Urban Montessori Charter School
Minutes
Finance Committee Regular Meeting
Date and Time
Wednesday April 17, 2024 at 12:30 PM
Location
4551 Steele Street, Oakland, CA 94619. Ring the front bell or call/text 510-290-4005 for entry. Signage on campus will direct you to the correct room, generally the Head of School's Office.
The public may comment and participate via Zoom if they prefer. The public may also email comments to greg@urbanmontessori.org to be shared by the during the meeting. Please make that intention clear in your email.
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Meeting ID: 825 9285 5160
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Members: Greg Klein (Chair), Ann Rhodes; Committee Alternates: Amy Ng, Evan Sequoia
Urban Montessori Charter School welcomes your participation at Board meetings. The purpose of a public meeting of the Board of Directors (“Board”) is to conduct the affairs of the organization in public. Your participation assures us of continuing community interest in our school and assists the Board in making the best decisions for our school. To assist you in the ease of speaking/participating in our meetings, guidelines are provided at the bottom of this agenda. All materials for all board and committee meetings, including audio recordings of Regular Board Meetings, are available on our BoardOnTrack public portal and also through the UMCS School Calendar.
Committee Members Present
A. Rhodes (remote), G. Klein
Committee Members Absent
None
Guests Present
K. Feeney
I. Opening Items
A.
Call the Meeting to Order
B.
Record Attendance
C.
Vote on Minutes from prior Finance Committee Meeting
No discussion or questions, or public comments on this item.
| Roll Call | |
|---|---|
| G. Klein |
Aye
|
| A. Rhodes |
Aye
|
D.
Review of Action/Discussion Items
E.
Presentations from the Floor
No public comments on items not on the agenda.
F.
Rescheduling Regular May and June Committee Meetings
The committee discussed the following updates to the Regular Meeting schedule. The committee's Regular Meetings for May and June will be 8:30a-10a on Monday May 20th and
10a-11:30a on Monday June 17th.
There was no public comment on this item.
II. Finance
A.
Discussion Item: Monthly Fiscal Report
Josh shared the monthly report, and welcomed Adriene from Edtec to the team.
The current forecasted operating income is at $215,000, up from $65,000. Attendance and ADA came in higher than what was budgeted. In Compensation and Benefits, there were savings based on vacancies. Books and Supplies, went through line by line and made some reductions based on latest expectations for the rest of the year. Local and State Revenue also increased due to the higher-than budgeted ADA.
The plan is push as much one-time money as possible to the next school year, lowering this year's operating income, and supporting next year's budget. After that update, the ending fund balance would be right around 30%. Cash flow also remains strong through the end of the year.
Greg asked if there are changes being discussed in the state legislature that relate to FY2023-2024. Josh shared that there's nothing specific related to K12 Ed yet for this current school year, but that those changes have happened before this late in a fiscal year.
No public comments on this item.
B.
Multiyear Budget Planning
The committee discussed a multiyear draft budget that included a few new positions. Daniel shared about building new positions into the draft multiyear budget. This most recent draft includes a Montessori Coach, Montessori Trainer, and a Executive Director role that would both oversee the training center and fundraising. Greg asked and Daniel shared that he expects to close the Assistant Head of School role for now. Greg asked and Daniel shared that he both recommended this level of investment, and also shared that the admin team will engage with staff about additional investments aligned to goals supporting daily programming. The current draft budget shows the school operating its core programming on recurring public revenue, and the expected annual operating deficit relates to the investment in the long term training center. This investment is expected to support continued highly trained teachers in classrooms, and as it grows, may generate revenue. The role will also seek to fundraise to help offset its own costs.
Ann asked about the salary scale adjustments created with Edgility's support. Krishna shared that the school aims to start implement those adjustments in the 2024-2025 school year. COLA adjustments are built into the multiyear draft budget for now. Staff are all aware for of this timeline and and that it could take multiple years to fully implement the new compensation model.
There were no other questions or public comments on this item.
C.
Updates on School Policies and Required Documents
The committee discussed updates to the school's Fiscal Management/Control Policy, in particular raising the ceiling from $15,000 to $25,000 on purchases and contracts requiring Board's prior approval. Additional updates were discussed related to updating the policy to the school's current best practices informed by financial experts. All the changes discussed, if approved, would not take effect until July 1, 2024. If the details of the policy updates are not ready for the Board to consider at the April Regular meeting, the committee will discuss again in May.
Krishna shared the latest draft the 2024-2025 LCAP and provided an opportunity for board and community input and feedback. Currently considering a single goal aligned to the multiple outputs of the California School Dashboard and charter renewal. Greg commented that he added a metric to the draft aligned to the English Learner indicator of the dashboard.
There were no public comments on this item.
D.
New Business
No new items collected.
III. Contracts for Approval
A.
Lunch Master Contract
Krishna discussed and recommended that the committee place this contract on the upcoming General Consent Report for the Board's approval. Greg asked and Krishna shared that the school meals team recommends this contract be approved. Greg asked and Krishna shared that the school meals team can support regularly sending on student feedback on meals to the meals provider.
There were no public comments on this item.
IV. Closed Session
A.
Closed Session Items
At 1:38p, Greg shared that the committee would go into closed session on Public Employee Performance Evaluation - Head of School. There were no public comments on this item.
B.
Report out of Closed Session
At 1:51p, the committee returned to open session. No actions were taken.
No changes needed.