>> Yeah. just uh I don't know how many years ago, but 18 years ago or so, we reached up our own transportation department and that was dissolved and the Shast County Office of Education ran our our our temptation system. And um then after several years, they told us they couldn't do our our our regular routes, they could do our special ed routes. And so they they basically canceled us. So, we had a contract with uh Cascade Elementary to use their drivers for our we have our own buses of course. And finally, we've uh come to a point where we're taking back our transportation department. Um we are hiring I know the lady talked about drivers. We are hiring four more. We'll have five total. And uh for our transportation department, this person was the first person of those hires. So, we're very excited about that.
I'm not going to go over all of it here tonight. We're going to keep it pretty high level and quick, but of course I'll be happy to answer any detailed questions that you have after it's over and I know And thank you. There we go. Knew it was here somewhere. So uh we'll go ahead and just dive into it and very high level uh we are I as recently as a couple of years ago, I was still saying that we're seeing some growth trends still manifesting and we have finally unfortunately turned the corner and the wider demographic issues that are affecting almost every school district in the state are manifesting more here. And the big thing really is local birth rates. The foundation of any school district's enrollment remains the families who already live here continuing to have children who in a few years enroll in Chico Unified Schools.
Seems to me that mandated and critical other reasons in some respects are very similar. Um, so I I still am not fully clear on what the difference is. Um, but I do know there is there's a law, >> but I'm with you, >> Commissioner. >> President, yeah, I believe this policy because we switched from Strauss SMA to school boards as our policy service that this is their version of 5756. um which the vast majority of school boards in the state of New Jersey have adopted. Um, a handful have abolished it when they attempted to put policies in place in opposition to it. Actually directing uh the the uh state's attorney general actually took those districts to court and they're still those are still being litigated, but they were not allowed to replace that policy with the version that they chose. This policy supports the law against discrimination in New Jersey.
>> Right. Right. >> And I was sitting there thinking, man, if that goes away. >> Yeah. Well, because the IHSAA specifically >> Yeah. >> kind of endorses final forms, too. So, I don't know that even if it even if it did, I don't know that I would not want to do [clears throat] that if that's what the IHSAA is kind of like endorsing quote unquote. >> I was under that impression as well with IHSAA. >> Yeah. I mean, when you go to their like I don't go anymore, but when I was a principal and you go to the spring and uh fall principal ad uh conferences, I mean, it's like one of their things they hit, right? I mean, they're basically telling you to use it without telling you to use it, right? So, >> thank you. >> Yep. Um the other thing would be the technology vendor and engineering um for v engineering and vctto services.
Yeah. >> And do we know in terms of say this enterprise fund or any of our enterprise funds are there certain standards that we're always trying to meet in terms of you know the retained earnings and all all those different aspects the amount of salaries that are paid from them. Is there something that's that you look at and compare and say, "Okay, well, typically you always want about 75% of your salaries to come from the the enterprise fund or you want 35% of that." Is there something that we can measure ourselves against? time like how much time um a staff member is is spending on that aspect of of their work, >> right? I know that it's that it's split by time, but are are we spending in terms of paying an employee, right? Mhm. >> Does everybody who has an enterprise fund for water spend you you know uh pay for this the amount of salaries or or how much comes out of the operating budget I guess is what I'm trying to ask is what's that balance you know when when should things be self-supporting and when not and how do we determine what is it should be are there standard s across communities that we could measure ourselves against in terms of how we run our enterprise funds.
So, how many have we hired so far? >> Just one. Okay. And we got How many are we looking for? >> Five total. >> The drivers that um are employees of Cascade once we cancelled the contract and he heard that they got laid off [clears throat] and they're going to be applying for our jobs. So, we had we had drivers set up. >> Okay, that sounds good. >> Okay, moving on to 6.3. discuss the potential change of moving close session from the beginning to the end of future regular meetings. >> Discussion of action. >> So >> I motion to keep it the same. >> Yeah. Second. >> Moved and second that we keep it the same. >> So the same would be that there's one at the beginning but then we also have the option to have one at the end. >> Correct. >> Okay.
You still have uh overall positive net growth, i.e. you take all the kids you had from the year before, K through 11, they come back as first through 12th, you have more of them than you did the year before. Some of that is driven by residential development, which the city of Chico is maintaining at a very consistent pace over the last several years. And we'll just identify uh one thing is that transitional kindergarten, despite this being the first year of that universal implementation where all four-year-olds are eligible, remains an opportunity where there more of those kids that you know you're going to have as kindergarteners. Not all of them are enrolling in TK, of course it's not compulsory, but there is an opportunity perhaps for some bottom line growth of just more of those students who you already have and who you are going to get also coming to you at that time.
Um, so all it really does is it helps our staff, gives them some guidance as to what to do um, in these situations. So it's it's it's not mandatory, but it is mandatory that we follow the law against discrimination in which this process and procedure, this guidance would be in accordance with. >> Commission. >> U Thank you, President. Thank you, President Paris. I I was going to say this this is not a new policy. We've been talking about this for years at this point, right? And and there is a mandatory policy and to President Paris's point um when districts have fought um either they're penalized or there's a suit or whatever and it's just more dollars that um attorneys, no offense, uh you know, they it's just lawsuits that money goes to fight and the attorneys make money out of this. Um, you can fight the state if you want to, but um, many have failed and it just ends up being a waste of of taxpayer dollars.
Um so you've got just the the first two pages of the contract. Um you're and I will download the entire contract but I wasn't going to print them because I think uh the new one is like 40ome pages and the old one is like 39 pages. Um so we are wrapping up year two of that contract. Um, and so, [clears throat] um, Sam and I have talked quite a bit, um, about that and also talked with FiveStar. Appreciate their their partnership to the district. Um, and so we've asked them to remove the virtual health desk. I think we've had one ticket in that in there all year. Is that correct, Sam? >> I think we we've had it between 30 and 40, but I think they only solved one ticket. >> Oh, okay. And you took care you took care of the rest because the rest of them were things you would just take care of on site, right?
Does does that make sense? >> It does. I mean, we can always look at u like efficiency measures and and um you know things like outputs and ultimately what that leads to in terms of outcomes. Um I think if I understand your question uh correctly Claudia I think what what I would say is that every bit of what is charged to a person's salary that is charged to the enterprise fund we can justify that um based on the time that they spend um on that particular function. So some like you know we have um our our our strict water sewer employees um you know um you know Jay and his crew uh so those would be split 5050 uh for water and sewer >> that's their entire salary coming from the those two. Okay, >> correct uh the salary portion. Um but there there's could be a portion of um you know Doug's salary, Dan's salary.
All those in favor? >> I. By the way, we are going to look [clears throat] at breaking things up. Some things we can't break up because we need to have them before the meeting, but we do realize we can break some things out and have them at the end of the meeting, which should make it better. Sometimes we can't take these long ones out, but we we can try. That's all we can do. We'll have now the front and the back. We have to have some at the front. Okay. the action item. Well, that was the action. Okay. 64, division of board policies, administration rigs, and bylaws. Those three mentioned in the f. Is there any change that you want for those three? Not. Can I get a motion? >> Yes. >> Any question?
So, that said, we'll go into some trends. Again, you had that what turned out to be your peak enrollment as of now in recent history in 2019-20. Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, you probably would have peaked higher cuz you resumed that growth trend from that reset baseline right after, but you have now had two consecutive years of overall bottom line decreasing enrollment. And just a little visualization, again, the aberration that was the COVID-19 year, but now uh seeing that taking down again. And the engine that really drives this, as I said, is who do you have that you know will matriculate, will leave the district? Because again, you I mean, it's great just no one gets to graduate this year, you all stay enrolled for a special grade 13. That would boost your enrollment, probably not going to go over well with the community.
>> Any other comments, questions, concerns? >> I got something. This has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. So, it's been a heck of a week for me, so maybe I'm going to make myself look like an idiot here, and I'm just very tired. >> Commissioner Barnes, did you vote on that last round? >> Yes. >> Okay. I didn't hear you, so I'm sorry. >> You checking me? checking me. I did. >> I said yes. I waited for questions. I clicked. >> She voted very quietly, but she voted. >> You record Mr. Did you record her vote? Okay. >> So, any other comments, concerns on this section? >> Yeah. >> Yes, it passed. >> Miss Ber, I have a question. >> Yes. Commissioner uh uh Kenova, >> so what's the difference between having a policy like this versus just saying we will follow the law, period?
it was. So maybe there was a ticket put in. It's like you don't need a ticket for that. I just need to come do this thing. Right. So >> they just couldn't physically. >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's some things, right? I mean I imagine I'm not a technology person. Sam, you can remote into my computer and fix something if you needed to. Right. Okay. But if I but if I was having problems with this cord, >> you you physically need to come help me. Correct. Okay. So I think there are tickets that are put in there that sometimes they're like, "Yeah, we we can't do that. that's your person on site has to go fix that thing. So, um, so yeah, I'm sorry. I I just kept hearing the number one. I was like, >> so one actually solved sorry through it. Um, so I I think again in a if you were in a much larger district, maybe that's something you would use more consistently, you know, where people need a remote into your desktops or workstations and things like that.
um uh Cindy's salary or some of the finance team um based on how much time they spend on that, but it wouldn't be 50%. >> Yeah. No, I >> I just wasn't sure if all the um if the the entire salaries were getting paid from these enterprise funds. And I understand sometimes it's not a perfect alignment that it's 5050. It might be 45 55 and we might not even have it. I I think over time it probably gets more challenging to make sure that we're that percentage gets adjusted appropriately because Right. >> things might change a little bit and you need to adjust. Okay. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. and do I mean if we were if we were out of bounds do would would the department of revenue would have uh something to say. >> So I have a I have a stupid question. Um >> under both water and sewer there's a line item that says beeper allowance and it's a it's it's like I don't know is that cell phones?
>> I didn't have any questions. Yeah. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I motion carries unanimous. 6.5 application for renewal of the CIA school membership for the 2627 school year for West Valley Early College High School. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> There's a second. All those in favor? >> I. Unanimous. Carries. [clears throat] 6.6. Six, designation of the CI representative to the league for the 2627 school year. [clears throat] >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I unanimous. 6.7 agreement with Shasta County Office of Bid for extended school year transportation. >> So move second. >> We're not trying to take that one over. >> No. Okay. Yes. All unanimous carries. 6.8. By the way, anybody has a comment about any of these, you can step up to the microphone on any each one of these because no one's talked about them.
The idea is that these kids do age out of the district. And you see on the darker colored bottom line there, those are your actual kindergarten classes. So, keeping in mind uh you know, down below 750 this year that when I show you the births in a few slides, keep that uh the 2025 kindergarten in mind. This is particularly low, but you can really see how uh you know, compared to a decade ago when around 900 over 900 was the norm and now really dipping substantial you know, well below 800 in a lot of years. That said, the total height of that line in the current year when you factor in the transitional kindergarten is the most you've ever had collectively of all of these youngest learners. So, again, that I know Julie and her team have been working on the facilities uh needs that have come with knowing that was going to be coming.
I mean, because I think everyone here is okay with following law. We're not we're not okay with certain sections of this policy. Me personally, there's one in there that says, you know, uh that parents are going to kept be kept out of the loop, you know, and we're not literally says like this is the exclusion list of people we're not going to talk to about this situation under any circumstances. And a parent is listed is listed there. Now, if it was my child, I'd want to know what's going on. You know, if something was happening and they were getting into fights at school, you would let me know. But in this situation, you won't. So, I mean, I I guess that's me personally having an opinion about this, but at the same time, if we just say we're following the law, period, and that's the way it is, and then the interpretation of the law is whatever the interpretation is, not this interpretation that we're setting here as the example, then I think that's that would be okay with me.
Um, but being small, Sam can literally walk across the driveway to the elementary school and back. um it's not like we're driving across town to, you know, go fix something or whatever, right? So, um so anyways, I've requested that quote to modify it to remove that um part of the contract out. And so you can see um year one it was 117,900. Year two it was 123,720. Um next year it would drop to 86,400. So a savings of 37,000 just over 37,000. So, um, again, I think hopefully that that frees us up, um, some money to work with and then look at down the road, you know, whether we can maybe add a part-time person to help Sam or whether if some of these other things we're doing make his life and job easier. Um, I I went I notice I negotiated I went from seven earlier in the meeting down to one.
Is that actual beepers? >> So, um, whoever's on call for I believe it's the weekend, um, they have to take that now cell phone, um, home. I believe it may have been a beeper in the past. Um, and I think it's just the terminology of the line item. Um, but they would h they have to bring that um, device home um, while they're on call. >> Okay. So, do we So, does that cover like a certain amount of cell phones for the department? Is that what it kind of does? >> It's um more of like a portion of their salary. I think it's a small like a percentage um based off their annual for the year. It's a percentage for being on call for the weekend and monitoring those calls 247. >> Okay. So it's actually their their time their their time, not the actual cell phone because it looked like a pretty expensive plan.