and she told me that the reason she wanted to start working at Campo is because she really believes in Campo. And she joined because she wanted to send her kids to that school and for them to enjoy it. And she'd always come back home from work telling her kids, you know, there's so many great things about Campo and the people there, they really care about every student. And so I come with our book club president Lizzie to help tell you that as of now approximately 40% of students across the nation cannot read at a basic level. And this is from the National Literacy Institute. This should be alarming to all school districts in consideration this one specifically because Gilbert Public Schools is such a large district and not only does it diminish resource for students getting rid of our librarians but children's education as a whole will deteriorate even further because of this.
That's an easy door to walk through every year. That's the door that they'll say just like they've done with roads, just like they've done with other things. That's an easy place to go find cut cost. What's another two or three? Drives me nuts. What's another two or three kids in a classroom? It's not It's not overwhelming. It absolutely is overwhelming. You talk to any teacher and it's critical to keep those class sizes small. So for my money, I will always fight to listen to what the paid experts are telling us as far as class sizes go and where we need to be rather than past board members that have been off the board for 10 years and haven't been participating and haven't come down to any workshop to hear where the cuts are coming. I'll go with our paid staff to be able to do that.
When libraries are left without the proper management which require certified librarians with degrees or proper recognition, then literature and other necessary academic fields of pursuit will cease tremendously. If this trend continues within the GPS district and others within Arizona, children will be left with the remnants of a solid base for education and will have extreme difficulty finding the support or criteria needed to be for reading at all. Though it may not seem desolate now, the consequences of these actions will have ripple effects into all levels of education, academia, and the social and emotional well-being of students. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pavone. It takes a lot of courage to get up uh in front of a bunch of adults and uh and express yourself like that. So, thank you for taking the time to come tonight and uh and speak to us. I also wanted to make mention that we had a number of online submissions tonight and we wanted to thank those that took the time to write those emails.
So I feel strongly that we go forward with the superintendent's recommendations on the 158. We resist, but we resist it now, but we we review it. We study it to make sure we're on the right path. That's a good thing. We make sure we're on the right path financially. That's a good thing. And then once we have that data, then we can be confident as we sit here as board of education members and what we're telling the public when we say we cannot cut a class. We cannot consolidate. So those are the things that we have to remember as board members. We are the champions of education. Board of Finance members of the Champions of Finance. I appreciate that. I respect them. Every single one of them are volunteers just like we are. They don't get paid. They're trying to do the best thing for the town and I appreciate that.
uh to us. Those do get read and we appreciate uh taking part in this process. So, thank you very much. Uh we're going to move on to agenda item number six and we're going to uh do a little switcheroo. We're going to do 6.02 first, the fiscal year 2025 budget revision number two. Dr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. I imagine Miss Betts asked for that change. even though she's the one that put it on the agenda. Yes, but we'll we'll honor that. Miss, go ahead. Um, good evening, governing board, President Thompson, Dr. McCord. Uh, yes, I I did think that it would be more appropriate to do the revised budget first as we opted to include the revised budget number two information on our monthly report and so seemed appropriate to do the revised budget first before we get into the details of our monthly report.
And we're trying to do the best thing for our students and I'm sure they appreciate that, too. So, I'd like to stick with our guns, stay with with what the superintendents recommended. Remember, this isn't the end of it, though. More cuts can come. There's going to be a budget workshop down the road, so people have to speak out. We still have time. You're going to hear on our meeting on on the 6th 8th, April 8th. You're going to hear about what you can do to promote the budget and what you can't do from our legal our legal council is kind of doing a uh dos and don'ts as far as that goes because you all have to be champions. You all have to be proactive when we go out there and push this budget. Okay. So, with that, I will take a motion that we accept the superintendent's recommended cuts in three areas.
So that was why I I made that request and yes I should have figured that out before today but thank you very much. Appreciate that. So first uh today's report we really it's a very very simple budget revision. We have not updated any of the figures to reflect the average daily membership as of today which is our student count. As just a reminder as you know our average daily membership student counts change through middle of July. Um, so at this point in time, however, we wanted to make sure that we were taking advantage of any extra available budget capacity to maximize the revenue earnings on that extra budget capacity. And so based upon that, we are making a recommendation that we transfer $11 million of maintenance operations budget capacity into district additional assistance. As I've told you before, uh, state law does not allow us to increase our budget capacity in maintenance and operations associated with interest earnings.
It's $92,000 in non-certified staff, $48,000 in technology, $18,000 in insurance, giving us the $158,000 cut that the board of finance is looking for. I have a motion, Mr. Sher. I have a second. Thank you, Peggy. I got you, Felicia. Um, any further conversation, discussion, hearing? Yes, sure. I just wanted to say one thing that you just what you said sparked something that I remember remember from last night there was a comment from the board of finance that 6.4% increases are unsustainable but it went on and on about that recollection there was a long period of time prior to like our big increases we had to significant inflation the last two years where we had very minimal increases below the level of inflation and our school test scores appear to reflect that same trend. When we got up and put the money in, our test scores came up and our schools got better.
And to date, we do receive interest earnings in maintenance operations. We just can't spend it. So, in this particular case, we wanted to move the 11 $11 million into unrestricted capital, earn the interest. Just a a note to you all to remind you. Last year we earned just over a million dollars in interest earnings and unrestricted capital. And this year to date we're about at a um 825,000 earning about $125,000 a month. So we could achieve maybe as much as a million and a half in interest earnings and unrestricted capital in this time frame where we are um without bond dollars to make sure that we can continue to upgrade our facilities. It's important that we maximize any revenue stream that we possibly can to ensure that we can meet the needs of our of our school facilities well into the future. So that's the basic reason um behind doing this quick budget revision because we have to post revenue accordingly based upon our budget.
But it also 6.4 every year for the last decade, it was zero, 2%, 1%. And schools struggled under that. And in the couple years where we've had uh administrative changes and more money spent, our schools got better. Yep. I listen you get what you pay for right and it happened quite quickly wasn't and Lou one other thing how many unfunded mandates I mean we don't need to go into what they are but are we still dealing with unfunded mandates because that's something I think people are really unaware of that we get unfunded mandates from the government and the state asking us to do things Kim I I kind of close that discussion out this is on motion you have a question on motion no sorry about No, no. I Your question's a good one and I hear you. We can we can chat about that, but I want to take care of this motion.
That was why we thought it was important to bring you an extra budget revision this this early instead of waiting until the May revision. So given that the details so the budget capacity this is what you approved on revise number one when we presented this to you I think in February early February. So um based upon this budget revision you can see on this particular document there's $0 under the unrestricted capital outlay. So this is what the budget document looks that's uh attached to this agenda item. You can see that the $11 million now. So we always start with the revenue control limit. So we need to move the $11 million from the revenue control limit into unrestricted capital. That then results in less money into maintenance and operations. So that's the first part of the puzzle. Secondarily, um then you can just see this is how it impacts us globally.
So, I have a first I have I have a first and a second. All those in favor? I two on the two on the screen. Unanimous. Okay. I I appreciate uh everybody's comments tonight. Um I don't think there's anything else for tonight. No. No. All right. Anyone opposed to adjournment? All right, we are adjourned at 7:21. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara, for being here.
So you can see the that we we the last column there the difference revise number one to revise number two for M to district additional assistance. You can see um $11 million moving out of M O. So we're taking revised uh number one that was at $293 million down to $282 million. Of course, we had plenty of capacity within M. So, we are able to do this without impacting our organization at all. So, secondarily, this of course impacts our unrestricted capital budget capacity. Uh, so this is what you approved back in February. Uh, this is our unrestricted capital um budget. So, you can see the amount to be used for capital expenditures is about 18.9 million. And then with carryover, the budget limit is about 56.2 million. When we share with you the revised number two, you can see that the capital expenditures now go up to 29.8 million and the unrestricted capital budget limit goes up to 67.2 million.
You can imagine that a $67 million bucket of money will be able to earn a fair amount of interest over the next three to four months. So, and this is how it looks on the unrestricted capital budget capacity. Again, showing the $11 million more in unrestricted capital. So, going from 56.2 million up to 67.2. And then a final reminder, we have an action item at the end of the board meeting tonight. Action item 8.02. Please make sure that you don't leave without signing the documents so that we can get this uploaded to AD. And that's all I have.
If there's any questions, I'm very happy to answer any of them. Thank you, Miss Bats. Can you go back a couple slides? You realize that my peer, Mr. Macintosh here, is going to be upset when I go backwards. It's all right. He'll get over it. He just has to start counting. So, uh, could you go forward one, please? You bet. So this 67 million, if it's tied up, I don't want to use the word tied up. If it's in uh interestbearing accounts, is there any restrict time limit restrictions to using that if we need to? There is no time limit um restriction at all. The other piece to this story, thank you for asking the question, is that um next year when we are sharing the proposed and adopted budget with you, our strategy would be actually to use some of the district additional assistance next year and move it back to maintenance and operations so that we continue to have the budget capacity and maintenance operations to meet our ongoing operational expense.
We will remind you that we did this and share this again as we go through the proposed budget and the adopted budget for the 2526 school year. Thank you. Are there any other questions from any board members? I I do have a question on this slide because um so we have a unrestricted capital budget limit of 67 million but amount to be used for capital expenditures is 29 20 basically a little under 30 million. So, our plan is that we'll be spending about $30 million on our uh capital expenditures. So, thank you for the question. It does um allow me to clarify. So, prior to 2015 2016 time frame, school districts were able to seamlessly transfer money back and forth between maintenance and operations and unrestricted capital. When they made the change to reflect current year funding, they said you can't do that anymore. You have to designate new revenues to go into either M or unrestricted capital.
At that point in time, you can make that decision. So that's why this is shown. The amount to be used for capital expenditures is the amount of M new revenue plus the amount of district additional assistance new revenue that's been designated to unrestricted capital. So that's that roughly $30 million. The $67 million includes the carryover that we have built up over time. Okay. I I understand that. But um so then our our plan is that going forward this year, we'll spend approximately $30 million on our capital expenditures. Yes. We'll um we'll that's why I wanted to do this first because um I will be able to show that on our monthly financial to let you know to date how much is encumbered and expended in unrestricted capital. That will better answer that question for you, Mrs. Humphre. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
You bet. Any other questions? That's it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's uh 6.01 01 monthly financial report for month ended February 28th, 2025. Dr. McCord, back to you, Miss Betts. Thank you. Um so again, um as we've done uh the last um to continue what we've done last month and then this month, we are really focusing on the district operating funds. So there's very limited changes that occur in all the other grids. So again, we're sharing the district operating funds grid with you today. And the biggest reason is because now we have a revised number two budget revision. So all of the available balances have considerably changed. So if you look at maintenance and operations, you can see that budget revision number one shows 293.2 million and budget revision number two shows 282 million. In spite of that movement of $11 million out of M into unrestricted capital, you can still see that our available balance is just under $8 million.
So that means that that's unencumbered and unspent. It's important because in the expended encumbered column that includes our full year's worth of all salaries and benefits. So, it's very likely that at the end of the school year, we will still end up with a carryover amount of at least $8 million in in M. Conversely, you can see under unrestricted capital outlay at the bottom, that's the other row that's highlighted in yellow, you see that our budget revision number one was $56.2 million and now is $67.2 million. But you can see to answer your question, Mrs. Humphre that we to date have about $35.6 million worth of incumbrance and spend, leaving us an available balance of 31.6 million. However, today under the consent agenda, you have some additional requests for approval to spend additional capital dollars. So, we are continuing to spend and encumber unrestricted capital through the end of June 30.
And based upon that, that is all I have. If there are any questions again, I'm very happy to answer any any of them. Any questions from the board? Did that answer your question of Sumpre? That that did answer my question. Yes. Good question. All right. Thank you very much, Miss Bats. Uh moving on to 6.03, teaching and learning academic spotlight. Dr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. I will turn this over to Mr. Jared Ryan, our assistant superintendent of teaching learning, and he will introduce tonight's presentation. Thank you, President Thompson, Dr. McCord, governing board. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Um while U Brent Gardner is coming up to the microphone, um I'm just going to say a couple words about this evening's presentation. Um, annually when we sit down to talk about the academic spotlight kind of schedule that's going to be coming up, we really look back at the prior year, current year planning, and what's coming up in the future.