On a motion by Maria Apara, seconded by Rick Raleigh, the board of trustees approved the following. approved the district's contribution towards health, dental, vision, and life insurance coverage for all unrepresented employees chosen providers. Effective July 1st, 2025, the district shall contribute annually for the health and welfare benefits of an eligible full-time unit member at the following fixed rates. Employee only, $10,215. Employee plus one, $19,072. Employee plus two or more, $24,387. uh conference B2 conference on litigation government code section 54954.5D and 54956.95Z ROA versus ABUSD on a motion by Maria Akarez seconded by Rick Raleigh the board voted unanimously to deny the amended claim of Zane Roka Item B2, conference on litigation, government code section 54954.5D and 54956.95N Marino versus ABUSD. On a motion by Maria Akara, seconded by Rick Raleigh, the board voted unanimously to deny the claim of Nathan Eli Mareno. And that is it.
Okay, great. Okay, one more item. Next regular board meeting, May 8th, 2025 at 5:00 pm. Does anybody have any future items for the agenda? Okay. A motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I.
Good afternoon. Welcome to the Senate Committee on Education. Today is Friday, April 11, 2025. This is our 3:00 p.m. agenda and we are in hearing room 229. This meeting, including the audio and video of remote participants, is being streamed live on YouTube. You will find links to viewing options for all Senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislaturator's website. In the unlikely event that we must abruptly end this hearing due to technical difficulties, the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on Monday, April 14, 2025 in room 229 and a public notice will be posted on the legislaturator's website. I'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearings, we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill. For people participating remotely, please remain muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your time to testify.
When I call your name, unmute yourself and your time will begin. After your minute is completed, staff will mute you so that we can move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner. Thank you. First on our agenda is GM779 advice and consent submitting for consideration and confirmation to the school facilities authority rubinatorial nominee Shelley Pa for a term to expire June 30th 2029. So to testify on this measure, Superintendent Keith Hayashi, Chair Hidani, Vice Chair Kim, members of the committee, Keith Aayashi, Superintendent testifying on behalf of the department of education. The dep stands on its written testimony in support of this measure. Miss Priv's experience experience managing largecale operations with diverse teams is directly applicable to the complexities of school construction projects. In particular, her experience in gathering community and stakeholder input will be invaluable. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Thank you, Superintendent.
Next to testify, Joshua Mueller, detective, HPD, individual in support. Miss online? Not present. Chair, are there any additional testifiers present who wish to testify on this issue? If not, members, any questions of the testifiers? Okay. Um, Shel here. Shelly. Aloha, chair, vice chair, you like to tell us a little bit about yourself, Shelley? Yes. I apologize that I cannot be there in person. I had a prior commitment on the mainland. So, thank you for um letting me testify via Zoom. Um I just want I just wanted to let you know that I retired in March 1st um of this year. I was um expected to just kind of chill, but I decided that I really needed to do something. And when the opportunity arose to be a part of this board, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to give back to the teachers and the students who um in our community who I truly value.
Um, I've been in the community policing team for many years, but pretty much my entire career I've had to work with, um, the community stakeholders, organizations um, and many other people in order to get the jobs that we needed done. I value the input of those that um, are part of the projects that we will be involved in. And I think the the big um the big positive part that I will bring to this committee is that um I'm able I believe that my strength is to um collaborate um efficiently, effectively and with aloha with those um that will be involved. Thank you Shelly. There anyone else here wishing to testify on this nominee? Moving on to the next GM7. Oh, I'm sorry. Questions. Good afternoon, Shelley. Good afternoon. Um, I know we had a lengthy discussion about you serving and we certainly appreciate your willingness to serve.
Um, so you realize that this position deals with a lot of uh construction facilities, infrastructure, that kind of thing. So, um, I know that that's not necessarily in your, um, resume. So, uh, do you feel that you can take this on and be able to, um, make decisions regarding facilities? Um, I absolutely, um, think that I can take this on. I believe in myself, I love to learn all the time. So, I may not have experience in construction, but I am not afraid to ask questions all the time if there's something that I need to know better to make a good decision. Um, I believe that many members of this board and the staff and the executive director have experience in that area and that what I will bring to this board is more the collaboration with the community, the the the um schools, the DOE, the BOE, the stakeholders, the students and decisions that I make will not only be representative of what is best for the construction side, but it will also take into account especially those that will be affected by the construction that we are doing.
You deal with a situation where um there's a project being built and there's only x amount of dollars that is allotted for that uh project and it's not necessarily uh what the DOE wants or the location that they might want it in. Uh so there's a disagreement at the end of the day. How how would you as a board member help to deal with something like that? I think a lot of times um well in general you have to get the input of everybody involved. I believe that the board is just um we take on what the ledge um allows us to um build and when um there's a conflict between what the department of education or the board of education may want and what the board may also want. I think that's where I probably will be able because of the partnerships and the relationships that I've built be able to truthfully honestly um be able to talk to both sides and be able to collaborate and come to an agreement.
In my opinion, when a decision needs to be made, you have to look at who is the enduser and who is going to benefit from the project itself. So, the questions I base my decisions on would be um there's always four questions I ask. Is it best for the community? Is it best for the teachers? Is it best for the students? And is it best for all of those involved? If you could say yes to all of those questions, then it's a good decision. Um, I understand that there are going to be times where people are not going to agree, but I believe that I have several different ways of being able to communicate better so that we all should be wanting the same end result. And that is to give our students, our teachers, and the community the best facility for education that is a safe place for our students to be able to go to and our teachers to be able to go to to learn.
Very well said. Thank you. Um but one area you left out is the financial aspect of it and so there is only so much money um that may be allotted and sometimes that may have to be the final decision making as to where we put things because if you know we have cost overruns we can't complete the project. I know there's a billion dollars worth of projects that is sitting incomplete at this point or been encumbered and can't go forward because of the lack of funding. Um so I think that is a key area that has to be balanced. Um similarly, you know, in our family budgets, we certainly want to give our family and our kids everything they want, but the budget is the budget and and we have to live within the means of the budget. So uh I think that's one factor that has to go in and uh you know what's realistic uh that we can actually build.
So hopefully that will be taken into consideration. Definitely. I think it's just a matter of both parties coming to an agreement on what needs to be prioritized and at that point um it's whatever is within the budget. So if there's things that are different and in what they think is in priority then um that's when probably I believe that I can be the most beneficial in going to both parties and explaining both sides on how we have to meet this budget and what is your priority, what is the board's priority and coming to an agreement of listen we may have to cut this but we also have to gain this for your side. So it's never going to be one person is always going to get what they want. It's going to be do you understand that we have a budget so you're going to have to give and in turn the other person will give.
Thank you. Thank you Senator. Thank you. Thank you Shelley. You have answered most of my questions but let's let me ask you um based on your experience in procurement and fiscal management what do you believe is key to keeping a project on track to completion? Uh well, based off of my experience, it's um it's the process from the beginning to end. making sure that those involved in the process, including myself and the um people who have our the money that's going forward, it's always being um in communication and making sure that the project doesn't stall anywhere because a lot of times in my in in my experience, there's always a stall in um the procurement process somewhere along the line, whether it's getting the quotes or whether it's looking for the vendors or whether it's actually um um going for a sole source or whatever it may be.
Um being able to constantly be on track and keeping in communication saying why aren't we moving forward? What do we need to do to get this moving forward and not letting it go to the wayside and losing time and in fact um by the end of the budget year we end up losing money because we didn't spend it in time. Thank you. Other questions members? If not, thank you Shelley. Thank you. Moving on to GM777, submitting for consideration and confirmation to the school facility authority guminatorial nominee Robert Davis for a term to expire 6:30 2025 and also GM778 Robert Davis for a term to expire 6:30 2029. Bob, please. Oh, it's a little bit about yourself. Good afternoon. Thank you, chair. Thank you, vice chair and senate. Um, let's see. Where do you start? So, I've have a little over 30 years in the department of education.
Uh, was a teacher, coach, counselor, vice principal at high school. I actually worked in the um personnel uh area for a few years and then I went on to a principal ship at an elementary school before retiring the last eight years as a complex area superintendent for the 20 schools in Leo, Milani and Wua. I really enjoy uh the area of facilities. Really started understanding it a little bit as a vice principal while I was at Leo High School. worked on many many projects, put up 15 classrooms, uh two-story building, uh field track and many other large scale projects for a campus. And then of course with the experience of being in the complex area superintendent, there are a lot of projects that were done within our area. Um ESR money came in and we were tasked with um utilizing it because of the pandemic.
I think um uh the track record for LMW bodess well. We're able to not only successfully utilize the $14 million that we received, which was on top of our our normal budget, I think we were able to create systems in place that allowed the 20 schools and the students current and the students in the future to really benefit from that funding source. So much so where after we've proven that we could successfully utilize the funding, we were able to secure almost $5 more million for projects that we had to put on side because we utilized our budget. We weren't going to overspend. Um, and we were able to do so in less than two and a half years. Um, I think we've been able to expand our program our programs at the 20 schools. I think we're able to um benefit students for years to come so that money was not just used for lastminute items.
We did do tutoring and things of that nature to catch our kids up and I think also the track record would show that you know our kids were pretty successful with um their growth and achievement. Very proud of that. Uh the the team in LMW did an excellent job. Um, I think we're also able to successfully work with not just the schools that are below us, but then the the various departments above us, you know, and and I feel very comfortable and confident that, you know, upon leaving that, you know, the the communication, the collaboration and our relationships uh were all positive. And so, you know, I think that that's something that I'm able to bring to the table to be able to communicate with folks um whether you agree or disagree, but you can do so in a manner where you know you treat each other with dignity and respect and then you um make things transparent so you can earn and build trust and then you can move forward hopefully in a positive area so you can successfully uh help the community.
Thank you. Bob, having been on the early learning board, what were examples that you can share having uh productive communication with your board and dig? Okay. Yeah, I I was uh the designate for the superintendent for four years on the early learning board and it was a a new board because uh EOLE was relatively new at that time. Um, and so we were able to, I think, kind of help the executive director there with some guidance and were beginning to set some policy because it was a new board and they had not at that time set any policy um for EAL. Uh we're also able to successfully identify schools in the DOE where we could put in uh preK because that's basically the realm for the DOE to help facilitate that portion. Uh I was able to uh be participate with um setting the parameters for how we would be selecting the schools statewide.
um because it was something so new um I feel we were successful in identifying the appropriate schools um because it's based on how many prek um programs were in the area what's the um the say the the poverty level within the area um how many students in the area generally go to uh prek etc. So there are numerous qualifications to be higher on the list. And so we started with the first 10 and then by the third year there were another 20 and then after I left the board they were continuing to identify more schools that would be on the list. Thank you. Members questions. Yes. Hi. Hi. Um we also had an extensive um discussion. Um, so having thought about everything, what what do you see as the biggest obstacles uh at SFA and what what do you as a board member can do to contribute to resolving that?
Well, I think actually similar to um EOLE and being part on the early learning board, um being new, I I do think there's just growing pains. I think communication is a is a big part of that. knowing how and when to communicate the methodology, who to do it with. Um, kind of finding your footing and grounding yourself in in doing the work, but you can't do it alone. You got to do it with other people. So, ensuring that you you fold in the people that um should be at the table. Um, ensuring that people feel comfortable being at the table and and just really keeping that communication line open. Um, you got to really extend yourself, you know. So, as a board member, you got to extend yourself. No different than as a Cass, I would want the board of education to come and visit all of our schools, you know, so they can really see how the schools are doing at the ground level, you know.