2020-06-16 - School Board Meeting

0:00 Thank you.

10:29 We will now say the Pledge of Allegiance.

10:59 Thank you.

11:59 And they two weeks ago, and they, two weeks ago on our Brevard

12:02 News, if you haven’t had a chance

12:03 to look at it, they also showcased their work.

12:07 And it’s, all their work was around sustainable development

12:12 goals.

12:12 And they did a fabulous job of what can we do for sustainability.

12:18 So, shout out to all of our students who participated in the SDG

12:26 goals at Freedom 7.

12:29 mcdougall ms campbell um thank you so i just wanted i’ve got two

12:34 first one is our pi program

12:37 our partners in education program i’d appreciate so much deborah

12:40 foley and sarah allman for the

12:41 work that they’re doing even in the um during the pandemic time

12:45 because usually they have a once a

12:47 month meeting where they have with our pi coordinators from each

12:51 school and our business and

12:52 community partners and they you know share their needs well they

12:55 are keeping that going um they’re

12:57 super active on their facebook page they’ve been doing virtual

13:00 meetings that are lots of fun

13:02 and so that our partners and our school teams are just staying

13:05 connected which is so important when

13:07 it you know time comes time to you know meeting the needs of our

13:10 students and so i just shout out to

13:12 them and also to all our wonderful pi coordinators at each

13:15 school um and i think there’s one here for

13:18 esf as well and then um to our amazing partners who support our

13:22 schools even when the doors are closed so

13:25 uh we appreciate all of you guys so much and the other one is um

13:28 kind of an unusual one

13:30 you know all of our different programs have so many have had so

13:33 many different challenges during this

13:35 time but um i was made aware that our band directors are um

13:39 really working side by side um i won’t say

13:43 hand in hand because we’re not supposed to be like touching each

13:45 other but um side by side right now

13:47 a group of nine band directors have been meeting and kind of

13:51 rotating through all those their schools

13:53 in the last couple weeks um cleaning band instruments things you

13:56 don’t think about but they collected all

13:58 the school and band instruments together they let them sit in

14:00 quarantine for a couple weeks and then

14:02 they go and they literally like give them baths i don’t know i

14:04 had a friend sure and i just took it in

14:05 the bathtub every now and they clean so they’re having to like

14:07 wash all these instruments clean them down so

14:09 they can get them back out to our students who need to be

14:12 practicing over the summer so i’m just i was

14:14 really encouraged by the partnership and they always work

14:17 together so well but just that they’re really

14:19 helping one another out so that they can you know serve our

14:22 students well and that’s this is off time

14:25 so i’m sure they have fun you know bathing instruments um but

14:28 you know i just really appreciate our band

14:30 directors and the way they um they worked so quickly and cooperatively

14:34 thank you ms campbell ms tuskovich

14:36 i have two shout outs today the first one is for ms eller the

14:40 guidance counselor or one of the guidance

14:42 counselors at satellite high school she was awarded the impact

14:46 pin the last week of school i’ve had

14:48 several parents reach out on her behalf and request that she

14:51 receive acknowledgement and i thought it was

14:54 an impact pin was a good way to acknowledge her hard work some

14:58 of the things parents had said about her

15:00 is that she helped her child with an iep get across the finish

15:04 line to graduation and obviously that was

15:06 a lengthy email that wasn’t the but that’s the the gist of the

15:10 email another mom said that um her door is

15:12 always open and without her her sons and daughters she obviously

15:16 has many children and at satellite um they

15:18 divide up the student body by last name so all of her children

15:21 have had the same guidance counselor so her

15:23 sons and daughters would not be the confident young adults they

15:26 are today so thank you ms eller for

15:28 your hard work and your commitment to our students the second

15:33 one uh is for miss liba at

15:34 was at sea park she retired uh her last day was the last day of

15:40 june and just want to give her a proper

15:43 farewell from the board meeting since we don’t have them in to

15:45 celebrate their retirements right now

15:47 and a shout out to her community and to all she has done because

15:51 the

15:52 community put on a parade for her and fire was out there police

15:56 was out there um all of her staff

15:58 showed up and community members kind of lined the street in the

16:02 area and fire truck did the hose water

16:06 across and i was just it was really really beautiful and i think

16:09 she’s been at the school for 20 plus

16:13 years i didn’t write down the number of years but she’s been

16:15 there a long time and they appreciate her

16:17 and we will miss her thank you very good thank you mr susan

16:21 thank you madam chair i have a shout out

16:24 today for mayor malik from coco beach i’ve thought about how i

16:28 was going to do this um so i’m just

16:31 going to let it go so last week when we were sitting here and we

16:34 were discussing the whether we would go

16:36 ahead and fund the track for viera there was a lot of negative

16:39 connotation that got thrown on viera

16:42 and that was completely unfair completely unfair um these

16:46 parents had been raising money for 2012.

16:49 they had a track that they had that was 13 years old they were

16:53 just working as a families to try to

16:55 raise the money and nobody in here this isn’t for anybody in

16:58 here this is for the public those people

17:00 are small those individuals that came out against those families

17:03 didn’t understand that they were

17:04 raising money for rocklidge’s track and that because they didn’t

17:07 get it they got put back a year and a

17:09 half at rocklidge to raise money to redo theirs that viera got

17:12 put back a year and i’m sick and tired of

17:14 people out there saying that this is us this is mine this is

17:18 what i need at my track i gotta go i got

17:21 it i was over at the aau and mayor mallet came up to me and he

17:25 says matt i heard about what happened at

17:27 viera i’m so sorry we’ve got a track at coco beach how do we do

17:31 this and i said you know what mayor you

17:35 you’re talking to me because i was trying to represent two of my

17:38 things in the district i know

17:40 you guys are over there how do we do this not as an individual

17:44 school but as a group how does viera

17:47 coco beach rocklage work together with community partners and so

17:52 mayor malik and i started talking

17:54 and we are going to put together a group and a guideline set for

17:58 may for mayors for local health

18:01 providers for local businesses to be a part of that track and

18:05 fundraising effort because what it takes

18:08 is not many people understand that these are community tracks

18:11 that when satellite was getting

18:13 theirs we i got emails over the break that people couldn’t

18:16 access it that were teachers that were in my

18:18 district that drive over to yours so they can run on the track

18:20 because they have bad knees and they have

18:22 but it’s an amazing opportunity and i think that the community

18:26 in general if we work together we can

18:28 accomplish all of these whether it’s titusville whether it’s

18:31 palm bay but if we have a footprint

18:33 that they say yes the local health providers can come down and

18:36 they can do health they can do health and

18:39 wellness stuff out on the track as a group with the city

18:42 officials and with the elected officials and the

18:45 businesses can bring out their employees and do 5ks it can

18:48 become the center point for all of our community

18:52 organizations as far as health and wellness and we know with the

18:55 raising diabetes and everything else

18:57 that’s going on out there that this is something that’s needed

18:59 so my shout out was to mayor malik

19:01 because you know i was sitting there for a little while i was

19:04 really upset about the way that we had

19:06 some negative connotations about vieira and he came out and said

19:10 we and he was one of the few people from

19:12 the community that came out and said how can we work together so

19:15 that’s my shout out today thank you

19:18 thank you mr susan dr mullins

19:25 thank you madam chair i’d like to take this opportunity to

19:28 recognize and acknowledge while

19:30 we’re at the beginning of the meeting our reopening task force i’ve

19:33 made mention of them and their work

19:35 at a previous board meeting and i’ll be providing the board and

19:38 the community an update on the work of

19:40 our task force at the end of the board meeting but in the event

19:44 that folks don’t stay tuned along i just

19:46 wanted to give a shout out to our team of 14 team members three

19:52 cabinet members that oversee and lead

19:55 the task force since we launched our online portal for community

20:01 input we’ve received over 10 000

20:04 inputs and i can assure our community and the board that staff

20:08 are reviewing every entry and collating

20:11 it and capturing it and capturing themes and common threads of

20:15 information and feedback i’ll provide

20:17 some of that later in the presentation but the work that it is

20:21 taking to manage that along with the

20:24 ever-changing environment that we’re in most recently with the

20:27 guidelines provided by the state late last

20:30 week they’re having to meet hours on end every week to stay abreast

20:36 and to be uh and to be proactive

20:39 and make sure that we’re prepared for the starting of the school

20:42 year so just wanted to give our team

20:43 a shout out across uh brevard public schools uh all all areas as

20:48 well as our local health department

20:50 leaders and officials who are participating uh and let uh the

20:53 community know at this point we will be

20:56 moving toward having a reopening plan uh by mid-july which will

21:00 be addressed more in my presentation at the

21:02 end of the board meeting thank you thank you uh i just want to

21:07 second the recognition of the task force

21:11 i know that uh we all have been getting lots of emails from

21:15 constituents about so many different

21:16 issues with regard to our schools being uh reopened and access

21:20 to campuses and that sort of thing and

21:22 so not only have they been doing the really tough work of

21:24 monitoring all of that that feedback online but i know i

21:28 personally have been been reaching out to them on a regular

21:30 basis to ask them

21:30 questions so that i can respond to constituents as well so um

21:35 thank you very much to all who are are

21:38 working to to try to make things move as as swiftly and safely

21:42 as possible we appreciate it and then i’m

21:44 gonna um also give a shout out to our procurement team i know i

21:48 think the email was copied to all of you

21:51 all but um there was we’d received some information about thermometers

21:55 or something and um chris moore

21:57 said we’ve we’ve already got our order placed they will be in we’ve

22:00 got a shipment coming in i think they

22:02 were coming in monday and we’ve got more coming in for reopening

22:06 and um i just want to thank procurement

22:08 as as we still struggle to get the things that we need to to

22:11 keep our homes and our our environment safe

22:14 our team here at the district has been working really hard to

22:17 make sure that we have all those things to

22:18 ensure that we have a safe uh return for our students and

22:21 faculty as well so uh thank you to christy and

22:24 all of our procurement team for making all of that happen all

22:28 right that will bring us to the adoption of

22:32 the agenda um dr mullins i believe you have some info for us ms

22:38 belford and members of the board

22:41 on this morning’s agenda we have one presentation 22 consent

22:46 items four action items and six information

22:49 items and an item in the superintendent’s report on school

22:52 reopening changes made to the agenda since

22:54 being released to the public are as follows a seven on

22:57 administrative staff recommendations was moved

23:00 under action to item g34 item f16 on administrative and

23:04 professional reappointments was revised

23:07 item f9 on senior cabinet reorganization is an addition

23:11 attachments were added to the budget

23:14 update presentation and the school reopening update

23:17 that’s it all right what are the wishes of the board move to

23:23 approve second moved by mr susan second about

23:26 ms escobar would you please call the vote

23:29 mrs belford aye mrs deskovich aye ms campbell aye ms mcdougall

23:40 aye mr susan aye the motion passes five

23:44 zero dr mollins will you please tell us about our presentation

23:47 this morning yes madam chair at this time

23:50 members of the board miss cindy lisinski our chief financial

23:54 officer will provide the board and viewing

23:56 audience a budget update miss lisinski and mr collins miss lisinski

24:01 will introduce mr rick collins and

24:04 toward the later part of the presentation i’ll actually join

24:07 miss lisinski and provide some

24:09 additional information to the board

24:17 so good morning it’s my great pleasure to introduce to you mr rick

24:20 collins rick has served

24:23 in the audit auditing and financial management fields for over

24:27 41 years rick started his career as an

24:30 auditor focusing mainly on school districts and it’s my hunch

24:35 that he must have audited the orange county

24:38 public schools more than once and they decided to hire him

24:41 versus having more write-ups from rick collins

24:44 so he worked for the orange county public schools for over 11

24:48 years and assumed the number two position

24:51 for financial operations and the school and of the school

24:54 district he then became the cfo of osceola

24:58 county public schools where he served for another 11 years rick

25:02 returned back to orange county this time as the cfo for the

25:07 10th largest school district in the country that is amazing

25:11 where he served for 10 years until his retirement

25:15 during this tenure orange county became the top rated school

25:19 district in florida by the major rating

25:21 agencies and i’m sure that is because of rick collins and all

25:26 his audit expertise and all the

25:28 the years and years that he has spent in accounting and budget

25:31 since his retirement he’s been working with the florida

25:35 association of district school superintendents fads helping new

25:39 superintendents understand the budget

25:42 and the importance of accounting and and tuesdays and thursdays

25:47 he normally watches his two beautiful twin

25:53 grandbabies and he’s here with us today and today is actually

25:57 their six month birthday can you have a six month birthday

26:01 so rick has uh rick has met me at the door on day one as a

26:07 mentor he’s been helping me um all along and

26:12 helping guide me as i um transition into this position as cfo as

26:16 brevard and i’m incredibly grateful for

26:19 for everything that you’ve done um he has really helped reduce

26:23 that learning curve and today rick will

26:25 discuss his deep dive analysis of our financial condition and

26:38 how we compare to local districts

26:49 well good morning board members and dr mullins uh thank you for

26:56 inviting me to come talk to you today

26:59 what i’d like to do is just briefly talk about some of the

27:04 analysis that i’ve done

27:06 for the school district uh again just taking a look at some of

27:10 your historical financial data

27:12 to try to determine sort of where that where is the district at

27:16 uh sort of a macro look and i did also

27:18 take a little bit of a look at your uh the final conference

27:22 report as far as what it how it impacts

27:24 the school district um i know cindy’s done a much more deeper

27:28 look at all of the numbers on the uh the

27:31 conference report but i’ll do some uh some brief analysis on

27:34 that as well

27:40 okay the agenda is again to take a look at the historical

27:42 financial data and also to review your

27:45 2021 financial uh conference report data let’s get right into it

27:50 the um analysis of the historical

27:53 financial data what i did is i took a look at three different

27:57 areas uh your expenditures by object

27:59 comparing you to some of your peer districts when i say peer

28:02 districts primarily those districts that are

28:04 comparable in size it you’ll find that districts that are

28:08 comparable in size generally have similar

28:11 uh operations than but if you know if you’re trying to compare

28:14 yourselves to a miami-dade that’s

28:17 you know massive or to like a jefferson county or an okechobe

28:20 county that’s really small you’re

28:22 going to look very different than they do but when you start

28:25 looking at yourselves compared to your peer

28:27 districts which are comparable in size then you should see some

28:30 similarities so that’s what i tried to do is to take a look at

28:33 that

28:33 so let’s get right into the details um looking at your i went

28:38 back to fiscal year 2018 when i say fiscal

28:41 year 2018 it’s the 17-18 fiscal year um and i’ll show you the

28:47 details here it may not be very easy

28:49 to see i think you may have the detail report set with you um

28:53 okay let me see if i can make that a little bigger

29:02 okay you’ll notice that when i looked at 2018 and these are

29:08 expenditures by object an object is

29:10 you know what the item is you know salaries and benefits and

29:14 equipment things like that um nothing

29:18 really jumped out at me and and again the purpose of the

29:21 analysis isn’t necessarily to

29:23 say this this number is exactly a certain percentage and this is

29:27 by the way these these numbers are the

29:29 percentage of your total budget in each category so the purpose

29:33 wasn’t to go in and say oh your number

29:36 is exactly this or exactly that it was really to get a feel for

29:40 any outliers that you may have i mean

29:43 is there something really different about the way brevard county

29:46 operates compared to your peer districts

29:49 and then why uh so i took a look at uh again expenditures by uh

29:54 by object uh for 2018

29:56 and nothing really jumps out at you that is really out of line

30:00 with your peer districts that’s that’s

30:02 the first point i’d like to make the second point is that at the

30:05 time of 2018 your materials and supplies

30:09 expenditures were slightly higher and when i say materials and

30:12 supplies that also includes textbooks in

30:14 that category uh so but your expenditures in that category was

30:18 slightly higher than your peer districts

30:20 and your other expenditures which is primarily uh things like

30:24 your uh part-time salaries uh was actually

30:27 lower than your peer district just just nothing right nothing

30:32 wrong it’s just and that’s the way it came out

30:37 so there wasn’t anything that jumped out at me for 2018 so i

30:41 went to 2019 to see if there was anything unusual about 2019

30:51 and again nothing really jumps out at you as being uh out of

30:57 line i’ve done this type of analysis for

30:59 several school districts throughout the state so it’s amazing

31:03 what you find out sometimes when you start

31:05 looking at comparisons with your peer districts but brevard uh

31:08 doesn’t really stick out like a sore

31:10 thumb in any particular category again your your other

31:13 expenditures here are slightly lower than your peer

31:16 districts and uh that just has to do with how you’re classifying

31:19 certain expenditures

31:20 okay let’s move on

31:29 uh the next thing i wanted to talk about was the expenditures by

31:34 function now the functional area

31:36 is sort of where or the purpose of the uh expenditure the red

31:43 book accounting have you guys

31:45 heard of the red book it basically tells you how you’re supposed

31:48 to categorize all of your expenditures

31:50 the uh the red book basically tells you how to classify that

31:54 based on the red book

31:59 your expenditures are slightly higher in the instructional

32:02 technology area let me bring up that summary here as well

32:06 okay the um again your instructional technology area slightly

32:16 higher again that’s technology that’s purchased

32:19 uh for use in the schools for for use for instructional purposes

32:24 so being a little higher than that would be

32:27 something that you would actually be proud of your general

32:30 administration area is way down as far as a

32:34 percentage of your total expenditures um it’s an indication of

32:38 efficiency of the operation of the

32:40 superintendent his staff it may also be an indication that you’re

32:44 classifying expenditures uh with some

32:46 flexibility based on the guidelines in the red book that may be

32:49 a little different than some of your peers

32:52 it may be a little above i i didn’t i didn’t get down to that

32:55 level of detail to figure out why but it

32:57 it really does not indicate that you’re spending more than your

33:00 peers in that area actually indicates

33:02 you’re spending less um administrative technology would be your

33:08 your business erp system and you can see

33:11 that you’re actually spending less than your peer districts on

33:14 on as far as the percentage of your total

33:16 and then uh the transportation services uh you’re actually

33:20 spending less than your your peer districts

33:23 on um as a percentage of your total budget now that may be an

33:27 indication of efficiency which i think

33:29 it actually is or it also may be of course a fact of fact a

33:34 function of actually uh transporting fewer

33:37 students as a proportion of your total that’s something we would

33:40 have to dig into deeper to see if that’s the case

33:44 but again nothing jumps out at you as being unusual about your

33:54 expenditures

33:56 okay this this area i wanted to spend a little bit more time

33:59 about over it’s basically your reserve

34:02 levels of the of the school district

34:08 something called a financial condition ratio have any of you

34:11 heard of that term before uh financial

34:14 condition ratio that the state uh actually uses that term in

34:18 measuring whether or not a school

34:20 district may be in a state of financial emergency in fact um the

34:26 there are there are thresholds below

34:29 which you have to if you go below that if when you hit the three

34:32 percent threshold you actually have to

34:34 provide notice to the commissioner that you may be entering a

34:38 state of financial emergency

34:40 if you go below two percent then you have to come up with a plan

34:43 that you have to submit to the state

34:45 which they have to review and approve that’s that’s a a a

34:49 financial emergency avoidance plan

34:52 if you go to hit two percent now fortunately for brevard you’re

34:57 not in that range as far as your financial condition ratio

35:01 now what is a financial condition ratio let’s just talk a little

35:04 bit about what it is

35:05 gasp 54 actually determines how you classify your your your year-end

35:15 fund balance

35:15 the governmental accounting standards board so every school

35:18 district should be using similar

35:20 classifications there are two major categories one is called non-spendable

35:26 and one is called spendable

35:29 accountants try to keep it simple you know non-spendable is

35:32 primarily inventory and prepaid items

35:35 let’s just forget about that because those aren’t spendable in

35:38 the expendable category you have

35:41 several categories and they move from most restrictive all the

35:45 way to least restrictive uh one is called

35:47 restricted that’s again we keep it simple restricted is

35:51 something that’s restricted by law so you have to use

35:55 those funds that are left over at the end of the year for

35:58 restricted purposes committed means that this board

36:02 has taken action to commit a portion of your fund balance for a

36:06 specific purpose and you did that

36:09 as part of your board action and that those those particular

36:13 items are listed in your notes to your

36:15 financial statements what those particular items were you also

36:18 have a category called assigned these are this

36:22 this this is less restrictive than committed but it’s something

36:25 that the superintendent can assign dollars

36:27 to out of the fund balance things like summer school summer

36:31 school occurs throughout the summer so if you’re if

36:34 you’re partway through the summer school you may reserve or or

36:39 assign some dollars to finish out your summer

36:41 school program that type of thing and then the final category is

36:45 unassigned now i will tell you that in your in your policy

36:49 you you actually set aside three percent of your revenues in a

36:55 contingency fund that contingency fund is actually part of that

36:58 unassigned category

36:59 based on the gasb classifications a reservation like that of

37:06 your uh by the board for

37:08 contingency purposes actually show up in the unassigned category

37:18 now the financial condition ratio you take the assigned category

37:22 and the unassigned let me show you the details here

37:26 okay so you take these last two categories of assigned and unassigned

37:38 and you divide it by your revenue

37:40 so that’s that’s just the mathematical process for calculating

37:44 the formula in your case you’re at eight

37:46 point two four percent is that good is that bad what does it

37:50 mean um there is literature that that is all

37:55 over the place as far as what the number should be as far as

37:58 best practice uh i’ve read some literature

38:01 that says five between five and ten percent it’s good i’ve seen

38:04 some literature that says uh two months worth of

38:07 revenue would be good which is about 17 so that’s much higher

38:11 than what you have um the state average is

38:14 around ten percent so you are slightly less than ten percent or

38:19 the state average as far as what your

38:22 financial condition ratio is

38:27 one thing about your financial condition ratio is that it is

38:31 consistent over time so by looking at these

38:35 numbers you know in 2015 8.94 percent all the way to 8.24 there’s

38:41 not a lot of variability in your financial

38:43 condition ratio every year which is actually very positive that’s

38:47 an indication of strong financial

38:49 management and effective financial management by your your

38:53 superintendent and staff so that’s actually a good

38:56 thing the rating agencies they look at that and they say hey

39:00 what’s going on with your financial condition

39:02 ratio from year to year if it bounces around either going up too

39:06 fast going down too fast they get

39:08 concerned so they’re looking for adequacy and they’re also

39:12 looking for uh consistency over time

39:14 in your case it’s been very consistent over time which is a good

39:17 thing

39:22 now what what do you use your reserves for why why do you why do

39:26 you need a certain level of reserves well

39:28 primarily for unforeseen circumstances that’s why you have to

39:32 have an adequate reserve level

39:33 is to cover any potential unforeseen circumstance such as a

39:37 hurricane being here in brevard county when a hurricane hits

39:41 you have to outlay cash in a hurry to start uh fixing up things

39:46 paying people overtime those types of things

39:49 those dollars initially will come out of some pot of money so

39:52 you need to have some kind of reserve pot to

39:54 use that now you eventually get reimbursed either by insurance

39:59 or by fema for much of that cost but

40:03 it takes years literally it takes years to get reimbursed

40:06 sometimes for fema so so you have to have that pot

40:10 of money that you can lean on to get those things done that have

40:13 to be done to cover those unforeseen

40:15 circumstances another reason for having a reasonable reserve is

40:19 a mid-year revenue adjustment i don’t know

40:21 if you get any of you guys were around back in 2000 fiscal year

40:24 2008 mid-year major adjustment yeah downward uh

40:29 uh yeah part way through the year you already had all your

40:32 contracts in place with your faculty members

40:34 and everybody else and all of a sudden the state says oh we were

40:37 just kidding about those revenues we

40:39 we told you about we’re actually lowering those substantially so

40:42 that’s that’s another good reason for having

40:44 a reasonable financial condition ratio

40:49 i think i covered all the points on the slides so i’ll i’ll just

40:52 move on

40:52 okay what i’m going to do now is just shift gears a little bit

40:59 and talk a little bit about the uh

41:03 2020 2020-21 uh financial final conference report

41:08 um one of the categoricals this year was kind of confusing to be

41:15 honest with you is the total funds

41:17 compression allocation so i was asked to take a look at it and

41:20 see what happened

41:20 the purpose of the categorical allocation is to move your total

41:27 per student funding of districts that

41:29 are below the state average closer to the state average so it’s

41:33 a noble purpose so those of you who

41:34 are being funded on a per student basis less than the state

41:38 average you’re trying to move closer to the

41:40 state average so that’s what that purpose of that additional

41:43 funding is for and what they do is they

41:46 look at your total per student funding and they say okay we’ll

41:49 give you 25 percent of the difference

41:51 between the what you’re getting and what the state average is

41:54 and so that moves you slightly towards that state average

42:00 however there is a little bit of a caveat the state legislature

42:03 only appropriates a certain amount

42:05 of money for that categorical so they’ll do the calculation and

42:09 say okay you’re entitled to this

42:11 amount of money but then they’ll look at their bottom line and

42:13 say oh but we don’t really have enough

42:15 to fund that so we’ll do a proration of it so that’s what

42:19 happened for the 2020-21 conference report

42:25 you’re you’re uh let me let me show you the actual calculation

42:29 here uh okay

42:32 and again i don’t want to bore you with the weeds here other

42:39 than the fact that the the um

42:43 mr collins i would suggest these are good weeds okay okay for

42:49 our community and our board to understand

42:51 given the discussion we’re going to have shortly about budget

42:53 okay yes i can i can i just can you

42:55 just very briefly um you you talked about this allocation

42:59 because for the districts that are

43:02 below the state average can you give us like a 20 second why

43:05 districts like brevard county are receiving

43:08 below average funding per student i know the district cost

43:12 differential is not a 20-second statement

43:16 but if you can give us you know for our listening public why why

43:19 are we receiving less than the state

43:20 average okay would you mind if i wait until the next slide to

43:24 show you that yes because we’re

43:25 when we look at the total funding no i don’t mind we’ll talk

43:28 about that okay okay on this particular

43:31 categorical you’ll see that your your 71.58 is your funds below

43:37 the statewide average at this at the time of this calculation

43:42 also remember this is based on the prior two years data it’s not

43:49 based on current data it’s actually based on

43:51 the 2020 data and it’s also based on the 2019 data so they

43:56 actually go back to completed years to do

43:59 the calculation well 2020 hasn’t completed yet but they so it’s

44:04 kind of confusing first of all because

44:06 they’re using completely different numbers than they’re using in

44:09 the 2021 conference report so that’s

44:12 what that’s one of the confusing parts is they’re using

44:14 historical data and so in your case uh you’re

44:19 you’re 71 below so they weren’t they should take 25 percent of

44:23 that which would be 17.90 times your

44:26 number of students your actual fte so your calculated number

44:31 should be 1.3 million dollars that’s what you

44:34 should get for your your first calculation compression

44:39 allocation now you only got 917 000 and why is that

44:46 it’s because of the proration so and one thing that comparing to

44:52 last year is interesting is that

44:54 the actual calculation you were 613 000 less than last year but

45:00 that’s because you were actually moving

45:03 closer to the state average so the good news is that you’re

45:07 actually moving towards the state average

45:09 but the bad news is that you’re still below it and and the bad

45:13 news is that the compression

45:17 allocation was prorated this year to the tune of 394 000 that

45:22 you didn’t get or you won’t get because

45:24 of the uh the proration so does does that kind of make sense i

45:29 that’s important to understand why now

45:33 that and that’s one of the answers to your question is that why

45:36 are you below the state average is this

45:38 compression allocation would eventually catch you up but they

45:41 don’t always fully fund it the state

45:43 legislature doesn’t fully fund it so you kind of lag behind a

45:46 little bit that’s that’s part of the

45:48 answers and to your uh to your question and let’s go on to the

45:55 uh the next slide um mr collins were you

45:59 going to address here or later what the district what the

46:02 revenue difference would have been if we were

46:05 funded at the state average yes sir the the the total difference

46:09 would have been 7.8 million dollars

46:13 uh that’s actually on the summary slide but i’ll mention it now

46:16 as well is that if we if we were

46:17 actually funded at the statewide average for the 2021 fiscal

46:22 year your total funding would be 7.8

46:25 7.8 million dollars uh higher than your your proposed uh budget

46:32 will be for 2020 and 21.

46:39 okay yeah let’s move right on into that that next one which is

46:45 the uh the look at the total uh conference

46:49 report and i’ll i’ll bring up the slide it’s it’s kind of a busy

46:54 slide but i’ll kind of explain what it

46:56 means um if i can zoom in a little bit uh i’ll just leave it out

47:02 there if you guys have a copy of it but

47:05 what i did is i just took a look at your peer districts to see

47:09 how they’re funded

47:10 and look at brevard county how it’s funded on a per fte basis so

47:14 the left side of the screen here

47:16 just shows the total numbers coming right out of the conference

47:19 report

47:20 and then the uh per fte is a calculation showing what each of

47:24 your school districts would look like

47:26 on a per fte basis in each of each of the categories of the fefp

47:34 calculation included in the conference

47:36 report so a few things to note uh is that your your tax base is

47:42 actually stronger than most of your peers

47:44 except for volusia county and you can tell that by in several

47:48 different areas like the uh 0.748 uh mills

47:53 compression you’ll see that uh again that’s a that’s another

47:58 compression allocation but it’s just

48:00 compressing the uh the uh discretionary millage and you see that

48:06 volusia is only 82.80 you’re 111

48:11 to get to the state average uh but you’ll see that osceola pasco

48:15 and seminole their their numbers are

48:17 much higher than yours to get so what that tells me is that

48:21 first of all your tax base is below the

48:24 state average but it’s not as much below uh the state average as

48:29 osceola pasco and seminole but it’s

48:32 actually better than volusia so that’s just just one thing that

48:35 tells so going back to your initial

48:37 question that’s one reason why your overall numbers are less is

48:41 because your your your funding from your

48:44 tax base is actually below the state average that’s part of it

48:47 the uh your esc guaranteed allocation is slightly higher than

48:54 your peers which means you have a

48:57 slightly higher concentration of your esc students uh in the

49:02 lower three categories of classification you

49:06 you know uh ese you have a five tier matrix for classification

49:11 of severity of need the first

49:13 three categories is you get the supplemental funding for ese

49:16 guaranteed to help fund the first three

49:18 categories and you you apparently have a slightly higher

49:22 concentration of ese students therefore you

49:26 would get a slightly higher esc guaranteed allocation um you get

49:33 a slightly higher allocation for supplemental

49:36 academic instruction uh than than your your peers slightly

49:40 higher um that one when it was created back in the 1990s

49:47 uh what had certain metrics that they used to create the sai

49:54 allocation and then it’s been adjusted over time

49:56 based on workload and and price level adjustments so if there

50:01 were differences that existed back in the 1990s

50:04 many of those differences still exist so they’ve just been

50:08 brought forward so again that’s the differential

50:11 thing that will cause you to be different than some of the uh

50:14 the uh the other the other districts or the state average even

50:17 um your transportation allocation is lower than your peers again

50:22 we talked about that earlier

50:23 you’re either more uh more efficient in how you’re transporting

50:27 or you’re transporting fewer students

50:31 then uh you do get the federally connected student supplement uh

50:35 which is kind of unique among uh your peer

50:39 districts you you have certain federal property that is not taxable

50:43 it doesn’t you don’t collect property taxes

50:46 because it’s federal property so you do get a little bit of a

50:49 supplement from the state to make up for part of that

50:51 so that’s what that’s for the funding compression uh we talked a

50:57 little bit about that is that it’s lower than your peers

51:00 primarily because you’re closer to the state average than your

51:03 peers are right now

51:03 the lottery and school recognition allocation just a caution on

51:07 that and i talked to

51:08 to the staff about that as well because um it’s based on your

51:14 test scores well you didn’t have testing

51:16 this year so we don’t really know how that’s going to be

51:19 allocated yet we know what was budgeted but

51:21 that may or may not materialize and then finally uh looking at

51:26 the uh report all of this may be garbage i

51:30 mean we we don’t know what’s going to happen once the governor

51:34 uh steps in because the governor hasn’t

51:36 approved this yet so the governor may step in and veto it or

51:40 veto parts not not necessarily this but

51:43 other parts of the budget uh the legislature may be required to

51:46 come in and have a special session we

51:48 don’t we don’t know all of that dr mullins maybe you know maybe

51:51 you can give us an update on that at some

51:52 point but um let me go on to the last slide and then i’ll let cindy

51:58 take over so in summary um

52:02 when you look at the expenditures by object with your peers

52:10 there are some differences but nothing

52:11 really material nothing significant uh expenditures by function

52:16 again nothing really significant to jump

52:18 out at you and and require a lot of extra in-depth investigation

52:23 your financial condition ratio

52:26 indicates consistency of operations over time and it is slightly

52:31 below the state average

52:34 again that shows effective management the total funds

52:37 compression adjustment is less because funding is

52:41 better but but also the cost of a proration uh and the um and

52:47 again brevard public schools would have

52:50 received an additional 7.8 million dollars if funded at the

52:53 state average um per student and again there are

52:58 lots of things that enter into that uh the district cost

53:01 differential uh is is another thing i didn’t

53:04 mention earlier that also can impact your funding um if you’re

53:08 different the district cost differential is

53:11 something that basically looks at at the cost of living in your

53:15 district and hang on a second let me back up

53:20 just a second and cover that one again um in your case your

53:26 district cost differential is 0.9877 okay so

53:30 you’re less than one which means that you’re getting less than

53:35 uh average funding for the cost of the the

53:39 district cost differential that means that based on the study

53:43 that was done as far as the cost of living

53:45 here in brevard county they determined that it’s less than state

53:48 average uh and there’s a whole

53:51 there’s a whole myriad of things that go into that that

53:54 calculation uh including uh what

53:57 they call an amenity adjustment if you have waterfront property

54:01 they they actually adjust that

54:02 downward somewhat as far as what the cost is there uh i won’t

54:05 get into that because i don’t really

54:07 understand it all they’re they hire economists that do that and

54:12 uh not accountants apparently so whoops

54:16 so uh again the last point i wanted to make real quickly again

54:20 is that the funding for 2021 may change

54:23 rapidly based on future actions we don’t know when that’s going

54:27 to happen uh the governor could make

54:29 some changes uh at the time he’s actually approving the budget

54:32 he could veto certain items or he may call

54:36 a special session later on in the year if necessary to uh to get

54:40 things back on track okay dr mullins

54:45 rick before you go i would just add uh to for the board to

54:49 recall during session this year there were

54:52 there was quite a bit of discussion around the dcd the district

54:55 cost differential being adjusted uh

54:58 based on a new study that would be done or was done and then

55:02 also reconsideration of the compression

55:04 funding uh line item that that rick spoke to specifically those

55:09 issues those adjustments were

55:12 suspended or embargoed for this year so they did not play into

55:16 our funding and it’s hard to say exactly

55:19 what would have happened if dcd would have been recalculated we

55:23 anticipate that our point 9877

55:28 would have risen a little bit so we would have received uh more

55:31 funding through the dcd uh if i

55:33 remember correctly i don’t believe it’s shown here but uh we we

55:38 lose approximately four million dollars

55:40 a little over four million dollars as a result of just the dcd

55:44 calculation but of course if that would

55:47 have occurred then our compression contribution would have gone

55:50 down because you know we would have been

55:52 so it’s hard to know exactly what the ultimate outcome would

55:55 have been with the dcd and compression

55:58 not knowing where the legislature would have gone would they

56:01 have adopted both would it have been one or

56:03 the other so i just wanted to remind the board that that was up

56:06 for discussion this year it was it was

56:08 paused it’ll be interesting to see if it’s re-evaluated for next

56:12 year’s budget okay

56:15 do any board members have any questions for mr collins

56:20 before we go back to miss lisinski thank you so much mr collins

56:26 we appreciate all the work you’re

56:27 doing to support brevard you’re welcome and i’ll stick around in

56:30 case there are further questions

56:31 thank you thank you rick

56:38 so as i stated um during the april budget workshop there is no

56:50 greater indicator of a child’s future

56:52 than his or her education and brevard public schools takes this

56:56 charge incredibly seriously

57:01 before the pandemic we already faced a triple challenge as we

57:05 prepared to enter the upcoming

57:06 fiscal school year sustaining and driving up an already high

57:10 standard of learning and excellence

57:12 for all of our students tackling the unsustainable cost

57:15 structure of our current self-insured

57:17 health care plan and balancing the 20 21 budget needs with

57:22 reduced revenue from the state

57:25 as we move the pandemic grows the pandemic grows our challenges

57:32 as we navigate the uncertainty as we

57:36 come back to school we will have to quickly assess where our

57:39 students are both academically and more

57:41 importantly emotionally in order to make loss in order to make

57:44 up lost ground we’re going to have to

57:47 reach our students hearts before we can reach their minds in

57:50 addition to our increased cost in health

57:52 insurance we also have to meet anticipated health and safety

57:55 measures for our children our teachers other

57:58 vital employees as we return back to school and work to support

58:02 our children’s education

58:03 we will also be navigating increased financial uncertainty as we

58:08 assess the state’s financial health after

58:10 months of reduced tax revenue and we will also be faced with the

58:14 potential of reduced student enrollment

58:17 depending on how parents feel about sending their children back

58:21 to school

58:22 and we will also be facing our children’s education for our

58:25 children’s education for our children’s education

58:25 so i showed this slide at the last budget update and i think it’s

58:31 important to take a look at it again

58:33 and you can see that the student enrollment of brevard county

58:36 continues to grow over the years

58:38 however the brevard public schools enrollment is projected to

58:42 decline for the third year in a row

58:45 while the charter schools continue to grow and an enrollment

58:49 problem is a money problem for us

58:51 the negative growth count compounds our financial challenges and

58:56 so the growth of 646 ftes in charter schools

59:00 equates to a transfer out of our budget of about five million

59:04 dollars and as i mentioned again

59:08 this these these numbers are pre-covid these numbers were

59:12 projected in january and submitted to the state in january

59:15 we don’t we still don’t know what our numbers will look like the

59:19 first day of school

59:20 we’re hoping we’re the the task force is doing everything they

59:24 can do to make sure that the schools are ready day one

59:27 and that they’re safe and that we’re ready for our children

59:30 because there’s nothing more important than the first day of

59:33 school

59:33 you only have one first day of school um and we need to be ready

59:38 they need they needs to be great and it

59:40 needs to be safe so i think that we’re we’re on our way of doing

59:44 that um but again enrollment could further decline

59:49 and if that does depending on on the number of kids that we don’t

59:53 come that don’t come back to school

59:56 that could be a significant shortfall for us that we’ll have to

59:59 cover

1:00:03 and so this slide it talks about the conference report but i

1:00:08 think uh uh mr collins rick collins did an

1:00:12 amazing job going over the conference report and we did go

1:00:15 through this um at the april budget workshop

1:00:19 so what is different about this is since then we had a may

1:00:24 calculation and the may calculation bettered our

1:00:27 starting position about um 809k and and what happened is um we

1:00:33 lost some students to charter schools and we had to make an

1:00:35 adjustment

1:00:36 and we also had a slight proration so there were some

1:00:39 adjustments we kind of paid forward

1:00:42 so you see the fourth calculation the number is slightly less

1:00:45 than third calculation which gives us a

1:00:48 larger change from the conference report from the fourth

1:00:53 calculation to the conference report so we have

1:00:56 a starting position of 15 million dollars available for the

1:01:01 starting of the year but when we go to the next slide

1:01:06 the news doesn’t stay that good um so we start off with the 15

1:01:12 million dollars and then we have to

1:01:15 subtract out our categoricals or our non-restricted items if you’re

1:01:19 an accountant and you use the

1:01:21 the simple language of restricted items so we subtract that out

1:01:25 and then we have the net uh funds available

1:01:28 of 9.1 million dollars then we have the charter school growth

1:01:32 that we have to transfer out and then we

1:01:35 also have the increase to florida retirement uh employee rate of

1:01:39 nine point i’m sorry of 5.1 million dollars

1:01:43 so that leaves us at a uh a shortfall starting from the

1:01:47 conference report at 1.2 million dollars and

1:01:51 as what as um mr collins referred to the conference report in

1:01:55 april i told you it wasn’t signed by the

1:01:58 governor and today um it is still not signed by the governor and

1:02:02 the budget is expected to be delivered

1:02:05 to the governor soon um but the longer i mean i have a note here

1:02:10 that says 14 day countdown we have 14

1:02:13 days till we get to the next fiscal year so most likely we will

1:02:18 be going into the next fiscal year with

1:02:21 this budget okay so health care insurance

1:02:30 so we face like many other school districts some very difficult

1:02:36 challenges

1:02:37 many managing a self-insured health plan we are legally

1:02:41 responsible for all the financial risk

1:02:43 involved in paying for the claims uh which ensures over 11 000

1:02:48 employees and dependents

1:02:50 over the last three years our medical expenses have exceeded the

1:02:53 contributions resulting in a declining

1:02:55 fund balance which is not sustainable over time and has resulted

1:02:59 in a significant shortfall

1:03:01 our projected health insurance trust fund shortfall is 25.6

1:03:07 million and that is comprised of 13 million

1:03:10 which is 60 days worth of cost to be available to pay claims and

1:03:14 12.6 million which is the amount of our

1:03:18 expenditures that exceed our revenue because brevard schools

1:03:23 expenses have grown less than the six

1:03:26 percent national average our superintendent’s insurance advisory

1:03:30 committee forecasted a negative trust fund

1:03:33 balance of 10.5 million and this this has been the number they’ve

1:03:38 been working diligently towards to help resolve the deficit

1:03:44 on may 14th the sci act delivered the listed recommendations to

1:03:48 the superintendent and the total projected savings

1:03:52 and or revenue if it comes to fruition comes to approximately 5.8

1:03:59 million

1:04:00 so at a minimum the board must address the 4.7 million dollar reoccurring

1:04:07 shortfall

1:04:09 for f fy 2021 in order to remain solvent

1:04:13 so as we move into next year um this is a list of our our

1:04:29 current minimum budget requirements

1:04:33 and the first one is the the cost of the the opening of viera

1:04:38 elementary school and and this is the cost of

1:04:40 their staff we have to continue to fund the longevity

1:04:44 differential security cost increase of our sros to

1:04:48 keep our schools safe and again the health insurance trust fund

1:04:52 of 10.5 million

1:04:56 and so that would be that is our projected total budget deficit

1:04:59 today and if our potential health insurance fund savings for the

1:05:05 sci-act

1:05:05 recommendation come to fruition the 5.8 million we will have a

1:05:10 minimum projected total budget deficit of 7.1 million starting

1:05:15 the year

1:05:22 and for challenges i will um recap these areas and and this is a

1:05:28 picture again of a little girl

1:05:30 that this was her first day of kindergarten and again we have to

1:05:35 ensure that we make every child

1:05:37 feel important because you only get one first day of

1:05:41 kindergarten you only get one first day

1:05:43 of going to school so we have to make our schools safe and we

1:05:46 have to make them great

1:05:48 um as we look at as we look at fy 2021 we not only have to

1:05:53 address the realities of the pre-covid enrollment

1:05:57 decline but we must quickly assess the impact of the covid the

1:06:01 impact of the covid on enrollment as we open schools this fall

1:06:05 lawmakers pass language that increase the employer rates for the

1:06:11 florida retirement system

1:06:13 the fefp calculation does not include specific revenue source to

1:06:18 offset these costs so our estimated

1:06:21 portion as we talked about in the earlier slide is 5.2 million

1:06:25 ultimately these areas drive us to drive

1:06:28 ultimately these areas drive us to budget cuts in order to

1:06:32 address employee compensation and our self-insured

1:06:35 medical shortfalls the covid-19 implications are still uncertain

1:06:41 and we may learn more

1:06:43 than we have to do with that as the back to school staff works

1:06:48 through their plan

1:06:49 but one thing the only thing that is certain is the uncertainty

1:06:54 actually

1:06:54 that we face this coming year and we need to posture for a

1:06:58 potential mid-year reduction like mr

1:07:00 collins discussed what our state’s budget can afford is a very

1:07:04 real concern

1:07:05 and that has to be addressed so the march 19th conference report

1:07:10 is expected to be delivered to the

1:07:11 governor soon again we’re final countdown we got 14 days before

1:07:16 it’s so it’s supposed to be delivered to him soon

1:07:18 and as july 1st draws near it’s more likely that the governor

1:07:23 will take the budget as is and possibly

1:07:26 use a series of line item vetoes but he can only really veto

1:07:31 things like single member projects he can’t

1:07:35 veto the education budget because it’s just too large with all

1:07:42 the calculations so it’s kind of a take it or

1:07:44 leave it you know there is there really you can’t revise it

1:07:48 without a special session

1:07:49 so the concern will be so most likely in my opinion we’ll go

1:07:55 into the this school year with this budget

1:07:59 um the concern will be will it hold up will we be able to hold

1:08:03 on to those dollars or will or will

1:08:06 or will we experience the mid-year reduction and the mid-year

1:08:09 reduction as mr collins pointed out is not unusual during the

1:08:13 great recession

1:08:14 um 2008 we received two mid-year reductions two and it was 12.8

1:08:22 million dollars and that was about

1:08:24 2.24 percent of the budget back then so if we had the same

1:08:28 percentage that would be about 13.8 million this year

1:08:32 so we would have to absorb a 13.8 million or we could

1:08:38 potentially have to absorb

1:08:40 that kind of caliber of a a number at mid-year the state’s march

1:08:46 tax revenue was down by 800 million

1:08:50 but they did have um in their january february projections were

1:08:54 up about 200 million so kind of

1:08:57 down 600 million in march the next big major report they call it

1:09:02 the may report will come out on june 25th

1:09:05 and that will report the april tax revenue and that is expected

1:09:11 to be down more than the 800 million

1:09:14 because that’s when we were under lockdown right so um we’ll see

1:09:18 what that what that looks like

1:09:20 um and then the state will have a better picture of the revenue

1:09:25 they may lose and then the factors to

1:09:28 the equation that they need to see if they can get through so

1:09:31 they’re going to take a look at

1:09:33 cares act funding they’re going to look at um they’re going to

1:09:36 look at their reserves they’re going to look at

1:09:38 line item vetoes and they’re going to see if they can save this

1:09:41 budget um got 14 days to see what happens

1:09:45 um and what we do know is they have about 5.9 billion in untouched

1:09:51 cares act money and they have about

1:09:53 4.6 billion in state reserves offset now you know if they were

1:10:00 to use all of their reserves this year

1:10:03 then that would cause concern for the following years because

1:10:06 they would have to replenish their reserve

1:10:08 so as we consider all these challenges we must actively manage

1:10:13 our overall financial condition

1:10:14 i believe it is necessary to hold back as much savings and

1:10:18 reserve funding as possible

1:10:20 until at least mid-year while the state fully assesses its

1:10:23 financial health

1:10:24 um i think i covered that slide any questions

1:10:33 um and then we talk about the cares act update um there’s a lot

1:10:38 of talk about cares act um and

1:10:40 cares act is just huge but the the main portion that we are

1:10:44 concerned about or we’re receiving is the

1:10:46 elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund and this

1:10:51 is um we’re projecting it to be between 14

1:10:55 and 15 and 15 million dollars after we find out more from the

1:11:00 non-pro the non-public schools if they opt

1:11:02 in or not um and this this funding gives us a lot of flexibility

1:11:08 broad discretion and use we can use it over two

1:11:12 years so we can use it strategically um to cover immediate needs

1:11:17 i want to make sure that our our children are

1:11:20 getting the uh the education that they need and to accelerate

1:11:24 and get caught up those kind of things as

1:11:26 well as um ensure they’re safe and then have money we can use in

1:11:32 the next year to make sure that we protect

1:11:35 jobs and and um make sure that we have stability the one thing i

1:11:40 do want to

1:11:43 hammer home is this is one year money or this is one time money

1:11:47 i should say and um so it’s meant to fill

1:11:50 gaps it’s meant to build a bridge over maybe the next two years

1:11:55 but it is one year money it will not

1:11:58 solve some of the issues that dr mullins is working with for um

1:12:02 funding that we will need over the years

1:12:07 and then you can see here the priority the part of the current

1:12:11 priority areas that we plan on using

1:12:14 this funds for academic enhancements technology health and

1:12:18 safety and workforce stabilization

1:12:21 and again um i re i recommend that we hold steady on much of the

1:12:32 cares act funds until we have a better

1:12:34 indication of the financial health of the state this will

1:12:37 protect our classrooms and the workforce

1:12:40 if we do receive a reduction mid-year from the state and then

1:12:46 from here dr mullins is going to take over

1:12:49 if i could just before as dr mullins is approaching and you’re

1:12:57 transitioning i just want to thank you for

1:13:00 your student-centered approach to to all of the financial

1:13:03 information and very much appreciate

1:13:06 welcome to the team

1:13:08 thank you miss belford and members of the board and uh i’ll

1:13:15 extend my thanks to both rick and cindy for

1:13:17 their work to uh to bring this information but also uh the work

1:13:21 they’ve been doing behind the scenes

1:13:23 every day with staff to you know manage a a rather volatile

1:13:27 financial environment and try and be

1:13:30 be uh grounded and sound in the decision making and in the

1:13:34 preparations while also being proactive and

1:13:37 trying to position brevard public schools uh responsibly with

1:13:41 our with our financial standing and our

1:13:43 financial future i’ll add just a couple other comments the cares

1:13:47 act before i move on to uh the the next

1:13:49 budget uh i don’t think cindy mentioned we received the cares

1:13:53 act application on friday

1:13:55 it is due by june 30th so uh we quickly met yesterday uh i want

1:14:02 to extend thanks to dr sullivan

1:14:05 is is putting together a team of staff that will be overseeing

1:14:09 the cares act uh funding and the

1:14:12 implementation and so on met with her for uh for a short time

1:14:16 yesterday afternoon and we began thinking

1:14:19 about how do we be be um forward thinking with the funds to

1:14:24 support our kids to make sure that we

1:14:27 can give them every structure we can every learning opportunity

1:14:30 we can coming back in the fall

1:14:32 anticipating some gaps but also be responsible with the funds in

1:14:37 preparation for the future

1:14:39 i want to take a moment and also clarify the governor made

1:14:42 several announcements on thursday about

1:14:45 additional funding for k-12 education uh the allocations that he

1:14:51 referenced were from the governor’s

1:14:54 allocation of cares act not our cares act dollars so the the uh

1:14:59 allocation that you see here the

1:15:01 projected 14 and a half million dollars that does appear to be

1:15:05 brevard’s allocation and we have

1:15:08 virtually the autonomy to direct and utilize those dollars the

1:15:12 specific dollars that governor desantis

1:15:15 discussed and presented last week those are out of his pot of

1:15:18 cares act dollars from the federal stimulus

1:15:21 we received on friday an anticipated projection of 1.6 million

1:15:26 dollars for example for this summer academic

1:15:29 enhancement uh proposal or grant that he introduced on thursday

1:15:33 and again our elementary team is looking at how

1:15:36 how might we utilize those dollars but it comes with a lot of

1:15:39 restrictions and expectations and so on

1:15:41 and then we’re waiting to hear where uh the other allocation

1:15:45 dollars will fall on impact brevard

1:15:47 but again they come with a lot of uh directed mandates uh for

1:15:51 the utilization of those dollars

1:15:53 as we move forward

1:15:57 we uh robin ward our grant coordinator uh has uh indicated that

1:16:04 every day she looks to see

1:16:06 if another doe toolkit has arrived in reference to the cares act

1:16:10 uh funds and future funds so we’ll keep

1:16:12 the board apprised uh as we learn more moving forward so now i’d

1:16:17 like to move into how are we going to address our budget

1:16:21 reduction uh situate or our budget shortfall situation uh

1:16:25 uh with with reductions uh moving forward particularly uh as we’re

1:16:31 facing a new environment uh with uh

1:16:33 uh covet 19 but i want to begin actually with the board’s charge

1:16:38 several months ago now

1:16:38 in looking at a a plan towards increased compensation

1:16:42 and that began with a look or an analysis of

1:16:46 particularly areas that we could save money in going forward

1:16:51 little did we know

1:16:51 we were going to be facing a difficult financial year

1:16:54 or certainly had no no indication or conception of what a global

1:17:00 pandemic would involve

1:17:01 one of the areas we looked at was our dual enrollment program it

1:17:05 was suggested do we need to

1:17:07 and should we be spending the money on dual enrollment

1:17:10 our dual enrollment program uh across the district i would

1:17:14 suggest uh is uh at one of uh envied across the

1:17:18 state but nevertheless dual enrollment is not a an area where we

1:17:24 can make cuts because it is a statutory

1:17:26 requirement on florida state statutes we do spend approximately

1:17:30 four million dollars annually on our dual enrollment

1:17:33 and ultimately saving students and their families uh the at

1:17:36 least that equivalent of college tuition

1:17:39 i would remind the board and and share with our community how do

1:17:44 we know the effectiveness

1:17:45 and the uh impact of our dual enrollment program well for the

1:17:50 second year in a row brevard public schools

1:17:53 has graduated over 400 seniors who walk across the stage and

1:17:58 earn their high school diploma while also

1:18:01 earning an aa degree from eastern florida state college that is

1:18:05 in large part because of our commitment

1:18:08 our engagement our partnership with eastern florida state

1:18:12 college to uh provide our students a robust

1:18:15 access opportunity to uh avail themselves to college courses and

1:18:21 we’ve created a real cohesive

1:18:24 uh pipeline and uh journey for our kids to be able to acquire

1:18:29 that while they’re while they’re in our schools for high school

1:18:32 how do i know it’s better than others across the state well

1:18:36 i will compare us to another district south of us that starts

1:18:40 with the letter b

1:18:41 that’s two and a half to three times our size and the last

1:18:47 calculation i received they had when we had 434

1:18:51 graduates with an aa degree they had 250. so that gives a a

1:18:58 comparison of the impact of our dual enrollment program

1:19:03 one of the other areas we were uh requested to look at and

1:19:07 analyze is what would be the financial impact of

1:19:10 going from six of seven periods of day in our secondary schools

1:19:14 to five of six periods a day for students

1:19:16 and actually it’s a little counterintuitive because the

1:19:21 expectation or the anticipation is that if we

1:19:24 reduce the number of course is that our students are required to

1:19:28 have and the number of courses that

1:19:30 teachers would teach we would need fewer teachers

1:19:33 but actually the opposite is true because

1:19:36 sixth sevenths

1:19:38 versus five sixths is a larger

1:19:42 percentage of

1:19:44 students being uh taught by teachers

1:19:46 so we actually uh in a in a six of seven model versus a five of

1:19:52 six model teachers have more

1:19:53 students therefore we need fewer teachers so if we were to

1:19:57 transition to five of six it would

1:19:59 actually cost the district uh additional uh money because of the

1:20:03 need of additional teachers

1:20:06 approximately about 2.3 million dollars now you’ll see at the

1:20:10 bottom the actual calculation of how that is uh

1:20:13 determined so that uh our public understands exactly how that is

1:20:17 calculated uh just as a reminder if we

1:20:21 were to reconsider uh a five of six day compared to six of seven

1:20:26 it would require graduation requirement

1:20:29 changes we currently have a 26 credit graduation requirement for

1:20:34 our students because they are

1:20:36 eligible to earn up to 28 credits if we were to go to a six

1:20:39 period day students would only be eligible to

1:20:43 earn up to 24 credits which is the state graduation requirement

1:20:47 but it would eliminate opportunity or access to

1:20:50 other uh uh programs like cte uh performing arts um and academic

1:20:58 electives and and others

1:20:59 because they would not have the additional periods which to take

1:21:02 classes in but i must acknowledge

1:21:06 that a five of six period day for our teachers is certainly a

1:21:11 work condition improvement because

1:21:13 they’d have less students excuse me less students fewer students

1:21:17 uh overall uh resulting in fewer papers to

1:21:20 grade and so on but uh the six of seven structure does provide

1:21:25 exemplary opportunities for our students and

1:21:29 uh i i i would ex i just want to express my appreciation and uh

1:21:33 shout out to our teachers for making these

1:21:36 opportunities available to our students that makes us a leader

1:21:39 in the state

1:21:39 yes ma’am

1:21:59 i’ll just repeat your question for the public so that they know

1:22:04 miss deskovich asked if the average

1:22:07 teacher’s salary cost of 56 000 uh is reflective of our teacher

1:22:12 average teacher salary actually this

1:22:15 and uh was done early in this school year so it actually may

1:22:18 have gone up a little bit since then

1:22:20 because it was i believe this was created before we finalized

1:22:24 this past this past year’s uh compensation

1:22:27 so it might be just a little bit higher yes it’s inclusive it is

1:22:32 inclusive of fringe

1:22:34 the other structure or potential budget savings uh option we we

1:22:43 analyzed was a four-day school week

1:22:46 interestingly this was obviously before pre this was pre-covid

1:22:51 um in fact a shorter school week or work week eliminating a friday

1:22:57 or a monday uh would save the

1:23:00 district approximately just under a million dollars that savings

1:23:04 would come from reduced expenses in

1:23:06 transportation primarily and some utilities savings cost across

1:23:10 the district however it is nominal when

1:23:14 considering the impact to our community and for our students

1:23:16 across the district we’ve listed there on the

1:23:19 left some of the pros to a four-day school week and then some of

1:23:24 the cons or the challenges presented with uh

1:23:28 this concept on the far right probably one of the largest uh

1:23:33 drawbacks is the length of school day that

1:23:35 would be required particularly for our middle schools which

1:23:39 would extend the middle school day uh beyond

1:23:42 five p.m in the afternoon and then with transportation it would

1:23:45 be getting students home you know between uh

1:23:48 approaching six o’clock in the evening given the the nominal

1:23:54 savings that this would present and the

1:23:56 impact to our community uh we did not pursue this uh this as a

1:24:02 cost saving option and you’ll note that

1:24:04 as we looked at it this year uh implementation would not

1:24:08 reasonably be possible before the 2021-22 school year

1:24:12 another school model uh that we analyzed and and studied was

1:24:20 presented by a community member called

1:24:22 multi-track or the four-track model which is a year-round

1:24:26 calendar that divides the entire student body and

1:24:30 staff into different tracks now it’s important to note that this

1:24:33 is not the traditional year-round

1:24:35 school model where a the same cohort of students have three week

1:24:41 uh periods off in in between quarters

1:24:45 throughout the school year and they attend all through the

1:24:47 summer the four track model actually utilizes the

1:24:51 schoolhouse for the months during the summer to add a 20 to 30

1:24:57 percent greater student capacity in that school

1:25:00 so it would we would expand the school year but only three

1:25:05 quarters or 75 percent

1:25:07 approximately of the students would be attending the school at

1:25:10 any one time and every quarter a

1:25:12 25 of the student body would then go on their break or intercession

1:25:17 it maximizes the utilization capacity of our schools

1:25:21 the savings comes in you don’t see an exact dollar amount of

1:25:25 savings

1:25:26 because the savings comes from the consolidation of schools to

1:25:30 then grow other schools so it would be

1:25:33 dependent on how many schools could be consolidated to increase

1:25:37 the capacity and the savings would come from

1:25:40 not needing to fund schools uh the schools that would be that

1:25:45 would be would have been consolidated

1:25:50 some of the challenges that come with this concept uh is it

1:25:53 eliminates any opportunity to get into

1:25:56 schools to do maintenance when students aren’t there the board

1:26:00 if you’ll recall we are currently in the

1:26:02 midst of 17 large capital improvement projects or renewal

1:26:06 projects this summer across our districts

1:26:09 about 15 percent of our schools right now um it it does not

1:26:15 provide extended time for large facility

1:26:18 improvements and projects normally completed over the summer it

1:26:21 does provide a considerable disruption to our community

1:26:24 uh as we analyze this it would be very difficult to consider a

1:26:29 four track model for high schools

1:26:32 it is a feasible model for k-8 or elementary and middle schools

1:26:36 however 25 percent of the students would be on an intercession

1:26:42 every quarter and it would uh ultimately result in

1:26:46 district-wide attendance attendance boundary changes because we’d

1:26:50 be consolidating schools as well as

1:26:53 there is the potential particularly for a family with three or

1:26:56 four children that their children could be on

1:26:59 staggered intercessions uh making some of the the uh care and

1:27:04 support for their their children uh increasingly difficult

1:27:07 as i shared this concept or this model with the community

1:27:10 ambassadors council that i was meeting with since

1:27:13 october uh well up until in person up until uh our school

1:27:18 closure and then i’ve continued to meet with the

1:27:22 ambassadors council virtually since then this did not uh emerge

1:27:26 as a uh necessarily as a model that uh the council felt the

1:27:31 community would

1:27:31 necessarily consider as a first option for uh either budget

1:27:36 savings or as a revenue increasing option

1:27:39 so that brings us to uh the budget challenges we face this year

1:27:48 the options that i presented so far

1:27:50 have not have not necessarily uh realized uh opportunity for us

1:27:55 for the 2021 school year

1:27:57 even the four track model which could present some considerable

1:28:00 savings for the district

1:28:02 uh will would require significant preparation and planning for

1:28:07 implementation and at the very

1:28:09 earliest would not could not be realized until the 2021-22

1:28:13 school year

1:28:15 so i began a journey with staff to analyze our budget and look

1:28:18 at how are we going to meet our budget

1:28:20 responsibilities and address the shortfalls for this year

1:28:24 working with miss lisinski and her staff of

1:28:27 course as well i want to take the board and for our viewing

1:28:30 community back to a slide that was shared at the

1:28:33 last budget workshop that gives a snapshot of the work that this

1:28:36 district has done over the last five years

1:28:39 to address uh budget revenue increases ultimately to the

1:28:44 operating budget but also recognizing the impacts

1:28:48 to the organization over time what you see here is uh four

1:28:52 different years over the last five years

1:28:54 where explicit budget reductions and cuts were made or transfers

1:28:59 from the operating budget to the capital

1:29:01 budget were made freeing up revenue so you’ll see down the the

1:29:06 first column is the description of the items that

1:29:09 were cut or transferred and then in the second column at the

1:29:12 bottom you’ll see cumulatively over 11 million

1:29:15 dollars had has been transferred to the capital budget and the

1:29:19 next column you see personnel and staffing

1:29:22 impacts totaling uh 9.4 million dollar 9.4 million dollars in

1:29:28 revenue freeing up revenue uh for the budget

1:29:31 and then in the last or the the next column operating budget cumulatively

1:29:36 over the last five years we have

1:29:39 made over 6.1 million dollars of cuts to our operating budget

1:29:43 that essentially has freed up revenue for

1:29:46 ultimately we have prioritized over the last few years employee

1:29:51 compensation so essentially

1:29:54 these dollars have gone and been committed to employee

1:29:56 compensation totaling uh almost 27 million

1:30:00 dollars over the last five years for our budget and this is

1:30:04 exclusive of this current year

1:30:09 i commend the work that cabinet and uh the district has done

1:30:13 over the last several years to continually

1:30:15 analyze and dig into our budget to identify uh resources that

1:30:20 can be uh capitalized or utilized for

1:30:25 compensation but as we continue to cut our budget to uh meet

1:30:29 expenses and uh address priorities it does come with a cost

1:30:33 a cost when we continue to impact personnel we are impacting

1:30:38 ultimately the level of service we provide to

1:30:41 our students and the level of service we provide to our families

1:30:46 and community with our work so as we move

1:30:49 forward uh as you as the board already knows and and i trust the

1:30:54 community will understand the additional budget cuts

1:30:58 that we have to address this year just continue to address that

1:31:03 level of service um and ultimately uh

1:31:07 critical programs and personnel that uh we would we’ve had to

1:31:12 make very difficult decisions for

1:31:14 so to begin i’d like to give the board and the community an

1:31:18 overview of how we are addressing

1:31:21 the minimum 7.1 million dollar budget shortfall uh going into

1:31:26 next year first we calculated or estimated

1:31:30 the potential retiree attrition this has been a calculation we’ve

1:31:34 used for the last few years last

1:31:36 summer we shored up this calculation and created a business uh

1:31:41 rule for calculating retiree attrition

1:31:44 i will say that this is a projection at this time because we’re

1:31:47 not completely through the employee

1:31:50 retirement process window which would obviously continue uh into

1:31:55 past july 30. so this is a

1:31:57 projection but we we believe that it is a reasonable and sound

1:32:00 projection of 1.5 million dollars

1:32:02 the board may recall that the last two years that retiree attrition

1:32:07 was actually approximately three

1:32:09 million dollars uh however we were coming to the close of that

1:32:14 window of the drop incentive uh retirement of about

1:32:19 five or seven years ago and we’re now coming out of that window

1:32:23 so the the number of retirees is starting to

1:32:26 to uh reduce which is why we see uh a lower estimate for retiree

1:32:31 attrition this year

1:32:32 senior cabinet worked again diving into department and division

1:32:38 budgets as well as contracts

1:32:40 and i commend them for their work and the additional 1.3 million

1:32:45 dollars that was reduced from their budgets

1:32:47 going into next year at the same time we analyzed and reviewed

1:32:53 all of our academic programs to see if

1:32:56 there weren’t savings opportunities within the programs we were

1:32:59 providing and we identified uh programs such

1:33:03 uh advanced placement and found ways that we could save money

1:33:07 there without taking opportunity away from our

1:33:10 students we analyzed students who were going into florida

1:33:14 virtual school and how we might enhance

1:33:18 our brevard virtual school program and by increasing course

1:33:22 sections uh availability for our students

1:33:25 we actually realized about three hundred thousand dollars

1:33:28 savings uh by increasing that program

1:33:31 as well as we analyzed uh fte earning accelerated programs like

1:33:37 ace cambridge and ib

1:33:39 and identified additional revenue that the district could

1:33:43 utilize uh for covering administrative expenses or

1:33:47 the operating budget for a total uh academic program savings of

1:33:50 approximately 1.1 million

1:33:52 we did make the uh the very difficult decision of analyzing

1:33:58 again our regional busing program

1:34:02 in preparation for meeting our our budget needs

1:34:09 as the board knows we’ve been uh having to evaluate our regional

1:34:13 busing program

1:34:14 and as we faced financial difficulties in the past leading to

1:34:18 the unfortunate but necessary elimination of

1:34:20 regional busing we find ourselves today with financial

1:34:24 challenges that are also compounded with

1:34:27 operational challenges uh with reopening schools that presents

1:34:32 uh that presents specifically in the planning for

1:34:35 transportation services last year while maintaining

1:34:39 approximately 32 buses and routes for regional busing

1:34:43 we experienced a consistent shortage of 17 drivers across the

1:34:47 district

1:34:48 this resulted in daily route consolidation often maximizing bus

1:34:54 capacity and causing regular late arrivals

1:34:57 today as our reopening task force works through the many details

1:35:04 of reopening

1:35:05 schools and establishing universal precautions our bus

1:35:10 utilization is being evaluated and looking to reduce

1:35:13 capacities on buses versus maximize capacity so given our

1:35:17 current financial and operational challenges

1:35:21 i must recommend the elimination or suspension of regional busing

1:35:26 service to adequately and responsibly provide

1:35:29 our required bus service to over 20 000 students across our

1:35:33 district every day

1:35:35 and i want to assure our community i know this will not be well

1:35:38 received by our parents and our families

1:35:40 that take full advantage of our choice programs and our choice

1:35:44 schools across the district

1:35:45 and know this is certainly not something that i or we want to do

1:35:50 but we are in a position of something that we must do to address

1:35:54 our current circumstances

1:35:59 in addition to that uh elimination of a service to our students

1:36:04 and families we’re also facing the

1:36:06 elimination of both non-school-based positions across the

1:36:09 district as well as many school-based positions

1:36:13 the board is aware uh and we’ve already reached out to our media

1:36:17 assistants in our schools

1:36:19 and made them aware that we will be transitioning out those

1:36:22 positions or transitioning the elimination

1:36:25 of our media assistant positions across our schools both in

1:36:29 elementary and secondary over the course of this year

1:36:32 we will provide them the stability of employment this year as we

1:36:36 work closely with

1:36:36 each of them with through our human resources department and

1:36:41 seek other employment opportunities for them

1:36:43 across our organization we currently have 72 media assistant

1:36:50 allocations with four of those positions

1:36:53 currently vacant which will not be filled as we transition out

1:36:57 those positions in the coming year

1:37:00 the savings of the non-school-based positions and the school-based

1:37:04 positions is approximately 4.5 million dollars

1:37:08 accumulating a total recurring savings of approximately 9.6

1:37:13 million dollars in the next slide i want to

1:37:16 provide the board in the community a closer look at the non-school-based

1:37:21 and school-based positions that we have

1:37:25 that we are prepared to eliminate i want to emphasize here that

1:37:29 at this time we have prioritized

1:37:32 prioritized maintaining workforce stability and have not instituted

1:37:38 any layoffs at this time and don’t

1:37:40 and will not have to with these eliminations the eliminations

1:37:44 you see uh are either through attrition or

1:37:48 their positions that are currently vacant as i instituted a

1:37:51 hiring freeze back in january february

1:37:54 of uh the middle of the school year in addition there are some

1:37:58 positions that are being funded for a year

1:38:02 out of our anticipated cares act dollars to ensure that we can

1:38:05 provide the workforce uh necessary to to

1:38:09 greet and meet our students with all the supports they need for

1:38:12 example we uh you’ll see the elimination at

1:38:16 the bottom of teachers on assignment positions as well as

1:38:19 instructional assistant positions we will uh fund the

1:38:24 toa positions out of cares act this coming year as well as uh at

1:38:29 least 10 of the instructional assistant

1:38:31 positions but the positions will be uh transitioned out in

1:38:35 future budget years but this year we have

1:38:38 the support of those positions through cares act to provide

1:38:42 additional stability as our schools greet and

1:38:45 our students with high quality service so here we come back to

1:38:53 uh our current position and a summary of our standing

1:38:57 as miss lisinski presented we started we start this budget year

1:39:02 with a 1.2 million dollar deficit

1:39:06 uh known expenses going into the year approaching 13 million

1:39:10 dollars we we are anticipating work with

1:39:14 our union groups uh keeping in mind that any changes to uh

1:39:19 insurance plan design or premium changes

1:39:22 must be bargained with our collective bargaining units uh

1:39:25 provide federation of teachers and the

1:39:27 uh united alliance 10 10 10 union groups but it has the

1:39:32 potential of garnering up to 5.8 million dollars of

1:39:36 savings leaving us with a minimum budget deficit to address of 7.1

1:39:42 million with the total recurring savings

1:39:45 that i’ve presented uh that would position us with a remaining

1:39:49 recurring savings of approximately 2.4 million dollars

1:39:53 and those dollars would be used to address potential future

1:39:57 enrollment uncertainties any additional health

1:40:02 insurance plan needs compensation considerations for employees

1:40:07 and or any potential mid-year budget

1:40:11 adjustments from the state now i’d like to take a few minutes

1:40:15 and and brief the board in the community

1:40:19 on our non-recurring fund balance as we have taken the time to

1:40:23 project what that would look like

1:40:25 so any additional non-recurring salary non-labor lapse

1:40:29 identified at a later date will be uh reserved

1:40:32 for the enrollment fluctuations mid-year holdback and so on the

1:40:36 figures you see here uh some of them are

1:40:38 estimates uh particularly the salary lapse uh for the first time

1:40:44 uh we did a a deep dive look at our

1:40:47 salary lapse earlier than we have in the past and calculated

1:40:51 what that would uh uh be through june 30.

1:40:54 let me explain what a salary lapse is for i know the board is

1:40:59 aware but for our watching public salary lapse

1:41:03 comes as a result of positions being vacant for a period of time

1:41:06 uh positions that were not filled as well

1:41:10 as when a person leaves the organization and we rehire a

1:41:14 position and they may the the new person may come

1:41:18 in lower than the previous person in that position so it all

1:41:21 creates what is called salary lapse uh

1:41:25 non-recurring savings so our estimated savings is approximately

1:41:29 7.4 million dollars

1:41:32 in addition i’ve made the board aware that we have been

1:41:34 capturing covet related savings things like

1:41:37 substitutes utilities uh transportation fuel costs

1:41:41 and every year we capture what are considered one-time savings

1:41:47 uh through dollars that are not expended

1:41:50 throughout the year so our estimated captured one-time savings

1:41:53 including covet related savings is

1:41:56 approximately 5.9 million dollars for a total uh non-recurring

1:42:00 savings of 13.3 million dollars

1:42:03 i know the board is very aware uh for our public we have an a

1:42:07 recurring health insurance trust fund annual

1:42:10 commitment of 3.1 million dollars that must come off the top of

1:42:15 any non-recurring uh fund balance that has

1:42:18 been in place since 2015 and were uh obviously obligated to that

1:42:23 commitment in addition it’s been an ongoing

1:42:26 practice of the district that uh workman’s compensation has

1:42:30 exceeded what is budgeted so 2.9 million dollars

1:42:33 on average has been committed to uh that expense out of fund

1:42:38 balance at the end of the year

1:42:41 in addition uh i am recommending that 1.7 million dollars be

1:42:46 utilized to cover salaries of media assistance

1:42:49 as we trish attrition or transition out those positions

1:42:53 throughout this year in addition uh recommending

1:42:59 we make a health insurance trust fund one-time contribution to

1:43:03 offset the declining fund balance in

1:43:06 our insurance plan of 5 million dollars so the savings of 13.3

1:43:12 taking away those those allocations and expenses

1:43:16 leaves a 600 000 non-recurring fund balance uh at this time

1:43:21 obviously we’ve been faced with very difficult decisions and

1:43:32 very difficult challenges financially that

1:43:35 none of us foresaw a year ago when we were going into a budget

1:43:39 um and certainly went into a very

1:43:42 favorable and positive compensation year for our employees uh as

1:43:47 a priority for the 19-20 school year

1:43:51 these decisions have become increasingly difficult as we’re

1:43:56 going into now the sixth year of budget

1:43:58 reductions that will total over 35 million dollars

1:44:04 but i want to assure the board and our public as we have made

1:44:07 these difficult decisions and brought

1:44:09 forward this these recommendations towards our budget for next

1:44:13 year

1:44:13 that our number one priority has been to protect an excellent

1:44:17 education for our children for all of

1:44:19 our students every one of our students while also protecting and

1:44:24 supporting an effective workforce

1:44:26 because we know the service and the experience we give our kids

1:44:31 is directly dependent on the workforce

1:44:33 that we can put before them and around them but we have a

1:44:38 responsibility and obligation to both maintain fiscal

1:44:43 strength for the district as well as protect our taxpayers

1:44:47 interests and those have been our driving

1:44:49 forces as we have walked through the very difficult challenges

1:44:53 we’re facing for next year and as we move

1:44:56 ahead to ensure that we maintain the highest quality of

1:44:59 education and learning opportunities for every one of our

1:45:02 students

1:45:03 pursuing excellence as our standard while also meeting our

1:45:07 financial and fiscal responsibilities

1:45:09 finally i would uh share with the board the uh the timeline or

1:45:18 the the schedule for adoption of the budget

1:45:22 uh it’ll there’ll be an advertisement of the tentative budget uh

1:45:27 later in july and then a the first public hearing on the budget

1:45:32 on july 30th just a reminder that that actually is an evening

1:45:37 meeting with the final public hearing

1:45:40 on september 10th of course there are some there is some element

1:45:45 of adjustment because we have not received

1:45:48 a final budget from the state we do anticipate the governor to

1:45:52 be signing the budget in the coming days

1:45:54 uh i have i’ve heard offline that the the but the governor is a

1:45:58 day or two away from signing the budget so

1:46:01 uh it could be i suspect even this week um we’ve not received

1:46:07 strong indication that there will be negative

1:46:11 impacts to to the any further negative impacts to the budget but

1:46:15 uh then again i’ve received no official word as well

1:46:19 uh at this time i uh make myself miss lisinski mr collins

1:46:23 available for any questions that the board may have

1:46:30 any member have any questions for the budget discussion

1:46:41 working now oh i don’t i do not have uh any questions but dr mullins

1:46:47 i

1:46:47 am thoroughly grateful for the work that’s been put into this

1:46:55 i’ve been on the board four years now and i don’t think i’ve

1:46:58 ever sat through a budget

1:46:59 presentation that was so well done so concise so clear so

1:47:05 thorough

1:47:07 uh i i’m sure others agree with me we’ve had some struggles

1:47:11 obviously in the past with with numbers

1:47:14 and fungible numbers and the community uh has come after us on

1:47:19 that a little bit and we’ve taken some

1:47:22 heat but i am extremely grateful for the work that has gone into

1:47:26 this and not only that i feel like you

1:47:29 incorporated in this the challenge i gave to you several months

1:47:33 ago now for a long-term fiscal plan for uh

1:47:38 our compensation issues you i mean it’s not clear when you look

1:47:43 at this but you you touched on the six

1:47:45 to seven you touched on the the options and i’m sure that was a

1:47:48 lot of work digging in on those

1:47:50 calculations and what that was going to cost us as a district uh

1:47:52 i i know the the track model the four

1:47:56 track model is something out of our realm of thinking right now

1:48:02 as a community even sure even as a board

1:48:05 but it could potentially be a viable option down the road i saw

1:48:11 that presented and the first thing that

1:48:14 came to mind was that we have those 20 extra elementary schools

1:48:18 than seminal yet the same budget uh it’s not

1:48:22 something our community wants to look at right now i’m i’m sure

1:48:25 of it but i would like us as a district

1:48:27 to maybe keep looking at that model and seeing is is there a

1:48:32 potential for education in our community

1:48:36 for that to be a viable option as we could consolidate and then

1:48:40 give a bigger raise consolidate give a bigger

1:48:43 raise i mean is that a potential for a long-term solution for

1:48:46 one of one of our major issues of

1:48:47 compensation so uh you know that wasn’t the highlight of this

1:48:51 presentation but i definitely took that away

1:48:54 from this presentation along with the hard decisions uh that

1:48:58 have been made probably within each of our

1:49:00 departments when i look at the projections for eliminating

1:49:04 positions um i do have one concern

1:49:07 because this is the first time i’ve seen that one slide the

1:49:09 presentation that you sent us didn’t have it

1:49:11 so um the tech associates i’m just i i feel like we’re already

1:49:16 so short-handed in et uh not looking

1:49:20 for an explanation right now but that one jumped out at me of

1:49:23 how how are we going to maintain well we

1:49:26 have more and more students going online how are we gonna how

1:49:29 are we going to support that but i’m sure

1:49:31 you’ve looked into it i’m sure mr cheatham is has either

1:49:34 expressed his concerns or support in the background and

1:49:38 uh that’s all my comments thank you sir thank you ms tuskiewicz

1:49:41 miss balford if i may take a moment just

1:49:45 to to respond i i want to use the opportunity to one uh just

1:49:49 acknowledge senior cabinets work to come

1:49:53 around this very difficult uh situation circumstance and every

1:49:58 single cabinet member came to the table

1:50:01 understanding that we all had to come together and address the

1:50:05 challenge that was ahead of us and

1:50:08 really look at our our work and and the service we are providing

1:50:13 and begin to prioritize and mr cheatham

1:50:16 just he he you know he’s the stand-up individual we all know him

1:50:22 to be i’m not going to tell you he’s

1:50:24 pleased about losing tech associates i’m not pleased um but he

1:50:28 knew that this is what we needed to do and he

1:50:32 accepted that that uh work and challenge and he is he is digging

1:50:36 into his staffing and his allocation of

1:50:38 the positions i i will say for our tech associates that are out

1:50:42 there we have current vacancies in those

1:50:44 positions no one is going to be losing their job there’s going

1:50:47 to be no uh announcement of that coming from this meeting

1:50:50 but there’s going to be a reallocation of duties and

1:50:53 responsibilities um and he he said we’ll we’ll do

1:50:57 everything we can to to make it work and and provide quality

1:51:02 service and and but i have to remind i know our

1:51:05 board understands it i have to remind our public we’re in the

1:51:09 people business we serve kids we serve parents

1:51:15 we serve our community and it takes people to serve in that

1:51:19 capacity and when we take away workforce

1:51:22 we are at the place we can’t maintain the same level of service

1:51:28 we’ve always been able to provide

1:51:30 and maintain it doesn’t mean we’ll compromise the quality of

1:51:34 service but the level of response and

1:51:36 turnaround time is likely to take longer and we’re going to need

1:51:40 some grace and flexibility

1:51:43 uh as we work through these adjustments and account for the

1:51:47 reduction in workforce it’s no light decision

1:51:51 that we’re transitioning out our media assistance across our

1:51:54 schools i’ve been in i think just about

1:51:58 every single media center in this district and when i go into

1:52:02 our media centers and i see

1:52:04 the literacy focus for our kids i see online learning going on i

1:52:11 see a media specialist an assistant engaging

1:52:15 with our kids in a little small group learning environment or

1:52:19 there’s makerspace going on over

1:52:21 in this room that’s what we want for our kids

1:52:29 but when we’re facing these state funding challenges

1:52:33 we have to make difficult decisions so i want to emphasize to

1:52:39 our media assistants this was not an easy decision

1:52:44 i want to emphasize to our choice school choice program students

1:52:52 and their families we’ve been through

1:52:55 the challenges and the difficulties of eliminating regional busing

1:52:58 in the past

1:52:59 not an exp not what i want to experience again with our

1:53:04 community

1:53:05 this is not what i want for our we we talk about equity access

1:53:09 and opportunity

1:53:10 we’re faced with the the harsh reality that we’ve got to

1:53:15 maintain

1:53:16 access opportunity and equity for all of our kids

1:53:20 and regional busing and regional busing because it is an

1:53:23 optional service

1:53:24 and now we find ourselves in a place with the additional

1:53:28 compounded challenge of it being an

1:53:30 operational not just a financial challenge it begins to impact

1:53:35 and affect the equity access

1:53:38 and opportunity of many other students in our other schools and

1:53:42 i’m not i don’t want to

1:53:45 put against and others we we want everything for all of our kids

1:53:49 i’m just trying to emphasize how difficult these choices and

1:53:53 decisions have been for our district

1:53:56 and not where we projected to see ourselves 10 or 12 months ago

1:54:04 so i i will i will make one last uh comment before i turn it

1:54:11 back over the board for any questions

1:54:12 uh i met with our principals

1:54:15 last week last tuesday and made them aware of the difficult

1:54:22 decisions that were coming ahead

1:54:24 and i asked them i said i don’t want any one of our media

1:54:28 assistants or our media specialists

1:54:30 to receive this news from a letter or an email from me they need

1:54:34 to hear from you and with love and

1:54:36 compassion i’m asking and imploring you please reach out to them

1:54:40 personally and and have the a sit

1:54:43 down have a a a conversation and and assure them that we’re

1:54:46 going to walk this out together we’re going

1:54:49 to provide as much stability as as we can in this coming year no

1:54:52 one is going to be laid off

1:54:55 and i i know we’re going to have media assistants or specialists

1:54:59 respond to you know dis displeasure or

1:55:02 or disappointment to this this uh situation and i understand i

1:55:06 share it uh but i want to express my

1:55:11 thanks to our principals who connected with our media assistants

1:55:15 and specialists over over the the

1:55:17 following days last week to provide the assurance um

1:55:24 we’re bps family and we’re going to walk out these tough times

1:55:27 together and do everything we can to

1:55:29 uh uphold the the commitments that i shared of uh supporting an

1:55:34 excellent workforce so

1:55:36 madam chair i appreciate the additional uh privilege of of just

1:55:41 sharing a little bit more of uh

1:55:43 the heart and what has led to the decisions and ms deskovich

1:55:45 thank you for those comments

1:55:48 any other board members mr comment or question ms campbell um so

1:55:54 first of all i the thing that i

1:55:56 appreciate the most about the way that you’ve worked through

1:55:59 this is that we aren’t doing any layoffs

1:56:01 because i know that was um very it’s all a difficult um decision

1:56:05 to make through but i appreciate that you

1:56:08 continue to work and find a way um to to not do that with layoffs

1:56:13 this year and so that people have time to

1:56:15 make the transition um i you know the regional busing is a

1:56:20 really tough one and we have sat in meetings

1:56:23 and impassioned you know speeches we need to keep this

1:56:26 opportunity but the very one of the very first

1:56:28 things that occurred to me when we were talking about when when

1:56:31 the covid pandemic hit is you know no

1:56:33 matter what things look like as we reopen the busing challenges

1:56:37 that we face especially over this last year

1:56:40 or two with regional busing where we have you know a shortage of

1:56:44 drivers one day and we’ve got students

1:56:46 at central you know 100 students hanging out waiting for their

1:56:50 buses to get there for 30 minutes after

1:56:51 school those kind of things just really don’t need to be

1:56:54 happening when we’ve got you know need to get

1:56:57 students on buses safely and less crowded than they usually are

1:57:00 so i you know another thing that we really

1:57:04 really hate and i know that you do as well is that we’re having

1:57:07 to do this at this point in the year when

1:57:08 parents have already made their decisions of where their child

1:57:11 children are going to school next year

1:57:12 but it’s you know it’s it’s not just hard work it’s gut-wrenching

1:57:21 work that you guys have done and i

1:57:23 appreciate that and um i think that’s it i had something else

1:57:30 but i lost it thanks madam chair

1:57:31 if it comes back to you let me know if i may miss campbell thank

1:57:35 you for that acknowledgement with

1:57:38 regional busing and and i absolutely i’ve shared with the board

1:57:43 uh it it devastates me to be bringing

1:57:45 this to our community uh in the turnaround time that they have

1:57:49 to begin working through the adjustments

1:57:51 i want to provide them the assurance that our school choice and

1:57:55 program choice office is prepared and ready

1:57:57 to assist them with whatever questions and needs that they may

1:58:01 have and uh we will we will do everything

1:58:03 we can to work with them through you know processing this

1:58:06 information our our school choice and program

1:58:09 schools obviously are already aware and they’re very prepared

1:58:13 and ready to work with parents and students

1:58:15 uh for the coming year to to do everything we can to support

1:58:19 them thank you and i would just let the

1:58:21 public who is listening be aware that the waitlist opportunities

1:58:24 are still open the waitlist windows

1:58:26 are open currently through i believe the middle of july thank

1:58:31 you mr susan unless miss well first i want to

1:58:38 thank you very much for the presentation i can’t say that i’m

1:58:42 jumping up and down um i think you know my

1:58:46 feelings about regional busing and i feel that we have so many

1:58:50 great programs that i’m concerned for our

1:58:53 students um we are a district of choice and this just makes it

1:58:58 harder for some of our parents to get to

1:59:01 the schools that they would like their children to i’m not

1:59:04 saying that it’s wrong i’m saying that it is

1:59:07 very difficult and i have some concerns for some of my students

1:59:11 well across the district of

1:59:14 of, darn, I wanted to go to this program and I don’t

1:59:17 have any way to get there.

1:59:20 That’s upsetting to me.

1:59:21 It is concerning to me.

1:59:25 I really don’t have a good answer at this point

1:59:28 of how do we solve this.

1:59:30 But I want to go on record that I am struggling with us

1:59:36 not having regional busing.

1:59:38 Thank you, Ms. McDougall.

1:59:39 Mr. Susan.

1:59:41 First off, I want to say thank you to Dr. Mullins.

1:59:45 I will say this publicly until the day I’m done with Brevard

1:59:49 Schools or when my children are out.

1:59:50 You are the first superintendent that

1:59:52 has taken on the insurance with all effort in.

1:59:57 And that, to me, has been a difficult thing for 14 years

2:00:01 in this district, is that the superintendents

2:00:03 have allowed a blind eye to it and impacted negatively

2:00:08 our employees and our budget.

2:00:10 And you sat down and said, no, that’s not acceptable,

2:00:13 all the way to the last point where you’re still taking on ideas

2:00:17 to try to fix it.

2:00:18 That goes a long way for me.

2:00:20 And I know it goes a long way for other people

2:00:22 in the fact that you’re willing to roll up your sleeves

2:00:24 on that tough issue.

2:00:25 Because it is tough.

2:00:26 So I wanted to give you credit for that.

2:00:28 The other thing is that I agree with you, Ms. McDougall.

2:00:31 I agree with you on all your sentiments with choice busing.

2:00:34 Here’s the problem I came down to.

2:00:35 Because if there’s anything out there, my district, I think,

2:00:38 has the highest percentage of kids that are in choice busing.

2:00:41 So when I’m looking at it and I’m saying, my gosh,

2:00:43 I mean, these are opportunities.

2:00:45 These are kids that have signed on.

2:00:46 These are things that are going on.

2:00:47 And these kids have dreams to go to these schools.

2:00:49 But here’s what it is.

2:00:50 We are faced with the very simple fact

2:00:53 that there may not be a bus showing up to pick those kids up.

2:00:56 And what I mean by that is that it’s a workforce issue.

2:01:00 This entire thing has a little bit to do with the budget for me.

2:01:03 But it is a workforce issue.

2:01:05 The majority and percentage of our bus drivers

2:01:08 are all in the special class for COVID.

2:01:10 How many of them may not come back?

2:01:12 At any given time right now, we have 30 to 40 bus drivers

2:01:15 throughout the district that are sick, that are out.

2:01:18 And we’re already 30, 40, 50 bus drivers down.

2:01:22 We have people that are at each one of the locations that

2:01:24 are literally, literally leaving their posts

2:01:27 that aren’t even bus drivers to cover bus routes.

2:01:30 We have bus drivers that are trying to cover

2:01:32 other bus drivers routes by packing more and more kids in.

2:01:35 That was pre-COVID.

2:01:37 So what I want everybody to understand

2:01:39 is that the issue is deeper than us just trying

2:01:43 to save a million dollars.

2:01:44 Because I think a lot of people out there are going to say,

2:01:46 well, we can make up the funds.

2:01:47 We can try to do– no.

2:01:49 We’re looking right now at an opportunity

2:01:51 that there may not be that many bus drivers

2:01:53 to come back to fill the positions that we have.

2:01:56 And that choice busing is a huge workforce issue.

2:01:59 I know that I receive daily, sometimes weekly emails

2:02:03 from people that are bus drivers and individuals saying,

2:02:05 we’ve got to have some relief.

2:02:07 We push to try to give raises to our bus drivers

2:02:10 so that we could attract more from SCAT

2:02:12 and from around surrounding counties.

2:02:13 It is a workforce issue.

2:02:15 With a targeted class and an already decimated workforce

2:02:18 in that area, it’s going to be hard to just field buses,

2:02:21 period.

2:02:22 And I think that that’s where it comes to,

2:02:24 is that we can continue to make the choice of, yes,

2:02:26 we’re going to provide these choice programs,

2:02:28 we’re going to do these things for them,

2:02:29 and then hope that there’s enough kids that come back,

2:02:32 or enough bus drivers to make that choice.

2:02:34 But we may be facing a choice where we don’t even have

2:02:37 enough bus drivers for those positions, needless to say.

2:02:40 So for me, I made the choice based on workforce

2:02:43 to support the superintendent’s recommendation.

2:02:45 And I would value anybody that says, this is ridiculous.

2:02:49 You promised.

2:02:50 Look at the workforce issue.

2:02:51 Talk to the bus drivers.

2:02:53 Go to the regional positions and say, hey,

2:02:55 tell me about what you’re dealing with.

2:02:57 Because it is scary how many of our employees that

2:03:02 have the bus driver certification, that are former bus drivers

2:03:05 that

2:03:05 have moved up in our organization, that

2:03:06 are covering bus routes, and not actually performing

2:03:08 what they should be at transportation.

2:03:10 So with that, I just wanted to kind of say thank you,

2:03:12 and I support your recommendation, Dr. Mullins.

2:03:14 Thank you, Mr. Susan.

2:03:16 I just want to add, he mentioned, he is absolutely right.

2:03:18 We have had non-bus driver employees stepping away

2:03:22 from posts to cover buses.

2:03:24 But they are certified bus drivers as well.

2:03:26 They’re all credentialed.

2:03:28 So I just wanted to clarify that.

2:03:30 Thank you, sir.

2:03:33 Thank you for clarifying that, Dr. Mullins.

2:03:34 That made me choke a little bit when he said that as well.

2:03:39 So I have, as you all know, been an incredibly strong proponent

2:03:47 of regional busing.

2:03:49 And for a lot of different reasons, but especially because–

2:03:52 and pardon me getting out my soapbox once again,

2:03:55 but District 1 is, for all practical purposes,

2:03:59 pretty close to a choice desert.

2:04:01 And so geographically limited, whereas once you

2:04:06 get down into the other parts of Brevard County,

2:04:09 we’re much wider.

2:04:11 So distance-wise, and number of programs-wise,

2:04:14 and the rest of the district, it’s just

2:04:16 very different than District 1.

2:04:19 And we’ve made some progress, and part of that progress

2:04:22 was regional busing so that the students in District 1

2:04:25 could access programs outside of District 1,

2:04:29 since there are limited opportunities there.

2:04:32 And I would be lying if I didn’t say that this particular issue

2:04:40 pains me.

2:04:41 Probably it all pains me.

2:04:43 And I think that’s an important note, too,

2:04:45 is we’re at a point where we’ve cut $27 million

2:04:49 from the budget, and people haven’t felt much of that.

2:04:55 We’re at a point where we just don’t have

2:04:57 a lot more to cut without having some impact.

2:05:00 And so financially, I can understand to some extent,

2:05:08 where I think we have a real issue,

2:05:09 and why you’re not going to see me pound my fist and yell

2:05:13 and scream and scream and say, I’m absolutely fighting this

2:05:15 to the end, is in our current situation with COVID.

2:05:18 And the requirements for busing and the fact

2:05:21 that we can’t put as many kids on a bus.

2:05:24 We were already struggling to get many of our struggling

2:05:28 students

2:05:28 to school so they can have a full breakfast

2:05:31 and great academic day.

2:05:34 We’ve got issues with our drivers.

2:05:36 We’ve got–

2:05:37 I just feel like this was the final punch in the gut

2:05:40 for regional busing.

2:05:42 And it pains me.

2:05:43 But I think that’s where we are.

2:05:47 But I’m not giving up totally on my soapbox,

2:05:51 because I think Dr. Mullins did a great job last time

2:05:56 that we were together discussing the passion and commitment

2:06:00 from his perspective, but also I think

2:06:01 the board has been very much on board

2:06:03 with the importance of equity and access and opportunity

2:06:07 in our district.

2:06:09 And that is incredibly important to me as well.

2:06:14 Not to say it’s more important to me than the rest of you.

2:06:18 But it is a major issue for me and something

2:06:20 that truly keeps me up at night in the role that we play.

2:06:24 And so my ask would be that we make

2:06:29 a commitment to figure out how we move forward with equity

2:06:34 in our district with the removal of the regional busing.

2:06:38 And I believe there are solutions there and ways

2:06:41 that we can get there.

2:06:43 If you go back to Dr. Mullins’ presentation,

2:06:46 there are some non-recurring dollars that are currently not

2:06:50 allocated that can potentially be utilized to start to develop

2:06:57 some framework to work on equity

2:06:59 within our district.

2:07:00 It’s not going to fix it all by any means, but I think that we

2:07:07 have to make a commitment,

2:07:08 especially in this particular day and time, to start addressing

2:07:13 those issues of access for

2:07:15 our students and ensuring that we are helping them all to get

2:07:19 opportunities and support to be

2:07:22 successful going forward.

2:07:23 And so that would be my ask, is if we could potentially, as a

2:07:28 board, give some recommendation.

2:07:31 We’re not voting on this budget today, but I would like for us

2:07:36 to make a commitment to prioritize

2:07:38 that in the work that we’re doing going forward.

2:07:41 With that, I will get off my sofa.

2:07:43 Ms. Belford?

2:07:46 I support that.

2:07:47 It’s the $600,000 you’re talking about, if not a portion.

2:07:50 I don’t know if Dr. Mullins already has something planned in

2:07:53 mind, but I think that’s definitely

2:07:55 a good use of those funds.

2:07:59 I do worry about the children that are accessing programs that

2:08:03 now will not have access to programs.

2:08:05 I don’t know if there’s some other community solution there, if

2:08:11 there’s a nonprofit that

2:08:14 could pick up some funds for a transportation van.

2:08:18 There’s some parents that can step in and fill this gap that

2:08:20 have just been using it because

2:08:21 it’s easier, and then there’s some that just won’t be able to

2:08:23 get the program now.

2:08:24 So I don’t know if somebody’s out there watching and they’ve got

2:08:28 a great third-party solution.

2:08:30 We would love to hear that, and I’m sure there’s some way we

2:08:33 could connect that to happen.

2:08:35 But my last comments, I just want to – Dr. Mullins talked about

2:08:41 our media assistance, and that

2:08:44 is by far and large the biggest impact, I think, that comes out

2:08:46 of this whole list of cuts that

2:08:48 I’m looking at.

2:08:50 And I appreciate you speaking to how important they are and how

2:08:56 we do value them.

2:08:57 I am curious – I know we’ve had discussions before when we did

2:09:01 – when we got the evaluation,

2:09:03 when we compared district to district, not the one that the

2:09:06 gentleman did today, but the – I

2:09:07 can’t think of his name, but also through the superintendent –

2:09:10 Jim Hamilton.

2:09:12 I know that report.

2:09:13 Other districts like ours do not have media assistance at all,

2:09:17 if I’m correct, is that?

2:09:20 Yes.

2:09:21 So several months – a few months ago, two or three months ago,

2:09:24 did a look at other districts

2:09:26 across the state and how they were staffing their media centers.

2:09:30 And it’s – there’s every possible combination.

2:09:35 There are – there was at least – I think we surveyed 10 or 11

2:09:40 districts.

2:09:41 At least half of them only have one or the other.

2:09:44 Some media centers only have a media assistant.

2:09:47 They don’t have media specialists.

2:09:50 Some have a media assistant and other kind of support staff that

2:09:54 appears it could be shared

2:09:55 with the front office, but then spends time in the media center,

2:09:59 and that type of thing.

2:10:00 So very few districts that we surveyed have a – have staffing

2:10:07 of both positions.

2:10:09 A total – an allocation for that.

2:10:11 Okay.

2:10:12 I’m wondering if we could look into – I know we’ve gotten quite

2:10:15 a few emails from media specialists

2:10:18 on what are we going to do now, you know, I – they don’t know

2:10:21 how to function because they

2:10:22 have their whole system where they – the media assistant is

2:10:25 helping kids that are coming

2:10:26 in to check out books while they’re doing things with classes.

2:10:29 And so maybe we could somehow connect our – I don’t – connect

2:10:34 our media specialists with media

2:10:35 specialists of districts.

2:10:37 Maybe there’s some creative solutions that we just aren’t

2:10:40 thinking of to support and help

2:10:41 them.

2:10:42 I do know that they – they do coordinate.

2:10:43 They work on other things.

2:10:44 They work on standards yesterday, but we do still have some

2:10:47 elementary schools that are

2:10:49 the smaller, under 500, correct, that – that don’t have a media

2:10:52 assistant.

2:10:53 So they – I’m sure they’ll be able to share their ideas of how

2:10:56 that – I know West Melbourne

2:10:57 School for Science, once upon a time, was less than 500, and we

2:11:00 didn’t have a media –

2:11:01 Yeah.

2:11:02 – so they need to volunteer crews and things like that.

2:11:03 A few of my schools don’t, but they are smaller.

2:11:05 They don’t want to downplay at all the negative impacts of this

2:11:08 because they are so valuable

2:11:10 to, you know, to all the different programs that are being run

2:11:13 every day in our – in our

2:11:15 media centers.

2:11:16 So – but they – you know, they have that opportunity to, even

2:11:19 within the district, to – to work

2:11:21 together.

2:11:22 Thank you.

2:11:23 I’ll just add, I was with a principal last night, one of our

2:11:27 elementary principals, last

2:11:28 evening, at an event, and, you know, she was sharing, you know,

2:11:33 I said, how did your conversation

2:11:34 go with your media assistant?

2:11:36 And she says, it was okay.

2:11:38 I just assured her, we’re going to work through it together.

2:11:41 And we’re going to look for other options, and I’m going to help

2:11:45 you seek other employment

2:11:47 opportunities you’d be interested in in the district.

2:11:50 And we’ll – and the conversation then transitioned with her

2:11:53 media specialist and said, you know,

2:11:55 we’re going to be okay.

2:11:56 We can work through this.

2:11:57 We can find alternatives, and we’ll tackle this as a team like

2:12:01 we always do.

2:12:02 That’s just a testament to the leadership in our schools and our

2:12:05 principals, you know, doing

2:12:07 everything they can to work through it in the most positive way

2:12:10 possible.

2:12:10 So, appreciate that.

2:12:15 Ms. Belford, if I may, I have – I want to be as transparent and

2:12:19 forthright with our employees

2:12:22 and the community as possible.

2:12:24 And I said something that Dr. Thetik, she texted me and said,

2:12:29 you need to correct this, and I’ve

2:12:31 already made the board aware of it because I’ve said it before,

2:12:34 and that was, we don’t have

2:12:35 any layoffs.

2:12:36 So, we are currently in the bumping process with instructional

2:12:41 assistants.

2:12:42 And by virtue of that process with seniority, there is the

2:12:47 highly unlikely hood of layoffs.

2:12:50 It is a process we go through every year, and we have

2:12:53 historically not had to get to that

2:12:55 point because there’s attrition in employees who choose to not

2:12:59 return.

2:12:59 But we don’t know that until we go into the process.

2:13:03 So, we will work as valiantly as we have in the past through the

2:13:07 instructional assistant bumping process.

2:13:10 I’ll work through that.

2:13:11 I know it causes some concern.

2:13:14 We’ve heard some from parents, some parents particularly, about

2:13:17 the instructional assistant who is supposed

2:13:19 to not be returning to their school.

2:13:20 And Dr. Thetik and her staff know about all of those

2:13:24 circumstances and situations and work

2:13:27 so hard to work through them with the school, with our employees,

2:13:32 with families to provide as much stability and continuity as we

2:13:37 can.

2:13:37 So, I just don’t want someone to come back and say, Dr. Mullins

2:13:42 said there’s no layoffs,

2:13:43 but I have this letter that says we’re in the bumping process

2:13:46 and I could be laid off.

2:13:48 It is part of our normal process every year, and I’m very

2:13:51 optimistic we’ll be able to work through that

2:13:54 and provide employment opportunities for all of our IAs.

2:14:00 Any additional comments, questions?

2:14:03 I would just add thank you for, and I think Ms. Listenski

2:14:06 mentioned her part, that we’ve already addressed some of the CARES

2:14:09 Act, you know,

2:14:10 well, you talked about it as well, the number, but that we

2:14:13 already have some of those already planned for as far as some of

2:14:18 these positions that are going to help us in this year.

2:14:20 That’s going to be so important to make sure that our students

2:14:22 are academically ready and made up.

2:14:23 So, thank you for starting to address that because there have

2:14:26 been questions, you know, what are we doing with all the CARES

2:14:27 Act money?

2:14:28 So, looks like we’ve already have plans to put it to really good

2:14:31 use.

2:14:31 So, thank you.

2:14:34 Dr. Mullins, any direction that you need from the board?

2:14:38 Are you ready to march forward?

2:14:41 No, I believe I understand the support of the board.

2:14:45 We will be moving forward with all of the reductions and cuts,

2:14:51 eliminations that I presented.

2:14:53 We’ll be communicating and working closely with our media

2:14:56 assistants, most affected,

2:15:00 reassuring them that we’re going to work through this year with

2:15:02 them and they’ll continue to have employment.

2:15:05 And then, of course, we’ll be reaching out to our regional bus

2:15:09 students and families and providing every support we can

2:15:13 as they re-evaluate and consider the impact that will be on

2:15:16 their families.

2:15:17 Thank you.

2:15:18 Very good.

2:15:19 Thank you.

2:15:20 Thank you, Ms. Lisinski, Mr. Collins.

2:15:22 We appreciate you very much.

2:15:23 At this time, if no one is opposed, I would like to recommend

2:15:26 that we take a brief break for, you know, personal care

2:15:30 and come back approximately five minutes.

2:15:33 All right.

2:15:34 We will recess.

2:15:43 We’ll be right back.

3:16:52 We love the program.

3:17:22 We’ll be right back.

3:33:22 We’re right back.

3:33:52 We’ll be right back.