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Board Budget Workshop (Tuesday, May 6, 2025)

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locations just for counties school district boardroom our Mantra is student centered teacher focused our vision Jasper Scholars today Earnest tomorrow's leaders CSD cultivates the environment of Excellence through Innovation inspiration and opportunities for partnership with the community in order yeah I here okay media has been notified according to the South Carolina of laws code of laws 976 section 134188 is right to hear verifying all the local news media of the time date sweet agenda I'm trying to make a motion that we approve the agenda second it's about back to Bali first he is going to court second any discussion yes Madam chair um to the public we are starting our budget season and the community like to say that we don't involve them and what we are doing we Japanese workshops so we need the community to come out because you know we have this referendum we have a lot going on we need the community to come out and participate with us don't put it all the burden on us and then when we approve the budget you're going to see you didn't get this you didn't get that this didn't happen or that didn't happen this is your opportunity time to come out to be a part of US helped us forward decide what this tell me what not what the board was what the county and the constituents what so I'm asking you all please hold us accountable but hold yourself accountable to because you need to be involved in this process thank comments I I the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which 1 nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all please be seated this is thank you thank saying on um the last meeting we had I think the uh board members who were present for their prayers and well wishes while I was out and I want to extend the same thing to everybody else and thank you and okay the next I'm going to talk about the preliminary budget for FY 2526 okay and what we did in here we made estimations on uh teaching salary increases and maybe we're going to be focused on that and this first draft is on the teacher and uh the school salaries more so than the administrative level uh what we going to do look at that all right if you look at the pages there you will go to basically page 3 tells you Revenue been on the revenue we're looking at the 2526 Revenue the millions this year went up from 1. 8 3 per mil to 200 918 dollars per mil okay we're still at 166 Mills we didn't do anything on our Milling increase even though that's that's available there we didn't do anything on millage increase um that projection will project 33 million at 166 Mills at that rate okay that's 2.9 Million more than last year the state the district Medical District the county doesn't buy 96 97% collection rate okay that's about the collection rate um we left the minion which is the fee in blue of taxes that they paid uh I haven't got the update I got the update numbers from the county but at the point I got them I don't think they were completely done with them yet in the past what they've done was given me the number for this but the whole County and then come back and say oh oh yeah all that well so what we try to do is I use the law number then what they actual number they give the guy based on prior years so that means our total uh County Revenue we're looking at 35 million okay that's up about 3 million from last year okay on the state side which is the state has this fund that they give you uh homestead exemption money where ours is projected at uh 3 million 547,000 basically same width as it was last year and it comes in the form of homestead exemption um new school tax they got several different names for it when it comes to you got to kind of figure out okay now this my home state so you go from there so that's and then now we get down to the E8 funding which is what State Legislative creates for us and what we looking at is the house version this is what the house passed about 2 months ago about 2 months ago about a month ago the Senate hadn't put their version out yet and I think day is actually was the last day and then after that they go into conference and they come back out and they'll tell you what what your money is but at that point we we were losing money coming from the state and and again with that funding formula because we're that funding form is set up if you grow you going to lose money and you know and everybody complains about it everybody complains about it because something has to be done different with it so there's some in the Senate version that may help put our money back yes sir what is the start the salary this year for these so what I would do man I just go through the revenue and tell you how we going to spend that so then we come down and you see these different areas there the uh State again is giving us money for um the health insurance she like this year they put State tells you that okay we we we increase the health insurance the cost of the health insurance but we give you a little money to kind of help you out with so they did that again this year and they gave us basically 400,000 a year up from the 3008 last year uh the transfer I didn't tell you was dating down here but the transfer of stuff here no I said look at the rest of the night so then we come down so actually what we is 51 million this year for the anticipated Revenue and that's up basically 2 billion 200 and 42,000 all right and uh again if we get the money back from the state because you saw at the top we had almost 3 million from the county but we lost so with state revenue so if you pick that up then we'll move on from there all right and let me say that there is uh something that's going back to the Senate where they are re-looking at that number because a lot of districts are complaining about that and believe it or not what's causing some of that outside of the formula is Charter Schools and so if if what they showed us in the superintendent meeting last year last week passes we will go from losing 800,000 to weigh less than that I mean 1 number showed about 3,700 dollars so I'm not sure where it's going to land but um I was glad to see it out there Mr Zimmerman right away because when I saw it I was like I hope this passes because that will give us that money back it's 1 thing to lose 3,700 dollars to another thing to lose 8 or 900,000 okay so now as we go on there we'll see that when we looking at the programs in the schools you will see that there is some increases in the school budgets and most of that is in salaries so we increase in the salary for the teachers teacher salary Ministry is at all so what we come down to in our preliminary we had our projected revenue of 51 million uh 21,414 and it stands now our expenditures are sitting 50 million 36,000 which leaves us 985,000 left to to budget out all right now however because this is the draft the draft these numbers no problem we'll probably change okay and we move ftes with Dr grey and myself have been working and looking at the FTE trying to make sure that we have the ftes are correct in the past we it was kind of they gave me some MTU and said hey this is what we have but what we necessarily what we had so we had to work around as what Mr Graham and I have done this year was trying to make a concerted effort that our FTE is matching exactly what's there in the schools and have that room for growth so these numbers will change you may see that okay uh regular Elementary went up 1.3 million okay but um I don't know I went down there hard to go in mry only went up 860 but if there's some fges that have to be moved around you by the time we get to the board meeting with the 12th this may look a little different than what it is now but the gut 7 is still the same it's just going to be distributed all right so now we move to the next page I have some notes Here using this is my working document so I'm just going to walk through it because what we're looking doing you see we have 8 point 25 staff members there well because some of that's going to go into Federal program and we all going to pay a portion of that so we'll be paying 50% of someone's salary 75% another 25% of others so all that brings out is what we have here because we're moving into Federal programs okay that's what you don't see the notes on yours but they are here on online but but I have to wait for okay but did the same thing with bjh we don't know whether there's going to be an increase there but chances are there's going to be an increase because there's an increase every year over here because they have the same thing that we have they have teachers teacher salary to go up benefits go up so they have to divide that and multiply by the number of students that the cost goes up okay so now um Athletics this year last year Athletics had bigger budget because it was starting back towards that in part of it this year that wasn't going to come down um and we ought to finish bringing it down yet so right now it's down probably about 700000 but it's going to come down with less than that okay because they should have all the unicorns and all the equipment that they need it with last year when we gave you a windfall to do that okay um with the athletic program the athletic director is in this budget right what we want you have athletic director is going to be a supplement at each 1 of the schools this you won't have a full-time person serving at that so that's when you see those uh certified professional staff okay at the top that's your athletic director it's a supplement to that they're period they will be teaching and then this is supplement for doing the athletic portion there is no more of that 50/50 so on her question the budget is 99 44 when you look at 2526 the athletic know look at column 2526 so oh okay I see I got you now I got you okay okay won't be paid as a director of athletic director person that would just be doing School athletic director for each school okay and someone at the district office will overview The District athletic director okay that's what I was getting at okay but then there's something we have it that is that that's the the role that you're serving is the butt your primary you are a certified staff okay all right and then we're going to go over to the next column there which kind of tells you how the money is description what it is you want to travel uh coaching stacking um paying officials and intact that type stuff okay and that being sure that she had y'all we got our number pages and even pages I think what I yeah we all right uh attend this attendance area even more so areas where we have our ministry of staff that work in uh 35 Staff and they supervised in the schools and it's not a lot to change their only thing that we changed their basically is there the salary the benefits and some supplies there are moving around a little bit yes so you got all right question address and then we're going to move back okay so right now when you look at administrative staff those salaries are same as they were last year all right that's why I was saying that 985,000 was left when we hear the increase of the teacher salaries we'll see that kind of move around a little bit all right uh get down to the board what we did with the board this year we increase your travel we start at 2:50 don't even yeah so what you did we increased the travel portion because what we saw the trim was the conferences are going up and travel was going up so we increased those current individual you still have your per individual a lot but instead of 33 now I think it's 4 okay everything else for me to say we are going to take away the uh board uh national board local supplements that's going to be moved to HR because in the past we've seen that this never use and we're going to move it to HR because they use every day use everything teacher in the year bonus same thing applies okay those are going to be moved to Hrs where it fits more into the scope of what they do all right so when you look at the next budget you'll see you you have to be your budget to come down by 3,600,000 all right but overall you're looking at now probably about I forgot to put those all right 42 that tells you how it was being distributed um and where the increases were we increased the talk live ability enjoy it because that would uh um those type of things that and yeah another that's another contingency okay that's going away that's not going to call contingency that's going to be distributed within your budget in areas where you need what we where we saw on your previous budget where we need to have money allocated to okay because before it was there and you just kind of used it but now we're going to put it in focus more on the category where it goes to okay so you were break that down when you come back yeah you see I got a little comments in there um the budget that suffered from Finance we had a reduction in staff um you know with Finance thinking September when we lost the position in November we lost the position you said when we lost Miss again a position back in today yesterday so we got 1 this is back yesterday so we are running behind right now especially when I was kind of out for about a month and then but I was doing still trying to carry it on but we uh that's the only page you'll see it out but okay with that we change 1 position around we just only only 1 of them I think we're going to do we're not going to fill the bill stay out of the county and uh we build AP today yesterday yes that's right you already have money and counted in the budget for the change salary uh remember because without employees we only have 5 employees that work in the kitchen that is still grandfathered in we had 4 or 5 retired last year so we only have 4 bad that are still on our payroll but we are reimbursed by truck wheels for them okay we have 5 that Grandpa remember there were some who were not eligible tired and the district allowed them to grandfather in it used to be like 10 of them and I think 5 retired last year the other ones were still there it was still a Jasper County employee that kind okay and we we pay for those but we are supplementing but there's benefits and that's kind of things by chops as part of that country all right um HR yeah we increased Bales a little bit because of the fact of legal fees legal fees and then there was uh increased in legal fees purchased Services which are things like those TV commercials that you will see those that day and um oh we didn't increase workmen compensation um good stuff around or last time around because we're looking at that now to see if we can actually reduce that and then allow them to go more so than we put it more recruiting so we'll put it more into recruit uh maintenance on maintenance we added the uh position for the district safety and maintenance person we had a net position uh we did that in January and also we're going to be looking at probably putting an RFP out on the street in July for custodial maintenance yard okay at 03 areas um we looked at the possibility of bringing maintenance back in this year but since we were trying to focus on increasing teacher paper share and bus drivers we started curtail out so you said the 107 is a new position that's a new thing that we put in board approving I see we went up 150 more on um Insurance property insurance I closed that in place there was an increase from the uh insurance carrier plus remember we added um the property stuff that we doing over at uh Ridgeland right now and then we did some other uh put the nice fence around all those other properties that we had to roll all that into that then we had the jcap building the module that was kind of there in the middle of the year that we had that in there too so we had some increases that went on that happened all right um that's when we looking at about 1 um the next 1 Pio which is public information we didn't do a whole lot there we are looking at that point 5 position as a possible change but they said that was 1 is still on the draft on the draft table still on The Cutting Room floor security Now say we have security is actually going to be rolled into a table called Administration okay it's going to be rolling to the table called Administration but right now we're looking at things like um the scanners coming into the building with those things and making sure we got all athletes covered and different things with safety right now we got the new safety and maintenance guy going in different uh conferences and defect David finding out stuff that we need to look at um 1 of the things that we need to look at and we already started doing well some of our visuals some of our visuals you couldn't you can't see certain areas because of the group and the area has grown up so what we've started doing was going in and in those areas out so that you can see so if somebody is walking in the back of the property you can see them before they get to you we're working on things of that nature and uh a lot of those things uh the new safety guy is implementing put out SRO officers I see we have 5 of them time we used to get grant funding for those positions uh we funding those positions fully now or is it by the sheriff and the police departments or are we funding we still get some through grants and what the grant don't pick up we have to pick up but we do fund several of them okay and you know the grant covers them for 8 hours we have them with 9 so they sent us a bill for that extra hour and some other things you know in there that they bill us for at the end of um I'm trying to get the county to break away from the end of the year cuz that's that's a shock when I get that bill at the end of the year whereas partyville builds up every month so we're working with them now to try to bring that down and not bring it down but such that we can the state is working on legislation Courts for funding for they need to because of the safety concern so it's that's the house so I I know we've continuously allocated that 530 yeah and we we let it stay there because this year the those airports that we have the maintenance on those things 46,000 and they also have to be certified because they emit radiation and those are 1 of the things that we have to be on top of especially when you've been trying to have something that that radiation so what we're doing is moving to the bank scanners to the high school side and using the insurance that's what they call Rack shot towards towards towards on the elementary side when you walk through and they they detect what I'm saying okay yeah so we are doing that and then we had to purchase some new ones to cover make sure we cover all of those but yeah the maintenance on those days just to fix 1 up so we decided to look at and say well let's look at putting the maintenance on them because they're 6,000 is just to fix it that doesn't certify so if somebody comes in here and hey you don't have that current stick on there and you got a device ready ation you could be looking at a dozen of things okay so that's what we're working on here beds is more so you know the federal side of things um we do a lot of matching on this um they pay 50% we pay 50% so there's a lot of matching that goes on there um your contingency what is that all about and you don't understand 0000 here yeah it's been that I don't you know normally they kind of allocate that out in their budget how do they want to do that based on what they got in there great and that kind of stuff in there so this this is the district's matched to a lot of that because we have to make sure we stay within the I'm trying to find work yeah okay all right superintendent anything but anyway we noticed that we have to address the salary issue there 1 of the things that we this year um we had to pay out so much in these areas that that's something that's going to come up that we have to talk about next board meeting because you gave me the direct patient it didn't give me the direct way to pay the okay so right now if you look at some of the the superintendent's budget is way out of whack um but yeah so that's that's why when you see your board report that's what it's going to be so I'm giving you a heads up when you see that all right um again other contingency against that's going to be broken out to where where it should be going of the expense of each district the 84,000 what it was the state used to give you that as a separate allocation then the state started lumping all things together but it never took away the mandate that that 84,000 was supposed to come see that 1 more time they they they used to be like 14 or 15 different categories that states are funded that the state funded eia money every year they were bringing that number down okay but they were not taken away the Proviso that went with that 804,000 right so therefore we still have to allocate it right we still had to allocate uh technology again I have an injustice salary jet in here can technology for none of that kind of like administrative position concentrating on the schools first um you don't see a lot of change there you don't see a lot of change in amount of money that we have equipment because weapons of shelter have done is gone and put things on a rotational schedule whereas everybody don't get all updated 1 time certain areas get updated at a time each year the therefore no nobody should be less than 3 years old I think 3 or 4 years old and think maybe 4 4 at the most nobody should go more than 4 years old on their technology some people may be 1 year next 1 2 years things like 3 years but nobody should be more than 4 well that's still this professional development and professionalization fees coming to keep them aggressive specialist Services is when there's a dumping in that summer you know attending conferences to make sure they stay aggressive the latest trends and stuff and technology and to move on because you know school districts are subject to have all that stuff yeah cuz you got Chromebooks you got all the stuff everywhere Google and everybody is just picking up your information you know especially for the kids as soon as they turn 18 they start flashing with the credit card applications for the last 12 years so now we can do it that's why uh school districts have been pursuing Google and the rest of these folks for that particular reason all right that's another um again here we kind of show how we allocated the money out uh he was calling here 2526 on that and what I'll do in the next presentation we do this all this will be in Red so that you'll what column and then what we looking at I leave I left the other column there so we can kind of do comparison so when we look back at those we can call change that's what we have transportation what we did in transportation was we created a and I'm going to show you the salary schedule later we created a salary schedule whereas the bus drivers pay would increase um pretty significant pretty significant increase for over what we were paying them last year and the idea is to try to attract more bus drivers we need to get around 30 drivers we're sitting at about 26 now and I think uh pastor about stacking um 3 or 4 in the cube so he's been I think this year we probably train 7 or more people to pass the test this year um we brought in a guy from the state department help the department to get there and 1 of the things we did traversal which is the automated system for your bus routes this is the first year in about 5 years in the district and oh I'm only bus so that that was Major I'm glad to hear that but what about our cafeteria workers the food service look at our Behavior but we got 5 left that we will be addressing but what we have to do is Food Services kind of stay in line we can't have all those twenty dollars when the child will make it in the same job okay so what we got to try to do is find a balance there where chart well can increase theirs which means we'll take the hill on our Revenue but you know take a hit on the revenue and have a happy employees 1 other thing uh the the the driver issue is predicated on what 1 of the things we're looking to possibly do is move up the start time for the high middle currently they started about 8:45 and we want to look at about uh about a 8:00 to 8:15 start yeah which we can give you about an 8 uh 3:15 dismissal which we actually know the kids in terms of practice times that the practice literally get home a little earlier and this helps us so that we can have the nearly an equal amount of buses on each side instead of people running around here and having to run the harder Hill and and a lot of these in between things so that was the push behind that just so you'll be aware so that we can attract as much as you know you get up to it I think we should have somewhere between 33 and 34 buses but technically we want to get get to 30 because we feel like that will get our kids here at a decent time and get them home and to do some time even with after school programs it'll it'll kind of push everything up uh and and help out that situation so all right and then let's see I'll show you the status schedule basically partyville Elementary School as you see there this is what we talked about the teacher regularly instruction where you see the increase from 1.7 to 2.2 that takes into account the teacher salary updates okay and also the other staff in there so that you can see that they're um overall budget went from 4.4 million to 5.3 million okay all right now again like I was telling you earlier that gray and I are going always do FTE to make sure the FTE counts are matching to each School each school okay because what we have found in the past and the way we find it out we go to hand out W2s and we go to head out W2s to the school and then school to call me back and I go over and I got a whole handful that I got to pick up and carry to another school because they had them coded from the system and we've spent a lot of time cleaning that up cleaning it up so that we can have things that match same thing with Saturday schedule we had uh off-scale and then we had scale we spent the last 6 much moving folks from off scale you're doing the same job so why are you off scale with this person on scale you're doing the same thing so we're working to get those things in line salary schedules were out of whack so now we work to make sure we got those back in the line okay so that the cells even when it's driven all right so now 1 of the things we saw that this is more what we get on on Hardy we we going to do it at everything if you look and see in 24 there was 280,000 allocated for instructional purchasing service not the district assessment software for the allocator for instructional instructional purchases so when we looked at that and Dr White looked at that you know you bring it throughout the knowledge to the table to help the younger folks out and then the lady we looked at that and say hey 280,000 for instructional personal service that's too much that's too much and we were only showing 12,000 down there for a supplies what a teacher supply chain for 400 so this is flat had to come somewhere so what we've noticed was the schools was doing a lot of journal entries to transfer money from this column to supplies so what we're doing in every budget is we distributed that money now into instructions plan now you looking at 95000 in this category for instructional clients supplies and another 95,000 in this section but all right so now the focus you'll see it that hey the money is already being allocated nobody has to move it in structural flat and that's happening at every school all right it's not going to reflect in your paper tonight but they're replacing on the 1 that we do the voice on there but we this is our baller plate that we're looking at all schools now you'll see at the high school it'll be a little different because they have little so the money will but again they still had that category of 20030000 you purchase services all right that that's the go to that part again when we look at you'll see the increase in the salaries there and I want to emphasize that again we're working on tidying up the ft in in the FTE go down that dollar value okay goes down right now the biggest adjustment that you're going to see coming up will be this third grade piece because because this is that year where the state legislature has said we must enforce the retention law right so although we allocated based on 135 days we still have to factor in those kids that are going to summer school for third grade those that don't meet that that standard or some of the alternative standards so they've been talking about the possibility of something called a 3.5 so we we we do anticipate having to make an adjust particularly as it relates to teacher allocations in in your Elementary levels because we've got to address we can't put 40 kids in very very clearly we've got the make sure that number is a lot more feasible so that adjustment will have to be we have to make a call on that ahead of time because technically we won't know until the end of June in terms of how many kids we actually have to retain no it's not again when we look at that um instructional particular person services there are a couple of things we looked at this time around and we looked at the non-negotiable which is the assessment software whether it's going to be mapped and I actually all or whatever it is that's a non-negotiable everybody has to have that all right if you leave 1 school to go to another everything should be basically the same but and then you have after that you know you got your Galleries and then you got then the last thing on the principal's wish list you know what the principal wish for you know some of them do wishful thinking but you know the idea is we try to accommodate what we can because that's the important driver behind everything uh again the school kind of look alike there Hardeeville um you see their increases over there hey hey hey hey okay all right so they're increased they went up you know it wasn't a whole lot there but there was an increase in the overall from 5.6 to and then I say basically saying 6 to 8 they'll jump with a little larger but like I said again that comes from you speaking out there please and it wouldn't be included all right uh over at Kate what we did at Kate um 1 thing I want to bring to your attention is that at Kate we moved out we moved in administrator away from Kate and moved them to assist the principal has an assistant principal at the and we only left the director at Kate uh so there was a reduction there in that 1 FTE so that will be updated on the next but you'll see a 1 there instead of the 2 and jcap again what we did with jcap at that because we use a lot of teachers coming in on their planning period to work with the kids at jcap and we paid them a a cycle for doing that if you they're planning period to come over to jcap before we get all right so the area said legal huh exactly it's legal it's legal we don't force you to do it we ask you to do it oh okay and then you said yes oh I want to do that for you make extra money okay by the law you supposed to have you stayed at the school you supposed to have your under the right yeah 30 minutes but you choosing to interrupt the 30 minutes for yes yeah okay most of your high schools tend to have way more than that okay so what we're going to go into next is that um well I wanted to go back to some of these the in the maintenance okay um I just want to make sure we have enough supplies and stuff for athletics and all the department as far as each sport um cuz I know we have a nice football field over there with the track and everything like that and do we hold track meets their um I went to you but cuz my granddaughter's over there and they had the big track any care so I don't want to know do we have the equipment to hold a track meet and if not if that included in this budget the well say what it is the current guys who working on the athletic now uh putting together the budget a budget this is just part of it on how they're going to what equipment and stuff that's needed and also putting together a uh stipend uh allocation using another word in the salary for coaches and things of that nature to bring back to the board but in the bottom because the 1 that they're going by the last time the board voted on it was in 1819 1819 school year 2020 uh with the the equipment um part of it um is that or can that be part of the referendum Capital expenditures for the athletic I have to ask um no no no but no value so we have can be related but it would have to be okay and what I do with those questions like that I run them by oh yeah um not them in the other guy yeah fun example several of several all of them have no storage now nothing specifically said in the referendum that we build in storage but it's related to that so we could we we will be not we will be building storage because it's it's important you can't be going in the vending area and hurdles are stuck in there and that's what's happening now because there's not adequate storage at either side and so that's a big part of it so when we when we talk about the heart of a piece down the road or whatever uh all of that and even here uh there's just a lack of storage and so that's that would be related to to a capital and like I said I run all questions by Mr Dan or either Mr Davis to make sure we are here to the referendum when we uh allocate the other 1 was 2 more maintenance um making sure that we have supplies in know it's probably in the budget but whoever we get that we decide to go with someone else when the RSP goes out to make sure we have supplies for the schools toilet paper all that type of stuff cuz they're like I said there's been rumors that there were supplies there know sometime yeah um the other question not the question but I guess for um other board members that wasn't at our meeting could you tell them or where we are getting the money from to encourage increase the teacher salary to bus driver salary and all that please yeah if you look back at the revenue table um uh the revenue tab which is yeah and you see basically that 3 point million right there that is for the increases okay both of that is pretty easy all right and then any other uh source that we need that we can pull from to do that all right um so that's where the idea of saying hey can we do the salary schedule we want to do okay and I'mma pull the salary schedule up next so we can look at that because your question was what was going to be the starting salary for approaching a teacher okay but I was wondering if anybody got any more questions about this in the uh Workshop it was crazy like you say I know the there was an issue and then with the custodial when they guys come and tell me well we can't get wax as well if you can't get wax that means that should not have to pay this coming month because wax in the building is part of what you're supposed to do so there should be no issue about getting waxed so the wax showed up so sometimes you have to kind of whip them because we meet on Thursday every Thursday I meet with that group to say hey here are the things that I'm hearing why am I hearing this because check is late you calling me okay that's right okay thank you thank you um I know I should um this is a part of making this the teachers used to send not a list to to the principal to say what was needed you know when things are depending on the maintenance if they see themselves doing that happening now or you don't know I I know that teachers tell principals sometimes I think the president will come back and ask what about so and so uh like trash cans in the room um there shouldn't be a situation where there's no trash can in the bathroom and there shouldn't be a situation where there's no bag for a trash can yes um so we we they bring you back I bring them up to those guys and say hey you need to address this you need to address that all right is that something you guys you said that oh the transportation yeah I'm going to show you that so if you have any more questions I'll move into the appointment I will bring 2 and while he's trying to transition it um what you're going to see is the source schedule is really an idea that I heard at the board uh training back in February uh that 1 of them I don't know if it's a neighboring District but it just keep an eye out in the low country is doing uh we're basically looking at a first year teacher salary uh that's very inflated uh and that teacher will remain on that salary for 5 years okay but uh it will make our teachers among if not the highest State teachers in this area uh the state is required uh 485 as the starting salary you're going to see a starting salary of 575 wow and that that's where the Buckle this money has gone uh we have a recruitment no problem and we have to be able to a get some of the best teachers in America uh and make sure we show our current teachers our appreciation so when you when you move that first year teacher salary of course moves the whole sale and so that is the intent behind the scale that you will see and I can then you all because like you said um Buford County is looking to um come up with 17 million because they want to start their teachers off at 60,000 well that was that was my first 1 okay uh but um when I started but I started at 6 and he he got in the back of his mind but uh but you know and eventually we probably will get we probably will uh we'll we'll probably get there uh the the values are going up so think about this we've been able to do this preferably with your approval without raising Millions this is strictly from the money we get and but you got to know where we're we're you know what's important to me Staffing is key kids get better with staff with quality teachers and uh nothing wrong with International teachers we have some great International teachers that we intend to keep but we have got to recruit in the United States and we've got to get some staying power because what we're doing we're not only paying International salaries but we're also paying to keep them meaning the the the you know the Visa situation yeah I have no issues with our internet I think it diversifies us but in the same token we've got to show that we we care about our staffing and not open up in Late July with 30 vacancies like we did this year our Target is by the end of June to be fully staffed and we feel like doing this will well get us on that on the way down so I wanted to just kind of preference that as uh uh Mr Zimmerman shows what you see we're looking at 190 contract teachers we started off at 57 kids a little bit so and what I want to show you is state did away with the Masters plus 18 M plus 18 all right that's why you see I left the m525 there but we still have teachers who fall into that category moving them to this category when you around year 15 you making less money than if you were on the schedule so what we decided to do is just grandfathered in me and under the schedule until they leave or you know retire or leave the district okay that was only fair to leave them there and not try to move them over here because this schedule is never going to catch up to them but that 1 was okay so if you see that you would have had to work to here 11 basically to make to make 575 and that's what uh Baptist plus 18 it was a little further than that with just a State national okay so this is the schedule and what we did was we set the step increase to what the state had their stem increases in you do $100 steps and then you know when you get the year 11 you get a thousand dollars there so with every 6 years you got a 000 phone okay and because the salary is scheduled was so out of whack that the step increase wasn't consistent you can go maybe going from year 3 you know the old schedule from year 3 to 4 and got a 24 dollar step but then you went bf5 is 6 and you got 700 step so what we did was made it consistent daily consistent so that you'll know that if you in the schedule and once we publish the schedule then boom that's where you are in the other reason why we well the schedule's already been posted so let's schedule the publish out there and somebody said hey you know this schedule here and said I was going to be making $60,000 but the new schedule says I'm making 585 you can't take them back and ask them to do more all right so we had to keep it consistent so that's and now because of this this affects all your other your 195 because now you're 1 bag is 5 days more than your 190 schedule okay so they keep increasing as you go down the line so it's so it stays consistent all the way through from 185 to 200 to to 10 is out of line over there and work on that to to 10 I think the other 1 was 205 I don't think we have anybody in that area we have 220 okay so it goes all the way through and going down the line the other thing was the schedule used to stop at 22 years now I'm scheduled to go to 28 plus all right so 28 plus so now because if you no matter what 23 years you were only getting paid at 22 now because we moved it out you're not going to go all the way to 28 you get the increases all the way up to 28 all right before kind of stuck in but you were there because that's where everything um so that's your question okay you go to that I'm good all right I'm good when you go on can you explain to the board and to the public that even though the state says starting salary should be 485 that doesn't mean the state is sending us that money because they're not right number that they would like to say because you people have been complaining all the time yeah but they're not sending us that much it's important that the public knows we have to find the money that they are yeah what team before with that eia funding that I showed you in the revenue that's what some of your teacher money comes from and then classroom deduction sizes with some of it comes from with the bulk of it comes from and another group that we did address or teacher assistant thank you part of the reason we did that is because you could go to Walmart and make more than a teacher assistant so we have moved teacher assistants at starting pay at 35,000 wow and we are also uh working to give them a a benefit for getting degrees so we want to to push hires internal staff to become qualified either as a teacher or be the best you can be with the quality of the people you bring to the table is what will affect our kids and the parents here deserve no less than the absolute best and that's why we we looked at the instructional side first particularly in salaries because it's critical to our kids moving forward and having teachers who will stay with us I read a letter from a company that wants us to participate in recruitment that we had a 34 point something internal I'm not sure I understand that at the end of the day we we we've got some good people here and we've got to develop a core to where people want to be here and and I know it's not just about money because now we not going to pay you to be lack of danger if you don't want to do the work then we can nicely a lot of places you can go but we deserve the best this District deserves quality and and a part of that helps in the recruitment side for uh copy grade and for the community at large parent parents want to teach you in the classroom and we want to assure that for for them and we've talked about that all year long but ultimately you got to put a put a plan together and we feel like when but I understand that 575 will be pretty good that's good how many staff do you know how many staff we have with I couldn't more than 28 years of experience I I didn't run that number I ran the number for 54 but we can run that number for you with Dr Green I was actually looking at that on the bus driver side we had a ton of bus driver who are uh 22 plus and um and so we I can get those feelings but you have that the board yeah just be interesting the categories because I know I read about different and they're extending their the number of years you yeah but I don't know how many people that would be or what that cost would be or we're already extending it so that's a step in that direction okay certain years well they they were at 22 plus but we extended it out to 28 28 okay because you know what was happening was if you had 22 years you would just being paid in 22 years even though you were worth 25 right so now because you'll see a difference between the way you do that 22 and 9 that you had 25 and let me commend this for for I'm sorry go ahead just something there um I know you said this is what I'm starting salary 7 but is that everybody that's in the just in time invest in 5 years will go to that pre-sale but everybody if you've been if you worked last year and you go to year 2 you will now be cuz you fall within that range because we really want to be able to say we can only say because we know how to say this but it is a recruiting tool and it also is a retention tool for our staff because a lot of times they leave because Buford or or Effingham or Savannah pays a little bit more their expenses ago a month for rent for 1,600 a month for rent when you're barely getting that and your salary every month the US is a school district software right now next time you print them for you so you can see them a little bit later the last week I had to walk up to the board myself so in the past this was 19 and something says so now we moved into 21 starting off at 21,000 and Bob bus drivers are paid at 6 hours and again we move from 22 years which was where you were Max maxing out there so now we're looking at that I actually do so not actually 31 it's actually here we go exactly 28 that was 930 so now you have 22 you want to make it to drive the 26 years you're not a 30 33 all right and we're not stuck right in your 4 5 30 36 108 26180 a few 25 years okay okay as opposed to on the last schedule you were at 28 something so overall the impact is almost a 45 million new piece I was years so ma'am and uh chat 20 years so we would have to look at that and see how we going back so last year last year and even even UPS okay we would look at a half a year equal so instead of 30 years we might give you 15 years this is how we do it so we give you experience that's a marketing you come to finance you know I got to kind of put you down strategy because I made I'm usually I'm usually come down and stuff and let me say this you know if you look at the state bus driver scale oh you guys are way above that yeah so you way above that I mean during my years as a transport my year as a director of Transportation you know it's a tough tough job to keep people and and and without them being where they are or you know they're the first to see our kids and the last is and so we we we want to show them the value behind it and the hope would be that I hear Chris we will continue to keep that sale going up because we do not want to go back to the the great the great a we want to keep our our people here and keeping them as happy as you can make a bus ride you never work with drivers you you you have to understand that so we still going to give you that minimum that 6 hour minimum that's what you're going to make 2 hours you'll get 6 that's cool right okay yeah 2 in the morning 2 in the afternoon plus 30 minutes between your bus and 30 minutes pay for 6 hours that's all I want I want to go market but what what have you done stand up you get 6 dollars for driving but if you're a router 45 minutes and you actually do something else within that right you supposed okay that's 1 of the things that you're um you're at the job right that has been that's what you need missing from the drivers because they were giving bad information before and Dr Gray and I have deal with it all the time right now to try to get them to understand that yes you are still on the clock what happened was is because we were underpaid already and you got frustrated so so now they're going to get paid they going to take you into consideration hey I'm getting this money I'm going to do that are you all right now we all right now and you don't got to whack 1 at 5 across 5 grand across the board so I can give him an average but so at 1 point we used to have our our bus drivers the power professionals where is that we got a few of them who okay so that's selling off yeah that's still an option okay and then since that's still tied into their 6,000 no that's an addition we don't have any bus drivers I think it's just bus aides or action okay but if we get tired in it would be considered double dip in the state would really mandate that so you can't mandate that you have to drive a bus and you have to be a teacher assistant which is kind of what got us in a little bit of trouble before yeah so we we're not even worried about that you know we you know like we could use a couple of drivers who may want to be the people to run in our office mail because that only takes an hour or 2 and they get paid on that 8 ounce scale right you know but we don't we don't want to push on that because some people don't want to write they don't want to do that and and I and I'm okay with that I'm I'm I'm fine with somebody happy being a bus driver but I think they ought to be paid for it and I think then what should they be paid for but they should not have to be searching around for another job you know like you said that they want them to work a double job that's on them but we want to at least show again it's about the people these are people and we want to make sure they understand their important to us you mentioned about kitchen and I know we don't do kitchen my mom worked in the kitchen she was a school kitchen first and I remembered her making 5 all of them from change an hour now it be you know we don't have that department anymore but ultimately just like those parameters they got a family and we've got to look out for that and those people when they understand that you care about them they'll come and do great work and help our kids be better than they are so I think that would help them not having to go get a second job and do a better job exactly it's just to clarifying that it's an option it is an option it works that I don't need to only drive that's right or they tell me to put off that absolutely thank you slightly different I know this is the general fund budget um can you explain what our federal budget what what is that all cover I mean I know we have some of the titles and some of the specialized the little ones are what is well I can speak to that as I was the last Federal person before Mr Bellamy Federal money is about supplement so it goes above and beyond of course and so much of what our federal funds fund are uh so we got epiphany uh education there's a professional development uh person a firm that comes in it's a supplement to the budget that we already have some of these positions actually uh are paid especially the knew the FY 26 will have a lot more money because we wanted to decrease some of the pressure off of this budget in order to impact all you know all teachers so those people were like coaches and all of that me and coaches like Ela match those kind of coaches we take half of their salary and we put it in the federal funds we also have the luxury and the blessing of a dual credit person portion that way in the past a portion of that used to be and I've had the whole thing used to be paid out of title 4 when I started it I think it in cents shifts it but so we we take advantage of doing that some of the other things honestly Dr Beto or or or I say smaller things things but the more um purchase Services kind of items 1 thing we changed because of the challenges with Federal programs we have moved the diagnostic testing map IXL we put that in this budget because we should not be fighting with these companies about keeping our programs on and we had that issue this year which is 1 reason we decided to shift and not go back into federal funds with that item uh Title 1 1 of the different things you'll see we have the snowy who who does the parenting but primarily our Latino population we have also added a regular parenting person and that's a regular but who will deal involve parents yes and that is that is a part of that sour comes out of federal funding title 2 of course is more of your training so that's where we spend money to train teachers that's when you see our staff going to Round Table and different conferences we tend to pay them from that we also pay mentors a lot of did not state law to pay a mentor uh we pay them how much 1500 1500 my last is we only paid them a thousand so it's again teachers going above and beyond their regular duty to Mentor a new teacher so those are those are in a nutshell I just think it was important for us and the public about the housing I'm going to talk about it Monday to the agenda okay so are you finished on that professional development you know the um legislature just passed that you guys have to do 5 on compass PDS starting next year so is that in this budget for well that's that teachers have 190 days uh contract tell those are used for professionals development what they have said is we can only use so much for bringing in somebody to train them some of those days have to be work days where they actually get a chance to work in the classrooms and that's really what it kind of did it just kind of redefined and we honestly we are already doing that okay we don't we we only use those first few days at the start of the year and a couple of other days most of the other days that they have are are work days in the in the building so we try not to you know but we do more at the front end of the year in my opinion Train Early right then practice practice practice and it's it's up to principles to monitor to create Fidelity if you bring people in to do PD and you never go see about it again it never happened and this you know they also passed the voucher program how that's going to affect this that's I think a lottery I think that's kind of in the lottery and something else but right now it ain't a second back to our agenda to have legislation legislative concerns email Dr Black and um and check to find out well yeah just send it out there from there I'm that's very important but I'm not going to discuss it here but it's important for everyone to keep up with their School Board Association emails because every day they're telling you what's happening legislatively and every day the last 2 days they have requested the school board trustees contact their legislature it works I did it for the last 2 ones and they'll respond if they don't hear from us they're going to think that what they're doing is okay well no it's is that okay to ride with flying and put the money somewhere else they need to give us what we need to teach I am done we are all done and therefore we're returning the meeting until I answer thank you so much everyone go and see what it is so because of me right yes I know you was going to say that but I got to ask question like question I rely on you miss sister Fort conducted daily a to pick up where the rest of us don't ask questions all right okay and it's quite all right

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