I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. Hi Barb Zerziki. And I Judy Reid. Item 5.8, budget recommendations, revisions for school year 26 and proposals for school or fiscal year. I guess these are fiscal year. I see a typo there. Yeah, I have fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 26. Sorry 25 and proposals for fiscal year 20 26 and and my apologies for that. I will tell you that the flipping back and forth in my head between 25 and 26 and and when I'm working all day in fiscal year 26 mindset, it's why on that one document that I had something circled that Cassie had corrected, but I kept looking for 26 when Anyway. Okay. Okay. I'm going to tell you right up front that some things have already changed in this. So, in terms of you approving the doc this document, I would expect you to consider it as is.
But I want to tell you some things that um that I anticipate changing already between now and whatever and I would bring those back to you. So um first of all recommended revisions for um uh I've got it right here fiscal year 25 uh maintenance and operations and u um uh I I did rework the budget with those those new numbers that we all saw in the new BSA 55-1 that I sent to you. uh that has added a half million dollars back into our budget for the current year. I did a happy dance. Um the current reserves for uh combined reserves for uh M and UCO right now uh I put two 2.6 million on there. Uh when I finished the calculations and the work on it today, uh we're at 2.78. So almost 2.8 million. So, another $200,000 in reserves right now. Um, distribute those uh corrections between the M and the UCO budgets for the May final revision.
So, what I've been working on yesterday and today was playing with that 5 uh 31,000 and putting them, you know, in those two budgets um to figure out how to, you know, how to make best use of them between now and the end of the year. uh primarily because we're doing okay. We're fine. Okay. We w if if we didn't have $2.7 million, it would be different. But that's that tells us we're fine. Okay. Um so, um they're adequate. That's why I was playing with it to see what we might be able to do. Um I want to consider any big capital projects or purchases before, uh finalizing that uh bringing to you that May revision. Um, so I I have tasked um Mark Scott with checking to see if we have any anticipated big maintenance things that um maybe don't have to be done because it's not an emergency, but it's one of those that coming down the road real soon we might have to do it.
Uh kind of thing to consider. The other thing that um that I was looking at there uh is we have u an application in for electric buses. Um and we haven't heard anything recently. Jen works on all of those grant applications. Uh we we requested three uh three electric buses which means we would have to have either two or three charging stations and we would have to pay for those or the infrastructure for those. Um so I would set set aside some money in there in capital for that. Um, and then um uh I want I would like to consider this is not part of what you're approving tonight, but I'm giving you the idea of what I would do with that. Consider big capital projects. Okay. Um I'd like us at least to get through the design phase of the office change at Fox Creek.
Um you know, it's not the kind of thing that uh SFD is ever going to pay for. They won't ever do that. And for us to do it, it'll have to be in phases. Um, and so, you know, I' I'd set aside some money that, um, would end up being rolled over, but it's we'd earmark it, just like we earmarked money from last year's budget to purchase the specialed bus this year, I'd earmark it for design for that office, perhaps design and engineering for that office change. Uh, that would get us set up for then, um, you know, figuring out some money to to make the make it actually happen. Um and uh um and then one of the things that I also thought about um that we don't have is I call them the white buses. Um they're the smaller buses, 14 passenger buses that can be used for uh small group field trips or athletics.
Um or if we actually followed through or needed to follow through on something you all approved earlier this year, which is transportation for some of our employees, we would have a vehicle to do that that does not require somebody to have a CDL. Um you know, a bus driver license. So, um that's just requiring all of those just require me to be looking for, you know, how much might these cost? What might I bring back to you for that may uh that may change. So, that's what I was looking at for those things.
Any questions about that piece? That's this year's dollars. And and of course, now we're I hesitate to say flush, but we're in really good shape. We're in really good shape. Okay. So, recommended proposals, initial recommend recommended proposals for the budget for next year. Um I I would anticipate that we would uh that both the MCO our M excuse me and UCO would be similar to this year and um um which of course now includes those step raises for our employees and longevity pay uh that's already built in. Secondly, that we would um whatever additional funding that is approved by the legislature um when they finish the budget, and for many years now, that's been a 2% that's been a 2% increase. Um which is about when our when our base right now is $5,13, 2% makes it just over $5,100. So that 2% is about $100 per kid.
that that would be uh the first thing we would do with that would be to uh raise raise the salary schedules that you know one step. So uh so then teach teachers and other employees would get the current step raise which is either $500 for teachers or 30 cents an hour for classified employees but then when the base rate raises they would get another 500 or 30 cents an hour. Okay. So to me that would be the first priority. um continue uh I would recommend that you continue to 100% fund all of our various insuranceances. Um we know what the max is going to be because that's what we've been told already from Kyros. Uh I am hopeful that uh Asbait might come in with uh something better uh for us and that that increase will not be as great as as we are anticipating.
um the current year uh out of M uh of the million5 that we are paying this year uh 900,000 was out of M and I'm initially excuse me I'm initially recommending uh in this document to reduce that to 350,000. I will tell you that um yesterday after we posted um I met with Kevin from IE um and to cut that drastically from a million5 that we were paying for out of uh M and the grants the grant funding is gone um that um we would have to cut dramat I mean drastically uh to bring it down to the $1 million that I was uh that I anticipated. And I'll I'll talk a little more about that in a minute. Um uh so I probably would come back to you for a different number for that particular line um uh at the next meeting, the next regular meeting.
Personnel changes. So here's uh here are uh some things going on. Um we need to add a special ed preschool classroom at Coyote. The numbers just keep multiplying. Uh um a special ed classroom. This is a special ed classroom. So, currently we have three three. We need a fourth one. Um um because we have the three, you know, as the year go as each year goes along, we add all those three-year-olds. So, at the beginning of the year, uh parents out there, you know, they understand preschool starts at four. And so, there are a heck of a lot of parents who come in to enroll their children in preschool. um many of them who uh many of them who might qualify at least for speech uh qualify for sped and we didn't even know they were out you know we didn't even know they were out there in the community um we als we can anticipate those kids that are coming through um uh DDD um uh but we can't anticipate all of those others and right now we could use the fourth classroom fortunately many of the kids are speech and we have another way to manage those for this year but we need to add that classroom room.
Um the the flip side of that is the two fourpay preschool classrooms that we operated this year um uh were not full and um did not support themselves and so I am recommending that we drop those that we do not have any forpay preschool classrooms. Um so that means uh and that was paid out of the auxiliary operations budget. So that's a totally separate budget. It needs to be a it's a cash budget. So it it has to zero out at the end of the year. Okay. Uh so that means that we would have um one teacher less there, one parapro less there, the other parapro because we had two rooms. Um we would reassign to uh the preschool classroom at Coyote that is uh paid for out of title one. That classroom has not had a parah this year. So um uh and that does restrict the number of students we can put you know you have to have a certain number of adults for per student or student yeah adults per students um and so um we've had slightly fewer students in that classroom this year because we didn't have a parah so essentially uh uh the the negative teacher position moves over to be a sped position and it will be paid for out of the sped budget sped part of m budget it.
Um, and then that parapro that we're keeping, that position that we're keeping, uh, I would pay for out of M. Uh, other teacher positions, we would reassign one position from Sunrise, second grade, uh, to Desert Valley back to add that uh, additional sped classroom at Desert Valley. And that's happening because we have so many preschoolers who who need continue to need sped when they go uh to and mo and and they need the kind of service moving. The bubble is moving. The bubble is moving. Uh we had moved that uh the position at Sunrise was one that in the middle of the year we moved from a vacant first grade position at Desert Valley up to Sunrise, but we had not been able to fill it. And uh that's why Chris was talking about the fact that they had 28 in the in the second grade classrooms.
Uh we have a long-term sub in there right now to finish out the year. Uh but the position is going to go back. It needs to go back. So that's a wash in terms of number of number of employees. Um, and then uh move two music and one art position from M uh fund to the classroom site fund which costs about $220 or $220,000 with salaries and benefits. Um that would that would mean that all of our art and all of our music teachers are funded with classroom site fund. Okay. Um and then is that putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak? Well, it there have been times in the past where it's been uh it might have been two music teachers and two PE teachers and two librarians paid out of that fund. For me, this made more sense that if I was moving three positions and I had three I, you know, I had only one art teacher and two music teachers who were not in that it it it gets all of those people in the same basket.
Okay. um and and makes more sense to me than having some of each type of teacher. I mean, it it doesn't really matter. I just was curious. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. It's a great question. Okay. Um I would like to we have a position we've had for two years called instructional coach for student achievement. And this is a this is a coach for our special ed people. Uh our instructional coaches, you know, work with classroom teachers and and when they can, they work with the special ed folks. But there are there are needs there are coaching needs that special ed teachers have that general ed teachers don't have. And um and we've had the position. It's not a new one. It's just I've had it on hold because we've had no applicants. I just want to reactivate it. It's in the budget currently.
It doesn't change our budget at all. Um uh I just wanted to let you know that, you know, it's going to sound like it's new because we have not used that term much uh because it hasn't been filled. I would like to add a model of instruction coach. Uh we would split the funding from M with M and title one because right now with IE our teachers get coached, our coaches get coached, our principles get coached. When we're done with IE, we need to sustain that coaching model. Um, you heard the principles talk about how valuable that coaching is for them uh to increase what they're doing. And if teachers were here, they would be telling you that. And if the coaches were here, they would be telling you that. Um, but we need a we need that person to know first of all what we are doing and where we are in the process, but to be learning how that how that uh position goes or you know what needs to be done.
So, we're essentially taking an entire program and and bringing it down to having uh uh one coach uh for the entire district to ma help us maintain that model of instruction. And this would be instead of the IE personnel, this would be our own employee for the following. I mean, we would need this person this coming year if we renew with IE. This helps us get this person trained, right? It's built into the the training of this person is built into the uh the package from IE because they have training for exactly this kind of situation because you know they have faced this elsewhere in the in you know in the country when they've had these contracts u that people no district wants thing they every district wants things to sustain um and so we want this person to be obviously trained to be able to continue what those coaches from IE have been helping us with um uh but um this this is this this needs to be an experienced educator and and whatever, but they need a I don't I see this as being somebody who's currently outside of our district, not somebody who's a current employee.
Um so they need to learn what we've done, what the differences are, and where we are in each site because you heard that in the presentations. Just like in a classroom, the progress at each of our sites and within sites, the the the progress uh you heard Cassie talk about um that she has some people who are working in in 101. Most of her people are working in 2011 and 301. Um at another site, you heard, you know, that there are people in 101 and 2011 and really not anybody yet in 301. So, it's just like a classroom. You have you have people in various places in their development. Um and so this person's got to have uh got to know where we are number one, but also then has to know what are the processes to bring everybody along and to coach everybody. Um uh so um to me that is the best opportunity for sustainability and uh uh in the future and to keep things going.
We don't want things to just stop whenever it is that we stop working with IE. Um I am estimating, it's just an estimate um uh that M's half of that would be 55,000. We're talking salary and benefits um uh for that person. So, uh, Jen and I have worked really, really closely together to figure out kind of what that would be because this needs to be somebody who has not just credibility, but experience to coach principles. Um, and and Jen and I would love to tell you that we do that all the time. Well, in some ways we do, but not anything like needs to happen because neither of us has the time to coach them the way they need should be coached. And um so so this person this coaching position would be a little more expensive than our other coaches simply because we need you know we need somebody with with that experience and and credibility.
But we can't afford not to have them. I don't think we can afford not to have them. Fred, I understand. Yeah. And part of the part of that um part of the ne that next process um is as and Cassie said it so well where she said you know okay our people are our people try something new and they start to get good at it and then and then we say okay now you need to add this piece and so that's the same kind of thing that needs to happen here but the piece that needs to happen from this coach is this coach is helping our principles and our instructional coaches is um uh uh increases their capacity to to take more of that on themselves and expanded into teaching our teacher leaders some of those roles as well. Um uh where they're, you know, where a teacher team, say third grade teachers at a site, one of the one of those three people or four people is the teacher le the lead for that grade level.
that person takes on and and gets some capacity to take over some of the things that the coaches have been doing now. So, it's it's expanding everybody's capacity to uh uh to do their job better and to help each other uh do better. Um and so I see it as a critical a critical thing. Um uh one of the things the district, the Bullhead City District did, one of the best things that they did in my opinion is at the end of the reading first grant, you know, when that money after five years was finally gone, um uh it it would not have been and in fact, we saw it happen in other districts where the district said, "Okay, well, we don't have that grant anymore, so we don't need instructional coaches anymore." And our district did not do that. our district stayed committed to having an instructional coach on each campus.