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Joint School Board and Board of Supervisors CommitteeJanuary 15, 2009 at 4:00 p.m.

Board Room1 Harrison Street, S.E., Leesburg VA 20175

Members present: Sally Kurtz – Chair, Tom Reed – Vice Chair, Warren Geurin (Sterling District School Board), Jennifer Bergel (Catoctin District School Board), John Wood (EDC representative). Staff liaisons: Paul Brown (County), Dr. Ed Hatrick (Superintendent), and Ned Watershouse (Assistant Superintendent).

Absent: Susan Buckley (Sugarland Run District Supervisor) and Jim Burton (Blue Ridge District Supervisor).

Guests present: Robert DuPree (School Board Chair), Stevens Miller (Dulles District Supervisor), John Stevens (Potomac District School Board), Priscilla Godfrey (Blue Ridge District School Board), and Tom Marshall (Leesburg District School Board).

S. Kurtz I’d like to call the January 15, 2009 Joint School Board and Board of Supervisors Committee meeting to order. For the record I am Sally Kurtz the Chairman. With us today are Warren Geurin, School Board, and Jennifer Bergel who is on her way and is another member but she is not here right now; they replaced Priscilla Godfrey and John Stevens. Tom Reed continues to join us as Vice Chair of the Committee. We have John Wood from the EDC Cabinet. Both Supervisors Burton and Buckley are out. With us also are John Stevens from the School Board, Stevens Miller from the Board of Supervisors and Priscilla Godfrey from the School. Our first order of business is to hear from the public and we have, Robert DuPree, Chairman of the School Board, Tom Marshall from the Leesburg School District, Bob Ohneiser from the Broad Run District. Additionally, we have Supervisor Stevens Miller from Dulles District. Our first item on the agenda is to hear from the public. We currently have four members who are here to speak to us this afternoon. The first is Ms. Sarah Stinger.

Public Comments:

S. Stinger As always I appreciate this opportunity and your work. I’ve got a few handouts for you here. The first handout, as it is going around, is a white paper prepared about school site acquisition. Loudoun County is in it so I thought all of you should read about what they are saying about you on the internet. There are dozens of schools who have detailed their acquisition process. I’ve highlighted for you some of the excerpts and I would read some of it quickly. I put them out of order so I can put the most interesting thing in front for you. So the first thing of the school site acquisition is page 5 of 8. Loudoun County Public Schools does not have a policy for school site acquisition. When sites are being sought, the School District

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either advertised it publicly that they are looking for land or they use scouts to search out land. Loudoun County Public Schools have numerous problems in acquiring sites. So I think that sort of set the tone why I am here because I think you are working on this process. The second page, I’ve highlighted some things…Montgomery County Public Schools has a long-range planning policy which governs their process. Their administrator works with the PTA plus with coordinators with consultation with the presidents of potentially affected PTAs to found site selection committees. Potential school sites are identified on master plan maps with symbols. I think that is a very interesting thing and I would love to see you folks work towards that. These properties can be traded for most appropriate sites or sold to fund the purchase of more appropriate sites. And lastly for this one, when schools need to be in an area where no sites meets specifications exists, modifications may be made for the size of the size or the building itself? For example, if it is smaller than 30 acres useable site is selected for a high school adjacent under near a park properties may be used for outdoor activities and that is for levels to fit the site. There are other examples in this document. The second thing I’ve got for you, I am just trying to run this because I know you’re busy, it’s the task force recommendation that came out a year ago. Actually, I think Mr. Burton presented them to other supervisors and I’ve aired a few interesting ones…involve the community in the planning process. I will remind most of you, some of you who maybe were not here, this committee was comprised of two School Board members, two Board of Supervisors and one citizen representative of those two boards. I think this board was well represented in the community. Create opportunities for pedestrian and biking, let other criteria (inaudible) site selection. The task force affirms the current comprehensive plan that schools be placed in existing towns and villages, to consider three-story schools, the School Board should act proactively rather than reactively in determining what population growth would occur and purchase land well in advance of need, especially during real estate value down times. That is what we are right now. The School Board initiate land searches through the use of RFPs, they provide greater transparency to the public and through the use of market forces, depress prices. Strategic planning could be done through school sites in Loudoun County; use County funds wisely. These are your own recommendations. One recommendation that I know you have implemented is that you have this body and all the other recommendations, I don’t think, have been implemented. I would love for you, if you are going to have a committee, work hundreds of hours perhaps, (inaudible) jump in to this when you evaluate site selection process, these are great ideas. Lastly, my understanding from the November meeting in Ashburn, that you were considering eliminating the Special Exception Permit process and that capital needs assessment has a public hearing process as part of that. This last document that I am giving you is the CNA for HS10 and I have to show you that not only (inaudible) HS10 can technically, according to (inaudible) that is (inaudible). I think you need to move away from this sort of planning or non-planning to something that the County can use and

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the task force recommended. Thanks.

S. Kurtz Our next speaker is Ellen Polishuk.

E. Polishuk Hi, my name is Ellen Polishuk and I farm Potomac Vegetable Farm on 287 between Route 9 and Lovettsville. I am not fancy or as well-informed as Sarah; I am just a regular gal. I have two hot topics that I wanted to say something about. One is a topic on transparency I did not know it is going to come up in her speech as well. It is a hot modern concept. Any change to the land acquisition process that does not increase transparency is a mistake. More public input is better, not worse. Democracy is a messy business. You are our public servants, building our schools with our money. Let us guide you into making decisions that work for all of us. Second topic, schools in towns, and this is where it gets personal for us. We live on agricultural land, we have been farming commercially for 35 years and we intend to keep farming commercially for as long as we can imagine. It doesn’t make sense to build school complexes amongst farms. The little spot were I am is actually a farming enclave of people who actually make money farming, not tax-write-off farming, actual income generation farming. It is exactly the kind of thing that the County likes to advertise in the Washington Post magazines about why this is such a cool place to live. We need to keep some of our areas in this County clear of both housing and commercial school development. Why does it matter or what do we have at stake? It is just what our County looks like and how does it work. Those are pretty important topics, aesthetics and functionality and the school sites with 5500 car trips a day nestled amongst farms seems to me to be having a couple of things at odds. That is it.

S. Kurtz Thank you. Next is Charles Planck.

C. Planck Hi Sally, thank you. A long time ago I thought it was appropriate in these hearings to just raise your hands if you agree with the previous speaker. So I am raising my hand and I agree with Sarah and Ellen and as to who I am, I am another full-time farmer who lives in the Wheatland area. It is our understanding that the Wheatland sites are still on the possible list. We think they conflict with the idea of having schools and more rational places and we also think they go against the idea of under-cutting something that the County long wanted to have, which is viable self sustaining (inaudible). There are eight or nine operations on the four hundred acres across the road from the Wheatland site. At a minimum we grew 700 or 800 thousand dollars last year. I don’t know everybody’s books but I know a lot about what people are making. We are making unsubsidized money for farming and I think that is a good use and an established use so I hope that would be taken into account. Thank you.

S. Kurtz Thank you. Then we have Barbara Lamborne.

B. Lamborne Hi, I am Barbara Lamborne and I also am one of the farmers in the

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Wheatland area and I couldn’t say it much better than Chip and Alan but one of the things…I am a new farmer and I am amaze with the amount of support we get from the County. A lot of effort goes to supporting us and I am just not sure that is in sync with the possibility with having a negative impact on our farming activities by putting a huge school complex at Wheatland. I (inaudible) at the meetings when they were discussing putting…trying to get the Miller property designated as a school site. We heard adamantly from the County that they were not going to condemn land…that they were not in the business of condemning land. I ask what is so different, doing that as compared to putting such a huge risk, as you put it, a viable, very profitable farming activity that is going on just within the seven families in the Wheatland area that we consist of. I ask you all to keep that in mind; I think it is probably just as bad as condemning land and I think it is important that you keep a very clear and open land acquisition process. I think it is to everyone’s benefit. Thank you.

S. Kurtz Thank you.

T. Reed Madam Chairman, I think there are a couple points that need clarification with regard to the condemnation. The statement on condemnation was not that we wouldn’t condemn land, but we were opposed to condemning land that was occupied; where there is someone living on the property. In other areas we have threatened condemnation; in the case of the person you just mentioned, somebody lives there. Every statement that I’ve made and other School Board members have said was that we would not condemn land that is occupied. The other thing is, and I think that the (inaudible) the issue of the task force, the sentence reads, schools be placed near existing towns and villages whenever possible. Those last two words were not highlighted, so I think members might want to add those. Thank you.

B. Lamborne Can I respond to that?

T. Reed Sure.

B. Lamborne (inaudible).

Speaker You might want come near a mike.

T. Reed There is a family living there. That is the issue. We don’t want to displace a family off their property for a school. That has been the feeling of the School Board to date. There is no policy, this is just the sentiments. Mrs. Godfrey, Mrs. Bergel, and I were at the meeting where we have discussed this and our previous Chairman have said publicly too that he would not be involved in condemning property if somebody lives in it.

B. Lamborne And I completely understand that but I do think that needs to be compared to the potential of ground water quantity impacts on all these farming activities and the ground water quality impacts. You can’t crystal ball that

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but you’re risking and you are risking something that the County says they support in a very large way.

W. Geurin Madam Chairman, can I ask the lady one more quick question?

Approval of Minutes:

S. Kurtz Guys…we are here to get input…and actually, thank you. One of the tasks that we have today is to set up a date, upcoming in February in which the committee and any other Board members who would like to come and I certainly would invite them all, we just finish a process and we are trying it out for six months. And we put it into place, but we haven’t heard from the public how they think we did at looking at the process. So I am hoping we will set a time in February, in which we do hear from the public as they tell us what they think might degrade it or might improve it. Those kinds of things I hope that we’ll be talking about again. There is no reason since we set a process in place that we can’t revise it if it comes to our attention that is a better way to go about it. That said, why don’t we move to number three, which is approval of the December the 11 Minutes. Are there edits or disagreement to what is recorded in the transcript?

W. Geurin Madam Chairman, I was not present, I just wanted to note that Leigh Burden, her last name is spelled B-u-r-d-e-n not Burton and the transcription of the remarks is often misspelled.

S. Kurtz Noted that we will change the spelling of Ms. Burden’s last name.

Dr. Hatrick Mrs. Kurtz, what becomes the official record of this committee, the tapes that are made or the transcription. I am assuming it is the tapes, because that is where you go to find out what is said. Is that correct?

S. Kurtz I have no clue. I thought both of them were.

J. Wood We are not voting on the audio we are voting on the Minutes. That becomes the record, that is the vote.

Dr. Hatrick My suspicion is that with the verbatim transcript we are not all going through making every change that might be made, some of them might not be significant…I don’t know.

S. Kurtz Generally speaking, what I found in the transcripts is sometimes there are words left out and you have to fill in the blank and there are misspellings at times. Paul, do you know which would…we vote on the Minutes.

P. Brown I tender that both are inadequate. The reality is when we are doing recording, there are times when you’ll see inaudible. Unless you’re bringing edits to us and updating the text and taking time to read it, I would say at best they are at in sync as they could be both the recording

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and the written documents. I guess I would come back in the committee and ask what do you want to be the official record and how detailed you want it to be? We go sometimes in rooms that do not have the recording capability or the audio level is so bad that…my blessings to both clerks…for the hours they spend time trying to interpret what has been recorded. In that sense, the written word and how you approve your Minutes is as close as we get to your record right now.

S. Kurtz Mr. Wood has just said to me is…

J. Wood My point to Sally is that I think what matters is, I don’t know how the government works, but where I come from what matters is the vote and the actions. The rest is just discussion at the end of the day. For whatever it is worth, from where I am coming from, I am focused on the votes, who voted what, yes or no, and I am interested in the outcomes, the actions, excuse me.

S. Kurtz Anyone else who wants to weigh in this one?

P. Godfrey I move that we accept the Minutes what was recently amended.

J. Wood She can’t…

S. Kurtz Don’t you love this spontaneous enthusiasm.

T. Reed I move approval of the December 11th Minutes.

J. Wood Second.

S. Kurtz Moved by Vice Chairman Reed and seconded by Mr. Wood. All in favor? It looks like it is 4-0-3 (Bergel, Buckley, and Burton absent). Next we need to have an update on the Loudoun County Public Schools fund balance request.

P. Brown I was hoping to have some budget staff here but they are actually in budget meeting. I will give a synopsis. At the last Joint Committee last recommendation and action, Mr. Reed put a motion on the table to send forth to the Finance Committee’s first meeting in January a discussion of the request for fund balance carryover. The Board considered the request, they were very much concerned about potential impacts of making the decision without understanding whether it is going to be a positive a negative impact on the school’s budget in this particular fiscal year with the conditions as they. Mr. Mays gave a presentation to explain that under the historic formula, if left alone, you tended to get 70% of the fund balance return for school budget and 30% went with General Government. The Board felt that if they lock in at set policy at this point they can actually jeopardize the discussion transfer of the school system. What they agree is not to take action, to defer it and come in the fall as the FY09

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books are closed and just have it as an annual dialogue at this point before they move in toward a direction for a policy. That summarizes it and there was no formal vote or action. Any questions?

J. Wood The recommendation is….

P. Brown The recommendation was to take no action this year.

S. Kurtz Is there any discussion on…Mr. Reed?

T. Reed The feedback I got is…even though it was not acted on it was thoroughly positive that there was understanding or acceptance that for this year we will (inaudible) agreeable or supported by the Board of Supervisors.

P. Brown I am just saying that there was no formal vote taken. It was just summarized as a general consensus of the dialogue.

T. Reed We are not taking it as a no. It is not a yes or no issue, but they will come back to us later.

S. Kurtz Mr. Geurin, do you have a question?

W. Geurin I have a couple questions, Madam Chairman.

W. Geurin Is it your opinion that the procedure that Mr. Mays has outlined in December will continue, absent any other change? And if there were any other changes, we will be informed about it?

P. Brown I will just say that what Mr. Mays said has been that has been the standard operating procedure….

W. Geurin I understand that.

P. Brown I don’t think anyone can guarantee that business would stay that way. I think you know what I mean…

W. Geurin I do.

P. Brown But in general, that is the collaborative consensus on how we have been approaching this (inaudible).

W. Geurin The flashing yellow caution light is, if I may, Dr. Hatrick’s budget presentation, that he is going to describe is predicated upon us being able to use like $11 million of what we called carryover fund balance, money that the Supervisors have appropriated that we have not spent by virtue of exercising a lot of cost containment.

P. Brown That fund balance has never been on the table for discussion. It has

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been…it is anything that is identified above that is what is being discussed.

W. Geurin That is a better explanation. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

S. Kurtz Thank you. Mrs. Godfrey.

P. Godfrey I appreciate that report and I was here when Ben Mays explained what has happened in the past with items that came into play after the budget was set. I got the signal from him that we will not have that occur. We will develop a budget, we will use our savings as a baseline and go from there and not bother you again. Use our savings from one year to go toward the budget of the next year.

S. Kurtz The business about not bothering, the message I got is that after you’ve closed the books, if new monies are found on either side that come back to the pot, and if you have a budget request, it comes back into the Board and each request that you have is then talked about to see if it needs to be made.

Dr. Hatrick That is right, Mrs. Kurtz. What we tried to do is ever since I’ve been Superintendent is not come back and request additional supplemental funding from the local fund balance because it builds to our credit over time. When we do come back for supplemental appropriations during the years is when Federal revenue, unanticipated, or State revenue, unanticipated, becomes available for the programs we have and I think naturally it comes through as a budget adjustment and it is all (inaudible). I know we are in different times now, but my goal is still is not to come back once they adopt the budget unless something really extra-ordinary happens because the County has been very good about accumulating fund balance split between general fund, schools, keep track of it, we know what is there and we’ve able to use that in reconciling revenue for the budget for the coming year. It is only when the revenue comes after the budget adoption that there is any concern about it. We close our books all on June 30th, we have closed out around September and you don’t get closed out until November. Actually, this is when final audits are done. We think we are okay.

S. Kurtz Great. Let us move on. Our next item of business…I would also like to mention that the Chairman of the School Board, Robert DuPree, has joined us and Jennifer Bergel, which is now a member of our standing committee. Can we move on, review of the calendar and agenda development? If you turn on the green page, our next meeting is February the 12th here in the Board of Supervisors Board Room. This is where we tentatively proposed that perhaps at 6:30 p.m. we will have a public input session to hear from the public what they think about the process our Committee has approved and been adopted by both boards for a six-month trial…

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P. Brown We have not adopted this….

S. Kurtz Right. We have agreed for six months to model the process that was adopted.

Dr. Hatrick That night, many of our School Board members will be at Richmond. This is their annual legislative meeting with Virginia School Board Association and that evening they are with the legislative delegation. I think when you have the Public Input session, I understand that you would like as many people as possible to hear what is being said. Our Board Members, six or seven of them, will be in Richmond.

S. Kurtz The 12th is out. Is there another suggestion for another evening?

P. Brown I might suggest that your March calendar, is the same time as the budget meetings, you could use a date late in March because you’ll have that input that would come to the April 9th discussion of the land acquisition process. The whole February and March time frame, both organizations will have a lot of evening budget deliberation meetings. I don’t know how well the budget process is going to go. Usually, it goes to the first of April. I just offered that you may go late March because you may be further along in the budget process. Also, the question, is do you want to cancel your March meeting because of budget deliberations?

T. Reed One issue that I think this committee should take up while the budget is being discussed is the Saudi Property. We have made some assumptions in our CIP in the out years and if we can get concurrence on what the County’s idea is to use that property for, if they are going to give it to us, then we can have it. So, I think I would recommend that we have a February meeting, we can either slip it or hold up to February 11th and I have my calendar now to see if there are conflicts that would cause it to have it the following Thursday, which is the 19th. Let me look at my calendar first.

J. Bergel February 11th, we have Board meetings, don’t we?

Dr. Hatrick No, we have a community input meeting on boundaries in the Leesburg area and we also have a (inaudible) that evening.

S. Kurtz Let’s switch it on the 19th, everybody look at the 19th…

Dr. Hatrick Clear so far.

S. Kurtz It seems to be clear so far from the Board of Supervisors..

P. Brown Regretfully, because where budget is, I understand there are discussions about the Board of Supervisors starting their review of the budget the week after the presentation on the 9th? Generally, Thursday evenings are

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used for that budget review, but I know you all haven’t really finalized your schedule so I just highlight that.

S. Kurtz Wait a minute, Naomi is also in the audience. I have on my calendar the 25th as Budget Public Hearing, the 26th….the 19th is clear from the Board in terms of the budget.

P. Brown What I am telling you is that the Board has not received your budget meeting schedule for February and March yet. They are still being developed.

Dr. Hatrick Mr. Bowers is presenting the budget on February 9th?

W. Geurin With the idea that the Board of Supervisors might have a budget review meeting that would conflict with the Joint Committee meeting, today, the School Board has a budget review meeting at 6:30 p.m. If the Joint Committee can be finished prior to start of the Board of Supervisors’ budget review, assuming there will be one, there will be no conflict.

S. Kurtz Mr. Geurin, we are trying to schedule a public input and the public has suggested 6:30 p.m. is a more appropriate time to show up. This is a bit different.

P. Brown We don’t have the budget calendar yet, go ahead and schedule it.

S. Kurtz Why don’t we schedule the 19th and we can see tomorrow what County Admin is thinking about the budget schedule. So the 19th at 6:30 p.m.

Dr. Hatrick I’ll also move your Joint Committee meeting, because members of the Joint Committee meeting will be in Richmond that day into the evening on the 12th.

T. Reed The 19th should work.

Dr. Hatrick Are you moving both? That is what I am asking.

S. Kurtz I think that would be appropriate, actually. You have a conflict?

J. Wood What time is it? 4:00 p.m., is that the time?

S. Kurtz That would be the Joint and the 6:30 p.m…..okay. So moved, and I will notify folks if there is an abrupt turn on the road, alright. That done…

P. Brown You all have a topic that you want for your February meeting, or are you going to come back to that discussion?

S. Kurtz Why don’t we discuss it now?

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T. Reed That is what I would like to discuss…I would like the Saudi Property discussion…

P. Brown So you would like an update on the status of that property?

T. Reed …the status of the property, again. I think it might be an opportunity for our staff to do a presentation on our proposal on what to do with that property which I think you be…

S. Kurtz Okay…

Speaker …we are not using it at all.

S. Kurtz Okay, so the Saudi Property update and then the School Board and staff will present your revisions to the Technology Academy? Ms. Bergel, do you have a question?

J. Bergel If I may answer that because a conversation must have taken place after I spoke to Mr. DuPree and I wasn’t sure, and another thing is if the Board of Supervisors has any idea how much acreage, not just part where on the property but also the acreage amount. Some of that information will be helpful for us to know and our staff to know before they know where to come. If there are some parameters that the Board of Supervisors are thinking in order for us to get the property we would need to know. I think, maybe a part of that conversation would need to take place before our staff prepares for this.

P. Brown I can tell you the Board can’t give you that information.

J. Bergel Okay.

P. Brown The specific acreage.

S. Kurtz Any other topics for the February the 12th. Mr. Wood, do you have one?

J. Wood I don’t know if this is for the 12th but I have, whatever the next meeting would be, I have the Education Workforce Initiative that is going on. I don’t know if it is appropriate at some point to brief the committee on how the business community and the education community is coming together on some new things.

T. Reed You mean the collaboration?

J. Wood Yes sir. The stuff that Ed (inaudible) meet with Paula (inaudible)…

Speaker Will be glad to do it if you could pencil it.

S. Kurtz Okay, your name on the agenda. That was easy.

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P. Brown What is the title of that?

Speaker I’ll forward something to you.

J. Bergel Excuse me, Mr. Wood, I believe that meeting is on the 20th. I’m not sure if an update will be ready on the 19th.

J. Wood I don’t know if it should be on the 19th either, to be honest with you. I just wondered it might be something to be presented to the committee at some point, it might be the right time for the 19th.

S. Kurtz Erase that one from the agenda.

P. Brown The only thing that I might add to that agenda since we are focusing on land and overview of a potential building site is just a quick overview before you hear from the public on the model and what happened since we have implemented it. I think it would give you a good frame of reference, just an update on the model, and then you get to hear from the public in that way if the public comes early they can hear what staff’s perspective has been on positives and negatives of the process. That way you’ll have the whole input before you get into your April decision timeframe. Does that make sense?

S. Kurtz Absolutely.

W. Geurin And that would include the meetings that the Supervisors have held with School staff to be updated on where we are on this particular process for a particular purchase, correct?

S. Kurtz Not the particular one..

P. Brown The process…

W. Geurin …the dates that our staff, Dr. Hatrick’s folks had provided information confidentially to members of the Board of Supervisors that would be noted in what you are talking about so that….what I am interested in, Madam Chairman, is the public knowing that staff is briefing the members of the Board of Supervisors and five times or two times or ten times…

P. Brown We can take care of that. I understand now.

S. Kurtz Anything else for the February the 19th agenda?

J. Bergel Madam Chairman, if it doesn’t look it fills up perhaps this would be the place for us to come back to talk briefly about school size. Last time when we were talking about range-of-acreage requirements, you were interested in a range of that and we also said briefly about where or not there will be

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a range for school size with our models. I don’t know if this would be the place or not.

S. Kurtz I think that might be if we have time.

P. Brown We will have that discussion back in April, you will see the School’s Capital Facilities…

Dr. Hatrick I hate to tell you but we are trying to get Woodgrove and Tuscora moving right now and deal with budget, there is really limited staff time to start applying to new projects. By Spring, shovels will be digging, bulldozers will be moving and we will all feel a lot better then than right now.

S. Kurtz Alright, why don’t we just leave February with what we got on the docket? We can have a longer dinner.

J. Wood I have to excuse myself.

S. Kurtz Yes, thank you, Mr. Wood. We are now on March the 12th. You are proposing to cancel that meeting. Anybody agree or disagree? It looks like we have consensus here. April the 9th, the topics include land acquisition model and beginning to look more the planning guidelines and standards.

R. DuPree Madam Chairman, I may have it down wrong that maybe during the Spring Break for us and a lot of us will be traveling and will be unavailable.

Dr. Hatrick It is Spring Break and thus, that particular day is one of the two days that all staff are off. We are closed.

S. Kurtz Okay.

P. Brown Next week will be April 16th?

S. Kurtz Alright, April 16th. In the interest of time, it is quarter to five, why don’t we say that we withdrew much of the Spring and we can certainly start looking at other topics and move on to big subject of budget?

Dr. Hatrick If you could permit me to go back to the 16th to alert you that day would need to be another 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. meeting because the School Board has a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. on middle school (inaudible) attendance boundaries.

S. Kurtz Okay, so moved. You have also here for you a list that you might be looking over and making some decisions on where you’d like to take it. Anything, anybody? If not, let us move on. It seems we are not very chatty this afternoon. Okay, I believe we are not into the School’s operating budget issues. I believe this is for Dr. Hatrick.

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Dr. Hatrick …we are out doing a series of eight or 10 public meetings and I am finding everyone of them frankly quite invigorating because we are getting good public turnout. We spend about an hour describing the budget then an hour doing questions and answers section. We were at Supervisor’s Buckley area. Her aide joined us, I think the report back is that we really have a really good discussion and we are getting a chance to really talk to the public, not only about the difficulties on funding for school budget but the difficulty of funding for all budgets. I am reiterating every chance I get, what I hear, what the Board of Supervisors are saying, you really do want to hear from the public this year. You scheduled three public hearings for that purpose. We have put a link on our website so that when somebody writes to the School Board it gets forwarded to all of you and Supervisor Buckley’s aide confirmed that indeed it gets forwarded to the Board of Supervisors. People don’t have to write most of the time. What I have given you today is, I just want to give you a quick highlight. You received copies of my proposed budget that is now being considered by the School Board for their adoption to become their proposed budget, but I’ve given you today…the color slides are the slides we are using in terms of presenting the proposed budget. And then that is followed by a black-and-white piece that is another powerpoint presentation of reductions to meet the fiscal guidance we were given at the 5, 10, and 15 percent level. And then an information piece about what is the decreases that occurred in the Superintendent’s proposed budget before it ever got to the School Board, if those decreases totaled 16.9 million dollars. I think the first thing I would say to the committee is first and foremost, I was asked by you, and that was affirmed by the School Board who gave me the same direction, to try to present a budget that did not require any new local funding, any additional local funding. We met that goal. As a matter of fact, the proposed budget represents a decrease in the local transfer of 1.3 million dollars from this year even though we are going to have an increase in student enrollment next year and we are going to open Tolbert Elementary School in Hamilton. I was also asked by the School Board to meet some other criteria. Let me pull some of the slides quickly because I was told you wanted to know about what are the challenges we ran into in producing this budget and they continue to be the challenges we will be discussing. We talked first about changes that have occurred since 1993, because everybody has not been here since then and everybody may have not realized, in that period of time, we built 40 new schools, we added 40,000 of the 57,000 students we have. We have 10% greater diversity, 7000 more employees and we have to deal with the Standard of Learning of “No child left behind” over which we don’t have a great deal of control. We spend a lot of time, and I say we and I mean that in a most conclusive sense, because almost everything that happens in Loudoun County Public Schools doesn’t happen without cooperation of the Board of Supervisors and the citizens of Loudoun County. There has to be support for funding, there has to be approval of funding in order for the ideas of the School Board and staff to actually take root and grow. One of the programs that

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we looked at as an example of something that over time has really taken root into our own is the flex program. In 2002 the School Board, I believe Mr. Reed and Candy Cassellf really pushed to begin a foreign language in elementary school program and we did that in a pilot/trial basis. Long story short, over the years we keep on adding on the program until we have every student in Grades 1 through 5 receive foreign language instructions once a week of, primarily, oral instructions. The payoff came last year when those kids moved into middle school the (inaudible) and last year for the first time ever we said to seventh graders, you can enroll and take a first year high school foreign language class. Fifty-seven point five percent of all the seventh graders of Loudoun County enrolled in their first-year foreign language, not just Spanish, but Spanish, German, French, and Latin. That was pretty amazing to begin with, but what was even more amazing is at the end of the year their grades were better than their 8th or 9th grade counterparts who were in their first year of foreign language. We think the flex program has done a couple of things: 1) it has encouraged a lot of students that they can learn a foreign language because they never fear learning a foreign language; if they do it from first grade on, then it is not a big deal. And 2) if it is getting them to a point where we are going to graduate students in the next four, five or six years more than just a few who are really competent in the language, orally, in reading, in writing, speaking and listening. We have also established partnerships with countries and schools around the world. You know about the Main-Taunus-Kreis partnership in Germany. We also have partnerships in Singapore, Jordan, in Portugal, Egypt, and we have teachers coming in from Brazil…just all kinds of things that have happened because communities are involved. Couple of things that are new measures from last year which we are very proud, 92.6% of our senior class last year graduated on time, compared to 81.3% for the state. This is a new measure that the State has imposed. This is one way of looking at success. 62% of those who graduate go on to four-year colleges, 27% go to two-year colleges. We have a 32% rise in scholarship funds received from the year before. The good news about graduation rates is they are up and they are higher than the State in every category, African-American, Asians students, and disadvantaged students, Hispanic students, students with disability, White students. This does not happen by accident; it happens because over, not just years, but decades, the community, the Board of Supervisors, they have elected the School Board, they’ve elected to making this happen. Our attendance rate is the third highest in the state of Virginia, there are some small rural schools. Our dropout rate is 0.8%, which is the lowest in Northern Virginia, maybe lowest in the State, but I have not been able to confirm. You think about that against the headlines you read about 10% dropout rates, unfortunately, in urban centers, 20-30 % dropout rates. 0.8% for our kids, they come to school, they stay in school, they finish school and we try to graduate them prepared as they enter the world of higher education. Our kids are doing well, they are doing well in their SAT scores, which is another measure for school. One of the new programs to start this year in cooperation with the Claude Moore Foundation and

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Loudoun INOVA Hospital is the Claude Moore Scholars Program which is a program run from Monroe Technology Center where we are now training students in radiology technology and other forms of medical technology that are desperately needed by hospital in other places and is enabling kids to literally graduate from high school ready to go on to a post-high-school training and it puts them in a very good professional jobs. Overall that time, what we have been trying to do is to provide the kind of support that is needed, administratively, during the last five years we have hired 3600 new teachers. You know from experience, Dr. Adamo’s projections are accurate 98.4% level and a website like yours, I’m sure, is just becoming a huge means of communications, you can see the stats, they are for first time visitors. All of these have been happening against the backdrop of our not having the highest cost per students in the Metro area. Slide #13, page 7, you see for FY09, we are in right now, our cost per pupil is next to the bottom, and unfortunately, the green makes it very hard, $12,780 that compares with Fairfax at $13,340, Arlington, Alexandria in the $19,000 range and Prince William in the 10,700 range. Cost per pupil for those who like charts, you can see that it has gone up from $11,379 from FY06, coming down to $12,330 for FY10. That is another thing that we will speak about in a moment. If my proposed budget were adopted, and if that baseline were adopted whether it is my proposed budget or the School Board, we actually will have a reduction in the cost per pupil in this calendar year. MGT of America, you are familiar with them because you’ve employed them in the past to do audit studies of the County and School system. We also reapply for and receive the Governor’s audit, it took about 10 months, about administrative procedures and I think we have provided a copy of that MGT of America report for you. They commended us for our (inaudible) they did provide some recommendations. One of them has to do on the way we acquire land and the whole process that we go through, that is where I think we can save some money. In putting together the budget, there were major budget considerations, the School budget priorities are there and you see…

S. Kurtz Can I interrupt you a minute? These are the School Board priorities. I’m to understand that as a body the School Board met and they said…

Dr. Hatrick Absolutely. Before I started, they set these priorities, they voted on…these are our priorities.

S. Kurtz I guess, I did read those handouts, I haven’t gone through the budget yet, sorry, I have hoped before this meeting. I wondered myself you have talked about the existing system being thought of as a tapestry (inaudible) interwoven and what you did not want to happen was inner strings that were removed that left such a gaping hole that you can never sew it back up again. Could I ask, because we have both members here, I guess, what they thought of the result of your looking at it in three different tiers…

Dr. Hatrick The proposed budget…remember and I will say this every chance I get,

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the tiers are not a part of my proposed budget. My proposed budget is my proposed budget. The tiers are an exercise we have to go through to pull things out of the proposed budget to meet potential reduction in the funding. I will tell you frankly, nothing in any of those tiers is something that I would recommend. Nothing in any of those tiers represents a good choice. I think it is just a collection of bad choices. I really do believe that having met the goal you set of no new money in a year when we are going to have 2500 hundred new kids and open a new school, we trimmed everything we could trim to get there. Once you get into the tiers that is a separate document,….

S. Kurtz I guess for myself, the reality of this year is that if we could do away with the minimum we have to pay for our debt service, I will be willing to be (inaudible) because this has truly has, first of all you pay your debt service payment, your interest, this has because of the economy and I know the more debt and…eventually it eats into your operating budget. What I am seeing here is reality under the worst economic conditions. What I guess, what I will be interested in hearing from the Board members when you set your priorities, what was that based on? What values do you have that this was based on?

W. Geurin How much debt service are you talking about? I am not aware of what that figure is?

S. Kurtz I don’t remember. Mr. Brown?

P. Brown These are big round numbers. This year’s debt payment is $161,000,000. By the very fact that the market slowed down and our debt issue schedule has changed drastically, the preliminary numbers are, we are going to remain (inaudible) maybe one to three percent higher next year once we get CIP, if you know where it is at. The reality is, even if the ultimate payment stays constant, the reality is the local tax funding transfer needed to pay that debt service goes up about 20 to 24 million dollars depending what the final number is; that new 24 million comes right off (inaudible) the discussion.

W. Geurin It’s the new 24 million that you highlighted a moment ago, I think..

S. Kurtz Excuse me?

W. Geurin That is fine.

S. Kurtz A rapidly growing County…what we pay…is not going to break. Unless you say you’re not going to pay this anymore.

W. Geurin No…You are all aware, Madam Chairman, of the Supervisors’ budget guidance when we considered proposals, when Mr. Stevens and I, Chairman DuPree and our individual things on setting a sense of direction,

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setting a sense of guidance, setting a sense of…we want to see a budget that does these things. It took an hour and a half or two hours, but we finally arrived at these highlighted items. Now, I think everybody understood on page 8 of Dr. Hatrick’s materials that the slide that you are looking at, they all understood at that time, that not everything could be number one priority or first priority. We did not set an order, we did not say savings in the areas of non-school-based staffing were more important than preserving existing programs or less important. We just arrived (inaudible) as best we could, some guidance. We had some argument about it because several of us felt that if we just stuck what the Supervisors have suggested or desired or guided us, knowing 5, 10, or 15, let him sort out the bodies. Someone wanted to have a strong sense of School Board direction to the Superintendent. I value things a little differently perhaps than other members of the Board do, and if you let me start talking we won’t be out of here by 5:30 p.m., so I will have to stop right now.

S. Kurtz Okay. Anyone else? Ms. Bergel?

J. Bergel Just a couple of points really quickly because I don’t know if Dr. Hatrick will get back to some of the points out here. I was happy because I was very nervous before we would see this, what it is going to look like, and I was concerned about the budget getting into a point where it would be something I never saw even when I was in school, during my tenure at Loudoun County Public Schools. I will say that there are parts of these tiers, things that were never in place. For example, the freshmen’s sport team removed. The user fees that I asked Dr. Hatrick to consider and other people did, the expansion of user fees, does take us back to 2003 AP test being funded by the parents not the school system, but a new thing is the parents will contribute to the sports payments. The sport program by a user fee, which is something that I don’t think has ever been in the system. The nice thing that I saw in the proposed budget was some new thinking on the part of Dr. Hatrick and staff, incorporating things that people have brought to the table as well as saying, we hear what people think that our Admin building is too much staff and the fact of the matter is there are new staff members in the Admin building in his proposed budget. It is not until you get to, I believe it is tier 3, Dr. Hatrick? Is it tier 3 that we see Admin Building reductions?

Dr. Hatrick There are no non-school personnel, not just Admin Building. No non-school base personnel in any of these budgets. I went on the MGT study and all of our own study and said, if you are already the leanest and meanest against your competition, and the MGT study by the way predicted they projected a 5 million dollars savings over five years, but only gave credit for 2 ½ of that because they wanted 2 ½ to be spent on expanding staff in the central office that supports schools. I went from by that, we took the first, I think it is some 800 thousand dollars out of base budget. I killed part time and over time, most of which are in the central office. We don’t hire all the people we need for peak season, we hire

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people for peak seasons as we need them. We took that money out, we took about 840,000 out, 870 and 640 of that was in the “central office.” The further reduction in the central office appears in tier 3, and there, frankly (inaudible), I don’t even know how to begin to know how we can do that but we needed that money to round out tier 3.

J. Bergel To finish up what I have said, thank you Dr. Hatrick, I’ve seen the school system cut back by percentages based upon our Superintendent through out the year before it even got to the budget creation process that they have spent months on. So there were reductions taken before, reduction taken at the budget, there’s new thinking in the budget, there are requirements met that we said to align with the County level budget. Also, the considerations that we put forward that as a group they weren’t all the considerations that everybody put forward, but it was what we could agree as a group as the priorities. One last thing, we recognized in the CIP (inaudible) for FY10 for any projects and so hopefully that would come into play when we look at FY10 the school systems has no new capital projects in the CIP and we have reduced in this budget here. I hope that this is something people understand as well since we don’t see the two documents together.

T. Reed One thing that I would like to add that as Dr. Hartick has mentioned, the three tiers were not included in his budget. The School Board has not outlined our procedures for adopting our approved budget, we will do that tonight. Several members, including me, have expressed interest that we will include those tiers in our approved budget. When we are done, when it comes over to the Board of Supervisors and you look at the budget you’ll see we are going to cut 5%, you can’t say we don’t know where they will cut it because we are going to tell you where we are going to cut it. It is only in tiers because when you look at the list, it is not prioritized. If you are to cut us by 1%, then we have to go back to that first tier and prioritize that to get to the 1% cut.

S. Miller This brings up a point that I think we might want to discuss a little more in detail because he has confirmed or at least reiterated something that I think we have asked for a number of times, which is if we are to cut you by some amount of money, what will that take out in program, what we will see go away? I am distributing a copy of an e-mail that I got today and I told Mr. Geurin that, I showed him this before the meeting began and I don’t want anybody to think that I was deliberately (inaudible) anyone. I think what we might want to do is engage in a dialogue about the question of how set are those tiers? From this document that you will look at there has been some consideration by the School Board members already to the affect that, well what they say will disappear at various tiers it is not necessarily what will disappear at various tiers. From our perspective as members of the Board of Supervisors, it would be useful to know to what extent is there certainty in the tiers before we start asking ourselves, okay are we prepared to lose at various tier levels because this discussion that handing out now suggests to me that we really need to have specific

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dialogue about that before we put our faith in the notion that what is in those tiers is in fact what will go away at those levels of reduction.

S. Kurtz Do you need time to read to know what this is?

P. Godfrey The basis of Mr. Geurin’s email is that he and I agree that it is the responsibility of the School Board to determine not only the base budget the Superintendent has proposed, but also what resides within those tiers. So when it is sent over to you it, is something that has been discussed and possibility amended by the nine members of the School Board.

S. Kurtz I think that was the way it would.

P. Godrey Rather than having the package deal and it just go from his hands to your hands without our input.

Dr. Hatrick I presented both the budget and the list to the School Board. I refuse to say that I recommend the list but I presented the list. They obviously, I told them, I think I said it at the Board meeting the other night, a budget can’t get from me to you without their approval. Whenever the approved budget looks like, its going…I think we have all agreed that we will work with the same number of less and they are not going to add to the request. The tiered list, I think, also has to be approved by the School Board so it becomes theirs.

S. Miller Madam Chair that is not going to be the issue I am addressing. As I understand it, on the 27th the School Board will vote on the budget that is their recommended number. What I see on this e-mail is a reference to, by the time we get to April, you may feel as a School Board that the reductions in the documents that you sent us were not the ones you want to commit to when you learn how much money you actually going to get. That is reasonable because everybody makes budget adjustments, but I think we need to know something about do you feel that once you get the dollar number that it is carte blanche to simply ignore what was in the document you sent us (inaudible) or can we put some degree of faith in the various tiers as being reflected of what you’ll actually cut.

S. Kurtz Mr. DuPree?

R. DuPree You raise a good point and that is something…while we welcome the guidance, we as a Board in accordance with our responsibilities are going to have this discussion tonight as well after we receive further elaboration on the superintendent and his staff. One of the things we are going to decide as a Board is how do we approach that question because this is a new way of doing something. We anticipate having that discussion this evening. You’ll know whether or not we are saying this is something what is going to happen under alternatives or we will reserve the right to revisit. That is a discussion the Board simply hasn’t had yet.

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S. Kurtz Okay, I was just curious.

W. Geurin Madam Chairman? You are well aware because of your service with the Board of Supervisors is that every year the supervisors adopt the budget, set a tax rate and appropriate funds, if there are reductions to be made in the School Board’s adopted budget, we reconcile those and we go back and make those changes that Mr. Miller talked about. I don’t have concern in all of that in distributing the e-mail. But I said to John Stevens and the other Board members this morning, the issue is, at what time do we have this reconciliation? Do we have the reconciliation before the Supervisors act? Just set a tax rate, appropriate funds, and give us an operating budget from local tax revenues, or do we wait until that occurs? Some folks have the view that this list of 5% reduction, 10% reduction, and 15% reduction should be automatic pilot and if the supervisors do x, y will occur no matter what. I don’t hold that view. I do think in deference to Mr. Miller that we would like to know, I certainly would like to know, what Mr. Miller or Mrs. Kurtz and other members, Mr. Brown and half of the staff, what their view is. When you all decided that you will give us some guidance and Mr. Bowers asked Dr. Hatrick to show him the impact of 5% decrease, 10% decrease, and 15% decrease, most of us focused on the dollar amounts; 26.8 million, 53.7 million, 80.5 million. Dr. Hatrick has developed these lists 5%, 10%, and 15% based upon reaching a figure of 26.8, 53.7 and 80.5 as he said in more than one occasion is that these are not things he’ll recommend we do. The reference to we might have a different view in April than we have in January is just a calendar reference. If the Supervisors act on the overall County budget on the first or second week in April and they set a tax rate, whatever that tax rate might be, and they appropriate whether they appropriate 748 million or 750 million or whatever, in April it could very well be that an item on the 15% list would satisfy that reconciliation amount or two items on the 5% list or one item on the 10% list. That is the flexibility that I was referring to when I advised members that I felt we should retain some flexibility. Now, if Mr. Miller and other members of the supervisors wanted to say to us, School Board send us an absolute that would be automatic, then that is fine with me, but would require a considerable number of meetings of the School Board between now and January. What process the School Board might use, not necessarily tonight but as we get into changing the budget that we received from Dr. Hatrick. It has nothing to do with whether there is anything on this list. If, for example, the Board of Supervisors, that is judgment, says okay 50 million dollars’ decrease in funding, you know, no question about it, no arguments, no nothing. Then that is what we’ll have to do. How we’ll arrive at the 50 million dollar reduction, I believe, should have some flexibility in how we arrive at it. If the requirement is, the list we sent you is automatic, will occur no matter what else transpires between now and then, that is a different kettle of fish. That is the reason, that is the genesis of my e-mail this morning. There is a disagreement, I think, that you should be aware among the members of the School Board

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that have talked about this.

T. Reed You tune it tonight and we will try to resolve it. The other thing I would add is, I do not expect this year’s budget to be unanimous, I expect it to be consensus because it is going to reach a breaking point that some people cannot support. Either the overall budget or even issues within the tiers.

S. Kurtz I agree. I can see how that could happen. I can tell you, even with me looking at it, when Dr. Hatrick presented his overview of the accomplishments of the School system, and how wonderful the foreign language program was and you’ve got it where you really want it and you are seeing results and I’m going to ask about, are you seeing increased testing in this…there has to be something positive going on. Besides, it puts us in step with most of the world and then when I see you going to take out the flex program over here, then I keep in my mind, then I then began a value standard and say wait a minute here, let us match that one and put it up here and remove this one back here. So I can see yours going to have a hell of a time. Thank you.

Dr. Hatrick The only prioritization that exists in my list is tier 1, are the first things that I think ought to be considered for reduction, tier 2 is next then tier 3. So for example, we do value flex program extensively that is why it does not show up until tier 3. On tier 3 it is a 50-percent reduction in the program but also on tier 3 we moved Art, Music, PE and also some other courses to the minimum standards required by the state. Frankly, I would never have imagined in Loudoun County, we’ll be having that discussion, but I think you are exactly right, I think there will be that discussion. The other thing that is going to happen frankly is the School Board is going to continue the get suggestions from the public. Not only now, but after they sent the budget across the street. Remember, nobody except my senior staff saw this budget until last Tuesday night, nobody. We are already getting employee groups saying, wait a minute…I have some coaches coming that says our assistant AD is so important, is there some way…I don’t want to say all the coaches said this, but what if all the coaches agreed to reduce their coaching stipend, could that money be used to keep the assistant AD? I think that kind of talk is going to occur. Public meeting last night, some staff have asked, what if we have a second furlough day? Generates half a million dollars. I mean, I suspect its….

S. Kurtz It’s evolving is what you are telling me.

Dr. Hatrick It will evolve right up to the moment that all of the final decisions are made.

J. Bergel Madam Chair, may I make a comment as well, though? Because I think something tends to get lost in this discussion and I came on into the School Board from the classroom recognizing that there were some things that I thought could be tweak. I worry about people not asking questions before

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assumptions are made, not looking at some of these graphs, not looking at some of these numbers because to me some of these even a week out is still frightening because of the fact that 34 years, no I am not that old, 32 years of my life have been in the school system in some aspect and people assume that there are these wasted positions. There have never been wasted positions, but the fact of the matter is, as Dr. Hatrick acknowledge the other night at Valley. We have over staffing in some areas to help our standards of quality, (inaudible) being met, the No Child Left Behind being met, and now we are looking at, and have, in this proposed budget either reduce those numbers. If we are not careful as a community, what we are already saying is, some people are saying cut more, cut more, but the thing is we are getting very close to cutting to a point where…it is really hard when you are teaching a school that does not meet AYP. This is the first year the school district has met AYP as a district. That is a national thing that we need to recognize with NCLB. So…

S. Kurtz I don’t know what you are talking about…AYP…NCLB

J. Bergel AYP, Adequate Yearly Progress and so it is these things that I really hope that the emails keep coming because I’m getting good questions from people as we go through this. I’m worried about the assumptions that get made without the questions being asked. That is all I wanted to say before we finish up.

S. Miller Madam Chair? May I add a comment? The reason I brought this up and I think this is a productive discussion has resulted from having this document in front of us is that I’d like to, perhaps caution is too strong a word, I’d like to just bring up the point that I am looking and I think other supervisors are looking at the items in the three tiers as relatively reliable indicators of what we will be taking away at various levels of funding. Going forward, we have never done this before in Loudoun County is my understanding. And I think it is courageous and laudable that the School Board is willing to try this experiment with us. Going forward, if we pick a level of funding below 0, if we go to 5% or 7% or 10% reduction or any such number, what I look to see next is how closely do the actual cuts match what is predicted with the document we got. If it was a considerably good match and the differences can be explained by factors that cannot be predicted, we know that we got a reliable indicator next time or any time after that. Circumstances compel us to use this system again. But if we give a seven-percent reduction and a tier 3 item like flex gets elevated to tier 1 after (inaudible) because I know some school members might (inaudible). The next go around, we are going to look at the tiers and say, there is no real predicted value on this. I ask you to keep that in mind, because this is a good way for you to know on the School Board side what you might lost at various levels and what our thinking will be when we decide what level you’ll get, only if it turns out to have meaningful predicting value.

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Dr. Hatrick If it gives you any comfort, I know I am often accused of arguing my point almost to death. We spent more time as a staff compiling the tier lists than the budget and we spent more time compiling this budget than any of the 17 that I prepared before it. So, we are getting vested in what we recommended to the School Board and I know they have to have their discussion and discuss what they think ought to be on the tiers, but I would be arguing strongly in most cases to keep things where they are because we’ve tried to work out the unintended consequences of reductions. You won’t see great changes from the Superintendent unless there are great changes in the circumstance that influence those decisions. We have a real unknown right now down in Richmond as they continue to deal with their budget. We have been very fortunate. Our proposed reduction is only $400,000. In our neighboring counties it is in the tens of millions because our school census is up and for the distribution of sales tax in the State, we are going to get a big increase next year. But there is now news surfacing that sales tax collection is going down. So one of the things that both Boards have to consider, you have sales tax implications as well, what if the sales tax revenue isn’t where we think it is going to be? What if (inaudible) adjournment, now we probably heard that the General Assembly is already talking about adjourning without the budget and going back out, but I don’t know what that all means but we know we might be late to a budget. The previous Board had to adopt the County budget without a State budget having been adopted…lots of unknowns out there.

S. Kurtz Let me ask you…I’m happy to hear that you’re going from the grassroots up, have you had teachers come to you and say, I need my job, I don’t care about the increase or cost of living or step increase? I’ll hold it for one year and be miserable like the rest of the community?

Dr. Hatrick Sure. What folks are saying and I did propose, the Board did ask me to think about trying to propose or find a way to propose cost-of-living and a step increase…couldn’t do it, but I did proposed a step increase. It was less expensive than a cost-of-living increase. I did, because last year I think we were the only school district in the Metropolitan area that did not give a cost-of-living increase. So our salaries fell a bit behind. That make us less competitive to get the very best people we want to get.

S. Kurtz I was just wondering….

Dr. Hatrick There are people coming and are saying both; if it will preserve other people’s job, I’ll give up my raise, if it will preserve other people’s job, will take a furlough…because I also, I sit with the business people and I’ve met with them the other day….I’ll be very irresponsible as a County official to recommend unemployment for our citizens. We need people that are working and we also need to keep them working.

S. Kurtz Mr. DuPree, we are going to need to wrap it up here.

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R. DuPree Two things: One, I think it was remiss in the beginning, but the guidance that we gave to the Superintendent was to look to meet these goals to the maximum extent practical because we recognize the realities. If he can, he can and that is what he said with respect to the COLA and the steps. The other is what other variable that we all going to have out there is whether or not you’ve sent a letter, I think, to your Board with respect to the Economic Stimulus package. I think we all got an email about an hour and a half ago and I am trying to add up to various totals, but the Stimulus bill was introduced in the House today. By rough count it would be over $100 billion just in education funding. We’ll get that much as a percentage of our budget, but a $100 billion or whatever what this number add to, and I am trying to read in my blackberry, filters down and that could make an impact. So I would like to see a little bit more and given that it is in the Stimulus bill as opposed to a regular appropriation bill which doesn’t get signed until the end of September, that could have an impact. These are all factors.

S. Kurtz Good. That said and no other comments, I call the meeting adjourned.