Leading To Succeed #3

Episode 3 Description – Leading to Succeed: A Grant County Schools Podcast

In this episode of Leading to Succeed, Superintendent Dr. Moody sits down with Grant County Schools Finance Director Brian Linder and Assistant Finance Director/HR Director Amanda Eldridge to take a closer look at how the district budget is built. They discuss the funding sources that support Grant County Schools, how teacher allocations are determined, and the careful planning required to balance resources across the district. The conversation highlights how financial decisions connect directly to classrooms and ultimately impact students, staff, and the educational opportunities available throughout the community.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Welcome back to another episode of Leading to Succeed, a Grant County Schools podcast. Very excited to have two very important district leaders with us here today to talk about a topic that affects everyone. The classroom teacher, the classified staff, bus driver. It has truly does impact all of us, and that is our district budget. So to Brian Linder and Amanda Elders, thank you both for being here and appreciate your willingness to talk to us today, to share some information that maybe potentially will demystify the budget process and allow our viewers and listeners an opportunity to gain some insight as to exactly how that budget is developed and what the implications for the budget are across the district. As I do with every episode, I'd like to begin just by giving you both an opportunity to share a little bit about kind of your uh career journey and how did you uh land in Grant County schools in the position that you're currently in.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Well, I'll I'll start. Um I'm a Grand County graduate from 1990, uh, and from there I went to UK, graduated, uh, and then worked 16 years at Owen Electric uh in their finance department. I have an MBA from Thomas More College, and I started here uh it's been about seven or eight years ago in the finance department as the finance director. I followed Matt Morgan when he became superintendent. Okay, very good.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I graduated from here in 1993 and then went to Campbellsville University where I graduated uh with a business degree, and right before I came here I worked for Toyota for 10 years and did some HR and finance for Toyota.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I appreciate uh you saying your background, just so we're clear, Brian, you're the chief finance officer. And then Amanda, you're assistant finance and also HR, correct? Correct. Okay, well that'll certainly play into our discussion a little bit later today. So without any further hesitation, we'll just jump right in. Brian, I want to start with you and talk a little bit about the budget cycle. People may not realize that the budget is actually built over a period of several months. Do you kind of do you care to talk about the different phases of the budget cycle and what that looks like?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Sure. So there really are three key time frames that we look at. So, and I'll just use kind of right now as a good example. When we get to our fiscal year runs July 1 through June 30th, it matches the school year. So July 1 will be the new fiscal year, and we call that fiscal year 27, which will be the 26-27 school year. Um, and so when it comes to the 27 budget, we actually start in January, and we have to we are um we are supposed to provide to the board in January what they call a draft budget. Now, a draft budget you have very few pieces of the puzzle together. Uh and so it's a lot of estimations. It it's it's uh taking a look at where you're at currently in this current budget and maybe projecting out uh a possible carryover to the next year. Then in um May we will actually present to the board, which they have to pass, the tentative budget. And when we get to the tentative budget, we have more pieces to the puzzle at that point. We'll have salary tables that will be attached to that so we know what we're looking at next year in a salary uh increase. Um but we're still missing missing pieces of the puzzle. One of those would be that we're basing all that on current staff because we don't know our staff for next year. Um what something else we don't know is what it what will the tax rate be. So while it's a little bit more in-depth than the draft budget, it's still not complete. Uh then when we get to um September, we will actually the board will have to pass what we call the working budget. And that at that point, um it it has all the puzzle pieces together. We know what the our staff is, we know what the salary tables will look like, we know what our tax revenue is, by then we'll know what our seek uh information is coming from the state. And so by then we then construct a budget uh that puts all those pieces together, and then that becomes our working budget through the rest of that fiscal year.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

So uh one of the things that I found remarkable when I became superintendent is the missing puzzle pieces, as you put it. So it we're trying to establish uh salary tables in May and propose a draft budget while there are so many unknowns. So it how do you hedge against that? Um I could see a district getting into some real trouble if uh the philosophy is let's just spend every dime that we have in this year. Do you want to zero out at the end of the year? What do you do with any money that's left over and why would that be important?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Well, we we definitely try we tried not to zero out because you you need some carry over for the following year because you when you set the tax rate in August, you won't receive any of that real estate money until November, the tax collections through the month of October. So you've got to have enough to carry over through those first few months until you can get to that point. So yes, you do want to carry over. Plus, it it's also um, and I'm sure at some point we'll talk about contingency funds, but um you you also want your your carryover budget kind of becomes somewhat of a contingency fund for you, too. And and uh so no, you don't want a budget to zero. You want to have um and I think you'll see th as we go through this, um our fiscal policy is is long term, not short term. We we try to look down the road and make sure things are smooth and not and not more short term where we could lead to some problems down the road.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

I know several districts are uh struggling with that right now, and you may have seen some of those districts reported on in the news. And essentially, as best I understand it, is there was an influx of cash that occurred during the pandemic uh through ESSER relief funds, and some positions were created in districts and raises were given. And what happened is is I always heard you talk about a soft landing for this district, but perhaps other districts didn't plan as well. And so they found themselves uh with a revenue stream that dried up essentially because they weren't getting funds from the federal government to be able to continue the practices that they had initiated. So I I just want to uh take a moment to say how much I appreciate Brian, Amanda, and previous administrators for having the foresight to see that that funding was for a limited time only. So doing things like attendance bonuses and uh investing in some curriculum resources and some staff training made a lot of sense to me when I understood that because we didn't want to find ourselves in a situation like again many districts are now currently facing to have a budget deficit and then have to be tasked with the hard decision of perhaps reducing the workforce or making uh staff cuts. So thank you for having uh the wisdom to navigate through that process uh uh very skillfully. Talk to me a little bit, uh, either one of you. Do you consult with uh district leaders or principals in the development of that budget and and kind of get a feel for what the needs of the district are?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yes, I I'll take that because I deal mostly with uh on the budget side and putting it together, but uh principals not so much because they have a site-based budget and that's determined on a formula. So we try we let them know last month what you know projected on on the attendance, uh current attendance, what their site-based budget could be. But yes, we do try to check with you know technology and and uh uh maintenance and and and just those different department leaders of do they see anything coming? Because the last thing we want is to be surprised in fiscal year 27 that tr uh transportation and maintenance needs a new truck. So they've already communicated to us so we can kind of as we build that budget, we can kind of work that in. So that's not a surprise for us. And we're, you know, as you mentioned a while ago, you know, we don't budget to zero, but if you did, and then you have an air conditioned unit to go down or a surprise, uh a purchase that we weren't notified of, it it can make things a little uh tough. So yes, we do kind of reach out and and try to get a good feel of what some upcoming expenses in the next fiscal year or really down the road could be. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

So I do I do want to take a moment to also kind of let our viewers and listeners know too that you know there, and I used to say this to the high school students when I was principal all the time. Everything that exists within the district exists for their learning. So if we have to buy a truck, it's so that we can perform certain functions within the di the district to keep our schools up and running, safe, clean, all the things that are necessary and conducive to a positive learning experience and a positive learning environment. And I'm not sure that the typical uh layperson may understand that if they see a new truck uh driving down the road with the Grant County schools, you know, all vehicles have a lifespan and you can get upside down with, you know, if the vehicle's not reliable and you're pouring a lot of money into it, you know, there is an end of life for that vehicle. So we're just not out trying to make our workers comfortable, but all those things are tools to help us make our facilities and our our uh services optimized for student learning. We've even uh gone so far as to develop a strategic plan with the board, and I know that you and I have had many conversations when it comes to the budget to make sure that our budget reflects the goals of our strategic plan. And so especially when it comes to our some of our capital projects, uh those those projects are in tune and aligned with our strategic plan. So I appreciate that as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

And and just to add on to what you say, we also try to stagger those purchases too. You know, we don't we don't wait till all of our buses are ready for replacement and replace them all at once. That's right. We do a little bit every year, so it kind of spreads that cost. Same thing with you know maintenance, and if they need a vehicle, it's not we try to replace those over time so they all don't go out at one time, and it's a it's a it's a huge hit in one year.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Very good. We're gonna shift to human resources a little bit, Amanda, so this conversation will involve you. Um staff allocations and HR are impact the budget probably more than any other single domain. So I I know right now you're in the middle of running some student enrollment projections and you do that throughout the year. Can you talk to us why you do that and what the importance of that is?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Sure. We base our employee allocations, just like every school district in the state of Kentucky, on some KDE guidelines, um, and that those are based on our student numbers projected for the next school year. So at various times throughout the school year, we will run enrollment numbers and like I said, KDE provides some, the Kentucky Department of Education provides some guidelines for us, some maximum student to teacher ratios that we use to help us in determining the number of teachers or staff members that we will need in each of our school districts. So we run those throughout the year. We started this year, we started in January looking at next year. Um we ran those in January just for internally for us to look at and get our wrapper minds around what next year might look like. In February, we met with the principals for the first time and shared those numbers with them so that they could start to get their game plan together for the next school year. We'll we will do that two more times, giving them their final allocations in April so that they can be ready to go for the next school year.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

So just as a follow-up to that, you know, when I became an elementary principal, I didn't realize that those ratios were different even within an elementary school. So we we technically have a preschool ratio, we have a primary uh grades ratio, kindergarten through second grade, and then we have a third and fourth grade ratio, a fifth and sixth grade ratio, and then we have a secondary ratio. So so that everybody kind of knows out there, the number of teachers that are in a building is not arbitrary, and we don't do it again for adult comfort. We are basically following the guidelines that are set forth through statute uh that determines the class size ratio. I think the smallest is preschool 20 to 1, and I believe high school secondary is the largest, and that's right around 30 to 1, with some opportunities for some exceptions if site-based council determines that there uh needs to be an exception. So the number of teachers that we have in our schools across the district are directly correlated to the number of students that we have.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

And then we have some additional responsibilities there too. Do you want to talk about that at all?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Monitoring those numbers throughout the year. Yes. We do monitor those numbers a few times throughout the year. The very first time we do it in the school year is in September on the 20th day of school, just to make sure that we maintain those student-to-teacher ratios and we really try hard to keep our class sizes as small as we can for the benefit of the students. So we do monitor those throughout the year, adding staff as needed.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

And then I'll say that one of the things that I appreciate about Grant County when I got here that's a little bit different than other districts that I'm uh aware of, is that we work real hard to make sure that each of our elementary schools have a full-time school counselor and that we have a media specialist, and we support in various other ways. Uh, we have curriculum specialists that are assigned throughout the district. And then we are obligated too, there's ratios associated with uh students with uh IEPs that we have to ensure that they're receiving the services as prescribed in their individual education plan. So those are added staff. So it uh um when you take a look at the number of teachers that we have in the district, all of those things are a part of uh that calculation. And then we have related service providers too. I think of speech and language uh and some uh occupational therapy, and then we have uh support for English as a second language students uh within the district. So it it really is a big puzzle going back to Brian's metaphor earlier, that we really have to ensure that we're meeting the needs of all students and that we are staffing according to the ratio and that we are uh being as judicious as we can with our money and our budget uh to ensure that we're providing the best education we can within the constraints and guidelines that we have.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

And and just to add on to that, and I think it's always a good point, we don't print money in the basement.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

We don't so we do have a a set pie that we have to work from. And so we have to make sure that when we allocate things, we're allocating them to the best um for the student and for the employer. Um because we're we we don't have an unlimited source of cash that we can just do whatever we want. Um I was talking to the Boone County finance director the other day, and he says one thing he says to his board is we can do anything you want, but we can't do everything you want. And I thought that was that was a very good phrase that we can do a lot of things. We can't do everything, but we can do some things.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Well, to that point, occasionally we are the benefit uh beneficiary of a windfall every uh now and then. So I do know that we've uh had some grant funded positions uh over the past few years. Do you want to talk about how those work? Are those permanent positions or or how do they operate?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

So we have several funds across our budget, and I I'll leave most of them out, but yeah, or I I'll focus on the two main ones. But to just to mention the other ones, we have a capital outlay, a building fund, a construction fund, food service, though a lot of those different funds. But when we talk about um, you know, especially when it comes to the board and what they're in charge of or allocate, they just allocate our general fund, which we call fund one. But we also have a fund two, which is made up of federal and state grants. Um and so we have the ability to use those. Now those are usually targeted for specific things. It could be special ed, like our IDEA budget. Um we have title funds, which is for at-risk students, and so we are those allow us to have additional staff in our elementary schools that we probably wouldn't be able to have if we just had general fund money. So we try to use our title allocations to pick up three or four more teachers in our in our elementary schools because that helps our at-risk students and our special needs students.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

And just to clarify, that's above and beyond the the the ratio. So it's supplemental. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yes. So now, usually when it comes to state and federal grants, you know, there's some strings of tied. And what and when I say strings tied is there's certain things that we can and we cannot do with them. Um we can't go build a ball field with the federal funds. You know, so um, and we are monitored, we're audited, um, we're monitored by KDE, um, and and at times even the federal government. So we have to do uh reports for that. So um, yes, federal funds and state grants are a real asset to us. Um but we also we like to keep those well, they have to be kept separate from the general fund, but what we operate um when I say we, the board um in the school district, the local taxpayer, those are all um from general fund money.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Very good. It's a great transition into our next topic, which I know that you know a lot about, Brian. I want to talk about SEC and local effort and uh a little bit about the distinction between the two. Um so uh seek stands for supporting education excellence in Kentucky, and that's been around for a number of years. I believe that was implemented with CARA, if I'm not mistaken. The legislative act that occurred in 1990 that addressed uh a reform in Kentucky education. Can you talk to us a little bit about what SEAK is and how that affects our funding?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

So to mention the legislation that you brought up from 1990, um the the courts ruled Kentucky school districts were unconstitution how they were funded was unconstitutional. Um and so what they found was that um some di poor districts were having uh having issues with their funding, and so they created a formula, and that formula has always been looked at and talked about being changed and could be changed at any point. Uh but but basically what it does is it it looks at uh we we are guaranteed a per pupil, which I think this year is just a little bit over$4,500. Uh and our seek formula, it's a formula that the state uses. It takes um one of the main so there's several pieces to that puzzle too, but you know, it takes your ADA, your uh your average daily attendance is a part of that. Uh-huh. Your local taxes, uh, your tax base is a part of that.

unknown 19:43

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

And and then they what they do is is as a for example, a poorer district will get more state uh funding through SEC, a more wealthy district would get less SIK, but that's made up by their local tax base. And so Grant County kind of falls about in the middle of the state. We're uh even at the board meeting, what was the phrase you last yeah?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

You said we're too rich to be poor and too poor to be rich.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yes. So I guess that would assume that we're middle class. Right, right. But um, but so yes, so we're we're we're kinda in that middle realm where we we we're having a lot of um our property values in Grand County are going up. Um and so as that happens year to year, we're starting to see a little bit less of our seat, uh our seat numbers tends to um come down just a little bit to to meet that guaranteed per student fund. Um and so it's it's something that it's it's you know it can be both a blessing and and and something that we have to deal with because as we get as as our as our county and our district becomes more wealthy, we're going to get less money from the state. And we just learn need to learn as we budget how to deal with that.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

And just as a point of clarification, when you say wealth, we're we're really talking about the total assessed values of property throughout the county. And if I remember at our work session last night, we had a presentation from our finance advisor, and we are almost at$2 billion worth of wealth. Property value in the county, yes. And so that does uh impact uh the level of state contribution versus local effort. Correct. So when we're talking about local effort, we're we're essentially talking about the school tax, is that correct? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

So really general fund has two main, I mean there are several re uh revenue avenues, I'm sorry, avenues of revenue that comes in through the general fund. The the two main ones are the seek funding from the state and then from our local tax. So we talked earlier about setting the tax rate in August. Um people will pay their property tax either in October, November, or December. Um, and then that we we get a portion of that the with the tax rate that was set by the board, and that's our second really main pot of money in our. general fund. So we that's our local effort. That's that's um that's what we get. And so those two things together make up mostly of our general fund.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Okay. Well I appreciate that clarification on that. You know and a lot of times people I ha I hesitate to bring this up but I want to be transparent. A lot of times if you look at your property tax bill the largest tax will be the school tax on that. But I would also point out that uh we're typically if not the largest employer within a a taxable district the second largest I believe I saw a report not long ago that Payot County was the second largest uh employer in Payot County the public schools and I think their budget is in the billions um but it it it does impact a lot of people and it takes a lot of money to run a school district uh as we talked just about staffing and how we have to meet the needs of of all children and there's a lot of responsibility and a lot of pieces a lot of working and moving parts to be able to support a child's education so that's a little bit of clarification that I think it's important for people to understand that it's a it's a sizable operation and oftentimes the biggest economic generator in a community and uh probably the largest if not one of the top employers within a community as well. Thank you for uh sharing on that.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

We've talked about federal grants a little bit um I want to talk uh about cost saving initiatives what can a school district do and specifically what has Grant County done to try to save some costs over the years uh one thing one I mean a few years ago we did an energy savings contract uh that was major for us to kind of cut those cost um you know well what what is that what is an energy saving well that's where we put um controls on on HVAC so like you know if you think about the when when school is out over Christmas we're not heating we're not heating a chair without a student in it um or you know over the summer we'll have cutbacks um we put you know several things on in to cut our water bill and so those are some cost savings that we've seen um but but there are um it there are several other things but we we we are constantly trying to look I mean even to the point last night where um Brian from RSA was talking about you know when it gets to a certain point we'll refinance a bond and save you know a couple hundred thousand dollars on on that so it's just something that we're constantly looking at.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Another thing from a superintendent lens is we're uh involved with two education co-ops that are set up through the state and there's a lot of services that we utilize through those education co-ops that are free of cost just because we are members of those co-ops. I do want to brag on our Office of Teaching and Learning for a minute too just last year they were responsible for s for securing over$1.7 million worth of grants that we've been able to provide teachers with some relief time out of class and high quality professional development. So anytime that we can save some money or anytime that we can get something paid for I feel like this office has aggressively pursued those options and a grant is not a small undertaking as you know there's tons of monitoring and reporting and data sharing that has to go along with those grants.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Amanda what about from an HR perspective what are some cost saving initiatives that Grant County has engaged in some of the most recent things that we've done we've moved a lot of things online and the more that you move online the less paper pushing manual time entry stuff like that. So that has allowed some of our staff members to reduce the number of days that they want to work and that's an option for them if they would like to but even here in the district office we have several staff members who have reduced the number of days that they want to work which is a cost savings to the district.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yeah I can remember when I I've only been in the district since 2019 and no disrespect to any former uh departments or administrators but um we did not even have electronic time cards uh that is correct during that time and my paycheck was delivered to me via the pony mail. That is correct and so we've come a long way over the course of the past few years and appreciate your efforts on that and I do agree I think it it takes some of the manual steps out of it and so we're able to access information quicker and synthesize it at a much faster pace. So we've been able to reduce some days for some employees that normally were just engaged in the processing of those documents.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And not only not only does it save money by reducing days but it also makes them more efficient and be able to s to do more things than what maybe staff in the past were able to do because I remember payroll uh when I first started here was a it it was a several day process where um they went through they had several people that would go through a proof um manually entering things and and um we were manually calculating people's hours.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

And so now you know Amanda through her efforts through frontline and and a lot of the online things that employees are now doing it makes it it makes it more efficient for the employee where they only have to go in and and click in and click out but um it does make make their depart our department um uh more efficient and be able to do more things in less days than we've ever been able to do before.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

And it's still with no shortage of work to be done. No again going back to all the reporting the monitoring I know you've recently just worked on the printing of W-2s that's no small task. And so the department I feel like is always busy both departments because you have to prepare for uh uh audits and and the budget cycle and so there's there's always something to do but I appreciate the effort to work smarter not harder throughout that process.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

And I mentioned this at the board meeting and I I'll say it one more time. They run twenty twenty one million in payroll a year. Twenty-one million uh uh uh payroll and auditors came in and found zero mistakes that's impressive yes I I mean if you really stop and think about the the amount of money that is you know run through that through payroll and and without one mistake that was you know the I mean we do we make mistakes yes we make mistakes and we we find them and we fix them but um when the auditors come in they found no mistakes and I think that's rare for when they go into school districts and audit.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Well kudos to the department for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

So you you talked about audit that as provides a perfect segue into our next segment which has to do with transparency. So what you said that the school district is audited how often does that occur and what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 29:06

It's becoming more and more a big part of my job. We are audited yearly because of the federal funds that went through all the school districts back during COVID and just to kind of wrap a number it was over$10 million that that Grant County received from what we call SERD COVID funds. Now we've spent that's all been spent um there was time limits on the on to do that but auditors were tasked with really deep dive auditing to make sure that those funds were being spent the way they were and and of course we we we followed the letter of the law but they the result I think of that is that audits today are seem to be more I mean just last year we went through I don't even know if I can name them all we go through our regular yearly finance financial audit but KDE also does auditing we were audited on Title I we I think audited on IDEA and so it seems like constantly people are coming and groups are coming in needing to see this and we have been that's usually when we sit down with our auditors one of the first things we say to them is we are completely transparent. You ask whatever you need if we will get it for you and if we're not doing it we want to be able to do it. And you know the auditors will comment at the board meeting that that they really appreciate the transparency of our staff and getting them not only what they need but get it to them in a timely manner. They they will talk about how other school districts will him hum around and not give them what they need and we've never done that. We've always given them what they wanted. So we we we try to be transparent uh as as as transparent can be we put um I send to Danielle every month the financial report it's on the um it's on the website so anybody could get on and see where the uh how money is being spent um my office is always open to either employees or the public um and I'll mention we we we really look at we have three main clients we have students we have employees and we have taxpayers and we want to be transparent to all groups um and so I my office our offices are always open for anybody from the public or or or any of our staff that wants to come in sit down and just ask questions and like I said we'll say the same thing we say to the auditors. We'll we'll get you whatever you want um and if we don't have it we'll we'll figure out how to get it for you.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

One thing that I think is important to mention too about the audits is sometimes we have policies and procedures in place because of auditors. We don't say no or do things to our staff members you know just because that's what we want to do. We've been told that by auditors this is how the process has to flow. And so I think if people could understand that sometimes I think you read my mind.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

I was going to make that uh point too that as superintendent I've made people unhappy sometimes with hard decisions and I have to say no to some requests and that's not because I take any delight in saying no and I am not sympathetic or empathetic towards their case, but to your point that um we are audited and it is reviewed and if we are in noncompliance we will be cited and depending on the type of audit is that there could be some corrective action that is required and potentially some funding cuts uh imposed as a sanction for not being compliant. So a lot of our policies and regs as you pointed out are not arbitrary. They're they're because they're best practices and they are in alignment with the guidelines that are set forth uh by those grant givers. So that's a important I appreciate you making that distinction. All right well this has been a good conversation I appreciate both of you taking the time to talk with us today and I'm sure our viewers and listeners have learned a lot. I do want to close with a final question. So as as the CFO what is one thing that you wish every community member understood about school district finance um one thing huh that's well you feel free to go over that.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

I I think I've already kind of brought up a couple things um you know I think maybe and I'll I'll I I'll address maybe with the public on this because I think the public will see uh you know we've we've had people come to the board meeting and say oh I've seen your bank account in and you why don't you cut taxes? And there's a variety of reasons. One we talked about you know being able to have a contingency fund we didn't mention we we try to have a contingency fund of at least five percent uh KDE I'm sorry not KDE but the legislature is looking at passing a law this year that would mandate a two and a half percent uh we want to be above that there are districts who have 10% we feel like that's not being a good use of of our dollars so we've kind of settled on five percent but we'll have a bank account in inside that bank account includes money for our bonds uh next week I will pay a bond of a million dollars I've got to have that in the bank so we have separations of funds uh food service the money that's in food service cannot be used anywhere else in the district the money that's set aside for our bonds for our bond payment and our construction cannot be used for raises or or anything else. So I think there is sometimes misconception when people see maybe a bank account and say well they've got all this money why can't they give a raise or why can't they do a a tax decrease or a tax cut? And the and the answer is is if we could we would we try to budget within those limits because we know that come April or end yeah first of April I've got a million dollar bond payment and that's one of about six seven bond payments I make throughout the year. So I just think that uh if I could could communicate one thing is that they we do have what we call restricted funds. And they can you know a fun an amount of money cannot be used for anything else. It's restricted.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

I appreciate that. Amanda what about you?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

I think I would I would say we truly do a really good job here when we're making staffing decisions. We really do put the students first. How can we keep those class sizes small and what's best for our students.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Yeah student learning is is what I say that we do better than any other institution and that's the way it ought to be and that's what we'll preserve. I want to go ahead and jump in and give an answer too because I've learned a lot over the past uh couple of years about district uh finance and that would be to say that sometimes I think when people see the budget they assume that there's cash all that uh bottom line is cash on hand in the bank. And that's certainly not the way that it works. So that we are a pass-through and that we have waves of income that are inconsistent throughout the course of the year. And we have uh sometimes encounters where government shutdowns or political um reasons that budgets may uh be interrupted or cut and so some money that we have budgeted to receive through federal grants may be in jeopardy and then we have to pivot. So going back to that five percent contingency it's for reasons like that because once we contract an employee for an entire year regardless of what the government does we are obligated to meet our con the terms of our contract. So I know that's happened to several districts even as as recently as this past year. So to know that it's not all of that money is sitting in the bank on July 1 and we have um access to it. That it is very much a best guess and that we have to be adaptable throughout the year. And then the other thing is there's uh unforeseen costs and uh uh we've recently had to replace a boiler at the high school it was approximately 28 years old and it had come to its end of life and so uh we have to be able to fund that and so it's important for us to have some money on hand. Well again I appreciate you both sharing your wisdom I appreciate the work that you do I appreciate the attention to student learning and uh responsibility and making sure that we're clean on audits I know that's no small task so I think it's great for our community to get have an opportunity to hear from you and see you and to know a little bit more about the work. And so until next time on Leading to Succeed we wish you all a good week and we'll see you next month with another opportunity to learn more about leadership within the Grand County School District. Thank you so much for the