No, I had that one that we're kept it alive. Yeah, I don't I had it alive. So, are we okay to You don't have the money for it. So, we're going to um table that. I like the intent behind it, but I like it. We had no additional money. This number seven, this one was 38. Yes. Here's our starting balance. We had 950 total. Okay. Here's the figures. 51 and then we minus this much for our raise. So this total was 24, right? And sorry. Yeah, now we're at if the numbers weren't making sense, it's because we take 247 minus the 38 whatever. Now we're at 208776. My bad. Okay. So, now we're to number nine, psychologist compensation in compression committee recommendations on 24,000. Would anyone like to make a um recommendation? Would someone like to make a recommendation if and I'm sorry. Um I to add to the discussion, I am hesitant on this one.
While I understand it was brought up by the compression committee because last year we did just raise psychologist market demand from $6,000 to $15,000 which was a $9,000 increase. And so we're looking to add more money to that psychologist pot. Um, personally that sounds wonderful. However, I'm looking at the big picture of what we're looking at in terms of staffing and keeping teachers and teacher retention as well. And so I hesitate on this one. Amy, thank you. An I really appreciate your honesty and feedback on that. as a school that didn't have a school psychologist for many years and was splitting psychologist you coming to my school as well and us being um incredibly understaffed as an entire district. It concerns me to not have school psychologists on all of the campuses because it really really impacts um the number of students that are being tested and qualifying and I feel like this is the first time we've been playing cleanup and catchup.
Um, and that's not to like throw anyone under the bus, but when you're having to split, like a psychologist, between numerous sites, it's impossible to to get all I mean, you you were both split at my school. Um, so we've been playing catch-up for this entire year and we're finally getting into a good place and I'm so I'm super super concerned about not having a psychologist at every site or splitting um between large campuses. Um, Dorothy, thank you. Yeah, I I I totally respect um an Henry's um perspective as a psychologist and I agree that it the perhaps the what it looks like, right? The you know, they got 9,000 more last year and why would we be adding 5,000 more to such a small group of employees? And yet, even with that 9,000, we have failed to retain even more psychologists this year than we did the year before.
And I know it's not just money. I know there's lots of other reasons that people may look for jobs elsewhere, but I have seen the parody um information that um Vanessa gave us and I am worried about us being able to recruit the psych the number of psychologists that we have vacancies for now projected for next year is huge. Um we may be only getting one or two back. So, that is a lot to fill and I feel like we're going to actually spend more money. Um, because without doing something to recruit, uh, we're going to end up having to have contractors because it's not a position you can just not have filled. And then contractors cost even more money than this would equal out to. So, from the special education department's perspective, it makes me very nervous not to do something more to help recruit.
And I know that's not the end all beall. There's all kinds of other factors, but for people looking to go to a district, they do look at salary as one of the first things they consider. Okay. Um I was on the same page with an in terms of this and um I feel having two sites on the board on this process kind of gives that optic. We've seen special education rooms that also didn't have staffing for the year and I'm I they didn't get an increase last year. Sykes did. Um there aren't any like right now I think we have four district psyches and four contracts psyches. Of those only one district psych is coming back and that was due to unforeseen circumstances and also um a contractor uh is staying. So we're losing a good amount of people. I think this is in line with the board comments that were made is we keep throwing money at it without really looking at what the root problem is and why we're not retaining people.
And that to me is the same thing in terms of like just approving more money without getting to the real root of why we can't retain. Um, and I've been here eight years and I've seen this dwindle and it's kind of always been a systemic issue. And in my opinion, throwing more money at it isn't going to solve it. Okay, Daniel. Um, yeah, I'm looking at the NextGen data that Dorothy mentioned and right now we are $10,000 below average on psychologist pay, but the other school districts that are above us do not have a market demand stipend. So, for example, Alhamra's base salary is at 89, ours is at 68, right? But if you add the 15, we're now competitive. It's not um like we're actually we'd actually be above average. I noticed that the other the other school districts that offer a very high base salary don't have a market demand stipen and that could also explain some of the recruiting issues is if you're just looking at base salaries you see a low base salary you move on right yeah which it is a different option but yeah so let's um go ahead James oh thank you um I just had a question you mentioned the the root cause I I maybe it was my misunderstanding but I thought the The way I I the way I assumed it was being presented was that the root cause was pay and it sounds like you're implying that it might be something else like working conditions or some other aspect.
Can you elaborate on that? Sorry, it's my alarm for my medication. Um yeah, could you kind of elaborate on that please? Um I find it difficult to speak for everybody. Um, but I think there has been just a growing amount of working conditions. Um, to speak gently, um, there's a lot that needs to be unpacked and I've actually recommended. I really think that sped needs its own um, survey that the schools get. I can't remember what they're called. Exit. No, not exit. The panorama specific to sped. and we would be able to uncover a lot of issues that don't just impact psyches but sped teachers, self-contained teachers. And just speaking, historically, we did increase the amount last year. I think it was already mentioned and and that did not help to retain. So, I think that sort of speaks to it's more than just a money issue.
Special education is a small world. People have talked across districts. You across across districts, contractors, all of that. So, let's go ahead and have someone make um a recommendation and let's check our vote out with this. Yeah, let's read it again. Achieve consensus. Achieve consensus to presented or not presented. To continue. Yeah. Should I read it? Read the whole thing. Are you Avon? Are you doing it? Are you making the vote so we can vote? No, I was I was just asking for clarification that if we're voting to present it as pass it as a recommendation. That's what we are. Yes. Everyone that we do now, we're taking a consensus vote to make a recommendation. Okay. Essentially, we're going through the ones that we didn't table and making sure that we want to put it on the final list. So, you're you're going to read it and then we're going to vote to make it a recommendation, but you confused.
Do you have another question? Not not confused. I'm just trying to see the other recommendations that we haven't that we didn't table and we're I just want to make sure that we put attach money to all of them. Right. So, you're prioritizing them, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should take a couple minutes for everybody on their own space to just go through and decide or would that be helpful? Okay. So maybe take five minutes for everybody to just go through what is not tabled and decide what they per So the eight ones correct? Okay. Okay. So we have eight that are not that were not tabled and they are number six. Yeah. Number six passed. So we have number nine, number 10, number 11, 13. Well, there's no monary. Yeah, I guess that's why I didn't start. There wasn't any monetary cost to 12, so that's a given.
Um, right. um 13 15 and then number 16 was the 171,000 teacher compression. So just take a couple minutes and we don't have a a lot of money left to work with. So um just as a point of information, if we approved every single thing with a monetary cost, it would put us about like I think it's like $8,000 over budget. So one thing with a monetary cost has to go. Thank you Katie for doing that. So we'll still 24. Thank you. 2444. Keep that hidden. Did everyone have a chance to look at it? I I still see people working. 200. It was 247. Some of them I see some of them I think what he was thinking but the ones that we do we would have enough still the 247 balance that we started incorrect one we did okay that's that's okay 9 Very interesting.
substitute. We already It's 46. 40. Oh, did they keep changing? Is that what I have? 46. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, what did you come up to? So the compression takes up a lot of the money right there. But then you address for a very long time. It really has. Well, hopefully you can, you know, every year for years. Yeah. Well, I think this year it will be. We'll see. Okay. Are we ready? Okay. So, uh where are we? Who would like to share? You all had a moment to go through each of those. Daniel made a suggestion and stated that we really have the money for most of me. The only questions I have are the ones that we still don't have money for. Like number 12 didn't apparently isn't going to cost us any money. Um number 11, psychologist. That's another one that it's no cost.
Is a cost 2% raise. They're not going to get a 2% raise on that 15,000 that's going into the but we don't have to worry about it in our budget. Yeah. She said she said it's a um it's budget neutral. I'm saying it's not giving out but we don't have to worry about that now though. But I I get what you're thinking. So number 13 and number 15. Um sorry I just come to number 12. It is in practice already and it does cost money. So it's not budget neutral but it's not out of our funds. Correct. That's why. But I just want to make sure that Yes. It does cost money. We don't have to budget for it though. So my questions, the only questions I have are number 13, monetary amount not provided [Music] and lower class of and number 15. Yeah. Joel.
So the other thing about professional growth for classified staff is that that also is taken into consideration when we onboard them. So if we're looking at just internal advancement for current employees, that might look different for incoming employees. So what I'm wondering is number 13 and 15. Uh what are you thinking Dorothy? I know what I'm thinking. I'm wondering if we can have a and I know we're going to hopefully get to this, but I also see the clock ticking and we have a whole presentation to prepare. I'm wondering if we can have a tiered table for next year because to me, we don't have enough information for 13 and 15 to adequately move forward. But I think that most of us and we can come to consensus if most of us support something to help classified staff um better take advantage of professional development because that has been an area where they have not as much as certified has.
And we want to not only encourage the professional development but encourage the compensation for the professional development. And then, you know, 15 is is really just saying if you get a higher position, you should make more money, right? So, it shouldn't be a pay cut to go from being a teacher to a coach or a coach to a manager or a manager to a dire whatever the whatever the case may be. If it's clearly a step up, then pay should be higher. doesn't say how much, but maybe those could be on a really think about for next year as opposed to just a consider and dismiss like it's like the the team really recommends considering further you know looking at study into these areas. Are we okay with that? Since for today we don't have really it's hard to make a decision for 13 and 15.
So thumbs up if we're okay with that. for today. We're going to put it on tabled for next year. What a priority table for lack of a better word. Did you vote? So, we are thumbsing up to table 13 and 15. Correct. Correct. Okay. So, we're tableabling those. Katie and Ariel, can you live with that? Okay. Okay. Sorry, I didn't. Okay. So now we're at 910. Yeah, back to nine where we were. Okay. Psychologist compensation and compression committee recommendations 24,000. Are we ready to vote on this? Make the recommend. I can't All right. Recommendations. I move I move that we vote for consensus on the psychologist. Looks like it's dead. Yeah, we're not. Yep. Hey, it looks like it's tabled. Okay, I guess we're going to table that. We're They don't want to do that. Looks like it's dead. No, we kept it first. We voted to to keep it alive.
We did that. Now we're just killing it. I I think our second vote right now and it's done. It's done. Because if you wanted to table it, it should have been tabled the first time around. I I agree with that. Okay. Is everyone okay with that? Can't bring it up. That's true. Correct. Yes. Thank you. The next group was Yeah. Okay. So number 10, but for clarity for 13 and 15, we did go ahead and table those, not just kill them. Right. Okay. Thank you. I gotta make my notes correct, too, so I don't Okay, the next one. Um, again, I can't make the vote, so if someone I'll read it. Does anyone have any comments for number 10, the facility?
Any discussion for the $20,000 to facilities for compression work? I got a request, a comment about this number 10. A comment, a quest, potato patata. Um, thank you. My request slash comment is could we increase that 20,000? No. No. Really? Sorry. Because it came from the compression. Can I ask a question? Clarifying question. Does that 20,000 also has to include benefits paying out of it? Right. Or is this just like this like that is just I think it's just money for y'all. But doesn't it also includes like benefits and everything coming out of because it did for the bus drivers that 47. This is not a pay increase. This is just money to say who does this impact? Which employee do we need to specifically zero in on to say this person was hired at this date and they're only making 20 cents more than their thing.
I understand that but my whole thing is that it doesn't make sense. What's the word? Because the amount of people that's in facilities. So the bus drivers we did what the bus drivers got what 48 47 to just to give them a dollar bump an hour. Right. Right. There are more people in facilities. Right. Again this is just research. It's not but I know it's research. So we're paying 20,000 to research. No. No it's not research. And I think since there's not a lot of eyes on facilities already that we should keep it because we need to invest more eyes into this. Asking if we could increase the dollar amount. Um that answer would be no. I feel like Justin should be able to speak. I yeah, I just think that there's not a whole lot going on for facilities other than the 2% raise going to everybody that we should go forward with the 20,000 so that we could research it more and figure out where that money can be allocated and instead of tableabling it and keeping it a discussion every year uh kind of put some eyes on that making the recommendation.
Oh, I just want to clarify. I didn't want to dumb it down or table. I just wanted to ask the question if we could just increase the 20. Can we just maybe 30 cuz this is a recommendation that came from that came from the committee. The compression committee we have to keep everything the compression committee said word for word. We're not allowed to make changes. I don't want to adjust, you know, I don't mind adjusting minor things on our options, but I don't want to make adjustments on that type of thing going from 20 to 30. Yes, correct. But next year, that's a possibility if you want to bring it up. I I think um the compression committee probably did some of the research and was like if we had this amount of money we would be able to address this and this and then we can spend next year with the compression committee determining those things.
But it sounds to me based on the information that we got from Justin and from the compression committee that it sounds like the 20,000 is to address things like if you're the night crew lead and you're only making 30 cents an hour more than the people that you're supervising, then they can increase that person's salary this year and then move in that way. I think they I think what the it sounds to me like the compression committee was like to to limp through this year we need $20,000 and we will continue to research and put eyes on this so that we can address it even further. But for this year we just need 20,000 to to start. I mean like if we do just throw another $10,000 at it and they don't use the 10,000 that's fine. I'm not saying but I'm just saying more wiggle room cuz it seems like the amount of people in facilities compared to bus drivers the number just doesn't make sense.