July 7, 2017 at 7:30 AM - Budget Committee Meeting

Description:  The purpose of this agenda item is to review the third draft of the budget for the
17-18 school year. I have attached the third draft of the budget for your review.

The changes between the second and third draft of the budget include:
1. An update to Funds 21/80/99 based on the activity that took place during the 16-17 school year
2. Federal grant allocations for Title 1 and 2
3. State common school fund grant revenues and expenses
4. State career and technical ed grant revenues and expenses
5. An update to state equalization aid/property taxes based on the July 1st DPI
state aid estimate
6. The summer school classroom budgets have been updated based on the 2017 summer school class offerings
7. Additional shared teaching staffing has been added for the music department-orchestra (+.67) 
8. The elementary schools resales and fees accounts have been updated based on the 16-17 actual activity
9. The Curriculum Department has moved funds from instructional materials to staff and curriculum development accounts
Please let me know if you have any questions on the third draft of the budget. You can contact me via email at ssummers@waunakee.k12.wi.us or via phone at 849-2491. Thanks.

Description:  The purpose of this agenda item is to discuss the wellness clinic financial report. The School Board approved the wellness clinic at the November 2016 Board meeting. Administration provided a strategic planning report on this topic at the March 2017 meeting. This report identified a 2018 decision process that included a financial report to the Budget Committee in May or June.  I have attached the wellness clinic financial report. The report is broken down into three sections, and we will spend time at the meeting reviewing this report. 

Please let me know if you have any questions on the wellness clinic financial report. You can contact me via email at ssummers@waunakee.k12.wi.us or via phone at 849-2491. Thanks.

Description:  The purpose of this agenda item is to discuss the 2017-2024 Lamers contract. The School Board approved the Lamers transportation bid at the May Board meeting. One of our discussion items with Lamers during the interview process was the topic of performance standards/incentives. I have attached the PowerPoint slide that Lamers presented on this topic. I have also attached a document with various options for performance standards/incentives. As a reminder, performance standards/incentives were not included in the original request for proposal. However, Lamers has expressed a willingness to include this type of language in the next contract. I would like to have another discussion with the Budget Committee on this topic before preparing the 2017-2024 Lamers contract. At the last meeting, the Budget Committee requested that I prepare some options, including both performance standards/incentives at the company level and the employee level. I would suggest that we first discuss what option is the preference of the Budget Committee, and then discuss the specific performance standards/incentives. Please let me know if you have any questions on the transportation contract. You can contact me via email at ssummers@waunakee.k12.wi.us or via phone at 849-2491. Thanks.

Description:  The purpose of this agenda item is to review the TC Alan Company proposal for professional consulting services. I have attached the following:

1) The TC Alan proposal
2) a presentation that Todd and I prepared for a Business Manager conference
3) an updated data analysis from Forecast 5 that includes 2016 data and is broken down by type of expenditure
4) internet data on the average cost of management consultants

As a reminder, I reached out to Todd Carothers to request a proposal to address the topic of budgeting and purchasing policies/practices for the supplies and non-capital objects budget line items. Forecast 5 data identifies this budget category as one where our district is spending significantly above the Dane County average. This consulting proposal follows a similar process to our successful project on reducing copying equipment and costs districtwide a few years ago. As you can see in the proposal, the number of hours is significant (180), due to the scope of this project.

At the May School Board meeting, there were several questions from Board members on this proposal. The first group of questions revolved around the success of the prior project on copy equipment. The attached presentation provides a thorough overview of the entire process as well as a financial summary on slide #32. The copy equipment project resulted in a $85,000 budget reallocation, with $50,000 coming from the District copy equipment budget and $35,000 coming from the Technology Department. The second group of questions revolved around the topic of other consultants and costs. I have researched consultant hourly rates and have found that Todd's rate of $135/hour is lower than typical consulting rates. We are not likely going to find a consultant near the hourly rate that Todd has proposed. The main reason for this lower rate is that Todd provides consulting services as a side business, in addition to his regular full-time job.

During the last Budget Committee meeting, the committee members requested further discussion with members of the administrative team regarding the topic of "buy in" of this consulting proposal, and a willingness to embrace the results of the process. Randy and I spent time discussing this topic with the Administrative Cabinet during our June retreat. We will update the committee on these discussions, and then request feedback on how to proceed. Please let me know if you have any questions on this proposal. You can contact me via email at ssummers@waunakee.k12.wi.us or via phone at 849-2491. Thanks.