April financials were circulated and no specific new trends were noted.  With fluctuation in enrollment expenses are being very closely watched.  

A lengthy discussion on the proposed budget at 375 students was had.  Mr. Currie noted his concerns that with a budget of 375 students cuts would need to be made and he felt leadership had not been sufficiently involved in the discussions to stress test these assumptions.  Ms. Moree noted that the committee, with the assistance of trustee Getto, held two sessions with the leadership team where heightened focus was placed on class size, the number of classes needed, which courses were underenrolled and how best to leverage faculty with changing enrollment.  Ms. Moree noted that the proposal is just draft - that the full board would vote in June on a budget and the objective was to provide the board with scope on what is being considered.  She noted the Finance Committee was not the ultimate decisionmaker.  Committee members noted grave concern with the application in hand numbers presented at the May Accountability Committee meeting.  Discussion ensued on whether a budget a 375 students was too generous and whether a more prudent budget would be built around 355 students.  Mr. Currie noted that this would warrant further realignment, but did not have a stronger sense on the application pipeline across all grades to provide a greater degree of support for the draft budget at 375 students.  He noted prior year trend data and was pointed that the problem was not a recruitment problem but a brand awareness problem in the greater community.  Several different factors impacting overall recruitment were discussed.  The Committee noted that its approach to developing a budget this year was different than in the last several years - where enrollment targets were more ambitiously set, and despite not hitting those targets, hiring was closely managed early in the school year to ensure expenses would not outpace revenues.  For calendar year 2025-26, the Committee with the support of the Boar, intends on presenting a more realistic budget that will hew closer to anticipated enrollment.  This will necessitate changes - but the Board's focus (and that of the Committee) will be on preserving academic depth and quality in the classroom.  

The Committee asked Mr. Moreau to prepare a draft budget at 355 students.  Ms. Moree noted she would present the draft budget at 375 students to the Board to have time to consider the various implications built into the assumptions. She will advise the board that, based on the more recent application data, she is having a budget based on 355 students prepared for consideration as well.  May and early June applications in hand data may provide the data points needed for the board to properly evaluate which direction to take.  She noted that in July, 2024, (based on end of June data), 54 applications for sixth grade were in hand.   The recruitment team has a far way to go based on May data to reach that target merely for 6th grade.