Good morning. Welcome to the Education and Culture Committee. This is our third budget session on MCPS's budget and on a great partner in the Kid Museum who I believe are here. I'm trying to scan the room here. There you are. Okay, good, good, good. And Tony was just up here. So we're going to do Kid NDA first and then we'll do our third session on MCPS and really appreciate everyone being here. I'll ask Carl Lessor and all the Kid Museum folks come on up and as you're doing that, I know we have Rob Mariglia, Director of RAC. You're welcome to come up too. Yeah, you know. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Ali to walk us through the packet. I think we have a couple items related to the NDA. Talk about some consolidation and just other funding sources. And I believe there's a presentation from KID. Okay, great. So let's jump into it. Morning. Did you want to go through the packet first or? Yeah, let's start with what you've got and then we'll do the presentation. Yeah, that's good. Thank you Yeah, good morning. So we're here to talk about the Kid Museum NDA the county executive is recommending only the 3% inflationary Adjustment for all nonprofit providers for FY26. That brings their FY26 recommended budget to $1,974,000. There's a brief description of the Kid Museum on page 2 in Section C of the packet. The Kid Museum NDA does not receive an operating budget equity tool analysis. And in general, there really aren't any specific budget decision points for the E&C committee today. But just as we were analyzing the budget, myself and my colleague, Ms. Cummings, who manages the portfolio for recreation and the skills for the future. NDA noted some overlap in funding for a kid museum. And so we worked together and just wanted to make sure that both the E&C committee and the PHP committee, which OECI's the Department of Recreation and Skills for the Future NDA, budgets have the same information about how they're funding Kid Museum. The Kid Museum NDA does provide the bulk of the funding for Kid Museum based as a portion of the total county appropriation to the museum, but they also receive or planning to receive an FY 26 or $160,000 from the recreation base budget youth development division and $302,000 from the skills for the future NDA. And so it's really just a question of are there for the committees understanding are there specific requirements or metrics associated with those other sources of funding or are they all just generally part of the Kid Museum space budget and if that's the case is there an opportunity to maybe consolidate this funding within the NDA so that it's all reviewed at once before E&C in future or subsequent budget years. So that's mainly the point here we have some additional information happy answer. Questions about that as well. Ultimately the decisions of what happens to the skills for the future in DA, evaluating that and the recreation money is gonna be discussed at PHP on Monday. But based on the discussion here on Monday, yeah, you'll be there, right? So then I full counsel that may be an opportunity to sort of wrap all that up. So let's permission Thank you, Mr. Adley So why don't we have everyone introduce themselves and then we can go right into the to the packet just press your button Yeah Antonio Tihirino a board member with Kid Museum also with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation I didn't want to skip you. Please. Oh, sorry. We love OMB delicious thing office of management and budget All right. Carra Lesser, founder and executive director of Kid Museum. Robin Riley, director of Montgomery County Recreation. Morning. Robbie Brewer. I'm a vice chair of the Kid Museum board and attorney with Lurcerally and Brewer and Bethesda. Holly,. Holly, Christianson, Chief Operating Officer of Camusia. Wonderful. All right, so you have a presentation. Why don't we go through that? And if you want to, as you're going through that, then we'll turn to the discussion, I think, around the other sources of funds. And we've got good partners here to talk about that. But kick it to you. That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us here this morning, but to see you Council Member Mac, Council Member Joando and Councilmember Albernaz. We are deeply grateful for your support and just want to take a few minutes to ground everyone in what Kid Museum does in our community, what we're about. I know that all three of you know us well, but want to just make sure that we're grounded in this conversation, particularly in this moment of incredible change in our political environment and in our local community. This is a moment I think that we need to stay grounded in the work that we're doing here in support of and with our full community. So just to take you in, as you know, Kid Museum is really founded on the concept that together as a community, we can support the next generation of innovators that we need to do more to change what learning looks like and how kids are learning to engage them in STEM, to engage them in fundamental skills that will transform their lives and transform our economy. Everything we do is through hands-on experiential learning that brings joy back into learning and gets kids, families, teachers, our full community engaged in this work. Over the past 10 years, we've reached more than 400,000 people in our community, with an emphasis on equity and inclusion and all that we do. More than 60% of the students were serving year-over-year, identified as Black or Latino. We are serving our students with the greatest need over half of the population we serve, qualifies for free and reduced meals. And more importantly, in many ways, is the impact that we're having, that the populations that we are serving are seeing tremendous change in how they see themselves as capable learners, capable and interested in STEM careers, see themselves as people who can really make a difference in the world and be active learners and take on new challenges, new technologies, and drive our economy forward. We've had many, many success stories over the past 10 years. This young woman, Ava Jessie, some of you have had the pleasure of meeting. She started with us in sixth grade. She's now on a full ride at Case Western Computer Science program and sees herself as an inventor and is really pursuing a career in computational thinking, computational design. We have students who are working as in biotech, working at Disney and Imagineering. They are creating the new robotics platforms of the future. So we are seeing the impact that this work is having as our kids grow with us and go out into the world. In terms of the support from the county we are directly serving over 14,000 people in our community from the just from the Montgomery County funds alone. So this is an important component of the reach in our community through our schools. serving over 3,000 students in the coming year and 165 teachers in our weekend programs, 8,000 youth and families coming through, 300 students coming through for after school camps out of school time programs, and then deep engagement out in the community, STEM nights and festivals and ways that really activate this interest. So there's direct impact from this funding for 14,000 Montgomery County residents. In terms of our total budget, we are expecting a slight decrease in our total income this year with all of the changes in our world. We have already had one federal grant terminated about a week ago and hoping that other federal sources that are included in this budget that have been committed do not go away but we are uncertain like many others. So the support from the county is more important than ever to maintain this work and continue to grow going forward. And I think at the end of the day, what we are creating in our community is a belief that we can tackle challenges. We're helping our kids see themselves as change makers and innovators. And as a community, we are making change and innovating in what education and teaching and learning can look like. So this is really something we're proud of, the support that we've had from Montgomery County to make this come to life. And we are excited about continuing this work in this moment. So let me pause with that general presentation and invite my board members if they have anything that they would like to add. I think this is a critical moment to have these kind of programs that are able to support education, but also the innovation. And there's a mental health component to this as well that you have a moment to get away from what is happening and actually have that be a learning experience. This is a very difficult time right now, especially for a lot of kids in Montgomery County whose parents are being laid off. who are in turmoil in terms of what their families are going through and they have a place not just to escape but to learn while they're escaping. And also, this is a moment too, when we're talking about what's going on in China creating an AI technology that we're jealous of. This is the time that we need to start fomenting that those abilities and that confidence and those tools to be able to challenge the rest of the world in terms of innovation. And that can start here in Montgomery County. I have to say, Kara was just representing Kid Museum and Montgomery County when she was at a national conference in San Francisco on this kind of learning and with other museums. What's interesting is that she's being held up as a prototype. Montgomery County is being held up as a prototype for what other counties and cities and states are doing. And I think there's a great will of pride to be able to do that in our hometown. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Morning, I'll be brief. Two of the committees I serve on at Kid Museum of the Finance Committee and the Development Committee. And in those roles in the Finance Committee, we're hypersensitive about our expenses, particularly not just in this uncertain economy, but in our desire to expand our revenue sources to include more philanthropy and other choices of earned income. Besides the generous funding that we receive from Montgomery County at all levels. On the development committee side, we have been increasing our efforts to expand our funding, as I mentioned, that we're concerned about at the Finance Committee and I just want to reflect to you how grateful we are for Montgomery County's continued support. We couldn't do the program we're doing without your long time support. I came to Kid Museum by accident looking around for a new home and been on the board and it's been a wonderful ride and I'm very immersed at it. But our funding is imperative to our future success. We are trying to increase our sources of funding from all levels and keep our expenses as lean as possible. But your support is critically important, as As Quarra said, now more than ever given the chaos at our federal government level and the termination of a grant that we had last week. So, Tony and I and the other 11 board members, we all are in support of the mission. We have a great staff of educators and senior leadership and the program is going great. We can't account for their chaos in our economy, but we do rely on your support. And we are certainly grateful for your ability to continue with this best you can. So thanks for having us here this morning. Thank you so much to the board members and to you, Kar, we know I think it was when Dr. Taylor who's here when we just started off, you had a great event and we were all there saying how critical an important kid museum is. And I know Director Riley sees it in the impact of her programs and if you want to add anything, you're welcome to. So there's never a question of anyone up here, I think on the entire council of the value ad of your organization, that's why we continue to support you. I've been proud to kind of be on the council through the whole pretty much the whole journey of finding space and ramping up our support over the last decade or so. But I know this is a challenging time. So let me direct to Riley is there anything you want to add? Yeah, I would just add, I think her numbers are little underestimated. The impact is way broader than that. I had the chance to be at an after school staff appreciation event at Bannocker Middle School on Wednesday, and seeing the teachers that are engaged who have learned from kids museum, passing the information on in the STEM class that I got to witness, watching young people partner with each other and developing and building friendships and relationship, especially students with special challenges, partnering with other students. It was really powerful and it reminded me of where we began years and years ago. So we appreciate the work they do and the impact that it makes across the county. Appreciate that. We've come a long way from Davis Library. So could you go back to the slide just with the funding sources breakdown? Yeah, I think that one. So I'm sorry to hear. I was going to ask that question and I'm sorry to hear that you lost the federal grant. I figured you all might be on the in that case. Could you just tell us a little more about how much it was and what was it for? So we have a few different federal grants right now. The one that we learned was terminated was through the Institute for Museum and Library Services, which as you know is an agency that was terminated. The public line was that the funds would just be shifted under another head, another department, but in reality most of those grants have been eliminated, including the one that we had, which was a $250,000 grant to support the continued evolution of culturally sustaining pedagogy and practices. So it definitely hit on some of the trigger words for this administration. As you know, all of our work is deeply aligned with goals around diversity, equity, and inclusion. And this was funding that was hard fought for to help sustain that work in our organization. So it is a big step back. And we will continue to find ways to do that work. But we have, for many years, been working toward that federal support to really be able to embed this more systematically and everything we do. We do have another federal grant that with in partnership with identity that's focused specifically on serving Latino youth in our community. That is through the Department of Education and we have not had that terminated yet, but we are watching hoping that it falls between the cracks there but it is something that we you know would be another hit to what's included in this budget right now. How much is that? So that is a total of $700,000. So it's a million dollars? Yeah, it's a million dollar flux. Yeah, thank you. I just think that's important context. I mean, I won't bury the lead. As I was mentioned, obviously, we are going to support the 3% increase. I do want to spend a couple minutes and I'll ask one question about this and then I'll ask my colleagues if they have any about the consolidation issue, right? You know, in previous years, you could have had, this isn't broken out in government support, but you know, you've had wreck money, there's been MCPS money at some points, there's been arm money, it's so, I think it's an important conversation to have and I appreciate council staff bringing it up. So I would just, it was teed up. I would welcome your thoughts on the, again, not lowering the support, but the consolidation of the support into the NDA as a, just as a kind of a clearer way to see how track I were supporting, give me some. Yeah. I think we don't have a problem with administratively putting those two together in the spirit of not bearing the lead as you're saying. I think our only concern would be if it means that there's a reduction in resources. The skills for the future fund was created through economic development. And I think that it shows that this work is about economic development as well as education and culture. And so I think it reflects the history of how kid has evolved and the understanding that this is contributing to the county more broadly in terms of supporting that talent pipeline and supporting the county's ability to be a place to attract and sustain businesses to thrive over time. That's an important part of our identity. But from an administrative standpoint, we agree that this certainly could be simplified under a single NDA at this point. I think that that skills for the future fund was created before. We had this other source of funding so it feels like a natural progression of how we're managing the funds. I think you're right. It speaks to the journey we've been on in support over time and yeah and certainly in a lot of NDAs you can this is for this piece and this is for that but you can you can illustrate that in the NDA. I'll turn to my colleagues, Councillor Aron. No, I think the third benefit is the sponsoring executive branch agencies. I'm sure also appreciate consolidation so that you're not having to repeat work. So I think it makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you pointing it out, provided clearly that nothing's reduced. And while I support the County Executive's recommendation this year, because there are just so many moving parts, clearly this is an area I'm on the record. We're all on the record as wanting to invest more in the future. And that's going to be particularly important, because we do have to face this stark reality that we find ourselves in but we have these incredibly innovative nationally recognized approaches right on our own backyard we have to continue to invest in them because it's investing in our kids that's ultimately what this is about so I appreciate the conversation look forward to more information on how exactly these will be consolidated, support that in principle, and support the executive recommendation. Thank you. Council member May. Thank you. Can we go back to the slide where with the 14,000, which is a really big and exciting number, that's not big enough, per-directorally. I mean, I think that this is the most important thing, obviously. And outside of budget, it would be great to spend more time, I think, during the year, diving into what that looks like, thinking about what we should be learning about that also, what MCPS should be learning about that. It seems like there's a lot of takeaways and are there ways that we can further benefit from the work that you're doing that you're talking about here today. And I noticed the inclusion of the teachers here in the school programs and then director Riley mentioned what she was wondering if you're a little bit more about that from anyone up here about the impact on a professional development sense on teachers who get to interact and or staff county staff get to interact with your programming. I can give you a couple quick examples. I know that many of the teachers in Montgomery County Public Schools have gone through some of the training programs with the Kid Museum. And then they often work for us after school as a provider in a different environment than they do during the school day. It gives them an answer. I have a moment there. It gives them a chance to interact with a young person in a different way, which is powerful. And at Banhiker was a perfect example know, a contractor and teachers that are doing a STEM program because of this work and the impact it's having on young people who might not otherwise have that opportunity getting to collaborate with each other in a friendly and team-building way was really a good example for me as a takeaway on the work that Kid Museum can do. Thank you. Thank you. It is a beautiful example. And I think it speaks to how we define our impact model. It is beyond a single point in time service. It's about building capacity in our community, supporting our teachers to continue to evolve their approach to teaching and learning, which is extremely complex to make happen in with all the demands on schools, classrooms, teachers today. And I know you'll hear a lot more about that shortly, but it's where we see the work that we can do at KID is really with and in support of our teachers to continue to evolve and how to bring new technologies into the classroom, how to evolve what teaching looks like for a fast-changing world. And that is, it's been very complex to make those changes both in in classrooms and outside of classrooms. And all of us know that learning doesn't stop at the classroom door. A lot happens in that out of school time. A lot happens at home with families. And that's really the kid model is to look across school community home and build this total environment that is supporting kids learning and progression and teachers are an absolutely vital part of that equation. Yeah, absolutely. For the, if we could go back, sorry, I'll talk to that funding slide again also at the government line, would you be able to just break that out for us real quick in terms of like County State Federal? And are there, I don't know if you have state lines, is there, was there an impact through this legislative cycle? So, yes, so the government support includes here, local, state and federal. Local is the largest component here. About $2 million is local support of that 3.2. And that's across the not yet consolidated. Yes, the 1.9 plus the 302 plus the 159. Yes. Quick, yes. And so then we have some support at the state level that we have both through the Maryland State Arts Council, as well as the Maryland State Department of Education. That is a small but hopefully growing part of our budget in the future. As you well know, there are many constraints on the state budget as well. And we are still a relative newcomer in that sphere. And then we have our federal funds. This number already takes out the IMLS grant that we talked about, so that's already reduced here, but we do have the funding for the 700. Yes, the library of the only federal grant that's in there. Right now that's the only federal grant. We had just completed that there was a, yeah, we just closed out the grant that Antonio was referring to was an NSF grant that just closed at the end of FY 25. So if this, if we had written this projection a year or two ago, it would have been higher than this. But this is what we think is a realistic budget number right now. Yeah, as best we can all. Yeah, yeah. And I know that when we talked last year and I know that you all have been thinking about like sustainability and thinking about ideas for how to be able to increase your income sources for revenue sources from outside the government, can you talk a little bit about how that's going? Yes, so we have been successful in diversifying our sources of income over this past year in terms of both other school districts directly purchasing our services and having a growing corporate and individual donor base. We're seeing that shift already. We are seeing shifting priorities from some of our large corporate partners that are no longer interested in supporting the Greater Washington region in this moment that that's not where they're investing their philanthropic dollars. So we're concerned on that front and concerned just with the purchasing power of individual families right now in paying for out of school time services camps, et cetera, it's a tight time. So that is where the first time in our history where we are not projecting growth in our income, where this is a slight step back from where we've been. You know, unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to really invest in this research, the teacher training and sharing that curriculum. We think will be a revenue driver for the organization going forward. There's incredible demand nationally and internationally for this work. That was what we were hoping for in a supplemental budget last year to help really drive that engine. We haven't been able to quite cross out of the, you know, a little bit of a fairs wheel that we've been on here, but we're hoping that we can maintain our programs this year and continue to grow our national partnerships that we can get to a place where we have that greater stability going forward. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. And just, you know, transparently, from the conversation last year, this was really what I personally was really torn between because we all want to see you continue to grow and succeed and serve our community in this way. And also there's this strategic development that you all are working on and that you it benefits everybody for you to be working on it and to be able to diversify your portfolio. And if you can provide virtual services that anybody can be accessing, I mean, that's going to be a great driver for you and obviously benefit communities across the country and allow you to continue to sustain your work here. And also, like the major cost there is the startup cost and how much as a county, can we afford and should we be putting up the tax sellers into it in a given year when there's a tight budget. And it's just, it's a difficult question. And so I appreciate the work you all have done to continue to be able to serve our community and to be able to take steps forward. And I look forward to a time that's not as viscally tight as this. And I look forward to talking to more, talking with you all more during the air about the work they are doing. Thanks. Thank you, great, great points. And we will definitely have you back to, once we get through budget to talk about how things are going and also assess just what else has happened and get a real time update. No, that's a fluid situation. I think Councilor Robbins had another point. Yeah, I'll just be very brief. So outside of the budget process, we should be having strategically aligned conversations about how to support this work moving forward because it's more than just about budget. Budget is the most critical thing, but we all have the ability to leverage resources and information and contacts. And I think there's an opportunity for us to raise a number of boats. And it's serendipitous that our colleagues and MCPS are in the audience as well as our incredible labor representatives, because this is an area that is right for growth and checks just about every important box that's out there. So look forward to participating in conversations like that, again, starting hopefully as early as this summer to lay the groundwork for future asks now that especially we're coordinating and consolidating some of the accounts I think that makes sense in the timing's right. Yeah and what I was I would ask is when we when we do come back I think it would be helpful and even before we get to full council with this if you could break out what are the activities that you're doing under each funding stream from our side. If that makes sense, like, so what would you attribute the skills for the future money? I know some of it's braided in overlapping, but to the extent that you can distinguish out, you know, how the sources of funds are being used. I think that'll be even if it's in one NDA, it's important just to understand that. Yeah, no, we have provided that already and can follow up with you all directly. We certainly track each of those funding streams independently right now, and can share with you exactly how it's for a better. So maybe we maybe we just we'll have we can come back and have a discussion about that. But Mr. Ali, so what I'm thinking I'll be there on Monday. I think we can reference this conversation then. And you know, I don't unless you tell me there's an issue, I think we could probably consolidate all this this year. Yes, I believe so. I mean, I think just both committees have to weigh in and then at full council you could do that. Perfect. Okay. So that's why I want to make sure we at least have it listed out and I think that would be good going forward and direct Riley's here so she agrees so great. So let's note that in the packet and then I'll I'll note it again when I'm in PHP on that hat on Monday and then we'll take it to full council but without objection we of course concur with the increase in the kind executive's budget and with thanks for all your work. We'll see you guys. Monday and then we'll take it to full council. But without objection, we of course concur with the increase in the kind of executive budget and with thanks for all your work. We'll see you guys again soon. Thank you, yes. See you Monday. Thank you. Very soon. Thank you, Mr. Ali. And we'll transition and welcome up our MCPS colleagues. Superintendent and team. You continue to roll deep, as we say. No, I know. Sorry, not a bad thing. So today we're going to, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to return to the Montgomery County Public Schools budget, this is our third session, and this is where we focus on all the major cost drivers here, some of the biggest cost drivers, staffing, compensation, contractual services, school operations, and talk about how that all is that all that's working together to improve outcomes and provide service to our students and families. So I will turn it over to you. Well let me actually first, is there anything you want to add, Miss Cummings, and then I'll turn it over to Superintendent. Good morning. Good morning. In our packet today, we have a walkthrough of the MCPS staffing overview, including major trends in position categories, vacancies, recruitment efforts, compensation and benefits, including salary cost, benefit contributions for active and retired employees, and an overview of the EBP fund balance followed by contractual services, and the recommended operating budget impacts of the adjustments for school safety and maintenance operations. Wonderful, sounds good. Dr. Taylor. Before we begin, I want to take a moment of privilege to make some introductions, because we have a couple of things going on today after the E&C Committee meets. We're convening our new cabinet of officers for MCPS this afternoon for the very first time. And I'm thrilled to introduce them to the E&C committee because they'll have the chance to work with you closely in the coming years. And just thrilled to introduce them, some of which are familiar faces and some that are new faces and some that you've met recently and in some that are in new capacities. So it's gonna be my, and I apologize for this guys. I'm gonna ask you to stand up when I call your name, just like school. And I'm gonna do this in an alphabetical order, but I think that these are some really important folks that you get to know because there are lots of different functional domains for our very large organization over 30,000 employees and 160,000 kids that we serve. And it does require a very large coordinated effort to make school happen. It doesn't happen on its own. And it does require many hands. And these are the leaders of the many hands that make all of that happen. So the first person is actually sitting at the table and it's Ivana Alfonso-Winzer who's our chief financial officer. So you got to stand. Got a model to be here. Thank you. The next one is Dr. Margaret Cage. You got to meet earlier this week who's our chief student support services officer. The next is Ms. Kaelin Connelly. She is our Chief Talent Officer, supervising our Human Resources and Talent Management. You all know Chris Cram, who is our Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, Kim Fields, who was in our Technology Office, but now is leading it as our Chief Technology Officer. Elba Garcia, who's a familiar face, who was our senior advisor for community support, is now our deputy chief of staff for family and community engagement. Naya Hamlet, who is our chief equity and development officer, and is an alumnus of MCPS, at Senna Cavali High School, so thrilled to welcome her back home. Nikki Hazel, our chief academic officer who you saw earlier this week and have known for some time. This guy may be new to the team here, and you may not know him, but Marcus Jones. He looks an awful lot like this fellow chief Jones, but he has a beard now, so I don't know. It's easy to confuse the two. Adnan Mamoon, our chief operations officer. René McCall, who's an executive director in our office. Peter Moran, our chief of school leadership. Essie McGuire, our chief of Staff. Yes, that's right. Yes, thank you. Yes. She's not familiar to me. Close in my office, you may not know her by sight, but definitely by name, Sandy Napoli, the Executive Administrative Assistant in my office. And our Chief of Legal Services, formerly our General Counsel, Rob and Seabrook. So that's the team. We're thrilled that they have the chance to get to know you a little bit better and to serve MCPS and their new capacities. And we really look forward to our work together. And what a great day for us to reconnect on some really important topics. Well I'll just say welcome to each of you from the entire committee and the council and I've seen, know some of you, meeting some for the first time, have connected online with some of the others and I commented the other day that Dr. Taylor he's doing a good job poaching really great people from across the country and across the region and from other county agencies and so we're really happy to work with each of you in your new roles or if you're new to MCPS. And thank you. I'm glad you it worked out that you were able to invite them all and introduce them all to the committee today. So I'm Will Jawando. I'll stand up. I'll do the same thing. I'm the chair of the Education and Culture Committee. I last, Councillor Albernolos, who's also the chair of the Health and Human Service Committee and Kristen Mink, a former MCPS teacher who's also on the committee. And all three of us attended MCPS during our educational journeys and all three of us have children and MCPS. So we're really looking forward to working with all of you. So back to you. Thank you, Chair Gawondo. And we'll just open up by saying that this is a robust topic and we're ready to answer the council's questions and ready to serve the committee how you see fit. Okay, so no presentation today or anything. So what you want to, what maybe what we'll do is walk through the eye. Yeah, walk through the items in the packet that we can pause if colleagues when we have questions on different, different points. Mr. Proud, do you want to do that? Thank you. Alright, thought I know the first topic, Doug Proud, he's senior, let's say a analyst also a part of MCPS and with students in the system and a former teacher too. So there you go. Old home week. So the first piece is staffing overview. The Board of Education's request includes 25,387 FTEs, which is a net increase of 2.5% over the previous fiscal year. A couple of points to note here. One is that the largest number is in terms of the instructional support category. And the bottom bullet there entails a number of those folks, 500 new pair educators involved in special education. 366 of whom as we noted earlier this week would be folks who are moving from temporary part time positions to full time positions. Decrease in terms of other support personnel, which is involved in the Central Office, Central Staff restructuring, and a net increase in terms of teaching positions with more of them being focused on the secondary level because of staffing numbers. page four of the packet, you'll note the chart with a number of details in terms of staffing over the last several years and that changes for the current year. We do have updated vacancy information. We'll pass that along to the committee at our next meeting. And just wanted to make sure that the committee also notes that the staff physical profile will be transmitted to the council at the end of the month. Thank you. Great. So big, big numbers, a lot covered here. One of the things that you said, and I always try to think about what if a normal person is what not that we're not normal, but real normal people that are watching the committee that don't know what we're talking about sometimes or the acronyms. You have 25,387. You mentioned 30,000. Could you just talk about the distinction between that and the funding streams? Part time and full time. So this is reflective of the full time equivalents relative to our part time and temporary employees which includes substitutes and a whole host of other folks. Right. And so the of the 600 special educators as we discussed last week, some of those are temporary part-time. They would not be in the full-time equivalent. Correct. So that would be a big part is moving them over so that would increase the number out there. Yeah. That's right, too. And something also for our community that may be watching this committee meeting to try to get your head wrapped around one really big and important topic, which is we are relatively flat in terms of our enrollment growth. But what is changing is what our enrollment is comprised of, that we're seeing an increase in students with disabilities, an increase in our emergent multilingual learners. And as a consequence of that, those students need additional services which accounts for the changes in our FTE accounts. And we talked about that in context of those three populations, earlier this week, in a lot of details about special education, emerging to the United States and the United States. I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States and I'm going to go to the United States those three populations earlier this week in a lot of details about special education, emerging multilingual learners, and students that are in poverty. Great, and so of the new positions, I think it's just, let's talk about all of them. We talked about most of them last time, but we talked about special education, and E support. Obviously, there's security personnel that are the other big bucket. And then maybe if you could just walk through, what are the other big buckets of new people? Sure. We do have some small changes to general education as well, some up and some down. And I think it's important to reflect this and I'll let Miss Alfonso Windsor opinion on this a little bit more. But it's important to note that we are actually pulling back in some levels of general education because we are expecting an enrollment decrease. So we are sensitive to the ebbs and flows of enrollment and what that means for our FTE count, but we are also seeing an increase in some levels. And so we are trying to be sensitive to that as well. One of the things you did point out was an increase in security staff. 55 FTEs is listed here in the booklet for your review. This is a discretionary expense. No one is telling us from either law or statute or guideline from any external body you must have X number of security assistance beyond what we already have. This is a choice that we are making because we know that security assistance can enhance the safety of our school buildings. So it made it into our budget as a recommendation because we know that it will make a substantive improvement into the safety and security. Candidly, it's a number that's going to grow over time. One of the areas that does not have security assistance in our schools is our elementary level. We see the need for expanding that footprint into the elementary space, expanding that footprint even in our secondary schools. So this is one of those budget items that we are not asking for the full complement that we know will need over time, that we're trying to give our funding partners something that is bite-sized, pieces, 55 security assistance spread over 200 campuses doesn't go very far. So we're being very intentional and very deliberate about where we place security assistance so that they can provide the most support. So let's, if we could get Chief Jones come up. One of the items for today is the K Safety Security. So let's just, since we're there, let's just talk about it. And, mate, I think good to see you, sir. And I continue to like the beard. And Mr. Jones. Yeah, Mr. Jones, out the beard. Was kind of like the honorable, you know, you don't lose it. You never lose it. You know, you get to be cheap for it. Could you talk a little bit about how you would, should you get these 55 realizing it's not everything you'd want? How would you deploy them? Where would they go? What are you thinking about that? Sure, absolutely. So good morning to everyone and it's great to see you all. One of the things that we know that we, as Dr. Taylor noted, is the need for elementary school deployment. But as also noted that we also see some deficiencies in our particularly in our high schools where there are some additional needs based upon, you know, I would say a deficient number and some of the schools that I'll give an example some some high schools we have four security assistance. and we will look at population, we'll look at serious incidents, but we also look at sort of the layout of the school, the challenges that you have in coverage. And those things are very important in having communications with our principals as well as our directors, really helps us to understand so what are their needs. So we have some schools that like a Blair High School has nine security assistants based upon their population and the layout of the school. But we also, like again, their sort of the average would be probably around six. But again, with the additional needs that we need to really address some security issues, we do probably need to increase those numbers in those schools. Not every school is necessary for an allocation, but when I say high school, but there are some that we do, we've recognized that there is that need. But again, in regards to the elementary schools, though it would not cover every elementary, we wouldn't assign one security assistant to cover particularly one elementary school. But looking at it from a geo deployment standpoint of a security assistant that could be responsible for multiple elementary schools in a general area and to provide them with that support on a daily basis. It would be more in line about where we're trying to go and still be able to provide, you know, with this number of additional security assistants though we wouldn't again have that full complement. We would be able to provide them some service, which is somewhat lacking in where we are today. And that's what we're really trying to focus on in that aspect. So I think I hear you saying more deployment to some elementary school. Oh, more deployment to some elementary schools. Oh, you wanted to add. Yeah. I'll just add on page 10 of your packet, there's a breakdown of 35 elementary positions, 10 middle school positions and seven high school positions. Okay. And, you know, the way that our schools are laid out, there are some strategic advantages and there are some strategic disadvantages to the layout of our elementary schools. For example, you may have a school in a more rural area that is effectively a frontier school where it makes sense for us to have someone out in that space for response time because the response time might be really slow. If they're positioned at another place versus you could be in another area where there are elementary schools several of them within walking distance of one another. And there might be an advantage to having somebody there as well. So picking and choosing where there might be a geographical advantage is really what Mr. Jones is trying to get at is making sure that we have county coverage and that our response time is exactly what it needs to be and that there's the adequate coverage which we haven't had. And so this would be a big step up for us. And do you have, I'm assuming, underneath the 30, you have where this would be and do we have that information? No, we haven't. No, we haven't. Yeah, because candidly, we don't know if it's funded. So. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. It would just be nice to say, let me say why? Because, you know, we obviously hear of the, all the things we hear about. We hear a lot about, we talked about student mental health and wellness. And we hear about, obviously, the facilities themselves. talked about that a little bit earlier this week. In safety and security, I think those would be, in my view, we talked about that a little bit earlier this week. In safety and security, I think those would be, in my view, the top three that we hear about from both students, parents, and teachers. And I wanted to give a shout out. We had our ANUVA Maloo, who was elected, I think, yesterday. And new student member of the board. But I mentioned when we were here earlier this week that safety and security is it was a recurring theme and all the campaigns for the student member of the board as well. So I think it would be great. I know you're saying you don't know where it would be funded. It would be nice to have the information of how you're thinking of where this would be. Equally as important, not the schools, but the why, the why of the deployment, because I think it's important for people to know, and you're giving some of that now, where there are gaps in coverage and how we need to address that over a multi-year. This won't fix it. We illuminated on this or brought forth on this committee a couple of years ago, or maybe last year, that about the pay-of-security guards, right? In addition you know, we illuminated on this or brought forth on this committee a couple of years ago or maybe last year that about the pay of security guards, right? In addition to, you know, that the starting pay is $38,000 a year, which is reprehensible, you know. And that, and you know, and when you mentioned Blair, the largest high school in the state, as far as people, The Center of Alley is the largest in physical space, players the largest in student population, even though they have nine security systems, it's for over 3,000 students. And that's a tough place to traverse. And you open camp, you got so many things going on there. And those, when we did a budget form there last year, you remember Dr. Taylor? I think it was your first one. Oh, yes. Those, those, those, uh, well, and those when we did a budget form there last year you remember doc tell I think was your first one oh yes those those those uh well and those security guards met me at the door to say uh we need your help we need we need better pay we need you know I just came back from an injury you know we're dealing with the students and they're not just security I think they are frontline frontline for mental health. They are dealing with student. When a student comes into the school and has an issue, a lot of times these are the folks kind of trying to talk to them and counseling and joke around with them and do all those things. They have those relationships. So, I know you know this, but I think it's important for when we're thinking about how we ramped us up and where the 55 would go and why it's important to fund them. We need to be talking about the contextualization of it. So, I don't need, did you want to add? Okay, so let me turn to Council Member Alvardos on this time. Thank you so much. So the last time we discussed this, I know in process was sort of a wage scale assessment for these incredibly important personnel. Where are we with that? Has that been completed? Do we have a sense of where that's landed? Wage like their way. Yeah, we're assessing their wages as compared to other local jurisdictions to see if accommodations needed to be made. Now that is a contract issue. There's a contract issue. So, I guess, the question's steady. I think they're on the list of reclassification studies, yes. Okay. But it hasn't happened yet. Okay. Because adding positions is obviously fundamentally important. But if we're still paying them at wages that are not commensurate with the experience necessary for these positions, then we're just spending wheels. So when will that be done? It's on the list for this year. Okay. And so what does that mean? It means that there will be a study period and then an evaluation as to where they fit in terms of compensation relative to both job responsibilities and the region for commensurate positions. And if approved, then it would be a part of the budget proposal for fiscal 27. Okay, got it, yeah. Yeah, and I just wanna add, MCPS does have a list of positions that are re-evaluated every year. So it's in a cycle. And I think those are the ones coming up next year and it's gonna be a group of positions. And I apologize in advance, I'm sorry, I've been fighting like your rightest in Monday. Well bonus points for being here. Don't get anybody sick though. I feel bad for you. No, I'm good. I'm sorry. I learned I saw full. Well, I support the addition of the positions. I'm just reluctant to, and I know it's a, you guys have the ability and flexibility. I mean, these are just line items, but you can make adjustments post the appropriation of these funds, but it just wouldn't make a lot of walking around since the higher folks, new folks, at the same wage scale that we know is off. And so just wanna take that into consideration as we're considering adding these additional positions, which we all agree are important and very necessary for all the reasons that the chair mentioned, and we all know. And then chief, could you talk a little bit more about sort of where you are with training and strategic planning, and we discussed last time broadly the improved communication and protocols both within the school itself in coordination with MCPD, but then also the information going after parents. All of that has improved, which is terrific. And I know you were also looking at professional training and assessment and evaluation, and we're even considering making some recommendations for additions there as well. Could you just talk briefly about where that stands? Absolutely. So it is we have made this a priority going into next school year. One of the first things we really recognize was the onboarding process of new security assistants really kind of like Harnam and I just use this term Harnam on a Friday and put them in place on a Monday but not really kind of like Harnam, and I just use this term, Harnam on a Friday, and put them in place on a Monday, but not really kind of transitioning them in a way of training them, you know, in a baseline of what security assistance really are responsible for. So we're gonna create a onboarding training process that is going to make sure that those individuals get some field training as well as baseline training before they're actually set into place. We're also embedding and working with SEIU, which is the union that oversees the vast majority of the close to 300 members of the security assistant team to actually work under the authority of their principals at both the high school and the middle school levels, but to provide them with some opportunities for professional development throughout the year. This current, our current system only allows them really kind of two major days that we do wanted to begin into the school year and wanted pretty much at the close to the beginning of the second semester. So this will give us the ability to really provide some additional training that we've talked about like mental health first aid. That's one of the topics that we brought up. But there's several things that I have recognized that I believe that are going to be important as we move forward and really developing them in a way that really gives them some career development opportunities as well along the way. But and to really give them information that's important on a daily basis of what's happening among Montgomery County the changes having law enforcement, having other health and human services entities come in and give them the briefing so that they have that information that's readily available. That's going to assist them in doing their jobs. Great, thank you. I really appreciate that and we will continue to come back and have deep vibes. Yeah, I'm going to go to come to councilmember make. I think the one of the other reasons it's really important to understand the need for more but also the classification study is that our public always asks us, you know, where's the money going? What's going on? Like this is you need to understand that you know two things can exist. the security guard can have a starting day of $30,000 and you need more of them and that's not enough and that's going to be an addition to what we've asked for here. That doesn't this is this budget won't solve that to Councilmember Alvin Ozzas point. It just adds more people under that. So I just think we need to be honest and transparent about what we want. And we hear from parents when I'm sitting at a school and they're like, I want this to be safe and I want this to happen. We have to, there's a cost to that. So council member, may. Yeah, I think all good points. I mean, and when we look ahead to next year and the year after, we can expect to see some shifts and what that salary scale looks like and some of that. So that means that there's going to be cost going there as opposed to adding as many new positions as we would have otherwise. So this is, you know, we'll continue to see shifting effects of that if that work as we'll re-evaluate. I was just going to note that I think that again, the fact that this is discretionary once again highlights the scarcity of this budget, like how bare bones this is, because this is so very baseline. When we talk about that, our elementary schools have not been allocated, you know, one, they're not even guaranteed one security assistant. And especially given elementary schools where, you know, your front office staff, the folks who are outside the classrooms in a school are so very limited and you know which can really create you know I mean you know hurting cats is probably something that you could apply to high schoolers as well as the elementary schoolers as well but having extra adult bodies in a school every one of those is a benefit, of course, and when kids are out in the hallways, making sure that you have people at all those critical locations to make sure that students are getting where they need to go on time and safely and not getting caught up in anything that they're not supposed to do. All of those extra bodies are important all the time, kids are always having an issue here an issue there, and then somebody's got to be flexible to go and assist with this. And one extra body in an elementary school, and I know that all of us see it on the ground when we visit, like just make such a world of difference. And I was at an event yesterday with Kripton, actually, and they had a panel of students who were speaking. It was they were so they were brilliant of course. But one of the things that they talked about was how their teachers are burned out, honestly. They're just they're doing so so so much. And the kids are seeing it. And everybody knows that you know teachers going to like teachers going to the job because they love kids and they want to be there. You just, you would not be there otherwise. And so, but what we also know is that they are stretched thin because in those moments, when you need an extra body here, an extra body there, that's when it ends up getting, you know, cutting into a time when that teacher would have been grading a paper or running to the bathroom. Now they're helping out their friend, their teacher next door who needs to work with this one individual student who's having a meltdown about this or that and the school counselor is helping this other kid. All of these filling in the gaps that's happening now, it's just that we just don't have enough people in the schools for everybody to be performing at the peak of excellence that they want to be able to do. And the kids are feeling it and seeing it and affects their daily experience and their academic performance. And so this I feel is so very, very baseline. And so I just, once again, the fact that it's discretionary, I think, really points to the importance of us making making sure that we're able to try to get as much funding as possible into this budget as we can. Appreciate the point. I agree with it. All right, let's go so we went kind of backwards, but we did check off something from the list, safety and security. So thank you, thank you, Chief Jones, and let's go back to the top, I guess. So are there, if you teed up the staffing changes, I guess I'll ask colleagues. So if we had, if we wanted to go into any of these buckets, we should do that now, probably. Yes, so let me, before we go back. So you mentioned that there's some areas where you go backwards. It looks like there's a slight decrease in like secretarial, critical data folks, business operations, you know, like one very small, like a 1.5, 0.75 of a person change. And then there are small increases in other places. Is there anything else that you want to lift up in the- We really highlighted the big things. And the E&C Committee has done a wonderful job of kind of illuminating the central parts of this budget, which are really kind of driving some of the cost and investments needed and where we need to make them. We're certainly happy to talk about these, but I know you have a robust list of topics for today. So I think 900, just under 1,939 new staff, again in a given year with 30, is that not right? That's correct. The table does have a small type, I believe,, under other support personnel rather than showing the change. It's showing the total. So the 900 I believe is overly inclusive. Just wanted to clarify. We're not adding a thousand people. No. Yeah, that's what I thought when I saw it. So what's the, what is the number that you have in your book? So I'm sorry to make you talk. No, no, that's not. So there is a small mistake under other supporters now, which is only, you know, a change of one, but the total is correct because we're adding 287 teachers, 500 and 12 peer educators. So the total is correct. Yes. I apologize. The total is correct, but that one is off. Okay. So we're off one or where's the second to last line is not correct. What should that be? What should other support personnel be? There's changes about one, one FTE. Okay, got it. So the last line should say one, but it's still the 939 is still the right number. Okay, got it. Understood. Yeah, so it's still under a thousand folks in a system of 25,000 full time, 5,000 vast majority of that is the special education app. You're right, that was 600 of it by itself. 500 of which are paraprofessionals. Right, exactly. In 300 of which are already working part time but switching over. Correct. OK. So switching for part time to full time. For part time for that's right. And we've talked about this in a big system that's not as big of a number as it sounds. I just try to, I just, it's so hard to get people to conceptualize that, you know, you guys are three times the size county government. You know, we have 10,000 employees. You have 30,000 between full and part time. And... that you guys are three times the size county government. We have 10,000 employees. You have 30,000 between full and part time. And second largest employer in the county, right? Yeah, exactly. And so it's just important to remember the size of it. 100,000 students transported today. It's just really big. All right, so I think we can go to compensation and benefits now. Is that right? Absolutely. Starting on page four of the staff report, we have the overview for compensation and benefits. Starting with salary and wage agreements. On March 16th, the Board of Education approved some amended amended agreements for school system employees. And the Board's FY26 request fully funds the agreements for salary and wage increases for another increase of $122 million over the FY25 budget, which can be seen in table two. On table three, we have a summary of the the compensation costs including salaries and wages for employee benefits. Would you like me to pause there before we get into the benefits portion? Yeah let's talk about the salary part first just so we're all on the same page. You know the Geo committee we jointly review this with Geo committee who reviews all soundly benefits for across the county government. They approved the general county but government funding and contracts I think earlier this week or last week I don't forget which week I'm in but it happened and it'll come to the full council. These are pretty much in line, so I just, we, just to say it out loud 3.25 for MCEA, 3.25% general wage adjustment for SCIU and the same for McCap, our administrators, and then obviously a varying levels of service increments depending on what kind of job classification you are in the net, but generally those are around 3.5%, which is a normal amount of a service increment. And that all that leads to 122 million again because of the size of how many people are in there, but it is in line with slightly lower than our I think police, but slightly on as county, a little maybe 2.25 higher than another category. I remember the general government in MIGEO folks. And so right in line with what we did there, is there anything you want to add on about these agreements or the salary percentages? I would just add that much and more has been made about our economic conditions and our economic conditions are felt by our employees and we have some real needs here because we not only need to recruit the very best but we also need to be able to hang on to our folks. And one of the ways that we communicate to our staff members and teammates is by providing them a great working environment. We are communicating that we care about them. Another way that we communicate that we care about them and that we're invested in them is that we actually make an investment in them and that we make sure that they can afford groceries and that they can afford a rent and a mortgage. And keeping pace with the economic challenges is a responsibility of ours. And Mick Gio and County Government have seen that responsibility and have met the need. And similarly, we're asking for the same need to be met with our team. Appreciate that. Does this, when you did your general budget presentation, you talked about the starting salary of a teacher. Was that reflective of this? It was reflective of this. This was a placeholder in the original budget presentation. I don't want to misquote it, but it was 60 something thousand. 63,000. 63,000. Yeah. And the United Way has got a great term for this. They call it Alice. Asset limited income constrained yet employed. And that is the perfect way to describe our educator workforce is that they are asset limited income constrained yet employed. And when we were growing up there was a term for that. It was called working poor. And it's not a term we use today, but it's definitely reflective of the challenges that our educator workforce does have to contend with living in a very expensive place to live in Montgomery County. I'm proud to report that over 70% of our workforce lives in Montgomery County. So the return on the county's investment for tax dollars into our educator workforce comes back to us. As a matter of fact there's been a study done by George Washington University that shows that over a dollar and forty of every dollar that gets invested. Was that George Mason or George Washington? I think it was George Mason now that you mentioned it. Sorry. It was one of the Georgia's. Try, I get my old historic white guys confused. Sorry. But I'm just funding pulled from the gentleman straight. Soon enough. Soon enough. That'll be another conversation for supplemental budget conversation,. Now in all seriousness, the economic return on investment for investing in our educator workforce comes back to the county. It comes back to the county in spades and our folks definitely struggle with being able to afford to live in this community and the example that you're pointing out is that if you're a first-year teacher, you have to cohabitate if you want to live in Montgomery County. You have to be in a dual income household in order to be able to afford to live in this community. And though we can't solve that with this budget or really likely a future budget on the near horizon. We do need to make enroads where we can and keep pace with the marketplace. And I appreciate that and one of the things this great thing about budget is to flag things for future discussion. When we come back to the workforce and compensation and during the E&C committee during the year, one of the things that comes up and I want to dig into a little deeper is the breakdown of where our teachers are in their career. First year versus year. One of the things that comes up and I want to dig into a little deeper is the breakdown of where our teachers are in their career. First year versus five to ten versus you know we have not unlike a lot of county government. We have a lot of teachers that are further along in the scale and have stayed on. That's good for them in the sense that they're probably are they're making a more than 63,000. But bad for us in the sense that they are eligible for retirement and could leave. And I don't know. I know you've said this number before, but how many of our teachers are able could could could leave our eligible for retirement. I'm sorry. I'm going to be right. I used to know that stat. I don't have it on the top of my head, but it's alarming. Yeah, it's about 30%. I believe. 30%. Right. So if 30% of our teachers, obviously, 15% of our teachers retired, we'd be in a big trouble. So I do think there's a concern of that. We don't, we're concerned about it, folks, Lee. But there's also the cost concern. Like where are they broken down? and what does that mean for our budgetary wise? Because obviously not everyone's making $63,000. That's brought up rightfully so as a you know why the number is $122 million because it's going to not everyone's making that but I think that's something we need to look at. So this is a pretty substantial crisis and I'm glad that you're illuminating the national teacher shortage and the reason that this is a crisis is that the average experience of our educators continues to grow. Now, on one sense, this is fantastic from Montgomery County, especially since we're a county that attracts experienced educators from other localities to come and join us. That means that our students are the beneficiaries of experienced educators coming into our classroom. That's wonderful, except for two things. We are not replenishing our workforce with career educators that are earlier on in their career and that there are tremendous benefits that come with early career educators. There is innovation that comes with early career educators. And we will say that there's a budget benefit too. They cost a lot less because we are paying for experience. So it's incumbent on us to be sensitive to a couple of things. If we are not bringing in an educator workforce that has lower experience or younger experience, it really is a sign of something of really significant trouble to come. It's a sign that we may not have an educator workforce down the road in the next several years. We are not being able to recruit fresh out of college, early career folks because of the wage. It is a difficult thing. The working conditions, it is difficult to become an educator. It is difficult to work in education space if you're a paraprofessional, and it's a low wage position. So it's kind of a recipe for us not being successful and people are not staying in the field as long as they used to either. Yeah, agreed. I mean, I say if some countries that have done it better, if you paid teachers commensurate with what doctors and lawyers and others made, you'd get a different set of people going into the profession. That's not the only thing, obviously, but it's a big thing. Council Member Arminas. Thank you. So appreciate support, the salary and compensation adjustments for all the reasons we've stated and we've talked about numerous times before this committee and the value that our educators and administrative support staff and frontline staff bring is just, it's impossible to fully quantify. So and long overdue. I guess this is more of a systemic question, because, you know, and we're trying to be fair and equitable among public sector employees across both the executive branch or sister county agencies as well as MCPS. And, you know, the council is going to support that in this year's operating budget. But as I said last year, kind of previewing what happens at the Trump administration wins, we have to have our eyes wide open about what happens if income tax revenue goes down, property tax assessments of property values goes down at the same time. And it's gone up every year with the most significant uptick in the last two years since 2007. But that was when we hit the recession. And I'm just, we don't have to answer this right now, but I just like to better understand what happens if mid-year or going into next year, we have to make significantly revenue adjustments downward. How does that connect to maintenance of effort? Because what happened when we went through this before was the executive branch and all other corresponding agencies had to have massive, massive, massive reductions in order to accommodate the various budgets. So I just would like to know that so that we start thinking about that moving forward because what happened from 2000 to 2005 was very significant salary and compensation adjustments were made in better times. Nobody could have anticipated the recession that the county and the country would have to go through and we're about to do that now. And so I just want to have our eyes wide open so that we can plan for the future. And then also find out how that relates to the reduction in force process and what that looks like. Just all of us have anecdotal information. We just learned earlier this week that one of my son's best friends, whose parents are federal employees, as soon as the school years over, are planning to move back to Indiana because they've both lost their jobs. There are many, many, many, many people in similar situations who relocated here for federal jobs or jobs related to federal contracting companies that are all going down. So school enrollment is probably going to take a hit next year. So these are all things that we have to prepare for. And so I'd like to between now and the end of the session start talking through what all of that looks like. Thank you. Yes, we are in sobering times. Obviously, I have to make sure we are aware of that and supporting our community the best we can. And I think making sure that our schools are there for them is a big part of it. Okay, so let's go to the benefits, right? On table 4 we have an overview of the FY25 and 26 requested tax supportive. For MCPS, we have a 13.9% increase. MCPS is largely self-insured and uses the BP fund to pay for employee retiree and other covered member insurance health claims. For the FY26 employee benefit plan request, it includes several changes or new components, which are listed on page six of the staff report, which includes action to address the structural deficit of $40 million. A prescription of some changes to the prescription and GLP-1 utilization, that will have started to become effective on January 1st, 2025, and some cost-share changes, which were agreed upon with group insurance shifts, which will take place over the course of two years. You can see this broken down on table five of the staff report. But over the two years, 2% of the cost of annual premiums will shift from being paid from MCPS to being paid by employees. And by shifting this cost share total, it will result in a savings of $2.9 million in FY26, 1 million in FY FY27, and $10.2 million in FY28, once the entire 2% shift is annualized. And in conjunction with the budget request, MCPS provided the multi-year EBP fund production through FY28, which reflects both the active and retiree portions of the fund, returning to a positive fund balance by FY28, which is illustrated on table seven. Great. Very important. This has been a huge issue for a long time. As Mr. Guierre and others know, it's really, when I saw this packet the other day, I was like, there's a black section for the balance of the multi-year fund balance projection for EBP. So there's light at the end of the tunnel. There have been some who said, okay, well, this 40 million down isn't going to do anything. That's not true. This puts us on a path within three years, God willing, to have a positive balance for benefits. As was mentioned, and if you want to add anything to this, before I turn to colleagues, it looks like the work. So part of it is $40 million to address the deficit, that's what part of the request. and it's reducing and changing benefits like the GOP and prescription plan which will save increasing amounts of money leading to about 10 million once it's fully annualized. And then the cost share changes which again to be clear shifts costs to the employee that they have to pay, which in this was all agreed to by the partners as part of your negotiations. So we're thankful for that. But taking all together, that over time will get us to a good place. You will need, if you could, I know this is on here, but I sometimes I think I lost it. What does that mean for how much money you're going to need in addition to those changes? Like what's the investment in the budget next year to get to the deficit? Where is that? What you could just tell me what that is? I don't know if I don't see it. If I'm not seeing it. Do you understand the question? Yeah, okay. Sure. when we work for FY 2016, the investment in the budget is gonna be $40 million. That's the request. For FY 2017, we're anticipating we're probably going to be in need about $60 million, but we're still working through some of those numbers. I also want to bring up that working with our associations, we identify savings through, you know, and revenue through all these changes, but what is not mentioned here is the associations. Also agreed to shift to a care management and hand-scarish management plan, which is also revealing a lot of, you know, the highest portion of savings are coming from that in hand-scarement. So we're going to offer plans with enhanced care management and then one plan without the credit. You don't know what enhanced care management is. Yeah. So, my entire career is a social studies teacher and a principal and a superintendent was all on a elaborate ploy so that I could get into the insurance business. And with that, I will say that going to a managed care means that you are effectively having some additional oversight to cost-effective management of your care versus carte blanche, what Dr. Directz is therefore then reimbursed and covered. This is a big step. And if this is anything, I would say that we need to heap some praise onto our association leadership for giving up some ground in this space to assume some costs on to the employees. And it's important something that you said, Chair Gawondo, because you said to take a look at this in the totality, and that really does matter, not just the totality of benefits, but the totality of compensation and benefits. Because even though there's a salary increase, it is backfilling a loss to the employee for increasing their share of expenses and also taking a reduction in what was the stated benefits. So there are a couple of things happening at the same time to create this pathway forward for us to actually get into the black. It is not any one thing but a combination of things and working with the association partners to make it happen. Huge step for Montgomery County public schools and for us as a community that we see a problem and that we're working to address it and we're working to address it expeditiously. Miss Alfonso Windsor said that this is going to require an additional investment in the next year's budget. Yes, that's true. How much of an additional investment may actually change to the benefit and be much less than a $60 million investment if we can apply fund balance, if we can find other savings and other ways that we might be able to create some cost controls. If there are other incentives that we can take advantage of, we might leverage those as well. But this is definitely one of those things that is terrifying to look at because it is terrifying to look at. It is reflective of not the best management approach that MCPS has taken in the past, but it is a path forward. And it's a path forward on a timeline that both our insurance partners, our partners and associations, and you as our funding partner should also endorse. Appreciate that, Council Member Mac. Thanks for that explanation. I understand that the enhanced care management or enhanced medical management, but that was really possibly the most painful part for members to agree to. And again, the fact that they came to the table and made that huge, huge, huge concession and so that we are able to invest those dollars into directly into the students. And I say directly because investing in our staff is also an investment in our students. But that's just a huge concession that is going to affect each of these members individually. Can you, do we know about what the impact will be on individual members? I'm far, we did calculate that. Unfortunately, I don't have it with me, but we can get that. And I would say that one of the advantages in some of our plan changes is that we do offer a more comprehensive option, but it is an option. And it's a more expensive option. But the managed care is not going to be a great fit for every single employee. And it's important that we take care of our folks. One of the ways that we can retain great folks is to make sure that we're communicating to them that we care about their health and well-being. And so providing additional options, even if it does come at a higher cost to them, is one way that we can provide that care. It makes sense, yeah. So for those for whom it makes fiscal sense for them to do so, they still have the ability to do that. And my understanding is that it's, I don't have numbers here, but my understanding is that it's in the range of several hundred dollars for members. And so, you know, that's a real concession when we talk about folks who are, you know, we're not, we don't have millionaires here. And you know, and I think, again, as we have these, you know, it's listed here as a cost change and it's really important that it's in the packet and that we have these listed here as a cost share change, and it's really important that it's in the packet and that we have the information here, but I just, that I feel like we're almost underselling what this is from a people standpoint. And maybe if there's a way to reflect this for the council packet, so that there's an understanding, by those who, you know, by the rest of the council of our colleagues also, that this was a concession that partners made in conjunction with, you know, strategizing with MCPS, in which they're really giving up something so that those dollars can be invested in their schools. And so I think it does come with a piece of that is a mandate to make sure that we're actually doing that. So it's important to make sure that there's an understanding. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, and I think I would ask maybe between now full council, if you could bring the numbers of what it actually means, you know, because it is a change. It doesn't happen every year. you know, just to let me be even a chart of what that means for an average, you know, just of a member and how much more money out of pocket. So it's, I think that would be something just to have in the packet be good. So people can contextualize it. Okay, so any comments on this? Okay, so let's move on to contractual services. Yep. So in contractual services on page seven in packet, a note that the full council did hear briefing on contextual services in December, with a great deal of information in terms of details on how contextual services break down across the board. On page eight of the packet, and chart showing on table eight, the request for FY 26, the slight increase in terms of the contractual percentages of part of the total budget and a slight increase in terms of the actual spending on contracts. Below that in table nine you'll see how that breaks down in terms of tax support and non-tax supported pieces. And then a couple of notes on the topic page 9 in terms of contracts that some of this is going to student transportation needs in terms of increased need for personnel and for the fleet and other contractual needs. An increase in terms of student health contracts, primarily focused on community schools and wellness centers where contractual contract is provided some of the services to students, I'm going to start with the first one. I'm going to start with the first one. I'm going to start with the first one. I'm going to start with the first one. I'm going to start with the an increase in terms of student health contracts, primarily focused on community schools and wellness centers, where contract will, contract will provide some of the services to students directly. And a big piece in terms of special education, contractual services for difficult to staff positions such as occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech pathologists. So that's some of the where the increases are occurring in terms of contracts for FY26. Thank you very much. Councillor McKinnell has a family emergency so he needed to leave. But anything that you all want to comment on about contractual services, go ahead. Anything not right or? Real quick before they jump in. I do want to say our appreciation both to the broader council when we had a bigger conversation during the overall budget review and to council staff for illuminating some of the critical issues. Special education continues to be a critical issue for us. transportation continues to be an issue for us, and how we address that. It's not something that we can entirely handle in-house. And so the fact that it is just 3% of our budget that is in this particular category, it's important to sus some of this out into these categories and they'll eliminate some additional details. I just wanted to clarify and highlight one item, the bullet on the top of page nine does highlight the increase in contractual services that we're looking at in student transportation. I wanted to just clarify, it's not directly transportation personnel. Really this is the one thing that we're seeing a large increase in our McKinney-Vento services to individuals who are homeless families who may need specialized transportation services and often we do have to use a service to provide those services taxee but it's a contractual service for that not directly personnel. And another thing to come back to in the context of our students experiencing poverty and other issues, we had a briefing earlier this week in the Plainy Housing and Parks Committee and HHS Committee around the troubling trend that we've doubled our homeless population in the last year and with a particularly increase in family who are experiencing homelessness. Obviously directly connected to this number that we have to make sure even if our students don't have a place to sleep at night that's consistent, they have to, they want to make sure they can get to school and that's unfortunately connected. A good artifact of that is that you're actually getting a little bit of a discount because it's only an 80% increase, not a 100% increase for doubling our homeless population. And if I may just quickly because I'm noticing there appears to be a big increase in contractual services for special education, but that is really just because we lost IDEA funding. So it's not the increase in that at large in terms of what additional services we're providing. It's just lost the funding of federal funding to support us. That was supporting what? That is supporting the other occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy for special invocations. So I don't have one staff that you had to contract. Those are hard to hire a position. Yes. Is that, you're going to say something? No, that's correct. And I think what Miss Alfonso Windsor's highlighting that we've had to shift those costs to the local budget. Because of ID. Because of ID. It's already insufficient. Yes. It was even cut even more. OK, great. Councilor Aronas. Yeah, just a comment. So items 10 and 11, the operation of plan and equipment and maintenance of plan, we've heard from our general services division because of tariffs and some of the other ongoing expenses that could be variable and will likely need to be adjusted up over the course of this year. And obviously we're not going to not fix HVAC equipment. And so that's just something that will be impossible for you and all other executive branch agencies to fully be able to account for, but something we have to keep an eye on. I appreciate that. And I also want to reiterate how how how how appreciate your continued transparency and explanation of this list that is a big list, but it's an important list and that that there's just, you can see very clearly where all of these things are going and why they're going there. And appreciate council staff's putting it in there as well. I'm looking at just the, that you explain this special education. I'm just looking for other big changes. The administration is going up two million. What's that? The administration is where we have a lot of our technology, materials like the ERP, the financial services, the human capital, HCM human capital, a management system that we just implemented, and we're going into the next phase for next year, which is our recruiting system. This is already budgeted for, but there's cost increased. So a lot of our software's for Microsoft services is all going up. That's contained into that. So, correct. So if you look at table nine, Anything else on those? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't knowx supported adjustment. Okay. Anything else on those from anybody? Okay. So I think we, what's next? What's next? Maintenance. Oh yeah, of course. How can we forget maintenance? There you go. So the next piece for the Council of the Committee to consider is on page 11 in terms of changing staff, funding staffing and policy for maintenance operations. But Next piece for the Council that committee to consider is on page 11 in terms of changing staff, funding staffing and policy for maintenance operations. Budget Asterion increased with $9 million, $22 FTEs for maintenance in schools, primarily focused in terms of the establishment of facilities task force teams. This is a concept which will address needs in schools in the backlog of maintenance orders by teams of technicians working together to go to a school and as Superintendent has noted, clear out the backlog of work orders. So this information here also in terms of the state of the maintenance plan and maintenance funding from the comprehensive maintenance plan that was issued for FY 25, just emphasizing that this has been under funded for years and this will work to address those needs. Appreciate that. It was in my big three of the facilities and schools and safety security mental health. Obviously, there's other big three, but those are certainly always big three specialties case and I put in there. I need to make a big five. But so go ahead, please talk about this and how you hope to deploy this these 22FTEs. It is really hard to get excited about the physical condition of many of our buildings, but this is a strategy that we are excited about. This is something that I've tried in a couple other school districts. It does have a pretty big impact especially when you have school facilities that have an increased number of work order backlogs. Essentially, if you can envision this and this is not exactly how it's going to look, but it's pretty close. If you put a painter, a carpenter, a plumber, an HVAC tech, and an electrician together as a team, a common theme that you've heard throughout this budget. We don't walk into bars in public education. Chair D'Wondo, into a library. They walk into a library or they walk into a school and they take a look at the long list of backlogged work orders that the facilities person may not have the expertise to handle all by themselves. They may need assistance and help. They spend a period of time planning how they might stock a truck and plan out how they can close those work orders and then they spend a period of time closing out the work orders. This will substantially improve the learning environment in our schools that get this treatment or this approach and it will improve their facility condition index score, which is something that we're sensitive to when making capital improvements. So what we're hoping to do is make this a cost savings to the county and being able to take schools off of the future CIP project list because we're actually addressing their physical plant needs. One of the challenges that we've observed with the maintenance budget because we've made other choices to invest in other areas of the school system over the past decade or so is that the footprint of MCPS has grown in terms of square footage. But the staff who have been maintaining that footprint has not grown commensurate to supporting that footprint. And as a consequence of that, we're seeing what we are seeing, which is that systems are failing. That HVAC systems are going on the fritz and are hard to bring back that electrical systems, plumbing systems, even fixtures that need to be replaced, are slowed to be replaced either because of cost or because of labor and making sure that we have those things applied in the right spaces. We're hoping that this takes a giant step forward in us being able to deploy multiple teams to different corners of the county to address longstanding and shortstanding issues and substantially improve the learning environment for our students and for our staff. This is a beginning. This is yet one more thing that is a step. You will likely see this again in future budget years where we are adding to this strategy if it proves successful, which I believe that it will. And when we have the evidence to show that this investment is paying off and providing our funding partners with the return on investment that you're looking for. Thank you, Pat. And another good topic. I share your excitement on this issue. Having, you know, you just earlier this week, we talked about the issues at SEMS. And is that resolved, by the way, do we get someone out there? Yes. The ceiling? Yes. Yes, sorry. Good morning. Yes, that was a a result yesterday we found a leak that was actually pulling the water on top of that tile. So the tile has been replaced and we're fixing the leak as of this morning. Great. Task Force team already in place even before the funding. But so I think I would love to come back. Once you've assuming you can implement this and the budget goes the way you want it to have like an in-depth session on just the facilities and how these are working once you have some time and and and I we could probably pair that with a briefing on the facilities index once you I think you're nearing completion on on that so we can just talk about it all together but that again something that we hear about I know you hear about it more than we about it, but we hear about it a lot, so I know you're hearing about it all together. But that again something that we hear about, I know you hear about it more than we hear about it, but we hear about it a lot, so I know you're hearing about it a lot. So this would be three teams and also in that briefing, if we could talk about what you're playing for the future is assuming it goes the way you want to as far as ramp up. But for this time it would be 9 million for 22 people for three teams. Right? Okay. Do you have any questions on this? Go ahead. Just to re-emphasize how important this is, I was at one point responsible for managing 32 facilities and actually interestingly, six of them are former schools. So, including the headquarters of the Department of Recreation, which was the old bushy drive, when somebody, the long time ago, thought it would be a good idea to have schools with literally without walls. So, I appreciate and respect this very much. I think we should have more creative thinking like this across all of county governments so that we can just be more nimble in addressing the myriad of needs that we have in facilities. I've been impressed with your all's responses to this. So keep up the good work. Also, I want to ask about one more. How is uh, was it a mcgruder? Is that been fixed? Yeah, that was completed. Okay, that was the auditorium. So that's in service so people are using it again. That is correct. Okay, because I had heard maybe it was that must have happened this week. Bada, we can have a go. Great, all right, good. So we care about the macro and the micro here, you know? anything you want to add as we close this one out. It did not take us multiple years to complete the Magruder project. I would like to praise Mr. Mammune and his team working with our school leadership team and really across different parts of the organization to get in and work with the school staff and make that project a priority and get it up and running in very short order. And looks impressive. I have to come take a visit. I haven't been able to get to my scooter. All right well I think that is that it for today. So we will have one more meeting coming up and that will be on April 30th next week and And that's when we will go over the tech mod, just some loose items and any other follow-ups that we've had. And there's a couple things I think I know staff noted that we wanna make sure in the packet for full counsel on anything else. So let's, we'll review and let you know if there's anything we need between now and then and then we'll make a funding recommendation as a committee to the full council so thank you all for coming welcome again to the full team I hope you have a great rest of your day and with that we are adjourned.