obviously because it was super long so these are just a sample of some of the things
that people found. To reduce non-essential what had 64 percent?
The funding.
And we can provide you with the what the survey actually looked like too.
I guess I didn't realize that I had cut it off so much when I copied it.
Is it possible to get all the comments to that bottom part?
Yes okay I have it in Excel spreadsheet it's pretty lengthy.
Okay and this one reflects the support that people have through reducing positions through
attrition not through.
The next one here talks about or is an opinion on what is most important to
to consider when making our staffing decisions,
they have the option to pick two.
So minimizing layoffs, of course,
and maintaining student to staff ratio,
protecting high need students,
retaining highly effective staff,
and seniority considerations,
and then continuation of programming.
And again, all the ones with one were right in.
I have a question, but it's on point,
but it's kind of going back to attrition.
And let's look to 26, 27.
What does that number look like?
I mean, for retirees, and I know that we figured,
there's maybe not a hard number,
but at least a percent that we know won't be coming back.
Has that been out already,
what the teachers have to come back?
Thank you.
Yes, we did send that survey out earlier
in this calendar year.
I can look up if you give me a few minutes
what the percentage in those results were
so that I can give you an accurate number.
Thank you.
That's always helpful.
In the comments about using attrition
to reduce our budget and not having the right staff
in place is a valid comment,
because if you need a high school technology teacher
because somebody retired and not replacing that person
because we need to cover budget shortfall,
but we still need a teacher in that classroom,
but doesn't really work.
So yeah, we need to do some give and take
with the retirement.
No, I completely understand.
I'm going back to Ad Hock when Ms. Hock's was running that
and it was the Swiss cheese effect, you know that.
So it sticks my mind, I totally agree
just because we lost through attrition,
a position doesn't mean that we don't have to backfill it.
This next question was about program and service considerations.
And which items that people wanted to protect the most
last on the list for reductions?
And the highest number was core academic instruction.
And that has to be our most protected area
because if we don't have a core academic instruction,
that's what has to be the focus of our school district.
But the other two areas that they have,
a strong opinion on about specialized services
and student mental health should be noted here as well.
And the next question was regarding school health services.
And again, the survey results show very strong support
for our school health services.
And this next question was about if the reductions
in health services was considered.
Which approach would you support?
And let's see, reorganization was high on the list
or shared services.
And then the next was making minimal reductions
with careful prioritization.
The next one was school safety and security.
And again, you can see that they have very high priority
with school safety and security.
They value that as extremely important.
Again, the next one is safety and security.
And if reductions in school safety and security
were considered, which approach would you support?
And they overwhelmingly avoid reductions whenever possible.
And then make minimal reductions with careful prioritization.
So essentially keeping our kids safe
wherever we possibly can.
So overall our school staff, our STB staff views
that safety and health services,
very important critical pieces of our students day.
And the next section is technology planning.
It was interesting to see how many people
were in support of moving away from a one-to-one model.
41% reduced the number of devices shared use models
and 35% to phase and replacement over multiple years.
The, it was interesting to see that they're more focused
at the elementary level of removing that one-to-one model.
Just a suggestion that if we do move to a different model
that we'll have to take into account curriculum needs
at those levels as well because there's been
another curriculum development that have been
dependent on those technologies.
And the next question was kind of an open-ended,
cost-saving ideas and suggestions.
It was a, just give us your ideas.
And this was kind of a summary of the items that came back.
Sorry, does anybody have any questions on any of these?
I'm a slow reader, so I'm just laughing
because I'm gonna have to just look at this later on
and be able to sit and really look through it.
One question on that last slide.
I thought we are no longer using Fort NGL for academies.
Is that true or not?
They've been using it.
They've been using it as an outside contracted services still.
I'm not sure as far as outside contracted service,
but I know they're still using the academy model,
but I thought they were no longer.
There was a payment for Fort NGL this year.
I can't tell you the exact amount,
but I think it was under the 25,000.
Okay.
Did you want to talk about the entire one?
Yes.
So in, excuse me, in response to Board Member Hagen's question,
when we sent out the intent to return survey
out of the 726 total staff that we have 464 responses
were captured of which nine identified their intent
to retire, eight their intent to resign,
417 their intent to return.
Thank you.
Does that kind of fall in mind with normal years,
those numbers?
You don't have to be exact.
I think sometimes our staff suffers a little bit
from survey fatigue, and so I think
that the approximate 57% response rate is very positive
compared to some of our other surveys.
I agree with that.
You know, and then I go back to, you know,
in policy and at the border, we just,
we did the exhibit A and the amount of resignations
that happened, you know, who obviously somebody thought
coming, but you know, is that captured in the numbers
that you're just told us, and I'm not asking, you know,
no, I mean, you don't know, it just happens.
Some people are very organized
and they have their life planned out enough
where they know back in January or February
what they're doing for next year.
Others are still considering their options
so they do not respond, and then we see exhibit A
where we have a considerable amount of resignations
or retirements that are not captured in the survey.
Okay, thank you.
So these next couple slides, it's really tiny and I apologize.
I did ask for the survey to give me some summaries
of all the different areas
and that's what's on the next two slides here
and we'll make sure that you guys get a copy of those.
I have a question and maybe this might be a question
for Rob or Lauren, our legal counsel, one of these
that jumped out at me, several responses suggested
holding parents and students financially responsible
for repairs and replacement of damage devices.
And I wonder if it is that limited to just the devices
or damage things sometimes when students, you know,
are escalated and having a safe episode,
they might destroy sometimes staff members' personal effects.
Can we legally require parents to be financially accountable
for that stuff?
So in the case of where, say, for example,
a student breaks a window in a school, yes,
we do build a family, we go through the police department
and a fine as a staff, basically,
and typically we do get those paid back.
In the cases of the Chromebooks,
we do charge a fee for a lost Chromebook.
A lot of the repairs and maintenance type things are covered
in our warranty or our in-house repairs
and we don't charge those to the student.
A lot significant, like if they destroyed the Chromebooks
then yes, we will charge the family a fee.
And say a teacher had a coat on their chair
and a student destroyed that coat.
Does the district go after the parent for the cost of the coat?
Those kinds of situations, I'm not sure if we do or not.
I'm just the bigger ones.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
And I think this is the second page of the summary.
Are there any questions or comments, thoughts,
anybody want?
Sorry, I have my hand up if that's OK.
Sorry, thanks.
No, I mean, I'm like, Joanne, I need a minute
to read and consider and process.
I think before I say anything that's
like incredibly of value, but I do truly appreciate this.
At the turnaround time from administration
to put this out was outstanding.
And this has just been such a valuable addition
to this discussion.
And so I just wanted to say thank you.
Thank you, Stephanie and Dr. Malat for doing that,
especially on such short notice.
We really appreciate that.
One of the things that I do.
The Beavers help with that as well.
Oh, thank you, the Beavers and Almond Dares help
end with Almond Dares.
Thank you, all cabinet members, and Brett Berg.
The district has a policy, 343.2, which is class size.
The student teacher class sizes listed below
are intended to serve as guidelines
for determining staffing needs within the school district
to avoid the Board of Education and Administration
will make every effort to implement the policy
within the constraints of the budget space and staff
available elementary levels, 3K to 3.
It is 22 to 1 or 30 to 2 average goal for 4 to 5,
grades 4 to 5, it's 30 to 1 average.
For middle school, the core classes
is 30 to 1 average, electives are 30 to 1 average,
and a 15 to 1 minimum.
And Friday ad is a 30 to 1 average.
High school education classes are a 30 to 1 average,
and a 15 to 1 minimum.
I'm wondering, do we know how many high school classes
or middle school elective classes that we have
that have fewer than 15 students is my first question?
And then my second question is, do we
know how closely we are adhering to this policy?
And I understand these are averages and goals.
So the last time that we looked at the offerings
for electives at the high school and middle school,
they were still working on building out
their master's schedule.
So we didn't have definitive numbers of students
that would be interested in participating
to see what we could cut, if anything.
OK.
That's why we need a staffing plan, right?
I mean, that's how you figure out
where what the class sizes are and where the issues are not,
because we have declining enrollment.
So my understanding is that we have
lost since the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
We lost about 100 students.
So at some point, that does translate to classroom teachers
that even though we can keep it under these qualifications
and restrictions, the other thing we might need to consider
is raising the minimum, if we need
to be doing some cutting, which we need to do.
But without looking at the staffing plan
and what projected numbers we are having to roll up and look at,
it's very hard to make those kinds of judgments.
But you should be able to say we ought to be able to decrease
by so many teachers in such and such an area
based on projected enrollment.
Oh, certainly.
Go ahead, Brian.
That brings up a good question.
So where are we in actual people enrollment
since the first of the year?
I knew one of you three would have it, if not two of you.
OK.
As of yesterday, our current enrollment is 4733.
And how does that compare to the last one?
The third Friday count.
I don't have that number right in front of me.
But if you give me a second, I can probably
do have that number.
Third Friday count versus enrollment.
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
You're right.
Just no, actual enrollment.
Actual enrollment right now is 4733.
No, what was it at the beginning of the school year?
At the end of September, when I didn't count?
At the end of September, I will give you September 22nd, 4,842.
OK.
That's over 100 students.
Yep.
Yep.
OK.
Thank you.
Are we ready for the care of thoughts and all that?
OK.
So after our last meeting, budget is not my strong suit, and I didn't say much.
And so I figure if I just say stuff at the beginning, then I won't check it out.
So these are the things that I reflected on.
We passed the Hendrix proposal.
We almost passed the last referendum.
We've got millions and millions already.
And I think our community is seeing that we are trying and are willing to invest in
us now as a district.
And so we've got this OPEB money.
I think we need to do a Hail Mary and use it, listening to that gentleman that drove
up from Rockford about how cutting sports affected his classmates, that has an impact.
All the classes that our students come here for, we want to keep them here.
We've got a lot of stuff going on that are good things, and there is nothing that is
low hanging fruit anymore for us to cut.
So Dr. Anderson asked us, look at these things.
I think absolutely we need to look at Fund 80 for the Boys and Girls Club.
We need to look at having a lawyer for our district.
We need to sell that vacant land.
And I think the sports thing, we say yes this year, but then we need to have a real budget
for it next year, and not ever do that again, because $100,000 over when it didn't work
last year, we should have caught this before this point to know it wasn't going to work
this year.
So those are all my thoughts.
Thank you, Joanne.
Anyone else?
Tom?
Well, I'm not sure if this is the proper time to be in an overview of what my colleague
just did, and I think we're going to attack them individually, I would imagine, correct?
Because they are individual items that are...
I don't know, let her be.
I understand that.
Well, I do like working with numbers and budget, being in business for a number of years, and
they do make sense to me.
Money in, money out, and it's got to equal at the end of the day, and how we get there
is a different avenue, and we have lots of things to decide.
I don't want to lump them all together.
There are several different things going on, selling your properties.
They're all individual, but yes, we need to get our...
We have to show the community that we're doing our due diligence in sharpening our pencil
once again, and making sure that every dollar we spend is going back into the students.
So as an overview, that's just the overview.
So they're all, to me, they're all individual, and just, pardon me, yes.
We can go through them one by one.
Well, thank you.
Brian?
No, well, if we're going to do that, I'll wait.
Okay.
Carol?
I guess I can hold off a little bit too, but I don't think we can just say we're going
to use OPEB money without doing the due diligence of looking at what can be done without
using it.
It's a one-time deal.
Once it's there, it's gone.
I believe we have about four million left, or is it more than that?
It depends on whether we use any this year, but I don't think we can just say we're going
to use it until we look at what else we can do.
And then maybe use some of it, but I wouldn't want to just say we're just going to use it.
If I could add on something to what Carol just said, it's going up at about 30 grand a
month.
Is that right?
30 to 35,000 a month?
Approximately, yes.
Damn.
Right.
Okay.
It's getting a very good labor time.
Yes.
That's my point.
Thank you.
How long has it been accruing that much interest, is that I've only been in the district for
three years, and it's been there since I started here.
So the last person that was drawing and benefit was in October of 24, and I think that money
had already been there on the number of years before I arrived in the district.
So there is a benefit to hanging on to the old pet money for this year, knowing that
we are going to have a huge financial burden next year that we're going to have to look
at and allowing that to accrue that interest.
That was perfect.
Yes.
Okay.
Tom?
Yeah.
On that note, I remember this conversation kind of with Mr. Chaney, the downside of
using that money and how it affects state funding, could you just give a brief overview
of that?
So the shared cost effect of using that money is minimized when you have expenses that match
it.
If we were to bring it all over in one lump sum, then yes, it would have an effect on
shared cost.
But bringing it over as you have expenses, it minimizes that effect on shared cost, which
shared cost is the piece of the equalization aid formula that affects our state aid.
So if you move that money over, it has to be assigned to a certain cost.
Is that kind of what you're saying?
If you do it that way, yes, it minimizes the effects on, yeah, minimizes, but there still
is an effect of moving it over.
There is, but it's smaller than when you have the expenses, I go with it.
Okay.
Thank you.
So that is the total of $4.6 million, correct?
And from the end of February, yes.
Right.
And we're looking at $4.5.
I mean, that means we would have nothing left.
And we don't know if we're going to use the $1.9 for this year's budget or not.
Do we have any idea of how much we may or may not use?
And going back to the first conversation about the $100,000, would we have $100,000 in this
year's budget to cover that?
So currently, our budget has been set.
And with the $1.9 transfer over from OPEB, I have not done calculations for year-end yet
because there are a number of things that happen at year-end that affect our balances.
For example, we don't have, I mean, we won't have final health and trans numbers so we
get closer to mid to the end of June.
So I can't tell you right now whether or not we're going to use that $1.9 now going based
on last year's numbers.
We did fairly well and we did have a slight surplus of funds at the end of the year, about
$250,000.
And we've been running pretty lean this year.
We've been very careful about not spending as much money as we had in the past.
We've been very careful.
We haven't purchased any new technology.
There's been very little major upgrades or improvements for our facilities.
We've been very, very careful.
But like I said, the health insurance because we are so funded, those numbers could change
when we get towards year-end.
And I would caution the board to be using up our savings or fund balance in a one-time
cost or one-time year because then the next year we are facing a very large deficit if
we lose 600 students.
So the recommendation is to spend fund balance before spending op-ed.
That's one option.
I hesitate to use up fund balance either because when you use up fund balance then it does
cause other issues with short-term borrowing.
Megan mentioned earlier about short-term borrowing and the district has had to do short-term
borrowing for, well, the three years I've been here we've done it and then short was
done before that with the fund balance being so low.
But if you decrease the fund balance any further, that short-term borrowing is probably
going to have to happen a few times during the year, not just once.
Thank you.
Brian?
I was going to wait, but now I'm not going to wait.
I think we should hold on to the op-ed.
I just do because of what you just said.
There's a lot, there's a lot more in 27-28 that we've got to concern ourselves with
and we do the rest of this, you know, and then 26-27, so that would be my recommendation.
One of seven.
Thank you.
Megan?
Thank you.
I just want to clarify, we're on the bullet point, the very last bullet point, is that
right where it's specifically OPEP or is this like, was this an offshoot of the athletics
conversation?
This is the workshop-style discussion.
No, I just want to make sure that I, oopsies, I just clicked the wrong thing.
I just want to make sure that I'm not veering off into a direction, okay.
So I would say in the spirit of it being workshop-style, I think, I agree with what's
been said about OPEPEP, I think that we need to protect our fund balance and our OPEP funds.
I'm going to go, comma, but I'm going to go back to kind of the metaphor that I threw
out last week, kind of a little concentric circle situation, right?
Best case scenario, we don't touch OPEP, we don't touch fund balance.
In reality, things get messy.
And this is like, I think, Miss Ellwood, and you can call me back, I'm not totally fine.
But Miss Ellwood said earlier, you know, our chief responsibility is our children and their
education.
If push comes to shove and, you know, in theory, things look good on paper, but then in practice,
it becomes something different.
I am not opposed, and I think it would be irresponsible for us not to have like some kind
of a plan B. I think in the spirit of what Joanne was saying too, like, I really agree
that we need to be thinking about how do we most conservatively and responsibly, but
still use those funds, whether it's through cuts or having to dip into things, to make
sure our kids get what they need next year.
So it's a balancing act, that's why we're having this conversation.
So what I'm wondering in the spirit of this last bullet point before getting into the
specifics with athletics or anything else, would it make sense for us to say, like, just
like Dr. Anderson came to us with the, here's the tale of two budgets, scenario A, where
we use neither OPEB nor fund balance, you know, looks like this, scenario B, like, I
think, Tia, this is what you're just getting at, would it be better to use OPEB or fund
balance?
Like, we're going to have to make a decision because at some point, we probably will have
to dip into one or two of those.
So I really like the conversation that we're having, right, like figuring out what are the
pros and cons about fund 10 versus OPEB, you know, like Brian was saying, you know, there's
an interest situation one over the other.
So I would like to just like learn a little bit more information, and maybe that's something
that can happen right now, if you wouldn't mind giving us a, if we have to, if we're
not going to cut our way to the vision that we want to have, it's kind of likely that
we'll have to dip into one or two of these things.
Would your recommendation be, you know, not that we're just going to like cash out, but
if we have to dip in, like, which direction do we go first and why, like, in your opinion?
That's a super interesting question and quandary.
And I hear what you're asking, but I don't know that I can give you a definitive answer
of which one would be better to choose first.
No, that makes sense.
I don't know.
Yeah.
No, and I get it, both of them have their pros and cons, because once you use either one
of them, the funds are gone.
So that's the big quantity right there is they're both equally important because they're basically
our savings accounts.
And once you use those monies, they're gone.
So you can't use them a second time.
So if we're talking about two budgets, you know, 2627 and then 2728, 2627, we have a short
fall of about 4.5 million.
And then I think that when we move into the next year, it's 14.1 if we do nothing.
So if we use up fund balance or opab in the first year, we have a short fall of 14.1
million in the following year, and then your funds are gone.
You have no safety net.
You have no fund balance.
You have no opab funds.
And then you're running the district at a negative fund balance.
And in my kind of researching a little bit, districts that have run into negative fund
balance, if they don't pay us a referendum, then there's other discussions about the
state coming in and having to get a guidance as to what happens next.
And I would call them the board.
Oh, that's okay.
I would caution the board to put us in that situation.
I think we need to do some serious research and review and make informed decisions about
where to move to next.
Because we don't want to be running into a situation where we're running a negative
fund balance.
So we do need to talk about, are we going to make the cuts or is it impossible to make
enough cuts and we need to talk about referendum?
So that was incredibly helpful.
I appreciate it.
And here's my recommendation based on what you just said.
So it sounds like without having more information than we have right now, because there will
be some kind of impact to moving money from OPEB into our fund balance.
Time brought that up earlier.
Would it make sense for us to say, obviously, our goal is not to spend money we don't have.
It sounds like if we needed to, the place to do that would be fund balance and not OPEB.
And then my other kind of thing I want to throw out there is I don't see why we wouldn't
go to referendum in November, given that everything that you just said.
So just like in that we can almost maybe do an inverse, I think we don't need to approve
a budget until, I mean, the state doesn't even tell us what we're getting per pupil in any
finality until October 15th.
So we're not going to approve the budget until just prior to November.
I realize that that'll be before an election.
But maybe as we get closer to that discussion, you know, things are going to change.
I liked how in the past we said, we don't want to touch OPEB.
But if we have to, it'll be this much.
Maybe we do that instead with like, I'll take your hand, sorry, I'm not trying to like
your, I'm just trying to keep the two funds straight in my head.
If we were to pass a referendum in November is what I'm getting at, we wouldn't necessarily
need to cut into something.
I just, I think we need to sort of, and it sounds like without further research, it sounds
like Fund 10 would be the place to go to prior to OPEB.
I think we just need to give ourselves that cushion because while all of this is important
and nobody wants to get anywhere near a negative fund balance situation, we also owe our community's
children an education.
So it's not going to be ideal either way.
Tom, and then Carol?
Thank you.
As I listened to this discussion and for doing OPEB versus fund balance, to me, and sometimes
the answer is in the middle, you know, some of OPEB, some of fund balance.
So we're not depleting either one.
And we need to, I know we need more information, but rather the, you know, the pros and cons
of it, you know, we can talk about that.
But as I have in my adult life, you know, sometimes the compromise is good.
And I want to go back to one thing and ask Stephanie, you know, and Megan brought up
short-term borrowing.
To my recollection, when we did use short-term borrowing, it was just used until we got a
payment from the state, is that correct?
Or a payment from coming from whoever?
That is correct.
Okay.
So it's used as, like, a stock egg, right.
And so it's not like something that's still on the books.
We pay them off as we get our funds.
But it's correct.
Okay.
Thank you.
But yeah, but I think, you know, I think it's, to me, it's an obvious thing to look
at both of them, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
And I agree with and try not to use any of it.
Our fund balance has never been what our policy says, 18%, which at that time was 18 million.
Well, now we're down to a $90 million dollar budget.
You know, we're, now we're dipping down into the $7 or $8 million fund balance, and I agree.
We don't, we can't do it, but we have to do what we have to do.
Thank you.
Tom, never say never.
No, I understand that.
The fund balance has been in line with a policy in the past, from 2009 to 2012, when
I was on the board previously, it was actually there were times when it was even above policy.
That's wonderful.
And I'm very happy to, you know, I'm sure, but we've been out of policy for, I don't
know how many years.
Anyways, my point is, I think, just me, that the answer may, will lay within using some
of OPEB and some of fund balance.
Thank you.
Carol?
Just a, you know, we got to be careful about talking about October and the referendum and
all of that.
This budget starts July 1, and we have to be prepared to handle this budget for next year.
So I go back to what I was saying before, you know, we need to have our department heads
in our superintendent go back and come up with some plans.
You know, this is what we could, we could cut this many teachers, and this is what it
would look like.
If we, if we cut these counselors or social workers or whatever, this is what it would
look like, you know, and then we could do a different plan where if we did it this way,
this is what it would look like.
But we're talking in generalities, but we need, really need, somebody needs to come
up with some better specifics about what it is that we need to be looking at, how many
classroom, you know, they said there were vacancies and cuts, but we can't necessarily
not fill those.
But so, you know, so what do you need to fill, how many teachers do you really need, how
many teachers do we have, you know, we have a hundred students less, we should be able
to reduce just based on that.
So you know, where is the plan and how does all of this fold in with the plan?
You know, it's like, I don't want to cut nurses, but you know, what are we going to do about
nursing and you know, can we keep health room assistance and do something with a nurse that
goes around?
I mean, I need to see somebody come up with some suggestions and alternatives, right?
So we could do this, we could do this, and then we could save this much money.
And then you could say, okay, yeah, we prefer that over that because it follows our priorities,
right?
You know, should we do legal counsel, right, do we do legal counsel and cut the director
of nursing?
I mean, how does that play off one another?
I don't know without having better quality information to look at, and that's kind of
where I am.
I don't want to use OPEB money, but if all of the scenarios we see say, yeah, we can
do this, but that's as far as we can get.
We need to do another million or two million, then I do it, you know, but we need to have
it better planned out.
And you know, go back to all of our directors and our athletic director, you know, cut,
come back with a plan where you cut $100,000 out of your budget or $200,000 out of your
budget.
Give us both plans.
Let us look at it, see what it looks like, see what we can live with.
You know, we can talk all the want about whether we don't use or don't use OPEB, but
if we don't have an idea of how much money we're going to use or need, you know, we
don't have an idea of what to do.
So that's why I came up with that otherwise.
Thank you, Joanne.
Isn't that what the tail of two budgets had?
I can't find it right at this moment, but like, there are all those line items, like,
if we eliminate this, then this is how much money we save.
If we eliminate this, this is how much money we save.
I think that's what Dr. Anderson's plan was, was for us to look at that and decide where
we were going to make those hard decisions at.
That was just a beginning of discussion, and it's like, you know, work in progress,
10, you know, open positions, possibly 10, eliminate, estimate $1 billion.
I don't know what that is.
They had security.
It wasn't really a plan.
It was just, you know, that's what we spend on security, should we cut some of that?
It's not a plan.
That's what we spend on professional development.
There's not a plan for how much should we spend on professional development.
The closest they got was the elementary guidance at four, and nursing, and cutting all the
health room assistance.
The guidance is actually counselors, and Leah, are you guys, like, looking for us to
say, here, these are the areas we want you to look at?
Because I feel like we're just, like, spinning in a circle here, and, like, what do you
want?
We're looking for specifically what area do you want to give us permission to make
some cuts.
Right.
And, like, depending on who you ask, everybody's got a different idea of where to make the
cuts, right?
Like, you ask the teachers, they don't care about the roof, they care about who's in
front of them.
But if you ask, you know, the people that are in charge of the buildings, they're going
to say, oh, my goodness, we need new roofs, and parking lots, and things like that.
And so, like, I think Dr. Anderson, that's why I said, I think we need to just first
start with those things and say, yeah, go ahead with those, because those are good ideas,
those are ways to save us some money.
And then, I mean, I don't see a plan where we don't make decisions that severely impact
our students unless we go into some pool of money.
And that's, I guess, I wasn't wording it the right way before, but after listening to
her.
I'm not saying spend the whole thing, but I'm saying, I don't think I can't see a scenario
where we don't do that unless we're willing to do things that are going to be detrimental
to the children that we serve.
So, like, I would just really like to start with the things on Dr. Anderson's list so
we can at least say, all right, we got that going, and now, where next do we look?
So, I mean, I think they don't have a plan yet because plans take a lot of time.
And so, tell us where you want to cut, and then we'll show you the plan for those cuts,
right?
Is that right, Leah?
I would say that's correct.
There's been a lot of talk, we have done a lot of talking within our departments about
things that we can cut per department.
A lot of things are small things that add up to big things.
The hardest part, of course, is cutting staffing.
Of course, we want to do that, those cuts through attrition and not hiring for positions
that have been open for the whole year or plus.
But overall, the high school is still, or less we know, the high school is still putting
and rolling kids in the classes, so we will be taking a look at what the enrollment
and class sizes are like, and that will be going through with our department and with
HR.
That's not a single person effort because there's going to have to be some restructuring, obviously.
So, of course, cuts will come by way of that, or not, I wouldn't say cuts, but collapsing
or combining of courses as much as we are able to do within the realm of possibility.
Of course, you know, DLI, but that's something we're still in process of meeting with principals
and restructuring how that will go, but again, that is not a budgetary cut, it's just a,
you know, restructuring that kind of program.
Looking within departments, again, like I said, we've cut down, we are able to cut,
you know, over $230,000 just in software alone because we have programs that we aren't necessarily
using to their capacity, or we have programs that are essentially duplicates, so we can
reduce in those areas as well, but it's those bigger cuts, like what do you want us to focus
on?
Do you want us to delay a roof in a parking lot, or do you want us to focus on an athletic
budget?
What does the board want to focus most on for this next budget year?
Because once we get that settled, we need to move on to 27, 28.
So for sure, we need to look at the athletic budget, because we're over, and so like we
don't need to just, I mean we at least need to cut $100,000, but probably more.
I do know, so T and I talked the other day about like just, you know, like what's going
on with the literacy program and stuff in our districts, because originally I was very
nervous about saying we can't use, or we could save money with technology in our classrooms,
but I've been talking to teachers, and now the survey, like it mirrored what I've heard
too, is that our elementary schools, we don't need to be dependent on one-to-one devices
like we thought we would needed to.
And I think we don't need to depend on them like we did, but I do think that there is
still a dependence, but that will come with a cost savings as well, rather than having
one-to-one devices, we can have sets that people can use for the instruction time.
So when that comes around, I do think that we will be able to have some savings there,
certainly at the elementary level.
But again, like Director Elwood said, when we are going through with our curriculum and
planning, some of our curriculum companies are exclusively dependent on technology as
well, so that's something that we need to consider as we're revamping curriculum in
the future.
Is that something you and I could sit down and look at then?
Yes, ma'am.
Megan?
Thank you so much.
First, Joanne, I like a thousand percent agree with everything you said.
Further, I guess, just in the spirit of getting to what Dr. Malat needs us to get to, I'm
looking at these bullet points, I'm giving them numbers from one to six, okay?
So like number one would be the athletic thing.
I am not prepared to approve any additional funding for the athletic piece until I see
a plan, so like that's kind of where I met on that.
Number two, vacant properties, same thing.
Of course, I would rather sell properties versus cut anything.
I just, I need more information, so I don't know if, or President Johnson, if that's
something, I'm sure that's already on your radar too, you know, for future board meeting,
if we could just like kind of get some of those numbers, but Leah, in a general way,
absolutely 100% yes, let's do that before we touch a classroom situation, right?
Fund 80, my specific request for that item is that you slash Dr. Anderson slash, you know,
I don't know because I don't want to be in the weeds, whoever like the administration
believes is necessary should meet with not only the city of Beloit, but with like community
action, with the Boys and Girls Club, all of the like amazing nonprofit situations
like that we have in our community right now that already do work with kids and figure
out how do we dump all the Legos on the table that we already have and rearrange them in
a way that doesn't create a ridiculous tax burden, but better utilizes fund 80 and enhances
programming to all children, not just the kids in our school, like our entire city,
all of our kids, you know, it makes life better for everybody, okay?
So that's my opinion on fund 80, I would really love to see some follow up and I'm not trying
to be like, I'm sure you have 85,000 fires that you need to put out right now, but like
in a timeline that you believe makes sense, but like sooner rather than later, I think
we need to have those discussions and I would love to hear and I'm happy to participate
too, but some kind of report out so that when we approve a preliminary budget in June,
we have a very specific sense of like what our fund 80 plan is because I know the community
is always very interested in making sure that those dollars are spent appropriately.
The legal counsel thing, yeah, dude, absolutely, it just wherever we can save money, I'm looking
forward to seeing your plan for that 100% would support what you guys believe is best,
that will be a cost savings communications director, I would love to just see a cost analysis
just for the next two years, since we're looking at 26, 27 and 27, 28, would it be more
cost effective to hire in-house versus doing some kind of contract with Hadley?
I would love to see like a side or like any other, you know, I would love to see a side
right side because I really don't have a concept of like all of the costs that would be involved
in that one way or the other, so whatever makes sense there, I'm going to support, we
already talked about op-amp.
So last comment for me, Dr. Malott to your big picture view, the core, like we do not
touch unless it's like the apocalypse would be services to students.
So like when you present to us, because we're giving you some guidance, I hope it makes
some kind of sense, the guidance we're giving you, so like whenever you can make sense of
this and we come back, if we could categorize things in terms of services to students,
I want to touch those last or not at all.
I would just to be clear, like DLI, for example, I believe is a service, I know we call it
the DLI program, but these are instructional services to students, it's high retention
et cetera, so like I'll just just declare that one specific point, and then the next
thing out from that, which nobody wants to touch either, but I want to touch this before
services would be programs.
And then outside of that, the next outside thing, like the thing that I think we need
to go after is all of the ancillary stuff that you have on this list, like legal, communications,
how do we better use fund 80, et cetera.
So that is like my $5.37 opinion on kind of the large scope and all of those bullet points.
Thank you, Carol.
I would refer you back to this, maintaining existing teacher pupil ratios, these were
the priorities that we've discussed, and from there you can go forward as far as I'm concerned.
If you need to, you know, a point by point, which I don't necessarily, I don't know about
the, I'm concerned about the athletic budget for this year, because we can't be starting
to cut spring sports now, can we?
I don't think so.
So I think, you know, we're going to have to bite that $100,000 for this year, never
again, right, but, and it has to be less.
So, you know, figure out a budget where it's less.
If they can properties, again, if they can buy properties to be here like OPEP money,
it's a one-time deal, you know, if it can work fine, if not, fine.
Fund 80, absolutely yes, I listened to that again, and I can't permit Mr. Rand, I think
his name was.
And he said he gave a plan to Dr. Anderson, it'd be nice to see the plan.
And again, I agree with Meghan, anything else that we could put in there would be fine.
Legal counsel, only if it saves us money, communications director, no, I mean, if, to
me, a trade-off between a communications director and health room assistance, I'd rather have
health room assistance, thank you very much, but I'm an old elementary principal, and I
know how many times the kids come to the office with health concerns.
So that has to be part of a bigger plan, and we already talked about OPEP money, so
that's my take if you want it that way.
Thank you, Carol.
Joanne?
So, the legal counsel one, that was one that did save us a few hundred thousand dollars,
at least two, I don't remember exactly, because either two hundred thousand or three hundred
thousand dollars savings he thought.
So, I mean, I think we should look into it.
And I don't think that Dr. Anderson saying, if we say yes, then he's just going to do
it.
I think he just is exploring the opportunity, right?
Yes.
Here's my two cents on that over the last two years.
We do spend a lot, a lot, a lot of money on legal fees, and so much of it is avoidable,
which is really, really frustrating, because a lot of these things are avoidable.
We have policies for a reason.
We have expectations for a reason, and to me, sometimes mind-boggling how and why we find
ourselves in the situations we are, it's part of the painful process of making improvements
changes slow, but we have to continue trying to get better.
And reminding people, we have board policies for a reason to protect us legally, and so
that we're not spending money over all kinds of different things that employees or employees
or people are doing, so we can potentially save money.
Will we save money, not necessarily, and will we always have another outside legal
firm?
Yes, that will always happen, but hopefully we can minimize the need for that.
Tom?
Thank you very much.
As I look at this, and as we discussed, the administration is looking for a nod, do we
want a procedure or not?
And if we're going to swallow, be a joint of the whale and swallow them all at one big
bite.
I say yes, please move forward with this for further review.
That's the way my understanding was from Dr. Rain and from Dr. Malat.
There is one issue that is pressing, and that concerns the athletic department, and Mr.
Gratz needs to know by may wonder if we want to enter in collaborations with other
school districts to help fund next year's supporting activity.
So that has to be done separately.
I think he's here tonight to speak on that, but if we're looking for a nod, I'm in the
affirmative of letting the administration explore what these bullet points are.
Thank you.
Dr. Malat, do you guys have a presentation for the athletic bullet point?
I do not have a presentation for the athletic department.
Okay.
Well, if there's no objections, how about we just go through these one by one and give
the administration some direction?
So the first bullet point, and Tom, I appreciate you trying to move approval of all of them
forward, but all of them have an either or.
So does that?
Again, I'm sorry to interrupt, but yes, but we started talking as a whole.
So I just thought, you know, let's, if we're going to, my colleagues are talking not individually,
and I said at the beginning, they're individual.
But if we're going to take them as a whole, let's just give the nod.
So does the board want administration to add 100,000 to the athletic budget so that
all current athletic teams can operate in the 25, 26th level based on what I'm hearing?
It sounds like most of us are not in favor of adding 100,000 to the athletic budget.
Are there any board members that feel strongly one way or the other?
Is that for this year or for next year?
For next year?
Okay.
For next year?
Okay.
For next year?
Okay.
For next year?
No.
Am I understanding that right?
Mrs. Owen?
I'm not sure, because you did say 25, 26, which is the current fiscal year.
And that's what it says, I'm just reading what was provided to us as board members.
We are just board members.
Because he is over, or I'm sorry, because the athletic budget is over my approximately
100,000 dollars, I'm assuming then they're asking for an approval to increase the budget
for 25, 26.
But then we also do need to look at 26, 27.
Okay.
So this is for this year.
Because I thought, if I'm not mistaken, that Dr. Anderson had, at one point, said to me
he could find the 100,000 without us having to have a board approval to move it from one
fund to the other.
Maybe we should table that one for tonight, then.
Okay.
Okay.
But if you don't mind, then, what we'll do is, so it sounds like director grabs can
work with other districts to help offset costs for next year to looking at the 26, 27
dollars.
If someone's speaking, the volume just cut out.
Dan, can you go to the microphone, thanks.
If we're speaking solely on co-ops, it's possible.
We have about two weeks, about 15-ish days, to get those things done.
Other schools that have to do exactly what you all would have to do, which is approve,
you know, and go through that process.
I'm not overly confident that many want to share with us right now, but we've floated
the idea.
So we have options in girl soccer and softball, which are two of our spring sports.
Okay.
Megan, your hand is up.
Yes.
Mr. Graz.
Thank you so much.
I'm totally like down for like, let's make something work if we can.
I think one of the reasons we wanted to have this workshop was so that you could kind of
talk us through and help us understand what the budget impact would be to go into those
partnerships this year.
So I am like, I want to do whatever we need to do, but I need a little bit more information
so that I understand if we were to vote or take action to say, yeah, let's go do co-ops,
what is that impact on the district and where does that leave us?
We won't know that answer until we know how many players total we're splitting the cost
between.
So we use the example of hockey and let me back up.
You're not approving, you're just approving exploration.
So when you hear that we're taught, I've been talking with, you know, Rock County Christian
or TLA or Clinton or Parkview or, you know, any of the schools around us that there's
not any surprises.
So that's the first piece.
But the second piece is in hockey, for example, we split our costs between the 25 athletes.
So that's where it saves us money.
Each athlete is given a bill, I shouldn't say, each school is given a bill based on
the amount of athletes that they have.
Without knowing, for example, if we were to share with TLA just because they're right
here, we don't know how many athletes they would provide us at this point.
There's multiple steps to this.
Part of the application process is to list out the amount of athletes that would go through.
So that is one step in that process.
That's what we do every year, every other year, I guess, with our renewal with hockey.
And we have to kind of map that out from middle school through high school, how many are
graduating, how many are coming in.
I wish I could give you more of a clear answer.
I don't think that's an option for cost saving.
I don't think it is, if you go back and talk with conversation around properties, I don't
know that you're, we don't know the answer.
We don't know how much we're going to save.
So I don't know that that's an effective strategy right now.
I think it's an effective long-term strategy, but right now, I don't know that it's one
that we can bank on for cost saving.
No, that makes a ton of sense.
Thank you so much.
I'm in faith.
Sorry, my kids are allowed.
I am definitely in favor of partnering wherever we can.
I think that's great.
And I think Mr. grads, I think it'll not only help us as a board, but I think it'll be
a huge benefit to the community.
You've done some really creative, cool stuff.
If you could, at some point in the near future, it doesn't feel like a whole presentation,
but just maybe provide us a more detailed overview of here are all the moving parts
in place here.
Here's the extent to which and how, just generally, I hear what you're saying, we're
not going to know specific numbers and stuff, but hey, here are the current and maybe future
potential partnerships with other school districts, with youth sports through city and other
nonprofit groups, et cetera.
I think having that big picture of you will be very helpful to community buy-in and clarity
for the direction that we're going to make sure that we're not leaving our kids behind
in conversations about budgets.
I really appreciate the work you're doing.
I really want you to be able to like share it so we can show it off with and for you.
So, but yeah, just specifically to this ask, yes, let's do the partnerships.
Joanne?
Cool.
Thank you.
Megan, that leads right into what I was coming to talk about.
I've talked to you before, Dan.
I know you have some really great ideas about our facilities and how we can use them to
help us maybe get a little bit of money to rentaling out our pool or things like that,
the parks and rec department having partnerships with them.
And then kind of like Dr. Anderson had his tail of two budgets.
If we could possibly get, yeah, I know they were fine, if you have like your version of
tail of two budgets that would help us see like what a real, like in order to have it
be fully funded next year, what that would actually look like.
And then where you would make cuts if you had to.
And then like hopefully the nonessential games and things being the first things to be taken
away.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think last we met, you asked me to provide the information.
So I had created a presentation in multiple budgets last year in anticipation that we
weren't going to be able to fit under the current budget the allotment.
So I've kind of just given a fast, what is, you know, a very detailed but fast snapshot.
This is a, this holistic plan to hit all of those pieces that you just touched on has
been after my first six or so months, what do we need to do to help this district move
forward in the variety of capacities.
And I obviously, my role is athletics and activities, but we have many boys.
I spend an immense amount of time in the community talking with community members.
My role inherently just, you know, brings that in.
And so listening to the community, talking through all those things, understanding what
we have available for City Parks and Rec for YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, Rising Tide, organized
I should say established youth organizations throughout, there are so many options.
I think we need to, Ms. Miller hit on it, I think we need to lean into our community.
We need to be creative.
We need to find ways to establish options.
And we need to find, we need to be creative as we go through our budgeting.
The snapshot that we provided, so at the very top it just talks about the year over
your budgets, right?
If we were going to get our budget to 255, which is a 20 to 25% decrease from the previous
years, 321, from the previous years, 318, we needed to cut about 20 to 25% of our sports.
We have those options.
We don't want those things to be cut and the community would very much just like that.
So to offset those costs, we presented the option of cutting middle school sports.
And again, it's not a viable option.
It's just the best of the bad options we're presented.
So we were able to backfill and still have those relationships built to be able to backfill
with community partners and established community partners.
There's a multi-step piece here, and I apologize, this is an incredibly long answer, but each
of these pieces lays out how we can go from one to the next to the next.
And so when we cut middle school sports, if that's the route that we go, that saves
us, I think Dr. Anderson has estimated 80,000.
I think it's closer just because I'm seeing the operational pieces.
I think it's closer to 100, I put 105.
The issue with the range and where we're struggling is the addendums have a salary
range to them, a step-by-step pay scale.
So between the lowest and the highest amount is a range of four middle school, about $40
ish, $1,000, which is a lot of money.
So that's one piece there.
The next piece would be replacing with community partners.
To do that, though, we need a substantial investment in Fund 80.
You'll see the Fund 80 investment piece is buried a little bit in here, but it's the
page turned sideways, where it just lays out every single piece that we would need.
We would need to invest in community partners.
We would need to have somebody to manage that.
We would need to have, if we wanted to open the pool up, we would need to make sure we
provide lifeguards to protect ourselves from liability, to open the weight room.
We need training to, you know, there's multiple steps to that.
So I'm happy to, you know, and more as this is a workshop setting, to go through all these
pieces.
I didn't intentionally avoid giving this to Ms. Shope.
It was, I was summoned late to this meeting, so I was able to try to get everything together
as fast as I could.
We'll absolutely share this publicly.
We want people to know about it, and in fact people do because we've had to have those
conversations with, you know, established youth organizations to be able to do this.
So people know that we're considering this as an option.
And you saw how quickly even just the inkling of a conversation of cutting athletics created
an uproar in the community, I'm very much trying to mitigate that and trying to, you
know, help people understand where we're at.
I mean, everybody likes football and basketball, but I can't in good faith, you know, can't
in good faith try to argue to keep certain things without making our own cuts to athletics
and how we can replace those things.
So like I said, a very long answer and a lot to do there.
So what questions can I answer as you're seeing this?
Thank you, Mr. Gratz.
Getting back to collaborations in that May 1st deadline, fast forward to if your budget
is reduced by 100,000 and middle school sports go away, is there a timeline to have
these collaborations with middle school sports, i.e., rising tide or intramural or, you know,
if your budget is reduced, do we need to or do you need to have some kind of timeline
so you get these pieces in line.
So in the fall at Aldridge and Fruzen, there's a place for footballers to go and soccer.
Thank you.
Yeah, we have obviously time and distance is helpful in our world because we've already
had these conversations.
We have a few sports essentially ready to go with others.
Now there's still steps to be taken, obviously, and they're still approval to be needed.
So we want to make sure that if the sooner the better because then we can start to establish
those things and say, hey, we know this is gone.
We already know from a safety and liability standpoint that we have to move football.
It has to go outside of the district as most have.
This past year, it hadn't been done in the past.
We had to refurbish all of our helmets from both middle schools and that is a yearly thing
at the high school for safety and we lost about 45 of those helmets, which means they
hadn't been done in over seven years.
That's a problem.
And then to fix that, we then have to buy and replace those helmets, right?
So just helmets alone, just for your knowledge is about $450 per helmet.
So yeah, it all adds up.
I think that's an easy one.
I've asked our middle school coordinators to help me with this to kind of lay out a step
by step of if we were only kind of tear down cuts, which ones would it be and how would
we go through that versus just all of them?
And then if we do make that large substantial cut, then it has to, I think I tried to articulate
this.
We're just reallocating those dollars to the high school so we can see as a little impact
to the high school athletic budget as possible.
We can keep going through those pieces.
We can backfill middle school sports.
I put a note in here, the current layout of middle school sports is not realistic.
It doesn't work the way it does.
It's six weeks.
The staffing model is poor.
It just doesn't work.
I think it was a good try.
But we've seen Jamesville, not to rip on Jamesville, but we've seen Jamesville do this
for a little bit longer than we have, and it's really hindering the high school development.
And so we're trying to, we need to make a change if we're just talking philosophically
and it goadily.
Go ahead.
So Dan, before you were here, the middle school did not have football for a little
while, and the biggest downfall with it was the lack of communication with parents
about what other opportunities there were to sign up for football in the community.
So that would be really important once we get to that point, too.
Yep.
And as we're talking, and I, you know, again, you feel bad for asking, but to advocate
for the point you just made, we need somebody in charge of community programming.
I mean, that's really what it comes down to.
And that's not just sports for the middle school and high school.
That is all things community related.
So right now, we've kind of absorbed with the business office, you know, creating parks
and recs opportunity in the fieldhouse, or, you know, utilizing the pool with YMCA or Boys
and Girls Club or things like that.
If we want to keep investing and kind of leaning into that, which I believe we should, because
it selfishly is going to help us in any future referendum we do, the pie has to get bigger.
So there's just not enough time between, you know, everybody absorbing more and more.
Dan, a follow-up on middle school sports and back-filling through organizations, is that
more of a pay-to-play type situation?
Likely, but we already pay to play here.
So I think to answer your question, we're paying $42 per sport right now, up to two.
And so our intent is to, if we can support as a district, if we can support these things
with Fund 80, we have the opportunity to drastically decrease costs for any and all
taxpayers and the city of boys that want to play in any of these sports.
So that's the one limitation, obviously, is it's no longer just SDB students.
We have to open it up to anybody.
But I think there is a massive opportunity to be different here and just to do something
that matters for these kids.
And I agree, thank you.
Carol?
Okay, I'm not a sports person, so bear with me.
But you're looking at cutting the middle school programming to save $100,000 and hiring a
position to coordinate that.
But you want to move all of that money into Fund 80, is that what I'm hearing you saying?
Partially, yeah.
So cut middle school athletics.
In order to do that, we need, and the vision, if you can follow it, is to, or I guess, excuse
me, if you can follow my brain that's relatively scattered and large-scale thinking, the vision
is to backfill with community sports.
To do that, we would need somebody in charge of managing community programming.
We don't have the ability to do all those things right now.
We can.
It's just never going to work the way that it should, right, and be as efficient as it
could be.
And so the middle school is a piece of what community programming, K-12, and what the
city of boy would look like.
Does that answer the question?
And you said not just sports, but other things that you have other community things in mind,
besides just sports for this community director?
Or no?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, so we, so if we're talking about, you know, we have our sports from the middle
schools.
That's one piece.
We have youth programming all over.
We have theater.
We have usage of the pool through, right now we have a, you know, pool that doesn't
work in the city, and there's a lot of conversations about what they're going to
do with that.
So I think the majority of it, because this is the world that I live in, the majority
of it comes from, comes from that sports side, and the usage of our facilities comes
from that sports side, right?
I think it can absolutely expand.
It's just expand into what is needed for the community.
So all of those programs would include all students from City of Blight, no matter what
school they attended.
If it were to go into funding, that would have to be the key.
It would have to be.
That's the way it would have to be.
Okay.
My only other question, and I know you had a quick snapshot to put this together, you
know, the number of students who are in some of these events, and, you know, how many
students are we impacting when we have these particular sports, especially at the high,
high school level, but even at the middle school, at this point, but, you know, how
many students are in some of these programs, and what would the impact be if we were needing
to change some of those options?
Talking about the middle school first, right now we're seeing about 250, not all, not
unique athletes.
So we see 250 in totality, which some can do multiple sports.
The high school, again, same not unique athletes, but last year we had about 825.
This year we're on pace for that.
We're going to be right around that.
Senior classes is pretty small for this group.
So, you know, not, again, not unique.
We have some kids that are two or three sport athletes, so we may be triple counting some
of these kids, but that number is not crazy.
That's just a handful of student athletes.
Okay, so it's just back.
So we have wrestling, you know.
How many kids are in wrestling?
Do you need a coach and an assistant coach?
That kind of thing.
You know, can we, would there be ways to cut some of those?
You know, that's, I think, kind of what I'm looking at.
So how many kids are there?
Do we really need both coaches, that kind of stuff?
Which level, just holistically?
I think the answer is we're about as close as we can get right now.
I think any time we get to a one to multiple ratio when we're traveling and moving around
and things like that, it creates viability.
It's definitely possible, but we have four total coaches for two teams right now for girls
and boys wrestling.
So we have one head coach for each, and right now boys has two assistant coaches.
Essentially they work together as it is, but that program is serving about in total between
girls and boys is about 60 athletes.
So we're right on par with the ratio minimum for a classroom, although we treat athletics
slightly different because of the liability side.
Okay, so I have been informed that there's some nasty weather heading our way quickly.
So does the board want to continue this discussion in person?
Do we want to go virtual?
Do we want to recess and reconvene in half or what do we want to do?
How concerned?
At home.
I think you guys should recess and reconvene or we can do this another night.
I'm off a reconvening as long as we can decide tonight when that is 25 minutes, sorry.
I said I'm off a reconvening for safety reasons, but as long as we, we, the board
makes a decision on when we can meet again tonight.
Okay, so let's recess and we'll all reconvene virtually Mrs. Shope, I think then we'll lose
our ability to finish recording it, is that correct?
No, I can start to record it again.
Okay.
Is everybody locked in on your Google Meet and one of the everybody box back into the
Google Meet?
I can record again from Google Meet.
From your residency?
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Let's, it's 7.30.
Let's recess and reconvene virtually at eight o'clock.
Bye.
Be safe everybody.
Thanks, Dan.
Green telephone number ending in seven, seven.
That's the address.
Okay.
That's the address.
Okay.
Michelle, you ready?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
So it is eight on one and we have a quorum, Carol Fox, Brian Nichols, Joanne, Ru and myself.
And we are continuing where we left off and Megan Miller has just joined.
You'll have to forgive me.
I forgot who had a question for Mr. grads and where we were in that process.
Michelle, can you help reframe my memory or Megan?
Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I really appreciated.
I don't know, is Dan on the call still?
Yeah.
Oh, it's okay.
Oh, hey, what's up?
How's it going?
I met Mr. grads, but hi, Dan.
I was just, I was just going to say, Mr. grads.
Just to be clear, I really, really liked the whole vision that you painted and particularly
my suggestion for next steps.
If this isn't already on your radar, if we're going to capitalize on current staff,
because I liked what he was saying about needing like kind of that community
coordination piece.
I'm just like people like Mary Ellen Fuentes and forgive me for not knowing
who's at the other schools, but my kid goes to Ted or my kids go to Ted.
So that's who I know who has been coordinating CLC for like ever.
We have people already in the district also who have just such like depth of
knowledge and community connections who've been doing things like the CLC
programming already.
I know like way back in 2017, 2018, we used to have like a CLC coordinator.
I'm not, I'm not an administrator.
I don't want to make recommendations about what is or isn't wise like
organizationally or for the structure of admin.
But we already have people in the district who kind of know this.
So like in, in the meantime, you know, like in the short term,
maybe convening those folks together to say like, what are our next best steps?
I think would be awesome.
And I think that also works in tandem with kind of like what we were talking
about earlier with fund 80 about having administration plus whoever else
they do necessary meet with all of these local agencies, right?
To kind of make that larger community plan.
So I'm just wondering if these things can segue together,
but I just, I guess I wanted to just express appreciation for the vision that
Dan's share, Dan grads is sharing with us.
And I'm just like really in support of kind of that assets based community
development, like keep the stuff you have, like work with what you have and just like
restructure it in a way that like achieves the vision that we need,
given the scarcity of the situation that we currently have.
Thank you.
Director, I would.
So it looks like one of the recommendations that Mr.
grads has is adding a position of an associate director of athletics,
activities and community, which would come in and he's got the price take there
somewhere.
I'm just trying to find it right now.
Is that something that can be covered under fund 80 can can staff positions be
covered under fund 80?
So the recommendation or the rules from the DPI on fund 80 and staffing is that
you have to do a time and effort study for staffing.
Especially if they're going to be split.
If they were 100% in fund 80 and all of their duties were fund 80,
that's there's no question there, but a split would need like a time study to
prove that what they're doing is related to that fund 80 piece.
Okay.
Do any other board members have any other questions or comments?
Okay.
Carol.
Is there something that you need from us right away other than we think this is a
good plan and to go forward with it or do you need something more?
I guess is my question.
I mean, I think the biggest thing is I can't speak if we need a voter any on this.
I'm not sure of the protocol for that side, but more or less.
I want you all to be aware and nobody be blindsided when a community member
asks you are you here in the community that we're thinking about doing these
things and planning really planning to do these things.
And, you know, we're doing that.
So I do feel like we need some sort of a blessing at least from you all to the
lack of a better phrase, but I don't know what that looks like.
Well, what I would like to see.
We can have put this on two next Tuesday's agenda as motion.
So if we could get some clarity on what the athletic budget discussion needs.
So the $100,000 to the athletic budget so that all current athletic teams can
operate in the 20 at the 2526 level.
Is Leah on.
Or director Elwood.
If we could get some clarification.
Okay.
On what that is.
And then the other question was, or does the board want to have the administration
work with Dan grads to reduce our current athletic offerings so that it can operate
under the budget levels established for the 25 and the future years.
So.
If we do the.
Co-op community approach, that sounds like a really.
Good first step to start exploring and seeing what we can do,
seeing how much we can influence we can get.
But we still have this budget issues that we're still looking at and having to
deal with for this year and next year.
So I guess I would like this fleshed out a little bit better.
So I have a better understanding and I appreciate that.
Mr. grads put this together and.
At last minute.
I think we need time to digest it.
Unless any board members have any other suggestions at this moment.
Brian.
I would agree.
I think we need some more time to.
To peruse over this and study a little bit and give us some.
Give us some in depth, you know, a little more in depth thought.
So we'd be ready for Tuesday.
Thank you, Carol.
Yeah, I agree too.
And the way I read it, it is a way to cut the budget.
Budget somewhat by moving funds around.
So it does need to be framed as that. Correct.
Yes, that's correct. Yeah.
The goal is to try not to ask the district for the money that, you know,
the hundred thousand overage.
This presentation was given last year as a way to.
You know, to figure out how can we create more money within the district and
allocate funds to cover necessary.
Increases that we're seeing at the high school kind of, you know,
having foresight to be where we're at right now, unfortunately.
So I think, yeah, this is, this is absolutely the, the, the plan that I think we need to.
Exhaust first and foremost. And if this isn't the answer, then.
Go back to the drawing board.
Yeah, I have a question.
Sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Megan.
Joanne.
No, you know, I lowered my hand because I want to let other people go first.
Is that okay? Oh, okay.
My screen still has your hand up. Joanne.
So Dan grads, I think.
So is there a way for us to.
This, this should help create.
Revenue, right?
Eventually, like renting out facilities, things like that.
Is that part of the paperwork that we have or.
No, no revenue projections are built in. I think it can.
Part of one of the policy pieces that we have right now is nonprofits.
Essentially, those fees are waived.
Minus costs to the district.
So a lot of the groups that are renting right now are nonprofits or,
or community partners.
So the answer, yes, it absolutely can.
As an example, we have table tennis nationals coming up.
That was recruited, I guess, by city visible.
And that is an opportunity to generate revenue.
Not necessarily from the rental fees.
I think it does a little bit, but from other avenues of generation,
if we run concessions or we run, you know, admissions or parking or things like that there.
So there's both directed indirect ways to generate revenue through facilities,
rentals.
And I think we are, we definitely need to lean in.
Thank you so much.
I wasn't even thinking about concessions and stuff like that. So, yeah. Okay. Thanks.
Tom.
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ross. You made a comment back in the board meeting.
We talked about collaborations.
And you made a comment and you said, well,
the resume is much interest as you thought there would or they go off the table.
Could you clarify that?
No, I don't think maybe I misspoke. I think there is interest.
I think the pace is which we would have to get those things done is, you know,
going to be, it may turn some people away.
I think exploring co-ops for the spring of 27 has to be done by May 1st.
But if we can explore co-ops holistically for the future, it may not help.
You know, we've, this is a tale of two budgets.
It may not help us in the 26, 27 budget, but it will definitely help us in the future.
And so I think, you know, this, this is more of a both short and long-term conversation.
I'll do my best in the next 16 days to try to facilitate co-ops with other schools.
I do, you know, to be transparent. I have a hesitancy to do it with certain schools,
because one of the reasons that people may come to Floyd Memorial or to the school
because we have things that other schools may not offer.
However, I have to see it from both sides of protecting our programs and trying to reduce the budget, right?
So it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a whole 10,000 foot view picture.
Answer your question. I think we can definitely start that process now,
but it's a process for the 26, 27 and 27, 28 year.
Okay. Thank you. I was just wondering if something happened since we didn't,
because the board has an act and in the last month or two that put you behind the eight ball more than you already are.
But you answered my question. Thank you.
Joanne.
Oh, I was reminded Pia of your comment earlier about policy.
Is this something where we should be have a policy eventually so that it's not this laborious process over and over if we have something with athletics and fund 80?
Yes, we should, we should definitely look at our policies and see what would have to change there and rely on Stephanie and our district administrators to help guide us what, what needs to be done.
Stephanie still on.
Yep, I'm still on.
Yep. Yep. Do you know in terms of moving to co-ops model?
Is there much in terms of policies or in the physical management series that would need to be changed?
So that is, and that is for co-ops goal. I'm pretty sure there's no word policy on the co-op.
Well, I don't know. Dan, did you look to see if there was anything on the co-ops for board policy?
I did not. We do have existing co-ops and I apologize if I start breaking in and out here.
We have existing co-ops already in hockey and so I don't believe we have anything in terms of board policy.
I just have practice in place and kind of the WA dictates how co-ops are managed by member schools.
Megan.
Thank you so much. Okay, so this has been a really great discussion and I'm hearing a theme or maybe like just a pattern of like community partnership and outreach.
I really like Carol in your original document, how you identified and made a recommendation for the need for a finance committee that's not a function of the board.
What I'm wondering is, would it make sense? And I don't know if it will or not. So I'm asking, maybe this is just something to sit with and think about for another, you know, for Tuesday or whatever, but would it make sense for us to help?
Because I don't want Dan to be at an island. I don't want, you know, Stephanie, I don't want anybody to be at an island trying to solve all the world's problems.
Would it be wise to also kind of put together like a community engagement and partnership piece.
And my reason for that, I want to make sure that this isn't going to like create work.
I'm just hoping like it seems like we're all spinning our wheels in a similar direction and it seems like almost everything we've talked about almost every single topic.
There's a component where either in the short and or the long term, there's going to be an efficiency, a cost savings and ultimately a benefit to kids if we partner and do things, you know, or in.
Yeah, just in relationship with the community, maybe in creative ways that we've never had to fully do before, or we just like done to some extent.
So I'm just like kind of putting that out there as a yes, we need to like have this high functioning like focused, you know, narrow scope group to look at finance.
It seems like we also need something like that for community partnerships.
That might also kind of segue or touch into like one of those other topics of discussion that Dr. Malat talked about earlier, which is like that communications person piece like maybe we'll get some clarity about some of these things, those specifics that we're looking for.
If we kind of have a meeting of the minds through that lens.
Anyone else?
Okay.
Vacant properties. Does anyone have any strong feelings on vacant properties?
I'd just like to weigh in on one, not vacant property. So maybe it's after this topic.
Okay, Brian.
Well, you know, I think we've got these properties. There's no reason to keep them.
I mean, again, I don't know exactly where all of them are except the one.
But I, you know, why, why hold on to stuff. I don't know how long we've had them. I mean, you know, we had, we had the, we had the two schools on the West side.
Well, then one school that we just got rid of after all took almost three years. So I don't think we need to hang on to under vacant property for another year or two or three, as well.
Okay.
Does anyone, does anyone disagree that we shouldn't Carol?
I don't disagree, you know, but I think, you know, I think would be who was to have like Marquette put together a little packet of what the properties are where they are, what they're worth. You know, we got a little bit of that, but I don't.
I mean, I can't even picture where some of those properties are. And a lot of them are worth a whole lot. It didn't sound like so.
And there might be some that looked like there was one they were talking about is actually adjacent to the high school that maybe we don't want to get rid of. So I think we need to look at the whole package before, you know, you know, certainly we can probably get rid of most of them, but maybe we don't want to get rid of all of them.
Okay. Can I weigh in real quick? Sure.
Carol, yes, I do. I do have my Marquette got me a compilation of all what you're talking about. It's like it's half thick of our properties that we own with all the abstract numbers in it.
But going back to what you said.
So we do have that information. I'll share with you once I make copies.
Once I buy a direct machine to do it. But anyway, I'm just a firm believer that the property we own, you know, around our campus, which is the high school.
We should not get rid of the vacant the land to be that could be our central hub on our campus as it is in the future. But that's just my two cents.
But anyways, I'll get you, I'll get all the board members a copy of all the properties of the district owns.
And I'll get it to all you guys. Thank you.
Tom, do you know if he has it electronically?
Well, he may have said it that way, but he hard copied it to me.
And then he left town. He says they get right now, but he gave, he left me a copy, except for 21. And that's a good.
It's an interesting thing. So anyway, I will, I'll get it to you.
Then you can disseminate it.
Okay, I'll ask Michelle to scan it and get it to all board members.
Okay, so.
It sounds like nobody is strongly opposed to selling properties and we will.
Give administration the nod to move forward with getting together this packet for us to know and move forward from there.
Fund 80.
Oh, wait a minute.
One of the things that I just noticed the last bullet point.
Thank you.
Mike Marquette as the listing agent, we will need to enter into a formal agreement with Mr. Marquette.
Megan Miller.
Thank you so much. Yeah, actually. So I had my hand raised for the fund 80 thing, but since you wrote it, Mr. Marquettes piece for President Johnson, I just want to make sure that, you know, we're being compliant with like our RFP policy and I appreciate all the work that my
Marquettes done.
I just like it before we bring that forward. I just want to make sure.
I guess I just want to look into whether or not we would have to put out a formal RFP if like, this is like, since this would be a new project.
So I'll just just throw that off for discussion, maybe for next time, but regarding fund 80.
Briefly, again, I really think that this, like, I think I'm hearing from people, you know, one of seven.
We like the idea of community partnerships. We like the idea of using this strategically in a way that is going to benefit not just our own kids and SDB, but all of our kids in Beloit.
I really think I would just like to hear more and it absolutely doesn't, I don't want to put any getting in the spot tonight, but happy to listen, but maybe at a future meeting if the administration wants to kind of think about like, what will best work for them and how can we best support as a board like the work that we're asking them to do.
Like, if there needs to be like some sort of like committee structure or, or like, whatever thing in place that will make that work so that we can work smarter, not harder, I guess, to identify all those relationships that we currently haven't had to capitalize and engaging future ones.
Oh, I'm sorry. Carol, and then Tom, and I'm going to make my kids in the next room to turn the TV down.
I think I said it earlier.
The gentleman that presented the boys and girls club said he had a plan that he presented. It'd be nice to see that plan.
You know, I, I'm all for working with boys and girls club if we can.
So, you know, we need to see the plan and move forward from there.
Tom.
Oh, yes.
Just a comment on that.
No, yes.
I did see the plan and he actually presented to Dr. Garrison.
And I don't want to go back to that, but there was a plan and he's, he's crossed his teeth and down his eyes.
But going into fund 80, it really intrigued me about funding.
I, I, I attended to a seminar or whatever you call them.
Have to take a venture in January on fund 80.
And it really is how you can't use it.
I mean, there's so many reasons I think we could use it.
I thought CrossFit guards would be.
No, I mean, there's so many rules and restrictions on how you can't use it.
But it is an interesting topic.
And I got a lot of literature on it, but I do agree that it should be explored to the fullest.
Just like fund 50. Thank you.
Any other board members?
Dan, are you still on?
Yeah, I'm here.
Okay. Would you, I'm sorry, I forgot to touch back in with you.
Did you have any thoughts on your comments on any of the bullet items we've touched on so far?
Well, first of all, just, I'll just make some broad comments and not take up too much time late at night here.
So first of all, thank you to Tia and to Michelle and everyone that invited the candidates.
In the last couple of weeks, if you've had workshops and then in this overlap period for Bill and I to be invited to be here.
So really appreciate that. It's going to really help me hit the ground running when I'm sworn in in a couple of weeks here.
My broad comments will just take 30 seconds or a minute would be that I'm.
When a comprehensive both this year budget next to your budget, you know, tie in the idea of a possible referendum.
When Dr Anderson and Dr Molot and the entire team are putting these things together.
I really want to make sure an option is there, which is.
What I call stability moving towards growth option because I've listened to this group and I've been on the campaign trail with others.
I'm hearing about the challenges we have.
But as I said in a, in a events was, you know, we can't, we're not going to cut our way to prosperity.
We have to start thinking about what a high functioning high quality district like we have, you know, for the number of years.
How do we grow, you know, how do we tell our story?
How do we tell the story that's going on with our professional educators?
And, you know, that's something for me in my background.
I'm going to want to hear from the professionals that work at central office and that work in the buildings to collectively come up with a plan.
I don't know exactly how that fits in with everything that's been said tonight.
But I'm hopeful that there's an option there alongside all the difficult choices you've all had to wrestle with about what does growth look like?
What would, you know, the things we would need to do to really put stability underneath us and then move towards growth.
That's really all I have.
Thank you, Dan. I appreciate that.
The next legal point or bullet point was legal counsel.
And it sounds like everybody is.
Or leaning towards exploring this option.
Is there anyone with any strong feelings one way or the other?
Well, I have, Tom, he can say definitely be. I know that even Dr. Harrison said that our legal for both highest paid.
Person in the district. And yes.
We do need to look at that and also transportation, but I know that that's coming down with.
That's going on wide. But yes, we need to look at it. Thank you.
Okay, I will let them know to.
Continue moving forward with that.
Communications director does the board want to restore or create a new position to deal with district communications.
Any thoughts.
Carol.
I'm going to go back to what I said before. I need to see that as part of a broader plan.
We need to have an idea of what Colax going to look like, what we want to do with the positions there.
We may need to be beating up our HR department or our finance department before we decide we need to do something for communication.
You know, we talked, we just were talking about a community person. Maybe we want to do a community liaison person.
In conjunction with the sports person or something, you know, there's other options of things that we could do.
It's not that we can't do that, but I'd like to see it in the broader context of.
What we need central office to be doing and what central office should look like.
Thank you, Carol. I mean, Joanne.
Yeah, I just lost my thought. Hold on a second.
Okay, here it is.
We need to come up with a plan for communications, regardless on.
Like, whether it's a person or we have a plan within our buildings because right now.
Or even just communicating better with the boy daily news.
But I don't know that that's really well read anymore.
We don't have.
We don't have control on the narrative that goes out into our community right now.
And I think that is one of our biggest problems.
And so.
I don't.
I don't really want to spend more money, but I think this is an area where we probably do need to.
I don't think we need like someone at a higher level. There's a lot of kids coming out of college that with marketing degrees that.
This would be a great.
Opportunity for someone like that.
Or maybe even an internship like.
Through UW Madison or something. I don't know.
Ideas.
Okay, thank you. Go in. Anyone else.
Okay, so this.
This sounds like another one.
Leah, if you're still on.
If we could get some more information.
You know, before we before the board.
Does anything with this? How does it fit into the bigger plan?
Okay, we will work on that.
And open funds.
Does the board want administration to use open funds to help balance any projected shortfall for 2627.
Or does it want to retain these funds to help alleviate projected shortfalls for the following year.
Joanne.
Oh, my hand was still up from before. I just.
My thing is.
I don't want kids to get hurt in the process. So.
If we need, I mean, we're not using it for what we put it in the bank account for.
I understand it's money that saves us in.
In dire straits. I think we're in dire straits though. And so.
Like when, when we're looking at things that are going to directly affect children, I think we do need to consider it.
Megan.
Thank you so much. I'm going to echo what Mr said. I would say that the goal should be not to use old pub and fund balance.
We know that in reality, so I mean, I think if we're thinking about how we prioritize and like decision making criteria.
Yes, the goal should be not to use old pub and not to use fund balance.
When push comes to shove, like, I'm not if I have money in the bank here, like I was.
Oh, the spirit of it. If I have money in the bank and I have a hungry child in front of me, and I know I should save that money, but my eight year old needs to eat.
I'm feeding my eight year old and we have we are elected to.
To serve the community.
To support the education of our students. And so while, yes, it's going to hurt.
This is going to hurt kids. Like, I just, I want to be clear that I am clear on that.
We have to decide at what point are we unable to accept the harm that will come to students if we don't use the old pub funding.
And so I think kind of to the point that Carol has made quite a bit this evening.
We have to see that just the more filled in picture of how all of these things will work together to know if and when to kind of hit the old pub button.
I think you still want more information. And, and I think, Miss Elwood is going to do a wonderful job, you know, and I think she already gave us a really great framework tonight.
And I think we'll get more information about when is if we are in that situation, when is it better to go Oh, pet versus fun 10, because we do want to consider like the funding model impact tax impact, et cetera.
Carol.
I guess I'm really echoing that. It's just, you know, my, my feeling is no, but oh, but if necessary.
Some, I, you know, once we have the full flesh out picture of what we can do without, you know, if it comes to really, like Megan was saying, really causing serious serious harm.
And we may need to use that, but we got to have the plan first before we can decide how much or if any of that we want to use.
Okay.
Leah, did you have any other things you wanted the board to discuss regarding the budget or stepping? Did you have anything else you wanted us to.
Um, I'm all over tonight.
Oh, sorry, my dog was barking. He's not happy. Um, no, I think the clarity is a little bit better. So we will get started. I'm not that sorry.
Okay.
Stephanie, are you still with us?
Yep, I'm here.
And I, I'll just repeat what Leah saw that. Yes, we need to.
We have some work ahead of us and we need to do some more conversations with, with principals about our organization and our staffing plan.
Okay.
Well, it doesn't look like we have a closed session link for tonight and we were not expecting the storm. So if there are no objections, I would like to postpone the next item until next.
Board meeting.
Yeah.
Can I say something before we go with.
Well, we don't, we don't have a closed session link. So I'm not going to postpone this. Oh, you still have a budget discussion. Yes. Okay, go ahead.
I just want to be clear.
So we want, I want, I mean, I is one, just want to get through what administration wanted us to do tonight to get through these bullet points.
So what I'm hearing is there's administration have a clear nod that they go ahead and go with recommendations that they made.
Is that correct or incorrect?
Well, they didn't make recommendations. They gave us two options.
So, if you look at the bullet points, well, a lot of these options, we actually need more information.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Okay. So for the, any other budget comments.
Okay. For the closed session, does anybody objective with postponeness.
Megan.
I was just going to move to adjourn. Okay.
Thank you.
So we have a motion to adjourn at 836. Is there a second?
I'll second.
Second by Joanne rule. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Everybody. Have a good night.
Thank you. Thank you so much.