Read along below or follow along here: (pt 1: https://otter.ai/u/p_1oE9BwK5EkX_Mgut8oIHAikf0 pt 2: https://otter.ai/u/YmqYp7BPyyOG8DykCtFPuYS-Wzs)
Unknown Speaker 0:00
So this is the second quarter financials for the 2020 2021 school year. I just remind the board that these financials are being compared to a budget that was developed in April and May of last year does not include the Coronavirus, federal relief funds as part of the revenues or the expenses from a budget point of view, but does from an actual point of view. And what you’ll hear later in the evening is the amended budget recommendation. And so these numbers may seem off, and I can explain some of them in terms of what’s going on, but really, next month when we get into the January financials, and we’ve uploaded the amended budget that you would approve tonight, we’ll get a much better reflection for the budget to actual. So I’m going to start off on page six, which is the balance sheet for the general fund. You can see that we’re up about $12.8 million between the cash and investments and restricted investments. If you remember, with q1, we were we were low by probably 10 or $12 million. And if you the reason for that was the timing of the property tax receivables for fiscal year 20. We were able to book back those receipts because of the delay what the counties did in terms of not charging the interest rate. Because of that we were allowed to capture anything that was received by September 30 back into last year, but we couldn’t claim the cash out of it, because we didn’t receive the cash until October 10. So now this is flipping that because now we’ve we’re able to recognize that large cash. So that’s if you’re looking at q1 versus q2, you’d see a large increase in cash. And that’s the primary reason is its timing from an accounting point of view. The restricted cash is that the cares act dollars. So some of those revenues that we weren’t capturing through December 30. accounts receivable is up 265,000. And that’s related to a per pupil overpayment to charter schools that will be corrected as we get into next month’s financials. The due from other funds is cash borrowed from the nutrition services. So as we get down into some of these other funds, we’ll talk a little bit about where they sit and know that it especially in the case of nutrition services, they are borrowing money from the general fund at this point. They’re still they’re still solvent from a financial position because they have inventories and those kinds of things. But from a cash of purely a cash point of view, they are borrowing from the general fund at this point. Property Tax receivable and deferred revenues decreased due to timing of collections. And so again, that goes back to that whole last year’s property tax stuff. So inventories increased due to increase central warehouse stock, mainly PP and E. Right. So we were stacking a lot of
Unknown Speaker 3:31
PP
Unknown Speaker 3:33
due to other funds, our cares act dollars owed to charters for reimbursable expense. So with the CRF funds, the state flowed that money through us immediate to us immediately. We did not do that with the charters with the charters, we made them come up with a plan we made them submit what their how they were going to spend it. And then now we’re making them turn in invoices, and multiple quotes, if that’s appropriate, and those types of things, and then we will reimburse them. And so that’s what that is, is they had not all of them have turned in all of their their invoices and receipts. So any questions on that? Then I would go to the next page, which is the actual to actual comparing this time last year to this time this year. You’ll notice that property tax specific ownership and tax and mill levy overrides is down by 5.3 million. Again, that is due to the timing of the accounting for last year’s property taxes. We normally would have received some of those funds and recognize them and this year if they were after August 30. So August 30 to September 30 got booked back into last year. So invest investment income is a $1.1 million decrease and that’s due to lower rates. charges for services is down by about 735,000 due to decreased preschool tuitions and field trips. So we capture field trips as both revenue and expense in the general fund. Because those schools that are going on field trips, we’re going to reimburse transportation for the expense cost. So, because we haven’t, we saw a reduction in preschool tuition. And we haven’t been doing very many field trips or athletic, or activities, events were down significantly in the revenue. Of course, we are in the expense too, right? So equalization, or sorry, the miscellaneous revenues down 420. And that’s just due to the timing of charter school receipts. So we build them for services, and depending on when they’ve paid last year, compared to this year is just a timing issue. That’ll catch up later on in the year. equalization is $12.8 million decrease due to decreased per pupil revenue. And FYI, 20 assessed valuation estimate. So if you think this is primarily an FYI, 20 thing, because when the state did their total program, and they the forecast what we were going to be in terms of SAS valuation, they had it much lower than what actually came in, if you remember, we saw that big increase in assessed valuation last year. So they were paying us more in equalization, because they didn’t think we were going to receive that much in assessed valuation. Once we got into into January and February, they made that correction. And so this will even out as we move along, as well. Best Grant 924,000 decrease again, that’s we’re wrapping up the main street building. And so we didn’t have as much in revenues at that point. state revenues this year, includes the kindergarten facility capital construction grant. That was a grant that was done through legislation for the fy 20. But we weren’t able to spend it all in FY 20. And so we had to carry those funds over to FYI, 21. So they show in the revenue, cares act 14 point 14 million. We spent about 1.6. And FYI, 20. And so the other 14 million, we were able to count as revenue in q2, because all of that had to be expended by December 30. So you’ll see that revenue is higher than, especially when you compare it when we get into the budget to actual you’ll see that we didn’t really budget for that because of the timing of everything. Supplies as a $4.7 million increase that’s primarily due to technology software and the devices we purchased for one to one, pp and other pandemic related purchases. And then the allocation to charter schools is an $807,000 increase. And that’s primarily due to us passing through the Corona, virus Relief Fund funds. And then just prior your transfer of energy rebates and capital credits for the mobile lab was just noted there. So then if you go to page nine,
Unknown Speaker 8:17
which is the budget to actual for this year. As you look at it, I would point out in the salaries and benefits that the supplies and materials are at 53%, which is above the 50% that we would be expecting. But again, if you look at it, we have $6.6 million of CRF funds that are in supplies and materials and purchase services that aren’t accounted for in the budget. So that was what I was talking about when we initially started when we when we build in the money for the different federal COVID related relief funds, then that will come back down.
Unknown Speaker 9:07
That’s really the main part of the general fund. I would say that one of the things that Don and I always look at is the total expenditures compared to last year. Last year, we were at 43.4. For this year, we’re at 44.3. But again, if you subtract out that 6.6 million, that drops us down to 42.39%. So we’re a little over a percent lower than where we were this time last year. Yes, yes. And again, that’s it We haven’t seen any property tax revenue. We haven’t seen any of that stuff. But if you if you were to go, let me see if I can find it. In the winter. Yep. February is typically its lowest point. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 10:15
When we do our budget
Unknown Speaker 10:18
in the summer, that’s the high low.
Unknown Speaker 10:20
Yes. Our highest fund balance will be June 30. Because that’s when we collect the majority of our property taxes is May in June. You’re absolutely correct. All right. Any questions on general fund, if not, we’ll move down to page 27,
Unknown Speaker 10:46
which is community schools. And what you’ll see there is that community schools is, is seeing a significant decrease in their fund balance, you can’t see it here. But if you just look at what their current expenditures are, for, for full day child care and central office, and then you look at the revenues, corresponding revenues, it’s dropped considerably. We’ve kept an eye on that Tony has put some funding set aside some funding in the amended budget to account for nutrition services, community schools, facility use in athletics. And so you’ll hear about that later. But just wanted to point out that community schools because we are continuing to employ our people full time, and we’re not necessarily having the programming, when, especially when we were in remote learning. They’re being impacted, but we’ll continue to monitor them. If you go to page 29, which is the budget to actual for this year. Again, this is for the entire fund. But you can see that we’re down about 600,000 $650,000 net change in fund balance in there. But if you look at where we are from an expense point of view, we are below 50%. Excuse me, is not one thing that is showing in there. It’s not broken out specifically. But we we took about $700,000 of our CRF funds to community schools, we applied it towards some of their salaries and benefits that were associated with full day kindergarten, or full day childcare. We couldn’t take it to before and after school childcare because those programs already existed. But because the full day childcare where we were had kids in all day was a new program, we were able to take some of our funds to that. When we get if we know when we need to support community schools, that’s set aside and then it would be reflected, you would see a transfer coming in it. So other other finances, you see transfer, we would see something there from the general fund to fund 27 Community Schools fund.
Unknown Speaker 13:47
We have not done it yet. What what we want to do is we want to hold off and see kind of how the day finished the year. What we’d like to do is is maybe not restore their fund balance all the way back to what it was going into last year, but some component of it so that they are not forced to struggle financially in in future years. We want to get them back to a comfort level where they can continue to expand and do those types of things.
Unknown Speaker 14:16
Yeah, but there there are surpluses have gradually grown over the last two or three years.
Unknown Speaker 14:22
Yeah, especially especially in community schools. nutrish That’s what I’m talking about. Yep. Yep. They have grown and so that’s why, you know, we’re we’re pretty comfortable that we don’t need to restore them fully to where they were a year and a half ago.
Unknown Speaker 14:36
And, and sort of coming back to the general fund. Balance surplus at the end. If we look actual the actual 20 last fiscal year in this fiscal year, it was 72 or so million compared with 85 million this year.
Unknown Speaker 14:57
Yep. And that and and that’s pretty reflective in the caching. Investments that’s right into, it’s about a $12 million difference.
Unknown Speaker 15:03
You’re absolutely correct.
Unknown Speaker 15:07
So any other questions on community education, then I’m going to go to page 36, which is Nutrition Services balance sheet.
Unknown Speaker 15:23
And what you’ll notice there again, as cash and investments are down, if you look at it inventories are about 983. And the fund balance is 496. So right now, they basically Oh, the the general fund about $1.3 million.
Unknown Speaker 15:42
That’s that do two there. So then if you go down into you look at last year’s budget to actual you can see that. Or if you look at the actual the actual on the next page,
Unknown Speaker 16:02
which is
Unknown Speaker 16:05
page 30, page 37.
Unknown Speaker 16:09
It’s that we have already moved,
Unknown Speaker 16:12
we haven’t moved it over, we’ve just created a do to do from that shows that if we move money over then it would show as a transfer in. Okay. And and then your do to do from would go away.
Unknown Speaker 16:27
So they’re still operating on their own bucket of revenue, but it’s getting very shallow.
Unknown Speaker 16:32
Yes. Okay. Yep. That is correct. If you look at where we are, last year, we were about 116,000. In the black at this point. So in other words, we were making money at this point last year. So far this year, we’re down about a million dollars. And again, that’s to keeping our people employed. And trust me, they’ve been working as custodians, they’ve been helping out and community schools, we’ve been doing a great job in terms of if somebody were to leave the district, potentially not hiring for that position, but using people that that don’t necessarily have work every day to work in those areas. And so it’s been a very focused thing on the part of Shelly Allen and nutrition services, and Brian lamer in an operations. think if you look at that, what we’re seeing is that we’re seeing a decrease in participation. If you go to page 39, what you’ll notice is that we’re not getting hardly anything for charges for services. That is where we would normally see all of our our full pay students right now, not free and reduced, but anybody who’s paying for their meals, and you can see that it’s it’s a pretty, normally a pretty substantial amount. Because of the pandemic, the US. Da is paying for all of those, we’re getting it at a higher rate. But you’ve got to remember that when you’re in remote, you’re only producing grab and go meals. And so when you’re producing grab and go meals, your participation rate isn’t very good. If you look at where we are now, elementary is in, so four days a week, so we’re serving probably 80% of the males that we would normally serve there. And then when you look at the middle and the high school, two out of five days, right, because kids are in two days throughout two days. So the really, we’re only serving about 40% of the males that we would normally serve. And so that you can see that’s what’s causing the lack of revenue. We have decreased the budget, and Tony will talk about that a little bit. Well, he may get to that later. If he doesn’t, we can talk I’ll just mention it now. But we reduce the supplies and materials expense in the Nutrition Service Fund, because we’re not the budget for it because we’re not going to expend as much as we budgeted. But the salaries and benefits will still be fairly similar.
Unknown Speaker 19:18
And I think that’s I think that’s all I have from a q2 financial point of view. I’d like to give you some what I would consider nice news. And that is that Moody’s has been working for probably a year now to change their methodology for school districts around the country. And it used to be that you had an issue rating, and that’s all you had to go on was this issue or rating, which so for an entity right for same Green Valley, we were at a double a two with them. They’ve since moved in they’ve kind of broke it apart to where they have an issue or rating but then they have issue once ratings for each of our individual bond series. That makes sense. So our 2016 bond series that we sold our 2018, any of the refinances that we’ve done, those have all been pulled apart, and we get a separate rating now for each one of those. So they didn’t change our issuer rating, we’re still a double a two, which is the third highest that you can get. We’re one of probably four or five districts in the state that have that rating. And so we’re in a great position there. But with this issuance rating, because our taxes are ad valorem, which means we can raise our mill levy to whatever we need to to to collect the bond the debt and print the principal and interest. And the fact that the money goes straight to the county, from from the county to our the escrow accounts, and not to the district first, it’s called the lockbox feature. And it’s considered to be very advantageous. So all of our issuances got upgraded by one. So we are with all of our bond issuances. We are at at a double A one, which is fantastic. We go back out to refinance, if we go to issue new bonds, we’ll be able to issue at that higher rate, which will again save our taxpayers money on interest. It’ll allow us to do some different financial things in terms of potentially either spreading it out more or pulling it together more to in order to save taxpayers interest in that way, too.
Unknown Speaker 21:36
That’s great, Greg. Yeah. Would you mind sharing that with the public when you when you come up during the regular meeting? Sure. That’d be great. Thank you. So I’m going to look at the time we have eight minutes before the meeting starts. So let’s try and wrap up in the next few minutes. Does anybody have any remaining questions? I don’t think. All right. Thank you, Greg.
Unknown Speaker 21:58
Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 22:01
Good evening, and welcome to the St. Bernard Valley School District Board of Education meeting, please stand up or please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Unknown Speaker 22:10
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Welcome to the Stanford School District
Unknown Speaker 22:24
Board of Education.
Unknown Speaker 22:27
Alright, Barb, let’s go ahead and have you tried taking the roll, please. Okay, Mr. Arens?
Unknown Speaker 22:35
Mr. Berthold? Mr. Garcia, here, Dr. martyr, present. Miss Pierce,
Unknown Speaker 22:43
here, Mrs. Ragland here. And Miss siegrist. Here. Barb, are there any agenda items or changes to the agenda this evening? There were no changes. Thanks, Barb. And we don’t have any audience participation this evening? Correct? Correct. Thank you. We also don’t have any visitors this evening. And before we get into the superintendent report, I would like to take a minute to congratulate Dr. martyr, and Dec. You were just elected the president of best, which is the Board of Education, self fund trust, I believe, and then you were also elected to be or you are the president elect for Caspi for the year 2022. So just wanted to take an opportunity to say congratulations, and if you want to say a couple words, that’d be great. Well, thank
Unknown Speaker 23:43
you very much. It’s a it’s a privilege to to have additional opportunities to serve and support the work of high quality public education throughout the state of Colorado. And in large part, the opportunities I’ve had as a member of the Caz B board, and the best board have been sprung from the excellent programs and leadership of the st. Green Valley School District. So both in terms of the model that this board provides for our 170 other school districts across the state, as well as the excellent work by our superintendent Donna data and his staff in developing programs that benefit not only our own students, but have reach far beyond our boundaries. So I thank you for your Congratulations, I look forward to being able to be helped carry st France message to the state at the state level and be a proactive voice for substantive improvements in the way in which our public education system functions. So look forward to a progressively, significantly more active role for Caspi moving forward. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 25:18
look forward that to that to dec. And, you know, I’m you and I’ve had this conversation many times, so I’m going to use it as an opportunity to, to plug my belief again, I would like to see Caspi to shift to their president serving more than a one year term. I think that would be beneficial on many levels. So
Unknown Speaker 25:39
thank you for your support. That’s definitely on my agenda.
Unknown Speaker 25:42
Great. Thank you very much. Well, you have my support. How’s that? I don’t know that it pulls any weight. But you certainly have my support. Congratulations. Thank you. And thank you very much for serving in those roles. Agenda item five is our superintendents report. Good evening, done.
Unknown Speaker 25:59
Good evening. And dick, congratulations. That’s outstanding. They’re fortunate to have you in that role, that leadership role. Couple things and start out with today, I had an opportunity to visit the Erie schools. So I was at, started at BlackRock and then went to red Hawk, and then over to area Elementary, and then to Erie Middle School. And then the soaring heights, pre K through eight, and then over to Erie High School. and enjoyed those visits tremendously, I got to talk to a number of teachers. And I had the opportunity to see a number of students pretty full School, which was exciting, and talk to the principal, and they’re doing the principals and they’re all doing very well. So tomorrow, I’m going to try to head out to another feeder system and just keep moving through the schools again, and celebrating the work that our teachers are and our students are doing. I also wanted to point out, there was a really nice article in Colorado Public Radio, had written an article and they did a talk about our PTA program and our early childhood education program and some really wonderful things that we’re doing all the way down into the high school level, to build the teaching profession, and the early childhood programming. So really, if you haven’t had a chance to read it, it was well written, it was comprehensive, and I thought it was well done. So also grateful to the governor’s office and Colorado education initiative for our two point approximately $8 million grant. And we’re looking forward to trying to share with the rest of the state a model where we can partner with other school districts, perhaps that are smaller in size and scale, and then begin to leverage the economy of scale to provide opportunities for kids throughout the state that based on resources they might not otherwise have. And we believe that this model can be replicated. So that it’s one way of addressing some of the challenges that some of the rural and smaller school districts around the state have their 178 school districts, and excellent teachers in those school districts doing really good work. Unfortunately, sometimes the resources aren’t adequate. And we can provide support through this grant and some of our other systems and programs for their children as well. As when we look at this, you know, ultimately, we have, you know, our our loyalty to st reign. But on a much larger scale, there’s a loyalty to public education, and every child in Colorado, and for that matter, every child in the United States, of 90% of our children in this country are in K through 12, schools, public schools, and we need to make sure that we’re not leaving any of them without, so we’re excited about that opportunity. We’re also going to continue with some pretty robust summer programming. And that will include a K through five, project launch in literacy and math, where we’ll be having pretty substantial experiences in both of those areas, throughout the entire month of June for four days in person. And they’ll also be an opportunity for students who want to participate on a smaller scale from home if they’re not able, but we will be providing transportation and meals and great teaching and great learning. So we’re excited about that. We’re also expanding our programming into the sixth, seventh and eighth grade at the middle school level.
Unknown Speaker 29:25
You know, in those same areas, and so there will be much more extensive learning opportunities. We’ll also have our E recovery programs for our high school students. And we are not charging for that we will provide that at no cost to the students to take those courses, so that there aren’t any barriers there. And we’ll also have the traditional programming around robotics and summer, regular summer school programming and all of those things. So our intention is really to extend the school year and keep moving towards a permanent extension. Not something that would be quired, but something that would be available for students who want to extend because I’ve always believed, for years that the amount of time our kids in school is not adequate. And in recent years, you know, many of the school districts in Colorado have adopted a four day a week program, which I am adamantly opposed to, I think children need to be in school in person. That’s where the best learning takes place. And there are other choices that we’re going to provide for our families. But we want to make sure that our kids are given the opportunity to get what they need, so that they can compete at any level with any country, not just here in Longmont, Colorado and beyond. But really, it’s important. And I think, I think public education needs to revisit its norms, and the ways in which the calendars work. And so I’m excited about what we’re doing here with this grant. And what we’ve already started a year or two. Prior to this grant, we have been getting notifications of better scholarship winners, as well as Daniels scholarship winners. So that’s exciting. Our kids are continuing several of them to receive that recognition. We also were notified that our third p tech program was approved formally, and we’ve got several high powered corporate sponsors. And it will be in cybersecurity. So now we have the Computer Information System program in partnership with IBM and Front Range. And we have the biomedical programming out in the Frederick area. And we have tomar and Agilent and avexis. And really, with Ames Community College. And now this new one in cybersecurity. And, as I told you last time, we as a school system, had the most program mentoring opportunities, and internship opportunities offered of any p tech school in the entire United States. So we’re excited about that. I just finished talking to Dan Landau, who former vice president of IBM and they he just publishing a new book on this type of programming. And we’ll be highlighting some somos St. rains story in that book as well. So we’re excited about that. Next week is National School Counseling week. And so we’ll be recognizing our incredible counselors, elementary school all the way up through high school. And the program that we have in place now five days a week outreach to our students, is being well received and utilized. So we’re grateful to our counselors who are reaching out to help our students and grateful to our students who are reaching out to work with our counselors, but we’ll be recognizing them for their excellent work. Few things that was notified of in the world robotics tournament, we had to place to first place finishes, including five students, and they competed with over 270 teams from Australia, India, South Africa, the UK, Mexico, the United States and Canada, which is a pretty phenomenal thing to have to first place finishes with five students. We also had an academic all American award winner Lauren Roberts, from Longmont High School in speech and debate, the ninth student in the history of that school to win that prestigious achievement. We were granted half of a full plot at Kenosha farms community garden, to do some work out there. And so we’re grateful to our community partners. You saw the article about st Brian’s graduation rates, and we’re excited about that work. And yet, it’s just it’s another step to the next step that we hope to achieve in continuing to move that as high as we can possibly get it. We also were notified by the College Board, that skyline High School was recognized with their female Diversity Award in AP Computer science principles. And the way in which they were recognized or the reason was by having achieving high female representation in the area of AP Computer Science. So congratulations to Mr. Beale, or Shawn Bo, who is the the teacher, and really just a pretty incredible honor when you talk about the AP college board because that’s an elite organization and to recognize our students, our female students. For that award, we’re very proud. I also was really proud of Lamar West. And I always have been proud of Lamar West. He’s our campus supervisor at nyuad High School former student at nyuad High. And I was fortunate enough to be the principal there when he was a student. And I always enjoy going back to see Lamar and visit with him. But you if you haven’t had a chance to watch the video, it’s a he talks about students and he talks about their future and that everyone at nyuad High School Matters and it was really it was heartfelt. And if you know Lamar, they don’t come any better. You know, they don’t come any better as a person. And he loves the children there and he loves the teachers and the staff. So congrats. To Lamar, Greg will talk a little bit about our bond ratings moving to a one and the implications of that. And then the last thing I want to close on is a little update on COVID. I met again, with the county health department’s yesterday, they’re seeing a nice decline in the number of cases, indicating that if those trends continue, we might be able to revisit having some fan base at the athletic events, we are also continuing to try to get as many students back in person as we can. So what we’ve done now is looked at some seats that have been made available with the hybrid model, obviously, the elementary school kids are in the four days a week now, but at the high school and middle school level, where kids have selected the synchronous model for learning from home with technology, that has opened up a number of additional seats for four day a week in person learning. And so we’ve had a number of high school students now who are asking to come back four days a week and middle school students, we are allowing for that, until we run out of seats, but we had quite a few. So we’re excited about that. And you can also come in on Fridays, and work in the library. So conceivably, a student could have five days a week in the building if if they were choosing to do that. Now there’s a limit to that. But right now, we’ve got the seats available where we’ve been able to accommodate requests. So and again, our objective is to get all of our students back in person as quickly as it is deemed appropriate from a safety perspective, based on the county in the state recommendations. But right now, things are going well, we also got a good start with vaccinations. They have educators in what’s called category or phase one, B, and one B is split into two phases, one be above the line and one be below the line. And above the line is 70 year old individuals, and then also an older and then also people who are in the healthcare profession that work in our schools, our nurses, our clerks and things like that health clerks. And we had about 630. And we have now moved through the vaccinations of all of those individuals who have selected to get a vaccination, which is the majority of them, the overwhelming majority. And so that was very smooth, our team headed up by Dr. capetian. And working in partnership with County Health orchestrated that they also now have, we have the remaining proximately 4400 employees. And they are in order of when they would get vaccinated by job classification, and by the age group that they are in. And we are now finalizing with our providers, the process. So once the governor’s office releases additional vaccines and approves or authorizes be one staff below the line, which includes all of our other employees or teachers, etc, custodial staff, bus drivers, everyone else, we will move quickly to get them vaccinated for those who choose to be vaccinated. And my hope is that we can get as many people vaccinated, you know, as we approach spring break, and and then we’re really hopeful that we can move back to a five day a week program for K through 12. Still providing that option for at home for parents who still want that through synchronous learning, synchronous learning. But that’s that’s kind of our objective West kind of our objective, it is our objective. It’s always just a little tenuous, because we don’t have control over the availability of vaccines. So that’s kind of what we’re waiting on. And we’ll see where, where that leads us. But the first part of that process would be one above the line went extremely well. And our attendance rates in the schools are very high for the in person. So we’re excited about that. And we also have a chunk of students who have chosen the synchronous, and we’re excited for them because they’re getting to do what they feel is right. And, and we’re moving forward with all of our children and our teachers and our staff, and we’re in a good place right now. Knock on wood. The vaccines we heard from Pfizer are going to roll out a little bit sooner than originally, they planned. We also heard the Biden administration is purchasing about 200 million additional vaccines. And we have heard that Johnson and Johnson and
Unknown Speaker 39:27
oh, what’s the other one? AstraZeneca are in the final phases of getting FDA approval. So we’re excited about about that. I think last weekend, they ran a mass testing site down in Denver, and they’re going to open that up again to see if they can start moving 10,000 people through in an afternoon and so well. We’re starting to see that light at the end of the tunnel, and we’re really excited about that. I just closed with a thank you to everyone the outpouring of support continues to be at a very high level. One of the things that’s been a highlight for me is I’ve received a number of cards, from students that have mailed back the postcard saying, you know, thank you, to your team, thank you to all of you for being supportive of all of us. And, you know, that’s why we’re here for our children. But it’s always nice to have have a student ratio card like that I could not be more proud of all of them. So that’s where we are. All right.
Unknown Speaker 40:31
Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it. Absolutely. All right, agenda item 6.1, is an elementary 28 project update. I’m excited to hear this update tonight. I think elementary 28 signifies in my mind the community’s commitment to make an investment in their public schools and in public education for the children of our communities. And it’s also a commitment on the district’s part to fulfill its promise that we made to the community when they chose to make to make that investment. So I’m not sure who’s introducing this evening, Brian. All right. Very good floor is yours.
Unknown Speaker 41:13
And if it’s okay, I’ll pull my bass down. So I can talk clearly. But yeah, Board of Education. Dr. Dad, we wanted to take a few moments of your time to educate certainly the Board of Education. But as well as the community on elementary 28, what we found was the the pandemic has prevented us from really getting out in front of the community and talking about elementary 28. And so we thought we would take this opportunity to share with both and so elementary 28 is opening in the fall of this year, we presently employ about 120 tradesmen on site. And and that’s daily to complete the school. It occupies 10 acres. And that’s what this picture is. And there was a couple of questions, obviously, the elementary school sits right here. And then off to the side, here is the community center. This is the community pool. And then our soccer fields are fields, basically school fields will sit here and be answered. I’m not quite sure what’s over here in the Do you know what’s over there. Say that again. town a very Park. Okay. So it really is a perfect opportunity, if you will, for school, and certainly for the students that go there. So the building will be about 70,000 square feet, and is designed to house 650 students and will immediately once it opens reduce the overcrowding experienced at soaring heights. From there, the educational opportunities, there’s two preschool classrooms, there’s four Kindred classrooms, three special ed classrooms. And then, as well, obviously, the gen ed classrooms, it’s up. It’s a four round School, which means there’s four classrooms per grade. Our simple math, we plug in 25 Kids per classroom course, that’s certainly different when it comes to actual students in the room, but and you know, with that, I’m going to hand it off to Matt tredinnick who’s online here is actually down the hall in his office. But I’ll ask Matt to pipe in and kind of walk us through maybe some of the special design features of the school.
Unknown Speaker 43:44
Sure, thanks, Brian. So the design team, which you may be aware includes a project manager, Sam Freeman, with HCM, architects and jhL constructors. And the the design of this project was outlined by our educational specifications like all of our buildings, and that Ed spec was issued in 2016. And since that time, we’ve learned a bit more about how St. brane teaches, and we’ve built a few buildings and had some experience. And it’s it’s taught us a bit more about how we can improve the application of those Ed specs. And I think there’s a couple of features within elementary 28th that that represent that. So on the next slide here that you’re looking at these, these images are from a fly through that the design team put together nearing the end of design. And so they might not be completely up to date with the final color selections and some of what you’ll see when you walk in the building once it’s complete, but they give you an idea of some of these design features.
Unknown Speaker 44:55
So
Unknown Speaker 44:57
with all of our schools, I think We try to provide diverse learning environments where kids can transition from different activities such as direct instruction, brainstorming, small group work prototyping, media protection production, the things they might do as they’re working through the design thinking process. And we try to accommodate that by providing various environments. And often, that means moving from one area of the building to another to go to say, a stem lab, a makerspace, or a Learning Commons. And we understand that at the elementary level that can be more difficult to do organically in the moment. And it’s sometimes required a scheduled trip for the class to move to a makerspace. So what we did with elementary 28. And that challenge, I should say, comes somewhat from the fact that that younger age, line of sight supervision is necessary. So the teachers can keep keep eyes on all of their class at once, and then can allow just a couple of kids to go off to another area of the building. So similar to a lot of our schools that have a pod type arrangement, you see four classrooms here on this slide. So this would be one grade level pod. And they’re all organized around a central shared space. We’re calling this the classroom extension. In this project, there are large overhead doors that you can see. And so part of the challenge to the design team was to organize these classrooms and the shared space of the middle of the pod, so that we can maintain line of sight equally for each classroom, and that direct access, so that students can flow from the classroom out to the shared pod space. And the teachers are able to maintain line of sight. And so like I said, this isn’t too much different from several of our prototype schools that have this pod type of arrangement, what we tried to do here, in addition to maintaining the line of sight, was to bring some of the features and opportunities of a stem lab or Learning Commons into this space. And Brian, you can flip to the next slide might see this. So in the way that we be providing infrastructure and appointments in these spaces, we’re hoping to provide a little bit more opportunity. There’s a lot of writable surface, there’s flexible power, there sinks and storage for prototyping and other project type activities, green screens and TV monitors for media production. The small group room, which you can see at the back of this space now allows for small group interventions with other educators. And so we think this space is going to be highly usable and effective, that they’ll have elementary level and the brain if you go to the next slide. So we did try to take some of the function of the stem labs and other spaces and put them closer to the classrooms. But we also have the core of the building, which has the full fledged stem lab, you see here, a Learning Commons, which is adjacent to this space, and the dining commons or or school Commons, which you see through that glass wall. And beyond that, you see out that there’s large windows that faces West, so you get views of the mountains, that leads us directly out to the playground. And what we were trying to do with this building, or take care of to do with the design and the layout was to create a cluster of spaces at the core of the building that have a relationship to one another and provide some opportunity both during the school day and after hours. So during the school day, this stem lab that that This image shows right now can open up this this glass that you see in front of you, I think it’s actually an overhead door in the final design. This looks more like a folding partition. But regardless, that opens up and allows projects to spill out to the commons if they need more space, or vice versa. And then behind you in this image. There’s another similar opening that goes into the Learning Commons. And that allows kids to transition the theory between research type work and the Learning Commons and prototyping or project type work in the maker lab and go back and forth between those two spaces. And then after hours, these spaces provide a lot of opportunity for our aftercare programs like community schools
Unknown Speaker 49:49
provide a large space for parent nights staff gatherings. And then the way that this stim lab opens up to that Commons provides some interesting opportunity For breakout groups, or maybe a feature program during a parent night, there’s a lot of opportunity here. And so it’ll be interesting to see how, how the school gets used once we, we open it up and get kids in it. So those are just a couple of the features to the school. And I’m going to pass it on to Brian’s Whistler, who’s going to give an update on that construction progress.
Unknown Speaker 50:23
So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 50:24
I chase
Unknown Speaker 50:25
Brian down here. He was just down the hall, trying to eliminate our problem, but So pretend like you’re in the facility. Do your presentation. Sounds good?
Unknown Speaker 50:35
Okay, are you? Okay? All right. mics on. Well, thanks, Matt. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the board, Dr. Dad, thank you. Glad to be here to do this portion of this presentation and construction of date. Now that’s all right speaking in the mic. Before I get into the update, though, I’d like to say thank you acknowledge some of the contributions of the team members and first Matt tridonic, who, who just spoke about the design of 28. From the start, Matt has been instrumental in connecting design and construction with education to progressive design that supports a collaborative and innovative learning environment. Striving to make innovation, an everyday occurrence, not just a special event, as you spoke to principal ball and Christy vendrick. I have come alongside the design and construction team and Dove right in and and provided their time and experience to for the progress and vision of elementary 28. And also like to say thank you to Sam, who’s the project manager Sam Freeman, our construction partner jhL design partner HCM for the hard work they put in day in and day out to make the vision and design come to life. So we still have a lot to do. But looking forward to the upcoming months in the progress ahead. So to recap, construction broke ground in June of 2020. Building steel was complete and topped out September 2020. You can see in this photo here and they’re starting to construct the building envelope as well. And then today, here in January, the exterior building envelope, the glazing and the roof is is nearing completion. And then the interior construction is progressing along with finishes such as painting casework, flooring, other finish elements. And what you’re seeing in this slide is what Matt had showed you with the those classroom extensions and the overhead doors, as well as a progress photo of the Learning Commons. Also included here I just an aerial shot, kind of the looking west, much like what Brian was showing, showing the site, the backdrop of the Front Range, and how it fits into the highlands area Highlands community.
Unknown Speaker 53:09
So looking forward, as I mentioned before, there’s still still a lot to do. But we are looking forward to the completion of the commission completion and commissioning of mechanical and electrical components. We’re looking forward to the work associated with the playfields the walkways, landscaping in the parking lots resuming back here and the spring. furniture is expected to show up in June. The school ready for teachers in July and open for students in August. That really concludes this, this portion. So awesome.
Unknown Speaker 53:42
Yeah. Well, and
Unknown Speaker 53:45
starting off, you know, I should have introduced the entire group out there. So we also have Brian Krauss as well as Ryan ball, which will take on the next portion of the presentation. And so if you recall two weeks ago, we we accepted Brian Ryan sorry, as the principal. So you might extend your Congratulations, but Oh, I’m sorry, Scott. You’re up. Scott tell you.
Unknown Speaker 54:15
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 54:18
I’m here to talk a little bit about the process for establishing the new boundaries for the school for elementary 28. And if you recall, back in September 2019. year, the board formally adopted the 10 acre school site in Erie Highlands to serve as the new elementary 20 A and that site is within that red outline. You can see a green triangle there. So it’s just south of Erie Parkway. That tight was selected primarily because of its prime look. To serve students to help reduce overcrowding at soaring heights, it was a parcel that had limited constraints from oil and gas undermining soil issues. And those are kind of issues that are much more difficult these days to find a school site,
Unknown Speaker 55:19
we’re
Unknown Speaker 55:19
very pleased to have this school site in Erie Highlands subdivision to serve this area. So, essentially that the goal of the boundary was to relieve soaring heights. Another aspect in board policy is to limit the impact to other schools in the district and try to reduce the impact of the boundary change to as few students as possible so with this boundary, it only impacts soaring heights. So on the left is the elementary boundaries are the north of Erie Parkway would become sorry, in heights K through five. The south of Erie Parkway would be the elementary 28. The map on the right is the middle school boundary. So all students within this area, which is the original soaring heights would continue to attend soaring heights for middle school. So they would feed right into the K at the sixth grade for the students south of Erie Parkway. So if you go to the next chart, this is kind of a breakdown of students who live within these boundaries. These are total students, they’re not all attending soaring heights, there’s probably about 72% of this population that attends soaring heights, others open enrollment other places. But based on December 20 numbers we had a total of 412k, five students north of Erie Parkway and 463 South so the little bit higher population of elementary students is south of Erie Parkway. So this site really opens up the ability for these students to walk to school, which they currently don’t have. So there’s a large concentration right around the school site that would have the ability to walk. And then the total k population in this area 186 Middle School students north of Erie Parkway and 258 south. So those would remain at soaring heights. If you go to the next slide. This shows the boundaries for all the Erie elementary feeder schools overlaid on a town of Erie map that shows the kind of residential conditions in the area. So I thought this might be helpful for you to see how those boundaries line up with housing projects. So the yellow are complete or near complete subdivisions. The green are future development. The red are under construction. And then that kind of grayish shade are not established yet. But there’s a comprehensive plan project being reviewed. So there are a few others in the town of area that have come up since this map was created south of Erie Parkway that are now labeled as green. But this kind of gives you an idea of future development future projects in Erie, and how these schools
Unknown Speaker 59:06
will be filled by future development. Some of the other features of the map.
Unknown Speaker 59:13
The kind of orange stars are commercial centers, retail centers, so the town is labeled those those kind of school shaped things are the actual schools so you can see red Hawk in the center of that red Hawk attendance area. And down below is BlackRock there is a black line in the lower bottom right corner. That’s the town of city and county of Broomfield boundaries. So elementary 28 will have some of city and county are Broomfield located within its attendance area. If you go to the next slide This is I think important to get the big picture. soaring heights right now is 17% built out, based on the comprehensive plan. The story heights north and south are almost even in the potential for for growth, around 9000 housing units at build out can each of those areas. So that is to say, that are not built, done building schools in that area. There will be future bond elections, future boundary changes. But we feel with this school, we’re going to address of capacity current concerns for a number of years there, there’ll be future things we’ll have to look at, in future bonds, like high school capacity, middle school capacity, additional elementaries, but those are a little bit down the road. So with that, I guess one other thing I wanted to mention, there’s on our district website, we have an elementary 28 page. And there you residents with any questions or comments or thoughts, there are some places to, to add comments and give us feedback on any of the aspects of this presentation. So I wanted to point that out. So with that, I don’t know if you’ll want to save your questions till at the end. But I’ll turn it back over to Brian at this point. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:38
You know, we’ll just keep rolling through if that’s okay. So yeah, Brian and,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:44
Ryan, you guys are up. All right. Thank you very much, Brian. And thank you, Scott. Good evening, Board of Education and doctor had dad, we appreciate this opportunity. And I You are correct, Joey and that this is a very exciting time, it’s been a lot of fun. And one of the one of the things I’ve obviously felt is the the number of people that are interested and excited about the school, and the within the area community. And we’re so fortunate to have the support of the school board and the school district as we do these things. So wanted to thank you for that had the opportunity to, as you know, to hire Ryan ball, as the principal. And I’ve been struck over the last couple of weeks. with Ryan, I’ve had the opportunity to see his leadership and, and he always puts kids at the at the center of his decision making. And I’ve really appreciated getting to know him. And he has joined our team in Erie, and has fit right in and everybody started giving him a hard time right away. So I knew that he was going to be a great fit. And I’m very excited to have Ryan ball lead this school and also work with the community. So I’m going to turn it over to Ryan at this time.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:15
All right, thank you, Brian and the rest of the team for the nice introduction. My name is Ryan ball. And I have been the principal of Eagle crest elementary school for the past 17 years, as many of you know. And as hard as it as hard as it is to leave that community after 17 years. It really is a great community. I’m beyond excited for you know, this next phase in my career. And as you can see in the pictures and from everyone else, it’s really going to be an amazing school. And I feel lucky to be a part of that. So my goal tonight is really just to provide some updates on kind of what’s happening behind the scenes and kind of provide some some next steps beyond the bricks and mortar and all that stuff. There is quite a bit of stuff. That’s, that’s happening. And it’s a lot of fun. And it’s been it’s been very exciting. Probably one of the biggest things that happened is we actually do have a planning team hired for the school. We’re very excited about the group that we’ve put together, we were able to hire six staff members already. five of those are current St. Brain Valley School District teachers who teach at various schools throughout the district. And one of those was hired from out of state and will be moving to Colorado. As soon as school is done in Iowa. Our goal in hiring the planning team really was to hire a balanced team. So we had multiple perspectives in terms of everyone’s views and in things when we’re when we’re making decisions and planning. So we did hire one special A lead teacher, we hired one music teacher, two primary teachers, which is preschool through second grade, and to intermediate teachers, which is third through fifth grade. You’ll see just tonight, I believe Caroline posted their pictures and BIOS on the elementary 28 website. So if you are inclined, you can check that out and get to know them a little bit better. We did start meeting last week already and plan to meet bi weekly, you know, pretty much from now until school starts in August, we’ve got a lot of work to do. Last week, during our first meeting, we you know, tried to build some relationships and get to know each other a little bit, which is more difficult, doing everything online. But we are definitely trying to make the best of that situation and started our work, just really looking at our group and trying to establish what our core values are as educators and our beliefs. And that’s really going to lead us into the next few weeks of trying to establish kind of the mission and vision for elementary 28, which really will lay the foundation for all of the work we’ll do between now and the opening of school in August. So again, we’re excited with our team. And we’re excited to be started with all the exciting work. In addition to the plan team meetings, I do meet weekly with Brian Krauss and Christie vendrick, who many of you know as a retired teacher in same brain who opened Blue Mountain and helped with the opening of Grandview, she brings a lot of experience. So the three of us meet weekly and really just tried to discuss needs and progress and kind of next steps and just trying to make sure that we’re we’re on the right track. And in terms of everything we need for a smooth opening in August. In addition to those meetings, I do meet weekly with Jay gel construction, trying to provide kind of the school side from a from a teacher principal parent perspective on the needs of the school. And I don’t know if they like it or not, but I offer a lot of little suggestions on things that maybe we can tweak or change. And Samuel Freeman, who’s the project manager from St. brain and the crew out there has been amazing and really anything that that I need or suggest or think would improve the school, they’re just right on it and try to do what they can to make it make it even better than it already is.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
Some other big ticket items. And some things that we’re kind of in the middle of right now is really ordering all of the furniture for the building, with a focus on library furniture, all of the classroom furniture, those extension areas that Matt talked about earlier. And all of the different office spaces, I guess I would say our focus for for these for all of these areas is really to provide mobile furniture, so that teachers can easily move it around as they need. They can provide, they can move it together. So kids can collaborate and work in projects together. They can move it back to have more private areas to do their work and just to make it functional with really whatever they’re working on in class. And truly, it’s amazing, the furniture that’s available these days and really trying to look and find some stuff that’s both flexible, innovative and fun for kids. So we think we’re doing a great job and we’re going to be excited to show it off. Here come June. In addition to furniture, I’ve been working with DTS on making sure that we have all the technology that we need for the school come August and so we’re looking at iPads and Chromebook carts, looking at ordering a 3d printer for the stem lab, and some Logitech krans for kids to use with their iPads and virtual reality headsets and more. And it’s really going to be amazing and we feel like we’re going to be able to provide kids just some fantastic opportunities in terms of Learning and Technology. Also meeting weekly in terms of graphics for the school, working with Caroline from St. Brain Communication Department, along with the construction design team. We’re kind of in the beginning stages of graphics for the school but really looking at ideas and and things that are going on inspire kids and people who walk into the building, just along with, you know, providing a welcoming place for kids and parents to attend school. In addition to just kind of bringing some of the the eerie feel in the some of those graphics and the use of the mountains and all that stuff we’re considering. So like I said, we’re in the beginning stages of that, but excited about where we are. And also excited to show that off here as the time comes. So it’s a kind of last but not least, and kind of the big thing that’s happening out in the community right now. And something that people are really interested in is the name, the mascot and the colors. So I’m going to kind of give you just a overview, a timeline of kind of what we’ve done already, excuse me, and kind of where we’re going to go here in the near future. Back on December 15, we did send communication out to the entire Erie feeder system with kind of an overview of elementary 28, introducing myself as the principal and a link to a survey just asking for the community to give us suggestions on the names and the mascots and the colors. We let that run through the holiday season and came back on January 5, and sent out another communication to the entire feeder system kind of reminding them of our meeting here tonight and reminding them that we want to hear their suggestions on those three categories and
Unknown Speaker 1:11:43
hoping that we’d continue to get get some more in on January 20, we made a decision that we really wanted to put it back out to the community and hopefully get some more suggestions. So we did that. And since the 20th, I think we’ve had over 250 suggestions from from the community. So it really sparked a new interest. And I think we’re well over over 300 people who have submitted suggestions for the name and the mascot and the color. So that’s been great. Our plan is to let that stay open until February 1. At that time, we’re going to our hope is to narrow those those down to kind of the top selections, and then re send that out to the community on February 2, for a final vote, which we plan to bring back to the board meeting on February 10th. To share with all of you and hopefully narrow that down to our our choices for you know, for the name of the school, the mascot and, and the colors. So that’s kind of the timeline in terms of that, it’s exciting for me to think that possibly on you know, February 10, that we we could have a boundary decision and actually have our community and at the same time have a name for the school mascot and colors, it’s going to make it feel like the communities coming together and, and give us some great opportunities to start connecting as a community. So, so with that, I would say, you know, next steps, in terms of the community is, you know, once we do have those boundaries, you know, set will start reaching out to that elementary 20 community and holding some community meetings to update them and get some feedback from from the community. As well as hopefully getting some parents involved in some of the decision making on things as as we near the opening of school. So like Scott said, I just want to remind people, you know, on the elementary 28 website, there is a link at the top that allows you to give feedback on the boundaries, and just remind, you know, families that on the bottom, there is a link if they have questions, many, many of you have been using that already. Anything school related, it goes directly to my email, and I try to answer those as quickly as possible. So with that said, You know, I just want to say thank you to everyone and I truly am feel very fortunate to have this opportunity and we’ll make sure we do a good job and provide a great school for kids come August. So, thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:37
So And one last comment, of course, all of our schools are are available for open enrollment, both into the school and and out. And so, for those that are interested in not necessarily attending the school, those opportunities are always there as as a part of the system. So so with that
Unknown Speaker 1:15:01
Okay, thanks, everyone for a wonderful presentation. Ryan, before I open it up to questions, I do want to take an opportunity. I know the the board voted at our first meeting in January, we approved your principalship at elementary 28. And I just want to take a quick second to say congratulations. I’m excited to have you. Have you lead that school?
Unknown Speaker 1:15:26
Yes, thank you very much. I feel honored to have the opportunity. And, you know, as you can all see, it’s, it’s gonna be a fabulous school. And to think that I get to be a part of that really exciting. So thank you all again.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:40
Great. Thank you. All right. I’ll open it up to board members at this point, then, for any questions or comments. JOHN? I didn’t know. All right, well, let let sometimes it’s a little bit a little bit slow when we do that. Paula, go ahead and then deck after Paula.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:02
Hi, thanks. Um,
Unknown Speaker 1:16:03
I don’t
Unknown Speaker 1:16:05
really have any questions that your presentation didn’t answer, I just appreciate the report, because it’s very comprehensive. And I really enjoyed hearing about the process, because the schools just don’t appear. There’s a lot of work, starting with the community to to, you know, agree to fund these schools, and then how we manage that money and how it manifests itself. And this, I think, is really exciting. I also think, Ryan, you’re a really great choice for the school because having been at Eagle crest for 17 years, that’s one of the, for lack of a better term. It’s one of the cookie cutter schools that we have, there was a time where we built several different schools, pretty much in the same model. But it was probably the Save architecture costs. I don’t really know I wasn’t, I wasn’t here, then. But how the process has changed, I think is remarkable, and that the education specs that we’ve put together. And the process we put together that we keep refining each time, like you have the opportunity to learn from soaring heights and Grandview and Mead and and now this so I just think it’s great to see you coming from one of our more traditional schools to this because you’ll be very clued into what worked in the 20 year old model and what can be improved upon in the 20 year old model. So yeah, thank you for the report. It’s great. And I’m very, I’m super excited. I’m super excited for the Erie community. And especially at this time, you know, during COVID, the fact that we can keep moving forward with these really important investments in our education. While we’re in the middle of some pretty unstable working environments. Yeah, so thank you all for for everything.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:45
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:48
Thank you, Madam President. But we’re, we’re we as a district are committed to, of course, excellence, and innovation and progressive improvement. And I just want to express my appreciation for the clear commitment that the our construction and design teams have to incorporating those things that work the best that we find out through our own experience, I’m really following along on on Paula’s comment. But each time we design a school, it’s clear that you’re you and your design team and our program team are pushing the boundaries of what we have learned works a little better for our students. And not that you need exhortation to continue that direction, because I think it’s in your blood. But I just want to express my sincere appreciation. It’s an extraordinary feature of the commitment and feature of the way in which you go about your jobs. And it will benefit a solve certainly right away, but for years and decades to come. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:02
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:03
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:04
Thanks, Dick. JOHN.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:08
Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:09
I just wanted to say thank you very much for your reports. I have filled many questions around Erie about the new school coming in. And I can say there’s a lot of excitement about it. I the detail that you’re giving tonight is extraordinary. And we are well aware that the community is built around the the schools that enter and I just want to say thank you very much. So I appreciate the meeting. And I’m sorry, I’m not there and present.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:41
Good. Thanks, john. Appreciate it. I’ll echo what the rest of the board members have already said. And look forward to Ryan and everyone I suppose who comes back on February 10. I’m excited to see what suggestions what the community comes up with
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Ames, as far as that goes, and at that point will vote on the boundaries as well, correct?
Unknown Speaker 0:05
That is correct. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 0:06
I don’t I don’t have any questions or concerns about the boundaries, as as presented, presented either would certainly support that choice. So, Ryan, anyone? Do you have any any closing comments? No. All right. So Ryan, I am going to, you know, they’re grateful campaign is on Twitter. And I think you were a few weeks ago grateful for noodle freeze tag.
Unknown Speaker 0:37
Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 0:37
I would love to come play noodle freeze tag. I can’t stop thinking about it. So do you want to extend an invitation to the board of education or just me? We would love to play noodle freeze tag at Eagle crest before you before you head out to elementary 28.
Unknown Speaker 0:54
Absolutely, it’s it’s
Unknown Speaker 0:57
all right. Thanks, everyone. appreciate you all being here. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you, Greg. You I think you were here. But I think Greg, are you on WebEx now? Yes, I am. Okay. I thought I saw you there. So we did talk about the district financials at 530. This evening, you did that presentation. So if you’d like to give us an update on that, and then I believe you have some some good news to share share with the community as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:31
Yeah, absolutely. So Good evening, thank you. It’s good to to present to the board at 530. We will post the second quarter financials out to the website. As soon as in within the next couple days. One thing, a couple things I’d like to re emphasize is one is there’s a dashboard on there. That’s the executive summary. It’s a real quick two page, high flying synopsis of what’s going on within funds. I there’s a couple caveats with that. And one is that this is the second quarter financial, and it still relates back to the adopted budget that we put in place that we adopted in June. And so there were some unknowns there, there was nothing known about Coronavirus relief funds at that point. And so as you look at that, just keep in mind that budget to actuals may not be reflective of where they’re going to be in a month. Because Tony tonight will talk about the presenting the amended budget and so that the January financials will give us a much clearer picture on our budget to actual for the year. The other thing is that the, again, when you’re looking at supplies and materials, and how we’re doing compared to budget is that we are getting one time funding for Corona virus relief funds. And so those expenditures, the actual expenditures will be higher than what was in the original adopted budget. And so please keep those in mind as you’re looking at it. But those will be out in the next couple of days. And then the really good news that we have is I don’t know that impacts us immediately, but it will impact us long term. And that is that Moody’s credit rating agency went back and they’ve been working on a methodology for rating school districts differently than they have historically. And they’ve been working on it over a year and they released a press release yesterday. What they did was they used to just give a an issuer rating for the entity. So same brain got one entity who got one issuer rating, they have swapped that out where you get an issuer rating, but you also get an individual rating on all of your individual bond series that you have sold and will sell in the future. Our current bond rating as an entity is a two w two, we’re probably one of three or four districts in the state that have that high right rating. So we’re we’re very happy with that. But the good news is, is that because of the way property taxes are assessed and collected in Colorado, that our bond issuances rating will be moved at will be upgraded to a double A one. And so through that what that means is that when we go refinance bonds or we sell new bonds in the future, we will be able to sell those bonds at a lower interest rate than if we had an A two rating. So we’re really excited about that. And, and, again, not necessarily great news in terms of today’s finance, but definitely in terms of how it’s going to impact our channel. taxpayers in the future, being able to sell the bonds at a lower interest rate will help our our community as a whole.
Unknown Speaker 5:09
Thank you, Greg, appreciate that. Do you want to roll right into 6.3, which is second quarter 2021. Public gifts to schools?
Unknown Speaker 5:18
Sure. What I’d like to so the Board of Education asked for us to present. Sorry, to present a list of gifts, public gifts that are given to the school district. And doesn’t matter the size of the gift. It’s accepted by the principal, the superintendent or the Board of Education, based on the size of the gift, but we want a comprehensive list of all gifts and donations. So this has been kind of a slow year for us. And I think that’s kind of should be fairly obvious. We don’t have parent teacher organizations who can do a lot of fundraising to contribute, we, you know, it’s just tough to, to get into our schools to do some fundraising and some of those kinds of things. So for the second quarter of this year, we had gifts totaling 78, just over 78,000. Last year, in the second quarter we were at we had gifts totaling 223,000. So you can see that the gifts and donations have decreased. But I believe a lot of that is is due to our parent teacher organizations and their ability to fundraise, I would like to give a couple of examples of people who have given the second quarter, the program called micron gives which yours micron employees can have a portion of its offset. And it’s a program micron does, but they are given us a total of $8,500. And that’s for Alpine, elementary, Westview, middle and the mobile lab. And then there’s a group called the GEO Group foundation that gave $5,000 to our Center for our CDC, career tech ed Center for Advanced Manufacturing act, Academy support. So be happy to answer any questions at this
Unknown Speaker 7:18
point. questions.
Unknown Speaker 7:22
Thanks, Greg. I just wanted to kind of follow up on the last discussion we had about the reporting of gifts to us. And just to confirm that those that our donors that are listed here received nothing in return for their charitable donation.
Unknown Speaker 7:42
That the that depends on their situation. And I hesitate as a as a school district is to start talking about legal or tax advice for people. So it depends on whether or not they’re getting something out of it back at it or not, whether it’s a sponsorship and advertisement or a pure donation.
Unknown Speaker 8:01
but so does this lifts also include sponsorships?
Unknown Speaker 8:08
I don’t believe it does. This is purely gifts and donations, it would not be sponsorship sponsorships would come through our community strong program.
Unknown Speaker 8:17
So the so at least with regard to donations being tax deductible to us as a charity, we as the receiving organization, provide assurance for tax purposes that they’ve received nothing of value in return for the gift.
Unknown Speaker 8:40
Yes, part of our letter state. Yes, it doesn’t say that it is a tax, taxable donations, that impacts their taxes, it says just what you said in terms of they have not received anything for this. And then it’s up to them working with their, their, their accountant or their tax person to verify that it is in fact, a donation that they can claim on their taxes.
Unknown Speaker 9:05
So just to be clear, there’s a separate sponsorship list. Yes. Okay. And we wouldn’t see that necessarily set in a normal report.
Unknown Speaker 9:18
Correct. That has not been historically how we’ve handled sponsorships and advertisements.
Unknown Speaker 9:24
Thanks very much.
Unknown Speaker 9:26
You’re welcome. Greg, has
Unknown Speaker 9:28
there been any potential donations that we’ve rerouted through the Education Foundation?
Unknown Speaker 9:37
I’d have to think about that, that there probably is. I think that we have steered some of that to them, but not a lot. I’d have to look in terms of what that looks like. I’m trying to think of an example of one that we have done.
Unknown Speaker 9:57
And the reason I you know, the reason I wonder is because like I think About, for example, Toyota. Their donation by itself is over $60,000. And so I’m just wondering where that falls into the mix of a total of 78,000. Because it seems to me, because I sign off on all of those. And it seems to me like it’s considerably higher than 78,000.
Unknown Speaker 10:21
When you can, yeah, that would not be included because that’s associated with the, it’s my understanding that’s associated with the Everly Montgomery scoreboard.
Unknown Speaker 10:34
Not necessarily, it’s the Everly Montgomery scoreboard was separate from those donations that are donation is an annual donation that they give us with discretionary authority. And it usually goes into different pros, it all goes into different programs in the schools, but the Everly Montgomery, scoreboard was a separate, I think donate.
Unknown Speaker 10:55
So it may be it may be a matter of timing, again, this is just the second quarter gifts. So if we received those in the fourth quarter or the first quarter, then they wouldn’t necessarily be reflected in this list. And is it reflective of
Unknown Speaker 11:11
the grants? Because I know there were like 40 grants just recently provided from the Education Foundation. And then the only reason I’m asking is because it seems to me I mean, I just there’s it’s it’s a it’s a much bigger story around the amount of support that we’re getting from our community. And I just, I want people to know how appreciative we are of that, and not say, Well, wait a minute, I did this or I go donated that. And then the other thing is just a recognition of how hard people were hit, you know, economically, from the COVID virus and things like that, and still have been, you know, very gracious in their support.
Unknown Speaker 11:51
Absolutely, I think I think that, like I said, a big part of it is, is the normal fundraisers that PTO might do? Granted, some of their parents are probably giving money to the school and are included in this list. But in terms of carnivals, or some of those kinds of things, it’s very, it’s very difficult to do those types of fundraisers in the, with the restrictions that we have in place right now.
Unknown Speaker 12:22
Yeah, and I know that may be a timing thing, too. But I and I was over at Silver Creek and I saw the renovation to the weight room. And also some of the significant renovations that took place in some of those areas. And like nyuad High School and other places in skyline high school, and I know that a considerable amount of you know, 10s of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of dollars were provided by you know, the booster clubs and things like that, for those facility upgrades. And again, I share that because I think what you’re talking about is second quarter. And so it’s a timing thing. But I also just want people to know that, that our community has been extremely giving.
Unknown Speaker 13:03
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you take a look at the total donations in last year, in fiscal year 20, it was it was over $940,000. So it is it is a significant contribution to our community. Definitely.
Unknown Speaker 13:23
Thanks,
Unknown Speaker 13:25
Greg, just to piggyback a little bit on on what Don was talking about in the community has been very generous for many, many years, but particularly this year with COVID, that may be a little bit more more difficult for some members of the community. And I just want to reiterate, I know this year doesn’t look typical, as far as classrooms and carnivals, and field trips and athletic activities and whatnot. But we did have the decrease in in, in gifts. But that doesn’t mean that children are going without that, that they still the funds are still available to make sure that children have the opportunities that they need and that they should take advantage of.
Unknown Speaker 14:08
Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 14:09
Thanks for shoot it. Alright, if there aren’t any other comments, then we’ll go ahead and move forward. All right, thank you, Greg. We’ll see you again. Here in a couple minutes. All right. Thank you. Thanks, confirming that board members do not wish to pull any consent items this evening. Is that correct? All right. Then I would entertain a motion for approval of 7.1. Approval of change order five to the construction manager general contractor cmgc contract for spark discovery preschool renovation project 7.2. Approval of fee adjustment to to the consultant contract for elementary 28 and 7.3. Approval of contract for time and attendance software system by Karen and a second by Jim
Unknown Speaker 15:01
Mr. Arens? Yes, Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia?
Unknown Speaker 15:07
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 15:08
Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. I, Mrs. Raglan. I am Miss siegrist
Unknown Speaker 15:16
i. Thanks, Barb. All right. Greg in an action item 8.1 is a recommendation for adoption of resolution for approval slash denial of charter application renewal for carbon Valley Academy.
Unknown Speaker 15:33
Oh, yes, thank you President Subarus Board of Education. Dr. Dad, it’s a pleasure to be here this evening. At this time, we would we would see that the Board of Education adopt a resolution to authorize the carbon Valley accounting Academy renewal term of two years. And this would extend through June 30 2023. Unlike the special things for the district accountability committee, finance departments engaged in this process. And we also have Greg on this speed for questions for finance, as well as the executive director of carbon Valley Academy. Janet Wyatt. Give me questions.
Unknown Speaker 16:16
Thanks, Dan. Greg, did you have any comments?
Unknown Speaker 16:22
I don’t think so. I think we’re watching carbon Valley Academy. I mean, the pandemic is impacting everybody. But we just we would love to to watch them closely as they have some declining enrollment and some of those things. So that’s, we want to participate earlier in the process than we normally May.
Unknown Speaker 16:48
Great. Thank you, Janet. I’m Joey Seacrest. It’s nice to meet you. I don’t know if you wish to listen this evening or make any comments, but we would certainly certainly welcome those comments.
Unknown Speaker 17:01
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the Board of Education this evening. And I have been working closely with Greg through this process and appreciate him and his department’s assistance, as well as and I don’t know that I have a lot of comments to make, I can certainly answer any questions that the board may have. I guess the one one thing that I would just like to share is while you know numbers don’t lie. We may be small, we are small. But we’re doing some really good things with our kids. Something a change that we made this year was switching to AI ready for all of our grades and eliminated the use of the NW EA testing for our benchmarks. And that has allowed teachers to have a real time opportunity to adjust curriculum and teaching methods and so forth. And we saw tremendous growth numbers and our mid year evaluation. I think you also would have seen some improving test numbers had we had the opportunity to test last spring. I know one of the other concerns that Greg had shared with me was a bit of declining test scores. And again, the numbers don’t lie. But we also know the work that we put in last year after the test scores had dropped. And I truly believe you would have seen them back up on the rise. And I am hoping against hope that I am correct in that if we are tested again this spring, you will see our assessment scores taking a sharp turn for the for the better.
Unknown Speaker 18:50
Great, thanks, john. I appreciate that. You know, I do support extending your charter application for for the next two years. And I want to thank you for the comprehensive report that you provided. And that was included in our our board packet. You know, Jana, I speaking from the from the heart here, I know that that you have the same goals that we have as a board of education at carbon Valley, and that is to best serve serve children. And you know, I know that we have that that common ground and I’m happy to hear that you said you’re working with Greg and with an eye I know that you’ve met with Dr. capetian as well and Dr. Haddad, I was encouraged in the report to see clearly you have many, many happy parents of children at your school, your explosions and suspensions. Those rates are outstanding. You have a strong reenrollment I hear that you said you switch to I ready and that you’ve seen a lot of growth. When you were doing those mid year assessments, I see also that you’re you’re beefing up your recruiting and you’ve added steam, your commitment to being successful is clear. And I commend you for that. At the same time, I agree with you that the numbers don’t lie. And so, you know, I don’t want to tell you that I’m concerned. But definitely aware of what the situation is out of carbon Valley. I thank you for for your dedication and your hard work. And I hope that that we see your enrollment increase, and those test scores increased as well. And the next time that you’re back here, we’ll have a different conversation. Thank you. I
Unknown Speaker 20:41
appreciate that.
Unknown Speaker 20:43
Thanks. Any comments or questions by their other board members? Stan? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 20:48
Hi, Janet, this is Dawn, I wanted to just also share with you that the appreciate your your commitment to the school into the system. I also want to just reiterate, you know, in from previous conversations, my concern and my, you know, I would, I would say that concern is, is a fair word, because, you know, for several years, we held carbon Valley harmless in terms of the loss of enrollment, to the tune of hundreds of 1000s of dollars, with our mill levy allocations. And as I look at your fund balance, and I, you know, do the math, but not for those allocations that we held you harmless, you would not have a fund balance, nor would you have the resources that you currently have to do the things that you are doing. And the only reason I share that with you is because you know, as a recent, that has changed to only provide allocations based on the number of students that you have. So being small, is more than simply being small, it’s, you really have to pay attention to the resources and the lack thereof, because if you don’t grow your enrollment, and you don’t have that fun balance to call on, it can create a pretty dire situation. And we’ve seen that happen before. And so I just wanted to say that to you. Because, you know, with the economic downturn in Colorado, the loss of mill levy override dollars. And, you know, the increased costs of operations. It’s just something that has to really be front and center. And I know that it is for you. But I just want to be clear in, in what I’ll be paying attention to as well. So thank you very much for that. And Greg, thank you for working closely with carbon Valley. And, and Dr. Conclusion, thank you for working closely. And Janet, we’re always here to support in any way that we can, as indicated by all of the support we’ve provided over the years. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 22:53
Thank you, doctor that that is that is very much appreciated.
Unknown Speaker 22:59
Dick, did you have a comment?
Unknown Speaker 23:01
Thank you, President. I have a general question. And then, uh, sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Dick martyr. One of the board members. A general question, I think it might be best to an read about the number of waivers that are part of this charter application. But just overall, Is this about what we see with our other charter schools that are part of our system? In terms of numbers, and in this specific waivers?
Unknown Speaker 23:46
what you’re referring to is as far as the number of years and the authorizations or
Unknown Speaker 23:53
No. Oh, sorry. Dr. Reddy, just the number of waivers that are listed. The begin? Oh, I don’t know. Well, they begin actually on page 86. of the pack board packet that we received.
Unknown Speaker 24:17
decades. It does look typical. To me in looking at at the number of waivers. It’s pretty consistent. There’s some automatic and and correct me if I’m wrong, but there are many automatic waivers that charters are granted. So it didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me at all.
Unknown Speaker 24:36
When actually it looked longer to me
Unknown Speaker 24:38
is three Do you think it seemed okay. And that felt pretty standard to me and maybe I’m wrong but and what do you think?
Unknown Speaker 24:45
You know, I’d have to go back and compare that information to other applications.
Unknown Speaker 24:55
Well, thanks that I thought I should have given you a heads up ahead of time that I was gonna ask that question. That was a general one. And so specifically, Janet, my, my concern is the waiver from the conflicts of interest. And I’m not asking that there’ll be any changes at this point. But just as a, as a CEO of a corporation, something’s happening is the CEO of a corporation, the waivers with regard to conflicts of interest, I would encourage you to, if not adopt the district conflicts of interest policy, that that that really be something is part of your operation going forward. And the other, the late concern to the conflicts of interest is the waiver from board duties concerning competitive bidding. And again, with a small organization, when you have much of your leadership team, connected to the surrounding community, as well as maybe their own businesses, those two areas are areas that in my experience, as a CEO, come to what require very careful management and so that so that you can assure your own organization as well as the surrounding communities that carbon Valley is squeaky clean. So I would just commend that as a consideration. As you’re moving forward.
Unknown Speaker 27:01
Thanks, Janet,
Unknown Speaker 27:02
would you mind putting your system on mute? are picking up your feedback?
Unknown Speaker 27:10
So can I respond to that first or No?
Unknown Speaker 27:13
No? Sure. Absolutely. We would love Yes, please do.
Unknown Speaker 27:18
So I will, I will happily take a look at both of those waivers and our policies as it relates to your concerns. Something that you did mention that I would just like to clarify about the leadership team, and our ties to the community and our own businesses and so forth. That may well have been true in the past. But I can assure you that none of the three of us that are in leadership, have our own businesses or have any particular ties within the community in terms of vendors that we might be seeking out that kind of thing.
Unknown Speaker 27:58
And dig one thing, too is and Greg can elaborate a little bit on this as well. We had Greg working very closely with oversight around those very issues. For the band, Greg, you might want to talk a little bit about that, through audits, and then also through processing through our office, as well as carbon valleys. Thanks,
Unknown Speaker 28:26
Greg. Yeah, sure. So it’s been a couple of years. But at one point in time, there was some there was concern about some of that that was concerned about whether or not the purchasing policy in terms of certain thresholds was adequate. We went through that we went through a process of that. And moved, I think carbon Valley move forward significantly in in that regard. And so whether there’s still room for improvement, or what we would consider room for improvement. Is I’m sure there is, but we did definitely move. We carbon Valley definitely did move forward in terms of some of those areas of concern that we had two years ago.
Unknown Speaker 29:19
Well, thank you, I, I again, it is an area for Don, for those of us that operate in a non profit environment. We need to be super sensitive to that. And I would I I believe it’s important to for that to be first and foremost in our minds. Janet and as you move forward.
Unknown Speaker 29:48
Thanks, Dick. Paula, did you have a comment? I do. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 29:52
Thank you for the the letter Janet and the information that was included in our packet. I just want to Just share my thoughts a little bit I, and I want to thank carbon Valley for for being an option in this district for 15 years, you guys opened, I think he said 2005. And it was really right when the district itself was putting together with focus schools and, and recognizing the value of choice within the community. But it’s, you know, it’s been a journey for all of us. And when we look at carbon Valley today, you don and Joey both touched on it, that the numbers don’t lie, the enrollment has been trending down, therefore, the dollars are going down, and the operational costs are going up. And while you guys it appears, you’re doing a lot of work. in the best interest of your students. As far as you mentioned, I ready and adding steam and adding some really competitive advantage type of skills to the school. As as the District School Board, that is, you guys are an independent, you’re autonomous, but we are still responsible for the overall schools in the district. So we so we have to be looking at the numbers and, and be be public about our concerns. within the community that it’s it’s tricky to run a really small school, because education can be very expensive. So I wish you the best of prosperity and in keeping the financials where they need to be. And but I do think this two year contract is a is a good idea. I think, keeping it at two years so that we can come back and have this conversation again. sooner than later. We’ll help everybody so we can just stay in front of it. And, you know, try to do everything we can to support you and to keep the public informed about the reality of what what’s happening. So, so thank you. Thank you for being with us, Janet, and thank you for the information. And I wish you guys all the luck I truly do. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 31:57
Thanks, Paula. Jenna, I think the board has has expressed both its concerns and and it’s added support for continuing to to interact with the district and get that support from their experts. Where possible. Did you have any closing comments? Here we go.
Unknown Speaker 32:24
No, I don’t necessarily have any comments I understand and and share your concerns. Something that I’m looking at every day is how we can increase funding, how we can reduce expenses, how we can manage those concerns against providing the best academic program programming that we can for the kids that we have in front of us every day as well. So I, again, I share your concerns, and I appreciate your support. And I just want the board to know that those are the those concerns that you have are the same ones that we are looking at constantly.
Unknown Speaker 33:01
Thank you, Janet. Appreciate it. So then if there are no other board comments or questions, I would entertain a motion for approval approval of action item 8.1.
Unknown Speaker 33:13
so moved
Unknown Speaker 33:14
by Chico and a second. By Paula.
Unknown Speaker 33:21
Mr. Arens? Yes, Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Hi, Mrs. Raglan. I am Miss siegrist.
Unknown Speaker 33:35
I thanks, Barb. genda. Item 8.2 is the recommendation for the adoption of the superintendent’s amended budget all funds for the fiscal year 2021. And Greg, I believe, Tony, hi, Tony. There you are. It’s nice to see you.
Unknown Speaker 33:53
Hello, nice to see you too. Just want to do a quick tech check to make sure I can be heard. Okay. Can everyone hear me? All right?
Unknown Speaker 34:00
perfectly. Yes. And we can see your screen as well.
Unknown Speaker 34:04
Great. All right. Um, thank you. Good evening, members of the board. This recommendation is for the adoption of superintendents amended budget for St. vrain Valley schools or the current 2021 fiscal year. As you know, this budget is the comprehensive spending plan tracking all resources and expenditures for all funds used to educate our students and support the vision and mission of the district for the date spanning July 1 2020 through June 30 2021. This action amends the original budget adopted last June and contains updated amounts related to growth assessed valuation, total program compensation estimate additional staff capital needs COVID relief funds and other local state and federal funding revenue sources and changes like to provide a brief recap of the general fund budget changes compared to the initially adopted budget from last year. Then I’ll make myself available to the board to answer any questions regarding any of the other funds. So first of all, I wanted to start from the current fiscal year, the district’s general fund budget is amended to contain a spin down a fund balance, with planned expenditures in excess of anticipated revenues in the amount of $19.9 million. This is compared to the originally adopted budget prepared last June, which contained a planned spend of $14.4 million compared to the adopted budget, this amended budget represents approximately $8.2 million, we’ve identified as additional revenue, and then an increase of expenditure of 37 million. The summary of that. So wanted to go through the revenues and expenditures in just a little bit more detail. This is the current list of changes to revenues and found on those future slides. First wanted to talk about total program, we had a decrease of total program as you were due to the declining enrollment, this decrease ended up being about $4.7 million. And this represents a decrease of approximately 603 funded pupil count. And this is after declining enrollment averaging. You recall we’ve spoken about a decrease of 1100 previously, but because of the declining enrollment averaging mechanism that goes on to state that ended up being about 603. And our original about estimated $9 million decrease in revenue ended up being about 4 million, we had a decrease in revenue due to the reduction in per pupil revenue amounted to about $806,000. Because they were operating on a certain amount of estimates, or monthly or count. And when that gets adjusted, the actuals get adjusted, that affects our per pupil revenue. So that decreased by about $29 per student mountain. Property taxes, as I reported support last December, we had an assessed valuation decrease of 1.9% due to the mechanism on total program that offset using a sort of a balancing mechanism with the equalization amount from the state that didn’t affect our total program total. But it did directly affect our mlo mlo impact decrease of about $1 million. for specific ownership taxes actually increased from what originally expected by about 400,000. And then your revenue increased by about 5000 of this Ura revenue as a result of our our agreements with urban renewal authorities and the different teachers within our district, where we’ve agreed to have them remit some tax that they retain for their taxpayer financing back to us within certain categories. So those are starting to provide some additional returns. And that’s represented here. Now, just a reminder, we do expect that we’ll see an oil and gas AV impact expected next year. If that lags behind by a year or so we saw production declines this year. So watch out for that next year and see how that impacts our overall Av. Some additional revenue impacts are interesting, I’m really really dropped on these returns are budgeted at about 6% of F five of the F 20 budget. And just just to understand the read that right 6% of fy 20 budget that didn’t get decreased by 6%. That’s more like a decrease of 94%, massive massive decreases in our returns based on the returns on our investments. And so we actually had a decrease of about $2.3 million dollars compared to the FYI, 19 actuals. Compared to what we’re getting at this, here’s a really large impact to our interest income, and we put it back
Unknown Speaker 39:04
onto the federal COVID relief. And so one thing to note is with federal COVID relief, all the funds that are allocated to us, we don’t recognize in our counting records until we’ve actually used those funds. So this budget contains all of the amounts that are available to us, but may or may not be recognized. If we don’t actually use most of most of the sorry, all of the CRF funds, I think are reused. And so those will be recognized this year. The s one and S are two amounts are budgeted, and we believe almost all if not all, the extra ones will be used and the s are twos right now kind of a contingency because it’s pretty new allocation. We have it all budgeted for this year for any expected allocations, some of which were already aware of and some of which may come online or the end of the year. Anything that doesn’t come online that qualify for these funds by the end of June 30 2021, will be available in FYI, 22. So we won’t be giving up any funds, it’s just a matter of timing. We had a decrease of $4 million in revenues. And again, this is sort of like a negative revenue allocations to other funds. This is mostly the result of a restoration of a cap reserve allocation that we had retained or without, in the adopted budget for contingency purpose. Based on the actions that we’re seeing right now, we were able to restore that amount and make sure that Brian and his team were able to have the resources they need to maintain ongoing facility. refurbishment, and so that cap reserve allocation restored. And so that’s in here, I’m calling it a preschool program actually decreased a little bit in terms of their participation. So the corridor preschool program allocation actually went down to a cap Reserve was more like $4.5 million or so. And the color of preschool program is in the other direction of about 500,000. That’s a net change of about a million dollars here. Finally, we had a decrease of about 1.7 million in charges for services. Again, we are hoping and expecting that this is going to be kind of a one time thing related to the COVID pandemic. But our preschool enrollment dropped significantly. So we’re not collecting nearly as much preschool tuition. And then of course, our field trip. field trips aren’t growing at the moment. And so our field trip revenue that comes in from student clubs, and athletic aren’t coming in at the moment. So depending on how much we’re able to rev up for the rest of the year, this year, we might see some of that come back. But for now, we’re seeing a drop there. Finally, some of you may have heard that the state actually paused their $25 million payment from directly from the state into the para pension system. And so normally, what we have to do as a district is report a revenue and corresponding expense, the same amount that recognizes our proportionate share of that $225 million payment. So that’s about roughly about four and a half million dollars. It doesn’t represent actual resources available to the district, but it is an accounting item that we have to put on. And so we do budget builds and counting items. And so this represents $44.5 million revenue and corresponding expenditure that we’re going to remove for this year, because the 225 million argument was paused. We expect that depending on the legislature decides that they will return maybe not quite 22, or if they deferred another year. I’m hoping that by 23 is one that. Again, that’s the summary of our budget revenues that results in a net increase of about $8.2 million in revenues. One of the pause there and keep doing have any specific questions before I move on to expenditures?
Unknown Speaker 43:07
I don’t believe so. Tony, No, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 43:10
Right, onto expenditures. So as I mentioned, we saw an increase of about $13.7 million, and expenditures and all through those first items, about $2.9 million increase in new positions and changes to positions including the onboarding of our launch program. I’ll just preface that right now with the launch it program does qualify COVID Relief Fund, but we’ll actually see that part of that is a mount of a finger when I talked about COVID miniatures, we saw FDA savings from unfilled positions and conservative budgeting, this was a $6.3 million decrease in expenditures. And again, this is a result of when we start with the year, we budget for all our authorized positions as they’re going to be built for the full year. And then what happens is, throughout the year, either those positions aren’t filled, which in this in this case, and this year, um, there were quite a few positions that we didn’t fail, because we were trying to mitigate any potential overages in our budget. And so we did some conservative actions with our hiring practices during the year to make sure that we weren’t staff. And so that resulted in some savings here. And then as well, we also budget all those open positions at an average cost. So not knowing the positions, those may be filled with the people those may be filled with. And so all of that together resulted in a decrease in expenditure that we recognize now. Compared to be adopted budget. When we first budget. We had an increase of expenditures of about a million dollars in discretionary budgets this large This was is an increase in our unemployment cost. You may have heard there’s a lot of employment claims going on, some of which are fraudulent. And I’ve been hearing about that on the news. And we’ve also been trying to track those down as meticulously as possible to make sure the impact is minimal, but it’s pretty rapid up there. So, there is a large large increase in unemployment claims. And those costs are reflected in the the increase here again, we would hope that this kind of a one time thing that as things return to normalcy, we will keep seeing such a large amount of a revisit of the other side of that pair counting recognition I mentioned earlier, the expense side, so decrease of 4.5 revenue and and then we also have a budgeted satisfied. One time programs of the general fund in total is about $3.3 million. One time set aside that we have to support on a contingency basis. This is a just in case kind of thing. The Nutrition Services Program, Community Schools Program, our facilities program, as well as athletic remove some money to the side to ensure that we can maintain and sustain those programs, as they have experienced some significant hardships impact due to the Pantanal. And so these these dollars aren’t pre calculated, we’re not automatically going to be transferring these, we just set these aside so that if there is a situation at the end of the year, or they’re in a negative position, or our team that needs personal support, have it set aside for purpose. And finally, the Federal COVID relief expenditure. So again, this is budgeted to match the COVID revenues of about $25.8 million previously. And so we have this additional line items, many line items of about 20 to 25 million that match the revenues for all of our COVID relief, qualified. Now, just below that you can see there’s a there’s an $8.9 million expenditures. And what that represents is that as we have brought online, new programs are doing benefits like launch Ed
Unknown Speaker 47:34
cleaning on technology, all the things that we needed to to address the needs for them. And we brought those online and went ahead and paid for him set aside the money, not knowing at the time. Many cases not knowing at the time whether or not we would they would qualify for be reimbursed by a COVID relief. And so what this represents is a subsequent movement, after we did find the gates, these do qualify, it will be reimbursed through the federal code relief programs, we were able to save almost $9 million by moving those those expenses that we have already brought online into the office. That’s why we’ll see that’s where the launch ad expenditures that I mentioned previously are. So there’s a there’s a savings here with with regard to COVID relief. Now, just so you know, like I mentioned not all of the budgeted COVID relief funds are are earmarked already. So there may be some additional savings this year, if they don’t all get used by June 30. Those amounts which would carry over the next year. So that that last point may be additional savings depending on what your needs, and how COVID relief funds. So that wraps up our expenditure side. So there’s about a $13.7 million increase in expenses compared to our adopted budget. And if we if we kind of wrap this all up to the total impact of the general fund, we started the FYI 21 year that the beginning fund balance of $141.6 billion. We have an amended plan spend them of 19 point 9 million we just talked about. And so everything was exactly the way that we got budgeted spending plan follows exactly that then we’d end the year at $121.8 million on the screen. wanted to do this chart here. This is a really kind of a new graphic that we’ve gotten the budget document I wanted to bring it up here because this really outlines clearly where all of our resources are coming from where they’re allocated. Going to. This is the appropriation that we brought to the board and this particular resolution for the general fund $483.2 million and you can see On the left side, there, all the sources there works out to about $341.2 million in revenue plus that beginning fund balance, section 141.6. And that equals all of our resources for the general funds for that point 21 year that 482 million, then what we have is where that 43.2 was allocated, who’s got the largest chunk, and obviously, as you know, salaries, benefits, some other items here for all of the other spending categories. And then our projected ending fund is just my case. So I was found that was a good way to graphically represent the inflows and outflows. So I hope that can can help help inform the board a little bit better. Finally, it’s wanted to not neglect the other funds, though we do have quite a few other funds here. I know, we focus primarily on the General Fund, which is by far the largest in terms of resources, operating funds in the district. But we do budget, all of this from the beginning and ending fund balances in our other friends as well. So I made sure I was available to answer any question, but the board may have on those. So in addition to the summary tonight, we will also make this budget document available on our website@pbs.org. And it would be my pleasure to address any questions.
Unknown Speaker 51:29
Thank you, Tony. Appreciate it. To board members have any questions or comments this evening, Karen.
Unknown Speaker 51:37
Thank you, Tony, for the comprehensive report, and especially the fun Sankey chart. Welcome. It’s nice to be a position so well, that we were able to retain as many positions as we did through the pandemic, and to keep so many people employed, and supporting our students and our buildings. So thanks to your detail. That was possible. Without such an amazing finance team, I can’t imagine we would have that. That ability. The 19 million spin down is a good problem to have, that we discussed a little further on on Monday in our Finance and Audit Committee meeting. And I also wanted to note the attention to the careful documentation of the COVID relief funds that I know your team is really on right now. And because we know that with those funds, it’s not if but when there will be an audit. So thank you in advance for doing that. Also, I just wanted to comment on the enrollment issue that we lost some students this year and our enrollment. And I wonder if anybody knows the percentage of kindergarten students that was because it’s my understand that it was mostly kindergarten students that we lost in enrollment. And I would imagine that’s because people chose not to send their kids to a non building.
Unknown Speaker 53:10
I unfortunately don’t have the kindergarten breakdown in front of me. But I can look that up and back to the
Unknown Speaker 53:18
Well, I think it’s significant, which is really just yeah. And then I just wanted to thank you for predicting this pandemic and acting so quickly to mitigate any financial impacts that would have had, ultimately on our students. And I know, it’ll be nice to get back to business eventually. But I don’t think it’s gonna look too different from the incredible work that you’re already doing. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 53:47
Thanks, Karen. Paul. Thanks. Thanks, Tony.
Unknown Speaker 53:50
I just want to thank you for the report. It was very comprehensive, particularly this year, because there’s just so many more unanticipated moving parts. But it’s kind of incredible that you I mean, how close you were when you did the initial proposed budget, we had a planned spend down of 14 point 4 million and now we’re at 19.9. And there was a time when we were sitting here in September, not even knowing if our property tax revenue was going to arrive, or how long the governor was going to extend the extension, all COVID necessary, but all unknowns. So really, it’s incredible. I think the methodology and the diligence and the detail that you put towards us has allowed us to really be looking at an amended budget that is in a giant swing in the middle of a pandemic. So I just want to it’s just such an example, as Karen pointed out of like the system and the day to day, Dylan’s diligence that we’ve got in this school district over years and years and years of strong leadership. And I think it’s allowed us to really ride through some of these extremely bumpy times. With a modicum of control. We can, we can still get a handle on on what we’re dealing with. We’re not it’s not a We’re not through it. There could still be bumps in the way. But I’m really, really comfortable that you guys have your arms around this. And I really appreciate it. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 55:11
I just have one quick add, Karen, what I said I’m sorry, I meant to also mention that I appreciate you working with other districts to kind of investigate where the risk in all of this may come from. I know that you’re collaborating and working with so many other professionals, and I just wanted to call that out because it’s so important.
Unknown Speaker 55:34
Thanks, Karen. Tony, I don’t have anything to add to the, you know, to what Karen and Impala have already mentioned. But do just want to take an opportunity to thank the Finance and Audit Committee as well. I know that they play an important role in establishing the budget reviewing it and finances in general and really appreciate their oversight role and their professional experience that they provide to. All right. With that, then I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.2. so moved by Karen, and a second bar by Paula.
Unknown Speaker 56:16
Okay, Mr. Arens Hi, Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce, Mrs. Ragland. Hi, I’m Miss siegrist.
Unknown Speaker 56:30
i. Thanks, Barb. That brings us to the end of our meeting. And as Don mentioned, next week is a week to celebrate our counselors in St. vrain. Valley School District. So thank you to each and every one of them. We appreciate you and thank you for supporting our students will gather again here in the boardroom on Wednesday, February 10, at 6pm for a regular meeting. And with that, I will entertain a motion for adjournment. so moved by Karen. Second by Chico All in favor,
Unknown Speaker 57:06
aye.
Unknown Speaker 57:07
Good night, everyone.