2023-03-02-AC-min-att - Laserfiche WebLink

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Dear Julie, Dave, and company, I’m sorry for the late heads up, but I heard from Glenn Parker that you will be joining the Appropriation Committee meeting this Thursday evening. To help guide the discussion, at least initially, here are some points that we can discuss, just in the unlikely case you have a free minute or two before the meeting. 1) The only budget document I have found in the January 3 Superintendent’s recommended budget. I believe the LPS recommended budget was increased by about $360,000 subsequent to Jan. 3. Is there a more recent description of the budget or can you summarize the changes? As of January 30, 2023 – for the “White Book” 3.89% $4.984M increase As of Monday 2/27/2023 5.21% $6.687M increase 2) Do you expect that there will be any turn-back at the end of the current fiscal year (FY2023)? Yes, we are at the mid point of the year, and it appears that there should be some turnback in this fiscal year. We are engaged in a tough round of negotiations and trying to settle a contract, so we are unsure exactly where we will land. 3) The most basic question is to ask you to describe the rationale behind the addition of 13.43 FTEs, what the 3.89% increase doesn’t cover, and what the biggest risks are in the budget. Staffing is always a complicated matter, and it is impossible to fund all staffing requests. Each year we scrutinize position requests and fund only the requests that are legally-mandated and absolutely necessary. In addition, we have to find a way to pay for the related “non- discretionary” expenses that are associated with the additional staffing to meet legal mandates. For FY 2024 there were 22.5 FTE positions requested; of those requests, we were able to fund about half of the requests or 13.43 FTEs. Approximately 9 FTEs, mostly fractional FTEs being added to existing staff, were not funded. The 13.43 added positions were primarily for special education programs driven by classroom caseload, individual student mandates/requirements, and related service provider needs, such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech language pathologists. The other added positions were in general education, physical education/wellness and school nursing. These were positions that were requested and vetted during our annual 400-plus hours of budget