City Council/School Board Joint Budget Work Session   2/10/2025

I'm about to get up and watch this.

How are you?

I sat over at this.

Start throwing elbows at me.

Good evening, everyone.

We can call the roll please for school board first.

Here.

Mr. Moore.

Here.

Yes.

And Mr. Wade, are you guys going to?

So thank you.

I will kick it over to you for our presentation of our budget.

And you see that amount here.

Is that item going to be an ongoing expense going forward?

Well, the number is lower and that, where's Pat?

Then there's additional hardware that could be put into a budgetary life cycle.

Is that what that item is in?

No, I believe that is just a loss of student tuition.

Is that an ongoing expense to be expected?

You know, it could be a little bit more impactful if we can think about how to increase the dollar for the ongoing modernization.

Can I ask a quick question?

Sure.

What does that mean?

So essentially these rooms, each one of those spaces are being divided into like four areas so that they can isolate from one another and provide better supports to our students.

Private meeting with the teacher.

Yeah, so I mean, we're talking about spaces that would hold about three to four students, five to six students.

So what does that mean?

But yes, so we've done, they had some very dated, very dated windows over at Summit.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

What's the situation with that?

So the boosters, the Black Knight Club, Athletic Club, Black Knight Athletic Club, yes, they did raise some money for the Lights Project.

The Perry Foundation is also matching what the Athletic Club was able to raise as well.

And how much was the athletic club able to raise, you know?

Or the total?

It's the total.

This is our surplus, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that we've had to allocate and dedicate to spend on these things, which I would say, at least for the CHA's track and field facility, again, this is something that the whole community benefits from, correct?

That's why I was asking.

I mean, we'd love for the city to take some money out of its CIP to cover it and then we can have that money back in our reserve.

I'd be curious to get an answer to my original question, which was how much the boosters agree.

I think there just continues to be question about where money is allocated and then where money is used.

And I think that having someone who can manage these projects and maybe be on the city side and also being able to work very closely with you all on the school side and then on the city side would be equally as helpful and help to just continue to move some of these projects along.

So the delay of project management, probably another $50 grant.

Yep, NK Tech.

The items that are here, the priority projects, lighting?

No.

When was the safety audit done?

October.

I see.

Yeah.

That's reflected in these numbers here, I guess.

I think both sides were heard and you see there the ask is reflected here.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Yes.

Yes.

So yes, it just continues to not work in our favor.

Is this the last year where things are going to be?

It'll be recalculated.

It'll be benchmarked in 2026.

We don't know how or else, yeah.

We just don't know whether we don't know whether, you know, it'll be to our favor or not.

Okay.

Yeah.

And we find that out soon.

The next budget in the fall.

Okay, thanks.

But I think I want to be able to make sure that we all can kind of set ourselves around the idea of what this information says to us because it really comes back to what are the questions that we need to ask ourselves and what are the hard decisions that need to be made.

So in the blue at the bottom.

Sure.

Does that mean that essentially every year looking at we contributed more than the 40% in almost every year we have.

Yes, sir.

So the line that said annual change underneath the budget is what we ended up actually contributing.

And then in the blue here, what we did was instead of looking at the budget, we actually took the annual actual revenues that were collected in that year.

The funding formula is in ordinance, or it is, again, just like the agreement that has been in place, again, for decades that we don't really know, remember why it was like that.

So my knowledge, it's, to my knowledge, it is an agreement between the school board and council.

Somewhere?

Or is it, I mean, maybe?

It's kind of the rule of thumb that everybody liked to point to and we would again.

So we're in the land of practice, and I am telling you, we should not stay there.

So overall, over this time span, looking at both the formula using actual revenues versus the formula using the budgeted revenues, the school board came out just under $9.5 million better off by using the formula on the budget versus the annual collections.

So any questions on anything that you've seen from what we just discussed?

Sam, the number that they've given tonight, your thinking fits within those calculations.

But the goal that I have set is that we will close this budget gap by Friday of this week.

Okay, and then the addition to the priority projects, the $250,000 in the CIP, are you still thinking through that?

But we have looked at both and I have considered increasing both.

Now, I'm assuming this new list that they've come up with the audit for security is not factored in anywhere.

But I'll say that at this time those would be new things and that would cause the budget gap to go in the wrong direction for us to be able to work those in right now.

But as we talk about the 40% formula, if we were sticking to that, the new dollars to schools would be $3.4 million as compared to the $4.9 million ask that we're working with.

Is that an erroneous thought?

I would argue

So if you would speak to that, I'd love to hear that too.

They picked up some things we already knew about and some that we didn't.

Yeah, I think that would be important to hear so that then we could consider how to deliver.

where the demands that are being made of our teachers and our schools are significantly more extensive and more expensive than they might have been in years prior.

Okay.

So however we need to shore up that communication,

I think it was for a new position or something.

We would see the benefit of like having something similar where someone's shoring the facilities part.

the agreement that we have with the city now for that, those services.

I mean, it didn't change our transportation agreement other than now we're not paying for that salary.

Well, it all helped offset some of the work and things that Mike and his credit.

Right.

Yeah, what was on the bubble?

We've got some of those in the budget, but I think his team has put together a budget that doesn't have fluff in it that is going to meet the needs of our students.

Thank you.

It really wasn't a question, but thank you again for what you brought to us tonight.

It is cold right here.

I wonder why you moved.

More money for the HVAC system.

I assume we can't get Michael in.

Councillor Payne.

Yes, can you hear me?

Councillor Payne.

Can you hear me?

Any other questions?

But just saying.

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Have you gotten that far in thinking through

I think we just need to wrestle with some of this and conclude whatever we do.

So this is very helpful for us.

We just need to do the work.

Okay.

Are you guys able to hear me over there?

How about now?

Yes, we can hear you.

I've been a part of some of the other budget discussion.

Miss Gilkin is offered to call and put him on speakerphone.

Sorry, still not able to be heard.

Okay.

We've all received that and it will be part of public comment as well.

So thank you very much.

And with that, we are adjourned.