Coraggio Consulting Loudoun County School Board, School Board and Board of Supervisors Joint Work Session on the FY 2024 Budget, Thursday, February 16, 2023 Date: Thursday, February 16, 2023 Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV) Length: 1h 56m (video) Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/799591309?rel=0 BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting. Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:00:00] this February 16th, 2023 school board and Board of Supervisors joint work session on the FY24 operating budget or budget in general. We're going to begin with a couple of administrative items starting with item 1.02 remote participation. [00:00:21] I have been notified that Denise Corbo would like to remotely participate in today's meeting. Ms. Corbo, could you please state your location, whether you are alone or with anyone else and whether you're requesting remote participation for a personal or a medical matter. [00:00:43] - I'm home, I'm alone. Under policy 2420, I'm asking for remote meeting participation due to an ongoing disability and medical condition as recommended by HRTD under federal ADA disability law. [00:01:00] - Thank you, I will now entertain a motion that Ms. Corbeau's remote participation be granted for health or medical reasons. - So moved. - Moved by Mr. Beatty, is there a second? - Second. - Seconded by Mr. Morse. Is there any discussion on the motion? [00:01:16] I will reference my comments from the May 10th, 2022 school board meeting as far as why I will continue not to support this motion. All those in favor of the motion, please raise your hands and say aye. Those opposed, please raise your hand and say nay. [00:01:31] Nay. Those abstaining, everyone else. That motion will fail three, four, two with Sorotkin, Mehedavi, Sheridan, and Reeser opposed, Corbo and Ogadegbe absent for the vote. [00:01:54] Ms. Corbo, would you like to request remote participation for a personal matter tonight? - No, because this is only going to be informational. No voting will be taking place, and those are limited, and this is specifically for medical disability, not personal. [00:02:09] Thank you. - Thank you. I've also been notified that Erica Ogadegbe would like to remotely participate, but I do not see her online. Can I just get staff to confirm that? Or Ms. Ogadeg Bay, are you on the line? [00:02:25] So we will skip over that item. And if Ms. Ogadeg Bay does join the meeting, we'll return back to remote participation at that time. We'll now move to item 1.03, disclosures, starting with Mr. Mahedmi. [00:02:41] - Thank you, Chair. As a member of the Lowry County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and our health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees. [00:03:00] Specifically, I'm enrolled in LCPS health insurance and may be affected by any potential changes to health insurance. These subjects include thousands of employees, well in excess of statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which I'm included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. [00:03:16] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. - Thank you, Ms. Sheridan. - As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and our health insurance and related benefits in any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. [00:03:41] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interest may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. [00:03:59] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. - Thank you, Mr. Morse. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and/or health insurance, and any other discussions that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees. [00:04:21] Specifically, my spouse is an LCPS employee may be affected by potential changes to employee salaries the budget and our health insurance these subjects include thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interest may be affected of which my spouse and I are included I can and will participate fairly objectively and in public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public record at the clerk of the school board for five years thank you as a member of the Lowden County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries the budget and/or health insurance and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees [00:05:00] specifically I am enrolled in LCPS health insurance and may be affected by any potential changes to health insurance these subjects include thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected of which I am included I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years with that we're going to begin our work session the format for the work session today is going to be nearly identical to what we followed last year when it was at the government center we'll begin with opening comments [00:05:39] from chair randall following by opening comments from myself we'll then move on to the budget presentation after the budget budget budget presentation we will have two rounds of budget questions and comments alphabetically by district, supervisor, then school board member with three minutes per individual, the same format as last year. With that, I will recognize Chair Randall for opening remarks. Well, Chair Sorokin and Vice Chair Medhevi, my school board colleagues and LCPS administration, on behalf of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, we thank you for hosting us here today. I want you to know that Mr. Letourneau is running late. He'll be here at [00:06:18] about 4 30. Mr. Buffington had a work engagement that he could not get out of so regrettably he will not make it here today. I've given quite a bit of thought about this meeting today the school board chair and I have spoken about the order of this meeting and I respect that the school board is hosting us here tonight. I think it's important after the past years that a couple of things are said one there is obviously an elephant in the room in fact an entire zoo might be in this room today and I don't think we should ignore that and I'll speak about that in just a [00:06:56] second however I think one thing that has been ignored over the past years is the many many successes of LCPS that often don't get discussed and talked about the fact that nine of the niche.com top 50 high schools in Virginia are allowed in schools and by population LCPS exceeds all other school systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The LCPS class of 2021 had an untimed graduation rate of 97.6%. That is 4.6% higher than the state average of 93%. In 2021, the SAT scores for LCPS [00:07:33] students was once again well above the state, national, and global averages and approved by an average of nine points even during the pandemic. The overall score for LCPS students was 1,182. the state average they were that was above the state average by 31 points u.s news and world report recently ranked all 15 eligible lcb and lcps high schools in 2020 among the best high schools in the nation not just the region or the state but the nation slacker.com lists lcps as number five in top rankings of school divisions in virginia lcps is the largest school division [00:08:12] in Virginia to receive that ranking. There is no doubt that in very many ways this is an incredible, successful school system, and I do believe that from time to time we should recognize that and we should say that. However, even with all those successes, we have to respond to what are clearly issues within LCPS with students not just feeling unsafe, but in some cases students being unsafe. And very importantly, when incidents happen that harm students, the response has to be [00:08:47] swift, transparent, non-political, student and parent focused, and most of all, we have to put policies in place that makes it less likely for another student to be harmed. In short, what LCPS does, you do very, very well. However, when serious incidents happen, the response from LCPS and Chair Sorokin, with due respect, in my opinion, the response to the members of the school board have been too slow and less transparent that I believe this needed to regain public [00:09:21] support. Some believe the answer in LCPS is lie, some believe the answer to the issues in LCPS lie in defunding our school system. Well, for me, that is a non-starter. It is not a serious discussion I will have. 86% of our young people attend LCPS. Those students come from all walk of life, demographics, and socioeconomic strata. We are not putting children out of our school system or telling parents to figure it out. In my opinion, a strong public education system is an investment to work in our future and one that a civil society owes to the next generation. [00:10:01] Defunding our school system, for me, is simply not an option. Having said that, I believe the Board of Supervisors who fund the school system has every right to ask some hard questions this evening, and every expectation that my colleagues on the school board are representatives of the administration will answer these questions to the greatest extent possible. To the greatest extent possible. To my colleagues on the BOS, I will remind you that although we have every right to ask questions, we cannot control how our school board chooses to, our school board colleagues [00:10:37] choose to answer or in some cases not answer the questions we may ask. Mr. Sorokin, I thank you again for hosting us and I ask that you please expect that the members of the Board of Supervisors will relate some of our questions that we have while we are having this budget discussion. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair Randall. Good evening and welcome to you all. I'm excited to welcome you all here for the presentation of the school board's FY24 adopted budget. I'm going to be exceedingly brief with my opening remarks because I will also be presenting the first portion of the budget, which I will start momentarily. But I also wanted to briefly touch on my goals for the budget [00:11:17] process overall. First, I hope that we can have a respectful dialogue tonight and throughout the entire budget process. Second, my goal is not to leave any questions unanswered. That may mean taking questions back and providing answers later in writing. But what I really mean is that by the time you prepare for finalizing the county's budget in April or late March or April I don't want you to feel like you have not gotten the answers to your questions. I know that's been the some case the case or the perception in some past years so I would ask that if you do feel that way for a specific question you're waiting on an answer to or wasn't answered to your satisfaction [00:11:54] please reach out to me so that I can get that addressed. And finally my goal is to keep the budget process student-centered. A school district's budget is the investment that the community is making in our children and their future as with most other things the greater the investment the greater the return tends to be so with that if we can start the presentation we'll start the [00:12:20] presentation of the adopted budget next slide please so you should all have a copy of the one lcps strategic plan for excellence at your at your places this has been adopted by the school board within the last year. It is the first budget that we're going to be presenting tonight during [00:12:55] our term that is aligned to an active strategic plan. We're all very excited that this is the case and that we all have a common lighthouse that we're referring to and trying to make our budget align with. So our mission is unchanged. We've also added a vision statement, which is that we We want to place students at the center of our work, helping every student pursue and reach their full potential and empowering them to make meaningful contributions to the world. [00:13:26] Next slide, please. And our vision is that every student will achieve their full potential and achieve their dreams. And our mission on the next slide is unchanged to empower all students to make meaningful contributions to the world. [00:13:46] So there are six core values underneath the vision and mission, which are holistic support, equity and opportunity, trust through learning, rigorous teaching and learning, individualized success, and continuous improvement. [00:14:01] Those align to four core goals. First, empowered students, second, exemplary staff, third, enriched division, and fourth, engaged community. On the next two slides, there are some additional details for each one of these, for the strategic actions that are under each one of these goal pillars. [00:14:25] Not included in the presentation, but should be within the brochure or the additional information that's on the strategic plan page on the LCPS website is all of the quantitative metrics that are in place. And there's about 50 of them across the seven years of the strategic plan for what every single benchmark, every single year for every single goal and aligned action is that we're trying to make sure LCPS meets or exceeds over the life of the strategic plan so with that pivoting to the budget [00:15:00] which as you can see on the next slide again was created with the strategic plan in mind as we do every year we look at three main things compensation and benefits continuation of innovative programs that we already have and new supports or initiatives that we can put in place and it's always a balancing act between how much we focus on these three different areas and this year as in all years we've tried to do that to the best of our ability in the adopted budget. So from the chart [00:15:36] here you can see that the adopted FY24 budget increase is one of the smallest over the past 15 years coming in at 6.9 percent. That is not the county transfer request but this is just the overall budget increase although the county transfer percentage increases is very similar as you'll see later on as far as what numbers that equates to that is a 107 million dollar increase compared to the fy 23 adopted budget which went from 1.56 billion in fy 23 to 1.67 [00:16:15] billion in fy 24 adopted now a question that we get every year is why isn't the growth of the budget proportional to enrollment growth. Enrollment growth is one of many factors that contributes to budget growth. So as you can see on this slide, it is actually the least impactful factor this year of the four main factors that we have. The lion's share, almost around three quarters of the budget increase, is related to compensation and benefits, [00:16:52] Primarily driven by the minimum 5% salary increase for all eligible staff, as well as some enhancements to leave benefits and the cost of increased health premiums. Inflation is not normally one of our major growth factors that we would highlight here, but this year it certainly is, as every governmental body in America probably is having to deal with. [00:17:17] and that's accounting for almost $14 million of LCPS's budget growth in additional costs for repairs, maintenance, materials, supplies, utilities, and fuel. New or enhanced programs and student supports accounts for just under $10 million of the budget growth. I've included just a few examples of those new or enhanced programs, but we're going to get into much more detail about that later on in the presentation and enrollment accounts for 6.2 million dollars of the 107 million dollar budget growth between applying growth and staffing standards as well as pre-staffing [00:17:55] for elementary school 32 and middle school 14 both of which are scheduled to open in fall of 2024 so the pre-staffing there is for the principal and a few other key positions that we hire to help make sure that those schools get off the ground successfully by hiring them a year ahead of time on the next slide you will see just about all of the significant budget enhancements or changes categorized by where they fit in the four major goals of the strategic plan for how we are [00:18:30] empowering students we have staffing enhancements to support english language learners school counselors and our title one or cep schools continuation of some of the initiatives that we brought to you last year in our adopted budget which have multi-year rollouts a new position for student support advisors which directly supports students that are transitioning either to or from alternative school placements as well as as many others for the exemplary staff goal we have the minimum five percent salary increase i mentioned as well as the other [00:19:08] staff benefit enhancements and retention bonuses for engaged community we're providing additional interpreter and translation services a district-wide constituent management system an expanded partnership with laws domestic violence and sexual assault services and under enriched division we have funding for full-time school board assistance staffing for the douglas community center enhanced staffing for some priority programs and as i mentioned pre-staffing for new schools the one thing you will not see in the fy 24 adopted budget is costs for collective [00:19:46] bargaining we are taking the same approach as the school board took in fy 22 and fy 23 in not including these costs as the school board has not yet taken a vote on adoption of collective bargaining. That is coming as we are on the clock. The LEA submitted their proof of certification on January 31st or thereabouts. We are in the process of certifying all the signatures that they submitted, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of February. And after that time, [00:20:22] assuming we have certified all the signatures, we will have to take an up or down vote on collective bargaining by the end of that 120-day window. We're currently conducting a staffing review and market comparison to determine the level of resources that would be necessary, and should the school board vote to adopt collective bargaining, we will ask the Board of Supervisors to make an additional appropriation of the needed amount for FY24. With that, for a deeper dive into each one of these goals and all of the budget changes therein, I will turn it over to Dr. Smith and his team to continue the budget [00:21:00] presentation. Thank you, Chair Sorotkin. Good evening, School Board members and Board of Supervisors. As Chair Sorotkin said, my name is Daniel Smith, and I'm the Acting Superintendent for LCPS. It's been a pleasure to meet many of you and talk with you, and I look forward to working with you throughout this budget process. Chair Sorotkin has provided an overview of our budget requests, and I'll now go into more detail about each of the budget items that are contained as they align to each of the goals in our strategic plan. It is important to note that every single item in this budget is aligned and connected to one or more of the goals within our strategic plan. In the next several slides I'll take some time to address each goal in turn [00:21:39] and first the first goal we'll talk about are empowered students who are always at the center of our work. LCPS students are our top priority. Our work supporting our students, their learning, and their future is why we exist. For FY24, LCPS will be at 92.3 school-based, an increase from the current year percentage of 92.1. Per the current FY23 Washington Area Board of Education Guide, LCPS would be only second to Fairfax, which reported 92.3 school-based personnel. [00:22:12] The other seven systems in our area range from 90.1 to 91.4 percent for school-based employees, and what this really shows you is the number of employees that are in our schools that are working with our kids as opposed to our central office staff. If the other school systems stayed the same, LCPS would tie with Fairfax as the projected leader in the region for the percentage of school-based staff. Now on to enrollment. LCPS FY24 enrollment is projected to be at 83,061 students, a 1% increase from this year's actual fall student count of 82,233. This slide shows [00:22:51] how the distribution of projected students occurs across the levels. The elementary level is projected to decline by 0.5%, but both middle and high schools are projected to grow from a full percentage point to almost three. Comparing this year's budgeted projected enrollment to FY24's projected enrollment, we would have a small increase. So we're in a situation where the enrollment is essentially flat when compared to last year's budget enrollment, but we will experience a budget increase. One reason for the increased expenditures while our division-wide enrollment growth is slowing is the shift in the composition of our student body. We can compare [00:23:27] this year's projections to next year's across certain subpopulations. For example, our English learner population is projected to increase by 12.2 percent. Special education is seeing a slower return to their pre-pandemic growth and is projected to increase just under one percent. [00:23:44] Finally, our economically disadvantaged students are projected to increase 3.6 percent. These student groups require additional resources and the FY24 school board adopted budget includes specific initiatives to support them. LCPS has over 200 staffing standards for school-based support and division position since FY16. Staffing standards provide a base level of staffing and support across schools, programs, and services and are a cornerstone of the budget development. [00:24:12] The school board approves staffing standards each year during the budget process. Based on the currently adopted staffing standards for positions that work directly with students, an additional 48.3 FTE or full-time equivalent positions are required for FY24. These positions are primarily teachers, teacher assistants, English learner teachers, special education positions, and school counselors, and are primarily driven by projected enrollment changes. There are also positions to support the opening of two new schools, ES32 and MS14. There are three staffing standard enhancements [00:24:49] and one new staffing standard to better support students included in the FY24 school board adopted budget. On the top left of the slide, the English language teacher staffing standard has been enhanced to recognize duly identified students in the staffing calculation. While we meet the staffing standard requirement division-wide, the state also recommends staffing kindergarten at one per 50. These adjustments would provide an additional 18.7 FTE to support our EL students. [00:25:16] The top right, the elementary school counselor staffing standard has been enhanced to staff in full 1.0 FTEs at the elementary level. This matches the staffing at the secondary level, ensuring a minimum of one counselor per elementary school and removes the splitting of counselors between schools. This enhancement will provide 25.2 additional FTE for counselors for elementary schools. The differentiated FTE staffing standard is enhanced to recognize an entire school's population if they are designated as a CEP or community eligible provision school. So instead [00:25:51] of counting only 70 percent of the students as a CEP school we would now count 100 percent. This adjustment provides an additional 5.2 differentiated FTE to support our schools. We have also made the same allotment in the formula calculation for the differentiated allotment. Finally, a new staffing standard for a new student support advisor for each comprehensive high school is included in this budget. [00:26:13] The student support advisor will be the chief point of contact for providing continuing education and in-school intervention opportunities for students in the discipline process by acting as a professional colleague who regularly collaborate with school-based staff on instructional and behavior supports. This position would also be the point of contact for supports for students transferring into and out of alternative placements. We have also included a stipend for each middle school. The FY24 school board adopted budget continues the IB program and elementary dual language immersion program that began in FY23. These two multi-year innovative initiatives for students [00:26:53] will need additional resources for year two. For example, the additional professional development and bus drivers are needed for the expansion of the ib program costs from year one are already included in the base budget the fy24 school board adopted budget has additional support resources and programs for students one new initiative is the addition of the the student support advisor stipend for each middle school as i previously mentioned this new staffing standard for one student support advisor per high school will be responsible for supporting at-risk students this position at the middle school level is a stipend that will be provided to a position to assist the middle school dean and assistant principal to coordinate [00:27:32] in-school intervention and support services. Another new initiative is a middle school intramural sports pilot program. This would add one position to oversee the program and includes costs for four pilot middle schools. Other new supports are an elementary gifted resource teacher, a health PE specialist, math resource teachers, and a bus driver for the McKinney-Vento program. [00:27:54] It's important to note that the math resource teacher is required to support the governor's budget amendment to provide state funds for math instructional specialists at underperforming schools. This governor's budget will fund part of one position and four additional positions were added to support the mathematics instruction at our schools that need it the most. There are several positions moving from temporary grant funding to permanent funding as these positions have provided high quality services and opportunities for our students across the county. [00:28:23] As an example, the Jack Kent Cook Foundation generously provided one-year grant funding for the math summer beam program this summer. The program had initial success in its first year and we'd like to continue the program for a second year and into the future. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute or HHMI generously provide grant funds to support science programming. The Propel and Level Up coordinator has been grant funded since the inception of the program and the program continues to grow hence the need for a commitment from the school operating fund. There are some programs and initiatives that were funded out of COVID funds that we are sunsetting for FY23 and [00:29:02] not continue in FY24. Programs include endingtutor.com where the data simply does not support continuation. Elementary virtual Loudon will end as LCPS returns to normal. Enrollment in the elementary distance learning program declined this past year and we believe in-person learning is best for elementary students. We are currently working with families to plan for this transition and will identify any alternative programs such as Virtual Virginia for our medically fragile students who require virtual instruction. Student telehealth was an initiative that did not launch in FY23, and the governor's budget now includes an initiative to provide this at the state level. [00:29:41] We'll now turn our attention to supporting our staff, the best to support student success. Our LCPS employees are our biggest asset, and the FY24 school board adopted budget reflects an investment in making LCPS an employer of choice. To visualize these budgetary commitments another way, here you see that a vast majority, almost 90 percent of the school operating fund, is personnel cost to retain and reward exemplary staff in this highly competitive employment environment. We have almost 13,000 full-time positions and another 3,000 part-time. This means that it doesn't take much [00:30:19] in the areas of compensation and benefits to make a big financial impact on the budget. A top question during budget season is always, will employees receive an annual step increase and one-time top-of-scale payments? The answer in the FY24 school board adopted budget is yes. As you see here, $23.8 million investment to the fund to fund the annual step increase and one-time 1% top-of-scale payment and a salary increase for positions not on the salary scale for eligible employees is included in the budget. Last year, we met the state's requirement of providing a [00:30:55] district-wide 5% pay increase for employees. For FY24, the plan is to do more for our exemplary staff. We recognize the cost of inflation and the FY24 school board adopted budget provides a five percent minimum pay increase for all eligible full-time employees moving a step from FY23 to FY24. The way the scales are structured, employees currently on the top of this step of the salary scales will receive a cost of living scale adjustment plus a one-time payment of their new FY24 salary. As you may know, both the House and Senate versions of the budget include an additional two percent raise for employees but only those in SOQ or standards of quality positions [00:31:35] for an average pay increase of seven percent. This information was not available and still has not been approved therefore the FY24 school board adopted budget only includes a five percent minimum pay increase for employees. Potential impacts of a seven percent pay increase will be provided later in the presentation. It may be helpful to note these strategic investments in staff given the shortages and data from across our region, state, and nation, they send an important message. [00:32:04] Our students deserve the best, and we'll do our best to hire and retain the very best for them. This slide reflects the minimum, average, and maximum pay increases employees would see moving from the current step on the FY23 scale to the next step on the FY24 scale. You can see the minimum of 5% for all employees moving a step. The district-wide average is 5.8%, or $5,405. [00:32:29] Again, this shows the changes for employees moving a step. The adopted budget includes $5.4 million earmarked for one-time recruitment and retention bonuses as proposed as a new state initiative in the governor's budget. [00:32:46] As a part of the governor's budget, we would expect to receive $2.5 million from the state in revenue for this share. This $5.4 will be the projected total cost for the program with the difference funded by the county. We're working on what this program will look like and will provide further detail once it's developed. [00:33:02] Goal two of our strategic plan, 1LCPS, is focused on being an employer choice, and this goes beyond compensation. Supporting and retaining staff has never been more important, and the school board adopted budget will increase leave benefits for 10- and 11-month employees and revise the criteria for payout of sick leave upon retirement. [00:33:24] For example, a universal-scale employee may generally be able to cash out most, if not all, their sick leave hours due to the difference in daily rates between their salary and their average teacher salary. On the other hand, more tenured and experienced employees and teachers were generally capped to a portion of their sick leave hours. [00:33:40] It's expected that this benefit change will help retaining our employees. The short-term impact is projected to be $2.5 million for increased sub-usage and sick leave payouts in FY24. We'll now briefly cover items in the budget that support our goal of an enriched division, remembering that everything we do is supporting the three core areas of compensation and benefits, continuation of innovative programs, and new supports for students. [00:34:06] As a division, we'll do everything we can to make sure our work continues to reflect the diverse needs of our students, families, and community. Our work to reach this goal presents the need for a net increase of 16 positions to further support the division. [00:34:23] I'd like to take a moment to highlight a few examples from this slide. The school board adopted budget includes nine full-time school board assistants, the cost of which partially is covered by the removal of the part-time school board aid budget. While a school board member is technically a part-time position, the workload of that position is a full-time position. [00:34:41] Therefore, there is a need for full-time assistants to support their duties and community engagement. The administrative assistant for the Douglas building will provide the needed visitor and building support. Division-wide, we are seeing significant inflationary increases. [00:34:57] These are a few of the areas to highlight. We're seeing increases in repairs and maintenance and the cost of materials and supplies. We've received information regarding utility increases and diesel and gasoline prices continue to be unstable. Staff estimates the 28% increase reflects the worst-case scenario at this time. [00:35:16] We'll now move on to Goal 4, Engage Community. As a reminder, this goal focuses on family engagement, business and community partnerships, and opportunities for trust-building dialogue and data to form division-wide decisions. It's important to be clear that we believe it takes all of us working together to ensure all students are able to pursue and achieve their dreams. [00:35:37] This is the foundation of Goal 4. We have a few items categorized under Community Engagement. The FY24 school board adopted budget includes increased investments in technology, software, and services to engage our community. Specifically, we have added additional funding for interpreter and translation services. [00:35:55] To continue to make it easier for families to pay payments online, we have increased budgeted amounts for our online payment portal costs. In addition, funding has been included to expand our partnership with laws, which will help us to take a more proactive and comprehensive approach to stopping violence and looking at ways to incorporate a trauma-informed and survivor-centered approach to incident response. [00:36:19] Now that I've highlighted and presented the needs for the division, we're going to talk about how to pay for these needs. Before we get into the details, I'd like to be clear that the revenue projections are based on the governor's proposed budget. This is what we know, and the House and Senate versions of the budget continue to change. [00:36:35] We just received the Virginia Department of Education's budget calculation tools from the state today, which is based on the budgets published on February 9th. Changes have already taken place since that time, which causes additional uncertainty. This is why our revenue projections are based on the governor's proposed budget. [00:36:54] We'll start with state funding. The state funding on the governor's proposed budget is projected to increase in FY24 by $38 million. It includes funding to support an average 5% division-wide pay increase, recruitment and retention bonuses, expansion of reading specialists through 4th and 5th grades, and funding to support math instructional specialists at underperforming schools. [00:37:17] While there are numerous state revenue lines, we're summarizing them into two main categories. The first is regular basic aid, of which LCPS is projected to receive an additional $19.3 million in basic aid, bringing the total to $518.7 million for the state's share of public education. [00:37:38] This funding provides for teachers, support positions, special education funding, etc. The next category is for compensation and bonuses. This is not a regular funding stream. FY24 is the second year of the state's biennium budget, which provided the state's share of funding to support an average division-wide 5% pay increase for FY23 and FY24. [00:38:00] New to FY24 is an additional $2.5 million to support recruitment retention bonuses and requires a local match. We remain in a tough position developing a budget between our timelines. The county's budget process and adoption requires LCPS to adopt a budget before having more complete information from the state. [00:38:20] We realize that this may put you, our supervisors, in a tough spot, as well as you might not have the full picture of the state impacts and requirements from the state budget. County and school staff are going to discuss this process in more depth for next year's budget to see if there's any leeway or flexibility in a timeline. [00:38:37] But in this year, we're still in an unenviable spot to determine the final budgets and funding for FY24 before the General Assembly has completed its initial work on the budget. The FY24 budget is built on the governor's proposed budget, as that was the official information available at the time of budget adoption. [00:38:54] The FY24 budget was built with the county's January 3rd funding guidance in mind. The school board adopted its budget on February, but you will note on the timeline that a few days before, on January 27th, is when the Virginia Department of Education notified school divisions of an error in their budget calculation tool. [00:39:14] This left little time for adjustment, and while we have heard positive information from Richmond that the error will be remedied in the final state budget, the final action on this funding is not yet complete. The error resulted in a $7.4 million funding shortfall for FY24. [00:39:31] On February 9th, the House and Senate committees released their budget amendments. This is obviously after the school board adopted its budget. VDOE just released the budget calculation tools today regarding the House and Senate budget amendments, but as I said, there's been additional changes since. [00:39:46] We will not know what the conference committee will send to the governor until February 25th if they remain on schedule. After the General Assembly comes to consensus on February 25th, they will send the budget bill to the governor for signature. If they don't come to consensus, they aren't scheduled to reconvene until April 12th but could be called back for a special session. [00:40:08] Once the General Assembly has resolved the budget differences and sends it to the governor, the governor may sign it, veto the entire bill or certain line items, or recommend amendments. If the governor does not sign the budget bill, it goes back to the General Assembly during its reconvene session. When the budget comes out of reconvene session, if the governor does not act on the bill within 30 days after the adjournment of the reconvene session, the bill shall become law without the signature. [00:40:32] Budget bill in odd number of years goes to, in effect, the date of the passage. As we try to plan ahead and sift through the multiple state budget amendments, it's difficult to predict what the final outcome and budget may be. On this slide, you'll see a sample of items that we've seen included in one or both of the proposed state budget. As we mentioned before, we just received the calculation tools and are working through the calculations and the impacts to LCPS expenditures and revenues. Next, I'd like to speak about county funding or the county transfer. This estimate of needs, I'm sorry, this school board [00:41:08] adopted budget is built on a request that increases the transfer by 75.3 million and would require a tax rate slightly more than one penny above the county guidance. Almost half of this request or 41.3 percent is needed to provide the required matching funds to support state compensation initiatives. This chart shows the historical county transfer over the past 10 plus years. [00:41:32] This year's FY24 school board adopted budget based on the governor's proposed budget is planned using the lowest county funding request in over a decade. Until the state budget is complete we won't know the full impact to the LCPS budget and funding requests from the county. The final highlighted revenue stream recognizes our net reduction in federal and other revenue streams, primarily from the reduction of federal COVID-19 funds. Here we see that these revenues are generally consistent, but you can see the impact of the one-time COVID-19 relief funds in the teal line. Other revenue streams represented by the burgundy line dip during COVID, but are returning [00:42:12] to expected levels. As you may have noticed on the previous slide, the non-federal revenue source line dips slightly for FY24, and that is related to the elimination of athletic fees in FY24. This slide shows the school board commitment to reducing student fees over the last several years. [00:42:31] Other student fees continue to be reviewed for possible future adjustments. Now to recap and highlight a few next steps. Circling back for our key takeaways, this budget is focused on the one LCPS strategic plan and has one of the smallest budget increases in years. Compensation is our focus, which comprises a large part of the funding request with a few needed adjustments to staffing and programs. A tax rate of slightly more than the county guidance will fully fund the FY24 school board adopted budget. For our budget question and answer process, we do ask that [00:43:08] questions are emailed to Megan Bork, the deputy director for the county, who will also reach out and work with Neil Slevin, the acting chief of staff in Loudoun County Public Schools. Thank you for the opportunity to share our needs to support the students across Loudoun County. The fluctuation of the state budget remains a challenge and we'll continue to communicate with you as we gain more definitive information. I'd like to take a moment to thank Tim Hemstreet, Megan Bork, and county staff as we've worked well together to share information and support our organizations. We look forward to the continued partnership and ongoing communication. I'll now turn things back [00:43:42] over to School Board Chair Sorokin. Thank you, Dr. Smith. So we will now start our round-robin questions as I said we're going to be following the same exact format as last year going alphabetically by district with the supervisor first and then the school board member with the chairs last with a time limit of three minutes per individual if you have budget related questions for staff they can answer during your time like last year or when it's the time for a school board member to speak they may respond to questions during their time. With that, we will start with the Algonquian [00:44:21] District and Supervisor Briskman. Thank you so much, Chair Sorotkin, and thank you so much for the budget presentation. I just want to start off by saying that I have had my kids in public schools since kindergarten and first grade. My daughter graduated in 2021, and I have a senior graduating this year. My experience in the Loudoun County Public Schools has been excellent. I have never once been denied access to curriculum, to counselors, to teachers, to opportunities to [00:45:01] observe in the classroom. I have never once felt that the administration of any of their schools was hiding anything from me or trying not to have engagement with me and my family. I've lived in Algonquian district for 22 years I know many many many families and I've never ever once heard such complaints I feel that our school systems operate our schools operate the principals operate them with transparency and to the best of their abilities and I feel like my children are very well prepared to go [00:45:38] out into the world so I want to thank Loudoun County Public Schools for that at the outset. I am frankly disgusted by anybody who wants to ban books, whitewash history, or erase people who don't look, love, identify like them, or are on the same socioeconomic status as them. [00:46:04] I'm proud of our SEL programs. They make our children more empathetic, and they make them better citizens in the world. So I just wanted to start with that. Thank you very much. I'd like to turn to page 15 where we talk about the four notable budget growth factors and I just had first of all thank you very very much for budgeting for the elimination of athletic fees I've been saying for three years that I believe athletic fees create inequities for our families who can't afford that fee as a single head of household it was actually personally very hard [00:46:42] on me to have two children in high school playing sports at the same time so I really appreciate that. Thank you. I think all extracurricular fees create inequities. My question on this page is, which of these would be eliminated first if the schools were not fully funded? No answer? [00:47:04] Are we allowed to ask questions right now? Yes, but that's, I mean, staff can't answer that question because it would be, that would be during the reconciliation process. It would be a school board decision. Okay, so you don't know. The answer is you don't know. My second question is on collective bargaining, I thought I understood the letter that was sent to county administration said that the collective bargaining fee, if needed, $3.5 million would, are you going to turn off my microphone? [00:47:30] The $3.5 million would be taken out of what would have been returned to the county rather than an extra supplementary question for funding. So I'm a little bit confused by what Dr. Smith said that you might come back and ask for more. [00:47:47] So my question is, is it supposed to come out of the funds that would be returned to the county? And how much do you think will be returned to the county? Is it more than 3.5 million? And then I'll have a second round, thank you. - Thank you, thank you, Supervisor Bristman. [00:48:02] I'll speak to that and then Ms. Willoughby, our CFO, can speak to some of the budget pieces. So that would be staff's recommendation. We did work with our chair in terms of sending that letter. That would ultimately be the school board's decision in terms of using year end funds or how they would ask for that appropriation. [00:48:19] because we're in a situation where there hasn't been a vote on collective bargaining. And so we're just trying to plan ahead, just so we have some plans on what that might look like, but that would be staff's recommendation. And that's what was included in the letter, not the school board action. [00:48:35] - Thank you, Ms. Reeser. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was going to start by saying, I won't be having any questions since I've heard the presentation, but I'm wondering, does Chair Randall turn off your microphone when the buzzer beeps? - No, no. - Okay. [00:48:50] - No, I just take care of that myself. So I just would like to, being the first school board member that's speaking, go ahead and welcome everyone again and just talk for a moment about the partnership that exists between our boards isn't just today and it isn't just in the joint committee. [00:49:10] I have had the opportunity to speak with almost all of the supervisors on one issue or another. I'd like to thank you all for the conversations, the feedback, the questions, the input, and look forward to this last year in our four-year term continuing to try to work together for our shared goal of what is best for the students. [00:49:31] I think there's sometimes disagreement between our boards or board members or even within the school board about how you arrive at what's best for the students, but I've said this before when we've gotten together and I continue to believe that that is what drives us even if we can't agree on how to get to point B. I also would like to give some colleague credit to Ms. Ogadegbe who couldn't be here tonight. She's at a funeral but you heard about the expansion of the partnership with laws and I wanted to let you know since she won't be here to speak about it herself that she took the time to reach out to them and speak with them about that possibility [00:50:09] And then she and I got together to meet with them and talk with them, and things kind of just took off from there. So speaking of partnership, I appreciate her partnership for the time that I've had it. And with that, I will attempt to yield my time to other supervisors who may want to use it. [00:50:28] Thank you. We'll go to the Ashburn District with Supervisor Turner. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I'm very pleased to be here, and I appreciate all the work that's gone into this. I run the risk of seeming to be insufficiently rigorous in my questioning, and that's just the way it is. [00:50:49] I kind of call it the way I see it. I think it's a terrific plan. To tie it to specific strategic objectives is wonderful. I wish I could put my finger on why I feel so much better about this budget than I have for the previous three budgets that I've seen, but I really do. [00:51:06] I mean, it's really terrific. It's well presented. It's easy to understand. And I think the layout and the fact that it's based on a strategic plan is absolutely superb. The elimination of the athletic fees, and thank God for board assistance in the budget. [00:51:23] Hallelujah, it's long overdue. I don't know how you guys have done this job without board assistance, so good on you for that. Kudos, again, on what I think is a very reasonable and data-based request to the board of supervisors. [00:51:39] Previous three years, I always got the impression, I really could never put my finger on it, that we grossly overshot on the assumption that the board would then cherry-pick different items and we'd get into a horse trade at the final game, which I was never really comfortable with anyway. [00:51:55] I think this is a very reasonably presented budget based on hard data points, and I really appreciate that. It makes the decision-making process much easier, and I will tell you frankly, candidly, I'm already leaning forward to try and figure out a way that we're going to fully fund your budget because I think this is so heavily database so thank you for that the one question I have it might be concrete in fact it is controversial there's just no way around it chair Sorokin you provided a letter that detailed the changes in process and changes and procedures related to the unfortunate assault unfortunate tragic assault incident that occurred in the schools and it was it I [00:52:31] found it to be very comprehensive I don't see anything jumping out at me by line item in the budget that specifically address additional costs by virtue of implementing those processes. Is it reasonable to assume from that that those internal processes are an insignificant impact on the budget and simply required a realignment of existing staff power and oversight and reporting procedures and that those can be absorbed within the existing budget or am I missing something? Is there a line item in here that explains those changes? So the one thing I [00:53:09] - I can point to directly that is a budget ask is the new positions for the student support advisors, which is additional resources at the middle school, primarily high school level for students who are transitioning either to or from alternative placement programs. [00:53:27] So that is being directly responsive to having a better transfer process in place and making sure that those students are getting the support they need. I'll ask staff if there's anything else related to any of the other policy recommendations that is responsive to Supervisor Turner's question. [00:53:45] - Yeah, happy to add. So if the things that Chair Sirachan put in that letter, almost all of those were funded out of this current FY23 budget, so those were prioritized there. The student support advisor for the middle school and high school is included in there. And then we've also got the expanded partnership with laws is the things that I would highlight. [00:54:03] - Great, thank you very much. - Thank you, Mr. Matavy. - Thank you, Chair. - I won't take too much of a time, but I just wanna welcome the supervisor in this. I think this is a great opportunity for us to discuss the school board budget and go through the question and answer. [00:54:20] The one thing I would like to highlight that this is probably in the four years that we've been presenting the budget, this is the first one that we are associating the budget with the strategic plan. So Mr. Turner, when you mentioned about the budget being presented in a much more digestible fashion, I think goes back to the tremendous work that's done to put the strategic plan together, in working with the Loudoun County parents, the students, the staff, and our constituents. [00:54:46] And I think that putting the strategic plan in place creates a much more streamlined way for us to make sure that that's how we allocate and allocate or at least request for the budget. Now, so I'm also personally pleased with how this is presented this year as well. [00:55:04] So I complete thanks, appreciate your comments on that. The one thing I would like to say that again, I know the ask is there, but at the same time, we have gone through a major inflation time in the last year as well. I think the last year's average inflation was 8%. [00:55:21] So I think, given all that, I think this is, you know, as best of a budget that we can ask of the board of supervisors to fund. So I hope that all of you would fully support the budget that's requested from the superintendent's office. Thank you. [00:55:37] Thank you. We'll move to broad run, starting with supervisor class. Thank you, Chair Sorotkin, for the presentation. Thank you, Dr. Smith, as well, for the presentation. [00:55:54] You have given us a lot of good information. I also, you know, being part of the Joint Committee for the Board of Supervisors and School Board, So I would like to, you know, let you all know that I look forward in continuing to work for the students for LCPS. [00:56:21] As many people know, I'm an LCPS staff member. So I think I have, I see both sides of things that go on. [00:56:37] And right now, I'm working at Virtual Loudoun on the elementary side. I work with students who may not necessarily be able to go into the classroom. [00:56:57] I've had parents that are concerned about what their students are going to do for the next year and how they are going to participate in the classroom. I've had teachers and staff to speak on their concerns of what's going to happen to them for, you know, as they continue in their career. [00:57:24] I just want you all to know that, you know, that there's talk out there. And I think for teachers, educators like to go ahead and do the work. They don't want to, you know, be in the muck and mire. [00:57:43] They just want to take care of their students and if things that are going on that are concerning, they want to just go ahead and push one and do their work. And I commend our educators out there and our staff that do the work for our students. [00:58:03] I had a question regarding homebound instruction. So I wanted to know what's the difference between homebound instruction services and virtual Loudoun? And is homebound instruction going to continue even though elementary virtual Loudoun is slated to end? [00:58:24] I want to see if Mr. Slevin is our Acting Chief of Staff, was also the Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, if you want to take that question. I believe Dr. Jones would be the best person to speak to homebound instruction. [00:58:46] Good evening. I'm happy to respond. Homebound instruction continues to exist. It is very different from a virtual ongoing instruction in that homebound instruction is for medical reasons. It is temporary by nature, and it is driven through an iterative process between parents and medical providers to provide instruction on a limited basis to students who have that temporary need. [00:59:17] It is driven by policy as well, and again, we have teachers that provide that support for students, but it is based on a limited number of hours per week based on the student's particular grade level. So if you have a student that has a medical issue that is not temporary, what do they do? [00:59:45] I know of a couple of students that have issues that are longer than temporary. They are probably lifelong issues. So what would happen to them? [01:00:01] would they go through still go to the school or yes so there are students who do have critical illnesses long-term illnesses such as cancer or other situations where the doctor has deemed it necessary for them to receive instruction outside of the school day and that is provided to them through a homebound instructional teacher it is somewhat different from the virtual instruction but those provisions are provided as needed. [01:00:37] Ms. Glass, your time had expired for the round. I think the timer reset, but it had already gone down. I think she got home cooking, so she's LCPS staff. Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [01:00:53] Does that mean that I get 30 seconds now? First, I will say thank you all for being here this evening. I've been able to have the pleasure of meeting most, if not all of you, And it is enjoyable for me to have my first opportunity to sit down with you all at this meeting. [01:01:12] As you know, I am new to the school board as of November 15th of this past year. But I am in the minority when it comes to support for this budget because I am one of the board members that did not vote for this budget. And I thought perhaps I could take a few moments to let you know why so that you could hear from me in my own words. [01:01:30] And I won't rehash everything that I said at that meeting when the board voted to pass that budget. But as someone who's been working in the field of special education for over 20 years and who currently works as a board-certified behavior analyst with children with autism, one of the major concerns that I have and that I have seen over the years in public school systems and not just in Loudoun County, but we have a significant lack of services, related services in particular, for children who truly need them and really need them at the early intervention level. So currently [01:02:06] we have preschool-age children in Loudoun County that could truly benefit from occupational therapy, from speech therapy, and for whatever reason, oftentimes it is clearly because we just don't have the providers to offer those services for the students. They're not getting their early intervention needs met, and if there's anything we know as educators, it is that early intervention is critical, and so one of the things that I advocated for in this budget was to include more positions for OT or speech therapists. We have, I believe it's 14 positions that will be cut [01:02:43] in speech therapy. And we also have funding from the COVID funds that will be dissolving in September of 2023. So we will be losing some of those positions that we had in place that we could have helped students in those related services. So I wanted to make sure that I stated that for you all so that you understood where I was coming from there. And I also have been condemned for supporting Mr. Beatty's motion to cut funding from the equity department. And the reason that I did that is because I am an advocate for putting the money back to the boots on the [01:03:22] ground. And if we're going to talk about equity, if equity means truly giving every student what they need to succeed, then how better to do that than to put that money towards the people who are working hand in hand with our children every single day. So that was my rationale for that. [01:03:38] And we have a massive budget in administration. So we went from a little bit over $300,000, I believe it was in 2021, where we were funding equity. And we're now at almost 2 million going into FY24. So thank you. Thank you. We'll now move to Catoctin district, starting with supervisor Kirshner. Am I on? Okay. Thank you. I'm going to ask a bunch of questions. Don't necessarily need answers, but I would like them in writing at a minimum. First of all, I want to [01:04:13] thank the supervisor or the chair for having me here, as well as Mr. Smith and for putting this budget together. I do agree with some of my colleagues that this is well presented and that I appreciate, quite frankly, a request far more within the lines of what we're able to do even as a board, which I don't believe we've had in the past years. I think we all agree that Loudoun County wants first-class students in our system. I am concerned that in recent years we've gotten a little off track and I've seen that our students are falling behind. Enrollment is somewhat flat [01:04:50] and we have unfortunately a pension for making national news. Loudoun's private schools have been have a waiting list and that's fine for families who can afford it but what about the families that cannot or the ones that want a traditional public school experience? I think is incumbent upon this school board to make Loudoun County Public Schools worthy of prior reputation and return to our academic excellence. [01:05:16] So I have several budget questions here and a couple of comments. The first is I appreciate the discussion on the budget myth as to why enrollment growth does not directly correlate with budget growth or in other words, the budget still needs to grow even though enrollment has not increased significantly. But I also find it interesting that almost every superintendent, I went back and looked at these, including Hattrick cited enrollment increases as justification for increased funding for the estimated cost of education, additional students up until FY 2022. I find it interesting that all of a sudden in 2024, when enrollment is barely [01:05:50] increased, there's nowhere near pandemic levels of the 84,000 that we had before. And I'll just quote a couple of things in my last few minutes. Boy, time rolls fast. 2007 enrollment growth continues to be the main factor. 2018 increase relating to enrollment growth, total 32.3 million increase the budget in 2022 mentioned that we 2.29.8 million for that enrollment growth and the list goes on and I'll send these to you an actual question so I find that very very interesting I understand inflation is an issue but I would like some more explanation on that I do have ongoing [01:06:29] concerns from my constituents about some of the parental rights as it relates to their children's education I will have some questions on that this budget does include 5.4 million of one-time recruitment retention I'd like to know is this going to teachers or to administrators are we losing teachers and why how many of the Latin County public schools did not notify students of their merit scholarships I'd like to find out I know there are at least four I'd like to find out if there are more what we're doing about it and I believe that there was eight I believe the operating budget is 89.7 cost how much of that is actually going to the classroom not just to the school base which you mentioned in your presentation [01:07:07] But actually going to the classroom. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Beatty. Thank you chair again I can my colleagues and thanking you all for being here and allowing us to present the budget as miss political said I did not support the budget and I mean for me It really comes down to trust and as chair Randall talked about there is a big elephant in the room around the Releasing the report and I look at the whole aspect around that is trying to rebuild trust trying to get the community to trust us. And for me, I look at the way that there was different answers [01:07:47] between the report and what the grand jury had. And so I have trouble trusting the whole budget process. As I look through the pages as I was trying to figure out what might we cut, what might we add, I just, I don't get the sense that it's something you can really believe all the numbers behind it. And, you know, again, going to what Mr. Turner said, you know, there's something you can't quite put your finger on so I think the fact that the budget grows every year I think the fact that enrollment hasn't really grown I just think that there's a lot of slack in that and the proof to that is that every year there's always a lot of money that comes up that is unspent and it's [01:08:25] unappropriated and it's something that the school board has an opportunity to reappropriate and to spend before it comes back to the Board of Supervisors and I just think that you know my complaints of the past couple years is that affects the base budget and then I've kind of got pushed back it says no it doesn't really but again I don't quite trust that that's the case so I think this is a large budget I think that there's definitely areas that could be trimmed in it so you know as well presented as it is and as the numbers all seem to add up I think that we could do better for Loudoun County in terms of making it a little bit smaller so that we could spend it better on student services thank you thank you we'll move to the Dulles district [01:09:05] starting with Supervisor Letourneau. Thank you, Chair Sorokin, for having us. And I wanted to also especially thank Dr. Smith. You were sort of called in at a very challenging time. And I think you've done a very admirable job stabilizing things here and beginning that process of restoring trust. [01:09:24] I thought quite a bit about what I wanted to say at the beginning here, just as kind of an observation. And they put the three old timers in a row, I think, the three of us that, uh, that have been at this the longest. And, um, I just wanted to say, look, I understand the conflict between the fiduciary responsibility of a board and the public responsibility. That's a very real conflict. And it's one that quite frankly, none of us were really trained for. Um, you know, you don't get that training, even when you go through [01:09:59] orientation about how to make those decisions my one observation and take it for what it's worth is that I do think that in every instance the school board has been consistently erring towards the fiduciary responsibility instead of the public one to the point where it has threatened public trust and so I was hopeful that we could come to some kind of resolution about the report even if it wasn't releasing the whole thing exactly as intended or whatever that may help [01:10:32] in that regard and so I'm disappointed that the answers seem to just be no. As far as the budget is concerned we're looking at a challenging year on our side the county administrator's proposed budget at 87 cents is between a three and four hundred dollar a year tax increase for the average home if we go up and fund some of the suggested increases that he has brought to us as possibilities which include things like sheriff's deputies that we really need we're looking close to 500 a year so that's it's going to be hard for us to go above what the fiscal guidance was I will have [01:11:07] some specific questions on the school board aids which I fully support I think you all needed to do that a long time ago but would it make sense to look at that as a half year enhancement because of the election coming you know trying to hire somebody and starting a fiscal year in July for positions that are probably, some of them at least, will turn over in January. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. I'm curious to see more of a call-out about security costs. I've definitely seen and we've all felt, with good reason, a very much enhanced LCPS security team. There's Ford Explorers running around, never used to be. There has to be a cost associated with that, and I'm just [01:11:46] curious to see more of a breakdown about that and how that goes. I would love a deeper dive into some of the enrollment projections that are in the capital budget I spent some time with that this week I'm dealing with several new land development applications in my part of the world and I'm trying to understand how those are going to impact student enrollments and then finally I'm running out of time but I do have some concerns about the remainder process which seemed to be different this year than it has been in the past in terms of kind of a desire to spend everything and spend down and whether any of that or positions that end up in [01:12:20] next year's base budget. So I'm out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Morris. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to start by thanking staff who put this together. This was a very difficult and challenging time for them to get together and to provide the feedback up to the superintendent. So thank you to all the staff that worked on this. We talked about investments a little bit and there was a question on what kind of investments we've been making towards grand jury report and things like that title title 9 was something we started with that office staffing that office auditor general ombudsman those are the positions that we started in the [01:12:58] offices that we started to help the board and the superintendent understand exactly and precisely what's going on and where we're having challenges a lot of what we're seeing in this budget the changes that we're seeing are a direct result of what's happening in the mental health of our children we have put a large effort in reducing the ratio or increasing the number of counselors for our elementary school students because that environment is more challenging than it's ever been. One of the things that is not on this budget that I would personally like to have seen on it was the the retention of the first grade [01:13:37] teaching assistants because the kindergartners coming out of kindergarten this year are similar to kindergartners going in three years ago. So the maturity, the challenges the teachers are seeing that are going to be there in the first grade, they're going to be challenged, and they need that extra staffing. [01:13:56] We're also focused on trying to maintain a competitive salary and compensation. We all know that this pay raise does not even keep up with inflation, and that's going to be the case across the board and across all boards. We understand that. If you notice also, when we make investments, specifically under Dr. Smith, we are talking mostly about pilot programs. [01:14:16] we don't dive in we don't invest in across-the-board changes we make incremental changes we assess the the efficacy and then we move forward with that that's an important aspect such as the middle school sports the math resource specialists so bite off a little see how effective it is and see if that makes sense to continue the program collective bargaining I don't think that should be a end-of-year funding issue I really think that the end-of-year funding should be addressed for shortages such as the the teacher assistance so that's what that would be my preference I did want to welcome this political this is her first opportunity to sit down with all of us and and [01:14:54] certainly welcome her to the team and looks like I'm running a little bit low on time as well so I just want to reiterate that when we talk about very little growth or 1% growth we're not talking about the areas that are the most cost expensive and that is our at-risk students one of the charts that that we showed today showed that some of our at-risk student populations are growing at a rate of 6%, far faster than the baseline 1% that we're worried about with the overall growth. [01:15:26] So when we're looking at changes in student enrollment populations, that's what we have to consider. Thank you. - Thank you. We'll move to Leesburg district with Supervisor Umstead. - Thank you very much, Chair Sorotkin. I wanna thank you and the entire school board. [01:15:43] I'd also like to thank Dr. Smith for his outreach to board members. I appreciate it getting to talk to you. I would specifically like to thank Tiffany Polifko, John Beatty, and Denise Corbo for supporting the release of the internal investigation. [01:16:04] My main concern, and my main concern is whether we're adequately funding it, is school safety. We don't have cameras on the bathrooms. It's well known, in fact, recently said to me by a school board member that everybody knows bad things happen in the bathrooms. [01:16:24] Well, bad things should not be happening in school bathrooms. So how do we address that? What kind of resources does the school board need to address it? And how can we make sure that that doesn't happen anymore? Mental health, I'm glad to see the focus on mental health. [01:16:42] I know that your online system did not pan out, but I'd like to see all the measures you were taking to address mental health issues for the children and whether that meshes with the county's mental health services. [01:17:00] Thank you to Erica and Atusa for working on a partnership with laws. I'd like to see more details on that, whether that's an expense to the school system. I'd like to see what measures we need and whether they cost money on how to change the culture of the teacher administrative flow of concerns and the complaint process. [01:17:30] Finally, on a very specific issue, I know that you've decided to spend about over $200 million to replace Parkview High School, rather than about $70 million to restore it. [01:17:51] Loudoun County in Leesburg has the oldest high school in the county, which is Loudoun County High School, built in 1954. And that has not been replaced, nor would I want it to be. But it has been rehabilitated a few times over the years. So I would ask that perhaps we look at that approach, which is a lot more affordable than a full replacement. Again, thank you to all of you. [01:18:18] I know you've been through very difficult times. I appreciate what you do and I hope we can best serve our students together. Thank you. - Thank you. Can staff weigh in the rebuild versus renovate costs for Parkview or what Supervisor Ramsey quoted is not quite what I remember as far as the difference between the two. [01:18:43] Mr. Lewis, could you perhaps weigh in on that quickly? - I understood the question on the numbers. I think the estimate for the replacement of the project is 211 million dollars in the original process project was 49 million dollars but the 49 million dollars project was very limited in scope and did not address all the things that we heard loud and clear from the community on what the issues with the building were we looked at that building very closely and found a number of shortcomings in the the ability to deliver instruction in the building so that's one of the things as we looked at Loudoun County High School as you [01:19:20] mentioned we you know probably will not recommend to do the same thing there but there is a difference between those two buildings the infrastructure is a is a poorer design at Parkview than it is a county and so all those things led to us recommended to do the the replacement so there's a lot of detail there but I think we can certainly provide more in a written answer thank you so we'll move to Sterling district starting with vice chair Sains actually may I propose you let the at-large Miss Cobra jump in since the Leesburg school board person is not here she was not admitted into the meetings participation okay I didn't [01:19:58] know that all right thank you for that clearing all right well I'll quickly say thank you for for all of us getting together tonight so it's good to see everybody thank you for your presentation surprise miss Brisbane didn't open with this but I'll jump into it now and I'm sure she'll jump into it ours on our second comments I see that her to sign going up and the mansion parkview doing either replacement or a complete re um or rebuilding so and i appreciate everybody voting to actually do the full replacement of the parkview mr lewis talked about some of the [01:20:33] the issues with why doing a renovation was not uh the selected method and to to your point um ms umstead the lineman county high school has been renovated a few numerous times over the years same thing with broad run a few years ago that was completely renovated and updated where parkview is it unfortunately has not seen those those renovations so i'm glad everybody voted to to do their full replacement of parkview because it's desperately needed however um just one question to staff or to our school board because we're starting to get emails now from those who i guess are affected by the vote to give the you know the replacement to parkview which i'm again glad it's [01:21:12] happening but it turns out funding was taken away from dominion high school potomac falls and heritage to do their weight room press boxes in tennis courts if i'm reading the information that was provided to us so my question number two questions on that front is were when you guys took that vote were you aware that you're taking funding from one program that was already in and reallocating it or did you not know that when you guys took the vote and then two is there any way to look at maybe some of the funding and supervisor wristband will get this a little bit [01:21:47] later she has some ideas but is there way to look at funding to possibly do one two or three of those instead of putting it off because from my information I received it looks like you're putting this off until fiscal year 27 or TBD which is not coming up at all so I'll stop I'll pause there if somebody wants to jump in and answer that so mr. Sains the the presentations that we made for the CIP to the school board did include information that the the weight rooms at heritage and Dominion would be deferred as well as the press boxes at five [01:22:24] different schools but that is not the only products things that were considered in that and we have what's called the capital renewal and alterations section of the of the CIP that included many things like critical systems upgrades energy conservation projects there were a number of things that were in those tough decisions that we had to do and essentially what we were working with was the the change of the Parkview project that got more expensive because of the scope that we talked about a minute ago but also tremendous amount double-digit inflation for our construction projects so every project we [01:22:58] had in the CIP has gone up 15 20 percent and so we were working with what we knew from guidance from county staff on on what our budgets were based on the fact that we came in and greatly increased the number or the the request for cip funding with the inflation on hs14 the change the inflation for banneker and woodgrove or uh waterford sorry and so all those projects greatly increased in the cost so that put pressure on the amount of funding that was available and so as we always do we recommended in the school [01:23:35] board um i believe accepted the fact that we had to make decisions based on finding new seats rather than the the miscellaneous projects so that's that's what had those projects deferred I'm going to believe my time is up but hopefully we have a second round if you leave okay all right thank you thank you uh Miss Chardon thank you Mr. Chair and I'm actually going to start off by thanking you this evening for a really great opening to our presentation tonight that isn't hasn't been traditionally done in the past by the chair and tying our strategic plan into that I think it was a great way to start the presentation and I just wanted to acknowledge that in front of [01:24:12] everyone the one topic I'd just like to touch on really quickly is the equity initiatives in our school division and the impact that they've had on the students it's always funny somebody just says something to you when you walk into the room and I'll think dr. Jones for this that the presentation done by students at our MSAC meeting last night demonstrated the impact that our equity initiatives are having on our students so if you're not sure about it and you're not sure if you support it or not talk to our students because they're the ones that it's for and there's they are the ones that it is impacting and they spoke loudly and openly last night about how important it is to them so I will [01:24:50] continue to support those initiatives and I hope that everyone else will as well thank you thank you chair Randall thank you sir rockin so I I wish I could say that my my two sons experience at LCPS was like miss Brickspin and others but it wasn't my two sons had issues in LCPS it wasn't a year that went by that they weren't called the most disgusting of names and that things seriously didn't happen to them from other students and from staff. I think the difference is how I chose to handle that. I didn't blame every educator in the school or call every educator a [01:25:28] racist. I didn't try to shut the school system down or defund it. I didn't run to the media every time something happened and I certainly didn't run to social media every time something happened, I decided to get involved in the school system. I was a room mom. I was a chair of MSAC. In fact, the clusters that you see in MSAC right now, I put those in place when I was chair of MSAC. So I don't believe that, you know, I wish we had a school system where these things didn't happen, but these things do happen. I think the discussion is, then how is it handled? And I certainly wouldn't try to shut a school system down where 90 plus, at that time, 90 plus percent of our children went to the school system. So I think [01:26:08] that, you know, there are ways to handle things that come up. And I'm not going to say that I think that the school administration or the school board has handled what's happening now well, because I don't, and I have not been unclear about that. But I also think that the burn it all down and blame every educator for something is also unneeded, bombastic, unhelpful, not true, and inappropriate. Having said that, Mr. Smith, Dr. Smith, you have presented a budget that is, think one of the most helpful that I've ever seen. I do appreciate that. I will need a second round, [01:26:43] but let's start with page 17, the collective bargaining cost. Ms. Bricksman asked a question. I wasn't sure that I heard the answer. If I did, I apologize. I'm going to ask for what we colloquial call fund balance, because if you wait until when you're talking about waiting to find out what your need for collective bargaining, we basically have closed our books. And so I'd like to know if there is any money in what we might call a fund balance in LCPS, and can that money cover collective bargaining? Because the timeline you're talking about waiting would be hard for us [01:27:18] to go readjust, and that could end up being a problem, and not one that I want to see. If you go to page 27, the grant-funded positions that were moving from grant to school opening, my question is, and I understand why we want to keep these programs going, my question is, have we looked one at other grants. I looked at the main program in the LCPS family that helps fund these types of things, which is, of course, the Loudon Education Foundation. We do want to keep them, but I don't know if we have to keep them by putting them on the books. And so that may be a place that we have and we can start and we can look. Again, I'll need a second round of [01:27:57] questioning, but I will take us also to page, I think it was 35. It was 35, but I'll have a second around. Thank you. Thank you. I want to respond. I think Supervisor Kirshner had to leave, but I did want to respond to his question about budget growth as a factor. So I've only been on the board for this term, but it's absolutely been in the case that going back five, 10 years that enrollment growth was cited as a major factor, if not the number one factor. And the reason for [01:28:35] that is because the county was explosively growing as far as population at that time and the school enrollment was was growing commensurate with that so I think it can absolutely be true that in some years when enrollment goes up by five percent that that's the major budget factor in years like this where it may only go up by one percent then it's not the major budget factor so I think just because it was once the the primary budget factor doesn't mean it always has to be like that or that it's an inconsistent message. This year, it's the salary increases and inflation that's driving most of the cost in other years. That has not been the case. [01:29:17] So with that, we'll go to our second and final round. So we'll go back around the horn again if there are any additional questions, starting with Supervisor Briskman. Thank you, Chair Sorotkin. I'm actually amazed. I think that School Board Member Polifco and Morris and I might agree on something. Universal pre-K, that could solve the issues that you were just talking about, and it would also have, it would also bring more mature students into our kindergarten and first grade. Actually, kids that attend pre-K are more likely to graduate high [01:29:53] school and college. They are more likely to be socially ready for kindergarten, and so I saw that we only have a thousand students in pre-K right now, so one of my questions will be, what is our plan at looking at universal pre-k and how do we think about budgeting for that in the next couple years. I did want to dig in. Supervisor Saines is right. He knows that I've been pretty hot about this issue about the delayed projects at Heritage, Dominion, and Potomac Falls High School specifically. Dominion High School was expecting to have their press boxes this summer. [01:30:27] They were expecting to have their weight room this summer or in 2024. It is in last year's CIP. those dates that those projects are supposed to be done. And now we have a crosswalk slide that says the weight rooms are TBD. TBD to me means all the way back into the six-year CIP. [01:30:45] Along with the tennis court lighting, the high school press boxes are now being moved all the way back into 2027. It's my understanding after talking to the athletic director at Dominion High School, two coaches, and a plethora of parents and PTA members that have been emailing me and calling me since Friday when I was at the Black History Month event with the dance team that they have already started work with the press boxes at Dominion High School. [01:31:10] And now they're being told they're not getting their press boxes. Eastern Loudoun schools have not been renovated or updated nearly to the level of some of these new high schools that are out there. And these parents and students deserve better. The parents are outraged. [01:31:27] So we need to figure out how at least we're going to get the Potomac Falls, Dominion, and Heritage High School press boxes done, and we need to figure out how we're going to get the weight room at Dominion and the weight room at Heritage High School done on time, as promised, to those parents, to those administrators, and to those coaches. So one question I have, fund balance, I still haven't gotten a straight answer. My calculation shows that we need about eight million dollars. These projects were set aside pushed back because of the potomac falls because of the park view build which i fully support but it's about eight million dollars so my question is what will the school's fund balance [01:32:05] be and what other solutions did you look at to fund those projects that were promised to those schools i'll address the fund balance so we did just complete our second quarter financial review and so based on that projection and i want to highlight and emphasize the word projection because we do quarterly projections, and that fund balance will change. [01:32:30] But the second quarter financial projection is projecting a fund balance of, I think it's like $14.1 million. Not included in that, though, however, is we have a, we are looking at a revenue shortfall related to the VDOE error with the calculation. [01:32:46] That's $3.5 million. So if that is not taken into account at the state level, then we need to deduct $3.5 from there. And again, we still have another six months worth of spending 'cause that projection was through December 31st. So while I'll say that number, I wanna emphasize the fact that it is a projection and it is likely to change as we move through the fiscal year. [01:33:10] - I see three more minutes, but I think I'm out of time. - I think you are out of time. - The work will continue, thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Reeser. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I just wanna touch on two things. When we voted on Parkview High School, I don't think any of us had the impression we would be trading off other things that had already been approved in order to make that possible. When the presentation was made on inflation and other factors needing to impact plans in the CIP, it was my assumption that any work that had begun, any projects that had begun [01:33:50] would continue to completion so that's by way of explanation regarding what Miss Bristman just addressed I felt that was important to share the other thing I wanted to touch on was the comment one of the supervisors made about expenses related to security so the sheriff's department is an elected body for lack of a better way to put it just like the school board and the board of supervisors and none of us controls each other but we converse with each other and we [01:34:24] influence each other um we used to have security here provided by the lcso in fact we used to have an sro who sat back there and built a relationship with us and i think having sheriff's deputies here in our boardroom provided an opportunity for communication and connection and whatever influence it is that you all have over that relationship i would ask you to encourage now that we have a new superintendent and we have the opportunity to make some changes or an acting superintendent in the interim [01:35:02] to think about how we can best serve the community and the taxpayers by reestablishing some relationships. Thank you. - Thank you. Go to Ashburn District with Supervisor Turner. No. [01:35:17] Vice Chair, I'm ahead of you. - No, I yield my time. - Thank you. That will take us to Broad Run with Supervisor Glass. - Thank you, cheers for Rocket. I want to ask a little bit about grant funding. [01:35:34] What grant programs does LCPS apply to that help supplement the funding from the Board of Supervisors? And are there opportunities, and are those opportunities maximized? Thank you for the question. [01:35:54] I don't know that we're prepared to answer that question right now, but we're happy to take a look at that and respond to you. Okay, thank you. My next question is, are there additional positions being added to the budget or added in the budget for student emotional and mental health support services? [01:36:14] And do you think we are adequately staffing those services? So in terms of mental health and support services, we have, that's been one of our main focus in this budget. So for elementary, we are adding our elementary counselors. [01:36:30] so we've reduced the staffing standards so that there is a 1.0 counselor in every one of our elementary schools so for example currently there based on your enrollment you might have a counselor three days a week and not on let's monday through wednesday and not on thursday and friday this budget does does have the minimum staffing at 1.0 and so every school will have a full-time counselor and it the elementary staffing model also aligns with what we do at the secondary level we also have included our student support advisors that we mentioned that is a position at the high school [01:37:05] that supports it starts with discipline with transition into and out of alternative placement but a part of that is a support plan for kids that need it the most and so that contributes to the a lot of the mental health issues and concerns that we have and so it's a stipend position at the middle school and a position at the high school so those that's a couple of the things that we've included in this year's budget around mental health supports okay i just also wanted to say that I do support the replacement of Parkview High School I remember going to one of the one of the meetings that LCPS had with staff and [01:37:42] family there and you could tell that parents and staff were explaining and students actually we're talking about the need for a new school and that you know they felt like they were being left behind with the newer schools that were being built so I really appreciate you all taking this in into you know considering this also I just also want to say that when we talk about virtual [01:38:18] Loudoun to me virtual Loudoun shows equity it's it's showing that you know that those students thank you I'll stop this time thank you miss Polifco thank you chair Sorokin miss glass I'll finish up where you left off on virtual loud and because that was a great segue for me and I do appreciate what you said about virtual out and being equity we earlier in the fall as a board sat down at a [01:38:53] work session and we all I think I think it was pretty much unanimously agreed that children are best served in person. However, after giving this much more thought and learning more about the advantages of virtual Loudoun for children who cannot attend school in a public setting for whatever reason, if it's because they have an illness that precludes them from being able to be in the classroom, what virtual Loudoun does provide is an opportunity for those kids to be with classmates. Whereas if they are receiving homebound instruction, they do not have that [01:39:28] opportunities. So while I understand that we can't fund everything under the sun, you are right. It is equity. It is giving kids what they need to succeed if we're providing opportunities for them to engage with classmates in a virtual setting, whereas they would otherwise not be able to do that if they were only on homebound instruction. But I also wanted to come back to what Chair Randall said earlier about behavior. [01:39:57] You mentioned something about, and then what? What do we do when behavior occurs that's inappropriate? What do we do and how do we address it? And that is extremely close to me because I'm a behavior analyst. And I understand that in order to identify the function of a behavior, we need to know what happens right before the behavior and we need to know what happens right after the behavior. [01:40:17] And so as someone who has been assigned to the equity committee, that is a question that I will be asking in this committee coming up in the next meeting in March, what are we doing as far as identifying what's happening before these behaviors are occurring? We were looking at racial slurs, and those are reprehensible, and that should not be happening under any circumstance. [01:40:33] But what are we doing before that? What are we seeing before that? And what are we seeing after those behaviors as they occur? And I think if we can identify those functions, we might better be able to serve students in motivating them not to engage in that behavior. So I just wanted to briefly follow up on that. [01:40:50] Thank you. Thank you. We'll move to Catoctin with Mr. Beatty. - Thank you, Chair. Yes, Mr. Kirshner had to leave, he sends his regrets, and I too will have to leave in about five minutes, but I yield the rest of my time to continue this discussion. [01:41:05] So, thank you. - Thank you. I'll move to Dulles District with Supervisor Letourneau. - Thank you. Just to sort of pick up where I left off, 'cause I was working through my list pretty quickly. My questions on the security were just, there obviously has to have been a significant increase and I just didn't see the numbers, so I'm looking for more information on that, just you know what that exactly entails I'm sure there's probably capital expenditures operating I'm curious about how each component is funded those sorts of things to elaborate a little bit more on the enrollment projection issue what I'm trying to understand better and it's a difficult question and [01:41:44] I understand why it is but when we show new schools in the CIP we don't know yet until you all do the boundaries for them what other schools they're providing relief for we only know there's going to be x number of seats in a particular planning area but sometimes one can sort of use common sense to sort of figure that out a little bit so what I'm seeing in Dulles South at the middle school level is some capacity issues that are cropping up and the new middle school that's planned is in the Dulles North area there are I would say some students that get pulled into Dulles South in places like Heartland and the [01:42:24] Fleetwood Road area so I'm kind of looking to engage in some dialogue about what that looks like in the future and where you all think that might go and it would help quite a bit as we deal with some land use applications that we have coming and then to elaborate a little bit more on the remainder issue so I don't recall except for the last two years the sort of practice where the school board just kind of spends down what's remaining on different one-time expenses. That seems like a new practice to me. Um, I've talked to the county administrator about it. I think he would agree that that has not been something that we've typically seen. Is that fair, [01:43:00] Mr. Hampshire? Uh, to my recollection, that's fair. Okay. So I'm not sure what sort of changed and why, and I don't know that we've really ever had dialogue about that issue. Um, and it's not that those were inappropriate expenditures or I'm sure they were very well justified. Um, but it's just the difference and you know in the past we have definitely used some of our fund balance to fund school initiatives when we have a situation like the one that supervisor brisbane is talking about and so in a way we've kind of done that you know when the funds will return to us [01:43:37] it gets in our remainder pot essentially our fund balance and we've we've been able to sometimes use those for those kind of expenditures anyway in collaboration with you but it seems like that money is now staying on the school side and not going back to the county side and it's just getting spent down on the school side so that's my concern it's a deviation from past practice and I'd like to kind of understand sort of what the conversation was about that better and I think we you know we may have some thoughts on that on our side but thank you thank you mr. Morse I'd like to remind mr. [01:44:14] Letourneau of the Promethean board by that happened about the one of the first years that we were uh board members and uh i think that was before we were so so it has happened uh a lot a lot of what we're looking at are one-time procurements that we're pulling forward from the from the next year and a lot of what we did last year happened to be hvac because we were in the middle of covid and we were trying to upgrade things and that was not captured in our budget so there are reasons we just need to go through and and explain to the board of supervisors what we're doing there. As far as, you know, Ms. Brissman, you had me really excited there [01:44:53] that we had something in common. I thought it was going to be something about pickleball, but obviously not, and I do not agree with universal pre-K. I agree with pre-K for all at-risk children. I think universal pre-K is expanding us well beyond our capability. [01:45:10] We're having enough trouble opening up middle schools now with the capacity issues, and we're talking about you know potentially a 10 to 15 percent increase in the enrollments uh for LCPS it's just not not sustainable so uh and i would also mention that i understand the desire to have weight rooms upgraded and how great things are at the new schools but i would also offer that we'd we'd give up our our new weight room for five less students in each classroom so you know each of our schools has its advantages and disadvantages they will never be the same so we just have to [01:45:45] to look at what we're offering the children. Is it a safe, equitable environment? Are they learning and do they all have great teachers? And to that I easily say yes. For Mr. Letourneau, when we talk about how the procurement and what we're doing, the spending MOU has some language in it that could help us define whether that end-of-year funding is returned or not, I would just state that we have provided to you the MOU and we look forward to coordinating further on its approval. And we basically abided by most of that language when we submitted our budget this year. So we're trying to get in alignment and hopefully we can [01:46:24] reach that agreement when we get there. Thank you. Thank you. Going to Leesburg with Supervisor Umstead. Thank you, Chair Sorotkin. One question. I'm looking at your FY24 Department of Human Resources and Talent Development's estimate of needs from January 12th of this year. I'm interested in what you're seeing on attrition, especially among teachers. I notice it seems to be up in all three categories. You're licensed, you're classified, you're [01:47:02] administrative. Have we solved the problem of the slump for the teachers with 10 years teaching experience and a master's degree, are they now being paid comparable to our comparator jurisdictions or do we still have progress to make there and what do you think can be done to lower the attrition rate for your teachers? [01:47:35] Thank you for the question. We may have the answer and I'll turn and ask Ms. Boland, Ms. Lisa Boland, our Chief Human Resources Officer, to see if she can answer. If not, we'll take the question and we'll respond. - Thank you for that question. [01:47:51] So I don't have the answer to the salary scale piece. I would ask Ms. Willoughby to assist with that. But as far as the attrition piece, what I would say is yes, in all three categories it has increased. However, in comparison to our comparators and even school divisions across the nation, LCPS is actually doing fairly well with its attrition rates. [01:48:19] And I would say that yes, money is important, but it is not the only indicator in regards to how we retain our employees. And so we are doing other things, some of which are included in this year's estimate of needs, improving leave, improving how we recruit and retain our substitutes to allow our teachers the time necessary. [01:48:53] We are working on teacher morale, other concepts that we can assist with outside of budget requests. - Thank you very much. - We'll move to Sterling with Vice Chair Sands. - All right, thank you. [01:49:09] Today in Loudoun Now, they ran a story about how a heritage, got the right school here, I'm sorry, I apologize. Yeah, Heritage High School. A senior noticed last year that when they played Parkview, they had to switch jerseys. [01:49:32] They even had members wearing the same number. Reason being is Parkview had limited jerseys. So she took it upon herself to raise funds and raised $1,800 and donated it to Parkview so they can buy new uniforms for the girls' soccer team. [01:49:55] We should be ashamed of ourselves that a student had to raise money and then donate it to another school so they can have proper uniforms the story the article goes on to say that parkview is in a 10-year rotation of jerseys when other schools apparently own a three or four-year rotation of jerseys you can frown but read it this is coming from one of your employees that's giving the giving the information in the story so and another issue is i guess however you guys calculate how [01:50:31] much you give to schools for funding for uniforms and such the gates uh for games so they're saying that at a football game the average football game at stonebridge independence they're ranking in 12 000 to 13 000 dollars property is bringing in 3 000 a night for football games and then whatever the funds and whatever lcps gives that's what's given the schools to to buy their uniforms so i would request at this time please look into this situation if you're saying that's not correct but also if it you know if it deems please look at how the process is done maybe we need to do a weighted program for the schools that are not having as much gate money coming in as the other [01:51:10] schools so we can actually provide the uniforms to to our students and not have to have students raise funds to donate so another school can buy new uniforms for their for their students so please look into that thank you for sharing that that that should not be the case and so we will definitely look into that I know last year we we did make some adjustments in terms of the revenue sharing with our ticket gates to to make that more equitable but I appreciate you sharing that sharing that with us and we'll definitely will look into it and make sure it's rectified if that's the case. [01:51:49] - Thank you, Ms. Sheridan. - Thank you, I just wanted to thank all of the supervisors that voiced their and expressed their support for replacing Parkview this evening because I know with the conversation that's happening in regards to the other schools press boxes and comparing that to Parkview's renovation that that could cause some nervous and concerns over in Sterling tonight if they're listening. [01:52:14] So I do appreciate those that expressed their support and that the two items are separate and can be considered separately and addressed separately. So I just appreciate those who did express their support. And I know that when we see things in the press that it's hard to not believe it, but sometimes it is not accurate. [01:52:34] And while I don't think students should have to raise money for uniforms, I do know that Parkview isn't on a different schedule for replacement than any other school in Mountain County. So I will appreciate a full synopsis of what actually does happen so that that issue can be put to rest and everyone understand. [01:52:52] And I do appreciate the student that did raise the funds and address something that they saw that they didn't think was right. But of course, those things should come up through the school board for funding and not be addressed, shouldn't need to be addressed by students. So thank you. Thank you. [01:53:10] Chair Randall. Well, Mr. Sorokin, thank you. I do want to say that, you know, the most important people in our school system are our children and then, of course, their parents. But I also want to say what I haven't said tonight is how much I appreciate our educators. They have had a very tough year. They have been called everything from abusers to groomers. And by the way, it's calling our teachers, our educators groomers is disgusting and disrespectful. Anybody actually knows what that is. Our teachers and educators deserve not only to be paid a competitive salary, they deserve to be respected. And I want to say that right now as clearly as I can I do want to go back to page 15 I'm [01:53:47] sorry page 35 the the the one-time retention and re and retention and recruitment bonus which I do support if that is an unfunded mandate from the from the state and that they will pay 2.5 and then the expectation is the board will pay the other 2.9 I just in general we don't like unfunded mandates for obvious reasons I also want to ask the the the enhancement on page 15 and the enhancement on page 24 is the difference between those two enhancements the hands on page 15 the different staffing support for students with greater needs [01:54:25] is that with with with exception to the high school students that's when you go to page 15 and it's specifically I'm sorry you go to page 24 and it specifically mentions high schools in other words those two enhancements seem to be the same thing unless the one on page 15 does not include high school students and the one on page 24 at the bottom, the 17 FTEs, does include high school students. Is that the difference there? [01:54:57] And if you don't know that answer right now, just get back to me at some point later on because otherwise it seems to overlap in the verbiage that I'm reading right now. Finally, supervisors, we had a quick briefing and we will of course have more questions that we are going to ask this is just the one-time run through and so we will send those questions as we always do and as and is appropriate and is appropriate I do want to thank Mr. Chair Sorokin, Vice-Chair Medhebi, the school board administration, all my school board colleagues and all of my board supervisor colleagues for welcoming us here this evening and I look forward to a positive [01:55:36] budget process as we go forward. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Randall. I just want to take a moment to thank Chair Randall, Vice Chair Sains, all the other supervisors for being here tonight and look forward to working with you and answering your questions throughout this budget process. Seeing no further business, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thanks for using Webex. [01:56:07] Visit our website at www.webex.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com