January 19, 2015 – JAC Agency Hearing 005 – Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction – Jillian Balow 205 Education-School – School finance 206 Wyoming Department of Education 1/19/2015 9:00:04 AM Roll Call – all present – quorum Chairman Ross is the chair for the day. Diane introduced herself Balow: introduced staff, Bailey, Carol, Shanor, Novotny (legislative liaison) Goals of Dept. of Education- human resource issues, thorough budget analysis, meet federal and state mandates. 2011- 158 authorized positions with nominal vacancies. Currently 143 positions 34 vacancies. 70% capacity, survival mode. Stellar leadership team brought in. Restructured the dept. of Education – eliminated a position for a cost saving of 35000. New chain of command. Scoured budget. Wanted enough money for assessment, which we do. Data security, bill from Joint Education. HR issues: I am the 5th leader in 4 years. There have been 6 HR supervisors. There is nothing completely in place. JCQ, 34 vacancies, recruitment and retention. Turn mic to CFO Diane Bailey. Ross: Any questions? Bailey: Chief Financial Officer for the WDE. Reorganization and HR are the subjects of our budget request. One HR employee for the entire agency. Recent employee and lots of cleanup work. Need to review all employees JCQ. Develop a dept. wide tracking system of deadlines. Open to the public, user friendly, provide transparency. 130,000 for expert with previous experience with this agency. Time limited need for the funding. Not asking for additional position, position is funded in federal funding. Want to use 130,000 of funding that is scheduled to revert to the GF. Balance just over 130,000 shown on page 2 of the handout. At end of contract, 1 year period, any remaining funds would revert to the GF. 1/19/2015 9:12:55 AM Bailey: options considered; using own 100 series funds, want to fill a lot of the vacancies. Other option is to contract and us e 900 series, An AWAC position can buy into the benefits. Have considerably less 900 series than 100 series money. Final option is the one we are bringing to you today. Carry forward 13/14 funding to pay for this position. 1/19/2015 9:14:43 AM Ross: questions? Harshman: We have this in two separate agencies. Is plan to consider with Agency 05 and 206? Will you use the 9 vacancies from 05? Do not want to leave 3 positions open and increase salaries for current employees. Bailey: There are 8 positions in there. We are leaving one position vacant. We can do the work without that position. There will be a cost savings and reversion. Probably around 30,000. Unique situations. Agency 005, 205 and 206. It is up to this body if we leave it like this. Had to shut down for almost a month to get everything moved over from one agency to another. Now except for two budgets we are entirely in 206. Harshman: In 205, there are 3 positions. In 05.. Bailey: down approximately 34 positions Harshman: What are the reversions? There will be more than 30,000 out of all those vacancies. We have a budget hole so reversions will play a key part. Bailey. Carol ran a reversion scenario for 206. Most of the money is in 205. Includes the 130,000. Potential of reverting 1.5 M. Almost all GF, there is some school foundation Harshman: When reverted? Bailey: We think within the next month. We have reverted in 205. They needed it for Matt Willmarth projections. 130 M reverted and some encumbered funds that need cleaned out. All school foundation Harshman: no federal – reflected on the Goldenrod? Don: reflected and moved to the corpus of the common school permanent land fund. Ross: has sweep taken place. Richards: I believe it has, will check 1/19/2015 9:21:40 AM Nicholas: please explain again. Connolly: why reversions? Richards: based on estimates. Activities inc. and dec. EX: may Est 8% in group health, some years 0 some years 16. Estimate enrollments. Funds generated from fed min royalties and … different from CREG. LSO works with dept. and determines school foundation and school facilities. All 3 acct slinked together. Takes 90 days. Once reconciled, the sweeps begin, move down the page. If there are funds in excess of 475M, they sweep to the permanent land fund. Corpus cannot be spent. Earnings can be spent. 30M. 1/19/2015 9:24:24 AM Burns: Threshold increase to 550? Richards: gov. rec. to increase, will take legislative act to do that. 1/19/2015 9:24:57 AM Stubson: timing of position and funding. Bailey: effective immediately, start as soon as possible Stubson: tasks for employee, issue with alignment of federal funding and positions Bailey: Both – See a need. In 15-16 based everyone in one budget where they do the majority of their work. Through tracking, they do that themselves. User friendly database, instead of wolf system. Yes, person would have focus in that area as well. Ross; Connolly: appreciate the need for this position. I am concerned with an HR person who is an AWAC. An AWAC serves at the pleasure of his supervisor of his boss. Is there another line this position could come from? Bailey: Because it is a one year time limited effort. We do have a permanent employee. This person would bring some previous expertise and some guidance to the agency. Backbone position to help a permanent position Balow: ancillary duties . Ross: have you identified someone? Bailey: Karen Kelly. Dr. Rose, as interim director, brought her back. Greear: Statewide tracking system. Do you have the tech expertise and software to do that, won’t be back in a year requesting money to get it done? Bailey: We have the tech expertise but not sure of the software. Balow: Coming from DFS, Director Corsi wanted his dept. where dept. of ed management system is at. Would like to blaze trail to provide snapshot of budget. 1/19/2015 9:33:52 AM Ross: Down 34 positions. Why not revert the money that is due back and use one of those positions? Balow: We thought about this. Ratio of HR to state employees is 1 to 100. We are at 1.5. We are adequately staffed for business as usual. Short term need Perkins: Analyzing those positions, thinking you will refill those 34 and person will help you to resize Balow: exactly right. Uncertainty in this dept. . Brent Young, chief policy. Brought him in from the school district, LCSD1. We have capacity building to do. This position will help rebuild institutional and historical knowledge lost. Perkins: how long have the 34 positions been vacant? Bailey: some since beginning, could run numbers Perkins: will look at those 34 positions and look at if we need that number and look at salaries with those positions. Balow: Correct Moniz: May we have a copy of an organizational chart? Balow: yes – chart is linear structure. Prior to my coming into office, 7 division directors who reported to one deputy director. We have chief officers, so division directors can be closer to their work and their areas of expertise. 1/19/2015 9:40:09 AM Hastert: Legislative liaison is new position. Will it be ongoing ? Where will we see it? Balow: Legislative liaison is a result of issues arising this session. Bills. Time limited. Mr. Novotney is with us through the legislative session. Hastert: sweep. 130,000 part of that. Reversions sweep into permanent acct because holding acct limit was reached? Richards: any excess funds, whether higher revs or lower exp transfer to the perm fund after hitting limit. Dept. and LSO staff worked similary through school foundation funding, back a decade and cleaned up excess revs . Dept. term of reversion is somewhat different. Includes excess revs as well as lower exp. Other agencies look at exec revs. Ross: School foundation short at this time. Richards: 58 M reduction in revenue from oct estimate. Does not mean the fund is insufficient to meet existing obligations. Even with gov, 2 M above water. 1/19/2015 9:44:25 AM Hastert: Have you discussed with gove.office. Will it be in a letter. Ross: Rules state that elected officials can make their requests. Perkins: 6102 net to zero between div and OSPI . Any imp act on this request. Richards: I don’t believe that has any impact. Ross: any other questions, thank you. Wasserburger: Did you learn enough in your American govt class to handle this? Balow: Unique to have a teacher the same age. Excellent govt teacher. Not my accounting teacher. Ross: enough suck up there. Thank you. Looking forward to working with you. Sooner you can get the reversions to us the better Day schedule 1/19/2015 9:47:20 AM