2022-10-20 PPS School Board Levy Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2022-10-20
Time 16:30:00
Venue PESC Unspecified
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: Board of Education Levy Committee Meeting - 10/20/2022

00h 00m 00s
you can uh thank you for joining us so we're gonna we have a quorum of the committee um so we're gonna go ahead and get started um Andrew I shared before we officially started that um because of the Cleveland High School transportation hearing um this evening we are going to try and wrap up in an hour um which we don't have anybody sent for public comment do we which I think is should be doable I'll let you get back to whatever you're you're doing so that and we're not having um making any sort of decisions this meeting or taking any actions um the purpose of the meeting is really to um set the framework for the local option Levy um and a recommendation from the committee and so what I put together with staff was so some base level documents so everybody has a sort of or not just for this meeting but also for going going forward um do you have access to those Andrew yep I do have those those are what's in board book right correct um and I mean one of the agenda items will be like what else do what are some other things other people will want to the next meeting or at you know the next couple meetings what else do we need but I thought this was like a good foundational um sort of background for committee members of like what was in the last Levy what we've done so far and then sort of like what the legal requirements are um I initially had tried to get Carol Samuels for this meeting to like um provide background information on what will probably be an important early conversation for us to have or information session which is around the uh the dollars um well the the what potential there is to increase our receipts um because there have has been a discussion at least at a very high level by the board on what the possibilities were and like what kind of space we have within the law Carol wasn't available for this meeting but she is available for the next meeting which will be on November 8th so that'll that'll be like another piece of information that we have and I'll have an opportunity to ask group questions um about a highly technical subject but important because it will dictate about whether we can um go for Mark go go for more this year or and that could also impact our recommendation on timing um if there's some things that would need to happen before that um so before we get started any questions about the agenda or any of the frame up not for me okay um so the first agenda item is again just background information um it's a matrix that has um the amount of money so this is um this local option five-year option started in 2019 we've got three years of receipts um to date and um so this is just a chart that basically shows the the receipts from our local option which seemed to be a little bit lower than we predicted initially um in in our when we referred it and then you know how what percentage of percentage but what the overall District operating budget is so kind of how it fits within that um and then how many FTE it purchased and then our total FTE um again it's just sort of giving us a reference point of it's it's about 10 right now about 10 percent of our um operating budget and um those are fdes those aren't just teachers so is that right are those teaching ftes I think asked for all but don't we have six like six thousand employees sorry um yeah somewhere I think I asked for all so I clarify that because this looks more like a teaching number maybe which would be a third and that's what Alberto said in his email that we can look at it like about a third so let's just get that clarified so because so anyway it's just a show like here's here's the importance of the local option um and where it fits because anybody have any questions about this document or any any other sort of like can I just tell you what that email
00h 05m 00s
he said said um from Norberto just for context he said um uh when we prep for the FY 23 report we'll be leveraging last year's data although A good rule of thumb to understand the support provided by the levy is the one-third rule as an example when thinking about the current teacher FTE at a school if 27 teachers a third would nine of them would be paid by the levy yeah so we should just clarify this column or like re-title the column I can just um it sounds like the teaching positions yep anything Gary or Andrew that would be helpful in terms of our larger frame for information on the budget that you'd want nope um maybe it might be useful on this to have a column that is what we projected versus real real part numbers versus real numbers yeah I mean this is it's a little bit less and I guess I'm interested it's like I'm trying to maximize this hello do you need materials or um thank you for coming we were just saying this is primarily like a information setting for active framing meeting um to set up our future meetings for the New York Foundation to the board fantastic uh I guess Julia my only question on on that is is do we need the projection I mean projections are always wrong so I mean when when we went out with the levy it would have been based on you know property taxes at the time home values there's all kinds of variables the actuals I think are really what's important in terms of what we've collected um is there value just to go back to the projections or yeah I get maybe you're putting a sharper point on what why it is like what what the question should be maybe it's not like what were the projections but um so for example if we thought we were going to get more this past year like what like is there something we did um that resulted doesn't us getting or a lower rate I mean I don't know if it's compression or yeah I don't know is it could it could it possibly be as far as adding that that extra line of heart projection is that could that be used as an argument of maybe why we need more because we didn't get enough I don't know I'm just I'm just asking it's uh it's also you know did some people not pay their property taxes unless the investor can use it for something like it you know I'll be kind of skeptical of putting it on there and that's we can use it too okay I guess I can ask Carol like maybe at our next meeting um because if maybe that's a question for next hold that question first okay we don't need to add it to the the column so you also have the CBR the cbrc reports which are um for the last three years one of the things though we don't yet have available is each of the CBR cbrc reports has a document attached to it that is the general fund local option Levy Staffing by school it's this this document and when we went to put this together we discovered that we only have the 1920 the 2021 and then the 21 22 is when are we going to have that to be used for this year's cbrc report I don't know when it will be finalized you can find out yeah that would be good to just because unless it's just an accounting exercise it's good to have all all those threes so one of like just setting ourselves on our conversation up for the community of like um hey Chief Joseph you know in 1920 you received you know six FTE that were funded by the local option and you can go through that so it'd be great to have that if we have a five year Levy but we only have two years of data um I think that would look somewhat incomplete any questions about these materials again this is like base documents if you're just background okay maybe we get out of here earlier
00h 10m 00s
than that um then you also have in your pocket a um a document that's the Portland Public School District measure 26 207 it looks like this year yeah um but that is this this what the um what what the committee um ultimately that like the work product that's sending it to the board is the recommendation this is this is what we'd be approving what we'd be approving and then sending to Multnomah County elections um so it's pretty straightforward it's not unlike the bond that generally is more complicated um this traditionally has been pretty straight but yeah and it wouldn't likely change I mean it would whatever the rate becomes and we decide on as a district um it's still going to be about maintaining teaching positions and classroom supports like that is going to be the same so the language may get tweaked of it but kind of same end goal I think um and we probably need to have a discussion like that an agreement that that's what we want to keep it for um any questions about this can it be used for anything else oh yeah no yeah it can be used for the wheels start turning I mean I think within reason I'm not a this is Carol Samuels maybe Liz question but incorporating expenses it has to be operating and I'm sure there are limits but um but not it doesn't have to just do you know the answer to that question Andrew yeah it's just it's just limited to what uh is in the the explanatory statement in the the ballot language so so no there's no there's no limitation that I'm aware of um from an operating expense standpoint but it needs to be clear what the Levy's for so we can't say it's for one thing and then turn around and use it for somebody else but we can we can add if we want to add stuff in here that it can be spent for yes there was actually a long conversation about industrum supports last night in 2019 about the third bullet um to provide support such as random Specialists for struggling students um I mean the other limitation is maybe more of a political limitation so if you said we're going to maintain maximum flexibility and we're not going to say what it's for like that's a hard that's a harder conversation with voters like becomes a slush fund right because it's um so that's more of a so essentially what we're what we're looking at is whatever we put in here we need to be able to sell to the voters Sovereign it doesn't matter what I put well I shouldn't say it doesn't matter but if I feel like or if we believe that the vote the voters will buy it meaning that they will vote for it then we can we can put it in there but it's a risk because if we put something in there that we believe you know we believe voters will go for it and then all of a sudden they say oh absolutely not then we lose we do some research I'm just saying I just want to understand the the playing field yeah yeah that's you nailed it I mean let me put a finer point on it money for teachers is very very popular um money for drivers for board members so that we can get back and forth to our meetings going to be significantly less popular still legal not getting my 63 Lincoln out of this it's still legal but very you know I mean where where would matter is for example the board shows something that's not currently funded in the budget um and you'd have to think about the in the budget you still have to pay for the teachers um so if say you the committee or the or the it's ultimately the board's decision we're just making a recommendation to look at the board but say the board decided we think there should be a reading specialist in every school and we want the local option to pay for that and we're going to put it in in here like we would need to do that like because you but you say the money's gonna be used for you you need to do that um but that's like a that's something new that's not currently in the budget and that would have like a budget implication because you still have to pay for the 851 teachers that we paid for this year because you're not going to get you're not going to get 851 if you're getting reading Specialists for every schools so so they're so they're a cap
00h 15m 00s
I'm gonna do some of those in cap on the amount that we're going to get so we look at this 199 for every thousand dollar assessed tax value that's basically the pot of money we have to use if you choose to do a straight renewal right which means that taxpayers won't see an increase right or at least inflationary they would but um the only that's when it gets tricky where we have to bring in Carol because she gives you all the conversation we're gonna have at the next week yeah no I understand about the reason is but I'm just saying but whatever whatever that number is that's the total amount we have and if we add something else it'll be kind of deducted from that amount so if you say we want to I don't know drivers for PPS board members yeah that will get deducted from the overall amount yeah okay in a Salem we'd call that a carve out right we'd be carving out yeah you might be getting drivers Andrew right I'm trying to think so one of the things here for example it says over the past five years Olivia has funded an average of 825 teaching positions and if approved the new renewed Levy is projected to maintain that average over the next five years so that's like a commitment to the voters that like at a minimum for at least for this Levy that it's going to fund somewhere around 8.25. an average of 825. over the course of five years each year each year each year okay and we've been averaging that at least these last couple years we've been averaging more than that anyway because I see here at 908 and then for 1920 and then for 2021 873. is that correct yes and I think we dropped the number of um teachers here because we added this providing supports to recognizing there could be things that we that the district would budget for that aren't classroom teachers classroom teachers because I want to say it was 900 in the previous yeah around that that's what I remember um okay so this is this is like the end product this is the committee's deliverable um ultimately or a recommendation on what would be in here um you make it seem so simple I I know how much work it is to get out one page I remember we had that whole meeting it was over at Franklin it always does yeah um okay so then for um as part of the local option um and the referral it talks about there is a Citizens committee that review there's an independent citizen oversight which will review the expenditures to verify the funds are used as approved by voters so that's the cdrc and so what you have in your packet and again these are like just base materials for the committee's work are the three cbrc reports um and we know from past ballot measures and Survey work that the community is that independent review by cbrc is [Music] um important to community members that like somebody else's look at reviewing what we've done how we spent the money and to see that it complies with um what we told voters is that a legislative thing we have to do or that's something we chose we chose to do because um again there's a lot of community support for that so again finding this mix of um I'm going to buy teachers or drivers for board members um and and then who's going to verify that we have done what we said we're going to do could that people like accountability yeah no I get it can that be done by our auditor um that's a good question um what I'm looking at whether they're independent citizen review oversight piece because like when I was going to see our cbrc stuff they really didn't go over much around the Larry flood stuff we said well how many teachers is it well it's pretty cut and drive we got 825 teachers out of that then it's done so I would my thought process was to make it easier on them so they could actually go into the budget more if we can if this can be done by our auditor which is should be a real simple audit well yeah they did this here's the budget here's the amount of teachers we satisfy you know what we told the board but just the thought yeah so out of that's a great question I think would you consider it there are rules for what
00h 20m 00s
around internal auditing that like Professional Standards so we can find out whether that's something that they could do if that's internal pardon is it still independent it's internal well they yes because there's because of the standards um that's a question um you can do because you're I think you're right the cbrc report is more about the general budget they're building versus the like review the expenditures um then there's a document in um the potential it's the potential election dates the header is Levy referral protection election dates um because this was a five-year Levy that was approved in 2019 the tax receipts we we have a number of options on when we could go out we could recommend to the board that we go out to voters um so there's a big again like a committee recommendation to the board um so the election options are next May November of 2023 May of 2024 November of 2024 and may of 2025. um so even if you went as late which I like would not recommend as late as May 2025 you could still Levy the tax in time in which there would be no disruption of tax levies to um to the this District um and like there I have a whole host of reasons why I wouldn't recommend it but um but it's always so just this takes for example a 2011 Bond like you know things don't always pass um and you might have to go back out again so you wouldn't want to have your last let me be the one that say s you waited till May 2025 and then it didn't pass then you would have a disruption a very significant disruptive event feeling yes um and you know so there more of our community discussion we didn't do them on dates is um you know their pluses and minuses on each of these elections I think I would um which the mate May 24 and November 24 so November 24 just I think um we should sort of circle and unless things change that would be like the normally the ideal time would go out for the next Bond is that a presidential election year big turnout um does that work in our favor bigger tournaments versus it does I want to make sure you that we made that distinction because Julia just said that's that's the plan for the next Bond not the level oh right sorry yes sorry anyway and what I should say is that um the reason I raise the bond is I would not I wouldn't recommend having both a local option and the bond on the same ballot so oh so the bond is in 24. I mean that's generally you know our next four years four year cycle um but we can we can have more conversation about it but we'll have you know in there we'll need to have a um opportunity to renew generally knew the Bond as well well usually the bond goes out on the election years the presidential election cycle which would be November 2024 right so basically we're looking at the three prior either so maybe 24 or November 23. all right in May of 23. and they're going to all going to have different um are we ready for a million 23. given the given all the stuff that we're experiencing right now and all this we're gonna have the um the teachers I mean are we really ready for well I think we'll um take into consideration in terms of recommending to the to the full board yeah we're thinking about it the right way I think because we've got to make this make sense like it doesn't if if we bring it out too soon I mean I as many of the negotiations right now yes how did that play A Part yeah that's what I'm saying like is is this really
00h 25m 00s
when we want to do this I mean may I mean I'm thinking more like November to give us a longer uh a better Runway we could still be in negotiations in November I mean I mean I guess but either way I just I would just assume whether we went in in May or November that they would be in four because it's their teachers and realistically if if am I am I mistaken in that if we don't get this somebody's getting fired what do you mean like if we don't get the levy when it's time for it well if you don't get it by May 2025 then we're in a really bad situation I think you you didn't um did you say that you I'm not sure if I would just say you could do you could go out again so if it fails oh yeah so for example say we went in November of 2023 or went in May of 2023 and it didn't pass we could go back I mean like that's right yeah Why didn't it pass uh but if you waited till that last option then yeah you wouldn't have another chance so if we get I just want to like I'm a brass tax type person if we get to the end of this and we haven't got it yes these teachers are going home period cut and dry they're going home if by May 2025 we don't have a levy tax in place some money coming in teachers are going home I'll say um the board okay because we have to because we have to be that cut and dry when it comes down to it to explain everybody else when they talk because I feel like what's going to happen is people are going to try to leverage this leverage this over us right they're going to try to leverage this hang this over us well I'm not going to do this well then you're going home I'm not going to help you well then you're getting fired I mean because you don't have a job all y'all don't have a job without this somebody got to go home because I ain't paying for you so I mean I think when we start looking at it I don't well there's no money to pay them right so that's what I'm saying so don't don't hang this carrot over my head like if you don't support me then I'm not gonna vote for your Levy well then you just fired yourself I hope you're happy with it and so and that's how we have to be that that cut and dry we have to be that straightforward because it is what it is I mean we don't do we have the money to pay them if we don't get the levy well not unless we have a constitutional amendment that reverses measure five right so so then we need them to go to say so in addition to all of this we need to talk to them about going to Salem so they need to get we all need to get busy working don't just put this on me and think that all all the world's problems are my own everybody got to carry something away I just need to make sure that I was clear on it because again like I said I'm a brass tax type of guy let's just and we've had a history in Portland these these have generally passed at by good margins look at the job right let's keep it up who doesn't like to support education we can't you know we want to not get too comfortable with that we gotta work you know there's a campaign there's a whole and we've always had a consensus on when yes we've gone we've always built that so we have a um agenda item on like what stakeholders do we need to reach out to um hey Julia I have a couple of okay cool technical questions on this document I just want to make sure um so it's it says I think in that second paragraph sorry let me pull it up a level you know it could be on the May 2025 ballot still have time to Levy a tax attacks for 25 26 but I think that means a levy to Levy for tax year 2025 because again tax years are calendar years versus our fiscal year because and and I was surprised to read this in just a clarification uh the the sentence up above what we collect in November of 2024 actually funds the following school year budget and I actually I actually didn't realize that so so and that applies for every year so I assume what we're collecting uh next month right November of 2022 is not actually funding the current school year it's going to be funding teachers in next week okay so anyway it's it's a little bit of a technical point but I think that that sentence I want to make sure we get the it accurate because we all this came from Carol and maybe we change maybe that's the one that Carol had I think that was the one so you're saying that instead of saying fiscal year 25 26 we say tax year 25 26. I think so if I'm understanding the document the other but related to that and it's a question we can go back to Carol to clarify I believe if you Levy the tax in May of 2025 it is retroactive back to January of 2025. that is allowed under tax law but it is sometimes a harder sell so again I know we're not talking about 2025 is a very serious option at all but
00h 30m 00s
I mean just I just I just want to be clear that that those retroactive taxes add a an extra layer an extra complication the other thing I would want to really make sure and again I don't think any of us want to wait that long so it's that's why I say this is a this is a pedantic point that we don't spend a lot of time on but I also believe if we waited that long there would potentially be a question of whether the secretary of state would allow us to say it's a tax continuation versus a new tax even though the last taxes are being you know uh uh collected in November of 2024 if we went in 2025 it's really it's the Secretary of State who gets to decide whether we can say it's a it's a renewal of attacks or a new tax and I just I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to get to that point and and think it's going to be talked about as an extension a continuation but actually it would be new again don't need to spend a lot of time on that the the last thing I would say though is that that third sentence regardless the election selection the new local option would not be levied would not be levied I think same thing there until the 2025 tax year okay which means it would expire so anyways small points but I just wanted to those are good yeah and like non-intuitive things about this yeah to the more important conversation you all were just having um I think you know the the Dynamics if we're thinking about 2023 there are pros and cons for everything right and so I think 2023 in May it is pretty quick we would need to you know get our our act together you know pretty quickly and and get something on the ballot I think there's some Advantage because you know we will be in bargaining I think we're still going to be in bargaining next fall as well so I think either May or November of next year that dynamic's the same but there's an interesting issue with the legislature and I actually could make an argument on both sides on the one hand if we are making an argument during the legislative session sort of combined with a fiscal ask in Salem for you know full funding of what we need along with this Levy you know it could all sort of come together on the other hand waiting until November next year makes it a little bit more clear whether legislature did come down right and did they fully fund from the perspective we think or did they short schools and and and and and you know pass an education budget that required cuts which could then change the dynamic a little bit in terms of of what we're putting out November so I I I'm I'm I'm of I think we should as as Julie I think is trying to set up with this conversation for for next time I think we should put all those options on the table and really explore the pros and cons of them because I think I think there are there are pros and cons yeah I mean to your point Andrew like the two May elections like we will be in the legislative session but like this this May of 23 will be in the long one and there'd just be less known um so but those are yeah we may not know the number in May yeah and if and again this is just for the sake of everybody's just getting you thinking about the framework and our timelines um we did provide say if we chose one of the first two elections either May of 2023 or November 2023 these are like the the deadlines by which we'd have to do work like by next February if we want to go on May of 2023 there would be a whole um host of actions um a lot of it behind the scenes I mean just getting things ready um but for the board to refer um but as you can see you know then we um you know it then you're kind of into Sprint once you referring you got the voters pamphlet statement um do and you know raise the money well you should have been raising the money you know starting at the beginning of the year so it we just these are the ones where staff will be submitting things that if like if they're not submitted there's no referral and these are just election referral deadlines this is not including any Community engagement or PTA engagement or a campaign yeah yeah and but just so these are like without these there is no referral um now who's doing this on this 50-yard Dash is that us but once we like it once we make it feel regardless of when we do it whether it's this one or the next one are the the meetings that you were just referring to are we the ones hosting those meetings putting those meetings together and generally if that's what the tradition has been is that the board has like in conjunction with campaign campaign staff but for example the board has gone and done presentation at individual schools or gone to meet with different stakeholder um groups because staff there's um there's a firewall a bit at a certain point yeah and there are limitations on
00h 35m 00s
what staff can do um versus what board members can do so board members have the most flexibility um so in your unpaid volunteer role you have more flexibility for example I'm flexible um members of the board went to the back to school nights for their like the schools in their cluster I do that already perfect then you can just like you'll have a slide deck you'll have a slide deck and you'll like talk about the impacts and the benefits of the local option okay um and we'll we'll make sure that everybody understands like what's what's allowed and um I definitely need that yeah yeah we recognize like okay so some board members depending on when we go but some board members will have been through an election cycle already and other ones won't so we'll just want to make sure everybody has the same set of information about what we can do and also like what we can ask staff to do and what we can't have stuff to do um we send reminders out to staff as well okay okay so we know what the referral dates are again this is all just like I'm sure you're going to make a binder and this all in so you've got I just downloaded okay that's a good idea it's an electronic binder it's all in my Adobe file right here okay I don't know why I didn't think of that before so then we have like the very very different components so we've talked a little bit about the purpose like do we want it to all the teachers or something else so that that would be a recommendation for this from this committee to the the full board um the tax rate again that will be informed that will be informed because the tax rate says how much you can raise by our the discussion we have with with Carol um the election date we already just talked through that um there may be other considerations and I think Gary's raised one of them for example do we want to have you know can the internal auditor um validate versus um CBA cbrc but what I just said I just said there's no firmly replaced on sub account and a yearly audit will review the expenditures to verify funds I mean that's that's kind of what I thought but yeah so they're you know they're they're um this my sensors there haven't been a lot of changes in the in the past but if there's anything in here like I mean another thing would be other considerations may be you know this like if say if we did do teachers this what are we guaranteeing as sort of the average um because those are those are all things that um we can talk about we can also will also expect staff to come with a point of view or a recommendation um so and Julia maybe now is a good time just again but I think this is for for future meeting conversation but you know I'm really interested in in the board this year having a conversation about you know exactly these things and particularly around the tax rate and I think really you know and and it's a conversation with us as a board but also really with the community and there's a lot of complicating factors and this is maybe going to get a little bit into sort of the what information board members need you know for these future meetings there is there is a you know politically we're at one nine one point you know 1.99 per thousand so anything above that is a tax increase so politically we need to take that into account there is also a state cap and and Courtney has tried to walk me through this and Carol Samuels as I continue to forget the details but there is a state cap that we that limits what we can go up to that is also something we could ask the state legislature to to to remove um and so there's a there's a another piece of this that if we were interested in a in a substantial increase in this Levy you know what what does that look like in terms of of lobbying the legislature but then also what does that look like in terms of getting it passed right I mean there's this is the this is the trade-off of I'm I'm very confident that you know going back out for a tax renewal to continue to fund a minimum of 125 teachers in our schools you know a a good campaign continued you know fiscal diligence on the school district we're going to pass that Levy at the same time maybe our community is really interested in instead of funding 825 they're interested in funding 1500 teachers right and and and if that's the case and I'm totally making that number up want to be really clear um but you said that I just I we just got our tax bills so when you said that
00h 40m 00s
I'm just noticing my tax bill just shoot right up you feel it right you feel it and and you know we're in trouble we're playing with a lot of other things because for example Carol may say you could do that but you'd have to wait for the you know 2023 legislature to act on it in which case you'd need to light wait to the November 2023 so that's assuming that the legislature would do that for us and I'm just raising that because schools are flush with cash it's not true we know they're not getting the reduction you know but I just think we'll do everything we can it's happened before they've raised the limits for us four years ago it's not you know unheard of but we can't right now there's a lot that's going to change a lot of people are getting elected right new people come to the legislature that don't know anything about education Finance we're going to have our work cut out for us but the levy is confusing because the way that there's a threshold in statute that we were able to raise four years ago to keep a little more money here and not um spent not hand it back to the state to equalize you know with other districts um and it was kind of a tech we called it a technical fix it worked it was a good message um but that particular legislature legislator who helped do that is retiring so she won't be there so I just want us to be really um realistic that that will be a difficult thing to communicate I think it's possible I just want us to know there was another way there's another way to raise more money but it requires a constant change to the Constitution which would be a referral to the voters anyway let's hold that discussion for next week uh because it's the right discussion Andrew because I think you don't want to like hey do the easy thing and then people are like hey how come you didn't try for more try for more or you know why are we cutting teachers um so let's fund more teachers yeah I I agree they could the appetite could be I guess I think a lot of it is going to just be around the messaging right you know we heard from a lot of our community this year about class sizes and you know the and and they said you know we think plus sizes of 32 33 34 are too many and and and you know okay and if that's the way the bulk of our community feels then the only way to reduce class sizes is through additional teachers we certainly don't I don't I'll speak for myself I don't want to shift resources from the things and classroom supports and other things that we as a district are doing to raise student achievement but if that's if that's something that the community desires and they're willing to pay more in taxes for it you know then then maybe there is a uh you know a kind of a win-win solution here um you know that gets us to that point that's that's the reason I raised it Julia is yes I know we're gonna have a conversation in the future this also gets to the stakeholder engagement right how do we how do we ask this question of our community to sort of get get a sense from them of what they're willing to support and not just support to say oh yeah I support it but to support meaning to like to go out and Lobby for it and get their neighbors to vote and you know do all the things that would be needed because a tax increase is a lot harder to pass than the taxes renewal period foreign specific recommendations around purpose rate election dates average teachers per year internal Auditors versus validation versus cbrc so those are going to be the elements of like our deliverable in addition to the timing um so I'm going to move this number six what information to committee members need down to the down to the end because I'm gonna go to the other ones and we'll just we'll just end with like what people if there's anything they want for the next meeting so the next item was that it's just it's a blank Matrix um and this this is something from Jonathan but I wanted just to start the discussion because we're going to need to there'll be a point in time whether whenever we go where we're going to need to go have conversations with uh tiers of stakeholders and there'll be some you know like this is a huge stakeholder group and this is maybe one word like this you know a second um a second round um of stakeholders and they're based on that reinform and other ones that we consult um so I wanted to just give you a quick
00h 45m 00s
ideation from everybody groups that you think that we um need to engage and I'll just start with like I'd say all the labor groups um so just a quick question do we since we've done this before don't we already have a list of folks that we've done this with already um so my question where's the ones from last time uh not necessarily I'd say from last time um there was a conversation with informally with Pat um and I say we had informed conversations like after we referred but it wasn't like we went out and saw people's review especially if um my viewpoint is I was I think it's better to talk to our major stakeholders before you refer out of respect um because once you refer then it's like well you I I you know you already made a decision um don't ask why are you asking me now um and especially if we go if we went for a higher rate if that's something the board wants to do then I do think it is going to require a lot more intensive um set of discussions but we don't have a list I guess I'm just I think we have a list of like all the ptas I guess I'm just not seeing a group that's going to say no we don't want more teachers like I just don't I'm just not seen anything more is that a big enough group to engage with of those are saying no we don't want to continue with or have as much teachers like I got something to say if we know there's going to be a general consistency we do we use our time efficiently but in a different way um are there a bigger picture of why we want to engage them maybe for something down the road I'm just I want to know what that what's the plan what's the play here because I just don't see too many people saying no we don't want to have more teachers or the current number of teachers in our students well here's um here's why I recommend doing it first of all if it's anything besides the plain vanilla just like straight renewal what we've done you know then you you could get by doing less but the thing is um like the school board and District staff are not going to on their own like just submit voters panel statements and everything else it's like we'll want like what makes a successful campaign is um having you know Pat submit something have the District Council of students submit something have you know the you know local businesses um submit voter pamphlet statements and generally as somebody who gets asked to sign a lot of other people's statements I'm usually like um I would have liked you know I would have liked to have been had a conversation before you just referred it and then came and said like will you support this do you still support it pardon but do you still support it the question it depends um like like let's look at this one so say when we did this they say oh we know we already recommended but we would love to get a statement from you we'll do something with this something you'll be like you know what um you ought to talk to me about it first um no because like it's really cute right no I'm not you're not here what you say I just want to make sure that we we're if we're going to be spending time and effort and especially since you said these are gonna be board members who's going to be going out having these conversations I want to make sure my time is focused on a plan of action that is really valid and I think to your point it will this it will matter what direction to take if you do look at an increase right then you're going to want to do more surveying polling to know are people do they have an appetite to see an increase in their property taxes because to your point like people have seen a big increase over the years but not because it's an increase in certain ones but there's new stuff coming online so it you know that's going to be some people will say yes to anything because it's for kids or they and their kids are in the schools or their grandkids are in the schools um and some people will have a hard time within it with a new tax or an increase tax so that's not what people you know what you're hearing from surveys historically we go ask somebody for we have historical data right as far as when we look at
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um tax increases right historically if we look at the historical data do we usually show passing or not passing and in fact depending on what the increase is for so we're looking at increases for or even when they added the the tax levy yeah that was an increase what is the likelihood or historically of did not passive versus the past I mean that's the kind of dialogue we've always passed our local law I'm going to get you survey data from 2019 that we did um see because we did ask some questions and you you can see and again it's 2019 you can see the type of questions we ask so the other thing in addition to like voters Pam put the statements and everything else is like you have to fund a campaign um and you know like it's like who is going to go ask for the the resources um we have all our pastors pardon we have all our pastors um anyway so for me I would like I would want to have conversations with our labor partners um I would say this isn't like second tier but there's just so many of them and they're and they're smaller groups is like the ptas and um they're a stakeholder later later in the process maybe the Brooklyn Council of ptas um I would also want to go talk to a business Alliance because they've they often um are funders and member of their members are funders so I think last the last local option it was mostly businesses that contributed to camping and being ironically just got an interesting text from somebody relevant to all this from Jerry Wright oh really just randomly right now so weird yeah so do you have any anyone business for a better Portland is it oh yeah I said business associations um so I figured that's gonna be that do we is this something we go on and get endorsement for it too as far as like from the governor or whoever so okay so endorsements I'm assuming this is just like a regular campaign then we got to go after the faith community so we need to because I still feel like the the church is the um the center nucleus of all of our our communities yeah we want the support of I mean what makes our community strong is having strong schools and you know that among lots of things but I mean we can't have strong schools if we don't have enough adults to help us in those schools right yeah I'm just thinking too and this goes to what Andrew was talking about you know with covet happening you know and you know the the Lost education piece that a lot of people are talking about that might be appetite for folks to dig a Little Deeper even though I don't want to but to dig a Little Deeper um because we have that that issue out there right and so that could be one of the points that we make you know because that's the argument already so let's use that argument to say okay you're right you know this is an issue and this is one of the ways that we can help women need that do people understand that we have seen a reduction in state funding for the last 10 years level up so it wasn't like maybe five or something like that measure five so that's why the levy exists in the first okay so measure five and so a lot of people so if a lot of people don't understand that how much time have we spent explaining to people that or sharing with people helping people understand that because if they see schools as this you know this cash cow that has all this money and it's so lucrative and yet we as a school district are saying wait a minute we've actually be getting less and less over the last over the last 10 years so we've had to although although it seems like we're doing stuff we've been actually been cutting out making small incremental Cuts every year for 10 years and it just hasn't been as as noticeable because you move a you move a piano six inches at a time and then the next thing you know they don't know that the piano is in the hallway because they got used to it moving and I think that's what's happening with with us as a school district we've been getting less and less so six inches at a time and before you know it it's like wait a minute we don't have enough to turn the lights on and people don't understand that I think I think when people are looking at like Cash Cow piece or at least from the public standpoint they're not seeing
00h 55m 00s
the piano movie what they're seeing is the company we're hiring to move the piano so they see like the executive contracts they see those things and they're thinking well they should be fine because this one employee or two employees or three employees atoms but how many three thousand eight thousand employees are at this number so that's what they that's what they're seeing not knowing that the operating expenses is what is really driving the cost all they've seen is The Flash well you know he came up here in a Rolls-Royce and this is the same that's why they say he got a new one right but he's been with a partner right it's the same conversation that's happening in Salem around hey we know you think you've done a lot and you have we're grateful this for the Student Success of you know yeah we got semester one-time money one time honey and we've been you know this has been going on since 1990 when Metro 5 passed we've just been making up for it locally thankfully we are lucky there's only 18 or 20 local option levies out of 197 school districts we're one of the places that you know has a voter base that supports schools there are there are places that cannot pass a boss that could pass a bond or I love you um and so we're fortunate and um people think that because we have that we're doing so much better but really we're just making up for what the state couldn't do over 20 years too late it was May 23rd is that it is that is that that's the after the election is that what the election is now I'm talking about legislators legislators that is so how do how do we Lobby especially some of these new lessons to look at the funding model for so that's the intergovernmental committee well it's a different conversation but it's really it's relevant um and it's we're going to be starting in a pretty rough spot going into this next session this current service level conversation has not been that fruitful it's a wonky technical conversation but the current service level is the roll-up cost right where do you start the next fight in the next biennium do you start flat at the same level or do you go up a little bit they usually start a little higher but it's not nearly enough and that's what we're hearing is going to be the starting point we also don't know who our governor is going to be we have no Governor's but recommended budget we won't have one until February that's kind of unique right okay before we get too far yeah I'm sorry so we can talk about this let's go back so I'm gonna um stakeholders so I think I've got like a beginning list what I'd ask all the committee members is like send your ideas and just copy Courtney and myself um and we'll just like be building a list okay I'll just add one more list what about students or students oh yeah yeah students actually great last time and with a bond and the dsc's Really engaged and they want some more to do they want stuff speaking of that I asked irony for a student representative on this on this committee and she said she was going to do it two weeks ago I don't think it's happened yet okay I think they're still in the anyway we'd love to have one because um great call out anything else Andrew okay no um can I just make one quick plug yeah there is an intergovernmental committee meeting next Wednesday and among the items we're talking about is our legislative agenda kind of our draft just discussion draft so and of course funding is the big elephant in the room so I know you aren't on the committee but um if you want to tune in or come it's at one o'clock next Wednesday the 24th 26th whatever day next Wednesday is oh this is I won't be there but if there's something a task that you want me to do I am happy to just give me a task we will we're getting there okay yeah basically that meeting will just be talking about especially when you're not there to yeah just give me a chance if I need to go talk to someone yeah I wouldn't say that that was just one parent I can't you're putting in mine um so there's a couple other things that I didn't build in the timeline but we also have to do so there's some things other things required by law that's not required by the elections division like we have to do a tax supervising commission public hearing so there there are some mechanical things that are required by the law that has to happen with um by the board for the referral and
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then once the referral happens and it really does flip into almost all the cam campaign and that's where also the board is very Central because they could do we can do a lot more than other people's game so we'll also we'll build out we're going to be building out those timelines everybody you can see exactly when we do these different pieces um as this one we have our meetings with like our state representatives and our um no that would be more they're more stakeholders um so our state representatives like you know buying them refrigerant Janelle actually doesn't have any of PPS but she's she's obviously an important stakeholder in our conversation about funding at the state level maybe not as much on the local option because she doesn't represent um like Senator Fredericks but yeah yeah I've talked to him yeah and he's reached out about Jefferson this week and so their folks are reaching you know they're they're out there they're waiting to help and that's because they've been in the community since since day one I mean you're talking about the day one so they they're reaching out because they know these families and the families are reaching out to them and so they're in turn calling us back so I mean also I mean a reason why we would have conversations with legislators in the Portland delegation is they also were all very supportive financially um to make a lot of them have been parents of kids or they have you know they have our PPS schools and their boundaries so they've been helpful just on the providing campaign like signing voters sample statements have been also contributing to the issues how much does this cost a campaign yeah yeah so um so it depends again if you increase the rate it's going to cost it's a way different campaign than just a renewal so I want to say we spent um 130 that sounds right in 2019 and it ended with like a 40 000 deficit that for the and the 2020 Bond the first thing we did before we raised any medium for the bond campaign is we um committed to pay off the debt because the debt was to the campaign consultant around the campaign I mean it shouldn't never end okay so it should never ended we're looking at 130k just for a regular one I mean it was like it was like 170. I can get the materials but I don't know that we should be having that conversation yeah that's a campaign conversation um oh that's about the committee question it's just it's sensitive because it's but I can get identical campaign everybody's so sis it's like don't don't talk about politics staff got fined for some things that um happened during honestly the 2014 yeah the 2014 Bond so um it's a great question I'll provide you okay data and generally have a long conversation about that once a measure has been referred staffer like um to some extent um okay so I want to wrap up so the last thing I need to ask other base materials would be helpful for the committee to have before or for our next meeting so I think he's getting back to those earlier questions what what's the existing cap in state law and and is there any is there any room there that's something that I'd be interested in seeing okay this is the whole Carol yeah yeah and one other question this is more this isn't so much information and I want to be clear I'm not advocating for this but I'd be curious historically has either PBS or frankly any other District have they ever run two levees at the same time to say here's a measure that would extend the existing Levy and here's a measure that would increase in addition to that so it's kind of a it's kind of a technical question about whether that's allowed but it is also a political question as to whether that's wise or foolish I can make a strong argument that it's foolish but I can also make the counter argument so the whole thing um and it does put more pressure because it may be easier for people to say hey I can vote against you know vote against the increase but the risk-averse person I like it but I I think it's a great question um I will ask Liz to get an answer to that so we can talk about that because that could could be another option give
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me an option to have higher taxes they are not higher taxes I mean what you're really doing is saying look I'll vote for it what you're really doing you're saying you're saying look the the renewal of the existing tax that's not negotiable no you know I I like you said here nobody's going to oppose nobody's going to want to fire a thousand a thousand teachers right the question about a tax increase to May reduce class sizes more teachers whatever you know it's going to be more controversial so if you combine them you're hoping that the support for the base tax carries over to the new tax but you put the you know you put the whole thing at risk if you separate them you probably put the tax increase at more risk but you also make the question really clear to your voters I like that idea though I thought we as a district get some of that weed money we get a very small portion I thought I got to that got to then ultimately diverted to the 110. I don't know if it all did I gotta go back and look and I like the lottery money too don't get some of that too we do but it's I think this is more of an interview yeah okay okay so Andrew has a question is there any other data that relates to the referrals is there a is there a um like a a threshold like a percentage like we know that if we increase by X number of percent people are people are okay but if you go above that then they lose their mind so like is there a you know just nothing yeah like public opinion about yeah if we go up if we go up three percent you know people are okay you go up you go up three and a half or four and they shut the whole thing down like that's where the survey would come in handy okay um to kind of list out those thresholds and see where people land get a sample of people that say one thing or the others okay and I did anything else all of you just for background it's very technical but it's the one pager from the 2018 bill that we passed that just explains what we did yeah it we can talk about it with Carol it was a huge well my my preference would be to everybody to read any of questions like we don't have a committee discussion about it because like it was he spent an hour just on that well it was a huge win and it happened but I don't um and it sets us up well yeah but I don't know that we need to yeah that's why I send it to you thank you everybody um thank you


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