Lowcountry Montessori School
Minutes
Finance Committee
Date and Time
Wednesday April 22, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Location
LMS
The mission of Lowcountry Montessori School is to provide an authentic Montessori education building a foundation for lifelong learning.
Committee Members Present
A. Walker (remote), J. Poole (remote), M. Thompson (remote)
Committee Members Absent
A. Chavarria, A. Wright, G. Alexander, K. Lyon, L. Lyles, T. Brosnan
Committee Members who left before the meeting adjourned
M. Thompson
Guests Present
Rose Beck (remote), S. Fox (remote), Valerie Romig (remote), jonathan strickland (remote)
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
II. Finance
A.
Regular Finance Meeting Discussion
B.
Fiscal Deficit & Budget Planning
Update on budget – sarah going through staffing have/need/changes, not finalized, letters of intent her goal is to have out this week but need to have some meetings first
salaries 65% of revenue or less per year is goal to not exceed, challenge is our model has 2 ppl in classroom so the cost increases because of it, sarah has some creative ways to use the people and needs to setup for this coming year
Sarah asked Jonathan for the actual payroll number to shoot to keep it to instead of a percentage - he said he'd get that for her
She will get how many are preschool so jonathan has a number to give her by using the 135th day numbers
18 days cash on hand
Board meeting jonathan will have highlights from timing of funds, upcoming updates, per weighted pupil unit per year 4350 is the number budget will reflect that, number changes with every count, 356 students funded if factor is 2.75 (ballpark estimate based on other schools and lms) 356*2.75/4350=4.2million (I didn't quite follow that calculation Matt I'm sorry!) lms receives, district withholds 2% admin fee, once he has 135th day report from district with excel file he can get an idea of what lms weightings are to have an idea for next school year which gives us the best possible foot forward for budgeting – summer training, repairs, new staff, changes needed for next year, etc
Continuing push to claim all fed money he can
Sarah said it’s tough to get an idea of what the deficit is going to be without having the information
Rose – nothing too much more supply wise being order because we are at the end of the year
Jonathan - Biggest thing for budgeting and admin at school to focus on is how are we going to make sure all of our debt payments are made while keeping the school running. Owing as much as the school does on these loans monthly we need to maintain every aspect of compliance. That needs to be forefront with kids getting education they deserve
Budget needs to be feasible and allows for school to operate efficiently
Jon and Sarah offline conversation to figure out when they can get together to discussion the budget.
End of march 273k operating cash little bit lower than feb, feb inflated from money market usda account, used to paydown interest on loans
End of month 20k in claims submitted for fed funding reimbursements should reflect in April revenue
Pupil activities revenue trending higher than what was anticipated, spend is lower than anticipated
Spike in debt service – net income dipped more than anticipated because they paid out 130k in interest payments, another small bit due this fall with annual then it goes to monthly payments for building construction
Enrollment update – rose said 402 including k3/k4,
135th day 406 including k3/k4 – highest it’s ever been even though lower than we need
Sarah and Johnathan using a true funding amount for next year for a much more accurate budget