She said she's on her way up.

Patricia said she would come in right at the end.

Coming in hot, I guess as they say.

Coming in.

Eddie has a school year starting without you being in a school field.

Yeah,

my bad.

Yeah, no, I imagine.

Yeah.

Well,

we'll wait just a bit more.

We want to be respectful of folks' time.

So

many shy of the floor.

Mike.

John?

Love it.

Well, good afternoon.

We're gonna call this meeting to order.

Um and this is a pub this first part of this meeting is a public hearing on the proposed twenty twenty-seven budget.

The purpose of today's hearing is to provide an overview of IPEC's proposed budget for the upcoming year and to offer members of the public an opportunity to provide comment on the proposed budget.

Uh IPAC, however, seeks public comment through other avenues, and we are instituting a written public comment process on our website to streamline this important input.

Nevertheless, this is one of those meetings where we will seek public impact regarding the budget, but only the budget today.

Act excuse me, no final action to adopt the twenty twenty-seven budget is scheduled as part of this hearing.

Following the presentation, board members will have an opportunity to ask questions and then we will open it up for public comment.

And now I will turn it over to our executive director, Dr.

Rausch, to walk us through the budget.

Chairman, and members of the IPEC board.

It has been a um whirlwind last four weeks since I have been in the executive director chair, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to talk to you about our proposed 2027 budget and work that we are doing and engaged in.

A couple of framing um points that I thought was important for board members and others in the space that we're in is the budget process that we are required to follow by statute must be complete before uh November.

Um we are required on Tar and local government finance to publicly post our budget.

That was done on October 9th.

Um there is a mandatory 10-day window between that public posting and the hearing that's happening today on October 19th.

Then there is another mandatory 10-day window for then the board to consider um passing the budget, which will, as the chairman indicated, happen on October 29th.

Also important to note that since um IPEC is the fiscal body responsible for the operating referendum, um, that is also a part um of this budget that you will be hearing from and considering uh today.

A

couple of just quick points on our funding source.

Uh, we have kind of listed here relevant statute that gives IPIC the funding authority.

This was discussed during the April IPEC board meeting.

Um, and you can refer back to resolution 11 that um uh uh effectuated um this conversation that we are having today.

Um pretty clear.

Um we um have developed a budget uh an estimated about 3.2 million dollars, which is the three percent of the operations fund levy as was discussed in April.

Important to note um that budget comes from the operations fund levy, it does not include any referendum funding as a part of the budget that you are um considering for the IPEC part of the budget.

Okay.

It is designed to provide accommodation of full-time IPEC staff members and external expertise to be able to advance um in areas as both will be needed in the work that we're doing moving forward.

So for the 2027 budget, um, we are anticipating spend spending roughly about um uh salaries and benefits at about a million dollars, consultation expertise at about 1.9 million, and then occupancy at about 300,000.

Sally and benefits um assumes um uh at least two, maybe three um additional FTE um throughout the course of 2027.

Consultation and expertise um is exactly that um which is which is designed to allow this board um to engage with experts that we are going to need um in developing um clear areas that we need to work through relative to those areas of statute um that we are required to engage in, um which include a unified performance framework, transportation plan, unified enrollment, and a comprehensive facility plan along with other areas that are critical for our work.

The occupancy cost is there.

I would um transparently say that is um more of a placeholder as we are in the process of looking for what the right long-term kind of space for IPEC staff will be.

We've been incredibly fortunate to be able to have offices in the city county building, um, which has been tremendous and deeply grateful for Mayor Hogsett and others that have allowed that to happen.

We um would like, if possible, um to continue um our relationship with the city county building for cost efficiency purposes, and we're looking into that now, but before, of course, making any determinations on kind of shorter and long-term space needs, we would have make sure to have a conversation with you all as fiduciary responsibilities in the space that we're

in.

When I think about um key 2027 priorities, um areas that we're gonna have to do really well that are aligned to um our spending spending plan and priorities, community engagement.

I can't think of any work that this body is going to do that won't require us to deeply and thoughtfully um engage community um in thoughtful and intentional ways.

Communications will become very important that the our community understands who IPEC is, and even perhaps more importantly, the work that IPEC is not responsible for doing, as well as being able to communicate effectively and listen well, decisions you know that this body will make.

Project management.

We have a number of really important areas that we have to move forward aligned with our statutory responsibilities.

So having capacity to make sure those are on track and on target moving forward will be critical.

And then financial and operations management is another area of priority as we will have some spending opportunities and things that we're going to do, making sure that we are doing it the right way, and we can have the right kind of engagement oversight as needed for that work.