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Tahoma School Board Regular Meeting, February 14, 2023 – Budget Committee and Camp Casey

by TV3

February 15, 2023 0

TSD School Board Regular Meeting, Feb 14, 2023, 6:30pm
Agenda available here
Board directors in attendance: All five directors as well as student rep Emma Schlutt
You can watch the full video of the meeting here
by Jennifer Askew

This was a pretty short meeting, though a couple items had to be tabled for a future meeting “due to unforeseen circumstances”. These were items 5.01 and 5.07 on the published agenda. A couple of the highlights discussed tonight included the presentation by the Ad Hoc Budget Committee and a presentation and vote on this year’s plan for Camp Casey.

5.02 Ad Hoc Budget Committee

The Ad Hoc Budget Committee was formed earlier this school year, and consists of 30+ community members, parents, students and other stakeholders within the Tahoma system. The goal of this group was to understand the full budget picture of the district and provide a new perspective to the district and the school board. The committee was not tasked with preparing formal recommendations, but had several concerns and considerations.

• AJ Garcia, Director of Public Relations, explained the purpose of the committee, and how it operates within the Tahoma 100 goal to continue to provide a high quality education to students while being fiscally responsible. His job on the committee was just to observe.
• Lori Cloud, Assistant Superintendent and Director of Financial Services: The first three meetings were laying the groundwork, explaining basic elements of the budget. “State of the union”, the fund balance and planned spend down, where funding comes from, what expenditures the district has, where the levy money goes, etc. They eventually went into detail on each item, even down to object codes for expenditures.
• Bill Hernandez, Chief Accountant: The group wrote lists of questions and concerns, then those 67 items were split across four small groups. Those groups whittled down the items to ten each and presented them to the whole group. The whole group voted on their primary concerns, which fell into three categories: Communication to the Community, Unfunded and Underfunded Mandates, and Levy Considerations.
• Communication was presented by committee member Emma Schlutt, a Tahoma student. She mentioned that one of the top considerations was transparency with the community and the need for continual updates. The community needs information on the impact of various district decisions. The committee had also come up with a few groups they’d like to target information to and how to do that, such as PTA/Os, booster clubs, teachers, etc. She mentioned that, as a student, “I don’t pay taxes. I don’t pay property taxes.” Yet even so, she learned a lot by being part of this committee and felt that the general community of tax payers could learn and appreciate the information even more. One idea is holding more Budget 101 meetings for the public, and having clear communication to show the community that the district is a good steward of financial resources.
• Unfunded and Underfunded Mandates was presented by committee member Katie Cooper, a Tahoma parent. She was struck by how many people in the group were unaware of the mandates that the state and federal government imposes on the district but does not pay for, which means that the district “has to somehow” pay for them. She presented a short list of these mandates and said the full list is around five pages long. She emphasized that this needs to be part of the Budget 101 website (which can be seen here) and discussed during community nights.

• Levy Considerations were presented by committee member Ginny Ursprung, a Tahoma parent and PTA leader. The mantra they kept coming back to was Promises Made, Promises Kept. They want the district to communicate to the community what the levy dollars have been used for. Not every single dollar, but examples of things they’ve done with the money. She mentioned the extra nursing staff in Tahoma as one example. They also want community members to have access to an explanation of how their property taxes are impacted by the levies. She mentioned that one parent asked what would be cut if the levies failed, and no one was able to give a direct answer because every program is important to a student in the district. Because of this, the committee wants the district to consider raising the levy ask so that the district will be revenue neutral. (This is not a formal recommendation.)
• Garcia finished the presentation by bringing up Budget 101 public meetings again, and said that the Budget 101 Website is being updated now based on feedback from this committee. He was very impressed with the members of the committee and felt they could now be called upon in an advisory role going forward for the district.

Questions from the board:

• Director Haley Pendergraft asked if there was a timeline for any of this. Cloud answered that the website updates are ongoing and a levy tool is in the works, where someone could input some info on their property value and see what a new levy would cost. She further stated that the committee really felt the impact of having a student on the committee and wants to make sure students are a recognized part of the stakeholder group in future budget discussions and education.
• Director Malia Hollowell asked several questions. First to Ginny Ursprung was verifying the consideration for raising the levy amount to a revenue neutral amount for the district (Ursprung answered yes), then asked if that was a unanimous vote amongst the committee. Ursprung answered that it was not formally voted on, but was something that was brought up in every small group and every step of the process. Katie Cooper chimed in that she felt it was important to the whole group as well. Ursprung stated that several people had asked why the district was continuing to spend so much out of the fund balance rather than raise the levy amount.
• Director Hollowell then asked if future levy dollar amounts and impacts were known yet. Cloud answered that they will have a better idea at the end of this month, which is when property valuations will come in. Hollowell further asked if there had been any discussion about raising the levy amount to above revenue neutral so that new programming could be added. Ginny Ursprung answered that the discussions involved understanding that the state-allowed levy cap is $2.50/$1000 property valuation and that was what they wanted the district to consider asking voters for.
• Director Carreon expressed that he was looking forward to seeing a full break down of the levy numbers, including information on what won’t be covered at different levels.
• Board President Pete Miller explained that a growing district like ours actually has to run at a surplus in order to maintain a certain percentage of fund balance.

5.03 Action: Approve Elementary Camp Casey Field Trip

Presented by David Aaby, Shadow Lake Dean of Students

• The last year that 5th graders were able to attend Camp Casey was 2019. This means that none of the current middle schoolers were able to attend.
• The camp is owned by Seattle Pacific University (SPU), and is still not fully open following the pandemic. The group looked around at other options but determined that Camp Casey is still the best fit for the district. One of the considerations was the district has been going there since the 1970s, which is a strong tradition that they’d like to uphold.
• Camp Casey offers students an immersion in an outdoor classroom setting, access to WA state history and one of the oldest towns in WA, hikes, survival skills, and most importantly a huge social opportunity. They get to meet the kids they will be attending middle school with the following year, be away from their parents for possibly the first time ever, and meet role models in the high school counselors.
• In the past, Camp Casey was a 2 night, 2.5 day event. There are 687 5th graders, 80 counselors, and a variety of other staff. The district would need 475 beds per session, for two sessions, in order to do the same thing as in the past.
• The current reality is that Camp Casey is only operating at a 300 bed capacity, due to ventilation issues and Department of Health regulations. This is with substantial investments by SPU in HEPA filters. The district will have to do something different this year.
• The second issue is cost. Transportation costs have doubled since 2019, food prices have increased, etc.
• The rejected 2023 plan: 3 sessions at 2.5 days each. This was rejected due to cost per family and staffing concerns. This plan would require many more subs across the district.
• The 2023 plan: 4 sessions at 1.5 days each. While this would only provide one overnight stay, there would be some time savings at meal time since they would now have a small enough group to do one big meal rather than two sessions per meal.
• Estimated cost in 2023: $250 per student. PTA/Os have traditionally kicked in $50 per student, so the cost to each family will be $200. (Free and reduced lunch students will pay nothing.) Families also have the option to cover the full $250, so the PTA/O can provide a scholarship to other families.
• Hope for 2024: Back to 2.5 day trips, but with the understanding that the longevity of the program means taking the cost to families into consideration. Aaby is hoping to involve other civic organizations in covering some of the cost for this well-loved tradition.
• Board questions: Most of the board piped up with memories of their own experiences at Camp Casey, or those of their kids, and emphasized how important this tradition was to them. Director Carreon drilled down on the costs and had a few questions. One was what was the price before? Answer was $200 per camper, which is $50 less than now and for one more night. His second question was why they would use charter buses rather district buses. The answer was we have a bus driver shortage now, with a typical understaffing level of 10-12 drivers per day, so taking six more drivers away for the entire day is just not feasible. Carreon further asked if weekends had been considered. The answer was that most weekends were already booked, plus there would be a problem with getting teachers to staff the trip if it were held on the weekend. Director Hollowell asked for clarification on House Bill 1660, and wanted to make sure that every child that wants to go has the opportunity to. Aaby responded that yes, that bill now requires that such events be free for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch.

This action was passed with a unanimous vote by the directors.

5.04-5.09 First Readings on a number of Policy Revisions

There were several small changes to policies that the district keeps. As each of these were first reads, there were no votes. Most of these policy changes were the result of slight changes recommended by WSSDA, while others were to make the policy better align with district procedures. The biggest change I noticed was to Policy 6800, which will remove the words “grades, transcript or” from the paragraph “The superintendent or designee shall establish procedures for the investigation and reporting of damage or loss and shall initiate action to collect for damages.  A student’s grades, transcript or diploma may be withheld until restitution is made.” (Author note: This change was made to reflect the new WA state law that does not allow for grades or transcripts to be withheld in case of fines.)

The meeting adjourned at 7:19pm.

This meeting summary was written by Jennifer Askew and provided to the Tahoma Values website. Do you have an article you would like to publish on our site? Please contact Tahoma Values at TahomaValues@gmail.com