Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

This is a stream test for today's budget work session at 02:00. Again, this is a stream test for the budget work session at 02:00.

One. Thank you for joining us today, and I'd like to officially welcome you to our 05/11/2026 budget work session. I called the budget work session to order. Before we begin, I'd like to note for the record that because commissioners will convene later today for the budget public hearing at the Wake County Commons Building, we are requesting to conclude today meeting at by 04:30. This will allow commission and staff adequate time to transition and prepare for the hearing.

At this time for today's session, we have four important items to cover. The first being the capital funding update, Wake Tech Community College capital update, Wake County Public Schools capital update, and Wake County Public Schools operating budget. We will now move to our first item on agenda. Wake County capital funding at this time, and I'd like to call Todd Taylor and Molly to the podium. And I hope I pronounced that correctly.

Marcarelli. Thank

you.

But yeah, just wanted to give a welcome to everybody. I think all of you know that David presented his recommended budget last Monday. This is our first work session for you to hear from both county staff and today Wake Tech and the school system staff on capital and some of the operating budget. And we will have another work session on the twenty first. Of course, Chair Miles said we have a public hearing this evening, one next week and then we of course have our portal on the wire or on the website open for all that public comment.

And I will yeah, I'll turn it over to Todd and Molly to start us out with overview of debt and county capital and then we'll invite our partners up later on.

Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Chair Miles and Commissioners. We'll jump right into the update here. We're going to cover the capital funding highlights that are included in the managers recommended fiscal year twenty seven to thirty three CIP and then we'll briefly highlight any changes from draft material that was presented earlier on March 30 and April 6. So starting with libraries as a reminder voters authorized the counties 142,000,000 library bond back in November 2024.

The corresponding tax associated with those bonds was 1 fourth of a penny that took effect in the current fiscal year. It was already levied in the current fiscal year. The first bonds authorized under the '24 bond were actually just issued and provided the county with the first $43,000,000 of funding to get started on those library projects. For EMS master plan, recommended funding remains $85.20 $20 of funding 20 will will be in seven and then that will complete the total funding needs of for that project being a $60,000,000 project. County's decedent storage, the final $49,000,000 for that project will occur from fiscal twenty seven through '29 and that will complete the necessary funding for that project and the Justice Center six floor renovations that $16,000,000 will be taking place between fiscal years 2028 and 2029.

Fire tax district master plan 58,000,000 recommended funding. You can see the split between co locate fire stations and then also replacement for needed rolling stock. And as a reminder the fire tax does levy their own tax so it will repay the debt fund for the fire allocation of county debt issued. Public health and social services facility, slight adjustment in the proposed capital funding there since the earlier budget work session. The master plan study was advanced and moved up to reassess the optimal use of regional centers and by doing that some of the planned regional center renovations were pushed back just a little bit and because of that we had to account for some cost escalation which accounts for that $2,000,000 increase in funding.

Detention center expansion previously total cost was estimated between $175,000,000 and $210,000,000 Now the project has been recommended to be funded at 200,000,000 after scope and cost refinement. So this is after receiving updated cost estimates from the CMAR and identifying areas for reduction which included delaying the construction of a parking deck. So the current plan would be to build a surface lot to meet the near term parking needs and then the county can contemplate the funding and construction of a parking deck at a later point as the future need arises. Wake County Office Park, previously total cost estimate was between 200 and $285,000,000. Now the project is recommended to be funded at $249,000,000 and that is after scope and cost refinement.

Again, we've received updated cost estimates from the CMAR and identified areas for reduction include reducing the planned office buildings from two down to a single building. Staff believes the one office building strategy can suffice for the near term space needs and then the county can contemplate construction of a second building at a later time as the future need arises. Transitioning to education funding, no change here from the earlier presentation for the school system. On April 7, the Board of Education approved the school's recommended capital funding plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2033. They have also at that same meeting also adopted resolution requesting the county pursue a fall school bond on this fall's ballot in the amount of $680,000,000 that provides capital funding for two fiscal years being fiscal twenty eight and fiscal twenty nine.

And we are happy to have schools executive leadership with us here today. You'll be hearing from him from them very shortly and they'll be presenting on the school's overall capital program and upcoming seven year CIP and I will note while they will touch on the upcoming need for a school bond, they will be coming back to your regular meeting July 6 to present in more detail on those bond projects. For Wake Tech, the updated seven year CIP remains total funding of $440,000,000 The county does plan for Wake Tech bond this fall in the amount of $149,100,000 and that will provide capital funding for four fiscal years being fiscal year 2028 through 2031. And again happy to have Wake Tech executives and leadership with us here today. You'll be hearing from them very shortly in this work session.

And again they'll be presenting on their updated seven year capital plan. They will also be coming back to your July 6 regular board meeting to present in more detail the projects anticipated to be funded by the upcoming bond. So in total combined education bonds on this fall's ballot total 829,100,000. Total estimated tax impact remains half of a penny or 0.5¢ and that would be anticipated to be levied in fiscal twenty twenty eight to support the education bonds. This chart should be somewhat familiar from the earlier budget work sessions on March 30.

It shows the county's recommended capital funding which totals 4,700,000,000 over the fiscal twenty seven to fiscal thirty three CIP and it pulls together the total funding among all stakeholders by appropriation type whether debt or pay go. So again at the top here you can see the different bond referenda at play. The gray shaded area are referenda that has already been approved and still has debt to issue and appropriate from the earlier bond and then the white gray white shaded boxes are the future referenda play for schools in Lake Tech. The middle section there is just the county's planned cash funding for PAYGO by the different purposes and then at the green section at the bottom that just highlights the anticipated tax impact for the different referenda that are at play right now. Then this is just a slide that kind of isolates and pulls out the county's plan for the geo bond referendum over our upcoming seven year CIP.

You can see the planned education bonds planned for this fall's ballot. The necessary tax impact that's anticipated would come online in fiscal twenty eight. So those correlate there. The only other referendum that's currently planned in the county's debt and capital model would be in November '30 and that would also be for public school and Wake Tech bond. Future tax impact on that, we're too far away from that to really put a number on that.

So that'll come into clear focus as we get closer to that and get through annual budget cycles. So before I turn the rest over to Molly, I'm happy to pause and take any questions on the slides that have been presented so far.

Okay, colleagues, anyone have any questions at this time? Commissioner Waters?

Thank you, Todd. You always do a great job in explaining this and walking us through this. For the bond itself, when it appears on the ballot, will WCPSS and Wake Tech be listed together or separate?

No, those are separate questions. That will separate questions.

Yeah, they

can be called out separately.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Yeah, Commissioner Stallis?

Thank you. When we talk about this, so when you bring this back in July, will there be, will it be communicated to the public the estimated tax impact in terms of dollar amount on average that it would the bond would entail? Yes,

that will be included in the slide deck that will be presented at that meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Any other questions? Not seeing anything.

Alright. Let me step side here.

Alright. Thank you, Todd. So next we're gonna take a quick look at our county capital summary. This is a subset of what Todd shared. So the debt and PAYGO associated specifically with our county capital projects.

These are detailed out by element. And in total, this $1,300,000,000 in planned expenditures can be accommodated within the funding provided in that recommended budget. Our intention with this is to create a sustainable model and plan for future needs. So this capital reserve is gonna show that we are gonna be reinvesting $22,000,000 over the seven years to ensure that this capital plan balances our revenue sources and our expenditures every year and in total. Next, I'm gonna cover some of our other capital funds.

They may be a special revenue source or an enterprise fund. So the first is our fire tax capital program. Wake County contracts with 19 fire departments to provide fire protection and emergency services in the unincorporated areas and the town of Wendell, including some municipal fire departments. And Wake County shares the cost with these fire departments as outlined in the fire protection agreements. So this fire tax district CIP plans replacements of major equipment and apparatus apparatus as well as facilities to meet the growing needs of our community.

The fire tax district CIP is primarily funded through that special property tax levied on those unincorporated areas of Wake County and the town of Wendell as well as a mix of other sources, including fund balance and municipal reimbursements. Some limited obligation bonds in the out years of the plan are not reflected here and are added to the plan as those amounts come into focus in the first year. And this program was reviewed by the fire commission back on April 9 and approved with the fire tax budget. Next, we've got our housing capital program. This aims to help develop and retain affordable housing units in support of our strategic plan goal to make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring.

The housing capital program is funded by a dedicated transfer from the general fund to this housing specific capital fund. Next, we have our major facilities capital fund. This program reflects investments in Zebulon Stadium, Marbles Kids Museum, and in competitive projects countywide. So there's an interlocal agreement that governs how these hospitality taxes are spent, and that ILA allocates a million dollars per year that the county chooses to use to maintain Zebulon Stadium and Marbles. Now the needs of these facilities exceeds that million dollar allocation, so some necessary HVAC replacements and maintenance are being funded in that county capital fund on the first slide that I shared with county cash instead.

Funding is also directed to fund competitive project processes for projects that support arts, culture, sports, or convention activities in Wake County. The future competitive process funding amounts and timing are gonna be determined with the twenty fourth interlocal agreement review that's coming later this year. And finally, we have our solid waste capital program. This covers investments in the disposal and recycling infrastructure in Wake County. These projects span our 11 convenience centers, three multi material and household hazardous waste facilities, the South Wake Landfill, and the East Wake Transfer Station.

The solid waste capital program is fully funded from various solid waste fees and some other revenue such as the sale of landfill gas. So I can pause and take any questions on these other capital funds.

Any questions? I

assume the multi material and convenience center 13,000,000 that we're looking at there is for that Morrisville facility?

I believe so. Yes, convenience center three. Okay.

Do you have a question? Okay, it seemed to be the only question.

All right, thank you very much.

Have a

Doctor. Rolls, Chuck.

Good morning. Good morning, sorry. Good afternoon Chair Mullen, Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here today. We're excited to spend some time with you today kind of sharing a little bit about what Wake Tech has been doing with support from the county.

What we're we've been doing, what we're doing now and then kind of a look ahead and a snapshot of what's what's coming and I hope today to be able to not only share the what of what we're doing but also the why and how it really ties into what we're all here to do to advance our region and our county and grow our economy and just how it all fits together for our people. So I'm excited to share today. So I'll start with kind of a look back. These projects may look familiar to you. These are some previous bond projects that we have already completed that relate to our skilled trades programs, our biopharma programs at the Lilly Science Center, our facilities operations and growth there just as we've grown as a campus and a college with nine sites.

We've got the need for a very robust facilities operations center and warehouse complex to serve the broader college of Wake Tech and that's on our Southern Campus. Automotive and then just a lot of repair and renovation work that we're doing across our campuses that date all the way back into the 1960s. So that's that's the past and then a little bit further into the past we've got our 2018 bond and believe it or not we're we're still finishing up some projects that came up through that 2018 bond particularly as as the college and the county decided to take a look out at Eastern Wake County and really grow our footprint out there in East Wake County. You'll see some of these bond projects from 2018 that look very familiar. And then we are wrapping up two projects and I wanted to hit a couple of slides on those two projects that are that we're wrapping up this year that are related to that bond.

But these really built out among other things and our Reedy Hall skilled trades labs, HVAC there, and then a lot of work over at East Wake campus in our public safety, fire and rescue, police, EMS, and then to really set up our campus at Eastern Wake as a campus designation with the community college system through our Education and Innovation Center. And it is ongoing renovation projects and then what's excitingly coming in the coming months towards the end of this year are two projects that are finishing up at East Wake campus. So East Wake really is the home for our university transfer programs, our biotechnology and our public safety and then advanced manufacturing. So the advanced technology center is and the fire and rescue training center are sort of the tail end of that. So this is our master plan for Eastern Wake campus, a broader plan for a much many, many buildings.

But as you can see, it's been a busy six years from the point of acquiring that land of a 106 acres all the way to we're finishing up our fourth building and in the fall and then we've got with with Building D advanced technology center and then our fire and rescue training center that will be coming online in the winter. And so here's a quick rendering of the Advanced Technology Center. It's an 800,000 square foot three story building really focused on biopharmaceutical and advanced manufacturing and a lot of different hands on simulation based environments for these programs, really broadening and deepening our reach in these fields for Wake County. And so wrapping up construction over the course of the summer and moving in and hoping to open in the early fall, early to mid fall. So very excited about that.

We also have our fire and rescue training center that will be finishing up in the winter. Six story live fire burning tower and a five story rescue training tower and a lot of other detailed apparatus throughout the site that allow our first responders to practice in real world environments with all kinds of fire scenarios. A liquid propane gas fire training pad where they can simulate a liquid gas leak, a vapor gas leak and put it out and really do that real world simulated environment to train our firefighters emergency personnel. Very excited about that. Coming up out of the ground as you drive by on the interstate you will see those towers coming up.

So really excited about that. So that's really wrapped, that's coming from the funding from the 2018 bond. And so here we are moving into the next one and so we have our 2022 workforce forward bond and this year is our last appropriation from that bond and you'll see that towards the end of the slide deck. But here's kind of the high level snapshot of what we're doing right now with the 2022 workforce forward bond. Our new health sciences building and parking deck, our simulation hospital at the Perry Health Science Campus, I'll talk about that.

Our relocation of our existing Western Wake campus to Apex and then additional renovations that we're going be doing at our RTP campus and then renovations at our Southern Wake campus and then moving into some repair and renovation and renewal and replacement of our aging infrastructure. So that's coming. That's what we're working on now. And so I wanted to start just with a reminder about Perry Health Sciences campus. This campus we've been there a long time for many many decades and it's really been the place to train our healthcare workforce here in the county and even throughout the region.

And so what we're showing here is a rendering of our new simulation hospital and parking deck up off to the top left and that's what's underway right now. And this was really made possible through what you guys have come to know and we've come to know as the Wake three Health and Education District. This really vital and innovative partnership between Wake County, WakeMed and Wake Tech with a tremendous amount of support from the City Of Raleigh to really designate this as a Health and Education District campus to provide a unified development framework for these entities to come together, swap some land and identify regions of this area to really best grow our healthcare both in terms of the healthcare we're offering people and the healthcare training that we're offering as well. So that was established back in 2024. And back in 2025, the county and WakeMed through a donative transfer gave 13.9 acres to Wake Tech to develop our new simulation hospital and parking deck.

And again that was made possible through this Wake three partnership and all hard work of all these entities to make this happen. And here we go. So this is our new simulation hospital opening next summer. So we're you've probably seen it as you've driven by, parking deck is up, we've got the framework up for the building. Still a lot to be done in the next twelve months.

It looks finished but it's not finished and it will result in a 106,000 square foot building with a tremendous amount of simulation space for healthcare education. Not just in nursing or the direct patient care but also imaging and mental health respiratory therapy, simulated OR, simulated emergency departments, a tremendous amount of new technology and we're excited about that. And that's going to be opening in the summer. Kind of a soft opening in the summer to bring some classes there and then the big blitz of heavy activity will be in the fall of twenty twenty seven. And now we have our plans underway for our permanent Western Wake campus over in Apex.

So this is we're currently leasing a facility in Cary and this will this is part of our 34 acre acquisition in the Veridia development, a thousand acre Veridia development over in Apex near the intersections of I-five 40, NC-fifty 5, and US-one. And here is a quick shot of the thousand acre development and we have fairly new neighbors off to the left here with our NC Children's Hospital. They'll be the anchor site on the west side of the property and here we are on the east side right there at the front entrance with Wake Tech with our 34 acre site. Very close proximity to a lot of the growing biotech and biopharma activity in and around Southwestern Wake County. It's also a region where we know we have a tremendous need for supporting students as well and university transfer students and general education associate of arts associate of science degrees.

So this is definitely a big need in Southeastern Wake County. I'm sorry, yes, Southwestern Wake County. First, so we finished our master planning and we are now in the process of designing our first building in the site development. So it's a 34 acre site, we're targeting a 125,000 square foot building that will be filled with classrooms, lab, all the student support services for the campus designation and to be able to provide support to our students with all the various student services functions and entrepreneurship and small business center and then a full and built out biotech, biopharma workforce education center there to support the growing industry in that area. We're still designing it and it's going to take several another year and a half or so to finish design, another couple of years to construct.

So we're looking for an anticipated opening in FY 2030 that site. Our architect is heavily underway with that and we're excited. Future master planning, we do have room for two more buildings. They are Building B, Building C and you'll see this kind of in the upcoming bond information, but we do have sites and property available for expanding our facilities to support the region in that area. And that's a rendering of our site plan.

So the first building that we're looking to build is here in the front. That's our first building. And then again the two in the back with the additional parking deck. It kind of looks real, doesn't it? They did a nice job.

RTP campus, we have renovations that we're planning there and programming these and putting these together. I'm about to solicit for design services for This will renovate Building 2 at RTP. The RTP campus is a home for RTP 2 Building is home for our university I'm sorry, our Wake Early College of Biotechnologies, Information Biotechnologies, the WESIB program. So they're currently on the 2nd Floor. We have biotech on the 3rd Floor and these renovations will grow our biotech and biopharma capabilities to support growing industry in the area, expand some parking that we need to do out there and then even a greenhouse to help, it's part of our biopharma program.

And so that's also happening here at the RTP campus right down the road from our new Western Wake campus. Campus. And then I wanted to mention this just because you know it's the renovation stuff that we don't always see and it's not expanding our facilities necessarily but these renovations that we'll be doing out of our current bond at our Southern Wake campus will be to some of our oldest buildings growing and developing the programs there and strategically expanding from within the walls of our building that we currently have and really renovating those, replacing aging infrastructure in those buildings and then reprogramming those to better meet the needs of the college in the years ahead. And so that's happening at our Southern Wake campus. And then as always we want to keep our eye on our infrastructure renewal and replacement program and so thankfully for the great support from the county we're able to pour time and energy into replacing our HVAC, bowlers, chillers, switchgear, electrical, paving.

You can see all the things here, ADA, way finding, all of the things that we need to do to keep our existing facilities strong and functional and operational to meet the needs of the college. So a heavy investment by the county in our infrastructure throughout the college. And I wanted to mention this one. This is not actually county funded. This is from state's gift funding, but it is a project that just finished and this is our Southern Campus Math And Science Building, we call it Building C.

And this was a project that renovated that and refurbished that and this is a good template for how we intend to do our renewal and replacement projects in some of our older buildings with the $50,000,000 that I mentioned in this previous slide here. This was a good project to base our concepts on and process and our methodology. Really, really a tremendous update to that facility and its capabilities in math and science. So that just wrapped up and we started classes in the spring there. So this is kind of the number slide showing that we have our $91,000,000 total capital funding.

This is no change. This is the same as what we've been projecting for several years. It's a blend of the cash funded up top at about $4,900,000 and about $8,630,000,086,400,000 dollars from the workforce forward bond for a total of $91,000,000 there. Yes, and that's the same as what we've been projecting. So that's what I have before you there.

And then just a quick look ahead to the 2026 bond that's coming up. That will be to help that will be for appropriations that will begin in FY '28 for four years. And here's kind of a quick snapshot of that. So our focus for this bond will really be on expanding our training capabilities in public safety skilled trades and healthcare and then renovating and updating our aging and older facilities and infrastructure. So it's about $41,000,000 of programmatic expansion of our programs, about $65,000,000 back into renovating our older facilities at our Southern Wake campus and then $20,000,000 back into our renewal and replacement and infrastructure projects to continue to update those infrastructure systems and keep them viable and operational.

And then this particular year because the element of our program that would previously be cash funded in previous years, This current bond cycle we will be putting the normally cash funded elements of 22,000,000 into the bond for our IT infrastructure minor capital and facility alterations. That piece there would typically have been in the past cash funded but this year through the debt modeling it will be bond funded. And so now I would like to invite Doctor. Rawls to share with you a little bit about how these projects sort of tie into our long range strategic plan for the college to serve the needs of the county and the citizens of Wake County.

Thank you Chuck and good afternoon everyone. I will probably talk about a little bit programmatically and I have to apologize. I have been accused in the past, I was first president of a college twenty years ago, a colleague once said to me, you know, not everything's about workforce development. And my response was well to me it kind of is. And so when I think about capital and I think about other things I'm typically thinking in terms of what it allows us to do from the workforce development side and opportunities that that provides.

So I thought I'd share it in that context. So I just want to make a note too of what your previous investments have meant on a programmatic side and then what we are also looking to expand as we move forward in the future. So when we talk about capital investment and particularly in new project or new program capital investment, we phrase it as part of our workforce forward strategic planning and that typically comes for us into three categories. One we talk about is we talk about from a jobs perspective, the jobs that keep us prosperous and growing. For us that has primarily been in recent years, biopharma advanced manufacturing.

Before that was the first bond, some IT but particularly in previous, the most recent bond has been biopharma and advanced manufacturing. I will tell you that is making a difference. I was in Wendell this morning at the opening of the new microgrid at Siemens, and Siemens is doing some very significant expansion, job growth expansion, we'll be providing on our Eastern Campus for their very significant growth. It's happening in Wendell and Knightdale because of their growth. So those kind of things wouldn't have been possible had we not had the Eastern Campus.

We've had all of our partners in Holly Spring including new partners like Genentech was on our campus at RTP just a couple of weeks ago and so I think there's not another community college that's more active in supporting economic development than Wake Tech but your investments, our community's investments in Wake Tech have allowed us to be able to do things uniquely that we've been able to do at RTP campus, on Eastern Campus, but will allow us to do even more as we open our new advanced technology center in August in the East and then design for the Apex campus which is within four miles of most of the major biopharma in that region. So those are the jobs that keep us moving, keep us prosperous and moving forward. The other big category we talk about are the jobs that keep our county running. Running. You know I often say Wake County runs on Wake Tech and I kind of believe that when I see that in terms of particularly the skilled trades and the technician jobs, your investments have, our communities investments have made a difference for us.

Just a few examples, when we opened the center, four years ago when we opened the center for automotive excellence, the Hendricks Center for Automotive Excellence, the year before we had 85 automotive students and a 100 person waiting list. Now we have 407, over 470 students and about an 80 student waiting list. So we never thought we would get to four, over four fifty. We know that was not really in our plans but we were able to do it. Never thought we'd have a waiting list once we got to that point either but we do as well.

So the demand is there, the student interest is there, the jobs are there. The other areas in terms of our skilled trades, the Center for Building Technologies now called the Falk Center for Building Technologies thanks to an investment by Kelly Falk recently in the past few months. And that's where we're doing all, a lot of the high end skilled trades like electrical and HVAC and building automation. Doctor Taylor in two weeks we will start actually next week welcoming, we'll have 26 high school students taking electrical courses there this summer as part of a special Siemens Foundation grant where they actually get paid like a summer job to do that but we'll get a jump start on our electrical program while they're in high school during the summer. That wouldn't be possible if we did not have those types of labs there.

Our HVAC program which is growing and supporting. So when we look at those jobs, that's where we see the need for future building growth. Not a new building, but we need to expand labs and renovate labs so we can do more electrical, more HVAC, more plumbing. And also we want to keep trying to squeeze out a little more space in terms of being innovative about space at our Hendricks Center because we want to bring that automotive waitlist down. All of those programs are waitlisted right now.

Those are not programs that we want to have waitlist because we need electricians, we need HVAC technicians, we need people to repair our cars And so when you see the next bond part of what you would see there is expansion for skilled trades to allow us, we're not exactly clear about how far we'll push it but it would allow us to attempt some expansion on both southern and Northern campuses to try to alleviate those wait list and renovate some spaces into lab space that you have to have for that kind of very hands on based education. And then the last area that is from a programmatic area where we make our investment is in terms of as we say the jobs that keep our community safe and healthy. And so certainly you have made a difference in that Daryl, see in back there in terms of our work collectively with the county on fire and rescue and EMS. You know we were able to build a new EMS center there on our Eastern campus. We're now working towards the finishing up of the fire and rescue training center.

Although there's still one more big piece there that we knew wasn't gonna be funded yet and that is the actual facility where students would be able to take classes, be able to take showers, be able to kind of accommodate those students who are in fire and rescue training out there where we'll have the towers and we'll have the other capabilities. That would be part of the next bond. As well as in healthcare, I think probably the project we're most excited about in terms of just its scale and its unique, in terms of being unique is the new simulation hospital which is part of our expanded Perry Health Science Campus which is part of the, as we say, the health and education district project with Wake County and WakeMed. And so that is providing so much opportunity for us because of the new land growth and now the building of the simulation hospital there where we hope to, where we will, we're finishing up should be next summer approximately a year from now when we'll be able to open that facility which will then also allow us to expand significantly our nursing programs and our imaging programs.

Just this weekend we had five graduations and six healthcare pinning ceremonies. So my arm is a little sore today and my voice is a little a little hoarse. But the I met a young high school student from Rolesville High School. We had the Rolesville High School chamber choir singing the national anthem at our first two graduations on Saturday and one of the young woman who was in that chamber choir was telling me about how she's coming to Wake Tech to study radiography and I was excited to tell her, well, let me tell you about what you're gonna see when you get to Wake Tech in that regard. So we had a really exciting conversation but I just wanna thank you because it is those investments that you have helped lead, that our county has invested in Wake Tech that allow us to create the facilities, that help attract the high end jobs that are coming to our area, that help us create the facilities, that help us keep Wake County running through our skilled trades and our technicians and have helped to create the facilities like our simulation hospital, like our fire and rescue center, like our public safety simulation center keep us safe and healthy.

So we appreciate your investments and hopefully future continued investments because they're not just strategic I think to Wake Tech but strategic to the development and the growth of opportunity in our county but also the kinds of needs that we all have in terms of the workforce we need from Wake County and coming through Wake Tech. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll take questions.

Doctor. Ralls

and Chuck colleagues, Commission Thomas got a hand up.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Doctor. Ralls. Thank you, Chuck. I appreciate very much the combined focus on maintenance, renovations, and new construction with your bond dollars. And I was just wondering on the last slide, it says $22,700,000 at the very bottom and it says that it's for IT infrastructure. And I think often when people think about infrastructure, they don't think about IT infrastructure. Could you give me some examples on what that IT infrastructure looks like?

Sure. Yes. So the IT infrastructure takes care of a good bit of our repair and replacement of aging servers. It takes care of replacing networking equipment deeper into the building. It covers special projects to repair and upgrade that equipment. So it's very equipment focused, some software but mostly equipment. As we bring in new equipment, there's definitely software needs that come with it. But it's really to maintain our server rooms, our server equipment, our wireless access points throughout the college and our network security. Thank you. Does that answer the question?

It does. Was thinking of in terms of things like fiber and broadband especially in some of the new construction projects and thinking exactly what you were saying. Some of the replacement of servers and equipment that you have that could be aging, not necessarily software.

Very clear as well. Chuck had noted that this is funding that we've received in previous years. And again, as I tried to indicate, the previous funding has in this area has made a real difference at Wake Tech when we hit COVID and we were online for a year. One of the things that as a result of Wake County's investment in IT infrastructure, Wake Tech through this effort, you know, we were able to really having our number of campuses create the redundancy and resiliency of that IT infrastructure that really allowed us to go fully online during that COVID year and support the kind of educational opportunities in a secure fashion that other colleges don't have that advantage thanks to the infrastructure support that Wake County has made. And I think you see that at Wake Tech both in our facility infrastructure in terms of maintaining our different systems but in our IT infrastructure it gives us a strength in terms of our resiliency in many ways.

Thank you. I appreciate that because like I said, don't think that when we talk about capital dollars, IT infrastructure is one of the things people consider. Thank you.

It's a good point. You. Other questions?

Any other questions? Commissioner Waters?

Thank you for such a great presentation. I spent a number of years teaching at the Perry Health Science Campus as well as the Western Wake Campus, so this is extremely exciting to see come to fruition. With the permanent Wake campus, what will be the focus there? Will that be workforce continuing education?

Yes, so with the new Western Wake campus, you know when you say teaching at the Western Wake campus, we have a site now that we lease and so we will close that site and then move those aspects to that campus which is really our ability to offer associate in arts, associate in science, other types of programs. What's gonna be unique at the new Apex campus is really with the first building is a very big emphasis on biopharma and advanced manufacturing because strategically that facility, that campus is within four miles of Securus, Amgen, Fujifilm, Genentech, all of the Holly Springs focused area biopharma that has just sprung up in recent years and continues to grow in that part of the region. So we'll have very advanced training opportunity to support those types of companies that are now have been concentrating in that part of the community and truthfully have been concentrating in that part of the community in anticipation of us building those. As we talk about those opportunities, we share with them what our plans are. That will be a smaller campus for us, obviously bigger than the least campus that we have in Cary now, but a smaller campus of three buildings.

So it's we would, you know, not part of this bond or other, we would plan out future things. Children's hospital, you could probably see a healthcare angle out there because of just the strategic tie in of being adjacent to such a large project in that area.

Excellent. And I'm also really excited about Perry Health Sciences Campus and the Simulation Hospital. Great to have a pipeline of additional health coworkers in our community. Thank you so much.

Can I mention one thing while you brought that up? One thing I wanna also thank you all for. You all support with the Wake Works Apprenticeship Program which really was the county commissioners led effort. What's really been phenomenal over really this last year is the growth, tremendous growth in terms of healthcare apprenticeships. So just within the last couple of months we started the first nursing apprenticeship program, the first dental assisting apprenticeship program in the state And so we are seeing just great expansion in terms of the health occupations and then the numbers of both apprentices and then primarily driven by the three major hospitals but also in areas like dental and other areas.

We are really excited about how apprenticeship has emerged with our healthcare education areas. Also in terms of early childhood too which I know is a We're two champions. So again your investments come together, in this case apprenticeship and what we're able to do in terms of the training. And in Holly Springs, goal is, you know, we have apprenticeships with Fujifilm, with Securis, and with Amgen. And so our goal is that everything we do in terms of our apprenticeship programs with those companies and those students and apprentices we could do at that Apex campus. And so that's part of the way we've designed it.

Excellent.

Okay. Commissioner Jackson and then Commissioner Starlins.

Well, thank you. Thank you for walking us through where these projects are and kudos to Wake Tech just delivering for our community evidenced by the enrollment and interest and high school students enrollment and there's clearly demand. And I appreciate all of the effort to figure out where to place all this demand. My question is thinking about how we respond to demand through these capital projects, but then the impact that it will have on operating costs because we know that is just a different part of the budget. So I'm just wondering, my first question is just how we're thinking about projected operating costs as we think about these capital investments.

I know the manager and team did well to balance it this year, but just thinking about it in the future years. And then second question is who's currently funding Wake Works program? And how's that project continuing to be supported?

Good questions, Commissioner. Yes, so with the operational cost questions, so we project those out in advance even when we've set up a project, when we first get the funding and we initially at the outset begin designing that project, we have documents that we fill out with all the projected costs not only for construction but also for the anticipated operational costs. We project that out both for the community college system as well as the county manager's office with a look ahead of when we believe that building will be occupied, what we believe those operational costs will be. For those who get into the nerdy details, it's called a three-one form. We send it to the it gets reviewed by the county manager's office and built into their budget projections for future years.

And then as we start to approach the date of occupancy, we begin going ahead and putting that those monies in our next fiscal year's operating budget requests. And so as for example with Advanced Technology Center, Fire and Rescue, we knew those would be coming online. So those are already in we put those in the budgets. And depending on when we project those, it might be a half a year of operating costs for the first year or depending on the timing we go ahead and put the full amount in that budget request. So we're projecting those out years in advance and then as well as when the moment comes to start adding it to the budget, we go ahead and put that in our budget request. Does that answer your question?

Absolutely it does. And I think hopefully for those that are listening reinforces how thoughtful this process is and how each year our approval of the operating budget is essential to align with the projections and plans for this capital. So thank you recalling that for

us.

And I was going to say that it also includes your IT infrastructure costs, our IT operational costs, our facilities operational costs, our staff in those two divisions to support the facilities and IT infrastructure. So our labor as well as our utility costs for those.

Awesome, thank you.

I'll just hit WakeWorks. WakeWorks has been existing now for a little over seven years or was initiated. The reason I know seven years is because it was actually I wasn't even working at Wake Tech then. I think I was moonlighting from my old job, but we were we were making a Wake Tech was making a presentation to the county about a workforce initiative that there was mutual interest in and that became WakeWorks and today WakeWorks is funded I think is through half million, is that where it is Gail, half million dollars a year through the county. What that allows us to do is to what you've allowed us to do is create what is one of the leading apprenticeship program, one of the most robust college apprenticeship programs in the country.

We now have approximately 160 Wake County employers that we partner with on apprenticeship. What the funding allows us to do is to support a apprenticeship team which works with the companies to actually sponsor and do a lot of the legwork and actually register so they can be registered apprenticeship companies, provides incentive where our apprenticeship students get free tuition and support and tool kits and things like that to be apprentices and that's where the primary funding goes. I will tell you we have become a national model for apprenticeship. I'll get the opportunity in two weeks to go speak to a National Governors Association presentation on apprenticeship. Just a little teaser, it's also led to a lot of support to us to support apprenticeship.

So next month I'll have a chance to, we'll have a chance to announce with our great colleagues and Doctor. Taylor at Wake County Public Schools a new WakeWorks youth apprenticeship program that is gonna be funded by the largest grant we have received as a college and so that's as far as I can tell you today but that is coming in June and so we're excited about that but I just say that because your investment has really leveraged that ability for us to create something that is now seen as a model across the country right now.

Okay,

Commissioner Stalins then Commissioner Thomas.

Yes, be quick but I just want to thank you all so much for the wonderful presentation and the comprehensive planning that you do across the board. A couple of comments and questions. With the fire and rescue towers, will exist, I think I've heard this before, don't think I dreamt it, but existing fire rescue workers, will there be opportunities for training there?

Absolutely, yeah. No, it's, we work closely here with the fire academy which is our future but also the different municipalities in the county on on those efforts. So and the reason why they are built as tall as they are, Darryl could help me, but I from what I understand, it's gonna be a rather unique rescue training center because it has such tall towers. And because we're in a community that has tall towers, you don't see that in our part of our region of the world. So that's something that makes this unique and needed in that part. And you know when you're driving down the Wendell you'll see our tall towers. We won't be on fire every once in a while so you just have to be ready

for that.

So don't call

the police. Don't call anybody.

Right. Well thank you for that and I agree with you Doctor. Rawls that so much of this is workforce development and economic opportunity. So I agree with your vision there. And I appreciate you thinking about maybe ways to help that Apex campus eventually go into some healthcare opportunities too, especially given that the Children's Hospital is supposed to be there in Apex as well. Lastly, do you have any projections on enrollment impacts on how these capital investments might impact your enrollment?

Yes. And we think differently about facilities now than we probably would have years ago because we don't like build classrooms and we don't build things like that. So we're really talking about specifically trying to expand specific programs and bring down waitlist in demand areas. So I can't tell, we do have enrollment projections for like Apex campus in different areas. What I can tell you, I'm dancing around it because I can't give you the specific numbers right now, But what I can tell you is that we have seen in the last three years, the last year at Wake Tech was probably the biggest enrollment year we've had in fifteen years.

We are seeing dynamic growth particularly in these areas that are so job focused. Skilled trades ten years ago we had what we used to call an interest gap. We had clearly the job demand. We had the programs, but we didn't have student or parent interest as much and a lot times they'd be 60%, 70% capacity. Now in the last three years we have waitlist in these areas which is great but we want to bring those waitlist down.

So we have seen last year and then just looked at the numbers this morning, we tracked these every month this time. You have to be careful because this is still very early and if you say something it'll turn the other direction. But last year was our biggest enrollment year on a, we've had three, four years going of record enrollments and then last year being a huge year and this year just right now we are up 8% in terms of number of students enrolled compared to this time last year. So that's a testament really also to the growth of this community. I mean this community is one of the fastest growing counties in in the country and so the demands are there and as we're growing fast, we're also aging at the same time.

So that's why healthcare and electricians and all are going to be so important to all of us whether we have students at Wake Tech in the future or not or whether we're living here in Wake Tech because that's the infrastructure of our community and that's why I like to say Wake County runs on Wake Tech.

Keep up the great work with the apprenticeships. We have so many students who just so appreciate that. So thank you.

Commissioner Thomas.

Thank you. Doctor. Rawls, you stepped right into my question. Thinking about what Commissioner Jackson asked about WakeWorks and then Commissioner Stallings asking about enrollment, and then you mentioned how fast we're growing. And so it makes me wonder about adult learners. I know you mentioned the youth apprenticeship program coming online and we talk a lot about students and we talk a lot about young people and the future, but I wonder as we are aging in this population and the growth that we're having, what is happening with adult learners and are there are we seeing an increase in that? Because not everybody's coming here to retire, but not everybody's getting out of high school either. And so what does that look like when it comes to Wake Tech and how we're supporting I would

say in the recent years our primary growth as a college has come from younger workers and much of that's tied to the Wake County public school partnership we now have with both Career and College Promise and our four early colleges. We have approximately 6,000 Wake County public school students, high school students who are also Wake Tech students. And in fact had a student graduate on Saturday who got three Wake Tech degrees, was top of his class at Cary High School and was going to Stanford to study biomedical engineering. It's But Much of our big growth has been there. But adult education is still the core of who we are.

Our average age is 26. And our work that we do, not just in the skilled trades and the the different technical areas, also in adult basic education, adult literacy, adult high school. We had a Saturday, a speaker Omar who told his story of, you know, the trouble he had from 13 to 26 came to Wake Tech at age 26 to start his adult high school degree and has taken his first electrician degrees in that course. So now we're moving him on into electrical. So that is still very much the core of who we are is adult education and where our primary numbers are.

But our big growth over the last five years has been probably more in the younger population because of the types of partnerships we've had.

Thank you. I'm always interested and always hearing about veterans who are coming home and not veterans who've been in the armed services for twenty, thirty years but folks who may have done one tour of duty or two tours of duty and they're 26 or 30 and they're looking to retrain. And so just thinking about what that population looks like when it comes to appreciate the basic education and the GEDs and those kinds of things, but I'm thinking about some of the WakeWorks programs and some of those opportunities, the Hendrix Automotive, some of those kinds of opportunities for adult learners. So, you so much.

You good? Any other questions? Okay. Not seeing any. I just wanna add a comment.

Of course, doctor Rawls and Chuck, we always appreciate you guys being here. And as I always, say, you know, especially out in the East weekend, when you guys brought the campuses out there, it really had been a game changer for that community out there. So, as you continue to grow and do things throughout the community, we really appreciate all that you're doing. I think your total enrollment somewhere last year was around seventy seventy four thousand applicants, enrollment or something of that nature. So, that really says a lot about what you guys are doing, and we just continue to appreciate your input into our community.

Thank you. We very much appreciate the support. We're very fortunate at Wake Tech to be supported by a county the way are. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, then we will Make sure that I'm covering everything here. Of course, this is for my colleagues. This is not an item that we need a decision on today. So now we'll go ahead and transition over to our third presenter. We now move to with Wake County Public Schools capital update at this time. And I'd like to call Mark Strickland to the podium.

Good afternoon. Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to be here today. It's always a pleasure to come and present to you all and discuss the wonderful partnership that we have with Wake County. As I've shared before, I've been in many other districts where those relationships weren't as fruitful and as beneficial as they are here. Much like siblings, sometimes we argue and discuss things but at the end of the day I think we're one big happy family and the proof of that is in the work that is being done both by the Wake County Public School System staff, particularly FD and C and maintenance and operations and your staff in our core team.

That is a unique concept that provides great benefits as we seek to achieve some common goals of building and maintaining schools for our students here in Wake County. So today, I'm gonna talk about some updates for you all. I 'll talk about some of the bond projects from the twenty four-twenty five era. We'll talk about some updates from 2026 and '27. Go over briefly some highlights of the executive summary.

We'll show you some great pictures and some renderings of some new schools that we have recently constructed. Our board has asked us to adjust, modify, change some of the components of our CIP program. There's some other priorities that they wanted us to pursue and staff too had some things that we wanted to emphasize so I'll discuss that a little bit. I'll show you some pretty pictures again of some of the schools that we've built and then we'll talk a little bit about the proposed bond projects. At the end of the slide deck, the slides on the very end are just some slides that you can reference in terms of terminology for some of the things that you may have questions about.

So to start sharing information about the 20 four-twenty five bond projects, you can see at the top that it was a total program of almost six sixty five million with the bond a little over $5.30. We have a variety of great projects, all of these are the new schools, multiple elementary schools, new middle school thrown in there, Parkside Wesib, and of course Marshville High School and these are all as you can see, either completed in the case of Pleasant Plains and Bowling Road or the other projects which are in design right now. As we continue on looking at additional projects, these are existing schools. They have a good combination of elementary schools with a few middle schools thrown in there as well and then down at the bottom is Athens Drive High School. Again, the status on the right tells you where we are with these projects.

Most of them are either under construction or in the beginning stages of design, but they're well on their way moving down the process of getting completed. And then those completed projects that we had, just to emphasize what we really have on the books right now, we've got Bowling Road, Pleasant Plains, and Rex Road Elementary Schools. Hilltop Needmore is a school that we actually completed several years ago, but we were fortunate enough and had the forethought to look at that school and the needs in the area, so we completed that school early and we've been able to use it as swing space to help us do additions and renovations at other campuses. Felton Grove High School is a school that we recently occupied. Next year they'll be adding an additional grade and then we've got Marshall High School with part of that building being occupied by WESIB.

And as mentioned, here are some wonderful pictures and renderings of these schools. They are actually as pretty as you see on the pictures on your screen, but in addition to being pretty beautiful schools, are most functional, out fitted with the current technology that our students need and designed to meet their educational needs. There's Hilltop Needmore which has been used as a swing space. And then Felton Grove High School is our latest high school, just completed last year. Again, they will be adding an additional grade in the upcoming year.

Marshville High School, we are using currently for WESEB and as we get the project for Parkside Middle and WESEB completed, we'll transition students into Marshville High School. Talking through the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven projects, you can see that we've got three new schools slated, Pool Road, Parkside Middle as I mentioned before, WESOB, and then Marshville High School. This will be the funding that will push through and complete these projects and we selected a designer for Pool Road and we are in design for the other two projects. Continuing with that on some existing schools, again a smattering of elementary schools in North Garner Middle along with Athens Drive High and Cary High School. Again, these are all slated to be moved forward with some of them already under construction like Brentwood and Lockhart in North Garner and others in design or the designer has been selected and we're ready to move forward.

Talk a little bit now about our life cycle components of the CIP, of the building program. This is a vitally important part of the work that's done in the CIP. While I've been in other places, we haven't specifically called it that. In general, it's work for things that have exceeded their life cycle. Things are slated to last for twenty years and they've lasted twenty years or in many cases a lot longer.

So this is just an indication of what types of projects we have for life cycle projects. We have a lot of elevators or wheelchair accessible lifts throughout the district. Obviously fire alarms are at the top of our lifts in many cases as are HVAC projects and boilers and chillers and to do that boiler and chiller work we need controls. So many of these systems are outdated or past their useful life. We track them all.

When we complete a new school, we log all of these major components into a database and we track their performance and we track when we need to get them replaced. So here are some examples of some of those projects that we're working on. We have other areas where we strategically target some of the work that we need to do. Coming up at our upcoming board meeting, we've got several tracks and tennis courts that will be replaced. They've reached the end of their useful life.

We do a lot of roofing work. As you can see there, have 15 projects scheduled. And then we have one emergency generator project which we are partnering with the county with to do that work. And then again, some of the projects under construction Brentwood, Lockhart, and North Garner Middle. These are existing school projects that we're currently working on.

These projects, Briarcliff Elementary, East Garner Middle, Ligon, Parkside Middle, and Athens Drive High are all projects that are under design and here are a couple of renderings for some of those projects. It is not relatively easy, but it is easy to do a new school. You've got a blank piece of land, but new schools are generally easier to do. You cut your teeth are on these existing schools, you have kids there, you already have established traffic patterns, and these are ones that really test our mettle. And I'm going to talk about renovations a little bit more in a moment.

And so for the twenty eight-twenty nine bond projects, what are being proposed, in that funding window we've got some design money for Little Creek Elementary and then construction money both for Marshman Road Elementary and Poole Road Elementary. Our growth now where it has been in the western part of the county for many, many years, we're seeing a lot more of that growth in the southern and eastern part of the county and we're reacting to that. Also in that twenty eight-twenty nine bond are multiple projects at existing schools. You can see the funding amounts and what they will provide. For example, at Wendell Elementary, that first $6,500,000 will provide us with design dollars so that we can get going on that and then in the other cases down at the bottom for East Garner, Ligon, Athens Drive, and Cary, it will begin to provide some construction dollars to do that work.

So, this is our CIP executive summary. You all have seen this many times. This is a document that I generally carry with me all the time because it's very important as a reference. It has a lot of great information on it. It's broken down into three sections.

The top part are the new schools and we have six schools listed up there. You'll see that some of them are identified as new elementary school TBD and that simply means that on a map geographically we have identified a general location of where we need to place a new school, but we haven't pinpointed the exact location, our demographers help us with that, or we may not have purchased a property yet. We're always looking for available suitable property on which to build schools in Wake County. As you all know, land is becoming a scarce commodity but we've ramped up our efforts and we're looking for some land right now in several locations. The middle part of this CIP executive summary are the existing schools and we have probably 10 or 12 there that we've identified.

We have a rather robust process that we share with our board and with the public on how we pick these schools. We have a rubric of how we look at the schools in terms of their age and obsolescence. We look at work orders. We look at their environmental conditions. We look at all the factors that go into telling us when we may need to replace those schools.

So these schools have made the list for this current version of the CIP. And then lastly are the programming or program requirements. These are all of the things that we generally refer to as under the line or below the line. These are things that encompass projects like life cycle projects, ADA or environmental projects, our technology comes out of a portion of this which is cash funded, and also our land. I'm going talk a little bit more about that in just a moment.

So here are our new schools and again we have six schools identified. The named schools are Parkside, Middle, WESEB, Marshburn Road Elementary, and Pool Road. You can see the funding that we would be hoping to get in the upcoming years to design and construct those projects. I think it is worthwhile to note that as our growth rate has slowed down, it hasn't stopped, but it slowed down some and if you'll remember maybe the last time I was here I talked about us being intentional about how we were focusing more on existing schools and we are. So in this current version of the CIP, it's about a three to one of existing schools versus new schools.

Our needs for new schools has slowed down but our needs for existing schools is there and growing so we purposely have redirected funds to identify additional projects on those existing school campuses. Don't know what happened with that slide but I'll talk right on through it. Let's see if it's As I've shared, we have a lot of existing schools and we have doubled down on our efforts to do work at those existing schools and that opportunity has presented itself again because our growth rate has slowed down some and we obviously have realized the need that we've got to address those existing schools And so that's an opportunity that we will take moving forward and think you'll see the fruits of that labor moving forward. Not sure what's going on with this slide on the executive summary either, but I can tell you that in the program requirements of the executive summary, again, that's where we have a lot of work that's below the line or not directly a project named school related. For example, I mentioned life cycle projects, that's where we fund our ADA and environmental work.

We also fund our program contingency, technology infrastructure, and land. So I wanted to talk about some of the adjustments that we have made both through the work that we have done with our core team, both with us looking at the data of where we are and where we're going and also in relationship to the feedback that we've gotten from our board on where they want us to head with things. So, if you'll notice on the right hand side, you can see some circles on some things and some green arrows and a few red arrows. What that means is that as we look through our past of the CIP and we bumped it up as we look forward moving into the future, we identified areas where we felt like we needed to increase our funding. So, cycle is one of those areas and when we talk about life cycle, everyone thinks HVAC because that's what we hear about a lot, but there are so many other things associated with life cycle and as our schools continue to age, we need to increase and focus just as much, if not more, on those life cycle components of the CIP program.

We also are looking at bumping up our environmental and ADA categories. Environmental meaning things from mold and mildew and asbestos and lead paint and even in some cases We are looking at ramping that category up along with ADA component. Accessibility is very critical to our students and staff. We have a lot of old lifts and elevators, so we're trying to up our game in that category to make sure that we keep them up to date and running. You'll notice in the program requirements the cash funded portion down at the bottom under technology devices, you can see there's a red arrow for that meaning going down.

Our board has asked us to zero in on the spending for particular category. So there are conversations taking place now with our academic team and instructional teams on how we can narrow the focus and maybe shift some of that dollar amount that's required of funding there into other needed areas. Academics isn't my wheelhouse, but trust me, they are having those conversations on a weekly basis. I mentioned the ADA, the environmental category, we bumped that up again for this year. Also security, we've been in front of you all in the past year or so talking about our security efforts and so we had a plan to do that work.

It was going to be a many, many year plan and we quickly realized that in order to make any substantial progress on it, we needed to apply for additional funding. So we massaged or modified some of that funding in the CIP up the dollar amount that we apply for security projects and hope to be able to move that forward relatively quickly. Land acquisition. So, we have done well with land, but again, in looking at the CIP, and this is again with our core team partners, we realized that we can't see the future, but we have a good handle on what we need and where we need it, and we felt like we could take the opportunity to adjust the dollars that were going into that land acquisition account and better use them in other places, such as environmental and ADA and our security program. So that's what we've done.

And then if we look at the overall total of each program, the new schools total, so if you go out from 27 to FY 33, you can see there's $418,000,000 there. I mentioned earlier in existing schools total, we've really bumped up the amount of dollars that we hope and expect to spend in that category. Our needs are so great on our existing campuses, we just have got to be vigilant in identifying those schools that need the most work and when they need it and getting them on the list as soon as we can and then the bottom, the under the line category of the program requirements, that's at about 1.3 and so for the next seven years, the proposed plan is $2,900,000,000 Our core team has vetted this and it wasn't a month long process, it more like a year long process. We've taken this through our board a couple of times, had some pretty robust conversation with them at a facilities meeting and brought it back and got approval on this and we're sharing it with you all today And with that, I'll be glad to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you Mark. Any questions from my colleagues? Yes, Commissioner Evans?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure what happened. Thank you.

Mark, thank you so much for the update and helping guide us to understanding all the thinking of where the core team and the school system staff are trying to make adjustments moving forward to what makes the most sense for the moment. In light of that, could you speak to what type of plan is in place regarding modular units? I know that we still have hot pockets of the county, like you said, has been the south and west and now it's moving east. But we know that overall our population has leveled off in the schools. And so I know there are some places where they're not as overcrowded as they once were.

And I know back when I was on the school board, I believe at one point in time we had something like 30% of all students in modular classrooms. Wondering where we stand with any efforts to try to mitigate and scale down that dependence on modular classrooms?

Thank you for that question and we did not coordinate this beforehand, but I'm so glad you asked. We have had a number of facilities design and construction staff along with school planning, along with our academics team that have been looking at this question for some time and they've identified an initial list of about 100 units, about 100 classrooms throughout the district that we're looking to, in some cases, move to campuses in the Eastern part of the county, those good ones that we have, the bigger ones, the larger classroom units, where we will need them to do construction projects, so we've looked at doing that and we've also looked at just plain getting rid of some of them. We do know that we have some excess capacity. Part of the challenge in doing that, to be frank, is that once a mobile unit gets on a campus, the principals are hard to let them go, but we have had success with that and we have a defined plan on the initial round of campuses that we have identified in getting rid of them. We feel that as well because not only are they there if we're not fully utilizing them, particularly if we have space inside the building, they also cost us money in updating them and maintaining them in utilities.

So we are moving forward with that plan. I don't remember what meeting it was. I think it's been in the last six months, but we did do a presentation at a Facilities Committee meeting on that very subject.

I felt like y'all have been discussing it and I know there's cost associated with removing the modulators as well but it certainly makes sense as we have shifts in population. So thanks

for providing such a detailed list in our packets of the projects that are on the table for specific schools. I know we got a lot of requests for that last year. I'm assuming that somewhere on your website if parents and community members would like to see that.

So we have some of that information. We are in the beginning stages of putting together a dashboard.

Okay.

So we've looked at many districts and they go from a home run down to still in dugout. And so we're just trying to figure out what we can provide, but most importantly, what we can sustain with fidelity because putting it out there one time and not continually updating it doesn't do anyone any good. So we're trying to find a nice mix, a nice balance of doing that, and we'll continue to work towards that end.

And one of the things you said that made my spidey sense go up was you stopped making land purchases to do some of the maintenance. So what came to that decision and we know land in Wake County is getting more and more scarce and more and more expensive every day.

Sure, so we haven't stopped buying land. Again, we are in the process right now of looking multiple sites. What we found is that over the years, the dollar amounts that we had allocated for that land account far exceeded the amount of money that we were actually spending. So we're trying to align those anticipated costs and we know land is going up and we're accounting for that, but we just felt like for the next couple of years, we have enough land money in the account. We are nimble. If someone came up with a great piece of land that we needed in a location that suited us, we'd be ready to purchase it. We're just trying to align those expectations with the budgets that we need.

Okay, thank you very much.

Commissioner Waters, then Commissioner Thomas.

Thank you so much for such a detailed presentation and for highlighting that you use a rubric in the determination process because there are lots of school communities that are advocating for their schools. I just wondered if you and you also mentioned swing space. Does the availability of swing space have an impact on whether school makes it to the renovation list and is there any area within the county where there's a scarcity of swing space and how do you address that to ensure that a school remains in the consideration process? I hope that made sense.

So swing space is a valuable commodity. We really have two spots that are for mostly elementary schools. Where we really try to take advantage of that is where in high growth areas, for example, we mentioned Hilltop Neemore Elementary. That was in a high growth area. We knew we would need multiple schools down there.

So Hilltop Needmore was built early so that we could swing into it. But we knew that we needed Hilltop Needmore for capacity, so it wasn't loft space. Typically on most sites we can swing on-site. Typically that's what we look to do. We have had discussions about trying to identify some swing space, but in the process of doing that, if we were to do it for a middle or a high school, that would be funds that would come out of the CIP that we may not necessarily get to use another time.

So we have to be very, very careful about investing money in swing space that we might only use a few times. Middle schools and high schools typically we can swing on-site. You know we have the land. We may run into some problems with athletics. That's typically what happens because we build in the open space on a school.

But we've been lucky with the projects that have gone on. One of the schools we're building, Dave, is it the swing space for Marshburn Road, sorry. So we are building Marshburn Road a little early so we can swing Windale into it. We need both of those schools and so we're spending a little money early for that. We'll swing into it, do the renovation at Wendell Elementary, and then we'll have both schools that we need for capacity in a fast growing area.

Thank you. That's a great explanation. And I also wanted to talk about some of the historical connections that many communities have to some of the schools that are listed here as we of course know there's been a lot of conversation particularly around Ligon. What does community engagement look like for some of the other schools that have been around for a long time like Lockhart or East Garner and how are you incorporating community in to the process to make sure that people feel that something that is often sentimental to their community or a part of their history, their community, their growing up is received in a way that helps community be excited and on board with the project.

So, we hold those community engagement meetings. We call them visioning sessions or listening sessions. We advertise to parents, staff, and the community to come be a part of the initial phases of that process because we want that initial work, those initial opinions and guidance to help form where we go with the project. So that's a part of most every project that we do, including new schools.

Okay, great. And then one last question, are you seeing as many bids for the school projects as you have in the past? I know there's a lot of work in the construction industry. Just curious to know if

You know, I think it is about the same as it has been for the last four to five years. Generally contractors that do school work do school work and they do it well. So we have a lot of firms that typically bid our work or school work in other counties. They are accustomed to the process. They are used to it.

We are always looking to incorporate new vendors into that mix. One of the ways we do that is to reach out to them for some of our smaller projects. You know, We may not want to jump into an 80,000,090 million dollars project with someone we haven't worked with before, but on a much smaller project that would be something that we would certainly entertain. So there's a lot of work going on in Wake County. I think that our processes, our procedures, personnel we have in place, the way we do things, I think it has been well received by the contracting community and that's why we still seem to get good bids.

Alright. Thank you so much.

Commissioner Thomas? And then Commissioner Jackson?

Thank you. I just wanted to circle back to Commissioner Adamson's question about the dashboard. Your response was that you were working on it and that it will take a little while.

What is a little while?

I'm just I'm curious you know are we thinking three months six months and I asked that question because as we consider what bond dollars are going to be used for and how much the bond is in addition to community wanting to look and understand what's happening in their area? I'd like a little more specific information about that.

Great question. So part of the challenge is identifying the program or the software suite that we want to do it and as I said, we've looked at some that are home runs that are just really great. They provide a lot of information. Some of those dashboards include information from other components within the school system such as maintenance and operations. Part of this is going to be driven by resources we have in terms of personnel to manage it and update it.

So to go back to the first part of your question, we could roll something out in three months but it will be really basic, really simple and we don't think it's a good product. We've looked at some of those where we actually have the information now. What we're trying to do is find a sweet spot in between of something that we can manage ourselves and produce that provides good useful viable information and I wouldn't expect to see that for six plus months and I'm being optimistic. We have a program that could do it, but the product didn't look very good and we just didn't feel like that would be our best effort and that's why we're continuing to look at what other districts offer. We really only found one place that really has a great, great dashboard, but that's kind of out of our reach for right now.

So your answer is about six months?

Six months plus.

Thank you.

Commission Jackson.

I have two questions, Hi, Mark. Thank you. My first question is, it's really good to see the specific names of schools specific names of schools for new and existing. I know it's all rolled up within programming requirements so that we don't really get to see here which schools are specifically included. But can you give a sense it's very clear that the focus is shifting from new to be more balanced with existing and below the line programming requirements.

But can you just give us a sense of the universe of schools in Wake County and kind of who's not included in these conversations? Which schools, what do we know about them?

Sure. So, I'll answer that two ways. First of all, all of the schools are included in the life cycle component of what we do. As I shared with you, we've gone through, we have a database of all of the major components of all of our facilities for every school and so we track that through age and obsolescence. So that life cycle piece is really well defined.

It's on paper. You can go and look and see. So that's one component of it. The part that is not as clear or concise for all the other schools where we would be planning major addition and renovation projects. If I may, I'll share with you that in 2019, and I think it was published in 2021, the district put together an assessment of the schools that we had with square footage that was 30 years old or older.

That was a starting point. Thirty years, we had to and again it was before my time, we had to define where we wanted to start, And so those schools went through an evaluation by a third party. They were scored. They were ranked off of many different components in the rubric that we have. And then from that list we began to discuss and identify which projects needed to be moved forward.

And so that list encompasses a lot of the older schools where you have multiple buildings on the campuses. So they are typically your older sites, maybe buildings built in the seventy's or eighty's and they would go and add a 12 classroom addition and maybe not think through how that addition would work in with the existing buildings or just as importantly any future additions. And so, that group of 54 schools, we are we went through and looked at the top 25 or the worst 25 and we are working our way through that list. I hope we can get to, where we need to be and where we will get to be, I'll use the term when I was here the first go round, we called them the road schools. Penny Road, Fox Road, Rand Road, all of those road schools, we built five of them at one time.

They were all prototype schools. If we can ever get to the point, and I don't have a timeframe for that, where we can begin to work on those road type schools where they are essentially one school under one roof. They may be connected by separate buildings for fire code purposes, but they're really one big building on a campus and again if you're familiar with any of those road schools, just think about them. Where we want to get to is have a nice mix of these older campus style schools where we need to tear down three buildings and build one back to tighten it up. If we never get to that point where we're working on those road schools, I think we can really take off.

Those schools are in great shape. Many of them have mechanical systems where we can go in and easily do the work at any time during the year, but that's a few years off. Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does. You're about 50% on the 30 plus school list.

We are the next round of schools will get us close to 50% of those older schools.

Got it. Got it. Thank you. And I'm curious, as you all are designing and planning for schools forward, how much of the conversation accounts for growing the early childhood programs and the four year old programs and accounting for that hopefully growth in accessing and being a part of Wake County Public Schools?

That is a part of the conversation as is after school care. So as we talk about schools where we know that we need after school care, where it is needed, we look at that and in fact when we look at school sites, that's one of the components that we factor in. We're not always able to include that, but it is part of the discussion.

Okay, excellent.

And Doctor. Taylor's gonna jump in.

But the spacing will always be a part of the design for an elementary school, so we will be prepared anytime that there is an expansion of the program. In terms of pre k, that is a programmatic expansion and not a physical building expansion. And so any of the new schools that you go in that are elementary, you will see those classrooms specifically designed for that purpose, but at any point we can add that programmatically that we're going to be situated to be able to do that.

And we're designing schools now with some flex space, meaning while the original intention for that flex space is for mobile units because we'll never get out of that business, I don't think, but we want to lessen our dependence on it, but as we can, we're trying to build in what may end up being mobile unit capacity one day into the school building.

Commissioner Stallers, are you good? Thank

you. I just want to say thank you, particularly on behalf of Western and Southern Wake. I have been to Hill Top Needmore, Pleasant Plains, Bowling Road, Woods Creek, Rex Road, and then Balcom that was rebuilt and so I just want to thank the school system and to Wake County taxpayers for the these dollars. These schools are amazing. They're exciting. They're welcoming. They're innovative, and also Felton Grove High School. So, just want to say thank you for the work. My biggest concern now is those disparities between these amazing new schools and then our older schools. And so, I'm glad to see the three to one emphasis on the renovations because I think that's really needed because we want to be a place that has equity, real equity, and there's concern.

I know from residents about the mold issues and the life cycle issues. Just keep up the work on thinking about those disparities. And I know you are. I know it's hard work. I would echo the dashboard. And I do understand you need it to be if you're going to put out a product, you want it to be a good product, and you need it to be maintained. But always communicating with the public is so important, because people want to know where they're on the list, especially with the renovations. So, thank you for the work, and just keep plugging away. I appreciate you.

Thank you, Commissioner Starling. Commissioner Waters. And then, after this, we'll move on to our last item on the agenda.

Just wondering with a school like Washington that has a historical designation, are you finding it hard to address some of those

real Yes.

Okay. Is that a common or are there very few of the schools in the system?

We have several in that category, but it is challenging. So for example Washington, you may not see evidence from the exterior of the building about the work that will take place because most of it will be inside. That will be an opportunity for us to align the interior spaces with our current programming requirements for square footages and things. But again, Washington is a great example.

Okay, thank you. Thank you,

Mark. And then we'll move to our fourth item and last item on the agenda. Doctor. Taylor?

Good afternoon to you all, Chair Miles, Vice Chair Jackson, members of the County Commissioner Board and my good friend David Ellis. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to be able to go through the twenty six-twenty seven operating budget. I can't say enough about the partnership that we have. I certainly want to thank you all for the past support that you've given to the Wake County Public School System, and I appreciate the presentation by doctor Rawls and his staff. I hope that helps everyone in the community recognize that we do have a very robust pre K through 14 program.

It's certainly a great part of the support that we get in this community. I can't say enough about the past collaboration that we've had in terms of being able to put this budget together, both past budgets and what we put into the current budget. The one thing I want to say to everyone in the community is that budget work is hard and I will always stress that we are ready to make those hard decisions because we have to be responsible for the taxpayer dollars. So you will see that reflected in this budget both the work that I have done with my staff in developing the superintendent's budget, but as well developing the the school board's budget that will be coming to you on the May 15. So I just wanted to share those things with you and we'll jump into this presentation.

What you'll hear today is just a brief update from me in terms of the budget development timeline and what we've gone through in this timeline and the additional things that are left. After that you will hear highlights from the superintendent's proposed budget and that operating budget as well as the changes that the board has gone through in changing their budget. You will hear that from our finance officer, Trish Posey, And then we will review the board's adjustments to the superintendent's budget and their operating budget and questions and answers that will be done by assistant superintendent Doctor. Mattillo and our senior director of budget, Terry Kimsey. And at the end, we will talk about some next steps that we will go through.

First of all, with the superintendent's budget, there's a proposed operating budget that I developed and released on the April 7. As most people know, the board held a specially called board meeting on March 24 to address some issues and changes in the budget that they wanted to see different. That was a recommended proposal of a reduction in special education of around $10,000,000 I do want to express to people that the special education budget does still operate with $3.00 $7,000,000 of our operating budget and that does not include transportation. I know there will be questions later in the budget where we will talk about those changes to special education and what will remain in the budget. So we do appreciate the questions that you sent forth and I think that will do a tremendous amount in terms of answering questions from our public.

But that budget was released on April 7. Those changes that the board had talked about were not reflected in that budget, but they did know that those were going to be developed before the board's budget came out. As the commissioners do, we do like to get input from our public and we did have to to community input sessions both April 8 and April 15 that was at Holly Grove middle school and Wakefield middle school I can say that after a tremendous amount of discussion we did have community members come out, but there was not what I would call a groundswell. Most of those were just reflections of thanking the board and the staff for making changes and listening to the public. And so we appreciated that.

The first opportunity that the board did have to address those specific changes was at an April 21 budget and finance committee where they were able to talk specifically about some of the things that were going to go into those changes. And we had an opportunity to to exchange thoughts with them and get feedback about some of those changes that they were talking about. And then again, the board did have a public hearing on the April 21. I do think there were probably 33 people that came and gave public input, so we did anticipate that. And finally, they were able to work through and complete their budget on May 5 as a part of their changes in the budget.

And the board now approved that at their May 5 meeting, and we are in the process of moving that forward. They will come to you on that April 15 timeline. I will say to all that out of a $2,200,000,000 operating budget, we're talking about a $10,000,000 change that was made by the board and I find that very acceptable. I first arrived here someone said to me, will you allow your budget to be changed? And I said, remember, it is the board's budget that goes to the commission, not the superintendent's budget.

And so that is a part of what that work is. What you will see is that the board has stayed almost exactly in line with the numbers that I presented. And while they may change things, they do understand that we have a very good pulse of what the capacity of the county is. Mr. Ellis and I have worked very close to make sure we're in lockstep in terms of what our ask is.

So we want to be responsive in that ask. And so with that, we've asked for a $25,300,000 budget increase. What you will recognize is that there are a number of increases that could have caused this number to be higher. But knowing and understanding the climate and what was necessary in order to function, open new schools, and provide those services that our citizens count on, parents and students, we did the work to make sure that this budget aligned and was what we call responsible ask. And so that is 23,500,000 that represents about a $3,000,000 increase.

And so with that, I will now turn it to Trish Posey. And she will present those numbers that are in the budget and give her a little grace because this is her first time presenting with the commission. Good afternoon. So

included in our 3% increase, we have, it's made up of both changes in our local revenues as well as changes in our projected expenditures for the twenty six-twenty seven school year. I'm not used to this in front of me. So we do have some increases in the employee compensation. Included there is a 3% certified and non certified staff increase. The increase in local masters pay.

We also have local certified supplements for our teaching staff. Employer matching dental rate was included in this but it's actually one of the reductions that we're taking off when we show you the adjustments that our board made. And then additionally we also had our extra duty pay scale increase included in there, but that's also something that the board has chosen to put on pause for one more year. Included in our legislative requirements are transfers to charter schools, as well as employer matching retirement and hospitalization that is legislated that right now our rates are coming in on target with what we've seen in the governor's proposal. Also included is the opening of Hilltop Needmore Road Elementary School.

So that's included in the new schools and school changes. And we also have included our cost for increasing with property cost. So as you know with insuring property and maintaining those required limits that is going up right now with rates and real estate leases. So those are some of our top increases in our operating cost. To balance this out, we do have reductions included in our budget which I'll go over in just a minute.

The total budget for the superintendent's operating budget for twenty six-twenty seven does include an estimated 1,300,000 from the state which is approximately 55% of our operating budget. The increase in the county appropriation request that we're asking for along with other local revenues is $853,000,000 and then we have federal funds supporting it at roughly $170,000,000 So that's about a $2,300,000,000 operating budget. Included in our budget, you'll see that 87% of our funds go directly to our schools. We also have the charter pass through which includes another four percent of the operating budget. When you look at the local funds, that's actually 11% of the local funds that goes as a pass through to our charter schools.

And then the remaining 9% of the budget supports our central operations. That includes our facilities, child nutrition programs, student transportation, school building maintenance and all of our administrative functions. So included in our board adjustments, we have an increase in our carryover funds of $4,000,000. So what we'll be doing is utilizing federal funds to support another year of maintaining classroom teachers on the grant. So it is a one time utilization of those federal carryover funds.

We will also utilize carryover funds in our community schools program of of $1,000,000. Base budget reductions include changes in our AP formulas which will save $1,200,000 in the operating budget. We have central service vacancy positions that we'll be eliminating to save 837,000. Central service non personnel budgets will be reduced 523,000. We also have base budget reductions in our instructional support specialists 440,000 and supplemental funds for restart of 124,000 which we've agreed with the board that the moment we identify some savings, we'll be able to reinstate the restart funds.

We'll be removing from the funding request the special education teacher formula change that Doctor. Taylor shared with you. And then we also have employer matching dental rate increase. We're removing that because we're able to negotiate. We are self insured with our dental plan and so we have been offering four cleanings a year.

We are going down to two cleanings a year which will generate savings and then we're giving benefits towards in network plans and providers. And so that will generate a savings so we can pull that request out. And then we're also pausing the extra duty stipends for one year and that's a savings of 1,100,000. Yes, it's being removed from the request so it's no longer an increase to next year's budget. And then our board members asked that we add a $15,000 matching grant that helps with communities and schools grants for success coaches and tutors.

And so we added that into our budget. And just some adjustments that are going into the board's budget include CTE program improvement needed to reduce their federal funds projection. And these are just basically technical adjustments in the book. And then we'll increase our carryover for one of our IDA early intervening grants that they did not spend in some contract dollars they anticipated this year and so that'll increase their carryover for next year. And then this is a summary of all of those adjustments between the superintendent's plan and the board's plan.

And you'll see those final adjustments there for the board of education's proposed budget. We also have a potential risk that we've added. I'm sure you're aware that there's a utility rate increase proposal. And so we don't know what that looks like for next year for Duke Energy, but we are monitoring that as we spend close to $30,000,000 a year in utilities. Alright and I will turn it over to Ms. Terri Kimsey.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. We'll go through the questions that you all sent to us. Those were really pertaining to the superintendent's budget but I'll try to cover any changes that would align it to the board's budget now that that's completed and in the process of going to print. So the first question was about what are the largest programmatic reductions and how are those prioritized over other options? So I do want to mention that we do always protect core classroom instruction and our legally required services as much as possible.

But we also realize that most of our budget is invested in people. So it is difficult to avoid when we have to make some reductions without impacting staff and some of our allotment formulas. The largest of the reductions in the superintendent's proposed budget was 5,200,000 That included a $2,500,000 adjustment to our transportation budget. That adjustment does not impact anything we're currently doing in transportation. That is us looking at our spending patterns compared to prior year and current year.

Transportation can have significant changes each year based on the number of staff we're able to hire, the cost of our contract support transportation, the cost of fuel and the cost of repairs. So there is that one adjustment. It should not impact anything they're already doing. A $2,200,000 reduction in our elementary literacy coaches. We were providing those to all of our schools and now we'll be providing those resources to our level three and four schools.

There's a $500,000 base budget reduction and instructional services non personnel and $50,000 savings for moving our parents student handbooks to digital distribution. And then since that time, now that the board's made some changes to the budget, we also have the ones that Ms. Posey just went over with you. The adjustment to our high school assistant principal formula to remove the top two tiers, a central additional central services based budget reductions in non personnel and vacant positions, adjusting the dental insurance, reducing the tutors that were through NCEC and pausing our extra duty change, keeping the extra duty scale but just pausing the increase in that. The next question is how much of the budget is tied up in fixed versus flexible cost and where does the district really have discretion?

The superintendent's budget is about $2,300,000,000. If you look at the fact that 82% of that spending is tied in salaries and benefits and that's driven primarily from state mandated salary schedule changes or step changes or other things that the legislature determines each year. They also determine what our matching costs are for retirement and hospitalization or health insurance. And we also have staffing requirements to maintain class sizes and other contractual obligations. There are additional fixed like pressures for example utilities cost, transportation and insurance cost, required services for our special needs children and cost increases that must be absorbed for inflation benefits and state pay raises.

So that leaves some flexibility if you look at the remaining 15 to 18% of the budget. That's where we can make changes such as reducing or restructuring central office or our school based support positions, adjusting programming like we have for literacy coaches, tutoring, arts and software, modifying transportation contracts or service levels or defer or scale non essential purchases and initiatives. And you've seen some of those reductions in the superintendents and the board's proposed budgets but even those reductions represent less than a percent of the total budget, they will have service impacts on our schools and departments. The third question is about the projected change in the student to teacher ratio or student to case manager ratio in special education. So we want to emphasize again that we're not making those special education reductions that were proposed in the superintendent's budget.

Those are off the table. The only adjustment in student to case manager ratio is for our elementary and middle school multi track year round schools. So based on principal feedback for the multi track year round schools, their positions would be allotted on the basis of eleven months rather than ten. How will families be notified and involved if their children's services change due to budget decisions? A budget decision would not change services to a student.

That would only occur through a change in their IEP. So if a student services are proposed to change, families would be involved in the IEP process with required notice and team participation. Beyond salary what investments are made to improve working conditions? So we evaluate and improve working conditions through multiple efforts. We receive feedback through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction working condition survey and we address the needs through the school improvement plans.

We've conducted an organizational study focused on structure, staffing and operational alignment and the findings from that work indicate that we are significantly leaner than comparable districts and organizations and that work is ongoing as that study has just been completed. As indicators of progress, Wake County School System reported the lowest teacher vacancy rate in our history last year and our teacher retention has improved in the last two years almost returning to pre pandemic levels. So we know that those rates alone are not a comprehensive measure of working conditions. It does suggest that we're making progress in attracting and retaining educators. The budget states that salary and benefits are paid in part by federal, state and local.

Are there restrictions on how that is used and asking for some of that information. So the state provides categorical allotments to us and position allotments. Funds for the salaries and benefits must be spent in accordance with state law and procedure. Federal funds are most restrictive and must comply with federal permissive use supplement versus non supplant provisions and provisions within each grant. Local funds are less restrictive and must be reported by purpose and function.

We have not received our planning allotments for federal grants at this time but our understanding is there should not be significant changes in the federal dollars that flow through us to us through the state from the federal government. The next question is asking about the local salary supplement coming from county dollars. Can you provide the current salary supplement and how does that compare to other North Carolina districts? The local salary supplement does come from local county dollars and each year our board may request and approve an increase in the salary supplement. They would typically ask for a percent change to those dollar values.

So we would increase the flat dollar values by the percent that may be approved in their budget. The supplement amounts also increased due to master pay certifications which is a 10% differential and national board certifications a 12% differential. Supplement amounts vary based on the salary schedules. So the supplements are different for counselors, social workers, psychologists than for teachers and our special education teachers have a different scale than our regular education teachers. So we are constantly in competition with all other districts and especially those around us.

So we do have one of the higher supplements in the state of North Carolina and our supplements are higher than most districts. The market comparisons suggest that we're similar to many districts also. So we have a slight edge on some of our neighboring districts while others were slightly trailing them. So we're all constantly maneuvering trying to have the better supplements to be able to recruit staff. To provide a broader context on affordability, commonly used benchmarks are the MIT living wage calculator estimate and as of February 26, a single adult with no children in Wake County would require an hourly wage of approximately $26.56 per hour to meet basic living needs.

And just as a comparison in Wake County school system for our non certified salary schedules, our minimum wage is $17.75 per hour but none of our, all of our non certified salary schedules the starting entry level is less than 26.56. Wake County generally falls at or near the national average with recent indices placing Raleigh, Wake County area in the upper 90s to around a 100 where a 100 represents the national benchmark. While some everyday expenses such as utilities and transportation remain close to national norms, housing costs are the primary factor making Wake County more expensive than other North Carolina counties. So and then there's some attachments to some sites that might be helpful for more information in that answer. When the operational dollars from the county to Wake County school system are calculated, are supplements included in that sum?

Yes, absolutely because most of the supplementary pay is paid in our local budget which is supported by the commissioners. The supplement for state and local employees is paid through the local budget but any of our staff that own other grants or if they're on the multi enterprise fund or other funding sources, their base and supplements are paid from those funding sources. So the local funds pay for the supplement on our state and local employees. More information or more clarification about how special education services are paid for. So special education is complex.

There are a lot of grants involved, lot of state funding sources, multiple involved. Sometimes we use some funding sources that aren't specifically for special education for special education in the state and local resources. So all of our funds for special education are more than $300,000,000 and it can fluctuate what we're doing between the funding sources as we're trying to maximize how we use resources for our district but currently about 23% of the funds for special education are federally supported, 40% are state supported and 37% locally supported. For the last budget cycle this question is about recommended versus actual ratios for nurses, guidance counselors, social workers and psychologists. So this chart shows in the first column what the recommended ratios are and then it shows what county school system.

So for example social work, the recommended ratio is one to two fifty students. We are at one to twelve seventy eight students. School psychology one to 500 is the recommendation. We're at one to fourteen fifty. School nursing recommended one nurse per two students.

The total number of Wake County school system is 122 nurses, 11 nurse supervisors. And school counseling recommended one to two fifty students and our ranges vary based on the grade level but about one to three fifty four. Provide more clarification on the status of student, school to student meals, breakfast and lunch, the needs and how well those needs are being met and from what revenue sources. This is all about our child nutrition fund. Our child nutrition fund is an enterprise fund serves breakfast and lunch to more than 160,000 students across two zero two schools.

Participation levels include 20,000 breakfast meals per day and 51,000 lunch meals per day. We are responsible for providing nutritionally compliant meals while remaining fully fiscally self sustaining. We operate leaner than industry standards both in child nutrition services and maintenance capacity. Child nutrition must generate enough revenue to cover all the operating costs and those revenues come from the USDA reimbursements, USDA commodities, student meal payments, state nutrition costs and smart snacks, I mean sorry state nutrition supplements and smart snacks revenue. With Wake County school system general funds only used if those sources fall short and that is something we list every year in our budget that comes to you and to our board is that we have a potential risk that if that ever tilts and revenues aren't enough to sustain the cost we would have to supplement with local funds.

Our child nutrition services trained staff and food forecasting to minimize overproduction. We implement offer versus save, offer versus serve so our students can only take the food they intend to eat. We participate in the total zero waste program in select schools where unopened items can be shared and we leverage PTA support at some sites to fund recyclable trays which remain cost prohibitive for district wide implementation. Yes in all of our grants and our enterprise funds like child nutrition or before and after school care, other community schools programs, we charge indirect costs to those programs so there's a charge there that then comes into our local budget as a revenue to be able to pay for utilities and staff that support a lot of those operations. Several years ago, our child nutrition dollars at the end of the year, money they had left over, dipped below a threshold.

So we are no longer allowed to charge indirect costs to child nutrition services any longer. So that's not a revenue, I mean an expenditure for them or a revenue for the local budget. Okay. Provide clarification on how the pass through allotment dollars are calculated for charter schools. So every month the charter schools send us a roster of the Wake County students they serve in their schools.

We also have our count of our number of students each month and then we look at the local revenues in our fund two, local current expense fund which is primarily the county appropriation plus fines and forfeitures and then it's a very small amount for tuition or print shop fees. So we look at the actual revenues and we say that actual revenues divided by the total number of charter plus Wake County students multiplied times the charter students is what's due out to them on a per student basis each month. The calculation is redone every month in compliance with law and we do have checks where our technology department checks those rosters that come into us to make sure they appear accurate, that we're not getting requests for funding for students that may not be in the charter schools. Can we get a summary of mental health, behavior health service delivery in Wake County School System? So mental health services are not provided to students and families by Wake County School System staff.

They're provided through a memorandum of understanding with alliance and through this partnership we have clinical providers in some of our schools. We have teletherapy available and we process referrals for students and families to those services within the community. Although we do not fund this work, we do have one senior administrator who manages the referrals for the services. Currently this year we've processed over 1,500 referrals. Last year we processed over 500 referrals.

We do have the one school mental health coordinator that manages the program and two part time contractors that help with the referrals. That's the end of the Q and A. We'd be glad to answer any more questions. Our board's budget will be delivered to you very soon. We're trying to finalize that and finish printing now.

Okay. Question, Commissioner Waters, I think Commissioner Jackson. Did you? Okay. Commissioner Adinson. Thank

you so much for such a comprehensive presentation. With the literacy coach positions that are being eliminated, how many does that include and what support are they receiving to find other opportunities within the district?

And so, the months went from, I think, six forty eight months to four hundred months. And so, that means that every elementary school was given half of a literacy position. They would use additional resources to add to that to make it full time position and maybe have them to do multiple duties. And so what we did was to look at an acuity model to say that we're going to give those literacy coaches to our most needy schools. That's not to say that this is not a benefit which all schools could have.

If we think about a high performing elementary school where kids have many more resources than our needy schools, this was an opportunity to focus the effort of where we put those. So now is about four hundred months of employment. And so all of those tier three and tier four schools will still continue to receive the literacy coach positions. Doctor. Hale, I want to say that 65 schools is that correct? Yes, 65 schools will still get it and then we still have some additional months where we may make some final adjustments after we get assessment numbers and know where our schools are landing. So it is about focusing that in the most needy areas with 65 schools that will still get it.

And just for clarification, formally all of the elementary schools had

Yes, and so again the model before was to provide a literacy coach for every elementary school regardless of the need. But once we know that we've got to make tighter budget decisions, it is about making sure that we retain those positions at our most needy schools. Those schools with additional resources will now be able to make adjustments within their resources that they have. Of the schools have already identified other resources where they will continue to have literacy positions in place. They're just not funded by the district and so we wanted to put that in the most needy school.

Okay so that They're half time positions just to clarify.

It's not

a full time position.

Okay and so that doesn't necessarily mean that a school will go without, they'll just be funded in a different manner. Okay Thank you.

Commissioner Addison.

Thank you for bringing this forward. Guess we could hold out hope the state will do a budget and add to your funding and you don't have to do a lot of these cuts. But I just wanted to give you the opportunity. One of the questions I get all the time when I'm in the community is, why does the school need more money? There's less students. Why do they need so much more money every year?

Absolutely. And Commissioner Adams, thank you for that question. And this is what we always like to share with our community that whatever work that we may do this year, if we do the exact same work next year, then the cost of business goes up. That means that every year that I've been doing this work for nearly thirty years, the retirement rate has increased. I remember when the retirement rate was 8%, it's now around 26%.

And so when those amounts increase, that means we have to have additional resources in order to do that. And so that's sort of what you see in this budget that if we continue to do the exact same work then that would have probably been around a $60,000,000 increase knowing that the capacity is not there for the county to be able to do that that is where we made those decisions to make that reduction. So most of the increases that the community will see is because of increase in salary and benefits. And in many instances, when we open new facilities that will require additional support. But we've tried to do the work of making sure that we look at the most critical needs.

But it is because salary and benefits do increase. So, great question. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Doctor. Taylor, you and your staff. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Didn't see you. Commissioner Evans had one question because I'm trying to get to that four thirty mark is the reason why I'm because we got to be out here in order to give staff time to get over to the Wake County Commons to set up for our budget here in this evening. Go ahead, Commissioner. I

actually just had a comment to the superintendent and all the staff and to the board. I want to commend you on your thoughtfulness for your partnership, for your working with our manager, for working hard to understand the unusual revenue climate that we are finding ourselves in this year. I hope that we've proven ourselves in recent years to be a good partner with Wake County Public Schools and proven that we want to do as much as we can to help fill some of the gaps that are created as a result of a number of things. But it's really, really important that and very much appreciated that you all understand the landscape and we know your needs are much more than 25,000,000 extra dollars. And you have to try to craft a budget with some pain that would not demand money or request money from us that we couldn't possibly fund this year.

And know, I've had good conversations with board members for the most part. They understand that this year and really last year as well. And so I just don't want to gloss over that. That's huge. It's the result in my opinion of several years of building this kind of collaboration where we trust one another. But I don't take it lightly that you all are trying to work with us in the most reasonable manner and with your request. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Evans. Mr. Chair, if you would just give me one, maybe thirty seconds.

No. Well Commissioner Jackson had a comment or a question.

Do you want to

make a

No, no, ahead. You

want closing comments. There's just two numbers, if you could just go back to slide number five. Think I know the answer numbers here. Can you talk about that child nutrition reduction in expenses and the student membership changes in that second column?

The child nutrition is reduction in their revenues and I don't know if Mr. Strickland can jump in on that or not. I don't have the details on it. Don't know if it's from our schools going to the county wide, I forgot what the program

is. CEP.

CEP. Yeah.

I don't have the specific answer on that. Mark do you wanna speak about why the child nutrition reduction is in the budget? Is that because of more schools being in the CEP plan?

Part of that, we were doing so, part of that's CEP and then part of it also is we're looking to bring, so now we get our case goods delivered to our schools and next year we'll be having them delivered to our central warehouse and we're going to save some money by bringing them into the warehouse. Now we'll have to deliver them but we've got some efficiencies we can take advantage of so that's another piece of it too.

Okay and student membership changes. There's several different ways we use student membership but one of the most important is the state is looking at our numbers each year and that's primarily the driver and how we receive state funds. And a couple of years ago they moved to a funding in arrears model. So it means that they will look this year at our first and second month average daily membership for our schools. They look at each school grade by grade and then each school grade by grade they pick if first or second month is better.

So you know at Brentwood first month might be better for kindergarten and second month might be better for first grade and they do that way to try to benefit the districts. But they'll come up with that math for all of our schools for the district and say okay that is our first or second month average daily membership number. That figure compared to the previous year is a decrease. So we will be losing state resources because our student membership in those first, in the average of the first two months has gone down. So we do expect less state resources going into next year because that's already known since it's based on the previous year's number.

In addition, we use the long term membership number projections for both the building program and the operating budget. So independent of that funding in arrears we also know looking forward to next year that we're like we're gonna have a different student number than we do this year. That number is also a slight decrease from current year and then we also have adjustments that we provide to our schools, we allot to our principals based on their actual day 20 number. So we monitor all of those but there are decreases because looking at average month first and second month there's a definite decrease. Looking at projections over time there's a slight decrease and we are kind of at that tipping point where we're going into flat or reduced numbers because of those things happening.

Okay, thank you. I know I've spoken with board members about this funding in arrears process and impact that it has. So thank you for pointing out that's exactly what that is.

Mr. Stallings. Quick.

So I know the state lifted the cap on charter schools some years ago. Can you give us a quick idea about, I know charter schools can sometimes come and go in terms of the enrollment. I think we're under about 20,000 students in Wake County that attend charter schools. I'm thinking about those pass through dollars. Is it just continually trending up or is it somewhat stabilized? Can you share

that Yes, or get there are slight increases. A couple 100 students I believe this year and I believe that's probably around the projection. It also depends on if a new charter school opens. So while there's charter schools that have capacities and you may have small growth, if a new charter opens then that does take a little bit large of the capacity if they're able to fully fill those seats.

Okay, thank you. And with the federal dollars, when someone asks

where do the

federal dollars go that Wake County does get? I heard special education is somewhat. Is the other nutrition or could you just give us a quick breakdown or

We have several federal funding sources. If I think about our entitlement grants, so we have our Title I funds, we have Title II funds that support a lot of professional development, class size reduction, principal and teacher supports. We also have our Title III that supports our LEP program. We also have Title IV that's kind of a blended, there's three tiers to it that includes some instructional technology as well as some student supports and then program enhancement type dollars. So those are four main that come underneath that grant.

Then our next largest grants come from the IDA 6B. And so that's gonna be your special education grants which include K through 12 as well as your pre K IDA programs. And then we have some other small programs throughout the district. But I believe, Terri what was that dollar?

That's primarily it. Then we also separate from what flows through the state we receive magnet grants directly from the federal government when we're beginning or growing our magnet program.

And Commissioner Stalin, what I'll add to that is in the twenty twenty five year districts and actually governments across the nation that were receiving federal funds we were looking at what we would think were tremendous cuts to federal funding so we did have what we call competitive grants. Some of those were lost, others were reinstated, but with those formula grants such as Title I, Title II, there were suggestions of cuts, but those did not happen, which was a good thing, But also the funding stayed flat, which ultimately means that there is a reduction in your capacity. So while Title I may remain at $27,000,000 benefits and salary goes up which means there's less that you can do. So we are grateful that the cuts were not implemented but that flat funding does in the end represent somewhat of a reduction. And Mr.

Chair, the only thing I was going to say is that we appreciate the partnership and we appreciate those words. And one of the things that we continually express is that the commissioners are responsible for all those functions of government within the county and that does include the school district. I'm an old country boy so give me a little latitude but we are the biggest piglet on the side, but we do recognize that you have piglets throughout the county.

We appreciate the support that you did. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. Taylor. And it's good to hear someone else use the old. Is I'm not the only country boy. Doctor. Besides me, I say things and staff look at me like, What did you just say? So, thank you so very much. Doctor. Thank you. Doctor. Appreciate you and your staff coming for us this afternoon. Great information. Okay.

Before before we adjourn, I'd like to offer a reminder that the board of commission will hold a budget public hearing tonight at 7PM at the Wake County Common Building. The hearing is open to the public. So, thank you and commissioners for your participation in today's budget workstation. There is no additional comments. Hereby declare this do you have one? I'm sorry. Manager.

Yeah. You want me? Mister Strickland, how are you? You wanna stand up for a second? Please do. So my understanding is you will not be back here next year when we go through this exercise. So we just want to congratulate you and thank you for all that you've done.

Again, thank you. And so, with that being said, I hereby declare the budget work session adjourned.