Hey, everybody. I'm Doug, and that's Connor, and
this is a very caffeinated
edition of the Bethel School District District Presents
podcast. We are gonna talk, Connor, about coffee
a little bit later on. But before we
get there, we're gonna talk about school district
budgets, a very important topic, and we want
folks to understand out in our community and
our staff and even students that are listening.
There's a lot of intricacies about school funding,
and we're gonna dive into them. Now this
summer, there's been a lot of news stories.
You don't have to Google too far to
find that many districts in our area, neighbors
and those up north and south, are struggling
a bit financially. Indeed. We're all seeing those
stories of layoffs and even school closures all
around Washington. But here in Bethel, we're actually
doing better than most, and that's thanks to
the hard work and difficult decisions
made by senior leaders to get us on
the right path.
Only a few years ago, the district was
in deficit spending, but that has changed, thankfully.
Chief financial officer Brian Verrilli talked about that
during a recent school board meeting. You can
see we had those 3 difficult years of
deficit spending just a few years ago.
Last year, you were about as flat as
you can be. That's kinda what you wanna
do as a school district. You spend the
revenue on the students that you receive for
the year.
This year, we are projecting right now we're
gonna have a little bit of surplus and
just high level next year about the same
amount of deficit.
So over those 3 years, we'll be pretty
flat is the goal. Reminder, revenue has over
this time period risen a little bit slower
than expenditures.
And then our fund balance was around 69,000,000,
but most people would say that's high for
their,
amount of spending we do every year.
If we're spending
390 ish $1,000,000,
39,000,000
is about 10%, and a lot of districts
try to stay around that 10% number. As
you can see, we're pretty flat in these
projected years. Before we go any farther, I
love how he says $390
ish
million. Funny way to talk about that much
money. And we are talking about big numbers
here because we are a big school district.
Lots of students
means lots of staff. 80% of our budget
is in salaries and benefits. In fact, we're
one of the biggest employers in Pierce County.
So you may have heard. He said something
about general fund balance. Now that's not something
everyone understands.
We're not for profit, so we need to
spend what we get money wise, but you
do need to have a little bit in
the bank. Some districts say about 10% for
a variety of reasons. So it's kind of
like an emergency fund? Exactly. But there are
other reasons too. Cash flow fluctuates throughout the
year. We get different amounts from the state.
We get 2 big months of property tax
revenues, but our expenditures
are pretty steady because our biggest expense is
payroll. We have a couple of months that
are higher than others because of vacation cash
outs and stuff like that, but it's our
revenue that tends to fluctuate a lot throughout
the year from month to month.
So we don't wanna have to borrow to
meet those cash flow needs.
Bond ratings, the rating agencies,
Moody's, Standard and Poor's, that rate our bonds
when we build schools.
One of the top things they look at
is your fund balance. And if your fund
balance is decreasing,
you're gonna have basically a lower credit rating
and pay more for that money that you're
borrowing to build those schools.
Also, emergencies. You never know when emergency is
gonna come up come up.
Cash reserve will help mitigate that,
limiting disruptions
to current programs. So if we were to
have a sudden decline in enrollment
or other factor in state funding,
your fund balance can allow you to get
through those tough times without making drastic cuts
right away. So it just smooths the disruptions
from year to year. He covered a lot
of ground there. One thing he mentioned was
our bond rating, and here again, Bethel has
done exceptionally well.
In fact, done something other districts haven't been
able to do. Our bond rating, which is
AA 2,
there's only one bond rating higher than that
that school districts can get in Washington state.
Our bond ratings stayed the same while other
districts have actually seen their bond ratings drop.
Quick clarifying question.
Our budget's based on the number of students
we have. Right? That's right. And unlike other
districts, Bethel is still seeing a little bit
of growth while other districts are not. So
that's in our favor as well. Another clarifying
question would be, where does our money come
from? Well, if you follow school funding, you'd
be able to guess it's state, federal government,
and local levies. But here's the actual breakdown.
Most of it comes from the state, about
77%,
and about 70% of that 77%
comes from the prototypical funding model,
that I like to talk about quite a
bit. But
other big sources of revenue is the special
education funding we get from the state.
Transportation funding, we get we'll get just under
18,000,000 we're projecting for next year.
Lap about 11,000,000
and some many other smaller state programs
will add up to that.
305,000,000
from the state federal government
are projecting 36,000,000. The biggest there is actually
food services
at about 10,000,000.
Title 1's
6,000,000,
special ed from the federal government's another 6,000,000
and a whole bunch of other smaller programs.
Now Brian mentioned the prototypical
funding model, and that's something I think we
need to break down for folks. Yeah. For
sure. I don't understand it. Well, Webster's
defines prototypical
as Stop. Stop. Stop. Let's not go there.
Let's have Brian clear it up for us.
The number of prototypical
positions are determined by a number of students
you have. So there's a format, and it's
different for different grade levels. Like, k through
3, you get
1 prototypical teacher for every, 17 students. At
the higher grades, it's close to,
one teacher for every 25 points, 25 to
20 it depends on grade level. Let's say
20 one for every 26 students. Just a
reminder for how these numbers are determined.
And then the state gives you money based
on those numbers. Alright. I'm gonna need a
little bit more than that. Well, that's not
a problem because school board president Marcus Young
senior knows this be a hard thing for
folks to understand. So he and Brian Verley
had a little q and a to help
people understand what the prototypical funding formula actually
is. For you all, slide number 10 is
a slide that actually lays out the
term we've heard prototypical
model
for funding from the state for both certificated,
classified,
and certificate administrators.
Just for our questions today, we're gonna talk
about the first one, understanding that what we're
gonna talk about and the questions I'm gonna
ask fit each one of those categories. They
do. Okay. So the first question is,
is this slide stating that per what the
state public what the state's public school funding
model suggests, a certificated staff member is funded
at $82,902
a
year? Yes. That was correct. That's for next
year just to be totally clear. Next year.
Yes. Okay. So just to be clear, this
is the base amount that the state pays
for any certificated staff member to the district.
To Bethel's district at 6% regionalization.
Yes. K. So if we were to put
this in the simplest equation,
1 Feet, which is what you,
talked about before,
equates to a full time certificated staff. And
based upon a school's enrollment,
if they qualified for 10 FTEs,
that is 10 full time employees
at $82,902,
which would equate to $828,020.
Is that correct? That is correct. Okay.
Does the state take into account or have
any type of scale in pay that accounts
for the experience of years for a certificated
staff?
We do not receive any, and the vast
majority don't. But there is a few districts
that receive an experience factor, but that hurdle
is extremely high.
And even when I look at our
scattergram of kinda where our teachers are, I
think we have a lot on the high
end, but we're not even close to reaching
that hurdle. To be able to qualify that.
Be able to qualify. And and actually is
a very small addition what you get for
that. Okay. Yeah. But in most
contracts, when we look at the contracts,
in most contracts, we do have different steps
that include the years of experience, which we
should,
or,
degrees or things of that nature. And years
to both.
I'm gonna state Yeah. Yeah. So our salary
schedule, if you're a BA,
so a bachelor's degree with no additional units
and 0
years of service. So your 1st year working
at the district, that's about $63,000.
Okay. And the top end, if you've got
a
master's plus 90 or doctorate Mhmm. With the
maximum number of years, that's just under a
120,000. So that's the range on the salary
schedule. And the steps all along up, you
know, across depth experience and with education units.
Yes.
When we use the term certificated
staff,
is that referring to just teachers? No.
There's Who does that all include? It's librarians.
It's counselors. It's nurses. It's psychologists.
It's TOSAs. It's social workers. It's anybody who
needs a certificate
but is not an administrator.
So when you stated at the beginning of
that range,
was that was that just a teacher range,
or is that in that group period, or
do they each have their own ranges?
In our district, they do not have their
own salary schedule. They're all in the same
salary schedule. Same salary salary schedule. K. What's
the average pay of a certificated staff?
This year, it's $94,745.
K. So what percentage of our staff are
above the prototypical model amount?
72%
are above that. So 72% of the certificated
staff that we have are above
$82,902.
Yes. Okay?
If we have staff who are above that
82, which we just explained that we do,
who makes up that difference?
The district from other sources, and most of
it's honestly from the levy. But there are
other programs that might have
not fully spend it. The indirects that I
talked about from ESSER,
could help pay for that also. Anything any
program that underspends
unrestricted money could help pay for that. They'll
pay for that. If it's restricted, though, they
can't help pay for that, obviously. And so
levies are part of that that will utilize
are part of that. But levies were the
the intent of levies were to be able
to pay for extra programming, things of that
nature.
We you don't normally wanna use the levy
money to make up
salaries.
That is generally true, but there's different philosophies
at different districts, obviously, on the importance of
different things. And so there's some argument
to help supplement different needs with levy money.
But at the highest level, yes, levy money
is
for
additional services beyond basic education. K. Based upon
this model, what is the amount that we
have to make up each year?
This is a rounded number.
So a little bit over $30,000,000
of our levy goes to make up not
just certificated extra salaries, but extra
salaries above,
the prototypical funding for salaries. And once
again, this is not to point out that
teachers get or make
this the the concept Because if I look
close at this, every one of these groups,
the average is higher and we're staffed higher.
Right. Right. Which is the necessity that we
have. Once again, the the purpose of the
questioning
was to bring light when we talk about
in board meetings that the state does not
pay for public education.
For the average person,
that
that does not make sense. They know that
the state pays. They don't know the details
of what that looks like. When we throw
out the term prototypical
model, the average person does not know what
does that mean. So the purpose of the
questions was to bring and marry
the 2 that that the common person can
understand whether it's their own now or they
come back and watch later, that there is
a lot that not just our school district,
but many other school districts have to make
up in all categories
in order to make school work
for students. And most schools, most teachers would
say that that still isn't enough. They would
say they still need more help. Students would
say they still need more help. And so
with that, just wanting the average person to
understand that when we say these terms and
when we say this, that there is a,
due diligence on their part as well as
our part that we demand that the state
step up to the plate so that we
don't have these things where we have these
internal battles
of
we we need more money.
Understand that. We need more money,
you know, on both ends. Right? And so
I just wanted to bring clarity once again,
not to point out any particular group, but
just to really bring reality that a lot
of districts are shortchanged
when it comes to running school. Now there
is more to this presentation, and you can
watch the whole thing by going to bethelsd.org
and clicking on board docs. There, you can
view the presentation
or dissect the 190 page PDF of the
budget itself. I saw you printed that out
this morning. It's light reading. I don't know
about that. Sounds like you might need a
cup of coffee for it. And, Connor, I
wanna talk about coffee. I know you are
quite the Fiend. Go ahead and say it.
Enthusiast is what I was gonna say. Generous
way of saying it. I have 4 coffee
related trivia questions for you to close out
our show today. So we're gonna start out
easy for someone who claims to have lived
in Seattle for a little while. You should
know this right off the top of your
head. When
and where did the 1st Starbucks open its
doors?
That is a good question, which I should
know. I'm gonna say right off the bat,
I don't, but I'm gonna give it an
educated guess. We obviously know it was Seattle.
Pike Street
is gonna be the correct location. That's right.
I I'm gonna say
1989.
89. The same year Taylor Swift was born.
If you say so. I do say so.
Well,
the Starbucks story begins in
1971
Sheesh. Along the cobblestone streets of Seattle's historic
Pike Place Market. That's where Starbucks opened their
very first store. They offered fresh roasted coffee
beans, tea, and spices. They had one employee
at the time. Their name was inspired by
the classic tale Moby Dick evoking the seafaring
traditions of early coffee traders.
So I get half credit for that. Right?
That's all I care about. I'll definitely give
you a 0.5 on that one. That was
not too shabby. Okay. While we're at Starbucks,
let's talk about the most expensive Starbucks coffee
that has ever been ordered. I'm just looking
for a price, and I guess we can't
do price is right rule since you're the
only one playing here. You're you would discuss
$1.
So be within $5 of this most expensive
Starbucks order. So our regular listeners will recall
our new nurse administrator, Angela Radonski,
had a very intricate coffee order at Starbucks.
She did. I'm gonna say she's gotta be
close. She didn't say how much that cost,
but I'm going to say
$15.
$15
is a good guess. I did see some
frappuccinos
upwards of that amount.
The most expensive Starbucks order.
I'm gonna give you 2 actually because the
first one's not that interesting. There was a
guy who ordered a 170
espresso shots with coconut milk, cost a $148.99.
That's wild. That's it seems excessive. Buy an
espresso machine.
The second most costly drink, this one's more
interesting because I actually gave a name, YouTuber,
you knew it was gonna start with that,
Elton Castle ordered a Grande Americano
with a 102 shots of espresso,
caramel drizzle to reduce the bitterness of the
drink, and he and his friends couldn't actually
finish it. It was a $102.15.
So here's where we get into the weeds
a little bit. Love it. Grande is an
actual size. There's an ounce I thought it
was associated with grande.
So you can only fit so many shots
of an espresso in a grande. So is
it really a grande if it fills, you
know, 500 ounces of liquid? That's a great
question. And could he have got it for
a little cheaper if he just ordered a
tall? I'd like a tall coffee with a
100 shots of espresso. That's that's where he's
losing the money. Should've ordered a venti.
There's many issues with this story.
Our final question, on the show, comedians in
cars getting coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, he drives
around with a very famous comedian
on the show
who had his first cup of coffee ever
on that show.
Who was that comedian? Oh, that's interesting because
I have watched many of those episodes, but
I do not recall this.
So this is gonna be just a straight
up guess Love it. Stalling for time
Stalling a little bit. Stalling further. Would you
like a hint? Give me a hint. He
was 63 at the time and had never
had coffee.
Boy,
I'm gonna say
I'm gonna I'm gonna go out and say
Kramer himself, Michael Richards.
That is a good guess. He was on
the show,
but this is not him. It's actually the
one and only Jay Leno.
Wow. Claimed he had never had coffee. He
tried it. He hated it, and Jerry finished
his cup. What a weirdo.
I saw him sit on that desk for
many years with a coffee cup. I don't
know what was in it, but it wasn't
coffee, I guess. Stolen coffee valor.
Well, Connor, that was a fun conversation today.
A little history of coffee and a lot
of school budget talk. I learned a lot
today.
I'm glad I could teach you. We'll be
back next week everybody with another great episode.