2020-12-01 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2020-12-01
Time 18:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type regular
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: Board of Education Regular Meeting 12/01/2020

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2020 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted on the pps website under the board and meetings tabs this meeting is being streamed live on pps tv services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times welcome everyone to the meeting tonight we will have an opportunity this evening to hear the five-year financial forecast as well as to officially certify last month's election results following our board meeting we will move to a work session where we will have an opportunity to review feedback received from the november 19th southeast guiding coalition on enrollment balancing open house but first we're going to begin with the consent agenda board members if there are any items you would like to pool we will set those aside for discussion and vote at the end of the meeting but first miss bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda no all right board members are there any items you would like to pull from the consent agenda i have a question about the hurry contract the cbre hearing and i'm happy to wait till the end so you want us to pull that one julia to the end of the meeting yeah or i could ask my question at the end it's not a um contingent upon whether i'm going to vote for it or not okay so you'll vote for it and then ask your question at the end of the meeting okay let me make a note of that okay any other board members have any questions they would like to ask or things they would like to pull i i actually have a question about the um on-call construction management services contracts as well which i hope we're going to address in an upcoming um bond committee meeting but yes director constant would you like to pull that contract from the consent agenda no but do you want to ask your question at the end of the meeting i'm fine with that okay okay i'm just making notes so i remember to ask you about your questions at the end of the meeting all right do i have a motion and second to adopt the consent agenda so moved second all right director bermed words moves and director scott seconds the adoption of the consent agenda is there any board discussion on the consent agenda i feel like i you know i know we're trying to kind of honor time um and since we've kind of voted on this it feels like those questions would be okay now listen yeah okay i agree all right director bremerts can you go ahead and ask your question first this is um about the cbre hearing um contract let me just ask it or is um all right actually make sure uh director constant why don't you go ahead and ask your question because i'm just gonna i'm sorry i got a big stack and i got to pull out my question i was thinking i was going at the end so oh yeah you weren't ready sorry sorry to change things up on the there are you there julia amy do you have i can pull it out but i just i just want to reiterate a request that i had made a few weeks back that the school improvement bond committee um include these a discussion of these construction management on-call services in one of our future meetings so that we can take a little deeper dive into this different um way of contracting or this different array of contractors because um i do have questions i mean i got my questions answered a few weeks back about why we um went um to this sort of new way of procuring marina thank you i see you i see your square now you were helpful in answering some of those questions but i do think it would be beneficial for me and for us and also for the public to have a little bit more of a discussion about um just how we're structuring our construction management services how we're determining um which which contractors are um working on which projects since it's since it's a different way of doing things but um that doesn't come to bear on this uh vote this evening it's just um a note that i would still like to address that with our board committee and and i want to say director con stem i agree i think we should um i would love to just be brought up to speed on not why we're doing a different contracting method but just because we're talking about business
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equity and um we've got bond projects that'll be coming up i think it'd be um just instructive for me to understand who we're working with chair lowry we do have staff were you finished director to pass yeah yes i am thank you chair lowry we do have staff marina dan and claire would you like them to offer a brief description and then there seems to be an appetite from uh members of the board for a more in-depth conversation about this at another scheduled agenda time that sounds like an excellent idea superintendent guerrero who wants to take the first crack marina i'm happy to provide the first crack at it um thank you for asking the question we have had so when the 2012 bond passed um the pps made a decision to go out with an rfp for comprehensive program project and construction management services for the bond program at the time that made a lot of sense we were putting the program together that we didn't have previously and bringing in consulting services um you know substantial consulting services to put that program together and to provide um construction management services in particular made a lot of sense um at the time cbre hearing it was hearing actually when when it came through they were the um top proposer and signed a contract with us that contract provided quite a bit of staffing um it will expire at the end of this year there is um it's already been extended to the extent that it can be and so if we wish to go out for additional services we have to do an rfp however you know it's been eight years since we did that and the program has matured considerably in that time and so um after a lot of discussion we have opted to move forward in a in a variety of ways one of the things that happened along the way is that we did an rfp for on-call project and construction management services a couple years ago we recently sent through the master services agreements for those you've seen them kind of come through one by one that is from that on-call rfp so we currently have three master services agreements with three firms to provide project or construction management we're already utilizing those the um program management aspect of it we are going to be looking at bringing on consulting services that are more of an on-call type service as opposed to having full-time staff that are fully embedded in the program because we don't really need um that kind of you know full-time hand-holding if you will to develop the program we have a program what we could utilize at this point is really um you know expertise when we have specific questions about the direction we should take the program or the structure of the program it's nice to be able to reach out to a consultant who's got experience with other programs and can provide us you know some background what other organizations are doing across the country so we intend to put out an rfp for program management services on a consulting basis the contract that you had before you on the cons agenda is really just to address the fact that we had a series of construction managers from that cbre curie contract who have been doing work for our 2017 modernization projects it's really critical that we be able to continue their services for the continuity of those projects that is going to be really enormous for us in terms of maintaining cost and schedule and understanding of those 2017 modernizations several of them are in construction right now so this is especially important that we'd be able to maintain those staff so we have put together that contract simply to continue those services for 2020 for the projects that are included on the 2020 bond for the modernization we will do an rfp specific to um to those modernization projects for uh the non-modernization projects we will be looking to utilize the on-call services contracts those are typically a shorter term of staffing and we want to be able to go out and get the best possible fit for our needs having on-call services with a number of firms gives us a lot of variety a lot of options to bring on the best
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people and it's not specific to one particular firm so i hope that kind of gives you a sense of the you know where we're going with our our program services our project and construction management services as well and gives you some context for the contract that you have in front of you tonight may i ask a follow-up question about the on-call uh contracts are does the district cycle through in other words if there's four on-call contracts do each four of those consultants have the same opportunities to get work or how is that decided or or do you right size based on what the need is so for every opportunity we provide that opportunity to every one of those firms so we put out a request for them to provide um you know applicants if you will for a role and then we interview everybody that they provide some of them choose to provide and some don't but we we give them the opportunity every time i guess are they being equally utilized are the consultant firms that are in that on-call are they being equally utilized um they're using some more than others i think it really depends on the the applicants that we get it's important to us that we find folks that have the kind of technical background for the projects that they're they're doing construction management on so if we're asking for someone to do construction management on a project that involves a lot of low voltage we're going to want someone who has the technical background to do that not all of the firms are able to provide that at the time that we ask uh we do have at the moment we've got um staffing from two of the firms um one of the four that was selected through the rfp has not um responded any of our requests so far we continue to reach out but we haven't seen any response and then the other firm i don't know that they have they've provided some applicants in response but not every time and uh when they have those applicants were not the best fit for the project thank you so it sounds like superintendent guerrero your suggestion is that um we answer this we continue to answer this question robustly um at another at another time and um be attentive to this work through our bond improvement committee and also through our um through the great work that marina and dan are doing is that what you're kind of suggesting well i think everybody fairly has questions concerns and we're all interested in being transparent and maintaining the public's confidence and so uh you know already questions are arising as we set the stage so we should dedicate the the time uh for for a public resource like this so i'm sure staff would uh we can certainly work with board leadership about when the appropriate times to do that to monitor progress and and frankly it's part of our own internal bond 23 oversight you know that we want to make sure and be consistent about as well i don't know if you want to add anything clear internally frozen sorry am i is it working now yes okay um inter internally as a team we have um pulled together especially around the whole bond program and really looking at our racial equity and social justice lens as we're implementing the oversight for this program so in our procurement area and our osm operations and myself leaders are coming together and we're meeting on a monthly basis and i'm really looking to set a charge for ourselves of how do we become known as a pps district as a champion for having our minority contractors in the forefront feeling fully supported and how do we increase the participation we have some lots of different tactical ways that we're doing it but we're setting it as a strand of a priority of work for us as a team and so you'll be hearing more from us about that certainly um work is already underway but we want to even highlight it more and become known for the um employer the owner the
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the entity that is um driving our racial equity social justice lines through our procurement in our bond program so i have some specific questions my questions were specific to this contract so and since we have the lineup that probably would answer them um should i just go ahead yeah go ahead great so um i would be interested in knowing uh four cbre hearing this is for the 2017 bond is this a a new contract or it doesn't appear to be an amendment so it looks like it's a whole new contract is that correct that's correct it's it's a new contract um under the new contract for an extension of services that were formally procured under a previous rf and thank you for the 2017 bond what's the total amount of um do we have this is for 5 million through june 30 2025 what's the total amount that we have that cbary and hiri have had in terms of contracts for the 2017 bond i don't have that number at my fingertips i can certainly get that for you because it they've had a number of other ones yeah i'd be interested in that and and then um my second uh sort of line of questioning um relates to something that um deputies superintendent hurts um mentioned around racial equity and i'm just looking through this particular contract has a number of project leads that we're paying and i'm um i know they're just because i know some of the individuals that there is some diversity but do we have specific requirements um for cbre hearing not for their not for the subs but for this particular contract because this particular contract is intended to extend services for the construction managers that are currently on those projects we will not be bringing on new construction managers under this contract it is only for the people that are already there so maybe clarification i guess is there already diversity or what so i understand we're not switching but did the did we have base requirements built into the initial contracts um and and dan can probably answer that better than i can but i don't believe we had base requirements built into the um how do i say the the staff that they offer i will say that we have been we have been pretty clear in our expectations as they bring forward new staff under the on-call contracts in particular but they provide us with a diverse range of candidates and we have definitely been seeing their response to that and we have been bringing on more diverse candidates through those on-call contracts as well thank you um just for whatever our future discussion is i'd like to have that be incorporated into how we do that more formally and thank you for the answer i appreciate that i would like to board looking how we might structure that foundationally just it's a lot of money um over all the bond programs and you know how can we further our equity agenda and so do all of our contracts and i would agree i uh we've been talking about how we can improve our diversity within our own workforce and when i say our own workforce in my mind that includes not just the pbs employees but also those that we bring on as contracted full-time employees so i think it's definitely a valuable um discussion for us to continue to have we're certainly having that internally um as uh deputy superintendent hertz noted going through and sort of looking at all of the potential opportunities we have to improve in those areas whether it's our procurement of design services or construction contractors or it's internally within our own workforce so um we definitely want to have that conversation moving forward as well thank you all right dr khan salmon director from edwards do you feel like your questions have been answered and we're ready to move on yep looking forward to the future discussion too yeah by move on i mean from this moment i think this is a larger and broader conversation as our superintendent has illuminated and i know our staff will be anxious to continue talking about how we how we do this well and i love claire's
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vision of being a preferred employer um for our business partners especially those that are um owned by people of color and women so we'll continue this conversation all right i believe uh is there any further discussion on the consent agenda i believe we are ready then to vote um ms braja actually is there any public comment on the consent agenda no okay great the board will now vote on resolution six two one one uh three six two one two which is two all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes i'll oppose please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions the can the consent agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes thank you nathaniel all right we turn now to student and public comment before we begin i would like to review our current guidelines for comment we the board really thank you for taking the time to attend this meeting and to provide your comments public input informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns and our responsibility that we take as a board is to actively listen to you now our board office may follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony and we do request that complaints about an individual employee be directed to the superintendent's office as a personal matter rather than be part of public comment if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment pps.net again that's public comment all one word at pps.net please make sure that when you begin your public comment tonight that you clearly state your name and spell your last name for the record you will have three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound after the three minutes which means it is time to conclude your comments ms bradshaw who do we have signed up for student or public comment tonight i was unmuted and now i was muted sorry tate young let's see who i don't see in the list jessica young i wonder if jessica yangs it i'm going to invite jessica and see if that's the correct person come over there we go is is that tate young yes yes that's all right good welcome thanks my name is tate young y-o-u-n-g i use he him pronouns i'm a mount tabor middle school eighth grader and i'm speaking about the southeast rebalancing process i'm on the web committee mount tabor and i also volunteer to tutor other students webb stands for where everyone belongs on the web committee we focus on making people feel welcomed into middle school and help them with any problems they may encounter along with help helping them feel they're included in the growing community we even have sub-web groups that focus on making the teacher teachers feel appreciated we value making people feel both valued and seen we know that good leadership means helping people understand and by into our school culture and beliefs this shocking rebalancing process goes against all of those principles not including people who are impacted by possible changes making students feel like we are not welcomed seen or heard as individuals or just seen as numbers no students from my school were invited to be on this coalition and our school has not communicated any possible changes to us only those of us whose parents happen to hear about this sudden change have the information it feels like a sneak attack and that's not a value i've been taught in pps please try to see this from this perspective of a student my whole life i've lived in the same city kept my old friends made new ones and been excited to go to franklin high school i've attended franklin events played franklin sports and more i have an older sister who goes to franklin a little brother who is a sixth grader and has planned on going to wrestling his whole life too and i have even looked forward to reuniting with my former foster brother at franklin when these big changes happen there are real people that are impacted
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not just your numbers on a sheet i understand that a project like this must not be easy to organize but i know the coalition can do better by listening to and working with students please listen to us help us understand and show us that you care thank you thank you we have khan from mom i see you and moving you over hello this is khan fam can you hear me yes thank you hi uh my name is khan fam uh spells last name is the papa hotel adam mike pronounced is he him i'm a parent of woodstock and a hospit children tonight i would like to bring up three things to tonight meetings um about another the vietnamese uh dual language program there are many vietnamese in southeast poland but they are not option for our kids to enroll in vietnamese besides mandarin in the series uh when we apply for our kids this wasn't a program in north east poland location however it is like um far away for us and it's not options first because we have to work and you know pick up and drop up the cases will be a difficult challenge for us if there have been a vietnamese diy in the service we would love to apply as a primary choice for our children and it's also a safe location that we don't have to face busy streets the second issues i want to bring up is we would like to have a vietnamese presentative in the collusion there are many vietnamese parents in the southeast poland but we don't have any voice in the uh re-balance or re-enroll balance schools and um the last house meeting open house meeting that this the bps provide a black assessment for vietnamese speaking parents i found that very helpful because that we can communicate our concerns back to the staff and attack back to the ball in the future uh so in the future if we have some uh you know school more meeting or some big broader community meetings we would like to have another section for vietnamese speaking only parents and the third thing is sin my kids went to woodstock as their chinese immersion program and her that is the program going to move to bleacher school and we have the concern about that because um not only for chinese kids but also for vietnamese or non-white children go to the only the uh li schools is feel like being separate away from the children of a neighborhood friend that they grow up with and that's all my three concerns as i brought up thank you very much thank you maggie berg maggie i see you and i'm moving you now maggie i want to be wherever it is you are i it's only in my dream i wish um my name is maggie berg e-r-g i use she her hers pronoun good evening superintendent and directors my name is maggie berg i'm a chinese immigrant parent of two minor immersion program students at woodstock elementary as well as i'm one of the co-chairs for shearin of portland i don't know if there are many here that are native portlanders and have seen what portland chinatown used to be
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it used to be very vibrant and lively now it only exists with one last standing restaurant and empty gate of what it once was the process of the southeast guiding coalition committee committee seem to be racist and geared towards segregating and displacing people of color and ethnic background also with the assumption that many are of lower economical status pbs seem to have placed an unacceptable amount of responsibility on minorities example of this is with our school three coalition representative that is assigned to our school two white pps admin and one chinese parent speaker for the past few months i've only seen the chinese speaker coalition member speaking making the connections reaching out to our chinese non-chinese and neighborhood english scholar communities throughout this community process when bipark minorities speak up about how the process is not geared providing equity for our community we get shut down by white admins and white community members sting were too loud which is causing continuous suppression of bipolar voices this poses a question that i have what is to be loud are we too loud because we raise concerns about a process that's racist and segregating to us with stock elementary school was originally a title one school back in 1997 and feared to close under due to under enrollment pbs at that time decided to place the mandarin immersion program there to correct the under enrollment now 22 years later woodstock hotspur cleveland mip is nationally recognized as one of the most successful mandarin dual immersion program in the country this program started as a little title 1 school similar to our sister mandarin immersion programs mlk junior in harrison park in the past few months since the proposal started i've spoken with a lot of mip chinese both english mip and english scholar families at woodstock chinese-speaking families have told us that the collision surveys are conducted in english and that none of the information coming from the school or district is translated thoughtfully by pps mainly chinese families have mentioned it was disrespectfully geared so that they don't know what's going on neighborhood non-mip families have told us they didn't know about the proposal until the day prior to the open house and no information have gone out from other from the school other than from the school or other coalition members representing woodstock i myself attended both coalition committee engagement sessions meant for cantonese and mandarin speakers and to have one of the session not what what not was was not the advertised language lastly we're in a pandemic our families and children's have been through enough this year trying to juggle the covet crisis political climate distance learning and now the possibility of not returning to school that they had left back in march due to boundary changes i remember watching district board meeting on april 2nd right after the closures and the recommendation from the board was to focus on children's social emotional state while in panademic i don't feel making a change during a pandemic is a choice as considered of our children's social and emotional state it seems to be racially charged and cause segregation i urge you to please connect thoughtfully with our bipart and minority community star speaking up and listen to listening to their concerns please stop steamrolling through them and ignoring our voices to cause more segregation in the community with this proposal we have already lost our chinatown in portland we don't want to lose more thank you thank you thank you maggie we have megan cursed mcmaster hi megan hi i'm megan kirsch mcmaster k-i-r-s-c-h hyphen mcmaster m-c-m-a s-d-e-r thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight i appreciate i just want to say first off i appreciate the careful analysis of data and hard work in general that the southeast coalition guiding coalition has put into the current proposal i know this is really challenging work i also understand the proposal is currently just that a proposal and i'm hoping you will take my comments into consideration as you form a final plan with the coalition the biggest thing on my mind right now is equity i have heard a lot of concerns from our communities of color and as a white woman i am making it a priority to listen to those voices and uplift them
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i hope you do the same let's do this right let's take the time to listen to the community of color and uplift their voices put them in the forefront and not on the back burner really listen and use that information to create a final plan i also encourage you to think about the kids that may never go back to their school in this proposal my family attends bridger bridger is made up of an uh english scholar program cli program and a middle school program in all bridger is home to 500 or 550 or so students home current the current plan sends english scholar students away dli students away and middle school students away leaving zero students of the 550 students a chance to return home is is this healthy for students for students that rely on their school for students who rely on school for more than just school could k5 stay put for a year to have closure with their community while middle school students go off to middle school because we know that in southeast the k-8s do need to get their middle school students to a middle school could a piece of bridger stay at bridger this is devastating to our tight-knit community but we also understand change is necessary i personally welcome change if it is equitable if the impact and change is shared if our communities of color are not only hurt if our communities of color are not only heard but their input is driving the proposal change is necessary but please consider the people inside the buildings thanks so much thank you and i just as vanessa comes on i just want to take a moment to thank ms bradshaw for juggling all of this this is our first night with this new system and i know whenever there's a new system and of course you're having to navigate it live in front of all the school board it's a little stressful so thank you so much for for juggling all of this and thank you to all of our um public commenters tonight for being part of this new system and for your patients welcome vanessa uh thank you thanks for um letting me join the meeting um so yeah my name is vanessa pranavo chronicles spelled pias and paul r o and is a nancy of v is in victor o s t and my pronouns are she her and hers um i'm a parent of an mip first grader at woodstock i agree with the goals of achieving racial equity and social justice of the board and the district but i'm concerned that the current process is not achieving those goals the current proposal seems to be dismantling a very successful mip program at woodstock and the current proposal is not supported by shuren uh maggie spoke before me and um you know i'm sure you're aware she read this organization that promotes and supports the mandarin immersion program across various schools you know on that basis it's not clear to me that the communities of color have been appropriately consulted or represented in this decision-making process i'm also not sure that the data that the district district is relying on is um completely accurate or maybe representative uh just on a personal level uh my mother and her family immigrated from china in the 1950s and settled in southeast portland and continued to live in southeast portland my aunt actually currently lives in woodstock and you know my daughter has the wonderful opportunity to be able to practice chinese with her um just down you know a few blocks away from woodstock so you know i i do feel like you know based at least on my personal experience there is a very strong chinese community in the southeast area and in particular in woodstock so
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i'm just concerned that the right decisions are not being made with respect to the chinese community and relate relation to the proposed rebalancing process and so i'm asking that you uh reconsider the current proposal in terms of moving mip out of woodstock to to bridger and and more broadly you know i mean that's what i'm that's what i know personally um but you know more broadly you know want to make sure that other communities of color being considered as well in this process and like you know i'm speaking about my personal experience but um you know there may be concerns with respect to other communities as well thank you thank you that concludes we have signed up for public comment tonight thank you all for speaking and as you know we'll be having a work session tonight to discuss more around these very issues and so we'll be taking um your public comments as well as all the comments we've received from so many others into that discussion so very much appreciate you taking the time to speak with us tonight um if there is anything you'd like to um follow up with please feel free to connect with our board manager rosanne powell and she can follow up with you all right we turn now um to hearing from our student representative nathaniel would you like to provide us with your report this evening good thank you um i like most high school seniors have been extremely busy lately in addition to our normal schoolwork and not it is now college application and finance season which to say the least is unpleasant and stressful on top of that i'm currently in the process of moving at my dad's house which has been especially time consuming in recent days as a result tonight's report will not be especially long i do however feel that it is worth noting that as the year has progressed the dsc has become a more cohesive and robust body we have also added a number of new members including wilson web cata and grant rep samantha both of whom were i believe elected by their schools the word is also that lincoln has elected sam denton as their representative with whom i look forward to getting in touch i would like to conclude uh by acknowledging the passing of one of jefferson's most esteemed alumni edward j perkins who died last month at the age of 92. perkins who has been described as a giant of american diplomacy was a member of the class of 47. he was at various points the nations australia liberia and was the first black ambassador to apartheid south africa i encourage everyone here tonight to read his obituary either in the new york times or the washington post thank you thanks nathaniel we've been hearing from a lot of or several alumni who are mounting a campaign to name a school if not jefferson and another school after ambassador perkins thank you nathaniel superintendent guerrero would you like to provide your report now yes thank you chair lowry good evening directors when i started this and i'll give our av a chance to put a slide up but i'm going to start with the subject that continues to be on everyone's mind primarily as it should have been these past eight months as you are probably aware the covet 19 trajectory over the last several weeks in oregon and in multnomah county specifically is is the opposite of what's needed um to reopen uh our classrooms to students we continue to work every single day and on how we might offer more in-person opportunities to students uh when the conditions permit and ultimately what welcoming back all of our students and educators uh might look like uh when they're back in our buildings uh but in order to make progress on our end we need and this is my my plug again psa for the broader community we need the broader communities uh cooperation to
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to get to those improved conditions um like many of you i've been listening to the prospect of multiple vaccines and that's all encouraging uh developments it remains as important as ever to follow public health practices including wearing masks and keeping socially distant i know sometimes it's not easy uh i understand that many plans and probably family traditions had to be altered uh this past week um and we're just and we're going into the holiday season uh with this winter break as well um but if reopening schools is important to you and to all of us the best thing we can do right now is follow those recommendations those guidelines and do our part to reduce the spread of this virus so as for for the specific metrics we've committed to providing you with regular updates uh for us here locally so dr russell brown our chief assistant performance will be speaking about uh what the trend is uh right now in just a bit but before i move on to my next topic i just we came across this photo courtesy of the oregon historical society and it's a picture of benson paulie 1918 uh during the past uh flu pandemic of 1918 which at that time was the deadliest uh in history infected 500 million people worldwide that's that's a third of the world's population at the time on the planet uh unfortunately it's estimated anywhere from 20 to 50 million victims uh including 675 000 americans um so uh it's interesting uh how history uh sort of cycles back around uh math squaring is something we're gonna we're gonna continue to promote and hopefully we'll have all of our students back as soon as possible um on a related topic uh tangentially here on the next slide as directors are aware every year the us department of ed uh requires states to measure student learning by measuring administering a set of tests in english language arts mathematics uh and science uh as the 2000 uh 2021 school year has been fundamentally disrupted uh by the covid pandemic uh including this past spring the orb the oregon department of education has asked the u.s department of ed for a temporary pause in ela math and science testing this coming spring and we understand that this is a little bit of a balancing act the data that's made available by these tests are helpful to us as a means to monitor student growth and achievement and to help support our efforts and our plans to support conditions in schools and improve student outcomes however adding another complication to comprehensive distance learning which could be burdensome to students and educators at this time to get at that data for this year which may not be nearly as reliable or valid as what is typical uh doesn't strike many educational leaders in the state as or around the country as prudent use of students limited instructional time um so i think ode's request uh is certainly a reasonable one uh and in the best interest of those we serve and we'll keep you posted you may have also noticed that secretary devos has called for the nape to also be suspended this this spring this is a national progress measure that's given at random across districts uh in the country uh as well so assessments and testing is is very much part of the conversation uh uh on many levels and uh uh we'll be passing along a report just published by nw um new our partners uh who help with our math growth assessments and what they've discovered uh from the four million test takers around the country uh and trends there next slide i'm looking forward also to this evening's work session uh immediately following this regular meeting of the board we're going to be reviewing staff is going to be reviewing enrollment and program balancing process including sharing the uh organized feedback that we've received from families and staff it'll include a recap of nine community meetings to date involving our southeast guiding coalition so while construction on a beautiful new middle school in the southeast continues slated to open in nine months we'll continue actively engaging and listening to families about planning for this school opening as well as all the factors and variables in the broader set of enrollment balancing work as you know and we'll hear tonight from the team i know you understand this this work is complex and doing it in the midst of a pandemic is presents its own particular challenges
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to ensure we make recommendations that are aligned with our vision board goals and commitment to racial equity social justice i know deputy superintendent hurts and and staff are prepared to share the feedback and process to date and suggestions for how to move forward while also building support among our diverse communities in southeast portland so director's input and feedback this evening will be helpful in a little bit of good news here those in southeast portland and throughout the city who live or work near one of our schools might have noticed in the last few days that we've taken down covid related signage prohibiting use of playgrounds and fields so we were in the process of doing this earlier in the month of november but paused with governor brown's pause and freeze announcement so after confirming that responsible use of our grounds is aligned with what is allowed during the freeze in multnomah county and in keeping with portland parks and recreation and others who've advocated or promoted opportunities for coveted safe family activities including some of our directors we've removed the schoolyard and playground signs this past week i'm glad that we're able to offer some small return to normalcy making our school grounds again accessible to our neighbors and finally today is giving tuesday as many people know it's an annual global day of generosity and today asked our community to consider supporting the fund for pps's coronavirus relief fund for pps students and families which has continued to provide access to basic needs transportation internet access meals gift cards for groceries and other necessities to thousands of pps families since the very beginning of the pandemic in portland uh we shared the words of sin principle sitting elementary principal dana nuremberg who stated i realize that it isn't always easy for families to ask for help so when they do our team wants to be able to provide them resources quickly and without a lot of complication the gift cards provided through the fund for pps have been an amazing compliment to the other food services offered in our community so for anyone in the viewing audience or if you want to pass it along to a friend who would like to support the coronavirus relief fund for pps students and families we would love your support on giving tuesday or frankly any day of this of the year you can find out how to help by visiting fundforpps.org that's fund for pps.org thank you and that concludes my remarks chair lowry and directors can i um chair lowry can i just say i want to thank the staff who made um it possible to open up the grounds i know that was something that families were really looking for and will be appreciated um so to complement all the parks being open so thanks to all the staff who made that possible yeah i just think there was a lot of appetite for that uh director brim edwards i think director scott's already been he's already been uh scouted i think running around one of our tracks i was arguing on behalf of kids and families not myself no i wanted to echo uh director broome edwards comments i think you know this is yes numbers are skyrocketing from covid but but one of the only safe things left we have is being outside um and and i you know i just i really appreciate the district's effort to do that and to do it in a safe way and i think it is something we want to obviously continue monitoring but but i really appreciate your effort superintendent and staff for making that happen i echo those sentiments as someone who had kids who you know can only roller skate and and tricycle around so many times before kids need to get outside um and so do adults it also um you know this is our values around outdoor education it's just it's great that they're open again they're accessible to so many people and families um great work staff and team thanks dr bailey i saw that you were unmuted did you also have a comment um yeah just um in terms of vaccine and as somebody who's a lifelong pessimist i'm actually feeling some optimism here um are we advocating for teachers to be a uh priority in getting uh vaccinated at the state uh and this right now it seems to be a state by state process which strikes me as kind of crazy and hopefully will be get some national coordination there but anyway are we advocating at the state level and i see you nodding your head uh what i will share with director bailey is uh this morning uh we received a little bit of a preview from the governor to a select group of
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superintendents around uh her budget proposal but uh made time for some q a and this is a question that that was raised by a lot of educational leaders here in oregon around making sure that our educators you know are considered those essential workers we know them to be i know that the council has also been an advocate for making sure that uh educators are in the queue uh as as the panel decides on prioritizing for for vaccines so i think there's quite a movement afoot and i think an understanding by people that the sooner we can get the adults who work inside our school communities the quicker we can get our students back so just two comments on that i guess i would add an asterisk that in addition to educators nutrition services our custodians all those sort of frontline workers um and maybe this is something in the intergovernmental committee we could discuss how we might advocate for it at a at a state level get our elbows out [Music] uh well that's right director edwards it was it was intended to be an inclusive term but actually the group that's most susceptible we would definitely want at the front of the line when it comes to school districts is are actually our transportation our bus drivers uh who would see a greater degree of exposure than most dr khan sam did you have a comment uh no but this scot this is something that i was hoping we could address um briefly in the intergovernmental committee this week to talk about whether we as a board want to pass a resolution or actively advocate or actively work through osba it's definitely a very live topic nationally with the council and we may see a prototype resolution that goes out to all of our council boards around advocating for for school employees to be in the first first group of people to receive a vaccine so i think we should be talking about it uh district-wide statewide nationally great thank you director comstown um well we're gonna talk about how we have our elbows out in lots of ways um through our committee reports now so the ways that we're trying to make space for our students and for uh the transformational change we long for for our district so we're gonna go in alphabetical order through all of our committees and if you don't have a report you can just say no report so we're gonna begin with our audit committee guess this means i'm always going to go first um so two things one we have a committee meeting tomorrow at five o'clock and um the link for the meeting is at pbs.net the topics that are going to be included is we're going to have an overview of the district's uh annual financial audit we're also going to consider three different options for another audit to add to the 2021 audit plan uh we're going to have an update on the status of the secretary of state's recommendation and also the opposite internal performance auditor's performance measures um in addition just in other audit news um while the board and staff are aware of this just to the broader community that the secretary of state's audits division has informed uh pps that they're going to be coming back at the end of this month to get a status update on their january 2019 audit that they did on pbs and the oregon department of education and um pbs they'll we have an opportunity to provide a response and then they'll conduct a risk review ask for documentation materials perhaps do interviews and that our initial response is due back on december 18. thank you director broome edwards uh director depos anything from the bond improvement committee no um we have an upcoming meeting on december 10th but no updates since the last time director moore anything from cbrc uh no we um we have a meeting coming up and i forgot to check the date i think it's next thursday not this coming thursday but following so next week all right uh director constant charter and alternative programs we have not met since our last meeting uh director scott inner governmental yes very exciting uh we have a meeting coming up thursday uh we are going to be starting at 4 30. so originally we're going to start at 5 but we did notice the meeting for 4 30.
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it's been a little bit of extra time uh we are going to have a presentation from reimagine oregon um about some of the things that they have been asking for and advocating for related to education um so i think that will be a really good conversation and then uh we will follow that up by the final look at the um pps legislative agenda as well as the osba legislative priorities principles and then forwarding those to the board for um for final approval great um policy committee director morrigan you need to unmute rita sorry uh we have a meeting coming up uh next monday um we have another very full agenda um we will be talking about the uh suicide student suicide prevention policy all students belong which now has a different name but the working title is all students belong a revision of the title ix policy and a preliminary discussion of the climate crisis response policy um so the meeting um starts at four it goes till seven um and uh comments are welcome that's all right anything new from rose quarter no all right how about uh do we have anything from southeast guiding coalition that we need to share prior to our meeting tonight i figure we'll be in up to our elbows tonight so we are there any other committee or conference reports that we need to share at this time um just briefly that council great city schools is still advocating for a federal stimulus package that would include schools i'd have to check guadalupe you might remember but i believe the proposal that surfaced today was 82 billion for schools and there is some hope that that can potentially get done by the end of the year so we've been see sign on this for the last three or four months um there's huge pressure and advocacy to um get some release relief through to schools so we'll just keep working on it do you do you remember that number superintendent not not off the top of my head but thanks for the plug i want to encourage directors if you haven't already to to read the advocacy uh prospectus uh compiled by the council uh which includes a lot of relief coveted relief advocacy in it all right um anything else before we move on to our next exciting agenda item with dr brown all right superintendent would you like to introduce this next agenda item well we have dr russell brown who is about all things metrics only in this case we're talking about something very concerning to all of us and that's the trend of kovid numbers uh so i think he has some likely has some graphs to share with you next dr brown good evening uh board directors bernina guerrero members public i'm pleased to be joining with you this evening and um for what should be a fairly brief uh talk through next slide please not to disappoint here's the graph uh as you'll recall the last time we got together i showed a similar graph and we had the three lines there that separated sort of the break points uh for the type of services that we provide for for our students the last time we were here um we had not crossed that red threshold at 200 which is the break point between that transition area where we could still potentially be looking at hybrid and instead is uh fully into comprehensive distance learning uh this is a moving target uh to say the least uh right as of last week when this was put together we were sitting at 468 cases and a 7.5 percent
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uh rate positivity rate for testing next slide please so um as i mentioned before we were expecting our case rates to go up so when we presented on october 18th we were looking at 140 cases over two weeks this last report was was at 468 cases over two weeks the data that came out yesterday went up yet again to 559 cases over the two weeks and i would project uh from what i'm seeing a similar or even higher uh rate going into next week as well so unfortunately we are uh absolutely trending in the wrong direction uh and this is before we'd even talk about uh the the potential impact of thanksgiving and thanksgiving travel or thanksgiving get get-togethers so again uh just emphasizing the importance of people diligently following our protocols in terms of wearing face masks uh maintaining physical distance from one another etc very important next slide please our next opportunity to get together will be on december 14th at 6 p.m we're gonna have a virtual panel discussion um the objective here is for folks in the community our board and members community here directly from our health advisory panel to hear from students hear from teachers administrators our community and some of our community-based partners around the work that we've been doing and some of the sort of contrasting views about um coming back to school and and the the challenges associated with that and i think there'll be a real um i think robust discussion that evening an opportunity for folks to understand some of the challenges in in planning around this and some of the work that's been done to date and we're we're certainly looking forward to that with that that that's my brief update for the evening and we'll keep you posted as we move forward with the metrics as as we move forward through time thank you i just really want to underline and hope that folks will like add this panel discussion to their yeah i think this panel discussion is going to be excellent and thank you to our staff for pulling it together and i know that the case numbers are not the direction we would like to hear um and so i'm hopeful that this panel discussion will help us make some um have some good information as we move forward into what's next sorry my internet's being a little laggy i think tonight um superintendent you get to be on top again for this next agenda item around our financial outlook over the next five years uh merely to invite our uh our budget director nicole bassen making an appearance here along with deputy superintendent hertz they're going to be sharing with you our draft five-year general fund financial forecast based on the state of oregon department of administrative services current service level projection for k-12 uh here in oregon uh caveat uh the governor just put out her projection earlier today so maybe deputy hertz uh we'll give you a little bit of a preview of a quick pass at it but uh otherwise i know that they're interested in getting into some of the details of this financial forecast nicole and claire good evening um so this will be nicole bassen's first time presenting to the board and of course this afternoon her router on her cam comcast went out and so she is hotspotting um from her telephone into this meeting so know that um we lost her once already in the background with nobody watching but i'm prepared to back her up um so just just know that that's part of living in a pandemic right so we're all familiar with that um so with that i just want to say how how proud i am of our finance team and bringing this five-year forecast forward and really helping us guide our long-term health as our our resources are not as strong as we might like them to be during a recession and but with this forecasting it can help us look at what kind of goals we'd like to set with the board to give us guidance on our fund balance especially around our operational fund our general fund and so with that i want to just give nicola a minute to introduce yourself as you i don't know that all of you have
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met her hi i'm nicole bassan i am the director of budget and grant accounting and as claire said this is my first time on and i am having technical difficulties so um it was it was a last minute thing so hopefully i can stay on for the whole thing so it is good to be here so we will play this by ear and i hope all goes well fingers crossed all right if you go to the next slide please so um these are really our our students here um asking questions in school and i just want to acknowledge that we created a forecast before the governor's budget came out today and that this forecast will be updated and these hands are really if you think about all the school finance leaders across the state the superintendents um these are we have a lot of questions we've just received a 522 page governor's budget that at about 2 30 this afternoon and so we have not had enough time to digest that to incorporate that into our work this evening however i will say that um the numbers that we have bases forecast on um based on the department of administrative services at the state level that we um there are at first blush the numbers are very similar however it's we need time to comb through the the notes and have time to really um read through before we um bring back an updated um forecast to the board so on to the next slide so with this uh forecast we have at the state level it's based on a 9.16 billion state school fund for the biennium for um 2021 through 2023 and they're also have an assumption of a six percent per savings for the biennium across the state you'll see later that our savings because we um issued bonds pers bonds and refinance our pers debt um twice and in the past 15 plus years our savings are not as great because we realize savings over the last 15 years so when they incorporate an average savings across from across the state to all school funding it creates a shortfall for some districts and meeting with other large districts across the state we're not alone there are multiple districts i saw a half percent increase uh one percent increase um or say excuse me half a percent savings one percent savings now the six percent savings is over two years so that'd be um the three percent um per year um and so just recognizing um when our revenue rolls up by about four percent and this time there you'll see that it's much lower than the four percent um and when we don't realize the um per savings that does cause us a problem in our forecasting um meaning that we need to make reductions so the other um concern is at the state level they've split um the state school fund with the 50 in year one of the biennium and the other 50 in year two historically um oregon department of education um allocates at a 49-51 percent split so even though the state has used a 50-50 split we're using the 49-51 and what that means is when they're rolling up current service level they actually roll us up low at a lower level it doesn't go as far because they aren't go starting at 51 percent they're starting at a 50 percent so that's um a concern um that we also um bring forward in this forecast next slide please with this i'd like to turn it over um i'm hoping that nicole bassen is still here i disappeared for a second but i'm back so we'll give it a go um so i'm going to run through sort of our high level revenue and expenditure assumptions there's obviously some smaller ones that are built in here but we wanted to go with the biggies so to start off with the revenue the state school fund is claire mentioned so for the current year we obviously saw an actual allocation that was uh 4.8 for the year for next year
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which works out there's what we're seeing we align more closely to we've seen in historical trends of about four percent a year the state school fund average daily membership assumptions that are built in so for the current year we're actually on extended adm which is a hold harmless built into the state school fund to sort of support any kind of fluctuations in enrollment and so that's what we're currently on for next year we assumed a return of about half of the lost enrollment and future years are based on our mid-range portland state university enrollment projections we call nicole suggestion from one of our board members that you turn off your video okay we've already done so because we're we're looking at the graph not at you speaking and that might help with your bandwidth tech stuff perfect i'll try it we'll give it a go um so we included state the student investment account funding here and while it's not necessarily a general fund resource we did actually make uh some we moved some of our investments for the current year over to the general fund when we saw the reduction in in the sia funding this year so current year at the state level we're funded now at about 150 million which is roughly 12.4 million to pps and the state economists are projecting that for the next biennium we will see a return or an increase in our corporate activity tax allocation and so they they are assuming roughly 375 million a year [Music] continues to improve we could see an increase there as well um if we want to go ahead and go to the expenditure assumptions next slide so expenditure assumptions the salary growth is based on an average rate across all of our employee groups and it's it's based on our contractual agreements that we have in place the associated payroll cost assumptions built in include the reduction claire mentioned for the pers rate as you can see it's it's fairly small for us based on what they were projecting at the state level and so that's built in and we did also build in a health insurance increase over the five years as well so those are the two big associated payroll changes charter schools we'll see an increase that aligns with our state school fund allocations and so that is built into there as well um current year we moved about 9.8 million of investments into the general fund out of the sia and so we assume that for next year we move them back and that carries through the forecast and the last line shows what we have available in additional sia resources based on that projected increase in sia funds so hey nicole this is this is andrew um can you go back to the charter school increase line because i i see i see that it drops in 21 22 and 22 23. um and i know you said it it was tied to something could you walk through that again yeah so charter school is a pass-through from our state school funder their allocation is based on our state school fund and so if we see increases in our state school fund their increase should align with the projected increase in our our state school fund resources so those projections are are tied exactly to our resource increases assumptions okay thank you yep um and so those are the the big pieces i don't know if anybody has any questions on those before we kind of move on to sort of just uh the board goal of our fund reserve is kind of what we're going to cover next so um and maybe this is um separate but if i could get after the meeting i'd be interested in what those percentages what they translate into in terms of dollars um and then the sort of non-non-wage um or the non-salary portion of the wage so the the previous package what what percent increase we're anticipating and what the dollar cost of that is because i'm i'm noticing increases across across the board that are higher than our state
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and we see on the revenue page a dip 21 to 23 but this seems fairly consistent across the board so i'd just be interested in looking at those comparisons sure thank you i think director moore has a question rita are you there yeah can you hear me yeah okay thank you um it appears i'm having internet issues as well so apologies um can we go back to uh kind of the beginning um i'm looking at the memo that we got and um some of this may be uh you may have addressed this in your remarks but my internet was being weak so i made this stuff um i guess so under the revenue assumptions um a couple of questions um so the the current service level um and i know this this has been a topic of growing exasperation over the last few years um and it sounds to me like what what we're faced with is a structural deficit given the way that the state is defining current service level so even if we have a you know a relatively stable or even a slightly growing revenue forecast [Music] for school districts we may still be seeing a you know an ever increasing deficit because the our payments from the state are not keeping up with our actual expenditures is that fair so i would say there are two areas that i would question on the current service level calculation when we have and we act we did meet with um oregon department of fed department of administrative services there's a whole group of us um that met and discussed current service level and uh there's two areas in particular one is pers number one they don't use pers bonded debt as an expense they don't incorporate that and they haven't ever so what happens is um that cost is not included and so when they're talking about the savings of six percent over two years so for us we have a savings of one percent over two years and they have counted as if we would have a five percent or a six percent savings so it's a five percent difference on payroll costs and that causes us to to lead towards a shortfall because we're not maintaining our um when they say the average savings is six percent for the biennium but ours is only one percent where we have a five percent differential that we have to make up for now i will say that we have saved on pers over the years over the 15 plus years so we have realized savings all along so i would never say don't do the burst bonds because it has served us well however the current current service level calculation is problematic for some districts in the state especially those that issued bonds because now they're not realizing the savings that's being counted towards current service level does that make sense it is that [Music] so i guess my question is how significant is the purse component um does it make that much of a difference so when 80 of our budget is um people yeah and so then you're saying for 80 percent of our budget so then there's probably we have nicole in terms of percentage for just salaries of that 80 it's probably 55 does that sound about right it does yep so um so when you say 55 of our total budget where we're supposed to have current service level is missing um the roll-up cost that that's significant okay all right thank you there is a second issue
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and that is the 50-50 split right when they count 50 50 on the prior biennium then when they roll us up we actually got paid at 49.51 so they're starting our place lower right um so combined or problematic um so i think we need to change the talking point on this one because we always talk about historically it's been 49.51 but if i remember correctly it hasn't been that way for the last 10 years um i think since the great recession they've the legislature has been sort of playing this numbers game um to make it look like the state school fund is better than it actually is um it's actually a state office rather it's the staff it's not the legislature not the elected okay so well okay okay if i'm going to be mad at somebody it's good to know who i should be mad at so thank you um okay um sort of bigger picture um well before i get to the bigger picture let me ask one other question um so i didn't understand uh and this is where my internet got funky um the it says in the memo in 2021 22 the assumption is half of the expected enrollment would return to school this is for the average daily membership i i don't know what that means can somebody explain that to me nicole would you like to sure so our we have a projected enrollment loss for this year and so to assume that everybody if we if we end up back in um school in september everybody's going to return um and we will go back to exactly where we were when we left off this year and so in in sort of a way to be a conservative approach would be to assume that we about half of the lost enrollment would return next year and then from there we go back to sort of our psu enrollment projections that was mid-range which is is where we usually land for some of our enrollment projections so that is that is what we had built in for that assumption does that help at all rita yes okay okay thank you um okay so then a bigger picture um at some point it sounds like we're assuming a recovery will happen um do we know when so the state economist has said that um there's a three-year um term before the jobs um growth if you remember that square root graph that i've shown you guys a couple of times in the past six months um it shows the latest one shows about a three-year time period for jobs to return to their pre-pandemic level and so we're counting uh 20 21 as year one and then the next biennium is year two and three and then you'll notice in our revenue we've gone back to a four percent um each year for the following biennium in year four and five okay okay so we're expecting the 20 24 25 year is when we'll be sort of back to status quo ante more or less so we're counting um the um 23 24 24 25 yes because um 2021 they used reserves to get through the year they're also using some reserves to get through the next biennium as well but they um the hole is bigger in the next biennium which we had seen coming for the last six months we were planning on that well we don't like it but it was a known issue so let me just sorry that there was a kind of blizzard of numbers there so are we looking at 24-25 as the turnaround year 23-24 23-24 okay so 2021 would be the first year of the recession and we maintained funding because of the education stability fund at the state level they use that to maintain our funding right then in the next binam 21 to 23 that's where our we're less than one percent growth per year
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on our revenue okay so that's the worst part of the recession okay okay and then 2024 we return back to the four percent okay but we'll we'll be making up for i mean we'll be starting at a lower level at that point right yes it'll continue to so at what point do we do and this is all speculation just and and i know that but based on what we're seeing now um at what point do we kind of get back to where we were in january 2020 how about we get to the scenarios and that will help answer that question okay thank you could i just add a side note on the enrollment question that you raised director moore there is there's quite a bit of advocacy on on the part of superintendents in the state to hold enrollment numbers harmless for the purposes of budget allocation this was echoed with the governor today every district has seen fluctuations in most cases you know several hundred students for a district our size across the state to go with the adm numbers pre-pandemic knowing that part of our educational recovery will need to rely on those resources to make sure every student's accounted for i think before we get to the scenarios direct uh um claire that i think director bailey and maybe director constance had questions so let's let them ask those before we move on to the scenario mr bailey what was admw uh the previous year that's shown on the slide i don't have it in my head was it pretty flat nicole um yeah so we're on uh it's it's 57 582 for the current year and and prior year was a i believe about 150 more like 57 7 35 something like that so it was slightly even with that's even with the drop in enrollment that wasn't a larger decline it wasn't no uh and it it could have been also because of the hold harmless from the year before so i'd have to go back and see if we were on extended adm from the yearbook before as well which is a possibility um but i think it is important to put point out that we are on a slight decline in enrollment projected forward um that we need to take into account in in terms of all our planning processes um pandemic aside yeah exactly um oregon rate i mean our the birth rates in oregon and those moving here um are less likely to have small children so we've known that sort of this enrollment drop is coming yeah i'm waiting for the uh celebratory boomlet on the way back and the economist in me has to point out that even if jobs are back to where they were three or four years prior because we will have some population and growth in that period of a couple of percent uh we'd still be a bit behind the eight ball by that population growth rate um you'll notice that jobs but more people yeah go ahead you'll notice that we're being conservative at four percent when you compare it to the 4.88 so we're still on we're both conservative in the enrollment number and in the um growth of the dollars per idiom so so we're being conservative to because the we're always wanting to outperform what our forecasts are so two two things that would help me get the bigger picture one i want to echo director brem edwards having actual dollar numbers in a table would really be helpful to put that in perspective and second federal funds are still an important part of the budget and if federal funds drop it impacts how we think about using the general fund i'm thinking in particular of special education services but title one uh all of the title programs for native americans immigrant students and so on uh so if we're looking at a budget picture going forward i think that's an
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important component that's missing and it was certainly missing from our budget discussion this past year and that [Music] made it really difficult to understand some uh some really important pieces of how we're moving forward funding services so i i'd like to see that fully integrated really all that the the special funds program be integrated with the general fund in terms of budget presentations going forward and there may be some other funds in there as well but that's that's the main one that stands out for me certainly in our um quarterly financial reports we are giving you the all funds and the this forecasting our goal our goal here was to give you a four five year forecast for a general fund to help us make a decision a board goal on what our general fund balance should be maintained um how how much we should reserve in the general fund so the focus on those forecasts has been for the purpose of helping set that goal but i totally agree with you that our our usual budget presentation and our quarterly financial reports do cover all funds and we have in recent years there's been two very large um state sources of revenue where before um most of our state sources came in general fund where that's the student success act and the measure 98 or the high school success act or funding those two pieces of funding are so significant in terms of how we're spending in our schools we have included those numbers because we as you um heard from nicole earlier the money is actually shifting um between a grant fund to a general fund the re um we're spending and then we're going to put it back because the state has um fluctuations in their funding levels uh much much more significant than the funding level changes than the at the federal level but i appreciate um the concept of looking at all funds together and and tonight our goal is to really establish that fund balance reserve for our general fund it just makes a difference uh for how i would view that fund balance if uh i heard that uh our federal funds were going to take a 10 million dollar hit or on the other hand a miracle happened and congress decided to really fund special education for example like it's i promised 40 years ago um that would that makes a difference in in the decision my decision clara we're going to move on to the [Music] and i sometimes get it wrong we're fine i'm happy to go on to the scenarios we could bring those slides up please okay and nicole i think this is your slide uh yeah if you want to pop back one roseanne that would be great yeah so this is just um the board goal for the general fund was to get to reserves by 2025. so with that as our original goal the bit uh the plan to achieve that goal and so this is kind of just to to focus the conversation as we start working through and looking at the scenarios in the next few slides so this is andrew when was when was that goal established so that goal was it used to be in board policy and recently um and it said on 10 by 2025 um we uh changed the policy a couple of i want to say two years ago maybe yeah and um we maintained um that level um that because what the goal had been um of now it's a five to ten percent range in policy but it's not by there's no more date it's the policy has more flexibility in it but as you'll see a strong fund balance helps us get through the recession and um staff have been actually outperforming that as
01h 40m 00s
you look at scenario one were you can see and i can see that i'm missing years on this slide so this is um 2021 is the nine percent fund balance that's what we're projected um to end the year this year um in our general fund so our goal was for this year nicole i don't have it in front of me was it six percent seven percent six percent six percent so um with our in remembering that nine percent includes um our furlough days um and the work share program in the spring and summer as well as our purchasing and hiring freeze last spring so we really raised our fund balance up by several percent um so if we were in this scenario we have these are all in thousands right so when you see um 63 that's a million when you add the thousands right 63.6 million fund balance is what we're rejecting for the end of this year so holding on to um what we had carried forward from last year but and we're real we're able to realize that because there are some we're having some savings and substitutes we're having some savings in transportation um and at the same time we're having increased costs it's kind of it's um you know we're having to move a lot of furniture around um to get ready for hybrid we're cleaning supplies um masks you know there's a um hand sanitizer all those things their costs have gone up but at the same time there's been some offsetting so we're continuing to watch that closely and we're tracking with a project code on our covet expenses so we really know how much we're spending there and so we've been able to um keep a a good eye on that and we have a approval system with executive leadership meeting to approve before large coveted expenses are are being made but i can tell you that we're spending what we need to spend to make our schools safe and healthy for our staff and students to return so um so with this this scenario shows a one percent fund balance per year so if we were to spend um down one percent going from nine percent at 20 um 21 down to 4 and is that 25 26 nicole i don't know um yes okay i just want to make sure i got that right yeah um and then if you you'd see we'd go from a 63 million dollar fund balance to a 30 million dollar fund balance um and you can see that we would have to make reductions if you look at the shortfall and the reductions needed that's in general funds so we'd need 19 million in the first year and it would continue we in this second year would be 6 million so that's a lot of fluctuation and then going back up to 12 and then 13 and 17 each year mill in the millions again we have um we would be able to move some of our general fund expense permanently over into the sia funds to return it back that's where we originally um plan to spend it but then receive more general fund this year and less sia that's you know turning around for next year so when we're able to utilize that and move those investments back then the shortfall goes down to 12 million and then the second year there would not be a shortfall and then it goes to 5 6 and 10 in the future so that would be an example of using one percent fund balance per year what would happen so let's go on can i make sure i understand this slide before we move you bet okay so if we kept it at nine percent then what we're looking at projected next year is a 28 million dollar deficit minus seven would be uh because that's roughly nine million that we're looking at at reducing that fund balance so our our revised shortfall would be 21 million if we if we kept the fund balance at nine percent is that correct that's about right yes okay and all the way across so we're looking a sort of total deficit over the next five years of roughly i i'm looking at 33 million summing up the bottom line yes and another 33 million
01h 45m 00s
the top line so a total 66 million if you were maintaining nine million is that what you're saying yes okay so look yes and let's go on to another scenario and then we'll see how it can impact it um sorry before you go on my question um and it's it's a question that's going to apply to all the scenarios um so i just read the oregonian article on um on governor brown's budget proposal which basically has just the the headline number um so what she's proposing for um for the for next year in the state school fund is 9.1 billion um which is almost level with what we got this year correct so um so why are we talking budget deficit why why are we talking shortfalls we have contractual obligations to our employees on cost of living adjustments and step increases health care insurance increases i think you saw a list of [Music] property and liability insurance utilities there's a our our costs don't remain flat each year so when if the revenue stays flat and the expenditures go up then we create a shortfall okay which then compounds the fact that the current service level funding isn't actually current service level that's correct that's what you're seeing here okay thank you okay so this is the second scenario and this is if we were to grow the fund balance per the grow the goal in the first year we'd only have to maintain seven percent so our reductions would go down to five million so we'd be using two percent if we just stayed on track with a goal this is not something that we're recommending we're just trying to show you if if we just stayed with a goal that's currently we've been um following and then if we then increase one um percent a year then it the next year would be 20 million and then six and then seven and three so you can see that one of the um hopes we have is financial leadership is creating more of a smoothing across years and not having um you know a large fluctuation in a specif specific year hey claire i i may be missing something obvious but in scenario two where we grow the fund balance so we're increasing our fund balance over time the deficit in year five is lower than the deficit uh in year five where we're spending down the fund balance so in um i need to see them side by side which i it's hard to do on this screen alternatively if you add up the bottom and the top like i did on scenario one it it doesn't square guy you're intent on doing your own math aren't you i'm intent on trying to understand what the numbers are yeah i'm just giving you a hard time i'm sorry i know um yeah no when i just looked at the the the five-year number in scenario one after spending down it seemed like we would have about a ten million dollar um uh deficit but but but if we were increasing fund balance we ended up with a 3.4 million so it seemed like either there were some different assumptions there or or something was something was missing so i'm um trying to get them side by side so i can answer your question um so what you're saying [Music] is that in scenario two you would expect that more would need to be reduced because we're growing and i think what what happens is we carry forward the savings when we're increasing our savings each year it's snowballing into lower expenses in future years if that makes sense okay yeah actually it does right so we did see we did see um right there was more of a deficit in every year up until year five and so you're saying if we're taking those ongoing reductions in the early years they would compound into potentially larger savings by year five yeah that's roll-up savings
01h 50m 00s
is that because you're carrying forward the same assumptions about service levels so we're using uh a current service level model so based on we did we did tell you what the enrollment was and then we look at staffing allocation for that enrollment and then carry that forward but when you make a reduction we have a shortfall you're actually bringing down the total cost so the next year you're starting with a lower cost so the sooner you lower your costs the easier it is to smooth it out over time so let me get to the next scenario because that will help you see that if we go to scenario three so if we go to scenario three and and said let's just keep a seven percent all the way across that's the goal this year so what happens here is that um it's still at the the five million but then when we go to the second year and um there isn't additional um reserves used then we have a bubble there in that second year and then it goes down in the third carries forward in the fourth and the fifth and let me show show you one more at eight percent next scenario slide so here if you put your um reduction in up front at the end just maintained at the eight percent it actually evens it out for the rest of the years so um in terms of maintaining your um in terms of keeping it smooth over time and not creating a bubble of a reduction in one year over another so when you take it in the first year it help it lowers it and across in the future years so i i think you're making a really important point that that maybe was the whole goal here and i'm just slow and catching up so apologies for that but you know yeah i mean your bottom line here is that the sooner we take the reductions the better off we are i i i will tell you that that um yeah and one of the ways that we often talked about that um you know at this at the city of portland was in ongoing versus one-time revenues and really talking about if you take one-time cuts right so those you know materials and services cuts that are unsustainable or you know furlough type savings those types of things they help you in one year but they don't help you in the long run if you take the ongoing cuts which is actually you know uh ongoing salary reductions or cutting programs off making those expenditures they help you and it compounds over time and so that i think yeah that's it's it's an important thing as we keep in mind as we go into this budget process and and that is definitely the assumption we've made is that we're current we're making reductions that um carry through the five years we're not using one time only money the one time only money is using the fund balance right and then you that's when you create bubbles in um your reductions because you can't use it again in the second year you have to reduce that all over again plus something else okay can i make an another stab at this um to see if i'm understanding because i i was not understanding correctly the first time okay okay so in this slide if we do it this way in next year we will have 12 million dollars below the equivalent of our current service level correct the year after that will only be six million short of our current service level correct would that actually mean that we'd be doing potentially some hiring or what what's well no it doesn't it me we still each year we'd have to make a reduction because right now our revenue is not growing as fast as our expenses so what we're suggesting is by maintaining the higher fund balance early on it actually lowers the um your service level it lowers your expenditures fewer employees hired in year one actually makes it easier to get through year five and so when and really to be in all honesty by the time we're talking about um hundreds of millions of dollars 10 million over five years with a lot of variables is our best estimate right and so just understand that each year we'll be updating these
01h 55m 00s
as as we continue um to have you know the um each year's information um and also how the recession and recovery are going and what we're hearing from the state level so we'll continue to refine these projections each time each fall we'll want to do that for the fall to create what are we doing for fund balance in the next year and so one thing that was in the report that we didn't mention is our current reserves if we um just didn't make any reductions they would go down to zero percent after a couple of years um we'd only make it through two years and then we would have no fund balance and the reason we don't do that is because our fund balance is a sign of goods solid financial health and for instance we just had bond rating calls i just got a report from s p um today that that says that they're affirming our rate with a positive note and so though that is um something that um is really important for the interest rates on our debt when we're issuing bonds to rebuild our schools so we're really interested in maintaining a fund balance because it's not only just how do we get through general fund it's exactly what you were talking about earlier director bailey and that is the need to look at all funds and the impact it has so when we spend down in general fund it actually has an impact on our credit rating and it has an impact on what interest rates we pay on our debt okay so i i still do not understand these scenarios and i'm a i'm a numbers guy yeah um so i don't understand if whether at the end of year five were ending up cutting 12 million the first year another six million off and and let's let's put this in terms of teachers with a teacher salary at a hundred thousand just to help i think this is very crude but the first year we'd be cutting 12 million that's the equivalent of 120 teachers yes does the second year mean if we're cutting six million we're cutting another 60 teachers yes and then the next year another almost 60. so those are cumulative numbers of 18 23 30 40 million uh total cuts is that correct that's correct i don't i don't see how in scenario one when i totaled that up and got 33 and the projected fund balance helped me with my math also went down 33 for a 66 million total hit this is 3 million up top and what am i doing wrong with my math here and only 40 million down below so are you comparing um scenario one and scenario four you're looking at the aggregate hit to the budget over to biennia uh so so the difference is you still maintain a 60 million dollar fund balance in scenario four and you only have a 30 million dollar fund balance in scenario one right so that would lead me to think that that total cumulative deficit would be 30 million better in scenario one and scenario director bailey what did it sound this is ali what it sounds to me like you're saying is that so we would had 63 million in our fund at the beginning of year one and then we'd have 30 at the end of year five and we also would have what is it 40 million in cuts but then in scenario that well scenario one we have um 33 million that we lose in our fund and then we have 33 million in cuts so that would be a total of 63 but here we have a 40 million 43 million dollar loss in scenario four because we lose three million from the fund and then we lose 40 million in um the shortfall
02h 00m 00s
is that correct yeah so what where where is my math where is that reasoning incorrect help me out so that in scenario one we'd be spending 33 plus um we'd end up submitting 66 million where in this scenario scenario 4 we'd only be spending 43 million nicole do you have an answer for us on that yeah i think you mean it's cutting yeah so it is still it's still it's still you're still losing it in scenario four in a sense it's just in your fund balance so you see your fund balance going um [Applause] over the year so it's still sitting there um and again my my reasoning may be wrong but um help me figure it out the reason i mean i think it's scenario four we put more save more money in the fund balance and then in scenario one we're we're taking more out of the fund balance to sort of um keep that shortfall you know instead of cutting 40 million we're cutting 33. um and so we're saving money but we cut it over time in a different way so that's why it's actually more of a loss than in scenario four that's what i understood deputy hurts to say so it depends on what our goal is um so when when you look at what you lose over five years between scenario one and scenario four um you have um you have more reductions to be made in scenario four over time but smoothed out however you're still maintaining that 60 million in the fund balance and what it does is it maintains the financial health it helps with our debt service interest rates and it does um when you take reductions sooner each year in increments it it actually helps you in the following year to keep your costs down and not have as much roll-up costs right so it compounds the savings over time and thus continuing to realize um uh the larger fund balance so what were while reductions are not an easy thing to do by doing them in an earlier year you realize the benefit of that reduction through the five years not just in the first year and that's what's driving it so looking at uh director bailey there's a lot more detail behind these numbers but looking at scenario one when we use fund balance of 33 million we're actually only identifying 133 million in reductions over the over the total which means we still have that that additional resource we have to reduce in order to balance whereas in scenario four because we're not using the fund balance we actually have to identify those reductions in each year and carry them through so we actually identify about 155 million in scenario four um and use less of the fund balance so it ends up um we're identifying the resources but it's just coming out of um reductions in scenario four rather than fund balance which is one time funding and so we still have to make it up in the next year i think i see what you're saying [Music] and again i want to say if we had some real numbers it would have been i think immediately apparent and i'm sorry if i sowed some confusion we're happy to provide a more detailed um five-year chart we were trying to um trying to project something in a virtual meeting is very hard to help share with the community and help them understand that certainly we'll add an appendix to the multi-year finance report we'll up we'll be updating with um if we could go um to the next slide i really want to ask this is the
02h 05m 00s
question we want to ask you um but then what we'll do is we will bring back the revised financial report we'll get that back out to the board once we've had a chance to work through the governor's budget and we will also provide you the chart that has the numbers that you're looking for the dot you know it'll be you know a multi-line chart with a lot of numbers on a page with multiple years going across so we'll um and then we'll be happy to um even uh we'll make sure that gets um becomes available to the community because this comes back at our next meeting in december where we're going to ask for an action item from you to help set what fund balance you'd like to have for um 2021 or 2122. all right i'm going to ask us i know that we've got families and people waiting for us um to begin our work on the southeast guiding coalition so deputy hurts do you want us to respond to this question now um or is this something you want to bring back in another meeting so if we're um it would uh event it will be important for us to have a goal from the board it would be best to have it in the second meeting in december um and so that we can do our work in january okay so this question you have before us right now about which would we recommend we don't need to answer that right now that's something that can come back at our next meeting for us to reflect on yes and we'll make sure that we have an updated report um from the governor as well as um the additional numbers that you're requesting because we have lots of numbers scott we'd be happy to director bailey we'd love to share them with you i don't know yeah i know that there's a lot of there's a lot of interest in to speak to this and ask some more questions um i know that um i'm gonna allow time for that but i do want us to remember that we um we do have people waiting for us and that um to be thoughtful about knowing that this conversation will continue at our next meeting um to think thoughtfully about those whether it's a question needs to be asked now online or if it's something that we can send in an email or if it's something we can ask next week so um let's go ahead i know that let's see rita has a question amy has a question and i think director bailey so let's just go in that order rita amy and then scott and then anyone else after that andrew has his hand up as well okay sorry i can't see andrew i can only see guadalupe michelle nathaniel and terry was all i could see i'd like to i'd like to speak as well and ask the question or get him in the queue okay okay um so i'll i'll try to keep this short knowing that we're coming back um so i would like to get more info about scenario two um because that actually with the exception of the year two that looks like it it might be more balanced and i'd i'd like to take a look at um doing seven percent year one seven percent year two and then and then see what happens with that um and and i i guess i'll just say um the uh alien and i were on cbse when we came up with the proposal to the board um to establish a a real a real policy around um maintaining a fund balance um so this isn't um the reserve issue has been a big item for me for a while um so i i don't um i don't easily suggest that we um raid that money um but at the same time the intention of fund balance is to provide a sort of rainy day fund um and it's raining uh and it's gonna continue to rain so um it makes sense to me that we would kind of a general orientation my general orientation is um the money's there for a reason this is the reason so i would be in favor of um of uh using this money for its intended purpose to um to kind of even out the the funding um volatility um
02h 10m 00s
and i think rita this is all stuff we can i think this is a time now to ask questions for clarification and i think your point about wanting more details on scenario two is great um but i think that more substantive discussion about which direction we want to go to can wait just because we have folks waiting for us at the at the southeast guiding coalition um and part of the narrative is that we're we've been disrespectful of people's time uh with the southeast guiding coalition and their commitment to this work so i want us to have a robust opportunity to engage with this financial moment but i also want us to be aware of um other obligations we have so if you have a question to ask now that's great and then we can have further discussion at the next meeting so director moore did you have any further questions no go ahead all right i lost track of who's next all right amy and then scott is that what i said so um deputy superintendent hertz i have two questions one is and this can come back to us later when you talk about the the fund balance as a representation of our overall financial health of the district i think you're talking about that in a way that can actually be quantified um not just so i'd like to know more about that and you know what is uh what is the floor there as far as having a good bond rating and such so just a little more detail there and then my other question is um you we didn't have any staff recommendation here so if you want to quickly present any staff perspective relative to the scenarios you put forward i think that'd be helpful i always have a staff recommendation but i prefer to bring that back in round two because i wanted to hear from you first all right scott and then director scott and then director scott real quickly um i'd like to see uh scenarios that included the federal funding uh a range of possibilities and also with the local option uh a range of possibilities i think you gave a conservative estimate that you're using i think that's prudent but um also would like to see some arranged there and i just want to say next thinking positively next year we are fully back in school we have a ton of kids with a big deficit i'm very hesitant to have a large funding cut in those conditions thanks um very quick question you can answer now or or when we come back i know the government finance officers association recommends two months worth of operating expenditures as a reserve which is actually about 16 a little more than that but i don't know if that applies to local governments i don't know if they have a different standard for school districts so that's just a question i'd like to know more on i can bring back more about that next time thank you julia yeah so um just a request when it comes back if we could have um the years across the top and the previous two years um which includes the pre-ssa so we're getting about a billion dollars from the ssa in so i'd like to see how that looks over time um like director constant i'd like some specificity on like what um level we would need to maintain our credit rating or what sort of the expectation of the range um obviously we've had it at different levels of the last several bonds that we've passed um and then finally i'm going to have a hard time next meeting providing an answer because um this is all sort of in a vacuum outside of what we are going to need to do um i i believe we have for many students a massive learning loss happening this year and as we head into next year i'm going to want to know what is what are we going to need to do that's different to so close that gap or accelerate learning for those students who um cdl was you know has not been a good experience so i'm going to have a hard time picking a number because it seems very random without knowing what we're going to need to address a pretty unprecedented um i believe learning loss for a lot of students so that's i don't know what the answer is but i'm i'm going to have a hard time in december saying this is the number without having a better sense of what impact and what
02h 15m 00s
what our students are going to need coming out of this director depos did you have any questions i don't have any that have not already been raised i think i i don't i have any other questions either um deputy hurts i just really appreciate the conversation and i'm looking forward to bringing you back the next round and just recognizing this is the first time we've had this kind of conversation and we even have to learn how to have a conversation so certainly i can see um some different ways for us to help the board understand the information better and certainly your questions are helping guide us on what we need to bring back so thank you for your time tonight um director scott has graciously suggested that we skip our um conversation about the election tonight to respect the time of southeast uh folks that will be joining us um but that means we still have one more item on our agenda well a couple more items on our agenda tonight excuse me and we're going to verify that sorry what um excuse me the election because we're having a bond sale we need to have the certificate no sorry uh the certification of the election results is gonna happen it's the discussion about the board election that's not gonna happen so uh thanks claire for i'm being super confusing i apologize so director room edwards did you want to say something about the um election results before we get to um superintendent guerrero are we going to move the item i'll just say this part of moving we're i'm gonna have superintendent guerrero uh introduce this first and then we'll get to moving uh we'll get to the motion and we can bring your point then julia superintendent guerrero and i think our director of government affairs courtney wessling is making a guest appearance just to provide an overview am i on yes okay yeah this is different but i like it okay um hey board directors good evening um i just wanted to give you a little background it'll take two seconds um we have to by statute uh certify the election results within 45 days of the election every time we pass the bond so that's what we're doing here it's pretty much a formality but it's also exciting to see the numbers in raw data so the resolution details the county breakdown of results from the november 3rd bond measure um passage and i'm not gonna read them all but you all have them in front of you so you just need to say yep we like it let's move on so we can sell them and start you know planning more work to do for the community so that's what you have in front of you and thanks for all of your work getting it to this point all right so we're gonna go ahead i think i already heard some uh emotions there so we're gonna do it formally though do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6213 resolution accepting certification from multnomah clackamas in washington counties for november 3rd 2020 voter approval of authorizing portland public schools to issue up to 1.208 billion of general obligation bonds to improve health safety learning by modernizing repairing schools and i heard director bailey move and director brian edwards ii um is there any board discussion director from edwards yes i just wanted to note and i'll make a brief um that just to once again thank everybody who worked on this um the results are pretty stunning if you look at the precinct price precinct of the 68 precincts only in two precincts um did we not pass it and then 35 of the 68 precincts were over 70 and 11 we were over 80 percent um so just a great effort from our community the parents all the board members who worked on it and the staff that helped build the package um it's a pretty sweeping affirmation of the package and the work that's underway just by the numbers all right great mrs bradshaw is there any public comment oh sorry is there any further board discussion ms bradshaw is there any public comment no all right the board will now vote on resolution 6213
02h 20m 00s
all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6213 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative stu voting yes great all right is there any other business at this time before we adjourn to our um work session lowry that was a really important election not to delay in certifying so congratulations to the board and i also want to read reiterate another appreciation to all our voters it was a very impressive sort of not just turnout but also uh yes vote yes thank you and thank you especially to uh all of the directors who worked so hard on the campaign and especially director brim edwards for that valiant and amazing effort so um thank you all right we're gonna adjourn this meeting our next board meeting will be december 15th we're gonna take five minutes and we will start our work session at 8 30. thanks everyone chair lowry is there there's a different link for the work session or we stay here i believe


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