Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Thank you.
28:29 - Thank you.
28:30 million and that’s also discretionary but the total change 42
28:34 million 42.1
28:35 million and again that’s not dollars that goes all to the
28:42 district the there’s
28:44 about a hundred and ten million that is a pass-through that that
28:49 goes to charters
28:50 and scholarship
28:53 and this breaks out some more of the categoricals
29:00 and then if you recall at the March budget update that bottom
29:14 line was 3.6
29:16 we continue to revise the numbers as we get more information as
29:23 we
29:28 understand things that are they’re changing and and those kind
29:31 of things
29:32 increases in cost for contracts we reduce the minimum wage
29:37 increase it used to be
29:38 six million and as we scrub that down I believe it’ll be five
29:43 million again this
29:45 is their estimates and then the FRS rate originally I had at
29:50 four million and we
29:53 scrubbed that as well and I believe it’ll be more like three
29:56 point four again as we
29:57 move as we understand what our enrollment actually is we’ll be
30:02 able to continue to
30:03 revise these numbers
30:11 so when you take the total revenue the four point two one you
30:14 subtract out the
30:15 categoricals you take out all the pass-throughs available
30:19 funding is thirteen
30:20 point two then we take out the minimum wage the FRS and our
30:26 remaining revenue that we
30:28 can use for compensation that we can use for health care the
30:34 remaining discretionary
30:37 dollars is four point eight at this point
30:41 so the benefits obviously there is great benefits to this budget
30:48 and we went
30:50 through all of these and go on to the next and then one of the
30:57 things I wanted to
30:58 talk about was the importance of audits so we welcome the
31:03 accountability the
31:05 the taxpayers and trust us with their treasure it’s an
31:08 incredible responsibility and we want
31:14 we open our books to anyone because we want to be able to make
31:18 sure that we are transparent
31:20 and that the dollars every dollar counts that are going is going
31:24 to the right places and I believe in audits is is my thought is
31:30 it’s an investment and it makes us better
31:33 and you know in findings regarding the first thing I look at
31:39 when if there’s a finding is
31:42 was it a system issue was it a process issue was it a person
31:46 problem or you know a manual breakdown or
31:50 was it a problem of time meaning there just wasn’t enough of it
31:54 and you know it wasn’t a priority
31:56 so kind of narrow down the root cause and then the effect you
32:01 know can we identify what the effect was what the root cause was
32:05 and can we change that
32:06 we need to ensure that we have the internal controls and prevent
32:13 broad waste and
32:15 abuse and then the thing that I like to do is look for a bright
32:21 spot you know you can look at all the findings and
32:25 and and and we need to see those but we also have bright spots
32:31 and then if we have a bright spot
32:32 somewhere maybe that bright spot can be
32:36 trans
32:38 transported all over and bring more bright spots so if somebody’s
32:42 doing something
32:42 really well we want it shared and we want people to
32:46 to take a look at where people are
32:48 doing things well and then again on the bottom there are audits
32:56 it’s not about paperwork it’s about everybody doing their job
33:00 correctly
33:01 and then we recently had a audit committee and there was some
33:07 discussion about
33:08 difference between an internal audit and external audit
33:12 and basically an internal audit is our internal auditors we are
33:18 like
33:19 you know we at the audit committee will take a look and say
33:24 what are the concerns within the district hey i’m kind of
33:31 worried about
33:32 the process over here or can you take a look over here it’s
33:37 things that we direct things that
33:41 we want to make sure it’s right things that may have high risk
33:44 and we just want to make sure that everything’s going well so we
33:48 just have somebody our internal
33:50 auditors go in and check it out for us and so the internal auditors
33:54 for us is rms
33:56 and they report to the audit committee they assess risk and best
34:02 practices they do test internal controls
34:08 and then they recommend what they you know anything that they
34:12 see that could better the process
34:14 and it’s continuous it isn’t once a year it’s continuous they’re
34:19 going in there they’re looking at the processes
34:22 and then after they do that they’ll come back later and check to
34:27 make sure the fixes are still there or the fixes work
34:31 and then on external is more it’s a third party it’s something
34:36 you know it’s a requirement by the state or a different agency
34:41 and
34:42 you know they they go and they confirm that you’re following the
34:47 laws regulations grants accounting standards
34:50 and you know we have msl they have to come look at our books
34:55 every year at the end of the year and give
34:57 us a financial statement or a financial opinion and this isn’t
35:01 uh normally voluntary i mean they come
35:05 it’s by law by statute and then you’ll see in the next slide or
35:10 the next two slides that the audit general
35:13 is here now and they are required to come every three years and
35:18 so this slide just kind of shows you some
35:21 of the things that we’ve done um over the year you can see that
35:25 the annual financial audit and then we’re
35:28 also according to red book we have to have a internal audit on
35:32 our internal accounts from the schools which
35:35 is kind of the fees and um fundraising those kind of things and
35:42 we also take a look at the the surtax we
35:48 do that every i think every other uh every six months um
35:52 education technology so making sure that
35:57 people can’t hack into our systems really important so they’ll
36:00 do those kind of intrusion tests
36:02 stimulus funding is all the funding that we’ve received the esser
36:08 the the cares the arp all those
36:12 dollars a lot of dollars and you know we were rsm go look and
36:16 make sure that our processes are in place
36:20 so we can ensure that we have the transparency and that we’re
36:24 using these dollars as they’re intended
36:27 and then again you’ll see cycle audits some of the ones that we
36:34 continue to do like timekeeping
36:37 and um the uh the msl they’re here now they’re they’re pulling
36:45 all this data to start working on
36:48 their audit for our books at the end of the year and then also
36:52 we have the audit general here it comes
36:55 every three years they’re looking at our financial and they’re
36:59 looking at our operational in the operational
37:02 they’re looking at mental health plan make sure that we’re
37:04 following all the regulations and guidelines
37:09 law they’re also they looked at school safety and tested that
37:14 and they’re looking at how we’re calculating and
37:19 providing tsia for the teachers um so and and that’s what they’re
37:25 doing so far we still don’t know
37:27 everything that they’re going to look at but they’re going to
37:30 give us a good look and
37:31 we welcome it we want to get better
37:34 so challenges that is i the the first bullet i believe
37:42 is the most challenging because we have a finite budget and we
37:46 have so many things that we have to do
37:49 and we we have a finite budget 80 of our budget is uh labor and
37:57 then you’ve seen all of the
38:03 the um restricted areas we have very little discretionary
38:07 dollars and what discretionary
38:10 dollars that we have we just really need to use it um so bearingly
38:16 because it’s just so important
38:19 because we want to provide recurring compensation to all our
38:23 employees we know that that’s just so
38:27 important we want them to have great health care or uh we do
38:31 want them to have great health care we also
38:35 are aware of the compression issues so we got to balance all
38:42 that with you know the the finite amount
38:45 of money um the the increase for health care this year the
38:50 projections 13 million dollars that’s a lot of
38:55 money in the previous slide you saw 4.8 so you may wonder well
39:00 what are we going to do with the you know how
39:03 we’re going to get other dollars um so we’re going to change our
39:08 processes in historically we had
39:12 so again 80 of our budget is labor and no matter
39:21 even in the best years we’re going to have vacant positions and
39:24 vacant positions are going to generate
39:27 lap which is additional dollars um or dollars that weren’t spent
39:32 on the labor and then the other
39:34 thing that we’ve done historically is have a reserve for um
39:42 employee units so if you know if a school
39:49 enrollment goes way up then we need more teachers so we have
39:52 reserve units so we’re gonna
39:55 we’re gonna do something different we’re gonna
39:59 use that reserve funding and we’re going to put it in the front
40:04 and we’re going to use that buying power
40:06 and then that’s going to that’s reoccurring dollars that allows
40:10 us to
40:16 it allows us to provide compensation for our employees it allows
40:22 us to have additional recurring dollars to
40:25 help with our health care costs and it’s just a smarter way of
40:31 doing business instead of letting the
40:34 the lapse rate and the you know if we use the reserves those
40:39 dollars fall to the bottom every year
40:42 and then pay um recurring requirements at the end of the year
40:49 let’s just put it all up front
40:50 so we’re going to budget for all those items that we normally
40:55 pay at the end of the year
40:56 and we’re going to budget for what we spend and we’ll have less
41:02 lapse or we’ll have less fallout at the end of the year
41:06 but we’re also using that buying power um more effectively
41:11 and again uh we talked about many of these risks inflation uh
41:18 supply line disruptions we’re seeing
41:21 that right now i mean if you try to buy a van i don’t think that’s
41:25 going to happen anytime soon
41:28 um and then we have the esser esser has been an amazing um
41:33 assistant in helping
41:37 educate our kids and providing programs and
41:42 it’s just been amazing however it’s going to end so we need to
41:47 make sure that we have a soft landing
41:49 with our for esser and then we also need to start planning for a
41:53 flat enrollment recovery or if we’re
41:56 not going to recover what are we going to change because you
42:00 know again we have a finite amount of money
42:03 that can be used towards compensation and the other things that
42:08 we want to do so it’s one of those things is
42:13 what are we going to do and what we’re not going to do so that’s
42:16 what we that’s our challenge but again
42:19 i think we’re in a much better position than we were
42:22 the last two years and i’m looking forward to seeing how the
42:27 year plays out
42:28 and this is our budget adoption timeline
42:40 and this is this is good news um so our tax roll came back um an
42:47 estimate and it came uh march i’m
42:50 sorry may 31st and it increased it increased to 61.9 billion
42:57 dollars so that is money that um
43:01 is on our tax roll and we’ll get the certified amount in july july
43:08 19th no later then
43:10 so just based on this estimate we are lci or our local capital
43:16 investment went up about 7.4 million
43:20 dollars so we came to you last month or i’m sorry in march and
43:26 we told you that we had about 28.7
43:30 million dollars remaining for projects and now we’re up to 35.3
43:36 so we’re going to
43:38 reconvene the committee take a look at um you know the different
43:44 projects what we want to do
43:46 and come back with a recommendation of now that we have
43:50 additional capital dollars what is the best
43:53 spend for those
43:55 and again this was the list that we provided prior
44:06 so are there any questions um i have a simple one and it i think
44:15 i think it’s on slide six
44:16 so uh we’ve seen this slide before many times uh but i just
44:23 something i just never asked so when
44:24 we’re presenting this data with the numbers from the district
44:27 the charter the scholarship
44:31 when we have students that access scholarships for instance like
44:34 the mckay but they use it to go to
44:36 a bps school from one to another one that’s outside of their
44:39 zone school
44:40 is that reflected in the number of scholarship or is that
44:44 reflected still in district because
44:46 they’re staying within the district but they access the
44:49 scholarship and use it i in that case
44:52 so ft isn’t necessarily one student um so if um a student came
45:00 in halfway through the school year
45:02 they would be a 0.5 those kind of things so i i so it would be
45:07 split it would be split
45:11 it wouldn’t be one student maybe it would be district a certain
45:14 percentage in the mckay
45:15 okay i was just curious because um because we’ve seen that
45:19 significant jump i know that you were
45:21 saying these are also students that never step foot in bps so
45:23 that number is inflated as well as home
45:25 school students um so just curious what i think we’re asking is
45:28 if they move one bps school to another bps school
45:31 that wouldn’t necessarily be reflected here they’d still be
45:33 under the district
45:34 correct correct correct yeah i’ve got um a question so um on
45:42 just i’m going to start with the back end
45:45 the capital dollars you talked about we’re going to have uh
45:48 increased spending for that and i’m glad
45:51 you guys are going back to the table because even if we added in
45:53 the the add back list that’s still
45:56 only a couple million dollars more so my question is did you
46:00 guys already build into the original list
46:03 some inflationary cushion knowing where we were um or is it
46:07 possible that the projects that we already
46:10 have might need some of this um to just get them done that’s a
46:16 good point yes we would have to relook
46:20 at that okay but you don’t know i mean some of them build in a
46:23 little bit because i mean we were
46:24 when you guys were convening this spring i mean we were already
46:27 feeling the effects of some of that i
46:28 i mean if it’s incurred if it was then current pricing at the
46:32 time you know right and timing too if you uh
46:36 purchase vehicles or buses or computers you know with the supply
46:42 line disruptions are they going to
46:45 come in timely though and you know there’s supply and demand so
46:49 when there’s less supply the costs go up
46:53 with demand that that’s a very good point that we’ll have to
46:57 take a look at right um and then the last
47:01 question going back to the um the slide with the tax assessment
47:08 history of course for lci that’s great
47:12 news because you know it will naturally increase like you said
47:16 the amount of capital dollars we get
47:19 um it’s not necessarily reflected in our general funding because
47:22 that’s controlled by the state but
47:25 the state did if i’m if i remember correctly it looks like our
47:30 required local effort is going to
47:32 actually remain flat from last budget year to this budget year i
47:36 know we don’t probably know the exact
47:38 number because i think that comes out in july right but isn’t it
47:42 it’s going to be
47:43 actually they’re not going to roll it back the state didn’t
47:46 necessarily roll back the rates again
47:48 like to have for the last seven years am i am i reading that
47:51 correctly i mean you didn’t have
47:53 it in your presentation but when it seems like that’s what i had
47:56 heard when i the budget was presented
47:57 right so um when it comes to the general fund like like you said
48:02 or the fund 100
48:04 those dollars are from all the the tax property tax are all sent
48:12 up to the state and then they allocate
48:14 it out so you know they built their budget and that’s the budget
48:19 so if even though our dollars are going
48:23 up quite a bit um or our tax rolls going up it doesn’t
48:27 necessarily mean that we’re going to
48:29 be able to keep all those dollars but with the lci that’s a 1.5
48:36 mil right and that’s for capital
48:39 and so they’ll be able to keep that now um on the operating side
48:45 we also have that if you recall that
48:48 0.748 mil and i was very excited about that and and did the
48:54 calculations and was hoping that we had an
48:57 increase in increase in dollars but then there’s also that other
49:00 um categorical that is for districts that
49:06 are below average and that was about eight million dollars
49:11 according to the conference report but when
49:15 you do all the math it ends up washing so we so we lose on that
49:21 we don’t lose but we don’t gain okay
49:25 so i guess i i i do realize that the change in that won’tness if
49:29 it if it does remain flat it doesn’t
49:31 have effect on our revenue because that’s based on students but
49:34 i just wondered if it was in any way
49:36 kind of a recognition by the state that we do need to realize
49:42 that increase in funding you know through
49:45 the year right well there’s and again we’ll know more in uh july
49:50 uh when we get the second calc
49:53 because that’s when the fdoe sends down what what we can um
49:59 thank you
50:01 can we put that one up there can we put that one up there that
50:11 has the different years with the
50:15 property value not the property value that one went over it’s
50:18 the other one that has scholarship okay
50:23 i don’t have i don’t have access to my thing oh not a problem is
50:26 that the one you’re looking for
50:28 can you can you go to her computer
50:30 it’s on the screen
50:37 so because there was a an anomaly that was i was speaking to a
50:42 group of people over at a church
50:46 last week and district means that’s how many students actually
50:49 step put into our schools
50:51 right charter means that’s how many students actually step foot
50:54 into a charter right scholarship
50:56 that’s mckay scholarship and home school there is that what that
51:00 is there’s some home school but
51:02 it’s um family empowerment scholars yeah family empowerment is
51:06 the overarching
51:08 that’s so there was an anomaly where they were saying that there’s
51:13 a lot of home school students
51:16 who are part of like a charter school type um online system that
51:20 looks like it’s acting like a charter
51:23 school um but do we have the home school totals is what i was
51:27 looking for do we have that or is that
51:29 something i should just uh that’s something that we can get for
51:32 you okay no big deal i just i just didn’t
51:34 know if they were baked into that that’s all yeah i do know
51:37 students that are part of a like charter or
51:40 private school that it’s it’s beyond the co-op like an actual
51:44 curriculum and stuff that they buy into
51:46 and it’s being it’s it’s going it’s a little off i’ll just that’s
51:49 all that’s all that’s all i needed
51:51 thank you okay yeah i think miss lisinski referenced what i
51:55 believe you’re you’re talking about mr susan is that
52:00 within family empowerment scholarship there are students who
52:03 never came to brevard public schools
52:05 who were previously home education that are now receiving a
52:09 family empowerment scholarship
52:11 for participation in a private school so that jump in
52:15 participation of family empowerment includes
52:19 students who never won that were always in private and stayed in
52:22 private as well as some who may have
52:24 gone from home ed to private but never came into brevard public
52:27 schools did i reflect that correctly miss
52:30 lisinski you did the um the family empowerment also uh provides
52:36 vouchers for parents at home school so um
52:41 parents at home school that did that you know without additional
52:47 funding are now able to receive funding for that
52:53 yeah if you can just email me the last five year totals for home
52:55 school okay thank you
52:57 anybody else all right thank you miss lisinski thank you thank
53:07 you
53:07 all right we’re now going to begin our public hearings is there
53:11 anyone present who wishes to
53:12 address board policy 3315 student and staff wellness
53:15 is there anyone present who wishes to address board policy 3315
53:22 student and staff wellness
53:23 is there anyone present is there anyone present who wishes to
53:27 address
53:27 board policy 5121 controlled open enrollment is there anyone
53:31 present who wishes to address
53:32 board policy 5121 controlled open enrollment is there anyone
53:35 present who wishes to address
53:36 board policy 5121 controlled open enrollment does any board
53:40 member have anything to discuss pertaining to
53:42 this policy is there anyone present who wishes to address board
53:46 policy 7250 commemoration of school
53:49 facilities does any board member have anything to discuss
53:58 pertaining to this policy
54:06 is there anyone present who wishes to address board policy 7110
54:10 student accommodation does any board member have
54:11 anything to discuss pertaining to this policy is there anyone
54:17 present who wishes to address board policy 8510 wellness
54:21 i just had a quick question um i’m happy to see that wellness is
54:32 being prioritized and um but i would like to
54:37 ask how parents and community members can review the wellness
54:41 curriculum updates so if somebody could get back to me with that
54:45 that would be great thank you miss
54:46 thank you mr lany i know that it’s on the there’s a webpage um
54:56 and i know our website sometimes it’s tricky to navigate um
55:00 dr sullivan can you help me about how they can look at our
55:06 wellness because i’m certainly part of the
55:09 you know okay do you go to departments food and nutrition
55:14 services correct oh that’s right and then
55:16 over on the over on the side at the very bottom on the link if
55:21 you’re on your phone it’s a little
55:21 different but it says wellness policy and there is the annual
55:27 wellness policy and um sorry
55:30 and updates are all there so it’s under food nutrition services
55:42 and procedures
55:46 that’s all right all right everybody have anything else all
55:57 right because there is no further
56:00 business this meeting is now adjourned
56:16 business this meeting is now out of the way you’re going to be a
56:21 part of the work that we’re going to do
56:22 in the way you’re going to be a part of the work that we’re
56:24 going to do
56:25 in the way you’re going to be a part of the work that we’re
56:26 going to be a part of the work that we’re going to be a part of
56:32 the work that we’re going to be a part of the work that we’re
56:38 going to be done
56:46 you