Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
36:00 …
3:02:35 back to school.
3:02:46 I respectfully urge the school board to accept my recommendation
3:02:50 that provides
3:02:51 our teachers a more competitive raise, the highest in the last
3:02:55 three years. It
3:02:56 recognizes all teacher groups including first-year teachers and
3:03:02 our ESC teachers,
3:03:03 provides a more competitive compensation enhancement. Although
3:03:09 my latest
3:03:10 recommendation does not come without some risk and sacrifice, I
3:03:14 believe it is the right thing to do. We can commit to these
3:03:18 additional financial
3:03:19 obligations for our teachers. Although it utilizes some reserves,
3:03:24 we will make the
3:03:25 necessary adjustments to sustain this commitment for our
3:03:28 employees. I thank the
3:03:31 board again for their time and I’m happy to answer any questions.
3:03:41 Board members at this time I would like to provide you with an
3:03:45 opportunity to
3:03:46 ask any questions you may have to Mr. Helsby or Dr. Mullins.
3:03:49 Remember you have
3:03:51 the same opportunity to ask questions of the BFT and its
3:03:54 representatives and you
3:03:55 will have an opportunity to ask final questions of either side
3:03:58 once both
3:03:58 presentations have been made. Do any board members have any
3:04:05 questions?
3:04:09 Okay. Ms. Campbell, the floor is yours. Going back to the slide
3:04:18 with the annual
3:04:20 raises, the historical raises from 2000, I’m sorry, it says
3:04:24 annual raise all
3:04:25 employee groups at the top and it starts with the 2008 through
3:04:33 2011 where the
3:04:34 Great Recession period. I just want to, I think I know the
3:04:39 answer to this, but I just
3:04:40 want to make sure for clarification, fiscal year 15-16 where it
3:04:44 was a 5.1
3:04:45 percent increase. Can you explain that? That was the year
3:04:51 after I know we passed the half-cent sales tax and there were
3:04:54 some adjustments
3:04:54 that were made. Do you have the history as far as why that year
3:04:59 was so
3:05:00 much larger than any of the other years around? I believe it was
3:05:05 in part as a
3:05:06 result of some significant increase in state funding as well as
3:05:11 some significant
3:05:12 efforts to reduce district budgets. Ms. Sircher, is that correct?
3:05:15 Yes, sir, that is
3:05:17 correct. Okay, thank you. Ms. Campbell, is that your last
3:05:23 question for now? Maybe,
3:05:24 just a second. Do you want me to move on to Mr. Susan and circle
3:05:29 back to you?
3:05:42 I’m good for now, thank you. Mr. Susan, the floor is yours. Yes,
3:05:49 so what I see is
3:05:51 is that the reoccurring offer from the the district is six
3:05:56 million six hundred
3:05:56 and fifty one thousand nine hundred and forty-three. Is that
3:05:59 what I see on the…
3:06:00 What slide are you on, sir? Well, I mean, I can pull it up, but.
3:06:06 What was your
3:06:10 question again? It’s okay. Operating, funding, calculation of
3:06:13 available
3:06:14 reoccurring funds, available reoccurring funding, and it goes
3:06:18 down to your offer
3:06:19 at eleven hundred. My question, I guess, would be better formed.
3:06:22 How much is the
3:06:23 total reoccurring cost of your most recent offer at eleven
3:06:27 hundred dollars?
3:06:28 From your slides it says six million six hundred fifty one
3:06:31 thousand nine
3:06:31 hundred and forty three, but I’d like to just ask what it is. Mr.
3:06:36 Susan, can… The
3:06:36 total cost is nine point five million. It’s right here. Right,
3:06:41 but your actual
3:06:42 reoccurring cost out of there makes up how much of that nine
3:06:45 point five? Six
3:06:47 million two hundred and sixty nine thousand seven hundred and
3:06:51 sixty dollars.
3:06:51 All right, and then, Ms. Zirkler, you may be able to help out.
3:06:56 If we were to move
3:06:57 towards the the union’s offer… Mr. Susan, I hate to interrupt,
3:07:01 but we are having a
3:07:02 hard time following you and I want to make sure we have… Can
3:07:04 you? Sure. Is there
3:07:05 a page number? It doesn’t. I apologize, but it doesn’t. We’re
3:07:08 just… I’m just trying to
3:07:09 locate what the reoccurring balance is that we are you drawing
3:07:13 from for the
3:07:14 total amount. That’s all. And Penny just said it’s six million
3:07:17 two hundred sixty
3:07:17 nine thousand seven hundred and sixty. Right here. Funding for
3:07:20 proposed
3:07:20 resolution slide. It is slide 10. Some of the numbers on there
3:07:29 are off. It’s okay. I
3:07:30 numbered them all, but if you’re… Okay. Okay. Yeah, well I
3:07:35 think we’ve got it. We
3:07:36 just want to follow along so we know what you’re… The union’s
3:07:39 proposal per
3:07:39 documentation that I received, thank you Ms. Envold for putting
3:07:42 all of this
3:07:43 together, is that a twenty three hundred dollar raise is is
3:07:46 close to twelve
3:07:47 million nine hundred and twenty one thousand seven hundred and
3:07:50 three. Now
3:07:51 Penny, have you looked at that? And I will tell you, a lot of
3:07:58 the laughs
3:07:59 and stuff in the background, it doesn’t help the position. So I
3:08:02 appreciate it if
3:08:03 we could be like we were when we were teachers, when I was a
3:08:06 teacher and
3:08:06 respect the individuals that are up here that are making the
3:08:08 decision. I will tell
3:08:10 you that. Go ahead. All right, go ahead Penny. Yes, I’ve seen
3:08:16 and calculated
3:08:17 their offer. So that is correct about twelve million nine
3:08:20 hundred and twenty
3:08:21 one thousand. For the total offer that is correct. So we’re at a
3:08:24 difference of six
3:08:25 million six hundred and fifty one thousand nine hundred and
3:08:28 forty three, roughly if I do my
3:08:29 numbers. No sir, our cost is for the eleven hundred eight twenty
3:08:34 five. The recurring
3:08:35 portion is nine point five million. We have six point three in
3:08:39 recurring
3:08:40 dollars currently available. The difference of three point two
3:08:43 will be
3:08:44 used this year for eighteen nineteen funded from fund balance,
3:08:48 followed up
3:08:49 with committed cuts to fund it on a recurring basis. So what you’re
3:08:53 saying
3:08:53 Penny is is that and if I hear you correctly is we have six
3:08:56 million two
3:08:56 hundred and sixty nine thousand seven hundred and sixty that is
3:09:00 our
3:09:00 reoccurring funds available. You’ve added three million roughly
3:09:05 of the extra
3:09:06 dollars from non-reoccurring to come to the total of did you say
3:09:09 what was that
3:09:10 I’m sorry. Nine point five million. Okay, nine point five
3:09:13 million. Mr. Susan keep in
3:09:15 mind that this reflects all employee groups. This is our total
3:09:19 recurring compensation for all employee groups. That is correct.
3:09:23 The twelve point
3:09:24 nine for BFT is only for them. That’s what I was getting at. So
3:09:27 if we’re
3:09:28 looking at a true difference so you guys when you’re presenting
3:09:31 this are saying
3:09:32 that nine point five would be the total amount what is it
3:09:36 exactly so what is the
3:09:40 total amount for the teachers union employee group that we are
3:09:43 offering at
3:09:44 the table today. Does that make sense? The teach the BFT portion
3:09:53 of the recurring
3:09:54 cost is five point eight million dollars for the two point three
3:10:00 percent raise
3:10:01 followed by another nine hundred and fifty five thousand for the
3:10:05 ESC
3:10:06 supplement. So it’s five point eight million dollars for the two
3:10:11 point three
3:10:11 percent raise at eleven hundred right? Correct. Okay now if we
3:10:17 were only
3:10:18 dealing with the BFT’s bargaining group at a twenty three
3:10:22 hundred dollar raise
3:10:25 would be twelve million nine hundred and twenty one thousand
3:10:27 seven hundred and
3:10:28 three according to their documentation. I believe that includes
3:10:32 the ESC raise. When
3:10:34 I looked at it on page. What I’m trying to establish is the
3:10:49 difference between
3:10:50 the district’s offer and the unions offer. Approximately six
3:10:53 point three million. Six point
3:10:55 three million. After our increase last week at the time of the
3:11:00 impasse hearing
3:11:01 it was approximately eight point five million dollars. That is
3:11:03 correct. So we’re
3:11:05 looking at six point three million dollars of reoccurring
3:11:07 difference
3:11:07 between the two offers. Correct. Okay. I’ll follow back up and
3:11:13 give some people some time. I have a question
3:11:15 Dr. Mullins and Ms. Zuercher. The three point two million that
3:11:21 wasn’t part of
3:11:23 the original proposal right? That is something recent you’ve
3:11:27 brought in with
3:11:27 the new proposal. Correct. And you’re pulling that from reserves.
3:11:32 Correct. Some
3:11:33 of it was accumulated by the reduction in the bonus but it did
3:11:36 require
3:11:36 additional fund balance reserves to meet the difference. Say
3:11:39 that again. Some of
3:11:41 the fund some of the non-recurring dollars was realized from the
3:11:46 reduction
3:11:47 in the bonus. The three part of that three point two? Correct.
3:11:51 Okay. But there were
3:11:52 additional fund balance dollars required to make up the
3:11:55 difference. But the bonus
3:11:57 was a one-time. Correct. So technically it’s new that you want
3:12:03 to pull three
3:12:04 point two million dollars out of reserves out of savings. For
3:12:08 2018-19. And
3:12:10 then I believe you said in your presentation that you’re going
3:12:13 to look
3:12:13 for cuts in the future but we don’t know what those cuts are. We
3:12:16 are already
3:12:17 working on those as a senior cabinet and finance team. Yes.
3:12:25 One other area of the three point nine million in the committed
3:12:41 fund balance.
3:12:45 Yes. So are you pulling here’s my concern I’m not I’m not quite
3:12:52 sure how to word
3:12:53 it. The 3.9 million in the committed fund balance if you’re
3:12:57 pulling from that for
3:12:58 this raise and that funds currently pay for our 16 reading
3:13:02 coaches and our seven
3:13:03 social workers that gives me great concern. So is that is that
3:13:07 where it’s
3:13:08 coming from? Because that that fund is not being utilized at all.
3:13:11 It will
3:13:12 continue to fund those positions for 19-20. But and you don’t
3:13:17 know where the
3:13:18 3.2 is coming from but that is part. We are committed to further
3:13:25 additional
3:13:26 budget reductions. We’ve also looked at our budget projections
3:13:29 for next year
3:13:29 which we just received and confirmed that we have some budget
3:13:33 savings as a
3:13:33 result of increases in categoricals that were being funded by
3:13:37 the district so we
3:13:38 can recapture those dollars. And we’ve already identified some
3:13:41 budget
3:13:42 reductions. In the millions though I you’re speaking in general
3:13:47 terms I’m
3:13:48 concerned where that 3.2 is coming. I don’t want to vote for
3:13:50 something today
3:13:51 and then a year from now here we have to lose our reading
3:13:54 coaches or our social
3:13:56 workers because we voted for this today. I want to have a
3:13:59 tangible thing that’s
3:14:01 going to be cut. We’ve already begun the cuts I can’t outline
3:14:06 them to you
3:14:07 specifically. We’ve identified vacant positions that we will
3:14:11 eliminate in
3:14:11 addition to some budget reductions across the district. I’ll be
3:14:15 utilizing my
3:14:16 experience as chief operating officer to revisit our operations
3:14:20 and identify some
3:14:21 revenue savings due to efficiencies as well that we’ve that have
3:14:25 been brought
3:14:26 to our attention very recently. Thank you Dr. Mullins. Does any
3:14:30 other board member
3:14:30 have a question for Dr. Mullins before we move on to BFT? Mr.
3:14:36 Susan. Is there any
3:14:38 kind of so the district says that our credit rating drops our
3:14:43 loans will go up
3:14:44 basically and we will cost us more district revenue right? Is
3:14:48 there any it
3:14:49 does that occur at the point of us renewing our loans or does
3:14:53 that occur at
3:14:54 the point of us just falling below? Is it a reoccurring amount?
3:14:59 Let me actually
3:15:00 clarify that if we drop in our credit rating it will not impact
3:15:04 our current
3:15:05 interest rate it will prohibit us from getting a better interest
3:15:11 rate at the
3:15:12 time of refinancing. And when Ms. Zuercher are those refinancing
3:15:16 loans available to
3:15:18 be refinanced? I think they’re in like a 20 year page and we
3:15:21 just renewed a
3:15:22 couple of them? We have there they come in series the next
3:15:25 series will be in 2023
3:15:27 that we can look at those are 2013 bonds. So we’re concerned
3:15:33 about the fund balance
3:15:35 in 2023 currently falling below what was it 8%? We are concerned
3:15:44 about it in 2023
3:15:46 however these credit ratings agencies rate us annually and
3:15:51 falling prior to
3:15:53 that will impact the way we are viewed on the market at the time
3:15:58 we go to
3:15:58 refinance if it appears that we are not stable or improving. And
3:16:04 that in that
3:16:04 sweet spot’s right around 8% is that what I’m hearing you say?
3:16:07 Where is it
3:16:08 that they’re concerned about us dropping below our current rate
3:16:11 of double-a
3:16:12 rating? They are comfortable with where we’ve been holding our
3:16:16 history however
3:16:17 as Moody’s had mentioned in their report we are far below where
3:16:21 they see other
3:16:22 districts. What they have attributed to it is our conservative
3:16:28 management and
3:16:30 ability to cover needs when they occur and willingness to do the
3:16:34 cuts necessary.
3:16:36 So you say our history one of the questions I have is is that if
3:16:40 you go
3:16:41 back about four or five six years and you look at our history we’ve
3:16:45 hovered
3:16:46 between 37 million and where we are today. I think 37 million
3:16:51 was six years
3:16:52 ago on our fund balance and we’ve pretty much stayed within that
3:16:55 going up 7
3:16:56 million going down 7 million and in between there is that about?
3:16:59 That is
3:16:59 correct but when we were at 37 million our credit rating was not
3:17:03 at a double A2.
3:17:04 Right so the question is is to get to 8% is kind of the sweet
3:17:09 spot where we want
3:17:10 to be so that we don’t fall below that so that our credit rating
3:17:13 doesn’t fall
3:17:14 below and we can continue the paying the interest rates that we
3:17:17 have. And I’d like
3:17:18 to point out that is the financial condition ratio that’s
3:17:21 important. Gotcha
3:17:22 and that comes up in 2023? Yes. Okay and then I had a quick
3:17:26 question as to which
3:17:28 of the actual carry forwards medical insurance school operations
3:17:32 all of that
3:17:33 stuff actually counts towards that 8% or is it all of it? The
3:17:38 let me get back to
3:17:41 the and I’m sorry it’s on page I’ve numbered all the slides it’s
3:17:44 my page 12
3:17:45 if you’re counting back. No I have it I just need to move to
3:17:48 that spot I
3:17:49 apologize. Sure. Included in that are encumbrances, carry
3:18:00 forwards, medical
3:18:01 insurance, school operations, board required contingency, the
3:18:05 non-recurring
3:18:06 funding, FEFP reserve and the miscellaneous reserve. Okay not
3:18:11 school
3:18:12 operations? No I if I didn’t say school operations then I missed
3:18:17 that yes it is
3:18:18 everything from encumbrances down. Okay not committed fund
3:18:21 balance, not state
3:18:23 categoricals, not prepaid expenses, inventory on hand any of
3:18:26 that? Correct.
3:18:27 Those are not included is assigned unassigned fund balances only.
3:18:31 Perfect
3:18:32 thank you Ms. Zirkert. The other question I had is in the 3.1
3:18:35 million dollars for
3:18:36 medical insurance did we add that to our report to the state
3:18:39 when we added the
3:18:41 numbers every year for the last couple I think this was brought
3:18:43 on by Dr.
3:18:44 Binggeli which the district provided the information that he put
3:18:47 that so that we
3:18:48 can catch in between the salaries. That 3.1 million is that
3:18:53 addressed to the
3:18:54 state when we were filing our numbers? It was inadvertently
3:18:57 added on 17/18/12/08
3:19:00 report due to a misunderstanding of what that reserve was for.
3:19:04 So it was not in
3:19:06 16/17 it was in 17/18 but it will be in our it will not be in 18/19.
3:19:15 Okay hang on
3:19:17 just a second. If you have anybody else that had any questions.
3:19:21 If you want to
3:19:22 keep looking I have another question. Yeah just moving around
3:19:25 here. Ms. Zirkert you said to in
3:19:27 order to go with what the Union is recommending we need that 3.2
3:19:31 million
3:19:31 which Mr. Dr. Mullins has brought forward plus a 6.3 million is
3:19:37 that
3:19:37 correct or 6.3 include the 3.2 million in cuts you’ve already?
3:19:41 To go with Dr.
3:19:42 Mullins it is the 6.3 we already have plus 3.2 from the non-recurring.
3:19:48 We would
3:19:48 need another the difference between that and the Union’s
3:19:53 difference which was
3:19:54 another 6.3 million. So we need another 6.3 on top of the 3.2.
3:20:01 Ms. Deskovich no we the recurring commitment forward is 3.2. The
3:20:07 6.3 is
3:20:08 already captured funds for 18/19 and are recurring going into
3:20:12 the future. So what
3:20:13 is the number I thought Mr. Susan asked what the number was the
3:20:17 difference? That
3:20:17 was the difference between our current recurring commitment
3:20:22 based on my
3:20:22 proposal and the Union’s proposed compensation. It would be an
3:20:28 additional
3:20:28 6.2 6.3 million dollars. That’s the number I want to look at
3:20:34 give me just a
3:20:34 second Mr. Susan. So that has to come out of fund balance
3:20:39 somewhere that additional
3:20:40 6.2 if we go that way. Correct for 2018/19. Can you point us and
3:20:45 show us where that would come from
3:20:47 because obviously there’s things from the state we cannot touch
3:20:50 legally. So
3:20:52 would that come out of committed? It would essentially likely
3:20:58 come from the
3:20:59 board required contingency. Which legally which per our policy
3:21:04 can’t go
3:21:05 below 3.5. Correct it would require board amended a board
3:21:08 amendment to the
3:21:09 policy. Ms. Zuercher I’m asking Ms. Zuercher just cuz I think
3:21:14 she might know do you
3:21:15 know what other districts what their fund balance what their I’ve
3:21:23 spoken to
3:21:24 other school district board members and they have board policies
3:21:27 that are seven
3:21:28 percent eight percent twenty percent ours is three point five do
3:21:32 you happen
3:21:34 to know maybe surrounding counties comparable counties what
3:21:36 their board
3:21:37 policies are is that just okay if I may miss deskevich I draw
3:21:43 you back to the
3:21:44 financial risk ratio slide that reflects Brevard’s fund balance
3:21:49 or excuse me
3:21:50 financial risk ratio in comparison to other district all other
3:21:54 districts in
3:21:55 the state that was slide I believe thirty five that’s not
3:22:09 necessarily their
3:22:10 fund balances it or do they use that to come up with the
3:22:12 financial condition
3:22:13 idea the fund balance is used as the foundation of calculating
3:22:18 the financial
3:22:19 risk ratio by the state it’s a consistent calculation for all
3:22:23 districts and you can see Brevard is at the median and we’ve
3:22:27 consistently been
3:22:28 there other districts have considerably higher fiscal financial
3:22:35 Fisk financial
3:22:36 risk ratios than we do upwards of twenty five plus percent okay
3:22:42 so if we pulled
3:22:43 six point two or three million wherever that number is the
3:22:47 difference out of the
3:22:48 board contingency what then is our percentage you said are it
3:22:54 would we
3:22:55 would have to adopt a new board policy or amendment but would we
3:23:00 now fall below
3:23:01 the state required 3.0 and really put ourselves in risk that’s
3:23:04 what I need to
3:23:05 understand because the state uses all the funds that we’ve
3:23:09 presented that are
3:23:10 committed and identified for other things it wouldn’t
3:23:13 necessarily draw our
3:23:14 financial risk ratio below the 3% to notify to the state however
3:23:19 it’s not
3:23:20 just a 6.2 million dollar obligation for 1819 the the Union’s
3:23:26 proposal is to then
3:23:27 use the salary attrition rate over the next several years to
3:23:31 make up that
3:23:32 funding so our calculation is approximately 1.4 million dollars
3:23:37 so
3:23:38 next year there’d be a 1.4 million dollar recovery against the 6.2
3:23:44 million
3:23:44 dollar obligation so it’d be 6.2 million dollars this year next
3:23:49 year would be
3:23:49 another fund balance commitment of approximately 4.8 million
3:23:53 dollars the
3:23:54 next year it would decrease again by 1.4 million so over a
3:23:58 period of time
3:23:59 approximately five to six years I’ve calculated the fund balance
3:24:03 calculation
3:24:04 of well over 20 million dollars Thank You dr. Mullins mr. Susan
3:24:12 do you have
3:24:13 your question now I think there was a question that I think you
3:24:16 had where you
3:24:16 asked what the percentage was and you said it was right around 5%
3:24:21 mrs. ochre if
3:24:23 we add all of the identified fund balances that are identified
3:24:27 by the
3:24:28 state for our base and the Moody’s and everybody else’s credit
3:24:32 rating do you
3:24:33 know what percentage that is currently what our current what our
3:24:37 financial
3:24:38 condition ratio is currently if you take fifty eight million
3:24:40 three hundred and
3:24:41 twenty two thousand three hundred and twenty four dollars and
3:24:44 subtract the
3:24:44 inventory on hand prepaid expenses state categoricals and then
3:24:48 came out with that
3:24:48 total number I wanted mrs. ochre or mrs. deskevich had said we
3:24:52 were on 5% but I’m
3:24:54 doing my calculations were 8.9% it’s 8.26% is our financial
3:24:59 ratio condition
3:25:00 for fiscal year 17 18 okay we’ve not received the state’s
3:25:09 calculation of our
3:25:10 financial risk ratio for 18 19 yet it should be coming out
3:25:13 shortly the other
3:25:14 question I had if I can keep going keep going so I was I was
3:25:19 looking at the
3:25:21 conversation that the individual had that presented the 30 30
3:25:24 page report on
3:25:25 our financial conditions said that our our state board
3:25:29 contingency is reducing
3:25:31 right but our actual overall general fund balance is increasing
3:25:36 is that a is
3:25:37 that a safe thing to say since we’ve considered since we have
3:25:42 been we
3:25:43 increased from last year to this year from 47 to 40 the year
3:25:47 before we were
3:25:48 40 but as a trend our general fund balance has been increasing
3:25:53 the last
3:25:53 three years I believe miss miss Erica will represent that there
3:26:09 have been two
3:26:09 additional additions to the fund balance in the last couple
3:26:13 years the the grant
3:26:19 style funding of almost four million dollars was added a couple
3:26:25 years ago as
3:26:25 well as the prepaid expenses for insurance was a new accounting
3:26:31 practice
3:26:33 that was applied of approximately 3.5 million dollars which
3:26:37 would which would
3:26:38 reflect an increase in the fund balance but not necessarily a
3:26:42 cumulative fund
3:26:43 balance if that makes sense because the carry by the the grant
3:26:47 style funding is
3:26:48 decreasing and it will become zero and the prepaid expenses did
3:26:52 I get that
3:26:53 correct miss Erica that is correct for 17 18 our total fund
3:26:57 balance did increase
3:26:58 beginning in 16 17 as a result of elimination of carry forwards
3:27:03 going
3:27:03 forward which allowed for the grant style funding there was a
3:27:07 slight increase
3:27:08 coming into 17 18 due to the committed remaining with the
3:27:14 committed and the
3:27:16 prepaid insurances being treated according to generally accepted
3:27:20 accounting principles however our financial condition ratio in
3:27:25 15 16 was
3:27:26 eight point three one it did increase in 16 17 to nine point
3:27:31 three six because of
3:27:32 those elimination of carry forwards and has dropped back to
3:27:35 eight point two six
3:27:36 for 17 18 miss Belford your questions
3:27:50 we are talking 17 18 on all of these numbers but we are
3:27:58 currently at the end
3:27:59 coming to the end of our 18 19 budget year correct so what is
3:28:06 our current fund
3:28:09 balance and reserves the surfer I did not bring them with me
3:28:14 today they as our
3:28:19 books are not closed yet we are in the process the book the year
3:28:25 does not end
3:28:25 until June 30th there are a number of entries including labor
3:28:29 runs that have
3:28:30 to be placed in to actually be able to tell you what our fund
3:28:34 balance will be
3:28:35 at the end of the year so do you have and I I completely
3:28:39 understand that we’re
3:28:40 there’s a lot of flux right now I believe for our meeting
3:28:43 tomorrow we have
3:28:44 a budget amendment for May 31st correct do you know what the
3:28:51 fund balance is for
3:28:54 the May 31st I did not bring it with me today okay so do we I I
3:28:59 guess the
3:29:00 question I’m getting to is we’re talking about 58 million
3:29:03 dollars in reserves are
3:29:04 there 58 million dollars sitting in reserves at this point in
3:29:08 our in our
3:29:09 budget year I expect it to be slightly lower than the 58 million
3:29:13 at the end of
3:29:13 the year what you’re seeing in reserves right now is before we
3:29:17 do any of our
3:29:18 expenditures for the month of June which are significant because
3:29:21 it’s two months
3:29:22 of salary for teachers including salary increases so when I look
3:29:28 at the the
3:29:31 budget amendment in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting there are
3:29:34 several of
3:29:35 those funds that we for example if I’m correct and understanding
3:29:41 the 3.1
3:29:42 million dollars in medical reserve was already paid in September
3:29:45 to Cigna on
3:29:46 behalf of our employees correct it was added to the budget for
3:29:50 premiums in
3:29:51 September so um and then our the 3.9 million dollars that was in
3:29:58 the
3:29:58 committed the grant style funding I believe if I recall that
3:30:02 number is down
3:30:02 to 1.9 million correct 1.9 was also at the same time the 3.1
3:30:08 went into the
3:30:09 budget in September’s budget amendment the 1.9 for 18-19
3:30:14 reducing the committed
3:30:15 for this year to 1.9 so that and and basically the reason that
3:30:19 that was moved
3:30:19 just because we had to pay the salaries for those individuals
3:30:22 the SRO is the
3:30:23 social workers and the instructional coaches right we could not
3:30:26 do that until
3:30:26 after the budget hearing in September because the board has to
3:30:30 actually vote
3:30:30 to allow us to do that okay so looking at the our prepaid
3:30:37 expenses also are
3:30:39 paid throughout the year right or they’re transferred from our
3:30:42 reserves
3:30:42 into budget to pay for our our property and liability insurances
3:30:47 throughout the
3:30:47 insurance is currently at zero we are in the process of renewing
3:30:51 that and at the
3:30:53 end of the year nine months worth of that expense we will have
3:30:56 made for the
3:30:56 premium will be placed into the fund balance again for the next
3:31:02 cycle of
3:31:03 interest for 1920 yes okay and our state categoricals does the
3:31:08 same thing happen
3:31:09 with those that we that the funds are allocated for specific
3:31:12 things and then
3:31:13 we move them into budget to pay for those things correct at the
3:31:16 end of the
3:31:16 year after everything has been accounted for we’ll take the
3:31:19 balances that’s not
3:31:20 spent in those accounts and set them into fund balance to carry
3:31:24 forward into
3:31:25 the new year okay and so will we then on those state categoricals
3:31:32 so we will
3:31:32 anything that’s not spent at the end of this year on those state
3:31:35 categoricals
3:31:36 will go into fund balance to support those expenses for next
3:31:41 year that are
3:31:42 we have to spend them in a particular area and then am I correct
3:31:46 and
3:31:46 understanding too that we will get additional allocation for
3:31:49 state
3:31:49 categoricals that will go into fund balance for those state
3:31:54 categoricals
3:31:55 until they’re transferred to budget for those no that would be
3:31:58 incorrect we
3:31:58 eliminated that practice about four years ago we will actually
3:32:02 include them
3:32:03 in the adopted budget where they belong based on the planned
3:32:06 expenditures for
3:32:08 those state categoricals so do you anticipate then that our fund
3:32:12 balance
3:32:12 for next year is going to be lower because we’re no longer
3:32:15 including our
3:32:16 state categoricals at the beginning of the year yes okay so it
3:32:20 will only we’ll
3:32:20 see those state categoricals at the end as kind of a carry
3:32:24 forward when we move
3:32:25 from the end of 18 19 into 1920 in September’s budget amendment
3:32:30 we’ll take
3:32:31 the carry forwards out of fund balance and place them into the
3:32:35 appropriations
3:32:36 lines so that the schools and appropriate departments can spend
3:32:40 those
3:32:41 dollars on the needs of our students so looking at our our FEFP
3:32:55 reserve you
3:32:56 indicated has gone down because we had I think four hundred
3:32:59 thousand net loss in
3:33:01 that this year that is correct it was approximately 1.7 million
3:33:06 at calc 3 and
3:33:07 we gained back about 1.3 in calculation 4 and is there an
3:33:13 additional calculation
3:33:15 coming on our FEFP yes we will get calculation 5 at the
3:33:19 beginning of August
3:33:20 and that will be any reductions there will be taken against the
3:33:26 FEFP reserve
3:33:27 okay can I jump in really quick on that question is that in
3:33:33 August usually a
3:33:34 reduction or a an addition or does it just vary year to year
3:33:38 history has had
3:33:40 it at a reduction but it has varied
3:33:51 and on our our encumbrances and carry forwards you don’t know
3:33:58 what those
3:33:59 dollar amounts are no ma’am we’re actually have been actively
3:34:03 working over
3:34:03 the last couple of months with our new purchasing director to
3:34:06 try and reduce
3:34:07 those as much as possible and we will continue efforts to try
3:34:11 and ensure that
3:34:12 encumbrance is outstanding at the end of the year as low as
3:34:16 possible only for
3:34:17 necessities okay I think that’s all I have for right now
3:34:22 Thank You miss Belford does anyone else have questions just a
3:34:26 point of
3:34:27 clarification I pulled that general fund that you were talking
3:34:29 about from the
3:34:30 budget amendment for tomorrow nights or tomorrow mornings peace
3:34:34 at our reserves
3:34:36 beginning fund balance in April of 2018 was fifty seven million
3:34:41 six hundred
3:34:41 thirty eight thousand April 2019 is fifty eight million three
3:34:45 hundred and
3:34:46 twenty two which is an increase of 1.9 percent or six hundred
3:34:50 and eighty four
3:34:50 thousand dollars so our fund balance according to our
3:34:53 documentation of May is
3:34:56 showing an increase of 1.9 percent as of last year you’re
3:35:01 looking at different
3:35:02 place than I am because the budget amendment shows our fund
3:35:06 balance as of
3:35:07 May which is twenty seven million six hundred and seventy seven
3:35:15 thousand I’m
3:35:21 pulling that up miss Campbell say that again and go to the
3:35:25 ninety four hundreds
3:35:27 and this is all on our agenda for tomorrow night yeah I just
3:35:30 want to
3:35:30 access internet you can see it I’m on seven of seven and it
3:35:36 shows the fund
3:35:38 balance changes through the whole year the May budget amendment
3:35:45 financial
3:35:46 statements for you know the budget amendment it’s the last item
3:35:53 under
3:35:54 financial services on the agenda it does say total amended
3:36:09 budget 628 right that’s
3:36:13 the whole budget oh the final okay then the seven of seven so
3:36:24 you’re looking at
3:36:26 just the unreserved fund balance are you looking at the total
3:36:28 fund balance at
3:36:29 four the total fund balance it looks like it keeps decreasing 1031
3:36:44 by 396
3:36:47 right the operating fund is to us right the one we report to the
3:36:53 state is the
3:36:54 other one that’s inside there to the one that’s reported to the
3:36:58 state shows a six
3:36:59 hundred and twenty four thousand dollars so are you saying what
3:37:00 we’re reporting
3:37:01 to the state is not the same on what we’re voting I have no I I
3:37:04 have no idea
3:37:05 why we have two of them miss zurker I apologize I should ask you
3:37:08 we have
3:37:09 inside of the financial statements that were reporting to the
3:37:12 state an increase
3:37:13 of six hundred twenty four thousand dollars or an increase of
3:37:15 one point one
3:37:16 six percent on your documentations that you’re sending to us as
3:37:19 expenditures by
3:37:21 objects it’s a little different from what we’re saying can you
3:37:23 please explain
3:37:24 it the monthly financial statements are not sent to DOE DOE does
3:37:29 not receive
3:37:29 financial statements till the end of the year that is utilizing
3:37:33 and estimating
3:37:35 what we think the fund balance will be at the end of the year
3:37:38 after we put in
3:37:39 the remainder of the reserves that we want to show you what our
3:37:43 estimate is
3:37:44 and then the budget amendment shows you exactly what has been
3:37:48 happening
3:37:49 throughout the year with our fund balance it will increase from
3:37:53 what
3:37:53 you’re looking at to a final fund balance at the end of the year
3:37:57 when we
3:37:58 look at all of the carry forwards and encumbrances that need to
3:38:01 go into fund
3:38:02 balance to carry forward into the new year so your get your
3:38:06 estimation at the
3:38:08 end of the year for the documentation on here is that it will
3:38:11 increase by
3:38:12 roughly one point one nine percent but currently the
3:38:15 expenditures that you’re
3:38:17 showing us are a little bit different so there’s something that’s
3:38:18 going to happen
3:38:19 between now and then that’s going to cause it to increase by 1.19
3:38:23 percent
3:38:23 according to you that will be closing the books and looking at
3:38:26 what the carry
3:38:27 forwards and items are and we’ve based that number on historical
3:38:32 it is a rough
3:38:33 estimate I can assure you the final number will be different
3:38:36 than my
3:38:37 estimate but your own estimate shows an increase of 1.19 percent
3:38:42 or six hundred
3:38:44 thousand dollars okay Thank You mr. Susan just a note to the
3:38:48 board we have to make
3:38:49 sure we’re loud and clear into the microphones for the court
3:38:52 reporter I
3:38:52 don’t think it was you mr. Susan I think it was myself but just
3:38:56 want to share
3:38:57 with everyone does anyone else have any more questions for dr.
3:39:02 Mullins Thank You
3:39:04 dr. Mullins it is now time for BFT to present their issues and
3:39:14 recommendations
3:39:14 mr. Colucci
3:39:41 I am Anthony Colucci president of the Brevard Federation of
3:39:47 Teachers and this
3:39:48 is Angela Dawson bargaining specialist for the Florida Education
3:39:53 Association on
3:39:55 behalf of the Brevard Federation of Teachers bargaining unit we
3:39:58 propose that
3:39:59 the school board of Brevard County accept the special magistrate’s
3:40:03 recommendation to fund the unions proposals as follows issue
3:40:08 number one
3:40:08 salary increases shall be awarded according to the contract
3:40:12 status and 17
3:40:13 18 performance evaluation as follows performance pay highly
3:40:18 effective two
3:40:19 thousand three hundred dollars effective one thousand seven
3:40:23 hundred twenty five
3:40:24 dollars grandfathered scale highly effective two thousand two
3:40:28 hundred
3:40:28 ninety nine dollars effective one thousand seven hundred twenty
3:40:33 four for
3:40:33 the second issue we are asking bargaining unit members certified
3:40:38 in exceptional
3:40:39 student education so shall receive an eight hundred and thirty
3:40:42 five dollar
3:40:43 supplement in addition to the hundred and sixty five dollar
3:40:47 supplement they
3:40:48 currently receive for being certified in a critical shortage
3:40:51 area for a total
3:40:52 supplement of $1,000 the cost of the salary portion inclusive of
3:41:01 benefits is
3:41:01 about twelve point one million dollars which is about one point
3:41:06 nine percent of
3:41:07 district revenues and for the ESE supplement inclusive of
3:41:12 benefits it is
3:41:14 about a hundred eight hundred twenty thousand dollars which is
3:41:18 point one five
3:41:20 percent of the revenues for a second I want everybody to take a
3:41:23 step back as we
3:41:24 talk about all these big numbers and put this into perspective
3:41:28 the median teacher
3:41:30 salary in Brevard County is forty three thousand nine hundred
3:41:34 fifty seven
3:41:35 dollars so if we were asking one of our teachers to fund this
3:41:40 proposal it would
3:41:41 cost eight hundred and seventy nine dollars this is a lot of
3:41:45 work and effort
3:41:46 for eight hundred and seventy nine dollars on this the factors
3:41:53 that the
3:41:54 special magistrate considered where our comparable districts in
3:41:59 the local
3:41:59 operating area and comparable size districts within the state
3:42:05 one of the
3:42:08 factors that he considered was the interest and welfare of the
3:42:11 public and
3:42:12 just to be clear he recommended that you accept the union’s
3:42:17 proposals because
3:42:18 they are in the best interest and welfare of the public
3:42:24 secondly he looked at the availability of funds not where those
3:42:30 funds were
3:42:31 located but if they were available and he said they are
3:42:35 available that is a
3:42:38 neutral party not dr. Mullen’s buddy from the superintendents
3:42:42 Association
3:42:43 doing an audit this was a neutral party our comparable districts
3:42:49 in the local
3:42:50 operating area are Indian River orange Osceola Seminole st. Lucie
3:42:55 and Volusia
3:42:57 similar size is Pasco with some overlap with our local operating
3:43:03 districts the
3:43:05 settlements for this year is Indian River is currently at impasse
3:43:09 Pasco
3:43:10 teachers saw an average raise of about one thousand seventeen
3:43:13 dollars per
3:43:14 employee seminal had a two-year agreement that began in 1718
3:43:20 with a 3.37
3:43:21 percent raise over the two years st. Lucie their school board
3:43:28 saw that they
3:43:28 were falling behind in pay so they went out had the courage to
3:43:34 ask the voters
3:43:35 for additional operating millage a decision that this board did
3:43:40 not make in
3:43:41 that referendum election the ten year teach teacher with ten
3:43:46 years experience
3:43:47 is looking at a seven thousand eight hundred dollar raise Volusia
3:43:53 effective
3:43:54 annual contract teachers one thousand two hundred ninety dollars
3:43:58 highly
3:43:59 effective one thousand five hundred seventy eight professional
3:44:02 service
3:44:03 contract teachers one thousand four hundred thirty seven dollars
3:44:06 Orange
3:44:07 County one thousand six hundred fifty four effective two
3:44:11 thousand twenty five
3:44:12 for highly effective and a seven hundred and fifty dollar bonus
3:44:16 Osceola nine
3:44:18 hundred dollars effective twelve hundred dollars highly
3:44:21 effective PSC one
3:44:23 thousand one hundred and fifty the magistrate made it clear in
3:44:27 his
3:44:27 recommendation that if you do not fund the unions proposal the
3:44:31 gap between
3:44:32 these districts will grow one thing that dr. Mullins continues
3:44:37 to neglect in his
3:44:39 presentations about provide teacher salary is the fact that we
3:44:43 are the
3:44:44 third most experienced workforce in the state we have thirteen
3:44:48 point nine five
3:44:49 years experience this skews the data and makes it appear like we’re
3:44:55 doing better
3:44:56 looking at the median analysis BPS is thirty third in the state
3:45:03 we are one
3:45:05 thousand nine hundred ninety dollars below the state median
3:45:09 behind Indian
3:45:10 River orange and Seminole I’m going to talk more about the mean
3:45:14 analysis in a
3:45:15 second and we also have some outside analysis that is also
3:45:18 pointing to
3:45:19 problems in Brevard County looking at the placement scale which
3:45:24 is one of the
3:45:25 most useful things to look at because this is what we’re looking
3:45:28 at with with
3:45:29 recruitment you’ll see Brevard versus average at the bottom of
3:45:34 each of these
3:45:34 we are behind our comparables all the way through all the way
3:45:39 through there
3:45:40 are cut and there are only a couple places where we are ahead
3:45:43 and those are
3:45:44 likely to change in st. Lucie so as you’re trying to recruit
3:45:48 teachers this
3:45:49 is what they’re looking at frankly we can end up with a great
3:45:56 credit rating
3:45:57 but no teachers in front of students
3:46:02 average average salary is skewed by our years experience you
3:46:10 will see we are by
3:46:11 far the most experienced teachers in the comparable districts
3:46:16 and we are still
3:46:17 behind Indian Seminole and orange even though we have
3:46:21 substantially more
3:46:22 experience and the districts that we are ahead of in average we
3:46:27 have far more
3:46:29 experience than they do two thousand one hundred and seventy
3:46:32 dollars behind we
3:46:34 are now thirtieth in the state in average teacher pay are these
3:46:39 headlines
3:46:39 what you want for our community what kind of damage is this
3:46:43 doing to the
3:46:44 economy of Brevard County how do you recruit teachers to come
3:46:49 here with
3:46:50 headlines like this this was in the USA today and number four
3:46:54 was Brevard County
3:46:55 as the most underpaid teachers in the nation and just to
3:47:01 conclude our salary
3:47:03 significant lessons significantly lag behind comparable
3:47:07 districts despite
3:47:08 having much more experience the district’s proposal would widen
3:47:12 the
3:47:12 salary gap we are not rewarding teachers for coming and we are
3:47:17 not rewarding
3:47:17 teachers for staying I want you to look at the June resignations
3:47:22 and retirements
3:47:23 on your agenda tomorrow you will see they are twice as many as
3:47:26 there were
3:47:27 last year
3:47:37 there’s been a lot of talk today about some different funds and
3:47:40 categoricals
3:47:41 and I want us to be very clear we are not talking about
3:47:45 restricted funds we
3:47:47 are not talking about categorical funds we’re not talking about
3:47:50 committed funds
3:47:51 or non spendable funds the guidelines for the general fund talk
3:47:56 about how much
3:47:57 you need to keep in a reserve as three percent to meet the state
3:48:02 budgeting
3:48:03 requirements and that’s everything that’s not restricted
3:48:06 committed or non
3:48:06 spendable in other words according to the government accounting
3:48:11 standards
3:48:11 board non spendable that’s your inventory restricted talks about
3:48:17 creditors legislation or statute committed set aside for a
3:48:21 specific
3:48:21 person purpose excuse me assigned and unassigned the only
3:48:27 portions of the fund
3:48:28 balance that we are discussing are the assigned and unassigned
3:48:32 so all of that
3:48:33 talk about commitments and encumbrances and categoricals and
3:48:39 inventory put it
3:48:41 out of your head because that’s not what we’re talking about
3:48:45 those are
3:48:47 distractions from the facts we prepared for you several
3:48:57 documents in short so in
3:49:01 our tab one is our presentation tab two is the district budget
3:49:05 for the current
3:49:06 year and tab three is the comprehensive annual financial report
3:49:11 in your own
3:49:11 comprehensive annual financial report from page five bullet five
3:49:16 it says if
3:49:16 there was three point three million in the assigned and forty
3:49:20 one point nine
3:49:20 million in the unassigned funds so that means forty five point
3:49:26 two million or
3:49:27 seven point five percent of the general fund revenue that’s
3:49:31 twice what’s needed
3:49:32 according to the state law then you have your own internal
3:49:42 policy this has been
3:49:43 referred to as a state and board policy combined let’s be clear
3:49:47 again this is a
3:49:48 board policy this is a choice budgets represent priorities and
3:49:53 you have made a
3:49:53 priority to save money as opposed to putting money into the
3:49:57 pockets of the
3:49:58 community members that help the economy in Brevard County grow
3:50:02 if you do not
3:50:03 increase their salaries that’s money that they don’t have to put
3:50:07 put their
3:50:08 own children through summer school go buy groceries or possibly
3:50:12 you know maybe
3:50:13 buy a new house and stay in Brevard so you are making an
3:50:17 economic choice for
3:50:18 the entire community because you are the largest employer in Brevard
3:50:29 County
3:50:30 and as your superintendent pointed out to you because it’s a
3:50:34 board policy a
3:50:35 board policy can be changed board policies are announced at one
3:50:39 meeting
3:50:39 and then after heard being heard then they’re voted on you could
3:50:43 change that
3:50:43 policy tomorrow it is not a requirement of the state so please
3:50:48 put that aside
3:50:48 that 3.63 percent is nothing that helps your fund balance it is
3:50:54 only a savings
3:50:55 account that you claim you need for an emergency let’s also talk
3:51:00 about the FEFP
3:51:01 reserve okay the FEFP reserved happened when our state was going
3:51:07 through a
3:51:08 financial crisis the entire country was going through a
3:51:11 financial crisis and we
3:51:12 were getting funds from the federal government several times the
3:51:17 state was
3:51:17 collecting less revenue than they had anticipated and they put
3:51:21 out a notice to
3:51:22 school boards and that told them you may want to hang on to some
3:51:25 of that reserve
3:51:26 and set aside a little bit of money because we think we’re going
3:51:30 to reduce
3:51:31 the amount of spending per student that is not what happened in
3:51:34 1819 actually it
3:51:36 was a hundred and twenty nine fewer students probably lost to
3:51:39 those charter
3:51:40 schools whose funding went up so there is something in there
3:51:44 that needs to be
3:51:45 dealt with in losing students to charter schools and making sure
3:51:48 that you’re not
3:51:49 losing money in that area but there was not a budgetary
3:51:52 adjustment and if there
3:51:53 is one the state will announce it as soon as they get their
3:51:56 funding analysis
3:51:57 for the sales tax so you do not need to build in an FEFP reserve
3:52:02 on top of a
3:52:03 contingency on top of a state required 3% you’re padding your
3:52:14 budget I also
3:52:16 find it interesting that with the year ending in six days that
3:52:19 we can’t get
3:52:19 more clear answers
3:52:20 I’d like to point you to tab 2 in the book this is some selected
3:52:33 pages from the
3:52:35 Brevard Public Schools budget we keep talking about 17-18 and
3:52:39 some of the board
3:52:40 members pointed it out and said we’re really in 18-19 so let’s
3:52:43 look at 18-19
3:52:45 the starting fund balance in the operating fund was 58 million
3:52:49 the ending
3:52:50 fund balance according to your budget is predicted to go to 62
3:52:55 million the
3:52:56 unassigned fund balance is predicted to increase by 5 million to
3:52:59 46 million
3:53:02 dollars that’s in your own budget document
3:53:10 and that budget document was created with 47 cents funding per
3:53:14 student we
3:53:15 already know that the new funding per student is a hundred and
3:53:17 fifty-five
3:53:18 hundred and fifty-nine times greater or $75 per student in the
3:53:24 upcoming school
3:53:25 year so your budgets do show your priorities you may need to
3:53:29 make your
3:53:30 staff your priority
3:53:39 there’s two ways to look at your fund balance growing one if you’re
3:53:43 a growing
3:53:44 district obviously your fund balance grows as you have increased
3:53:47 numbers of
3:53:48 students and you increase your fund balance so 53 million
3:53:51 dollars in a fund
3:53:53 balance that was projected probably pretty reasonable however
3:53:57 when you look
3:53:58 at it as percents over time from 15-16 at 8.31 percent in the unassigned
3:54:04 to 9.68
3:54:05 percent unassigned and these numbers all change over time we
3:54:10 understand but you
3:54:12 do show that you are putting more money away than you are
3:54:16 spending your fund
3:54:18 balance is growing the Hamilton report says the unassigned is
3:54:23 trending down
3:54:24 well that’s only because in your budget you kept made some other
3:54:29 categories grow
3:54:30 to make it look like it’s smaller you have to look at the actual
3:54:35 annual
3:54:36 financial reports at the end of the year to look at trends and
3:54:39 looking at trend
3:54:40 data is how you can actually see what’s happening in your budget
3:54:44 not relying on
3:54:45 projections when penny left Polk County where I’ve worked for 18
3:54:50 years Polk
3:54:51 County had some spending practices very similar to Brevard
3:54:54 County with a five
3:54:56 percent reserve and all of these things and we don’t do that
3:54:59 anymore we simply
3:55:00 turn every penny back into the pockets to the teachers and the
3:55:03 staff so that
3:55:04 they can actually support and help our students there’s a little
3:55:14 bit of
3:55:14 misunderstanding about how funds are built and when you’re
3:55:18 dealing with over
3:55:19 a billion dollars I admit it’s a scary number and I would be
3:55:23 very afraid if I
3:55:25 were you of spending everything I get that but if you look at
3:55:28 your trends and
3:55:29 you look at your history we also have given you a tab that shows
3:55:32 your history
3:55:32 it shows your fund balance growing in your annual financial
3:55:36 report you need to
3:55:37 read your own documents you need to read the Moody’s reports
3:55:41 Moody says very
3:55:42 clearly when they’re giving you a rating governmental entities
3:55:46 always have great
3:55:47 ratings unless of course your Flint Michigan who was broke you’re
3:55:51 not broke
3:55:52 it says you have a tax base it’s growing you have new building
3:55:56 permits that are
3:55:57 pulled means you have more money you’re collecting in taxes the
3:56:01 money that you
3:56:02 need to pay for buildings comes out of capital outlay Pico
3:56:06 dollars and you pays
3:56:08 for your debt service the state is affecting your credit rating
3:56:12 by not
3:56:12 giving you Pico dollars there’s a problem that needs to be
3:56:16 addressed
3:56:16 legislatively but paying your teachers is not going to affect
3:56:21 that so let’s
3:56:24 talk about the real world in attrition they talk about recurring
3:56:30 galleries
3:56:31 dollars and non-recurring dollars but every year employees
3:56:34 resign they retire
3:56:36 new employers are hired typically at lower salaries usually
3:56:39 about a $20,000
3:56:40 gap that’s just a natural drag on payroll over time and so
3:56:46 simply allowing
3:56:48 people to separate employment actually causes this this is the
3:56:51 average teacher
3:56:52 salary reported to the Department of Education and notice what
3:56:58 happens when
3:56:59 you freeze salaries for 1819 the current rate is $46,316 that is
3:57:05 only $262 more
3:57:08 than it was five years ago so by freezing salaries you actually
3:57:15 decrease
3:57:16 the amount that you’re spending on instruction and on your
3:57:19 classrooms
3:57:20 here’s what this looks like over time because you can see the
3:57:24 average raise in
3:57:26 the fourth line of the salary settlement and then you can see
3:57:29 what actually
3:57:30 happened with actual salaries and benefits for that same time
3:57:35 period these
3:57:36 aren’t projections of numbers these are actual numbers that are
3:57:39 pulled from the
3:57:40 report sent to the state this is the actual salary from 1516
3:57:44 divided by the
3:57:45 four thousand nine hundred fifty nine employees that you
3:57:47 reported the average
3:57:49 change in salary was only 1509 that’s laps that’s turnover you
3:57:55 can actually
3:57:55 see in 1617 the small raise actually was a negative impact on
3:58:00 your average
3:58:01 salary so the average salary has really only increased by about
3:58:11 892 that was
3:58:13 over last year’s salary we now have the 1819 numbers and we’ve
3:58:16 updated them
3:58:17 again all of these numbers change over time so last year we had
3:58:21 892 but when
3:58:22 1819 numbers came out it actually dropped to 262 over time now I’m
3:58:29 going
3:58:29 to take you through a document that you’ve been dying to look at
3:58:32 since you
3:58:32 started asking questions of penny
3:58:43 in your own annual financial statement from April 30th that was
3:58:47 on your board
3:58:48 website it’s in the fourth tab I believe it’s the blue one it
3:58:53 has monthly
3:58:54 financial report summary for period ending April 30th 2019 it
3:58:58 says your
3:58:59 current general fund balance is 123 million dollars I’ll wait
3:59:04 till y’all get
3:59:05 there
3:59:18 all right so that was a question that was asked earlier it’s in
3:59:26 your own
3:59:26 documents so on the financial statements on page five notice it
3:59:31 says adopted
3:59:32 budget amended budget obligated actuals and available budget so
3:59:39 please look at
3:59:39 your adopted budget your adopted budget was 372 million dollars
3:59:43 for instruction
3:59:45 you have now amended your budget to being 385 million dollars
3:59:49 for
3:59:50 instruction but I’d like to point out the actual figures April
3:59:53 is 10 months
3:59:54 through the year I love easy math 280 million dollars that’s 28
3:59:58 million
3:59:59 dollars a month so you have two more months in this pay cycle
4:00:04 and even if
4:00:05 what penny says is true that you’re prepaying July expenses in
4:00:09 June you’re
4:00:10 still not going to get anywhere near your 385 million dollars
4:00:14 that your
4:00:15 budget has been amended to as a matter of fact if you extrapolate
4:00:19 out that 385
4:00:21 million into 12 months and add the Brevard Federation of
4:00:25 Teachers proposal
4:00:26 you still end up about third 350 million dollars that’s 35
4:00:31 million dollars less
4:00:33 than your amended budget where do you think that 35 million
4:00:36 dollars will go it
4:00:38 will be returned to the fund balance and if you follow that
4:00:41 number down to the
4:00:43 bottom about the beginning fund balance and the ending fund
4:00:46 balance they have an
4:00:47 ending fund balance for amended budget of 32 million add 35 to
4:00:51 that I predict
4:00:52 your fund balance will go up to 67 million if you do the Brevard
4:00:56 Federation of Teachers proposal and if you don’t do it it’ll
4:00:59 probably go over
4:01:00 70 so in conclusion you have a healthy fund balance the
4:01:11 recurring salary
4:01:12 increases are not perpetually incurring recurring due to lapse
4:01:15 and turnover next
4:01:17 year’s funding is a known quantity wages and Brevard do lag with
4:01:22 comparative
4:01:23 districts and the public interest is better served by actually
4:01:26 paying your
4:01:27 employees to put money back into your community and help your
4:01:32 students
4:01:45 on on June 13th 2018 I emailed your chief negotiator in part the
4:01:55 email read
4:01:56 I am canceling our bargaining session on June 25th for the past
4:02:00 three years we’ve
4:02:01 asked the district to make a plan to prioritize pay you and I
4:02:05 both sat at
4:02:06 yesterday’s budget workshop it was apparent that once again this
4:02:09 board has
4:02:10 no plan to increase our pay levels comparable to surrounding
4:02:13 counties over
4:02:15 one year later the facts show that this board still has failed
4:02:18 to prioritize
4:02:19 teacher pay that can change today this school year although we
4:02:24 are the third
4:02:25 most experienced workforce we’ve slipped to 30th in the state in
4:02:30 average teacher
4:02:31 pay we are two thousand one hundred and seventy dollars behind
4:02:35 the state average
4:02:36 and the fact is we are not retaining teachers on tomorrow’s
4:02:40 agenda there are
4:02:41 nearly twice as many teachers resigning or retiring as there
4:02:45 were in June of
4:02:46 last year at the October 17th bargaining session which was two
4:02:50 months after
4:02:52 negotiations began the district finally put forth a salary
4:02:56 proposal the district
4:02:58 CFO pennies worker emphatically proclaimed that quote 100% of
4:03:03 the money
4:03:03 is on the table I don’t have any more money to come back with
4:03:07 was her
4:03:08 statement accurate you and I know that she was incorrect there
4:03:13 was more money
4:03:14 to be put on the table dr. Mullins recent comments suggesting
4:03:18 quote we
4:03:19 hadn’t stopped working on the offer fails to recognize that the
4:03:22 only reason
4:03:23 why dr. Mullins did not stop working on his offer was that this
4:03:26 Union made him
4:03:27 continue working on his offer his team said we don’t have any
4:03:32 more money when
4:03:33 the district returned with an increased offer in December it was
4:03:37 only because we
4:03:38 pushed and pushed the district to investigate the over budgeting
4:03:42 of
4:03:42 teachers miss zurker argued that we were wrong changing her
4:03:47 answers as to why
4:03:48 more times than I could count was her statement accurate you and
4:03:52 I know she
4:03:53 was incorrect your final salary proposal was amongst the lowest
4:03:57 in the state in
4:03:58 recurring dollars we told you you could do better that you
4:04:01 needed to be
4:04:02 competitive with other districts miss zurker told you there was
4:04:05 absolutely no
4:04:06 way you could put more money on the table was her statement
4:04:10 accurate you and
4:04:11 I know she was incorrect and that brings us to dr. Mullins most
4:04:15 recent solution a
4:04:17 solution he created with his most trusted advisor miss zurker
4:04:20 once again
4:04:21 telling him there is absolutely no way we can do more she said
4:04:25 that in October
4:04:26 she said that in December she said that in March and now she’s
4:04:30 saying that again
4:04:30 in June not one time has she been accurate the question before
4:04:35 you is
4:04:36 whether to accept miss zurkers flawed analysis yet again or
4:04:40 stick with the
4:04:41 recommendation of a neutral unbiased third party the special
4:04:44 magistrate a
4:04:45 special magistrate the district and I both selected a special
4:04:49 magistrate that
4:04:50 was a school board member just like you a special magistrate
4:04:53 that was a chief
4:04:54 negotiator and associate superintendent for human resources and
4:04:59 a special
4:04:59 magistrate who has not sided with the Union over salary in
4:05:03 recent history the
4:05:04 answer to that question is painfully obvious you must accept the
4:05:09 special
4:05:09 magistrate’s recommendation to fund the BFT proposal a
4:05:13 recommendation that
4:05:14 revealed your fiscal strategy results in the quote underutilization
4:05:18 of funds
4:05:19 generated at the federal state and local level funds that are
4:05:22 intended to be
4:05:23 applied toward the education of children and quote that there
4:05:27 are sufficient
4:05:28 funds to fund the BFT final proposal and moreover the
4:05:32 recommendation concludes
4:05:33 quote that funding the BFT proposal will have a positive impact
4:05:38 on the interest
4:05:39 and welfare of children and public served by the school board of
4:05:42 Brevard
4:05:43 County you must accept the magistrate’s recommendation or this
4:05:47 board will not be
4:05:48 acting in the best interest of students and permanently damaging
4:05:52 the trust that
4:05:52 exists between elected officials and stakeholders you must
4:05:56 recognize that a
4:05:57 disaster is here and it is time to start using those funds set
4:06:02 aside for a
4:06:03 disaster because that disaster is a massive teacher shortage do
4:06:08 not let us
4:06:09 down
4:06:30 thank you mr. I’m sorry I can’t hear you oh yeah that’s just
4:06:42 fine you have
4:06:42 microphones there thank you for your time mr. Colucci board
4:06:46 members I’d like
4:06:47 to provide you with an opportunity to ask questions that you may
4:06:49 have for miss
4:06:50 Dawson or mr. Colucci remember you have the opportunity to ask
4:06:53 final questions
4:06:54 of either side once we already said that once both presentations
4:06:58 are made so who
4:06:59 has questions for mr. Colucci do we need a minute to organize
4:07:09 our do we need a
4:07:15 recess or do we need just a minute to pause for a minute mr.
4:07:26 Susan you have to
4:07:29 speak into the microphone there’s a court reporter today I know
4:07:31 we’re not
4:07:31 used to that does anyone need a recess okay okay we’re just
4:07:40 gonna pause for a
4:07:41 minute so we can compile all our notes and questions
4:08:10 I have just an initial question and I realized that the amount
4:08:18 is what you’re
4:08:20 asking miss Dawson you mentioned that you’re not talking about
4:08:24 committed and
4:08:25 and you added that into the other thing so because you recognize
4:08:30 from the outset
4:08:31 that the proposal you’re asking for you know that you that the
4:08:35 budgets tight
4:08:36 enough that’s what we’re assuming that you you’ve asked us to
4:08:38 fund it out of
4:08:39 reserves do you have specific areas that the Union is suggesting
4:08:44 to the district
4:08:45 out of those because it’s a pretty good list below that
4:08:49 committed that you
4:08:50 recommend that the district take those take that increase out of
4:08:56 so that’s not
4:09:07 actual reserves at this time showing that we’ve been talking
4:09:10 about but just
4:09:10 what you’re anticipating our reserves to increase okay so
4:09:16 because what this is a
4:09:18 little bit different I’m looking at what what you guys have been
4:09:21 looking at what
4:09:22 you guys presented to the magistrate and then what you’re
4:09:23 presenting to stay
4:09:24 there’s a little bit of difference in that and what you’ve just
4:09:26 presented
4:09:27 looking at the budget is a little bit different so I’m asking
4:09:30 you does the
4:09:31 Union have a proposal or suggestion of where we take that money
4:09:36 out of reserves
4:09:37 which category we would take that out of
4:10:02 miss Campbell was that your last question for now and right now
4:10:06 okay
4:10:18 mr. Susan so I’m looking at the previous years of instructional
4:10:18 budget and it
4:10:26 goes 15 16 we spent three hundred and forty seven million
4:10:31 dollars on instruction
4:10:32 16 17 we spent three hundred and forty nine million dollars on
4:10:36 instruction 17
4:10:38 18 we spent three hundred and seventy million dollars on
4:10:41 instruction so last
4:10:42 year we spent three hundred and seventy million dollars
4:10:45 according to the
4:10:46 document that we report to the state that you drew from you’re
4:10:50 saying that
4:10:51 we’re actually going to decrease the amount of instruction by
4:10:54 you said to
4:10:55 what was that 300 and something so at the end of every year part
4:11:02 the DOE
4:11:02 website we report all of our expenses it’s the final one not the
4:11:06 budget that
4:11:07 we’ve set out but the expenses if you go back previous years and
4:11:11 you look
4:11:11 specifically at instruction and I know there’s some carryover
4:11:13 into the other
4:11:14 fields but we are spending inwards of you know three hundred and
4:11:18 forty nine
4:11:18 million I can go through it again so 15 16 347 16 17 349 17 18
4:11:26 370 so we spent
4:11:27 370 million last year on instruction you’re saying that it’s
4:11:31 reducing you
4:11:32 said you reduce it down to what was that again I’m not sure
4:11:41 which document you’re
4:11:44 referring to if you look in the gray tab and look at page 136
4:11:50 and 137 it actually
4:11:56 gives you the instructional line item it talks about salaries by
4:12:00 object being 3
4:12:01 34 and 15 16 3 33 and 16 17 and 343 and 17 18 136 and 137 all
4:12:15 right so if you
4:12:16 turn to 137 137 June sit 2016 is the ending of 1516 down in the
4:12:24 middle of the
4:12:25 page the the state does not repeat the headers it says 334
4:12:29 million that’s for
4:12:30 instruction then 333 for instruction then 343 for instruction if
4:12:36 you then
4:12:36 look at your budget document which is back under the green paper
4:12:40 the green tab
4:12:42 and it shows you that you’ve budgeted 372 million for
4:12:47 instruction 103 that’s
4:12:56 the one that shows your total ending fund balance at the end of
4:12:59 the 1819
4:13:01 school year was predicted to go up to sixty two point four five
4:13:04 million
4:13:05 dollars right so going back to fiscal year ending 2016 17 and 18
4:13:13 we’re running
4:13:14 334 333 333 343 and if you look at what we reported to the state
4:13:21 at the end of
4:13:21 the year part of the DOE expenses right it ends up being 370 for
4:13:25 last year and
4:13:26 that’s for the same exact one so what I’m guessing is no it’s
4:13:32 what we yeah
4:13:34 there’s there’s got to be something miss zucker can you can you
4:13:37 clarify what I’m
4:13:37 mr. Susan just one second miss involved is it appropriate now
4:13:41 for us to go back
4:13:43 and forth with questions or should we let me try to explain a
4:13:54 little bit some
4:13:54 of these things are they do combined balance statements so you
4:13:58 can only
4:13:58 compare that balance statement to itself because there’s
4:14:01 different categories but
4:14:02 if you turn back to pages 134 I believe that is what you’re
4:14:06 looking for 134 has
4:14:09 the instructional line item similar to your budget it doesn’t it’s
4:14:14 must just be
4:14:14 the general fund only the other one is a combined statement and
4:14:18 it shows you some
4:14:19 different categories but notice that it’s showing that in June
4:14:26 they expected
4:14:27 expenditures to be 392 million dollars for instructional line
4:14:39 item and it also
4:14:41 shows you on the previous page shows you your general fund for
4:14:44 ten years this is
4:14:45 in your own financial documents every year sure so just clarifying
4:14:56 what you
4:14:58 just said this on page 134 is our actual spending yes for two
4:15:02 thousand so in
4:15:03 2018 we actually spent on instruction three hundred and ninety
4:15:07 two million
4:15:07 eight hundred ninety four thousand that’s what it said that’s
4:15:09 what was
4:15:10 reported to the state for instruction okay currently you’re
4:15:13 spending less
4:15:14 than about 340 million according to your current documents okay
4:15:20 but are you but
4:15:21 you’re using the different set so you referred us earlier back
4:15:25 to the page 137
4:15:27 right that’s a combined statement who you can compare that come
4:15:31 if you read
4:15:32 the header on it it’s a summary of revenue revenues and
4:15:34 expenditures major
4:15:35 object and changes in fund balances general fund last ten years
4:15:38 that the
4:15:40 state has you put different funds together and pieces together
4:15:43 you can
4:15:43 look at that report for trends but you can’t compare that to
4:15:46 your budget
4:15:47 there’s only certain things that you can compare to your budget
4:15:49 that is not one
4:15:51 of them but it does give you an overall picture of spending so
4:15:55 you can see a
4:15:56 trend line
4:16:03 go ahead miss Pelford am I allowed to clarify for the board
4:16:09 members that might
4:16:10 be less familiar with them okay so basically what you have to
4:16:15 keep in mind
4:16:16 is on 134 you’re looking at instruction and there are lots of
4:16:21 different elements
4:16:21 to instruction so that’s the complete expenditure on everything
4:16:25 included in
4:16:26 instruction when you go over to 136 the number that mr. Susan
4:16:35 was referencing of
4:16:36 the three thirty four three thirty three three thirty four for
4:16:39 sixteen seventeen
4:16:40 eighteen that is only salaries yeah but it’s also it’s not just
4:16:45 instruction at
4:16:46 it’s not looking at the the total instruction object and so that’s
4:16:51 why
4:16:51 they’re two completely different numbers does that clarify for
4:16:55 you guys no I’m
4:16:57 still confused on the three ninety two number as of June 30th
4:17:02 2018 if that’s
4:17:05 the final number that went to the state then I don’t understand
4:17:10 why okay you
4:17:11 all think that 385 just because at the end of April we hadn’t
4:17:15 spent that yet I
4:17:16 have I have no idea so we get back over to this side what
4:17:19 expenditures are
4:17:20 coming in the next two months but maybe they are the gap between
4:17:24 385 and what
4:17:25 we’ve spent I think that’s a guesstimation if I’m understanding
4:17:28 this
4:17:29 correctly well we’ve we have extrapolated ten months of salary
4:17:32 out to
4:17:32 twelve months and then if you add an additional month because
4:17:35 Miss zurker
4:17:35 said that you prepay June July payments in June you’re still not
4:17:41 going to be
4:17:42 closing in on that number anywhere close but I’ll explain the
4:17:46 expenditures
4:17:47 instruction line item is called five thousand in the budget the
4:17:50 budget is
4:17:50 then made that line items made up of salaries benefits other
4:17:54 expenditures
4:17:55 capital outlay miscellaneous energy your budget you would have
4:18:00 to look at it in a
4:18:01 3d model to fully track all of this information because there’s
4:18:05 columns and
4:18:05 rows and then there’s subcategories in the budget what you see
4:18:10 then on pages
4:18:12 136 and 137 breaks out salaries that are paid out of the general
4:18:16 fund that
4:18:16 includes instruction administration school board all the way
4:18:21 down maintenance
4:18:22 out that’s just total salary so it’s a different way of looking
4:18:25 at the same
4:18:26 number you can see the salary trends that way but we’re looking
4:18:30 at our people
4:18:31 and instruction and we’re comparing that to your own budget
4:18:34 document that says as
4:18:35 of April 30th you had currently only expended two hundred and
4:18:40 eighty million
4:18:40 dollars in that line item for instruction
4:18:52 so the line item instruction under expenses for 372 372 million
4:19:00 you’re
4:19:00 saying that is only for the items that you just listed for
4:19:04 employee pay and
4:19:07 benefits
4:19:11 be following me I need to know which page it’s on page five it
4:19:15 was I pulled
4:19:16 it out of your book from the page five is in the it says Brevard
4:19:20 County School
4:19:21 Board general fund 2018 19 as of April 30th 2019 I believe this
4:19:25 is talking
4:19:25 about our presentation I believe this is where you’re telling us
4:19:29 to pull the
4:19:29 funds from if I’m correct that you’re saying that we have budgeted
4:19:33 for 372 we
4:19:35 have a budget amendment up to 385 and that there that we’ve only
4:19:40 spent it was
4:19:41 from the gray tab yeah we’re not I don’t believe that you need
4:19:48 to expend anything
4:19:49 out of your fund balance that fund balance was there at the end
4:19:53 of 17 18
4:19:54 when all the bills are paid in five days you will then have a
4:19:58 fund balance that’s
4:20:00 left right now all the money including last year’s fund balance
4:20:04 is considered
4:20:05 revenue available for expenditure you budget those expenditures
4:20:09 you’ve
4:20:09 budgeted 385 million for salaries if you look at your own budget
4:20:15 documents saying
4:20:16 what your trend is for spending you can actually compare the
4:20:21 current year to
4:20:23 last year on page 6 of the April 30th report that was sent to
4:20:30 the board
4:20:31 actually spent in April 2019 was 280.8 million dollars on
4:20:38 salaries April 2018
4:20:40 was 284 million dollars there’s your laps that’s when you have
4:20:45 the current
4:20:46 employees that you funded since the beginning of the year and
4:20:50 and I was
4:20:50 interested if if miss zurker was still using the same accounting
4:20:53 practices that
4:20:54 we have in Polk and it’s she did say that she uses estimates so
4:20:58 the way this
4:20:59 works is they come up with all the employees and in August add
4:21:02 up their
4:21:03 salaries divide it by 12 and every month put that into the
4:21:07 budget and say one
4:21:08 twelve one twelve what that doesn’t track is everybody that that
4:21:11 left in
4:21:12 October retired in December left in February all of those
4:21:17 turnovers then get
4:21:18 captured again at the end of the year so there’s two kinds of
4:21:21 laps there’s the
4:21:22 laps from the frozen salaries for the employees that have been
4:21:25 sitting at the
4:21:25 same salary all year and then there’s the laps of all the people
4:21:29 that leave
4:21:29 and then the unfilled positions also creates laps I think your
4:21:34 laps in this
4:21:35 district is probably closer to eight or nine million not 1.9
4:21:40 million just as a
4:21:52 point of clarification on your last point yes we had some people
4:21:55 who retired
4:21:55 in September even October and all throughout the year but not
4:21:59 all those
4:21:59 positions that empty we there are people who have to be in those
4:22:02 classrooms
4:22:02 correct so those are higher so that’s not as if we are just not
4:22:06 having to pay
4:22:07 those salaries for the rest of the year sometimes you fill them
4:22:09 sometimes you
4:22:10 don’t but when you do you typically have a gap between the
4:22:13 people that leave
4:22:14 because you have an average experience of around 13 years and I’m
4:22:18 guessing your
4:22:19 average experience when you hire is probably about three to five
4:22:21 years so
4:22:22 that difference in pay plus benefits average is about to be
4:22:25 about $20,000 per
4:22:26 person so for every employee that you turn over you you probably
4:22:30 and that
4:22:31 doesn’t even include like if you have a waiting period on health
4:22:33 insurance I’ve
4:22:34 calculated this for 18 years in Polk’s trust me it’s it’s about
4:22:38 $20,000 every
4:22:39 time we lose a teacher and rehire if there’s a $20,000 save on
4:22:42 average you
4:22:43 sometimes you hire someone with more experience but sometimes
4:22:46 you hire a lot
4:22:47 of beginning teachers and on average the average employee
4:22:50 experience of new hires
4:22:51 and Polk is three and a half years the average person leaving is
4:22:55 20-plus years
4:22:56 but are you saying that the average difference in their salary
4:22:58 is $20,000
4:23:00 salary because it’s salaries and benefits because you have to
4:23:02 pay the
4:23:02 retirement portion all of those things are based on the salary
4:23:06 so it’s an
4:23:06 exponential figure including like unemployment is an exponential
4:23:10 figure
4:23:11 it’s based on salary I’m sorry that I don’t know what is your
4:23:16 position at Polk
4:23:17 I used to be a service unit director in Polk I’m now the
4:23:19 bargaining specialist
4:23:20 for the southern half of the state of Florida for the Florida
4:23:23 Education
4:23:23 Association okay so you’re not employed by Polk County not
4:23:26 anymore currently
4:23:27 okay
4:23:41 board members do you have more questions
4:23:57 okay members of the board that concludes the presentations and
4:24:27 this matter is now before us pursuant to section four four seven
4:24:31 dot four zero
4:24:32 three Florida statutes as a reminder the statute requires us the
4:24:36 legislative body
4:24:37 to take such action as it deems to be in the public interest
4:24:41 including the
4:24:41 interest of the public employees involved to resolve all
4:24:44 disputed impasse
4:24:45 issues so board members if you have any final questions for
4:24:48 either party you may
4:24:49 ask them now I will give you a few minutes to gather your
4:24:52 questions and we
4:24:53 will proceed with questions to either side yes we will recess
4:25:00 for five ten
4:25:02 five minutes we’re gonna recess for five minutes
4:25:23 you
4:34:53 for this hearing is now back in session as a reminder we’ve got
4:35:07 another
4:35:22 message from the court reporter again we are not speaking loud
4:35:24 enough into the
4:35:25 microphones including both parties answering questions so if we
4:35:29 can all
4:35:29 project the best we can so she can record this process it’d be
4:35:33 appreciated
4:35:33 I’m going to reread section D of our agenda as we start into
4:35:39 asking questions
4:35:40 of both parties members of the board that concludes the
4:35:43 presentations and
4:35:44 this matter is now before us pursuant to section four four seven
4:35:48 dot four zero
4:35:49 three Florida statutes as a reminder the statute requires us the
4:35:53 legislative body
4:35:54 to take such action as it deems to be in the public interest
4:35:58 including the
4:35:59 interest of the public employees involved to resolve all
4:36:02 disputed impasse
4:36:03 issues so board members if you have any final questions for
4:36:06 either party you may
4:36:07 ask them now I will give you well we’ve had a few minutes
4:36:10 together I thought so
4:36:11 it’s time to ask questions who would like to start I’m sorry
4:36:18 okay I’ve heard
4:36:20 very two compelling presentations and I appreciate both of you
4:36:24 but I’m a little
4:36:25 confused on the disparity of the difference between the lapse
4:36:30 funds
4:36:30 according to the attrition so I hear on one part 1.3 and the
4:36:37 other 8.9 I think
4:36:39 so help me out here it’s such a big gap that I’m trying to
4:36:45 understand how it is
4:36:46 so large and so different between the two parties miss McDougal
4:36:50 please address
4:36:51 your question to one party or the other or both at one time but
4:36:53 let’s help them
4:36:54 have order I would like both sides again to help me understand
4:36:59 why you’re both so
4:37:01 far apart I don’t care who goes do you understand the question
4:37:06 yes we want to
4:37:08 understand how you come up with the one points approximately 1.4
4:37:13 million dollars
4:37:14 annually in attrition yes and then when you’re finished mr. Colucci
4:37:19 we would
4:37:19 like to hear how you all come up with the eight points tonight
4:37:23 the 8.9 thank
4:37:25 you I will do my best miss Serkis is much more familiar with the
4:37:30 calculations
4:37:30 but finance team actually look at the number of retirements on
4:37:34 an annual basis
4:37:35 they do retirement salary calculations against average hiring
4:37:40 that the cost of
4:37:42 the replacement of those positions from the previous year and
4:37:47 calculate a true
4:37:48 attrition over the last two years those have been calculated
4:37:52 projected and then
4:37:54 they’ve been verified and very close so those are approximately
4:37:58 on average of
4:37:59 1.4 million dollars for 2017 18 and tooth out I’m sorry yes for
4:38:05 2017 18 and
4:38:07 going into 2018 19 the Union presented at the Magistrates
4:38:11 hearing a calculation
4:38:16 that we have not been able to verify we looked it into the their
4:38:20 explanation of
4:38:22 the calculations and it is just not verifiable when we use their
4:38:26 presentation and divide the number of the average savings into
4:38:30 the amount that
4:38:32 they’re proposing it totals over 5,700 teachers which we we do
4:38:39 not have we’ve
4:38:40 we’re at right at around a five five thousand teachers so our
4:38:45 calculations
4:38:47 are based on an annual projection based on a formula and then we
4:38:51 go back and
4:38:52 verified and has been consistent over the last two years once
4:38:57 again remind you
4:38:59 that we use the actual district payroll we public records
4:39:03 requested the payroll
4:39:05 for several years and it’s actually very simple and it appears
4:39:10 that the
4:39:10 superintendent is over complicating this if you look at the
4:39:16 final number spent on
4:39:18 salary and compare it year over year you will see that you are
4:39:22 spending less
4:39:23 therefore that that less amount is taken off the race it’s what
4:39:32 you’re not
4:39:34 spending that you are budgeting to spend on salary so I know I
4:39:39 sent some of you
4:39:40 those exact records that we analyzed and you can see the labs
4:39:44 very easily by
4:39:45 looking at the bottom line and we calculated it to be on an
4:39:52 average three
4:39:53 point six million dollars per year on an average and I also want
4:39:57 to remind you
4:39:58 about the slide that we presented average teacher salary in Brevard
4:40:03 according to DOE the incorrect budgeting that the district is
4:40:09 currently doing
4:40:10 would lead you to believe that our average salary at this time
4:40:14 should be
4:40:15 well over fifty thousand dollars since 2013-14 but you will see
4:40:21 in 2013-14 the
4:40:23 average salary was forty six thousand fifty four dollars it is
4:40:27 now forty six
4:40:29 thousand three hundred and sixteen dollars if their argument was
4:40:34 correct it
4:40:34 would be in the fifty thousands our average salary is not
4:40:40 increasing with
4:40:41 these raises your responsibility to pay them. Ms. Deskevich, Madam
4:40:48 Chair, Ms.
4:40:49 McDougle if I’d be helpful we did do a calculation using both
4:40:53 the unions
4:40:54 calculation of a three point six million dollar attrition
4:40:57 against our calculated
4:41:00 and confirmed attrition rate I could provide that handout for
4:41:03 you which may
4:41:04 show the implications of it. Mr. Colucci, Ms. Dawson, I believe
4:41:15 Ms. Dawson I wrote
4:41:16 a note here that she said that she thought the attrition rate
4:41:20 was eight or
4:41:21 nine million did you say that did I write that down correctly
4:41:23 did anyone
4:41:24 else catch that okay and then Mr. Colucci just said it was three
4:41:28 point six
4:41:28 million and the district is saying it’s one point six million so
4:41:31 those those
4:41:31 numbers wild are you know very wildly can you help explain the
4:41:37 difference
4:41:37 between your eight and nine and his three point six please you
4:41:42 hire new
4:41:51 staff at higher levels I mean at lower levels than you did at
4:41:54 higher levels
4:41:55 Anthony said that last year you guys hired four hundred new
4:41:58 teachers if the
4:42:00 average price difference let’s just say is ten thousand dollars
4:42:03 per employee
4:42:05 from a fifty thousand hiring at forty thousand just using a easy
4:42:09 math that’s
4:42:10 four million dollars one point six million at an average salary
4:42:15 is about
4:42:16 thirty people so are they calculating empty positions are they
4:42:20 calculating
4:42:21 actual turnover are we calculating just retirements the word
4:42:25 lapse requires
4:42:26 definition to be able to figure out what it actually means but
4:42:31 if you are filling
4:42:32 400 positions a year I believe that the turnover is actually
4:42:35 closer to about
4:42:36 twenty thousand dollars per person which is eight million
4:42:40 dollars do you have any
4:42:42 record or proof when you bring those numbers to us we need to be
4:42:45 able to see
4:42:45 I love that you think it’s no more 20 minute Anthony says you
4:42:49 hired over 400
4:42:50 new employees and so but the the amount of the difference and I
4:42:55 think that’s
4:42:56 what was Campbell was trying to get at your HR would have to
4:42:59 calculate that and
4:43:00 and I’m just using an example because Polk is very similar size
4:43:03 to Brevard
4:43:04 County we’re only slightly are larger we don’t have as high of
4:43:08 your experience of
4:43:09 the 13 years like you do but if you just take examples from
4:43:12 other districts
4:43:13 because that’s all this is about is about comparator districts
4:43:16 and in a
4:43:17 comparator district it’s a $20,000 savings and that was actually
4:43:20 calculated
4:43:21 by the HR department in Polk County they said the average new
4:43:24 employee there has
4:43:25 three and a half years of experience I believe if your employee
4:43:28 group would
4:43:29 calculate that they could probably verify those numbers however
4:43:32 on the fly
4:43:33 no I can’t verify that because your HR would have to give us
4:43:37 those figures
4:43:38 thank you miss McDougal do you have another question board
4:43:44 members mr. Susan
4:43:47 what are the actual total number of teachers that we rehire this
4:43:52 year what
4:43:53 was the total number he says it’s close to 400 let’s get it let’s
4:43:56 get a real
4:43:57 moment I don’t have that information with me right now but I can
4:44:03 get it
4:44:10 I have a question miss zirker do you know what goes into the
4:44:17 calculation of
4:44:18 attrition that we’re using or mr. or dr. Mullins for that 1.6
4:44:22 that you’re coming
4:44:23 up with because I do agree we have to if everyone’s using
4:44:25 different calculations
4:44:26 they’re not going to compare to get the lap recurring lap salary
4:44:31 from our
4:44:32 retirees being replaced we take and look at the individual
4:44:36 retirees of which
4:44:37 coming out of 17 18 into 18 19 was 187 that is not just teachers
4:44:44 that is total
4:44:45 retirees and then we compare those positions against the average
4:44:51 new higher
4:44:52 salary for the previous year so in budgeting for 1819 we looked
4:44:59 at the
4:44:59 average new hire from the previous year of the ranges that they
4:45:04 were hired in
4:45:05 and that becomes our budgeted number for vacancy we do not use
4:45:09 an average salary
4:45:10 and we do not use the lowest because people may come in at the
4:45:15 bottom wrong
4:45:16 they may come in much higher so we take the average of what was
4:45:20 hired in in the
4:45:21 previous year against the retiree salary to calculate the
4:45:27 estimate for the new
4:45:28 year do you said retirees do we use do we predict the laps
4:45:34 dollars from
4:45:35 attrition for people that have quit also or just retirees they
4:45:39 do come into the
4:45:40 budget when we do the final budget and run the final August
4:45:45 payroll plus
4:45:46 vacancies to build our final budget anything there would show if
4:45:50 you would
4:45:51 to go back for the last few years and look at the differences
4:45:54 between our two
4:45:55 budgets you will not see significant dollars so that 1.6 am I
4:45:58 getting that
4:45:59 right 1.6 million 1.4 1.4 million is that just retirees or are
4:46:06 you is that
4:46:07 that’s just retirees but it’s very difficult to judge who is
4:46:12 leaving and
4:46:13 when particularly as we’re building the budget so we look at the
4:46:18 retirees
4:46:18 because we get those from the retiree office we know who is but
4:46:22 historically
4:46:23 we should know what happened last year and the year before those
4:46:26 would be
4:46:26 averages based on history and we have not looked at those the
4:46:31 changes in
4:46:32 salaries can vary greatly and it would be difficult you would be
4:46:37 taking
4:46:37 averages of averages to make an estimate with sorry for the
4:46:42 question without the
4:46:43 preparation I know you probably don’t have it dr. daddy but I’m
4:46:46 going to ask
4:46:46 do we know how many people were terminated or quit but teachers
4:46:51 terminated or quit last year do you have access to that this
4:46:57 desk of it I want to
4:47:01 try to explain this another way it’s it’s not a as accurate
4:47:05 calculation as
4:47:07 when we pulled the actual payroll but if you look at the Florida
4:47:11 DOE average
4:47:12 salaries for 2017-18 you’ll see that our average salary was
4:47:18 forty seven thousand
4:47:19 sixty five dollars if you look at 1819 DOE forty six thousand
4:47:24 three hundred
4:47:25 sixteen dollars that is a difference of seven hundred and fifty
4:47:30 nine dollars I
4:47:31 believe she took the calculator for me and in 1718 there were
4:47:37 four thousand
4:47:38 seven hundred forty one teachers if you multiply four thousand
4:47:42 seven hundred
4:47:42 forty one times seven hundred and fifty nine dollars you’re
4:47:46 going to get about
4:47:47 three and a half million dollars just that is the argument we
4:47:52 said and that is
4:47:53 the number almost two to the to the dot right there three and a
4:47:58 half million
4:47:58 dollars that is a simple way of looking at it so once again I
4:48:02 took the 1718
4:48:04 salary 47,000 sixty five dollars I subtracted the 1819 salary
4:48:09 forty six
4:48:10 thousand three hundred sixteen got seven hundred and fifty nine
4:48:14 multiplied that
4:48:15 by the number of teachers four thousand seven hundred forty one
4:48:19 and I got three
4:48:21 million five hundred fifty one thousand dollars that’s not the
4:48:26 case every year
4:48:27 they’re right that was the case from from 16 17 to 17 excuse me
4:48:32 17 18 to 18
4:48:33 19 this is the case every year that that 3.6 was the average
4:48:40 that we figured for
4:48:42 attrition some years it’s higher some years it could be less so
4:48:47 for me if
4:48:48 that’s true then that could cover the the 3.2 million in cuts
4:48:55 that I’m so
4:48:56 worried about with your most recent proposal of what we’re going
4:48:59 to cut we
4:48:59 wouldn’t have to cut anything it would just fall from the
4:49:02 attrition so then we
4:49:03 still have to we still have to come up with the additional six
4:49:11 point three
4:49:14 million to meet what the magistrate and Union were asking that’s
4:49:19 correct in miss
4:49:20 deskevich if you look at the back of the handout I provided it
4:49:23 actually shows the
4:49:25 schedule using both our verified calculations of attrition of
4:49:29 one point
4:49:30 four million dollars dr. Mullins excuse me I wanted to make sure
4:49:33 BFT had a copy
4:49:34 we provided it okay thank you go ahead I’m sorry versus the
4:49:39 unions calculation
4:49:40 of three point six million dollars which we have not been able
4:49:43 to verify if you
4:49:45 amortize it over time you’ll see that the fund balance impact is
4:49:50 twenty eight
4:49:51 point eight million dollars before the commitment to the raises
4:49:56 met using the
4:49:57 unions projection of attrition there is a twelve point four
4:50:02 million dollar fund
4:50:03 balance decline before the attrition rate covers the commitment
4:50:10 dr. Mullins
4:50:12 why hasn’t the average teacher salary in Brevard County from
4:50:15 2013 to 2018 19
4:50:18 increased more than a couple hundred dollars if what you’re
4:50:21 saying is
4:50:22 accurate excuse me mr. Colucci I I’m thinking it’s probably bad
4:50:27 business to
4:50:28 have the two parties I’m asking questions to each other you can
4:50:31 address
4:50:31 the chair and the board and we can we can work through that
4:50:35 route just so we
4:50:36 can maintain decorum in order did you want to ask me your
4:50:40 question and we can
4:50:41 we can straighten that out once again we’ll say that the
4:50:45 district is using a
4:50:46 flawed budgeting process to cost out the raises and if you just
4:50:51 look at our our
4:50:52 average salaries from 2013 to today you will see that it is a
4:50:58 flawed budgeted
4:51:00 budgeting process our salaries have only increased a couple
4:51:04 hundred dollars on
4:51:06 the average if what they are saying is correct that number that
4:51:10 number would be
4:51:10 a straight line and it is not so for point of clarification when
4:51:19 the teacher
4:51:19 decides not to work any longer inside the district retirees
4:51:23 follow a different
4:51:24 path than teachers that are going to another position in another
4:51:28 county so to
4:51:29 say that we are only pulling data from retirees and not pulling
4:51:34 data from
4:51:34 transfers from the people who decline to work anymore and all of
4:51:38 that shows it
4:51:39 significantly that that number is lower than what it actually is
4:51:42 until you so
4:51:47 for example when I worked for nine years and I was in the
4:51:50 position where I was
4:51:52 ready to leave the district for another job I had to do so and
4:51:55 make a decision
4:51:57 on whether to retire or not and I did not by doing so sends a
4:52:01 different
4:52:01 trajectory on what you’re gonna do in the future because I didn’t
4:52:04 know if I
4:52:05 was ever going to come back so to say that we only look at
4:52:08 retirees shows that
4:52:10 that unto itself is a lower number just so you know the next
4:52:13 thing that I was
4:52:14 going to ask dr. or mrs. irker you said that you look at the
4:52:19 average new higher
4:52:21 number for retirees do you can you please provide that number I
4:52:25 do not have
4:52:26 it today but I’d be happy to give it to the board which year
4:52:29 would you like it
4:52:30 for we’ll do it this year if you have it for 1819 it’s not
4:52:36 calculated yet so
4:52:37 1718 so 1718 I’d like to have the average new higher well is
4:52:41 that while
4:52:42 we’re doing the proceeding or is that okay so when we were doing
4:52:46 those trend
4:52:47 numbers as far as who’s leaving and who’s who’s retiring and
4:52:50 everything
4:52:50 over the last couple of years we see that the numbers have
4:52:53 increased
4:52:54 significantly right regardless of if it’s impact on you know the
4:52:59 you know the
4:53:00 salaries or wherever it is we’re seeing an increase in the
4:53:02 amount of people so
4:53:04 by doing that if we had the total number of individuals
4:53:09 including the retirees
4:53:11 and everybody else we would have a way to look at this number
4:53:14 and by not
4:53:15 looking at it I have no idea how to actually calculate it and if
4:53:19 we’re
4:53:20 sitting here and we’re trying to make a judgment over how much
4:53:22 money we have
4:53:23 reoccurring and we’re only looking at one population sector I
4:53:26 don’t understand
4:53:26 how that’s possible so here’s a way to get around it total
4:53:30 number of teachers
4:53:31 times average salary do we both agree that that’s our salary
4:53:34 payroll for the
4:53:35 year or is that wrong mr. it depends on how you’ve calculated
4:53:43 average salary if
4:53:44 you’re doing it based off of actuals yes so if we took the total
4:53:48 number of
4:53:49 teachers that we have minus the total number of average of
4:53:53 salary we get a
4:53:54 number right and that number if correct should be decreasing
4:53:59 according to mr.
4:54:01 Colucci by three million per year and both you it should be 1.4
4:54:04 is that
4:54:05 correct my number is strictly based on retirees not termination
4:54:11 I’m saying
4:54:11 total number of payroll you only do payroll to report to the
4:54:16 state off of
4:54:16 retirees no sir I don’t have a number for total payroll mr.
4:54:22 Susan may I address
4:54:23 your question sure if you look in the blue tab on page 6 this
4:54:29 gives you your
4:54:30 amended budget your April 2019 versus your April 2018 if you
4:54:37 look at
4:54:38 instruction only in circle April 2019 instruction it’s 280
4:54:44 million dollars
4:54:45 that was expended in April of 2019 for instruction in April 2018
4:54:51 it was 284
4:54:52 million dollars there’s your laps okay next question and I would
4:55:03 like miss
4:55:03 zurker but if you can’t answer it I would like the Union there’s
4:55:06 a slide
4:55:06 somewhere inside of here but that’s not to say disrespect to the
4:55:10 district
4:55:11 there’s a slide inside of here that said total number of
4:55:15 teachers right do you
4:55:17 can you provide that slide or can you give me the total number
4:55:20 of teachers
4:55:20 over the last three years so I think they had something in
4:55:27 theirs I cannot
4:55:29 give it to you over the last three years it changes day to day
4:55:33 well there’s a
4:55:37 slide somewhere in here that shows if you guys could find that mr.
4:55:42 Susan it’s
4:55:45 the slide in the PFT proposal that says the theory which tab
4:55:51 which tabs okay the
4:55:56 theory argues that raises are recurring expenses as far back
4:56:00 into it towards the
4:56:04 end I would also just like to while you look for that remind you
4:56:12 that as we’re
4:56:14 considering these things let’s not lose sight on who the special
4:56:19 magistrate
4:56:20 agreed with the special magistrate agreed with our analysis not
4:56:26 with the
4:56:27 district analysis miss desk which I have a question miss
4:56:35 Campbell and how I know
4:56:38 that part of what we’ve used the district has used to add
4:56:43 additional
4:56:43 dollars to the recurring raises was a result of reducing our
4:56:48 reserve teacher
4:56:49 units and so when we look at the budgeted amount for
4:56:53 instructional
4:56:55 salaries at the beginning of the year that included all those
4:56:58 people and so
4:57:00 can you remind me of the savings that are the adjustment that’s
4:57:05 made and it
4:57:06 may not show up yet because we haven’t actually paid that out in
4:57:09 the in the
4:57:10 raises but what that added to what we can offer or how that
4:57:15 changed the budget
4:57:18 reserve units for 1.3 million dollars okay and so that what
4:57:24 those were
4:57:25 included in that original a budgeted amount correct okay and
4:57:31 then mr. Kerr
4:57:33 would you the the BFT has presented talked about extrapolating
4:57:42 that amount
4:57:43 and can you how does that just traditionally in this since we
4:57:49 still
4:57:49 have three months left to go or that was April so we had May
4:57:52 June and whatever
4:57:53 can you kind of explain any changes that might occur or your
4:57:58 thoughts on the
4:57:59 extrapolation yes yes well first off on that page number six
4:58:08 just before the
4:58:09 total actual expenditures are the open purchase orders that were
4:58:13 still open as
4:58:14 of April 30th for goods and services to be it’s to be that’s on
4:58:21 page 5 to be
4:58:23 spent before the end of the year and that’s 70 million dollars
4:58:28 so the
4:58:29 district has spent and committed to 351 million the actuals
4:58:35 teachers are paid
4:58:36 from August through July so as of April 30th salaries through
4:58:42 April are in there
4:58:43 you still have three months of salaries to be added to the
4:58:47 actual number as well
4:58:49 okay so what you’re saying is we add the actual we can add the
4:58:52 obligated to the
4:58:53 actuals yes you should okay remember those two together are 351
4:59:09 million and
4:59:10 then you have three months worth of salary it’s also important
4:59:14 if you look
4:59:15 at the caffer they referenced back under the gray tab page 134
4:59:25 the total
4:59:29 instructional expenses which is correct miss Dawson is correct
4:59:33 include salaries
4:59:33 benefits purchase services supplies materials capital outlay and
4:59:37 other
4:59:37 expenditures for June 30th 2018 was 300 almost 393 million
4:59:45 dollars and 372
4:59:48 million for 2017 and 372 million for 2016 miss Campbell if I can
4:59:58 I want to
4:59:59 ask questions on that same line so the total for the obligated
5:00:03 and the actual
5:00:04 we said was roughly 351 million yet our budget amended budget is
5:00:08 at 385 I do
5:00:09 understand that through last year was 393 is it salaries that
5:00:14 make up the
5:00:15 difference between the 351 and the 385 I think that’s what we
5:00:18 want to know
5:00:19 because that is what miss BFT has said that there’s going to be
5:00:24 some laps
5:00:25 obviously a lot of laps so to add three months more of salaries
5:00:29 to the 280 and
5:00:30 then as the 70 million under obligated gets expended that would
5:00:35 move over into
5:00:36 the actuals between now and the end of the year a month of
5:00:40 salaries is what I
5:00:41 don’t have it for just teachers today
5:00:49 thank you mr. sorry miss Campbell if you have more questions
5:00:53 yeah I have another
5:00:56 question if I may miss zurker the Union has suggested that we do
5:01:05 not need an
5:01:06 FEFP reserve can you explain why we do that and if we need it or
5:01:11 if it’s
5:01:11 something that we choose to do optionally what what it why is
5:01:14 that
5:01:15 separate from our traditional reserves the initial FEFP report
5:01:19 coming from the
5:01:21 legislature and the conference report is based on projected
5:01:25 student enrollment as
5:01:28 using 1718 as an example we were short statewide 35,000 students
5:01:36 based on
5:01:36 projections so when we came to our second our third calculation
5:01:41 the first
5:01:42 is the conference report the second using the same number of
5:01:46 students adds
5:01:46 our actual property value the third follows student count for
5:01:51 October we
5:01:53 took a hit of over five million dollars in December of last year
5:01:57 from the third
5:01:58 count when we got to the fourth we retrieved less than a million
5:02:03 dollars
5:02:04 about that we lost a large number about 600 students that year
5:02:08 that did not come
5:02:09 in in our projections the almost five million dollars of lost
5:02:15 revenue was
5:02:17 taken from the reserve for FEFP if we had not had that reserve
5:02:21 we would have
5:02:22 needed to look at cutting potentially supplies positions and
5:02:26 other expenditures
5:02:27 at schools that are funded by that why would that not come out
5:02:30 of the state
5:02:31 contingency reserve the board policy wants it at least three and
5:02:36 a half
5:02:37 percent and if I would dictate were to take it out of that we
5:02:40 would drop below
5:02:41 policy so if we had a larger I think we’ve got a few issues here
5:02:47 a couple of
5:02:49 them being like the health insurance looking like it’s a reserve
5:02:52 when it
5:02:52 doesn’t really seem that it is so I hope in the future as a
5:02:55 board we’re going to
5:02:56 address and give direction to get that into our general budget
5:02:59 somehow because
5:03:00 the things that are outstanding like that are very confusing for
5:03:04 the public
5:03:04 for us if it’s budget it’s budgeted and we’re going to pay it it
5:03:08 needs to be in
5:03:08 the budget it’s not a savings but this issue is a savings but
5:03:14 cutter but could
5:03:15 it be in the regular contingency in the future and not have an
5:03:19 FEFP line item it
5:03:20 would just be a higher level of contingency what do other
5:03:22 districts do
5:03:23 is that how they they manage it or do most districts have an FEFP
5:03:26 separate
5:03:27 line item this is my fourth district in the in the state of
5:03:31 Florida I have
5:03:32 worked for a smaller district into larger districts most
5:03:37 districts set
5:03:38 aside a contingency such as your board required contingency of
5:03:43 at least 3%
5:03:44 there are some districts who require 5% and that is not utilized
5:03:50 except in
5:03:51 specific needs approved by the board for other reserves such as
5:03:56 the FEFP they
5:03:57 will establish a separate FEFP reserve to maintain covering
5:04:02 those losses to
5:04:04 avoid it hurting schools when they occur okay so it’s a it seems
5:04:10 like it’s a
5:04:10 common practice because we have to be able to buffer we don’t we
5:04:13 don’t know
5:04:14 what’s gonna happen with students coming and going but we could
5:04:17 have that in a
5:04:19 general contingency we just have to be able to cover it if
5:04:21 needed okay thank
5:04:22 you questions mr. Susan are you disputing BFT’s numbers with the
5:04:46 three
5:04:47 put their first their three points six million are you trying to
5:04:57 I won’t
5:04:58 understand what you’re doing are you trying to prove or disprove
5:05:00 their three
5:05:01 points and I want to make sure that those align with we’re doing
5:05:17 now is all
5:05:17 right that includes all the members of the bargaining unit from
5:05:30 your payroll
5:05:33 okay and when we and when you pull these numbers mr. Colucci you’re
5:05:37 pulling a
5:05:38 snapshot at a specific time inside of our district or is this
5:05:41 where are you
5:05:42 pulling this data from we we requested every single payroll in
5:05:52 all those years
5:05:53 I’m not quite sure how he calculate you know got the average
5:05:57 number of teachers
5:05:59 but that what we requested every single payroll okay they
5:06:04 actually report they
5:06:05 actually report this data during the surveys the survey two and
5:06:09 survey three
5:06:10 and so Graham pulled all the data from all the different surveys
5:06:15 to come up but
5:06:15 again these these two numbers do fluctuate over time you can
5:06:18 only look
5:06:19 for trends and you have a downward trend right which also
5:06:22 reflects your 129
5:06:24 students that were not on your survey three you wouldn’t
5:06:26 obviously need
5:06:27 teachers for students that did not come to your schools but we
5:06:31 we did reduce we
5:06:32 did reduce our workforce per budget changes and stuff like that
5:06:37 which are
5:06:37 kind of consistent with what’s inside here thank you miss Belfort
5:06:45 I know it’s
5:06:46 I’m good on that question yeah I’m good did you have another
5:06:53 question no no you
5:07:00 have a question again mr. Susan yeah Oh mr. Susan um I have a
5:07:03 quick question
5:07:03 miss erka I requested to try to get the financial data for 1920
5:07:09 that just came
5:07:10 in from the disk for the district and I was told that I couldn’t
5:07:13 get it because
5:07:14 you know it would have showed favoritism or whatever it was last
5:07:18 week so the
5:07:18 thing is is that I would like to it was I would like to run
5:07:21 through that real
5:07:23 quick you’ve presented in to us what you think is reoccurring
5:07:29 going forward in
5:07:29 the next year and I’d like to hear that rundown well what I’ve
5:07:33 presented to you
5:07:34 previously was a very initial allocation and tomorrow we are
5:07:40 doing actual budget
5:07:41 workshop that will have revised numbers in it so if you could
5:07:45 give me the ones
5:07:46 that you presented I did not bring them with me it left over
5:07:52 approximately nine
5:07:53 point five million dollars at the end of that calculation reoccurring
5:07:58 correct yes
5:07:59 sir and that did not include our increase in discretionary millage
5:08:04 and it
5:08:05 did not include an increase in our local that would be incorrect
5:08:10 increases in
5:08:11 both our discretionary required local effort are included in the
5:08:15 FEFP which
5:08:16 was used to calculate the nine point five what is currently not
5:08:20 in that
5:08:21 number would be budget scrub numbers and our calculation of the
5:08:27 lap salaries from
5:08:28 retirees for the new year and any other scrubs that budget
5:08:32 reductions we decide
5:08:33 we propose to take scrubs and reoccurring was not put in there
5:08:38 but our
5:08:39 local required local effort of point seven four eight and the
5:08:41 others are
5:08:42 inside of there yes they’re part of the FEFP including in that
5:08:46 nine point five
5:08:46 okay yes thank you any board members have more questions
5:08:58 mr. Susan do you have more questions do you need a minute
5:09:16 I’ll ask another question go ahead mrs. Erker you may not have
5:09:24 it with you but
5:09:25 on page 19 of your Brevard Public Schools presentation that you
5:09:29 gave to
5:09:30 the impasse I had a quick question I was looking at the impact
5:09:34 on available funds
5:09:35 it’s slide three of three slide number 19 and it goes over our
5:09:40 fiscal year
5:09:41 total millage change in millage and then taxable property value
5:09:45 of which you
5:09:46 showed a loss of revenue from reduced millage of 39 million
5:09:51 dollars that is
5:09:53 from the rollback rate that the legislature put into effect
5:09:58 going into
5:09:59 2016-17 that is an estimate of the lost revenue if they had not
5:10:04 rolled that back
5:10:05 but in actuality if you actually multiply the total millage that
5:10:09 we
5:10:09 received by the taxable property value it actually increases by
5:10:13 21 million
5:10:14 dollars I do not believe that is correct well if you want to
5:10:18 take 15 16 you have
5:10:20 a total millage of seven point three seven seven multiply that
5:10:24 by taxable
5:10:24 property value which is thirty three million one hundred and
5:10:27 eighty four
5:10:28 thousand nine hundred and two you get a millage of two hundred
5:10:32 and forty four
5:10:33 eight oh five oh by statute we are only allowed to budget ninety
5:10:38 six point five
5:10:39 percent of the calculation you’re referring to sure but if you
5:10:43 budget that
5:10:44 ninety six percent or ninety four percent and you continue to
5:10:48 multiply six
5:10:49 point nine six six times thirty five six point five eight six
5:10:53 point five six
5:10:54 eight times thirty eight six point two nine nine times forty two
5:10:57 you will see
5:10:58 that that number increases so whether we budgeted for it or not
5:11:01 what I’m trying
5:11:02 to ask you is is if did we receive an increase as opposed to a
5:11:07 revenue
5:11:07 reduction in millage the increases we were we recognized were
5:11:11 between a
5:11:12 million to two million dollars each year they were very small we
5:11:16 did not see the
5:11:18 full calculation that you’re looking at and unfortunately this
5:11:21 district also
5:11:22 does not have a history of collecting a hundred percent or even
5:11:27 the ninety six
5:11:28 point five this is the first year in the last four years we have
5:11:32 not been
5:11:33 required to file an additional millage based on not collecting
5:11:37 enough revenues
5:11:38 on ad valorem taxes for the required local effort in the
5:11:41 previous year sure
5:11:43 and I hear you but going through the trend what I’m getting at
5:11:49 is is that you
5:11:50 presented this as a 40 million dollar loss in revenue from
5:11:53 reduced millage
5:11:54 okay what I’m trying to prove to you is that the total millage
5:11:59 times the total
5:12:00 property value and that includes our local millage is increased
5:12:05 by five by
5:12:06 another six by eleven million dollars and now don’t receive that
5:12:12 and we are
5:12:12 not allowed to budget that by statute not even the required
5:12:16 local effort I am
5:12:18 only allowed to budget even in the capital millage ninety six
5:12:21 point five
5:12:22 percent of the calculation and that is because they know that
5:12:26 our that the
5:12:27 citizens don’t pay all their taxes is that a consistent ninety
5:12:30 six point every
5:12:32 district in the state does is only allowed to budget ninety six
5:12:36 point five
5:12:37 percent so if you’re only budgeting ninety six point five
5:12:41 percent every
5:12:42 single year and the total number of revenue is increasing it
5:12:46 should be
5:12:47 reflective for those four years correct and I did say we have
5:12:50 seen a small
5:12:51 increase each year between one and two million dollars I’d be
5:12:55 happy to send you
5:12:56 the no no no no but you presented it as a thirty million nine
5:13:00 million dollar
5:13:01 loss in your presentation this is a potential loss in other
5:13:05 words if they
5:13:06 had not rolled it back this is how much more we would have
5:13:10 gotten this this is
5:13:11 how much more we’ve gotten this year so over if they had stayed
5:13:13 at seven point
5:13:14 three seven seven we would have had 39 million dollars more at
5:13:19 this point and
5:13:20 what this says is if in 1617 they had not rolled back it had
5:13:25 stayed seven point three seven seven we would have had 14
5:13:28 million dollars more in 17 18 if they had left it at the six
5:13:33 point nine six six we would have had almost thirteen million
5:13:37 more I totally
5:13:38 understand that but it’s presented at a lost of revenue from
5:13:41 reduced millage when
5:13:42 you’ve just admitted that we actually increased our millage by
5:13:45 one to two
5:13:45 million dollars I’m indicating here that because of the action
5:13:48 of the legislature
5:13:49 it’s revenue we did not receive that if they had not done what
5:13:53 they did we could
5:13:54 have but did we receive more money mrs. ochre one to two million
5:13:57 dollars thank
5:13:58 you mr. Susan I’d like to point you to page 20 of our brief on a
5:14:04 related note
5:14:05 miss ochre testified at length to the legislature’s practice
5:14:09 over the last
5:14:10 several years of cutting required local effort millage rates as
5:14:14 property tax
5:14:15 values increase which she views as causing BPS to suffer a quote
5:14:19 unquote
5:14:19 loss of local tax receipts well it’s true that yet BPS would
5:14:24 have received
5:14:25 more funding had the required local out effort millage rates
5:14:28 remained at the 15
5:14:29 16 levels miss ochre’s argument that it is tantamount to BPS
5:14:34 suffering a
5:14:35 bona fide loss in funding is pure sufficiently ruminations on
5:14:40 what might
5:14:41 have been available to fund the unions proposal are irrelevant
5:14:45 to the instant
5:14:45 dispute over what actually is available to the unions proposal I
5:14:52 have one final
5:14:57 question you’ve already discussed this but I just want to have
5:15:00 it clarified in
5:15:01 my notes the government is it the government accounting
5:15:06 organization which
5:15:07 government government finance officers association they
5:15:14 recommend having two
5:15:15 months correct correct for all government entities no matter
5:15:21 their size
5:15:21 they recommend two months of either revenues or expenditures to
5:15:26 be held in
5:15:27 reserve and what is that number for us 91 million dollars and
5:15:32 what is our
5:15:33 reserves our total fund balance is 58 and our we are unassigned
5:15:39 assigned is
5:15:40 approximately 49 million can do a follow-up just give me a
5:15:47 second
5:15:52 miss worker a couple years ago we had hurricanes we were able to
5:15:59 pay staff
5:16:01 even though we evacuated and we were gone and some other things
5:16:05 happen
5:16:06 damages and such does that come out of reserves yes that falls
5:16:10 to the bottom
5:16:11 line and fund balance yes if something happened to us here and I
5:16:16 know it’s
5:16:16 unlikely but we all live in hurricane zones here like that’s
5:16:21 happened in Bay
5:16:22 County that level of a hurricane what our district runs and
5:16:29 maintains all of
5:16:31 the or most of the shelters what funds do we use to run and
5:16:36 maintain those what
5:16:38 funds do we use to put the schools back in shape so they can
5:16:42 open I know we had
5:16:43 schools that had floods throughout them during the hurricane is
5:16:46 it bottom line
5:16:47 funds is it is it our contingency reserve is it regular reserve
5:16:51 fund
5:16:52 balance which at the end of the year and it’s important to note
5:16:58 we still have not
5:16:59 been reimbursed by FEMA for Hurricane Matthew sheltering costs
5:17:04 nor have we
5:17:05 been reimbursed by the county for Hurricane Irma we are still
5:17:09 waiting on
5:17:10 complete facility repair cost from FEMA for Hurricane Irma as
5:17:17 well so I do take
5:17:18 issue with the claim when you said we claim we’re holding on to
5:17:22 this money in
5:17:23 case there’s an emergency I think we have legitimate concerns to
5:17:26 have savings
5:17:27 for emergencies here in Brevard County yeah and the state
5:17:30 statute tells you to
5:17:31 hold three percent for that purpose is that what that money is
5:17:36 that’s really
5:17:37 what that’s for that so the state has kind of overruled this
5:17:40 government
5:17:41 accounting standards bureau that gives you a and a guideline
5:17:44 that’s like your
5:17:45 bank telling you you need to keep $5,000 in there so you don’t
5:17:47 have to pay fees
5:17:48 it’s very similar someone you know my uncle tells me all the
5:17:51 time to take you
5:17:52 know more vitamin D it’s very similar to that they’re giving you
5:17:55 advice so while
5:17:57 it is good advice for a standard human to have two months or
5:17:59 three months or
5:18:00 six months salary a governmental entity that receives checks
5:18:04 twice a month from
5:18:05 the state based on property tax doesn’t have to worry about that
5:18:09 because as long
5:18:09 as you have property to tax you have available income Bay County
5:18:14 is another
5:18:14 story they had a rider on to let in legislation to give them an
5:18:19 additional
5:18:20 emergency services funds to help them until the FEMA dollars
5:18:24 come through I’m
5:18:25 assuming you also have property and casualty insurance I’ve seen
5:18:29 it in your
5:18:29 budget so I know you pay for it so you may have some short-term
5:18:33 costs of paying
5:18:35 a deductible or paying the wages of the maintenance workers but
5:18:38 that actually
5:18:39 comes back through your insurance and it actually comes from a
5:18:43 different pot of
5:18:43 money called capital outlay capital outlay is not from the
5:18:48 general fund
5:18:48 there are two separate pots of money so part of the problem that
5:18:52 we have with
5:18:53 funding is the state has cut how much money you can collect for
5:18:56 capital outlay
5:18:57 from two dollars per mil to one point five dollars per mil we
5:19:01 also have a loss
5:19:02 of Pico dollars where they have transferred ninety percent of
5:19:05 the Pico
5:19:06 dollars to all of our charter schools and left the public
5:19:09 schools with ten
5:19:10 percent of the dollars so there’s part of the problem so the
5:19:14 state isn’t
5:19:14 funding capital outlay correctly they aren’t reimbursing us
5:19:18 correctly but you
5:19:19 had do have insurance for short-term emergency so while you do
5:19:22 run the
5:19:23 shelters FEMA does start paying you back immediately however it
5:19:27 does take a long
5:19:28 time for the final checks to come in the last check that was
5:19:31 received in Polk was
5:19:32 just under two million dollars that was not you know the biggest
5:19:36 pot of money so
5:19:37 they do give you a money up front and then they start doing
5:19:40 adjustments along
5:19:41 the way so it’s important to make sure that you understand what
5:19:44 is paid for out
5:19:45 of which fund because you have seven different funds that you
5:19:48 operate and you
5:19:50 need to make sure that you’re looking at the appropriate dollars
5:19:52 when you’re
5:19:53 talking about these things so yes emergencies do happen you will
5:19:57 need short
5:19:58 term operating however you’re still going to get a check from
5:20:01 the state they
5:20:02 aren’t going to stop sending the money because they also have
5:20:05 over a billion
5:20:06 dollars in reserves to fund if case just like they did for Bay
5:20:10 County who lost
5:20:11 5,000 students and I believe had to close at least three schools
5:20:15 because of
5:20:15 loss of students yes I remember being in Tallahassee this year
5:20:19 well the residents
5:20:20 of Bay County were begging for the state to help them because
5:20:22 they had gotten
5:20:23 themselves in quite a situation if I may I would add that Bay
5:20:27 County’s fiscal
5:20:29 financial risk ratio if you look on the graph we provided is
5:20:33 actually above
5:20:34 Brevard’s and they were requesting assistance from the state
5:20:37 given the
5:20:38 situation they faced in addition the reserve is also to be
5:20:42 prepared for
5:20:43 potential inconsistencies and funding from the state like we
5:20:46 experienced this
5:20:47 year if you recall from my presentation going into 18-19 after
5:20:52 the new dollars
5:20:53 provided against the mandates that were required we had an 8.3
5:20:57 million dollar
5:20:58 deficit fortunately we as a district had begun budget reductions
5:21:02 and cost savings
5:21:03 well before we knew there was going to be such a funding
5:21:06 decrease from the
5:21:08 state that helped offset that ultimately presenting the
5:21:11 difficulties were in
5:21:13 right now but fortunately we had done that had that not been the
5:21:16 case for
5:21:16 Brevard we would have faced an 8.3 million dollar deficit and
5:21:20 had would be
5:21:21 potentially looking at reserves to cover that at least in the
5:21:25 short term also
5:21:26 miss desk of it if I may the statute that miss Dawson is
5:21:31 referring to is not
5:21:32 a guideline of how much the fund balance should be or the
5:21:36 financial condition
5:21:37 ratio it references the 3% in that if the school board falls
5:21:44 below that is the
5:21:45 measure where we begin to be penalized and have to present to
5:21:50 the state our
5:21:51 plan to come above if we fall below 2% they can come in and take
5:21:56 us over very
5:21:57 similar to as they have done with Jefferson and Hamilton County
5:22:00 so
5:22:01 interpretation and you may want to ask your attorney to provide
5:22:04 you that
5:22:05 statute it’s not a guideline for what it should be but a penalty
5:22:10 if you fall
5:22:11 below it so the 3% is an absolute minimum yes mr. Susan so I
5:22:18 wanted to I
5:22:19 did do some research as to Bay County and us in the event of a
5:22:22 storm because
5:22:23 it seemed like part of the conversation currently we pay 4.6
5:22:26 million dollars for
5:22:27 what’s known as a hundred year storm insurance coverage it’s a
5:22:31 hundred and
5:22:32 twenty million dollar coverage so we pay 4.6 million dollars to
5:22:35 cover 120 our
5:22:37 deductible of that is 10 million dollars so in the event that we
5:22:41 have a massive
5:22:42 catastrophe hurricane like what happened in Bay County which
5:22:45 they received 250
5:22:47 million dollars in damage we would be covered after the 10
5:22:50 million for up to
5:22:51 120 million dollars for all perils then on top of that the
5:22:55 application to FEMA
5:22:56 covers the rest of what we have the lag to FEMA is one thing but
5:23:01 to say that we
5:23:02 don’t have coverage for a hurricane and that we have to have
5:23:05 more because of it
5:23:06 our max out-of-pocket is 10 million and when we hit that having
5:23:11 50 60 million in
5:23:12 here is not going to make a difference the next thing that I
5:23:15 wanted to make a
5:23:15 point was is that I the the insurance that we have comes out of
5:23:27 our capital
5:23:28 budget if we are to pay for extra facility renewal and
5:23:33 everything else it
5:23:34 comes out of our capital budget not our operating and miss zurker
5:23:37 can you tell
5:23:38 me what the reserves in our capital budget are 4 million um last
5:23:43 time I
5:23:43 checked it was a hundred and eight million those monies are
5:23:46 sales tax
5:23:47 monies that cannot be used for repairs in a hurricane so what I’m
5:23:51 hearing you
5:23:51 say is the hundred and eight million dollars that’s inside of
5:23:54 our capital
5:23:55 reserves only four million of it is ours for usage is reserves
5:24:00 yes reserve for
5:24:01 emergency so a hundred and four million dollars is in there in
5:24:05 the reserves from
5:24:06 these from the sales tax I can’t say that was certain mr. Kerr
5:24:13 and we can
5:24:15 transfer money from operation to capital budget correct but not
5:24:18 capital back to
5:24:19 operation is that correct we do do transfers of capital to
5:24:24 operations to
5:24:25 buy certain things that belong in functions other than
5:24:28 facilities and
5:24:29 acquisition based on the capital outlay rules things that are
5:24:33 considered
5:24:34 maintenance and repair can be spent with certain capital outlay
5:24:39 such as the local
5:24:40 capital improvement ad valorem but not with things such as sales
5:24:44 tax I was
5:24:47 referencing more the comments over here about not being able to
5:24:52 take care of
5:24:54 hurricane issues with any of the operational budgets because it
5:24:57 would
5:24:57 have been capital dollars following me I don’t necessarily agree
5:25:02 with miss Dawson
5:25:03 that a hundred percent of the repairs would be made with capital
5:25:07 dollars we
5:25:08 would have to free up from other projects what doesn’t get
5:25:11 appropriated
5:25:12 to other projects in the one fund that we are allowed to use for
5:25:15 that where
5:25:16 there is significant money is the ad valorem and we do set aside
5:25:20 four to
5:25:21 four and a half million for emergency needs only and the rest
5:25:25 gets
5:25:26 appropriated out so depending on when the hurricane comes and
5:25:29 what we’ve spent
5:25:30 and when we get the new money and would determine it’s also
5:25:33 important to note
5:25:34 ad valorem is not paid to this district until December we don’t
5:25:39 receive any of
5:25:40 the ad valorem funds until December most of our hurricanes have
5:25:44 come in the fall
5:25:45 also as far as FEMA payments go have we I’ve been under the
5:25:49 impression we
5:25:50 haven’t received anything but is she correct that we’ve probably
5:25:53 received
5:25:54 some payments we haven’t received final payments from Irma and
5:25:58 for Irma we’ve
5:25:58 not received anything at all for Irma we have received from
5:26:03 Matthew the
5:26:04 facilities repair we have not received our sheltering I think we
5:26:09 did receive
5:26:10 about a hundred thousand from excess insurance the sheltering
5:26:16 include what we
5:26:17 pay our employees to manage and run these shelters yes it does
5:26:20 so we haven’t
5:26:20 received a fund yet for you to pay for the employees for the and
5:26:24 it’s like
5:26:25 double time or overtime at a minimum rate of our employees that
5:26:28 work these
5:26:29 shelters and also if I may add what we we have chosen over the
5:26:32 last two
5:26:33 hurricanes to go ahead and pay our employees while we were
5:26:37 unable to
5:26:37 operate that is not reimbursed by FEMA insurance or the county
5:26:43 that comes out
5:26:44 of our money thank you miss sucker I would just like to clarify
5:26:49 that it’s
5:26:50 my understanding that we don’t pay teachers who volunteer to to
5:26:55 shelter in
5:26:55 these in these schools I just want to clarify that’s
5:26:58 administrative pay and I
5:27:00 also like to state that you know mr. occurs lack of preparedness
5:27:05 for for this
5:27:06 hearing should not be the reason why you vote in favor of the
5:27:09 district’s proposal
5:27:11 it should be quite the contrary okay board I think we’re at
5:27:21 anybody have any
5:27:23 final questions before we start to discuss and put a motion on
5:27:29 the floor
5:27:29 good ladies okay members of the board it’s time I will ask for a
5:27:39 motion in
5:27:40 making a motion I will ask that you be very specific so the
5:27:44 motion is clear as
5:27:45 a courtesy each side has been asked to provide you with proposed
5:27:49 motions for
5:27:50 your consideration do we have a motion on the floor before we
5:27:57 move to the
5:27:57 motion can I ask miss involved the proper procedure for what we’re
5:28:01 about to
5:28:01 do we’re about to come up with two different votes correct okay
5:28:10 so we have
5:28:11 to vote on both of those and have discussion on both of those it’s
5:28:25 page
5:28:25 two in the okay so the two things we devote honor this the ESC
5:28:32 supplement
5:28:33 separate from the salary so why don’t we I will ask for a motion
5:28:41 maybe on the ESC
5:28:42 supplement because I think everybody agrees the latest proposal
5:28:48 from each
5:28:48 side is the ESC supplement I think that’s an easy motion can
5:28:51 someone give
5:28:52 them proof you need to stay clear with the motion is exactly
5:28:56 move to approve to
5:28:57 take the superintendent’s recommendation that matches the
5:29:01 teachers union
5:29:01 recommendation of the ESC supplement to bringing them up eight
5:29:04 hundred and
5:29:05 thirty-five dollars to the thousand dollar supplement per year
5:29:08 so pretty
5:29:08 clear is that a good motion miss involved second motion motioned
5:29:14 by mr.
5:29:14 Susan to raise the ESC supplement to a reoccurring $1,000 the
5:29:21 current 165
5:29:22 plus an additional 835 which agrees dr. Mullins and BFT motion
5:29:30 by mr. Susan
5:29:31 second by miss Belford all in favor we need a voice vote I
5:29:35 believe do we need a
5:29:36 voice vote Pam yeah a voice vote all in favor aye any opposed
5:29:41 same sign motion
5:29:43 passes 5-0 we are now on to needing a second motion or a first
5:30:02 motion for the
5:30:04 second item I move that we accept the superintendent’s
5:30:11 recommendation of a
5:30:13 2.3 recurring raise I think we’re supposed to go towards the impasse
5:30:18 correct miss Campbell please go forward with your emotion then I
5:30:44 move that we
5:30:45 approve the superintendent’s recommendation of a 2.3% recurring
5:30:49 raise
5:30:49 as follows $1,100 for teachers rated highly effective and $825
5:30:54 for teachers
5:30:54 rated effective the $650 bonus for all teachers including first-year
5:30:59 teachers
5:30:59 and the $500 retention bonus for the first-year teachers who
5:31:03 finished the
5:31:04 school year and returned for 2019 and 20 so I can is there any
5:31:09 discussion yes
5:31:10 Campbell so I’d like to start as part of this discussion by
5:31:22 acknowledging
5:31:23 something that everybody in this room recognizes I think there’s
5:31:28 some people
5:31:29 outside of this room who don’t believe this but I believe
5:31:32 everybody in this
5:31:33 room recognizes the value that our teachers bring to our
5:31:36 organization to
5:31:38 the public to our children to society and there’s not a person
5:31:41 in this room
5:31:42 who doesn’t want to do more it’s my turn and I’d like to finish
5:31:49 I read through
5:31:51 the magistrate’s decision the whole entire thing I have had
5:31:54 discussions with
5:31:57 sorry Anthony mr. Colucci and with the district about the
5:32:01 information that he
5:32:03 received I in looking through it and looking through both the
5:32:07 briefs I saw
5:32:09 that you know the magistrate did what he was supposed to do he
5:32:12 made a decision
5:32:12 based on the information that he had but as I look through it I
5:32:16 realized there
5:32:17 was some information that he did not have and there was some for
5:32:21 example when
5:32:22 he looked at salaries compared from district to district he was
5:32:26 looking at
5:32:26 start higher salaries for example if you look at the chart that
5:32:31 was provided to
5:32:32 him and all this is on the attached to the agenda it shows a
5:32:36 five-year teacher
5:32:37 making the same amount as a beginning teacher with zero years
5:32:40 experience well
5:32:41 I know that because I’ve looked at that’s what that’s our higher
5:32:44 salaries
5:32:45 thirty nine thousand two hundred and twenty six dollars a five-year
5:32:48 teacher
5:32:48 coming into our district with you know that much experience is
5:32:51 making the same
5:32:52 amount as one was zero and then the ten and then the fifteen as
5:32:55 well so you know
5:32:56 it’s not a picture of what a teacher working in our district for
5:33:00 five years
5:33:00 is making they’ll be making more than that and so he didn’t and
5:33:04 the other
5:33:04 thing that I you know when I look at what he represented and his
5:33:11 conclusions
5:33:12 and looking at his conclusions he said that the money was there
5:33:17 based on
5:33:18 choices at the when the Union was asking I realized they’re
5:33:21 changing their their
5:33:23 requests today and not asking for it to come out of reserve but
5:33:26 asking it for
5:33:26 come out of a suggested difference or suggested lapse but he did
5:33:33 say that he
5:33:34 thought it was in reserves based on choices by the school board
5:33:40 and if I can
5:33:42 quote as we’ve seen this several times in the last few weeks it
5:33:52 is most
5:33:53 respectfully submitted that this conservative fiscal strategy
5:33:56 described
5:33:57 above of building into reserves results in the underutilization
5:34:02 of funds
5:34:02 generated the federal state and local level funds that are
5:34:05 intended to be
5:34:05 applied toward the education of the child of children now that
5:34:09 would be true
5:34:10 if it stayed in there if we stayed at the levels of 58 million
5:34:14 or 53 million
5:34:15 or whichever one you want to start it if that was the case it
5:34:19 would absolutely be
5:34:20 true but that money the 53 million 58 million whichever number
5:34:24 you’re looking
5:34:25 at it’s money that by the time we get to the first event
5:34:28 amendment budget
5:34:30 amendment in September those are usually voted on in October
5:34:33 November most of it
5:34:36 is gone just looking back the last several years it’s gone down
5:34:40 to into the
5:34:41 27 to 37 million dollars range because it was money that was set
5:34:47 aside for to
5:34:47 pay for things that were ordered before June 30th and paid after
5:34:51 or grants for
5:34:52 our for our children grants for our students and for our
5:34:55 teachers to use
5:34:55 that the money receipt was received before the end of the fiscal
5:34:59 year but it
5:34:59 was for money it was going to be paid out after the new fiscal
5:35:02 year started it
5:35:03 was used for reading coaches which our teachers have asked for I’ve
5:35:07 had
5:35:07 teachers in my house saying we need more of these in fact we’d
5:35:10 love to have math
5:35:10 coaches too for social workers again I’ve had teachers in my
5:35:14 house say we
5:35:15 need more of these because we can’t meet ourselves the emotional
5:35:18 need mental
5:35:19 emotional needs of our of our students we need these it was
5:35:22 meant for SROs
5:35:23 which I have heard our teachers say across this district
5:35:25 especially in the
5:35:26 past year we need more SROs and we don’t want to use unpaid
5:35:30 employees and we
5:35:31 don’t want to use guardians we need SROs it’s used to pay for
5:35:33 those things it’s
5:35:35 used to pay for benefits for our teachers 3.1 million dollars to
5:35:38 defray
5:35:39 the cost of health insurance premiums which I have heard our
5:35:44 teachers say has
5:35:45 been a hurt they increase that has has happened has hurt it
5:35:49 always hurts when
5:35:51 our insurance rates increase and so that 3.1 million was dot was
5:35:55 to save that
5:35:56 from happening I would hate to see that 3.1 million have to go
5:35:59 back into the
5:35:59 budget and us have to either pass it on to employees or find 3.1
5:36:07 million dollars
5:36:08 more worth of cuts that we’re going to have to happen and the
5:36:10 truth is whether
5:36:11 it’s 3 million or 6 million dollars in a budget that is so lean
5:36:15 that the Union
5:36:16 said we should pull it out of reserves and we’ve had the other
5:36:21 the gentleman
5:36:22 presents a report to the district that it’s so lean that there’s
5:36:26 not any room
5:36:27 to give unless we lose people and if we lose people in this
5:36:32 district we can take
5:36:35 a look at who it’s going to be still my turn I hope we don’t
5:36:39 have a time limit
5:36:40 I’ll wrap this up quickly it’s going to be people like our
5:36:46 strange program it’s
5:36:48 going to be people like our media specialists because they’re
5:36:50 not in
5:36:51 class size amendment and they’re not required in other you like
5:36:54 PE teachers
5:36:55 and things like that they’re there those are the people that we’re
5:36:58 going to lose
5:36:58 those are also the things that make our district great it is not
5:37:03 a one thing it
5:37:05 is a it is a complicated thing that makes our district great and
5:37:08 we’ve
5:37:08 already the district has already made some changes this year
5:37:11 things like
5:37:12 running the air conditioning less and there’s been public outcry
5:37:16 the district
5:37:17 has already made some changes about mowing the grass less and
5:37:19 there’s been
5:37:20 public outcry and I agree we need to prioritize but I believe in
5:37:25 looking at
5:37:26 what we have and the district continuing to look for cuts and
5:37:31 continuing to look
5:37:32 for a way to increase to get to a two point three percent that
5:37:35 we have done
5:37:36 those things we don’t want to talk about the differences in
5:37:39 other counties Pasco
5:37:40 and Lake st. Lucie are well behind us so yes I’m so glad to see
5:37:44 that they have
5:37:45 that increase you know I’m getting there another thing I’d like
5:37:52 to point out
5:37:52 about the magistrate because my thoughts are not written in they’re
5:37:56 written in
5:37:56 random order as I look through the magistrate of print opinion
5:37:59 although he
5:37:59 does ask the district to accept the BFTs proposal he does not
5:38:04 talk about funding
5:38:05 moving forward even though he suggests that we take it out of
5:38:09 reserves he does
5:38:11 not suggest how we would do that in the future and he also does
5:38:14 not accept or at
5:38:15 least acknowledge the attrition theory put forward by BFT he
5:38:19 never mentioned
5:38:20 that anywhere in his ruling as far as the things that we’ve
5:38:29 talked about today
5:38:31 as far as teachers leaving throughout the middle of the year and
5:38:34 this will be
5:38:35 my final thought I think every year teachers leave not just this
5:38:41 last year
5:38:41 every year teachers leave all throughout the year and every year
5:38:45 they are
5:38:46 replaced and I’m not sure about the 20,000 considering that our
5:38:50 new hires
5:38:50 with zero experience to five years of experience we’re getting $39,000
5:38:54 226
5:38:55 three nine thousand two hundred twenty six dollars and our
5:38:57 experienced teachers
5:38:58 I have heard myself many are making less than what is stated as
5:39:03 the average of
5:39:05 forty six thousand dollars but every year they leave and if we
5:39:08 if the
5:39:09 district was continually practicing you know doing a bad
5:39:14 practice or as you you
5:39:16 mentioned mr. Colucci you I can’t remember the word that you
5:39:19 used but you
5:39:20 it was a bad practice is what you mentioned then we our fund
5:39:23 balance would
5:39:24 be continuing to grow continuing to grow continuing to grow and
5:39:27 by your own
5:39:28 exhibit you show it going like this it up and down up and down
5:39:32 it’s not gone
5:39:32 from six percent to nine point six point eight percent it’s it
5:39:35 varies from year
5:39:36 to year and so that practice was actually occurring in it in a
5:39:39 negative
5:39:40 way that amount would be continuing to grow and we would
5:39:43 continue to see a fund
5:39:44 balance growing year after year after year and that is just not
5:39:47 what has
5:39:48 happened so I’ll rest Thank You miss Campbell mr. Susan do you
5:39:53 have any final
5:39:54 comments for discussion yes I would I would like to interject
5:39:58 that our the
5:40:00 concern over the three point one million dollars being part of
5:40:02 the budget in the
5:40:03 event that our insurance costs too much I would respectfully
5:40:07 like the board to
5:40:08 understand that we submit a form every year that includes the
5:40:12 run-out for that
5:40:13 entire insurance in the event that we do have a catastrophe and
5:40:17 we do have extra
5:40:19 bills to pay which is then approved and you heard from the CFO
5:40:23 that was the three
5:40:24 point one was not inside of there and I will tell you in the
5:40:27 event that it
5:40:27 happens routinely again back in the days when I sat on the SIAC
5:40:32 as a former
5:40:32 teacher we did not have the two months run out that we were
5:40:35 supposed to ask and
5:40:36 the state had required us to send a letter explaining that we
5:40:39 had it in the
5:40:39 general revenue fund or in our reserve fund balance so that we
5:40:42 could cover the
5:40:43 cost in the event that it happens so having run out on insurance
5:40:46 or have run
5:40:47 out on claims is a situation but the fact that it actually can
5:40:51 come out of
5:40:51 the other reserve balances and there’s a state catch for it I
5:40:54 think it’s a moot
5:40:55 point the next thing is is that every year teachers leave and
5:40:58 are being
5:40:58 replaced this is true but we’ve been trending upwards in the
5:41:01 numbers of 100 to
5:41:02 150 per year if you look back at some of the numbers that I
5:41:05 requested two years
5:41:06 ago we were roughly or we were roughly 150 to 2 to 250 to 3 to
5:41:11 350 now we’re in
5:41:12 the range of 4 to 450 that is not a number that is going down
5:41:16 and there’s a
5:41:17 there’s a significant reason that we have that and whether that’s
5:41:21 whether
5:41:21 that’s that they’re retiring whether that’s that we’re not
5:41:23 paying them enough
5:41:24 there’s a serious situation there that we need to address it is
5:41:28 not flat it is
5:41:29 going up and we need to address it also the fund balance going
5:41:32 up or down yeah
5:41:34 it’s been since 37 million back in 2011 all the way to 42
5:41:40 million dollars under
5:41:41 those two categories that they pointed out so we’ve been going
5:41:44 up and down up
5:41:45 and down within that five to ten million dollar range and we
5:41:48 will continue to do
5:41:49 that that also includes that we have our eight percent in for in
5:41:52 the event that
5:41:53 in 2023 we have to go back out to raise money I will tell you
5:41:57 that we are
5:41:58 trending up in local revenue we are trending up in our fund
5:42:02 balance which
5:42:02 was described and proved by our CFO which said that we have in
5:42:06 her
5:42:06 estimations 600 and whatever thousand that we had which was
5:42:11 going up for her
5:42:12 for her recommendations I will tell you that I’m extremely
5:42:16 concerned with the
5:42:17 fact that the district came to argue a point on reoccurring
5:42:20 teacher lapse which
5:42:21 has been kind of a thorn in my side since the beginning of me
5:42:24 being a
5:42:24 teacher back in the in the day because Dan Bennett used to say
5:42:27 to the to an
5:42:28 argue there’s a million dollars in reoccurring there’s a million
5:42:31 dollars
5:42:31 in reoccurring and he was told over and over again that there
5:42:34 was never that fun
5:42:35 balance and then when when dr. Blackburn came he said oh yeah
5:42:38 there is one so
5:42:39 when the district comes and says they only identify the retirees
5:42:42 not the rest
5:42:43 of the the actual amount that we are significantly lower then
5:42:46 can’t even tell
5:42:47 us how many retirees are inside there and then even tell us what
5:42:50 the numbers
5:42:51 are that is an extreme concern of mine to argue when we’re so
5:42:54 close to the
5:42:55 district’s actual proposal I will say this when we go to that
5:43:00 the you know the
5:43:02 nationwide accounting board they are taking into account all of
5:43:07 the counties
5:43:07 throughout the entire nation California New York all of them all
5:43:12 of the ones
5:43:13 that have different revenue sources and here’s to the point not
5:43:17 schools see
5:43:19 that’s what the same recommendation for cities for counties for
5:43:23 school boards
5:43:24 and although it’s a good practice we as a school district are
5:43:28 not providing
5:43:29 parks we’re changing people’s lives and because of that this is
5:43:33 a significant
5:43:34 argument to make that we are not the same as cities and counties
5:43:38 but we are
5:43:38 the same as schools and when we are making a difference both for
5:43:41 economic
5:43:42 development and for the future of our state in our county that
5:43:46 is a reason
5:43:47 that we need to take into consideration not to be considered as
5:43:50 the same as
5:43:51 counties and cities I get back to my core mission our core
5:44:04 mission as
5:44:05 individuals is to teach kids as a former teacher who had to
5:44:08 leave this district
5:44:09 because I had to go get another job I taught seven periods a day
5:44:12 I coached I
5:44:13 coached a sport and I went and taught night school all in the
5:44:17 same day and
5:44:17 I’ll tell you that was just to make close to $50,000 you know it
5:44:21 took it
5:44:21 away from my family over and over again and that’s why I get
5:44:24 fired up when I
5:44:25 come to this disagreement over funding balances and everything
5:44:29 else I will tell
5:44:31 you that it is the responsibility of the district it is to have
5:44:34 a strong reserve
5:44:35 balance that is no doubt 100% and we don’t want to fall behind
5:44:39 that but when
5:44:40 I don’t get straight answers as to how much we have in reoccurring
5:44:44 costs when
5:44:44 the actual amount of teachers that did not fill the positions we
5:44:48 had an extreme
5:44:49 amount of vacancies which is not represented in anywhere on our
5:44:52 on our
5:44:52 budgets I have extreme caution as to saying that we can’t get
5:44:56 there and that
5:44:56 for the next ten years we’re going to be in debt and that we may
5:44:59 have to start
5:44:59 going out and doing all these other things which is the you know
5:45:02 doom and
5:45:03 gloom I will say that our core mission is as educators and part
5:45:06 of this
5:45:07 organization is to teach kids and there is nothing and there’s
5:45:10 statistic after
5:45:11 statistic that proves that the teachers are the ones the
5:45:13 teachers are the ones
5:45:14 inside those classrooms that have the strongest and the the the
5:45:18 the most
5:45:18 adverse effect on whether that kid learns or that kid doesn’t so
5:45:22 when we’re
5:45:22 looking at our teachers and we’re saying that we don’t have
5:45:25 enough because we
5:45:26 want to fund for the fund balance for upcoming hurricanes or
5:45:30 anything else I
5:45:31 understand that but when we’re sitting on close to 11 million
5:45:34 dollars in
5:45:35 reoccurring funding that’s next year and we’re sitting here
5:45:37 looking at all these
5:45:38 resources that we possibly have that is reoccurring balances
5:45:42 lapse dollars all
5:45:43 of those things and our fund balance is going up I find it hard
5:45:46 to believe that
5:45:47 we cannot come up with the $2,300
5:46:06 I will tell you this I will tell you this I applaud dr. Mullins
5:46:14 for
5:46:14 everything that he’s done I will I will tell you that from the
5:46:18 heart of that man
5:46:18 is absolutely pure to this district I do I do I believe that I
5:46:25 believe that
5:46:26 every choice he makes and he stays up every night is to try to
5:46:29 figure this
5:46:29 thing out and I think that it is our job as a board to help
5:46:33 identify where that
5:46:34 can occur and help us get to where the Magistrate’s decision I
5:46:38 am in favor of
5:46:39 the Magistrate’s decision not based on not based on going after
5:46:44 our fun balance
5:46:46 but in return over what we can capture from the bottom line and
5:46:51 reoccurring
5:46:52 expense of reoccurring dollars that we have for next year that’s
5:46:55 my stance
5:46:55 thank you thank you mr. Susan miss Belford Thank You miss teskovich
5:47:09 mr.
5:47:10 Susan there is much that you said that I agree with I absolutely
5:47:15 believe that it
5:47:16 is important we are at a point where we need to do all we can to
5:47:19 support our
5:47:20 teachers I have some concerns with some of the numbers that have
5:47:28 been put in
5:47:28 front of us so the the assumption was made so we’re looking at
5:47:37 basically a
5:47:37 difference of about six million dollars for this year to meet
5:47:41 the Magistrate’s
5:47:42 recommendation just for this year and then next year is a whole
5:47:49 nother issue
5:47:50 we were told that we should that we could likely count on laps
5:47:56 dollars truly
5:47:58 being beyond the 1.4 million that the district calculates we
5:48:01 were told by Miss
5:48:04 Dawson that it probably is closer to eight or nine million but
5:48:08 then we were
5:48:09 told that if we look on page six our laps is the change between
5:48:13 2018 2019
5:48:15 which is about three million which is about the difference
5:48:18 between the initial
5:48:20 non recurring and I’m sorry the initial recurring dollars offer
5:48:26 from the
5:48:26 district and the latest recurring dollars offer from the
5:48:30 district and that
5:48:33 part I think we are good on where I struggle is with the
5:48:38 additional six
5:48:39 million dollars in recurring funds that we are being asked to
5:48:45 find and when we
5:48:46 look on the documentation if we look in the book on page 136 and
5:48:52 137 we’re not
5:48:54 seeing that those dollars those numbers and this is in the in
5:49:01 the BFT book those
5:49:03 those numbers are not supporting the significant decrease that
5:49:07 is being
5:49:08 claimed to exist through attrition I also look back at the Magistrates
5:49:13 recommendation and like Miss Campbell indicated while there are
5:49:17 the the
5:49:18 Magistrates supported almost every argument that the Union put
5:49:21 forward with
5:49:22 regard to comparables and and hours and all of that stuff the
5:49:27 one element that
5:49:29 he did not support and that I cannot find any evidence to
5:49:32 support and the
5:49:34 numbers that they put in front of us is the assumption on the
5:49:36 attrition I
5:49:38 understand the reasoning behind it but I don’t see any hard
5:49:41 numbers to show us
5:49:42 that that is actually what has been happening with the total
5:49:46 dollars I see
5:49:47 the computations I see we’re plugging in this number in this
5:49:50 number in this
5:49:51 number and I get that but as far as seeing actual dollars show
5:49:54 that attrition
5:49:55 year over year I simply haven’t seen it and so that for me
5:49:59 creates a real
5:50:00 struggle with committing an additional six million dollars in
5:50:04 recurring dollars
5:50:06 to meet that recommendation you mentioned the Dan Bennett fund
5:50:11 and that
5:50:12 quite frankly is where the 1.4 million dollars that they’re that
5:50:15 the district
5:50:16 is claiming is attrition is coming from but if you look at what
5:50:21 actually has
5:50:22 fallen to the bottom line and in this instance the 4.3 million
5:50:26 dollars in our
5:50:27 fund balance that that is is closer to the attrition rate both
5:50:34 referenced by
5:50:35 district and also referenced by BFT of 3.6 million dollars as
5:50:39 being the
5:50:39 difference between April 2017 and April 2018 so I do see trends
5:50:44 there to support
5:50:45 about three million dollars in attrition including the 1.4
5:50:51 million dollars so I
5:50:53 get your point that we’re only looking at retirees and not the
5:50:56 rest but I think
5:50:56 if we look at the trend there we can see that that’s just about
5:51:00 where it is the
5:51:01 3.1 million dollars that you talked about mr. Susan on the
5:51:05 health insurance
5:51:06 fund I actually went back and watched the board meeting when
5:51:11 that was
5:51:12 presented and I was at the board meeting but but didn’t recall
5:51:15 because it was a
5:51:16 long time ago the details it was a workshop actually went back
5:51:21 and watched
5:51:21 that and saw how that was presented initially as part of the
5:51:27 budgeting for
5:51:27 that year and that 3.1 million is not in case we don’t have
5:51:33 enough money in our
5:51:34 health insurance trust fund it is dollars that are closing the
5:51:38 gap on our
5:51:39 our cost of employee somebody give me the word premiums thank
5:51:48 you so I think
5:51:50 we we you know we convince numbers all day long the bottom line
5:51:56 is I have zero
5:51:58 question about the comparables about any of that because I do
5:52:03 feel like we need
5:52:05 to do more for our teachers in Brevard County I do feel like we
5:52:10 need to make
5:52:11 that a priority going forward and I think as as dr. Mullins
5:52:15 mentioned in his
5:52:17 in his brief we are prepared to go immediately to the table to
5:52:22 address next
5:52:25 year because we now know what dollars we are getting for next
5:52:29 year but as much as
5:52:31 I emotionally would like to approve twenty three hundred dollars
5:52:36 in
5:52:36 recurring costs for this year it’s it’s simply not something
5:52:40 that I can do I am
5:52:41 happy to support the recommendation of the superintendent and to
5:52:46 say that we
5:52:47 absolutely intend to go back to the table right away and do what
5:52:51 we can to
5:52:51 close that gap I believe that we actually have the ability to
5:52:55 get you
5:52:56 where you want to be at the beginning of next school year if we
5:52:59 can move
5:53:00 expeditious three expeditiously through bargaining and as I
5:53:04 think all of you
5:53:05 know I have from the get-go supported that we go forward with a
5:53:09 millage I
5:53:11 think as a community we need to put as much effort into going
5:53:15 forward with a
5:53:16 millage to support teacher salaries I’ve as we have collectively
5:53:20 put into the
5:53:21 discussions that have taken place on bargaining this year
5:53:23 because if you look
5:53:25 at the the districts that have passed millage they’re able to do
5:53:28 amazing
5:53:29 things for their teachers and so my call would be I hope that
5:53:34 that after having
5:53:35 gone through this difficult situation that we can get board
5:53:38 support for that
5:53:40 movement as well but I cannot go on I have to look at the trends
5:53:48 of the
5:53:48 dollars as they have gone in at this point I do not see any way
5:53:51 other than
5:53:52 dipping even deeper into reserves to fund that 2,300 recurring
5:53:57 thank you miss
5:53:58 Belford we’ll circle back around mr. Susan miss McDougall we dip
5:54:04 into our
5:54:06 savings for a raise and then the first year not a problem but I’m
5:54:13 going how do
5:54:15 we replenish that how does that come back up to our teachers
5:54:19 deserve more
5:54:20 absolutely there’s not one person in here who doesn’t deserve
5:54:23 more how we get
5:54:24 there I certainly agree with miss Belford I’m sorry that the
5:54:29 board before
5:54:29 us did not decide to go out for millage because there was
5:54:33 probably been a good
5:54:34 chance that we would have gotten it and I do feel we need to go
5:54:37 forward on that
5:54:38 looking at this coming year I also agree that I think knowing
5:54:43 what we know now
5:54:44 that we will have a better we will be in a better place for this
5:54:49 upcoming school
5:54:49 year Thank You miss McDougall so as many of you know I usually
5:55:01 take the extreme
5:55:02 conservative approach especially with finances I’m most
5:55:07 comfortable with the
5:55:10 school district’s original proposal and not because I don’t
5:55:13 honor teachers or my
5:55:14 children’s teachers or my teachers that I had I adore so many of
5:55:18 you I saw you
5:55:19 walking in this morning as I was walking in and it was a very
5:55:22 difficult for me
5:55:23 but because we have a job up here to protect this district long
5:55:31 term and I
5:55:36 have to do what I think protects the district long term I’m
5:55:41 willing to move
5:55:42 from my original very conservative numbers because I think there
5:55:49 is some
5:55:50 some some money found with mr. Colucci’s discussion on the
5:55:54 attrition and what mr.
5:55:55 Susan supported but I can’t go the whole way of the magistrates
5:56:05 recommendation
5:56:05 because I feel like it will put our district in peril the
5:56:12 question comes up
5:56:14 often why other districts are able to do so much more and one of
5:56:18 the obvious
5:56:19 reasons is local millage rates or local taxes passed but if you
5:56:23 look throughout
5:56:24 the entire book that was presented and nobody wants to discuss
5:56:28 some things that
5:56:29 were in those pages and one of the things that really jumped out
5:56:35 at me when
5:56:35 I looked at that at those pages was Seminole County who we were
5:56:39 compared to
5:56:40 often same size same number of students same number of employees
5:56:43 roughly why are
5:56:45 they able to do so much more for their teachers did anyone look
5:56:48 at the number
5:56:48 of schools Seminole County has they have 30 less schools excuse
5:56:56 me we’ll have to
5:56:57 clear the room Seminole County has 30 less schools the the
5:57:03 budget it takes for
5:57:04 us to manage 30 more schools my point is is as a community in
5:57:07 Brevard County we’re
5:57:09 about to have to make some really big choices in order to get
5:57:13 you all to where
5:57:14 you need to be financially does that mean closing 30 schools I
5:57:18 sure hope not
5:57:18 does that mean increasing a millage rate we have to see if we
5:57:21 can get there with
5:57:22 the votes and the community would have to vote on we could get
5:57:25 it on the ballot
5:57:25 but then the community itself the voters would have to approve
5:57:28 it there’s a lot
5:57:29 of what-ifs but some big things have to change this nickel and
5:57:33 diming and
5:57:34 trying to to guesstimate I appreciate your numbers BFT but I’m
5:57:38 super
5:57:39 uncomfortable with I don’t know the exacts but I feel like there’s
5:57:41 nine
5:57:42 million I’m comfortable when penny answers excuse me mr. Colucci
5:57:46 you’ve had
5:57:47 plenty of your time I’m not comfortable in my position putting
5:57:52 our our district
5:57:53 at risk without actual factual numbers we are told again we are
5:58:09 paid per
5:58:10 student ma’am and that’s exactly the problem we’re paid per
5:58:13 student and yet
5:58:14 we’re trying to fund 30 more schools in Seminole County that is
5:58:18 the reality the
5:58:20 last thing I want to say is that we’re constantly told we’re not
5:58:23 putting
5:58:23 teachers first we don’t have our priorities correct when you
5:58:27 look at the
5:58:28 things that we’re gonna have to cut to get to that six million
5:58:30 and I’m thankful
5:58:31 dr. Mullen said he wouldn’t touch social workers when I was
5:58:34 elected to this
5:58:35 position we had a student suicide once a month for 12 months we
5:58:42 took some of
5:58:43 those funds and we got social workers in our district how do I
5:58:48 prioritize my
5:58:50 favorite teachers pay over a student’s life with social workers
5:58:53 that’s what
5:58:54 we’re faced with up here really you’re going to laugh at that I’m
5:59:04 I’m most
5:59:05 upset that our community has been torn apart over this I’m most
5:59:09 upset over the
5:59:09 anger and the hostility towards dr. Mullen’s who hasn’t even
5:59:12 been in this
5:59:13 position a year we put him in this position to protect this
5:59:17 district he’s a
5:59:18 former teacher in this own district for goodness sakes and what
5:59:21 I have seen done
5:59:22 to him online has been unacceptable you guys are better than
5:59:26 that and we as a
5:59:27 community are better than that my vote will go with the
5:59:34 superintendent’s
5:59:37 second-run recommendation and the the motion made by Miss
5:59:42 Campbell mr. Susan
5:59:45 so I just wanted to come back to some of the follow-up the 3.1
5:59:50 million dollars
5:59:51 from what I was explained was that it was to cover the cost of
5:59:56 from like the
5:59:57 end of the year to beginning can you explain a little bit more
6:00:00 of that
6:00:00 because it was never identified as a fund to pay for the
6:00:04 reduction in
6:00:05 benefits it was it was always identified as because the payments
6:00:10 that’s what I
6:00:11 thought it was if you can explain that yeah so so basically what
6:00:15 it is it is it
6:00:17 it is covering a timeframe of the year in essence so the way
6:00:22 that it was
6:00:24 presented by dr. Bing Lee at the workshop was that the our our
6:00:28 health
6:00:29 insurance runs and I’m probably gonna get the months mixed up at
6:00:32 this point I
6:00:33 believe our health insurance runs January to December and our
6:00:36 budget runs
6:00:37 July to June and so the 3.1 million dollars was identified in
6:00:45 the 2015
6:00:47 budget planning process as filling the gap between the the
6:00:53 difference between
6:00:54 the budget year and the insurance year and so that was the
6:00:57 premiums a portion
6:00:59 of the premiums that the board was paying on behalf of the
6:01:02 employees so in
6:01:03 essence what was said was if that was not paid then we would
6:01:08 have to in
6:01:09 essence charge the employees the 3.1 million dollars to make up
6:01:12 the
6:01:12 difference because it was the board’s contribution to the
6:01:15 premiums for the
6:01:15 employee health insurance and thank you for that miss Belford
6:01:20 and that’s what it
6:01:20 was it was entirely intended to do from the beginning because
6:01:23 during that time
6:01:24 was when we were flat with the reserves and we didn’t have
6:01:27 anywhere to tap into
6:01:28 so he allotted during that year that we had the most money that
6:01:31 we gave to
6:01:31 teachers and everything else a 3.1 while it caught back up
6:01:35 currently we have
6:01:36 enough in reserves to cover that time period so I would look at
6:01:40 taking that
6:01:41 3.1 million dollars and putting it somewhere else or putting it
6:01:43 back into
6:01:44 where it should be which is inside the reserve trust fund thank
6:01:47 you for that
6:01:48 explanation I truly mean where I where I would caution the board
6:01:53 a little bit
6:01:53 more is where we’re saving and where we’re costing we’re saving
6:02:00 six million
6:02:02 dollars by not going of reoccurring dollars by not going with
6:02:05 the unions
6:02:05 proposal but we are losing millions of dollars in experience
6:02:11 inside the inside
6:02:12 of our district
6:02:17 and I wonder how many teachers are out there on the edge of
6:02:22 deciding that
6:02:23 they’re going to leave or if they’re going to stay based upon
6:02:25 our decision
6:02:26 and so what I get upset about is is that we’re not taking into
6:02:29 consideration the
6:02:30 achievement gap that we might create just by trying to save that
6:02:35 short amount
6:02:36 of money that we have our achievement numbers and the money that
6:02:39 we receive as
6:02:39 a district come at a direct representation of how good our
6:02:43 teachers
6:02:43 are and if we’re going to be losing very qualified teachers
6:02:47 which our trend rate
6:02:49 is up the numbers that we lose as opposed to what we’re spending
6:02:53 are significantly
6:02:54 more and I would caution the board that this decision although
6:02:57 it doesn’t seem
6:02:58 like it’s gonna go in favor of the way that I wanted I I truly
6:03:01 believe that we
6:03:03 are making a mistake with not following what we could do and I
6:03:06 again say we
6:03:07 don’t have to tap into reserves to do it we can use what numbers
6:03:11 are not being
6:03:12 shown which you pointed out 1.5 million dollars there’s other
6:03:16 things inside of
6:03:17 the budget that we can scrub we can get there and I’m just I was
6:03:21 concerned
6:03:21 that’s all and I will not be voting for the superintendent’s
6:03:26 recommendation
6:03:33 Thank You mr. Susan I it’s time to call it to vote do I need to
6:03:41 restate the
6:03:42 motion oh we can’t I don’t even I’m not even logged into that I’m
6:03:48 an agenda for
6:03:49 tomorrow yeah we need to do a voice vote okay the motion on the
6:03:55 floor was made by
6:03:56 miss Campbell and seconded by miss Belford to support the
6:04:02 superintendent’s
6:04:03 recommendation of a 2.3 percent recurring raise with $1,100 for
6:04:08 highly
6:04:08 effective teachers $825 for effective teachers a $650 bonus for
6:04:15 all 2018 2019
6:04:17 teachers including first-year teachers and a $500 retention
6:04:20 bonus for any
6:04:21 first-year teachers who finished the school year and are
6:04:24 returning for the
6:04:24 2019-20 school year all in favor voice vote please aye any
6:04:33 opposed same sign
6:04:33 night motion passes for one this meeting is adjourned