School Board Budget Work Session   1/18/2024

Mrs. Burns?

Here.

Mrs. Cooper?

Here.

Ms.

Dooley?

Here.

Mr. Morris?

Here.

Mrs. Richardson?

Here.

Ms.

All right, good afternoon.

No one can hear me okay.

And so just want to welcome everybody here and those who are joining us this afternoon from the community and media.

We are going to go through our, we're going to meticulously guide you this afternoon through our budget development session.

What I would encourage you all, this is a work session, so this, do not hold your questions to the end.

As we go through the presentation, if you have questions, feel free to ask those questions.

Because there are some things that are changing that look a lot different this school year.

Those assembled on this side, this is going to be a tag team, so we will sign some slides as we go through.

And again, just feel free to ask those questions as we go along.

So if you can recall earlier in this in this school year, we did the exercise of identifying the full-time budget priorities.

So in the green down at the bottom, what you'll see identified are those priorities for the 24-25 budget cycle.

Additionally, what you see above that are our strategic plan goals.

And so what we have done is we have categorized those priorities in relation to the strategic plan.

We've done a lot of work, a lot of good work with the strategic plan.

And so we want to make sure that everything that we do, that there's a strong correlation.

So you'll see those requests

And these are needs-based requests as we're building a needs-based budget.

And they correlate directly to the strategic plan.

And so that's presented there.

The next slide.

I just want to remind people, I know we have many board members, but we, for the second year, we have received the Meritorious Budget Award for our budget.

And so just wanted to highlight the good work that has happened with our school finance team.

And I'm going to turn it over to Ms.

Kimbell.

So I'm going to talk with you all about demographics and enrollment, which both are significant drivers in our

So in the top, the table there on the top left is showing the projected enrollment increases for regular education.

For this purpose, regular refers to the projection of students that have less than 50% special services.

So zero up to or just under 50% special services, because once you get above 50% or more, then you're getting done into just traditional classroom teacher resources.

are requested based on those things.

So that's what regular means.

We're not going to the next slide yet.

I'll just let you know in more detail on the next slide.

But to summarize, most of our K4 grades in every elementary school have three classes.

That's our norm.

There are a few exceptions where you'll have small cohorts going through and you'll see some grade levels that have two classrooms or classroom teachers.

And then on the other side of that, occasionally we'll have

and classroom teachers.

Now both Littable and Burley Moran have small, have two small class cohorts that are leaving, the fourth grade cohorts that are small and are moving out this year.

So fundamentally, unless we assume abnormally low kindergarten classes coming into those two schools, right off the jump, there's a need for two additional K-4 teachers.

And we'll talk more about this on the next slide as well.

But at this point, we think Venable is not very likely at all.

They will have a significant dip in their cable.

That just does not seem likely at all.

Verlinden has been a little bit harder to predict in recent years because of the shift with the party drive community going over to Venable.

Other factors we're looking at is Greenbriar,

They have been in a bit of an enrollment decline for the past couple of years.

And at the same time that that's happening, we are bracing to manage the growth that we're expecting to see come forward at Jackson, Byatt, and Clark based on the current zoning for those elementary schools.

And that's largely based on predictions for when net additions to the affordable housing units come online in those existing school levels.

Johnson's been run to the Senate.

So the shifting dynamics driven by housing and zoning changes in that city

are requiring us to take a hard look at the elementary school zones next year.

Ms.

Well, not for next year, so I'm just going to talk some... I'm just like, so there's fourth grade, that cohort's small, so you're saying that you were doing that for students at Walker.

Right, so when you look at enrollment at Walker, which is its own fun thing to predict, we've had it in the past, major exits of students that, where families make different choices for Walker and Buford and then they reappear at CHS.

So we watch what we call cohort survival in that process.

And on one of the budget explanation sheets for enrollment, we use multiple linear regression models where we weight different factors.

Basically, I play with the weights.

There's a whole string of these for every school that I've used.

We look at it anywhere from five to 10 years of history, coupled with

put different weights on those to look at different scenarios for projections.

Based on all the models that were run for Walker, and those models do consider the ramp that some families used to take, we don't see a decline at Walker.

And that does take, that is substantial enough where we could remove staff.

Yes, there are two, I mean, this is not a new phenomenon that we have.

or whatever going on that are smaller.

But all I can tell you is that in the aggregate and we can do a whole session on it.

There wasn't enough of a loss to look at for the staff.

That's not to say it couldn't happen because that would be some of the choices families make.

And I think the part you also have to take into consideration too, and that's one of the factors, is that when you, because those two schools have a little bit of a smaller fourth grade, when you divide the number of teachers that are still required,

Some of those pockets are enough still to make a class, to make a class.

So you could certainly, if you cut a teacher, that would then increase the class sizes here at Walker.

And that is another factor.

We've also seen requests through the level of need.

They're being large in class sizes.

We go against the trend, against the sphere that they've made for the requests that they're leaving in their summer.

But great question.

So continuing on with this slide, Dr. Ebony is going to take you into some great details about our adult population and the role that that plays in all of this.

Because not only does the telling people about the impact on you for specialty resources, adult teachers, it also has impacted the class sizes, the regular class sizes.

So if you're moving past elementary, which we'll talk about just a little bit more on the next slide.

Hold on a second, Leslie.

On the bottom there,

When it comes to CHS, it's a little bit different in that it really, when you move past elementary, it's not just the student population that's driving it, but it's also the mastership that is driving what it's going to do as far as staffing.

So those are two things that we looked at together.

And current enrollments coupled with demands for extra sections are indicating that additional teachers are needed to support the English department and the social studies department for next year in order to allow

Flexibility to accommodate various student needs, interests, and expanding course offerings, and just making sure that the class sizes don't get too high.

Sorry, I know that was a lot on that one slide.

Please flag me if you have questions.

Sorry, I know this is a lot on one slide, and that's a lot of kind of influential on slides.

But one in charge is going to be on one page, every page for school,

and it shows the top section is like where they are now based on their fall teachers, fall enrollments, official fall enrollments back in September and their class sizes.

And then you see the F125 projection that we're using for purposes of staffing.

Unfortunately, the students don't show up in nice packages that line up with our, in the neighborhoods that line up with our target class sizes.

So there is a little bit of an arc.

In gray, I didn't go ahead and highlight where we have those smaller cohorts swimming out.

And again, unless we're going to just assume that we can bank on those small cohorts moving in for kindergarten, which could happen, or we could have cohort loss in the other gray levels.

It's just hard at this point to say we wouldn't need two additional elementary teachers.

Given birth rate trends in Charlottesville since pre-pandemic, we may not actually see a net increase in K enrollment.

A lot is really going to depend for next year on how the L student population moves and how we see those net additions of 4,000.

Again, within the 10 to 10 miles, it's really hard to get the students to land where they need to to target class sizes.

Our current EDOs came through class size targets range from 19 up to 24.

And that's for grades K through 3 and that's specified by the Department of Education.

The differences, school to school, depend on the disadvantaged population percentage.

And of course, just like everything else in the area, it's always looking in the readers.

So don't be surprised if you see some of those numbers shift.

But that's the range we're working in.

And we do have to just really monitor

both kindergarten enrollments starting in the spring and then into the early summer we have to look at registrations and enrollments to make decisions as soon as we can to determine if teachers have to be reassigned in the buildings or if a scenario is reassigned at the fall semester.

That's just the way we have to manage it with options for the next slide.

So now we'll take a peek at demographics and race.

And this is a set of charts in a series of longitudinal data that's been maintained since 2008 and 2008 in Charlottesville.

It's an interesting set of longitudinal data.

These snapshots from the end of 2003.

So this is the official gene numbers, is what this chart looks like, that are reported in the EOB.

It's from 2003, 2013, and 2013.

and you can see that we remain a very diverse school system.

There is, there was a very significant change that continues to impact and somewhat complicate looking at the state of the longitude of fashion.

And that is around, it started in 1997 when the initial guidance came out in 2000, the states had some place of building in 2010.

That's how they implemented it.

The federal government changed race and ethnicity reporting for what they call single race and ethnicity reporting where you had Asian, white, black.

and you self-identify as one, which everyone's closely identified with.

Over since 2000, they went to multiple reporting so you can pick multiples and the number of options has expanded exponentially.

So, whereas when you look at the really old charts from back in the 90s, it was kind of like black and white, you know, many, many years.

And then now you see those who identify just as white, they're reflected in the blue,

those who identify only as Black, African American, Orange, and then that mixed group is what you're scrolling.

And so it's just an interesting dynamic for anyone who's been watching this data for a lot of years.

That's what's going on there, but it's not like it's exactly the same data set.

The next slide, this is the last one that I have for you, is about our disadvantaged population.

And disadvantaged is identified

not by us.

It's related to the family and how they're tapped into other programs like TANF, different programs that would be on individual forms.

But it's not something that we can describe.

It comes in through data that's shared with us through state agencies.

But the pie charts on the top look at the percentages of our overall disadvantaged student population in relation to those same three races and ethnicity categories of white, black,

and then the bar charts at the bottom.

So the top is like of our disadvantaged population, what groups of students make that up?

The bottom set of bar charts ask the question of within this group of students, how many are classified or identified as disadvantaged?

And you'll see that our black students continue to have the highest percentage of having that disadvantaged status.

and students identified as disadvantaged content always have been over 50% for Charlottesville City and for the year 2020-2023.

Kim, thanks for that.

Just 50% of our student population was disadvantaged as a community.

In the last school year.

Right.

10 years ago, similar amount, less?

Yeah.

It's always, since this is a pretty stable number.

I've never been to a year we've ever been under 50.

During the pandemic, we lived up.

We saw a lot more white students were identified as disadvantaged during the pandemic.

But what I'm seeing this year is it's shifted back.

And I think, again, I guess I had to do the things that are applying for student benefits.

The pandemic whacked our own money, whacked our data for a year or two there.

But now it looks very normal, and it's always been over 50%, but we have not even achieved during the pandemic.

I'm going to move on to the next slide and take a look at our students who are working with us.

How we're going to discharge the experience of that enrollment is continuing.

How we need to look at where we are today with our students' arrangements as compared to where we were in the pandemic.

We typically report the enrollment numbers

Faisi in the fall and in the spring.

In the fall, we had September 30th.

In the spring, March 30th.

But you'll see here that we did add an extra data point for you to show where we are right now in the winter.

So with a big number, almost every year, 747 students that are English learners.

continually willing.

Next slide please.

So here you see just another way to look at the growth from that previous slide.

Our population of our students that are English learners is changing rapidly.

Since the pandemic, like I said before, in this year, we see even a sharp increase right there with additional 47

students from and evolved to the future.

Is there ever, is there ever a new community that can support therapy?

I don't know if there's a map.

I mean, they're probably... Well, you know, there's different parts of the country, probably the source.

I can start thinking about one of my experience.

We've been interested in the Catholic community, some of them Catholic charity, and so they brought in the refugees, and so they just looked to see where Americans

and then we've been provided opportunities for consulting in places and educational opportunities.

So it's our job to work with them as a teacher.

We know that we've received our families, our students, and we've been willing to ask for their staff and support.

So we'll go on to the next slide, which is the projection slide.

We look at the projections for our students' food articles.

You can see that we are projecting that 800 people have worked on students' food articles.

It's a wonderful year for us because it's enhanced by diversity.

Students learn from each other.

We love having a diverse community.

And it creates the challenges that we face.

And so we want to make sure that we adapt properly and provide the appropriate supports of our students and for their families.

Dr. Ernie, are these additional students to our total population or is the

But is that like 100 more students than we have enrolled in the division?

It looks like 75 to 80% of our enrollment is English.

And Mr. Meyer, one of the things that we talked about, and I know I said this during the last budget cycle,

You know, it's one thing when we have someone that's moving from another district and we're talking about a teacher, but when we're talking about our English learners, we're talking about two teachers because we're talking about they need their general education supports.

And they also, not always, because sometimes students come to us with language, but a lot of times, many of these are level one students.

So, I mean, it's double the expense for one student, which is a- It speaks like historically, the students that are coming that are receiving English language services, particularly those that are at a lower level, five,

Sometimes that is the case.

It is not always the case.

That is the case.

Albemarle, they are not literate in their home language, and their families are not literate in their home language.

And so it's arguing to support that.

It's thinking they're not, like, free.

So practices for them would be to reflect their legal purposes as well as how they would like to act and be conducted.

So we work very closely with Dr. Kopp, you know, he put both of us together on helping to use different shapes between a language difference and a learning condition.

And if we mix academic language with these two things, we are much more of a princess than a human being.

That would be a very specific identification though.

We certainly get high schoolers that are our level one students that come and we get the impact.

Often our students, they come as a level one student, they grow, they grow sponges and they grow slowly, quickly.

And so, of course, you all know that Engineering Middle School is the major key to helping now in access testing that we're doing with our English learning determiners and it will be worked at that end to see college up to this point.

So, I would be curious to know, like, the key numbers, right?

With so many new developments, Charles Little, Bill Chen, my community in Portland, Adam,

How are these numbers factored in?

We're going to see all of the growth and developments, adding additional regions.

That's going to bring more people to the area.

I think that's the, we have been working very closely.

There was, I don't know if we said we weren't communicating well, but I think we had been left out a little bit.

So I know we've been working on typing that piece of communication so we can have a better understanding of this talk.

And we've been recently invited to some of the institutions.

So I have a monthly meeting now with neighborhood development services, which is helpful.

and also this CHRA or State Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area of the Area

for housing, which is an analysis that they do.

Well, Cooper is the branch in BBA that actually does enrollment projects for the whole state for all of us.

And so the yield rates, I think it's characterized by single-family homes, townhomes, and apartments.

And so what that enables us to do is say if x number of apartments are coming or more, so we can attack use issues, yield rates.

to kind of help us project how many students we might expect to show at our door based on the division of where it's coming along.

Where we've been now with Kenwood and South Brook Street, we don't have a significant net increase yet because they closed section, they closed all the buildings, so it's only with all, it won't be at the very end, it's really most of the full effects until all the sections come along.

And even though

The kindergarten, the birth rates have been down from Charlottesville.

There is this anticipation of the poor poverty fluctuation that as soon as we connect the mission of the poor people to this, how will this happen?

That we will have more families come together.

That's why the well-owned people of course are coming over to the corridor, et cetera, shall allow more people to come to the corridor.

That's a great question.

We have to be as lateral with all of that.

Here you see how your current staff are learning themselves, which you're ready to show.

You'll see that what's available, that's for this year only.

That was added this year, so it's not already

The ratio of students to ESL teachers is there.

And as all of you know, we pride ourselves in keeping our ratio of students to teachers.

We have ESL in our region one.

The state says we have even one.

That's what any school division must do.

So we've done a great job

It really allows for our ASL teachers to hone in and focus in support of our students, which is why we also see lots of things.

Next slide.

So again, I just mentioned the data that the regulation 51

the problem of the work that we do to support our students who are English learners.

We're extremely fortunate to have increased our FTE.

Last year, we had about three, and our projections had indicated that we would need those additions that indicated based on those trends.

And so we do need to continue to add to the FTE staffing.

We're asking

Sorry, one last question on this.

It looks like it's about 20% of the students that are ELs are quoted in the population.

So let's call it 20%.

Of our bill?

Yeah.

How long have you been there?

It's like a 1.85 percent or so.

Yeah, 747.

It's a bit long.

So we're going to keep that position.

We need to make it into our next budget.

Yeah, so what we've done this last year when we met with them, we had the same conversation down here.

The same here.

And so I was, we were talking and I said, you know, if you're going to meet the standard, then it's 50 to one, and you're going to do a good job at it.

If you look at that slide, that's where our ratios are right now.

We're not even meeting the 30 to one that we

I think so, and I don't know what's been going on about this change.

Are we seeing improvements?

with the additional positions that are going to be already provided to the CFPLL?

They're actually submitting them.

Fine.

You guys have to sit in there.

And so are we getting a reasonable support for that investment?

And then what are we doing to provide ongoing professional development to our general education teachers who have these students in their classroom?

Like as opposed to the sign-off people teaching our teachers.

Well, I'm hearing a question.

I think that when we think about the material pieces, this is the most efficient way to do it.

I will tell you that when I was a principal, I became a sophomore trainer, and then I was trained two times.

So it's a way to do.

Of course, if we had a national trainer come to every school and train teacher, they wouldn't be different.

But this is a way that we can work in the community financially.

So are the students spending more time?

And so what I know is that when Dr. Bautz does her presentation and just thinking about some of her previous presentations and also what she can bring back too, I think she will show that the students are showing their growth and that's why I feel I can speak confidently too.

She always talks about our students when we get them sooner, see them exiting much quicker so we can make sure all the data, once we know the data, once you move.

Over time, they're at a point.

Anybody who has been now from that surface, from the lab, because we, while we're administering it now, we won't get results at the end of the school year or when.

Oh, the scores?

Ah, yes.

It's a lot.

But we've got to look at the last presentation.

We certainly have the results from last year.

There's a person who's making that decision.

Yeah, I don't think that's a normal person.

I'd like to talk about the resources of residents at the Clement E. DeSouza School District, the largest forest and city appropriation district in the city.

It's our primary source of revenue for our operations.

The safe revenue is the private market,

Hey real quick, that small little local amount there, what's included in that?

What's included in that is primary or non-residency and the money that we're taking in from local donations that is for our branch, our local program.

The next slide is our state providence.

As a person at the school board meeting, the council was released the day after the school board meeting and the overall attempt by the CDS law to bring the state providence.

Revenues, like at the beginning, where the LPI had quite a period in funding formula, we had a decrease of about 1.2%.

There are state revenues, like incentives, where revenues for programs are low, but are intended to be part of resources for the community.

Dooley, the two revenues that are $5.5 and $5.5 are $4.7 and $4.7.

And these revenues were eliminated more than for coming here.

So that was an impact of Albemarle

Next slide is the governor's point of discussion.

There were technical discussions that have been related to the funding formula, specifically on the GI Act and the APL.

The estimated preservations on the state's health tax was updated.

The Governor's budget for the second year of 2012 had a 1% non-bias payment.

There were SOQ funded, a lot of instructional and corporate positions.

And then the following fiscal year is the 1.6.

The salary increase for the SBCU is $24,000.

The next slide is our city government.

The city's support is essential for the operation.

It's a significant portion of our budget due to our ILCI.

This slide shows ten years' experience of an increase of trying to be invisible.

The red line is the actual increase in the amount of fees

and Tom Fox 29 in 2020.

You'll notice that the city, 54, 74, you said.

fiscal year 19. fiscal year 19. fiscal year 19

But first, we have to do both.

This is, they're projected or is this the actual?

This is the actual.

So this is the fix at the end of the year.

What they actually got out of the budget.

This is the red bars that we actually received.

but regarding the percentage.

The blue bars, I believe, are the calculation based on the blue bar, the bar that the city's calculating the 40% of the new personal and the real property.

Okay.

My recommendation is usually what's been happening the last couple of years is they underestimate the revenue coming in from the real estate.

They're looking at this starting in November.

They actually started getting their first real number this month through the end of February.

Last year they closed 4 million and by the time we went to their first production

I think what my point here is that I think that 40% number is actually a lower amount than what it actually is.

Because they had a surplus of 1.3, it's like a $12 million off, or $20 million

Well, the surplus can be driven by, so this only applies to the home property in real fact, it should be based on actual assessments.

It shouldn't have to do with, it should be based on the assessments and assuming of work items, I don't know if there's a collection.

But their surplus can be driven by the savings on their side, it can be driven by their other taxes like the

My point is usually there's been a couple of million dollars surplus on the bill of property taxes in the last couple of years after they do their final true loss.

And I don't think that's being counted here to my point.

So it's actually, we're not getting, it's probably a couple hundred thousand dollars that we largely hired.

We don't go back and true up after

I mean, what do you think, Matt?

Do you think exercising might do?

Or we don't?

So now we're going to go into the expenditures and how we spend the money.

This slide shows the largest expenditure for the division

education and other people and personnel are the best.

The second one, the sixth one is the construction of the Burbank prison and they are the main construction for the Burbank prison.

Is that clear?

The standards are qualitative on those conditions because CO2 has the staffing standards, and was the second funding normally used to calculate the same share of revenue.

This line shows the divisions of structural staff to the state's SOQ.

PCS has about 213 FTEs over the state in dollars.

DCS costs $25 million.

The question came up on the last meeting of the faculty and staff for this day for voting workers and our personal learning counselors.

These positions are classified and

I think that's why the presentation last month was so vitally important as Ms.

The next slide is our teacher's compensation.

The teacher pay skills were updated with the additional students and was expected to be getting ready for.

The teacher was absolutely great at testing them.

It made $55,029.00.

Our salary raised about $39.00 pretty much.

We showed the hourly rate because 200 day contract fees were 1,400 hours or 7 hours a day.

And this is a key piece of information when we're preparing our dollars for the system.

For example, in Arlington Public Schools, our teachers got $65,000

This is not $47 a moment yet, but Arlington teachers have a two-part day class class with work hours of 1,500.

So when we calculate that hourly rate, it's $37.32, and then compare that with that $1,400 hours, the comparables dollars, and the same goes for Arlington.

The starting teacher's salary is $549,000, but when we do the math for the hours, for the Albemarle teacher's salary is $450, their starting teacher pay at $1,400 is $50,000.

Thank you for this.

I like to think things like this, total compensation, which includes your health insurance value, environment, contributions, life insurance premiums, et cetera, et cetera.

How does that, do we have a total number for that?

I know you don't have it here, but.

No, I don't.

I don't have our benefits factor into this and it's able to compare.

to each lookout.

Do staff get a report though of that total compensation?

When they receive their data, they see how much the reporters call in for their health care.

So it's printed.

So they see an annual

They don't see it annually, they see it on the paper, they look at the December paper, and then we look at it again.

I mean I think it would be nice.

I think those types of benefits offer real life.

Hold on a second.

If the authors paid stuff, I mean the information is just out there, so it's just not really looking at the paper.

We can take that information and put it in the other sheet.

The W-2 is showing their federal wage, their security wage, and then it does show the total cost, but it doesn't show your VR.

I do think, to Mr. Meyer's point, that it is a very important exercise and I was telling Ms.

We, in my previous division, we did do that extra class with employees, I think, but what we really found, and I think it would still hold true is that, and I say this because we had to come, I'm speaking about myself, as a new teacher, some of those things were just not as important to me.

Like I wasn't thinking that one day I would be four years from retirement or two years of retirement.

And so, you know, that,

The wage part is just so important when trying to attract someone while I think to teachers who are approaching the middle of the road like, so what do those things look like and how do they compare to other places?

I mention that because the health insurance is worth a lot of money and people I don't think realize that and or again it's more and more being pushed on the individual versus your employer covering it and if you have one partner your partner is again the independent contractor who doesn't have that and then you're getting it and we're providing it for your partner and the rest of your family too that is a lot of value

Anyway, so I mean, that almost becomes 20% of your compensation.

If it's a $15,000 to $20,000 family of four or five, again, full plate or very nice health insurance package.

So anyways, I just would encourage us to also present that.

It may not be this presentation appropriate, but yeah, I can think about that also.

Thank you.

The next slide.

and then in general, they are such that custodians, or secretaries, or administrators, are the key to the culture of the United States.

The steps within the pancreas would be easily progressed, and most importantly, it would provide a competitive structure, environment structure,

S.O.Q.

staff.

These are not S.O.Q.

staff.

Yes, we are.

Assistant principals and principals are S.O.Q.

staff.

And then

And one of those examples would be like at an elementary school, I don't know exactly what the number is, but I know we have six elementary schools, six small elementary schools relatively.

And so I would imagine that the SLQ may be

Two, it may be with a number of schools, number of students, it may be somewhere two to three assistant principals at the elementary level, but we have an assistant principal at every school because we feel like we definitely need an assistant principal.

But what happens is like when we have to issue that 2% raise, we only get the money for those assistant principal positions that are SOQ and then we have to ask you or we find the money to

and the rest of the people who are not covered.

Because then when he would have been Dooley saying he would have to pick and choose, he would be willing to give a raise to.

Yeah, and then all of a sudden.

To go back to the instructional staff comparison, to Dr. Gurley's point, assistant principal, the FAQ standards is we only need two.

And we're staffing at seven.

So they're only giving me two per 10.

So that's okay.

You'll hear a lot about the benchmarks.

It's a standing recommendation, but no one is going to want to read the benchmark.

So here we are.

There's even, of course, school divisions in the Commonwealth.

The next slide is health insurance.

Charles O'Dowd City Schools is a self-funded plan.

This gives us an opportunity to take advantage of the medical and pharmacy client experience of the problem of health care.

With one of those methods, one of the key points I'd like to make for this presentation is not for doctors.

In 2023, it was 10% to 7%.

Today, the first five months of this 15-year anniversary, reason for the project was specialty drugs, changing the air distillation, and just managing the residual effects.

Is medical pharmacy everything, or is it essential?

So, we're up 23%.

I mean, all those people, it's 9.9, but we're double that.

I hope there's a plan to... Well, there are two different factors, so 9.9% represents the inflation, even if our claims were the same.

And also, look, we're global.

We're just giving you a comparison.

We keep on the same track though, still looking at doubling

It's keen to venture for you that our health insurance rate will go up from what we did last year.

So if our health insurance rate will go up 23%, it might be in the range of 5%.

When do you think that will happen?

We have our initial renewal right now.

We're going to try to change topics.

Chris Myers, can you ask if there's a plan?

I'm going to talk about that in the budget changes, so what that would potentially mean, so I have it all lined up.

from L.A.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So, learning changes.

You can go on to the next slide.

So, outline here.

So, just going to start by saying there were a lot of requests.

And so, we've been working with staff and working with principals to go through the request.

So, what you see on the far right corner, what you see on the far right column,

That's your strategic plan goals.

So make sure that we're rooting our request in our strategic plan so that it makes sense to keep putting that up.

As we go through the budget change documents, you're going to see that the first category of asylum and benefits.

So the first thing we would like is for our teachers to receive their step.

And it's the step plus 1.75, which means that the rate is an average of 3%.

and we would do that similarly for the administration and the support groups that the rate would be an average of 3%.

And then I just want to remind everybody as we're looking at the budget change document that we did issue that 2% raise, which went into effect this month, which, yes, because we already had one pay.

So we had the 2%, so that was, remember that that was not budgeted, so we picked that up in the budget for next year, so that's why you see that here.

And so we just talked a few moments ago about our insurance, and so we know that we have people who have some serious medical things going on.

And so they are utilizing the insurance.

It is going significantly up.

We received our quote back.

So now what this is doing is this is forcing us to evaluate whether we stay with the current provider or we look at a different provider.

And so one thing we know is that the unintended consequence of staying with our current

providers, we run the risk of transferring that cost over to our employees, which we do not want to do.

No one wants to get a raise, and then their insurance also goes up.

It's just bad business.

So I say that confidently, that we don't want to do that.

But what that also means is that they're

We bid it out.

And so we do know that some, we do know that some insurance providers have come in much lower.

And so we know that's going to be a hard conversation, but you stay and transfer the cost and knowing that Charlottesville has been with Aetna as our provider, has been with Aetna forever.

but you see how much that cost is there, which is listed on that $901,000 or we say, you know, we deserve better.

We don't need to continue to have costs go up and we switch our insurance provider.

I mean, it's a little pain initially, but it is, if we can get quality service and, you know, good,

then maybe we could switch it and then the cost is a lot lower and then we're not transferring that cost to our employees.

What other providers?

Right, so we've not just taken the, so I do want to make sure I say, we've not, they've not given us a number.

We said, oh, that number's too high, we need to go look somewhere else.

Pierce Group does do that work for us.

They've been, you know, going back and forth trying to negotiate and getting it down.

And, you know, they, for lack of a better term, are digging their heels in at them.

They're digging their heels in, so this is where we are.

I think also, if I could, just my experience in the market, right?

I think you also have to be careful when anthem comes back to you and says, we would love your business for 5% less.

Guess what they're going to do to you next year?

27% more.

because they can't, because they know you moved and it's administrative burden and they put that back on you.

And so, you know, no payer's proof, they do great work and trust that they're doing that back and forth.

That just, while 7% feels heavy, taking less right now could hurt in the future.

And everyone's seeing that.

I don't know any market right now that's not

seeing that huge thing for use and just the nature of that on some level.

Yeah, I think yeah, we're in the market, which is great as I would expect.

I would agree with my experience with the available health insurance companies, very similar having jumped around a couple times.

What I would like management to think about is

If there's $20,000 we're paying for a family, a four or whatever, for a whole teacher's family versus a half person's family, but the partner works at UVA, we get UVA's air benefits full load, is there a way we get them pushed over to UVA or another employer?

We play that game with my wife's employer all the time, and we're constantly comparing, and then we jump back and forth depending on, and so then my employer, I go back to my employer and say, hey,

Give me some of that cost savings, I want my salary increased.

I mean, we're charging them $250 a month to be.

So they're being charged $250 a month.

It's $250 per pay.

It's $500 per pay.

So it is very cost prohibitive for the spouse to have a spouse with CCS if they have access to it.

Now, is there an incentive to push the other way?

So I don't understand, I mean we've seen 10% of everything that we would treat every year I've been on the street.

I mean that's the thing, people have a good time.

And I mean to a certain point, you know, it's just the nature that's happening everywhere.

So I mean why are you now considering a different move

When we've taken some good care, I don't want our employees to have to feel the impact that you can find a way so it doesn't work.

And I realize that we haven't gained everything else that we want to add.

But her point is I'm going to trust her because of the work that she does.

I mean, I don't want it to take the next year and then be hit with something.

Right.

And we're just saying we're evaluating it.

in a time where it's going to go up.

We just need to decide how we not have this to negatively impact our teachers.

I mean, that's the only thing we're saying at this point.

We, I mean, Pierce Group is our vendor.

They're saying, here's your array of options.

We are going back and forth trying to get the numbers down.

Yeah, I think just to your point, getting a little creative about where that's 7% link, right?

And we can definitely bring that back.

We can talk about what the different scenarios look like.

I mean, I will tell you, nobody at this table is excited about switching insurance.

You know, not like you already have some things already going on, because we know that that transition is like with this number of employees.

It's just not fun times.

And no one wants to switch insurance.

Any other questions before I continue on down?

Great discussion.

Thank you for that feedback.

The next area we have are our recurring and nondiscretionary calls.

So I want to highlight a couple of our big ticket items that you see, which are our maintenance contract, our transportation contract,

And then we have already had a discussion and we knew that we would be absorbing some of the onboarding of KTEC.

And so you see that reflected here.

And I think we are continuing to have a conversation with the city about the transportation and maintenance contract.

Where did we land last year?

This is, we've never had a 25% increase.

We've never had a 25% increase, but much of that estimate is based on what information we have about what's going on with the ATB negotiations.

And the ATB negotiations, we won't know for sure on those outcomes until February.

So those are projections baked into that estimate based on

That's the best information we had available.

When I say we, I'm referring to the transportation leadership.

If this is okay, I want everybody to realize.

If it's over 3 million, if it's 13% last year, or 13% last year, we've never done 25% before, and we give it 3,000 foot.

We already pay the

When we present this to the city, can we make sure we separate the Mayans going in a circle back to them and those changes, if that makes sense?

Because there are things that they control and we don't control, right?

Well, they know it.

I think we know what they have to have every time.

All right.

It's worth the K-Tech numbers, about 370,000 less than what was projected as the cost of acquiring, the operational cost of acquiring ownership back in April.

We had to be able to make it to the K-Tech Council about K-Tech, and we went back and looked, and that number's lower than what they've been given back in April.

That's what it would take for us to take on fourth-grade operations.

It was just, that was a projection and part of that I know that we had some educator in case I had a little drop in their participation there for their tuition.

So that's certainly part of it.

I'd have to go back and dig in, but I just tell you at the glance, I went back to check and like, what was the last time we sat in any of our chambers?

And I was like, oops, okay, we're better than we were.

I know part of it was that estimate that seemed certain.

So I took the total savings from moving to Parents Square to getting rid of the other services and with the addition of the website hosting fees and the Parents Square fees, that's the increase to break even from where we were, the short answer.

I don't know if it has that functionality.

All good questions and all have been noted.

Anything else in this section?

All right.

Well, we'll move right along.

So here are our school-based program supports and instructional improvements.

And so I think I want to make sure I go back to where we started.

with our growth conversation that was led by Ms.

Powell and Dr. Odey.

And so you'll see here that, you know, we're prioritizing what we do for our English language learners.

So that very first line is strictly about growth.

and so that you see reflected there, our English as a second language program, our elementary growth, and then at the high school, we really want to focus on reducing that class size for English.

And so that's adding in one position for English and one position for social studies.

And so on that far right-hand column, that 7.5 positions, that 0.5 takes into consideration that 0.5 that we added to be available for this school.

And so there are special education supports that are needed at KTEC and an additional CSA at CHS.

We are increasing the number of CSAs

But we are doing that currently by repurposing some positions, moving a position from a school.

So we don't need to ask for additional, you know, beyond the one.

We don't need to ask for that in the budget because we're repurposing some things here.

So we're moving the position from Beaufort.

We're moving that position over to CHS.

And with that one, I think I shared with you in my brief with that one, Mr. Jordan really feels like with the number of grades, he has the number of supports.

And so he put a hold on it.

So we said, Hey, we know where we can make good use of that position.

So we will bring that position over.

and then the ISBE position.

So twofold, we have written in the all in plan that we had for the school year.

watching students attendance, going out into the homes.

I know that the model looks different in different places.

Sometimes you have places where maybe a social worker and a part of it doing some well checks with families.

They do those things.

So we in Charlottesville have historically, it sounds like those things have been teased out and it's been a person's job.

And we've not had anyone, I know since I've been here, no one's that's been their job to just do the attendance part.

So we want to fold that back in.

What are they doing?

Are they going to the homes?

Are we taking care of it?

Like what is the, what's the... Well, it's, it's similar to the, it's similar to the Chauncey provision and they, it's, they have... I was just going to say, and you're going on to see, there is an abundant required form that gives you detail.

particularly to our rates, like with our school counselors, the amount of time that's spent in meetings versus the amount of times that are spent with students.

And so that's another one where I know historically maybe the school counselors may have been holding some of those school success meetings, but we know that, well, it's 80% of the, how much time do they give the students?

So it's S. So what's the salary for two of these positions?

If it's 111, 290 divided by two less benefits, like what are we paying?

We think it's going to be able to do this job.

I think it's on the same scale as it is today.

I know that we've, I know we've spoken, I know we've spoken with, when I say me, I mean me, I've spoken with a school division who has seen some significant changes in student attendance and the position was graded a lot lower.

It was two people who had a really good rapport with the community and then just going out

touching faces with families and what is it that needs facilitating, facilitating meetings and those folks came from outside the building.

But this person also addressed hardiness.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's part of the agenda.

Part of what must happen, big picture is I think we, not a thing,

Part of what needs to happen, big picture, is whatever the accountability system is beyond us.

I think we have some very hard conversations with families, but it pretty much stops with us because if no one's encouraging a student to come to school, if there's no caring on the outside to ensure that the student is in, I mean, it really just stops with us.

And so I know that

Here and in previous experience, the courts or court services or family services, they want to see what the interventions are.

And so it can't be the school.

I mean, not that it can't be the school counselor, but it can't solely be the school counselor.

And it solely can't be the AP.

We talked a little bit about the end of the story.

When we know that we're going to continue to think, we make decisions about what that means and do the best in the world to support that need.

And so as we're thinking about student mailing, we put in that tiered approach where what do we do for our students, what do we do for our students, what do we do for our students.

We are finding that

What we're doing for a few is explosive.

We've done a lot of work this time to deeply invest in work.

And so as those more people can't make it to the political hall, then we wouldn't have it.

This would allow us to look at parties and some of the community

And when we have someone assessing those needs, do we then have the staff and capacity in place to address those needs?

All of a sudden you're putting people in the community at someone's doorstep and you identify five things per 32 kids.

How are we really going to then do the work?

No, I think that's what Ms.

Ratnick has done a good job of

and now bringing student services under one house.

So if there's someone who's identifying the need, then we can say, we have an SEL person who if it's about some social anxiety, if it's about there's a family need with regards to some type of essential need, then maybe we need to refer over to Ms.

Bianca Johnson if there's

of something with related to some student behavior.

I mean, we've built out the continuum.

It's just where we're losing subtraction is people who can be boots on the ground.

I think that's the hard part.

Who has the time to be boots on the ground?

So no, I'm not expecting that.

person, these two attendance people to be the service provider for all these students.

They're working through our student services, and now all these students are connected.

I think I can get behind this.

I have some concerns about it being limited just to the high school.

We know we have determined students in elementary and middle, it can be not factually sooner, so are we.

And sometimes they're all in the same house.

Sure, yeah.

I think getting started is a good start.

Attendance is not a new issue.

I mean, I could be saw on the data that it's been exacerbated, like many things in recent years.

I think that sounds really good, right?

But if you're looking at the sound, are you going to classify the party, how do you really do that?

This is a lot of case management that needs to happen here.

And for what, if there's water quality, like

Like, you know, you're not going to get that quality person that's going to be able to connect with your parents who knew that casement.

And not only that, being able to connect those folks to the resources in the community to support their family.

That's the missing piece.

Maybe it's a job title and maybe we're working on that.

We always like to hear, add more money, that's true.

It's sort of, I think that's the part where we already have Ms.

Bianca Johnson.

So I think it, I think we can rework, let's rework the title.

I mean, it may even be a form of, we continue to work through our student support specialist position.

That position continues to evolve.

So that, that actually, it may fit, I'm looking at Dr. Johnson over there, it may fit within that same title, but

Some student support specialists are in the building, and some student support specialists work outside of the building.

I mean, the thing it does do, it does what Ms.

So let me clarify that you got down to 45.

If it's salary before you move down, I think it's 45.

And the meeting day was 118.

They're actually on to our day schedule.

That's all that is called on our schedule.

So they have their P.L.

They've been sophisticated in professional learning on this day.

They also do health care safety inspections and things that are required by the JF.

I think, I mean, I would agree with Ms.

Yeah, I mean, some things are, if you think about the people who know the community and know the students that are going to actually have a policy in mind, they're important.

I would say, though, for CSCs, the concept has been very valuable, even though there's a thing out of origin.

I'm still able to do that for CSC, but I'm more, I'm being very effective in this world.

We also have some like our summer safety center things that have been active during the two-day conference period.

So I do potentially trace things during school year for the CSA staff to come in and be on the two-day.

So between the summer and the activities and other things, we would be able to treat everybody without really following the guidelines.

So I think that adds up to 75,000.

It's a good amount.

And so in the past few years,

I think those words in the sustainability is right.

I'm still going through here, so if I don't mention one that you wanted to hear, most certainly we can go to it.

I wanted to point out next, the feedback we received from staff is about how we support them and one of them is through the substitute.

It is a big ticket member at this moment, and so I want to make sure that we

Well, we'll have a big-picture discussion at the moment, but right now, if we did a site-based substitute, how we have it right now, so we have, right now, we have two site-based substitutes at Walker, Buford, and the high school.

What this adds is a site-based substitute at each elementary school, and that's so that the principal

has at their discretion to be able to use that body in the building.

And someone's out every day.

Let's just be honest, taking care of themselves.

Someone's out every day.

So this isn't a position that we ever wonder, like, will there be something for them to do?

Somebody's out every day.

You know, the thing that we will have a larger discussion about is maybe $1.2 billion every day implemented.

We have implemented it currently with essence books, but we know that that's about to end.

And I can tell you that principals and staff would say that, you know, at secondary level, Walker on up would hate to see the position go away because they count on it.

But we knew that this day would come that we'd have to think about the sustainability.

And so that's a conversation.

as we tease out are all of these the things that will go forward for the city where we'll be laying with this.

But right now we're putting it in the budget.

We're putting it in the budget and I think that our teachers and our principals have been very thankful about having this position.

I'm fine with this and that makes sense to me.

I guess I would

challenge us, though, and how do we in future years not need so many subs?

Yeah.

And so is that, I'm not saying have a, sorry, some kind of element to teacher driven like that.

This is part of their contract, they need to take global status etc.

But can we offer incentives for a perfect attendance or something like that, instead of spending 1.2 million and

I definitely think we can think about how to incentivize.

I think one thing we know is starting the first day of school with someone's apps.

And I think we've done well lately.

I'm looking forward to Mr. Lewis

We are bringing more people in.

We're seeing that, particularly at some of our hard-to-stand schools with subs.

We're seeing that the temperature come down.

I think it's just still a challenge in some spaces.

And so, yes, we can incentivize, but there's still gonna be a gap there.

And so, in a perfect world, we would like to do both, incentivize,

I think that's a, I think that one can be run with a click of a couple of buttons.

It's not a hard one.

Well, and I hope, I don't want to miss the, but I do know that that is how we capture, how we captured, how we paid for some of the site-based subs because

Wherever I need you, you go.

But they still have to, even with two, unfortunately, they still have to come.

You know, and I think that's, if I were having a tough conversation, I would say, you know, yes, we could have two site-based subs, but it still won't guarantee that you won't have to cover because even at two, it's not enough.

Definitely not.

fully staffed two people I can move you where I need you throughout the building.

And so in line, we've had conversations about differentiated staffing.

And so here you're going to see a few lines that read reading specialists, reading interventionists,

and so what you see reflected there we want to place supports at those schools because those are our level three schools and so I know that historically what we've seen is that everyone gets the same thing and so here what we've teased out are Buford, Walker and Clark

And so Clark being an additional math specialist because that was one of the areas that was one of the areas we, and so there you see that for those who are looking for an additional reading specialist, a math specialist, and in some cases an interventionist.

And I know like at Walker,

They are implementing the interventionist model this year, the interventionist model.

But again, we're using some all-in funds.

We're using some various sources.

Claire Walker has a question.

They need admission.

And so these two reading and math interventions that she's asking for are on top of the folks that she has.

So we're making it happen.

And then to continue that as well.

Is the second GR team position filled here?

Walk is poison.

Are these considered short and medium term?

Like are we thinking these are going to be needed for the next like independent thing?

Yeah, it could be two years from now.

We don't need these extra needs because we will have some problems.

That's correct.

I just think that's important messaging.

Also, basically, when we're not city, state, there's a central audience.

Walker has three here.

All three of their names are Chris.

Three different people.

Alright, also want to make sure you think that we have included night school.

I think we are already seeing the benefits of night school and we are definitely

in the ground meeting the students' needs and differentiating opportunities for them.

So Mr. Trotter and I had a conversation about that yesterday.

So I mean, we still will utilize the same teachers as long as they have the interest.

But most certainly, it could be something that we could post out.

And if for some reason someone doesn't want to return or whatever, we could post more and feel it's still going to be an hourly, it's still going to be an hourly job.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah, so that's not all salary.

So it's KAO, so the internship program, it allows us to still do the internship program.

It still allows us to pay for some of the resources.

Some of the resources did not have a cost, but it allows us to still pay for some of those resources for the students, the wellness resources.

So, is there a fee for paying for that?

It probably could be.

What we found so far is that many of the students already had a job, but it doesn't happen again.

We were hoping that there would be some money so that we didn't have to rely so late.

It was us to do that.

But yes, any other parts.

That really sticks out, too, is that we've not had enough time.

Unfortunately, we've not had enough time to see how many students will access because we definitely are not close to the 10 yet with students using Cato.

We already have an MOU, so we're going to work through how we can capitalize on what we already have.

But yes, we are.

That's going to definitely be at the forefront of substance abuse counting and what we already have.

One thing, Ms.

Howell talked about this earlier, but I want to make sure we draw people's attention that we do want to make sure we budget

so that we can work with the consultant to evaluate our student attendance zones, not to be confused with attendance specialist.

So we want to evaluate our attendance zones to see, you know, as we continue to work through capacity issues in some of our schools, is there a way that we can better utilize our schools and so take that scope of work as

a little bigger than the people at this table.

So we would like to work with the consultant and then that will definitely be some conversations and things that we would bring back before you face all their feedback.

Are there any others from this list that I did not mention?

I do want to, I guess I should say that we are increasing, we would like to propose to increase our

Tuition Reimbursement Rate from $500 for the whole year to $1,000.

Are they maxing out that much?

Are people taking advantage of that?

Your middle school voice, Ms.

It's more in the professional space, right?

I can't help but think about your future.

There's no physical way that we can increase the number of spots because the school only holds 30 so night schools

So when we're physically constrained, unfortunately, there's not a budget.

Right.

Second is, are we getting the social and emotional support positions?

Does this cover all of that?

The SOQ is 12 and Z are 24.

Beyond that, I believe that you could add 24 more to some regards.

It still may not be enough.

I think what we owe you all, what we owe all stakeholders to say this is the continuum of services and this is how students are accessing it.

Yeah, it definitely works into our safety model when you talk about

of our conversation from our meetings that we've been having.

So we are, as an ELT, we'll come back together the first Friday in March.

And so we will be rolling out our reconfiguration plan in terms of work groups like we did for KTEC.

And so included in that is ensuring that people understand what it means in this building in terms of what their options will be

Most certainly there may be an opportunity to be able to have a principal here.

We will have assistant principals.

I mean, there's going to be a lot of duplication.

So our job, you want to make sure that everyone is employed.

And so, you know, hopefully attrition will absorb some of this and, you know, people are adversely impacted, but that's why we're beginning that work now.

And what I shared with Ms.

Thompson is that

Hopefully by May, we will be having the initial conversations with the Walker staff just so that they know what it means for them.

And so, yes, to answer your question, there could be some savings and hopefully it'll come to attrition so they don't want to lose their job.

So what do you mean by expanding the pre-K program?

Yes, I think the only thing is it would be an opportunity in terms of people having jobs.

Yes, the only difference is the scale of this school is much larger than the scale of a preschool program.

I think that would be the only thing to take into consideration.

Like, will you need a secretary?

Yes.

So that means maybe the secretary or admin tech not lose their job, then all of those things are going to be considered and that's what we'll be rolling out and most certainly that can be a part of a board presentation because I want people to know that we're working on it because what I've shared with the principal, what I've shared with the principal, January of 26, I mean two year after next, that's like a hard deadline.

That's a hard stop.

In December of 25, November, December 25, I would like for the Walker staff to know what their next steps are because two years from now we'll be having budget discussions.

And so we'll need to know what we're sitting in this meeting.

We need to know what the impact of the staffing will be.

So we set a hard deadline of the people transferring and interviewing for elementary schools.

things of that nature.

We set that hard deadline for November and December.

November is the finish line, we hope, with November, December of 25.

We talked about some hall monitors over at the high school that were repurposing some positions.

Do we see them reflected on here, or probably

We have, so far, we have two of our, we work crossing guards now, and we've classified and saved the supports, but we can use them wherever they're needed.

They're crossing guards, and not everybody wants to be able to do this.

So when I presented the opportunity to the crossing guards at our December breakfast meeting, when I'm going to show you a lot of appreciation before we head over this hard weather, Emily had two that were interested in doing it,

and honestly, not everyone in it.

We have all over three crossing guards, not all of them are the type of folks who are inside of you that type of work.

So we had two that, for me, that day they were interested.

They started last week.

They were there today.

And they worked 10 until like 1 or 30 or whatever.

It's kind of between their crossing guard shifts and their most talked with their lunch cup.

So we have started improving that model.

We did not request additional

pay to support that at this time, or additional budget to support that at this time, because honestly, with vacancy savings and the hourly support budget that we already have, we think we could just keep running the experiment a little bit longer and see how much more folks actually will come in and take us up on it.

Also, as we add additional staffing and currently get all of our vacancies filled, you know, we had a really unfortunate loss last week.

And so, plus we had someone else who went to a long-term self-position instead of

Before we ask for more, I really want to see us just get fully staffed, keep doing what we're doing with the folks we have that are willing to come in and help them, and then see where we are.

Are you involved at all in the transit negotiations with drivers?

So as long as in the current configuration, what they do for their hours is entirely in the realm of tricks.

So in the future, if things were to change, even if anything, that would still be a point of appreciation.

So there's a lot we need to see as far as what the negotiations can determine.

Um, so we just, um, didn't really have a number to work off other than so far.

So it costs $108, $1,800 a day.

It costs $1,800 a day to contract the labor negotiator.

So we just used that and we split that cost.

But see, we're hopeful that we don't, um, we don't have this.

do more than that, but I think that was the only, based on our one, our two occurrences that we had to use to later negotiate it so-called, the third part of the mutual purpose.

and then the women who are leading the strategy would like to talk to us.

Oh, the stipends?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, she can speak to that.

For me, it didn't mean to say that.

And it is married to the typical witness.

We need that excitement to incentivize people to be special to this type of organization.

But also, in some ways, de-incentivize these experiences.

We need to do some social things within that system from now on.

So we cannot speak highly enough about the training that our purpose is to

So they, it's specifically for those additional responsibilities, personal affairs, and so

In our program now, we have all sorts of programs that provide similar services to their kindergarten or first grade, I mean, proper partners.

Can I go back?

Can it be possible for it to be about $1,000 per year if it goes towards one class?

I don't think I want to be involved with that.

She said Africa, I don't think of a line with us.

I can't.

Yeah, I think for me, I was kind of shocked that it was like $500 and it was the whole year.

I mean the big thing is we need to offer it.

I don't disagree.

I don't think I saw anybody finding savings or reducing anything.

Well, I think that, I mean, if I could jump to the next slide, then I think that's the segue to this discussion.

So what you see, I wanted to make sure you remember that Ms.

Cooper,

talked about our reduction in each LCI.

So when we talk about state revenues and the impact, we know that our additional ask is this $12 billion.

And so I think a lot of the work that we've done thus far, a lot of the work we've done thus far in terms of budget changes and positions, we've had like a lot of hard conversations in terms of like

what's needs and what's not needs.

If you remember back on slide 19, and that was the slide that had the, remember when you talked about the slide, Ms.

Thacker, the one that had the real estate, and you remember that discussion was about the two point, right there, that was the discussion about the 2.7 to $4.2 million.

If you look at what we're currently asking, we are way beyond, I mean, when you talk about an ask of $12 million, we're way beyond all of these asks.

I think we historically, I know one of the very hard things that I have been, when we first got here, it was like,

looking at what things we could cut.

I think that was really hard for me because I'd only been on the job for like two months.

And it was like instructional assistants at the lower grades.

And I think we've constantly been cutting.

And I can't imagine that when Mr. Saunders or when Ms.

Campbell sees this number, that it's just like, what?

And so I know that we're going to have to have a lot of discussion about what stays and really prioritize.

So it's a little empty and I'm not familiar with every initiative that we're doing or every special program or something like that, but something that we found that's not working that we need to get rid of.

Because it's not working.

At the moment it sounds like everything we're doing, not trying to find a problem necessarily,

Everything that we're doing at the moment, every special initiative, every little program that we're doing is basically working at us.

That's fine, but I think Council will also look at this and be like, you're not cutting anything?

You're only asking for more?

I appreciate the obvious part, because I think the discussion that we've had is that we've always cut so much before they've seen what we've had on the table.

The intent here is not to say, well, look at all the things we ask and we're going to take some things off.

I think we've always done that.

We've always cut so much.

And then we're really only giving them our bare bones.

And we really, and with this compressed timeline, I mean, you all know that we're literally giving this to you on the day of, that I think with the compressed timeline, we really are going to have to work very thoughtfully

So maybe if you could summarize at a different time, what were the things you caught over the last couple of years?

To show them over the last couple of years came to your point, right?

We know there are a lot of requests, and I'm sure a lot of them we could all probably report.

I would love for us to come out to those to use that as a conversation where we really wanted to focus on who ABCD is at the time.

But I think that's definitely the tip that comes with that.

We're talking about a list of 37 things.

I can duplicate the sheet and I can link it for you tomorrow.

things roughly that were requested.

Some of the things are like, it's not necessarily a cut, but you know, after everything that happened in the fall, it was this huge push to get more resources in the CHS.

And so what we did, we pulled from a vacancy in the future.

And those types of things happen pretty regularly.

So, you know, it's,

It's sort of, you know, second nature in a lot of ways.

And then we can try to think farther about some of those things to put on the list to show that we'll probably come up with not just evacuating for more, we're moving towards what can we re-compass, what can we do.

It's sort of like to see that the list is always longer than what we have the money to do.

It feels like that doesn't mean you don't need permission to do it and just try to maximize your available resources.

I also know when we made it, they pushed several years ago, and I think we did it

We were going through software solutions constantly and taking out things that weren't being heavily used and even if a small handful of people had a big allegiance to this or that program we would call it down and I was sometimes done with economies and we've done it fairly recently so I'm not saying that was a big focus area this year but like even with that there was elimination of things and consolidation of things in order to not just

But to your point, I'll raise that we say it may be perceived as an important thing to us.

I mean, I think we need to have that written somewhere.

And if that position now is reemerging, then part of that is that we need to put that back into deeper.

Well, it's actually, because as Dr. Dooling pointed out, but it's still part of the conference, that's how many of these

Right, and that's for a school where we come from a size and also in the city.

And we're not viewers, but we mean, this is actually like a last ad, but we had originally been talking about adding two.

And so we're like, okay, let's just go ahead and repurposition the other staff up even faster and not technically ask for it.

Isn't that tight?

It was originally our budget request, too, as we were working in turn.

I don't know.

State grants, we're utilizing a lot of the state grants.

We recently got a mental illness grant, but that expires, unfortunately, we just got it, but that expires in June or June or July?

June, that expires in June.

I mean, we're always doing that.

We're utilizing all in, but I mean, anytime we can get funds, I mean, what's typically hard about the grant funds

We will do these things, but then we have no way of sustaining.

And we start to see what we're seeing some of now.

It's really good, but then we need some local dollars to then sustain it because it goes away.

That's why in the perfect world, you don't want to put people in grants.

So has Jim Ryan come to you and offered you $5 million a year in tax, something like that?

Um, so yeah, so I mean, we recognize, I want to make sure that I say that, I mean, we recognize that we're going to have to go back here.

There's going to be some retooling of this, but I mean,

This right now is being presented strictly on needs, strictly on needs.

I have a really very good relationship with the city, can't say it enough.

So they will let us know where they're trying to land in terms of support and that will help us to engage.

Like we talked about earlier, do we pull back on some of the site beds?

Do we pull back on some of these other things?

And as a follow-up, what we can kind of do, because I think we do it just out of second nature.

We solve a lot of our own problems, but we can let you know what some things we've cut or pulled back on to save money.

We can present that.

We can make sure that can be presented to you in a regular form.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like we need to be at a really different place.

I have a conversation with them on February 7th.

The areas like what you all feel you need, you know, where we want to be so that we can all be solid.

And you know, and Ms.

Hooper and I have not spoken, so hopefully she will, I mean, she typically agrees.

But you know, the number may look a little different when we come back for budget.

But keeping in mind, right, that we've talked about how do we not transfer the cost of health care, which means that may need to push

something up and then something comes down because we know from this meeting that's important.

That's important to some, if not all.

Thanks for everyone saying that's important.

So, you know, for the number, well, we're going to keep working it.

We're going to keep working it.

Our goal next Thursday, budget meeting.

So typically what happens, staff will give me their presentations next Thursday and so by Friday.

Leslie and I have gone through them so that you can get them posted.

Our goal is hopefully next Tuesday-ish that we can give this to you in advance.

I want to make sure that you have it in advance, that you don't have this from the day of.

So when we get to the meeting for February the 1st, because that's not next Thursday, but the following Thursday,

I just think that there's a lot of work that we have to, you know, the hard part about this process is it's very compressed.

I mean, on the city side, they're still doing this work for a very long time.

They get to meet with staff and talk about, I mean, we have a very condensed timeline on the high side.

So I think on our end, we just need more time

In addition to all the other things we do, we need time to just continue to brush this out and sit and sit with school and sit with each other just to see if we can pull this out and how does this look.

I mean, that's really how we get to our bottom line.

You just have to do a lot of working and massaging and figuring out how to make it work.

All righty then.

This is a reminder, and I don't know if we have anybody who would like to tell us on this.

Karen Little, I think.

Karen Little.

All right, Karen Little, are you there to draw your dress that you made?

Yes.

Thank you so much.

And thanks to Pat and others who helped me get online.

Appreciate you.

Karen Little, I'm a parent to an eighth grader at Buford and a 10th grader at CHS and had a few comments.

Thanks for the presentation.

It is, to Chris's earlier comment about only seeing the changes, it's really difficult to understand the full picture without seeing the full

budget and having insight into the repurposing that you mentioned and especially if you're a parent new to a school not understanding how that school was budgeting the previous year.

It's hard to really assess the spending.

I wanted to offer up a few suggestions based on conversations I've heard recently in terms of requests that do align with the strategic plan priorities.

The first thing is

I've heard from teachers.

I attended the CEA meeting last night that Shannon Gilligan hosted, and they had put forward some requests that I'd like to share here.

First is that they're really hoping for a student activity director, a athletic director to focus on school culture at CHS.

This is something that was in place before and had been taken away over the years.

So that's one.

The second piece is that they'd like to see at least $2,000 in the CHS budget for community building to really focus on culture and relationship building with students.

And then third, really seeing the focus on the exterior doors being updated with emergency exits and walkie talkies in place for all staff.

So I just wanted to amplify the request that they

mentioned last night, and I know Shannon had hoped to be here.

And I'm sure she'll follow up with school board members with more specifics on those.

And then secondly, again, this is where it's hard to see the full budget and what's not reflected in only the changes.

But based on conversations with parents at the CHS listening sessions, there definitely was an interest in seeing how are we working to really retain teachers that we have, whether that's

signing bonuses or some other incentives to really keep the CHS teachers.

And then secondly, the principal salary, what kind of flexibility do we have to really make sure that we're getting a top notch high quality principal candidate to join the school next year.

So I just wanted to offer those suggestions and really hope to dig into the full budget, not just the changes in the future.

No one else?

All right.

And just a reminder that the meetings, and we saw those up there earlier, but we have February 1st, February 4th, maybe February 7th, February 17th, February 17th.

I'd like to thank whoever turned off the meeting.