it is um it's a nice experience you get to you know see the kids present to you um and you know you just have like a handful of kids i think to just to hear from and then kind of give feedback on their projects and so if anyone's available please contact john newcastle at westside or you can always call the school and the main office will kind of do yes it's the first and the second it is the first and the second is that a tuesday and a wednesday next tuesday yes yep um and just so you know i was on the um the monthly cave board chair check-in last week which is helpful it's a nice network of chairs across the state and i was added to there to the cave chair distribution email list and we all kind of share procedures and processes through through that connection that's just nice just wanted to share that update for me are there any board communications comments anything from we haven't had no updates go ahead okay um so i met with dsabc and they are going virtual with their mentorships right now they will be in the process of looking for new mentors and they are um kind of getting ready to go into a big fun cruiser season where they're going to be doing the guide to doing into the local restaurants thank you anyone else any updates comments before we adjourn i will entertain a motion to adjourn move by joe is there a second let's please go up saying aye we are adjourned
can you make 6 30 i should be just jumping out of one and driving out here for it so that's why i'm kind of worried about the window to do the drive out to a board meeting yeah i apologize to the board i i was under the impression that each board member was checked um based on the date and time and that it was a free date and time and that's why we offered that date as the proposed date well unfortunately somebody forgot to check with me what about the night it has to be on a thursday right it does not you can amend it to meet any of the timelines as long as um the original board meeting was thursday the 3rd and it was proposed to be moved and to the 10th the following thursday at this end that only adjusts the time on the calendar because we found out at the last board meeting that we would only have three board members on the third and um that puts us at a concern for a quorum always right if we were to move it um either the seventh seventh eighth or ninth would that would that be something that we could do and keep it at the regular time of five people the seventh is a district holiday um so schools are closed that day the eighth um one of those days that the union has do you schedule a meeting on a union the board can the the board um is allowed to schools are not allowed to okay so the second the eighth is fine with me i have a conflict that night yeah and the ninth is not good for me and the tenth obviously and the friday is you you can't make the ninth either maria uh the ninth is not good for me i have a meeting that's seven on that day six actually six to seven [Music] we've already noted we were waiting um to notify families so we just have to make a decision um from a discussion all right let's just let's go at uh let's let's let's try 6 30 and um if maria if you're a little bit late would that be a problem i mean if we could start at 6 30 because i really hate to go up to seven o'clock because it's pretty late in the night and then um this is still going to put us back an hour and a half if we start at 6 30 but it's up to the board just throwing that out there i can do that i just left if maria did miss she just missed the opening step she wouldn't miss a closed session or anything and you wouldn't miss the comments after closed session but if i came if i got here 15 minutes after 6 30 you're already in closed session can you join i think seven o'clock is just too late to start the meeting it's it's it's um but the same way that we're having this meeting at 11 o'clock uh we can have it anytime during the day um the board meeting is actually a meeting where the public is invited to see what the board is doing uh we're not holding a meeting so that the public will guide how we do the meeting and so as a matter of fact if we want to hold the meeting earlier we can hold the meeting earlier it's already on live stream and the public could view it that way um we could do that this one time yeah do it early i think the public understand and we don't have don't really have another option we can't we can't delay it anymore we got commitments on this thing okay how about how about um 3 p.m will that work for the rest of the party 3pm 3pm okay so i move that we change the february board meeting to 3 p.m on february 10.
we've got state project numbers for our roof at number six our roof at the high school our office renovation at the high school and we're also working on potentially having our pa systems the new pa systems installed at school number four and school number six to board the rest of those two projects and we are starting to work on the preliminary 2020 2022-2023 budget getting our ducks in a row on that directionally right now looks like the governor's address will be february 22nd and two days after that we'll know our state aid we haven't got any direction on where stadium is going to go up down or stay flat so with the original budget inputs we're going to keep the state aid flat year over year and the submission is due march 4th uh to the county that's pretty much it mr ramgino okay uh any questions on the consent agenda from the public or the board before we i ask for a motion to accept i have one question yes on the buildings and grounds it says high school gymnasium march 11 22.
madam president members of the board they have 42 schools thank you and just uh madam president members of the board just to on the previous question asking what our admin percent is um our auditor general calculation from 2020 is the last one from the auditor general is at 8.8 percent and the state average is ten point two five percent our projections for this year when they come out with the reports next month well that will be that we stayed eight point eight percent i guess i share personally i i guess i share miss pritchard's concerns about having multiple adding more top heavy positions you know what what if we just have one director and then we just hire a couple of um assistants support support staff to kind of help with some of those tasks that way our director you know we we don't have like multiple directors we have one director that we're paying at the director pay grade but then they've also got support staff to help them do some of those tasks is that a possibility and would that save us some money madam president miss chaffin perhaps we could look at him at option one in a little bit of a different manner so if you could reference option one in your conversations perhaps in order to meet the the conversation that's being held with the board an option could could include one director of student services an admin secretary three position and an increase to the safety and compliance specialist to a safety and compliance coordinator which would increase that salary and draw a different skill set which would be able to greatly assist with the safety aspects that are incredibly time consuming for the position if we looked at an option like that there would still be a cost to the district of approximately twenty thousand dollars but it would meet the board's conversation of having one director and providing supports to that director so that's more exactly what i was talking about is making like with what we have and that one that one position you're referencing the safety and compliance that's vacant right now right it is a vacant position as is the student services manager which we would continue to recommend become an administrative secretary iii position which would decrease the cost of that position a bit which would allow us to increase the safety specialist to a safety coordinator it would help with that salary piece but it would still come with approximately about a twenty thousand dollar cost to the district but it would meet the the request of the board of one director and supports around that director is that under the um the option one plan isn't that support services manager one that was slated to be eliminated right so technically if you look at the illuminated pieces on option one so let's let's talk based upon that so under the eliminated positions we have eliminating the the the original recommendation was to eliminate all of those three positions what what i'm talking in this conversation and and um dr kellis and cabinet have spoken about this possibility and hearing the will of the board this evening clearly if instead of eliminating that we just retain the director of student services position so we have one director that one director currently has two vacant positions in that department so ms winterstein currently has two vacant positions what we would recommend is with the support services manager position which is an administrative assistant type position to reduce that position to an administrative secretary iii and instead of having a safety and compliance specialist we would have a safety and compliance coordinator which comes at a bit of a higher salary and would attract a different skill set that would allow us to complete a lot of the safety aspects of the department in that position for example and this is just an example but it would allow us to perhaps target a retired police officer to come and assist in that with that with all of the safety components that are related to our schools reports with the state and all of our compliance efforts related to school safety so if we were to redo potentially reduce that support services manager to an admin secretary iii wouldn't that be is that what you said okay yes so wouldn't that be couldn't you take that savings and add it to the safety and compliance and coming up with something more budget neutral so madam president to answer your question yes so if we reduce the student support services manager to an admin secretary three that budget savings is approximately ten thousand dollars to increase the specialist position to a coordinator that's approximately a thirty thousand dollar increase which would be cut by the ten thousand dollars in savings resulting in approximately twenty thousand dollars cost to the district but again meeting the will of the board to have one director and prop up some supports um to assist with that madam president it's important to note too like remember chaffin said before that does not include experience so that 20 000 number could jump with levels of experience in either position where they're so i just want to note that up front so where we know what we're talking about right were there other positions though that we have vacant that could be absorbed into that madam president uh we have not done a survey of the other positions throughout the district yes there are lots of positions in the district that are currently vacant we hope to fill those okay so they're still needed it's not like there's some positions where it's like it's been open for a long time we've adjusted we can we can put that money toward another needed position correct any position that we have in the district is needed and we would um propose the this modified option one to the board for consideration hoping that this does accommodate all the the board's interests and madam president i might add that currently we have a director of student services who is operating with two vacant positions she's operating alone currently in the department and we would like to have the opportunity to know which positions that we're going to move forward with so that we could hire and get them in place so that we keep miss winterstein's sanity all the way through her retirement date of june 30th although this could be a lot of reasons why she's feeling the crunch because she doesn't have a fully staffed department correct madam president that's possible i guess if i recall back when we talked about one however many meetings ago and mrs winterstein got up i think she was here at that one or the one i don't i don't know we've talked about this a lot um we the safety and compliance specialist has been vacant for a very long time so what makes you think that adding a little adding more money you're going to be able to fill it i mean i'm very concerned that here we go again we're going to have a director and we're still not going to have a safety and compliance person for a lengthy period of time madam president mr grant that's an excellent question and i will tell you that increasing the position to a coordinator level with the salary allows us to target and and will specifically target a specific skill set and recruit differently for that position than we currently are able to do and what would that position take away from the director of student services middle school or in high school in k-4 and k-8 madam president miss grant should should you consider modified option one as described by dr kellis that position would take away all the safety aspects related to the director of student services which include assisting all of our schools with their emergency operation plans overseeing the school resource officer program overseeing all of our suspension programs our long-term suspension the the disciplined matrix the all of the state reports that are required as it for safety components um all of the suspension pieces that are required was with the state reports etc etc so it would be all safety components within the entire school system we just heard at the last board meeting about the threat assessment process and i just wonder can one person handle that because you know we want to make sure parents are informed in a very timely manner and you know and staff etc and if you have several things going on at once with some with so much going on now with social media etc i just don't know can one person really again handle all of that by themselves madame president miss grant i will tell you that in any of the options that are presented this evening those duties could be shared at any time and so if and threat assessment is a great example of something another piece that would be shared or taken by the safety coordinator if we went in that direction however should multiple pieces be coming at once the safety coordinator or two directors would share that responsibility and if that continued to grow on you know a one-time basis where we were just flooded with with aspects i would also become involved in that to assist our schools in in the threat assessment process it is a very real item that our schools deal with on a daily basis i know and that's what i'm concerned about i mean we heard about the calls at 3am in the morning and on multiple times not just once every six months so all right thank you mr dean do we dr dean do we still operate and i start under using threat assessment teams as opposed to individuals so our threat assessments are done by an entire team of people not just one one person is not tasked with doing the entire threat assessment madam president we do use threat assessment teams however triage is done initially by an individual person so for example if a safe report is filed that comes in and that's handled immediately by an as an administrator and then a team might be dispatched to deal with a threat assessment so dr dean or dr croto um if the safety and compliance person was now a coordinator um is that a 12-month employee or they're they're both 12 unemployed madam president missouri singapore that is a 12-month position and the safety specialist is currently a 12-month position and so would that bump that coordinator up to uh an exempt employee madam president yes the coordinator position is exempt thank you so if we do modified option one like you're talking about with one director and then upgrading that to safety and compliance coordinated and reducing the manager to an admin secretary three that would significantly lighten the director's load madam president miss chaffin the safety aspect is an incredibly time-consuming component to the director's current job and you are confident if we upgrade that with the salary and we open it up to a coordinator position you are confident that we could more than likely get that filled in a timely manner madam president ms chaff and i am confident in our hr department's ability to effectively recruit for positions that we have open i second that but i don't guarantee it in this day and age i am not going to guarantee you it can be filled in it i'm not going to do it publicly with this labor market i i would be lying to you if i could tell you i could fill in the week do you feel like you have a better chance of filling it upgrading it to a coordinator position absolutely okay with the modified version one are we still looking at the salary of 107 or are we looking at a salary of 99.
uh the highlights of the spending plan included free summer school for the next two years in elementary councillors and retention stipends for staff as a reminder next we have been closely monitoring and working with our legislative representatives as well as possibly advocates regarding the 1.1 billion and potential cuts to education funding due to the aggregate expenditure limit for context the aggregate expenditure limit was passed in 1980 to limit how much k-12 schools can spend in a school year the cap fluctuates each year depending on enrollment in short the formula takes the previous year's enrollment uh plus inflation where this goes wrong well and also to note charter schools are not uh included in the spending limits since they did not exist in 1980. most schools are funded funds are accounts most school funds count towards the limit with the exception of federal funds much like esther and ida grants as well as title grants fast forward to today and the reason this is now an issue is due to a few factors first is prop 301 or classroom site fund that is now do added to the calculation to the aggregate expenditure limit um due to the original proposition expiring in 2018 that was voter approved as if you remember in 2018 the legislation extended prop 301 or classroom site fund without provisions exempting it from this aggregate expense limit so that's around 600 million that's adding into this into this budget limit which is a major factor second the state has worked to restore uh funds such as the district judicial assistance from recession error cuts which is a good thing but those research funds are counting towards this limit which are now at risk of being cut higley if this does not be if this is not exempt at the legislature by two-thirds vote higley's um at risk of potentially 16 million in budget cuts to this current year the budget estimates presented in this next slide we'll assume an exemption is will be passed by the legislature but i do have a slide that will present some contingency plans if this does indeed come to fruition on a good note higley is realizing some growth this year as we talked about in the bond um first review we are realizing a 2.2 increase in average daily membership that equates to about 250 students that is a positive impact to this budget as we'll discuss in the previous next slides and lastly due in part to the bond not being successful last year the district will be forced to revert back um to the uh to funding its capital leases through the eminent transfer so as a reminder we transfer operational budget um to pay for that lease payment due in part to our capital budget not being enough to support that payment mr tyler were you mr tyler mr talking more tyler moore mr moore will you please explain to as we talked last week that um that 16 million if indeed this passes which god forbid for every school district across arizona um that money just sits in our account but we are not able to spend it can you explain that yeah so by law we are the way school district budgets work um we are funded on a per-pupil basis uh it doesn't matter how much inflation increases doesn't matter how much property um rates rise uh we are capped at a per people spending limit and we establish budgets like we present in may and june and those budgets are our limits so if this aggregate expenditure limit comes to fruition what it states essentially we will have to reduce our budget by 16 million that does not mean the property taxes will decrease likewise that just means we have to decrease our budget and we are obligated to reduce it for 16 million but the way the cash and all the funds will still flow in through property taxes but we will not be allowed to spend that money per legislation like i said this is a 1980s uh state funding formula that is clearly outdated but it has not been addressed and fortunately or unfortunately this is being brought up and being more so in the news and so we hope through our conversations with our policy advocates and our legislators within higley that this funding formula not only gets exempted this year but there's a long-term solution for the funding formula where we do not have to have conversations such as this that would negatively impact education and all the programs that we've currently fund through our operational budget so as a just a reminder this is the the general budget timeline for arizona school districts our fiscal year runs from july 1st to june 30th the adopted budget the board approved backed in june 2021 is the current budget the district is currently operating under as required in state statute arizona schools are required to do a budget revision in december if they are in a shortcoming of one percent of their adopted budget higley was not required to do a budget revision as we were realizing a budget surplus as noted because we had two percent growth the reason we did not bring a budget revision to you you may be asking why is because that december increase would have counted against us against the aggregate expenditure limit someone else is if we increase our budget by the adm growth our aggregate expenditure limit cut potentially cut would have increased proportionately so um with that being said there was no benefit to bring a revision in december which is why we did not this brings us to today and explains why we're discussing both the 2022 budget which is for the may revision as well as the 2023 budget which is for the june adoption hopefully this timeline provides a little clarity about the budget cycle as we proceed to this presentation so looking at the 2022 estimated budget revision uh this is a projected may revision that we do for current year revision as i discussed the board adopted the current year budget back in june of 2021 that budget number is represented at the top which is 106 million that budget includes the carry forwarder from last fiscal year which is 16 million as noted during our annual financial report for the fiscal year 2021 that 16 million was higher than projected due in part to the district's inability to fill positions which resulted in vacancy savings as well as several one-time expenses being funded from our sr funds uh we anticipate um those one-time savings coming back into the mno budget for fiscal 23 as it was just a one-year relief next we'll look at what we're projecting for a may revision mostly due in part to growth we are looking at revising our current budget up to 110 million the increase takes in consideration the 2.2 growth in adm this year um but again this is not taking consideration the aggregate the potential aggregate expenditure limit reductions this is best-case scenario uh doing the math the difference um the district will look to increase its budget capacity by 3.3 million so i'll go over a little bit on the next slides on what that means going forward but first though that's our may our current may revision that we'd have to do that plays right into our 2023 budget that we'd be adopting in june so first and again we don't anticipate nor are we budging for any additional covert release funding one item that has already been budgeted for from our cover to release funds is the second retention stipend for fiscal year 23.
so so close session will start at 3 p.m and then the regular meeting will open at uh 4 p.m so you have to amend the calendar so that's the what you'll have to ask for is an amendment to the calendar shifting the board meeting start time to 3 pm which gives the public the opportunity to make comments regarding any closed session item prior to closed session then we would go into closed session and not come out any earlier right now we have we give ourselves an hour so we would not come out any earlier than 4 p.m for the public um portion of the the agenda after closed session okay that works that good yes so i move that we amend the uh calendar for our february board meeting to february 10th at 3 p.m roger and and remain the re the remainder of the meetings to um begin at 5 p.m as adjusted yes and the same schedule same schedule okay so we're only amending let me get that understanding so the remainder of the meeting starts at five yes i still have a meeting at 5 30.
so i'm going to guess the high school gym is going to be ready i don't know that i think they're just putting in for keeping their fingers crossed it's a possibility but i think they they probably put this in hoping that it might be ready and they might be able to use it but at this time i don't i'm not really sure just to give the board an update on the high school gym as you know uh public service took a long time um the actual hvac unit that the high school never had and now they're going to have climate control air conditioning and heating in the gym took forever on back order and you know the cause of it they the manufacturers that from train said covet etc uh that was finally installed a few months back and then it needed to be powered up and public service had to bring in more power uh to the building and they had to install the poll etc and it had to go through certain phases and then you know we were all at the mercy of public service which has been completed uh so we do have power in the building and the other day finally before you turn on this unit you have to have the manufacturer come out and start it and certify it that the contractor installed it the right way and it meets all the specifications as per trains and mandates that was finally done correct uh uh mr alfano they came out mr pano that will be uh commissioned fully on friday this coming friday train will come and do the final they call it commissioning of the unit right it's coming from so in the interim uh they started to skim coat the gym floor uh and by skim coating is that as you know the gym was built in 1964 and the floor after so many years settles and it had imperfections in it so it was skim coated but it wasn't skim coated the right way after our building and ground supervisor took a look at it and lan associates there was a discrepancy we had a meeting last week on it and uh the architect and engineer and uh lou uh myself and shiro gave them a mandate said you need to take up this whole entire skim coating process and redo it the right way which means they have to call a company in that comes in with a cement boom and do it all in one shot so at this point it's they want to wait till this actual heat inside the building with climate control so it doesn't crack again so those are a little bit of the issues we've had but ultimately we're on top of it and we're going to do it once we're going to do it right so everybody's got to suffer a little bit with when it's going to be completed but i do want to give the board an update this project should have been done in early october everybody knows when you started any type of project of this magnitude there's always hiccups unfortunately we've encountered too many hiccups but uh at the end of the day well we're making a big investment and if it does take uh six or seven months longer but we want it done the right way and uh to preserve the the taxpayers dollars so that's where we are if you have any questions i try to answer them as best as i can and i know lou's been involved day in and day out with this entire project did i miss anything lou by any chance no mr kapana you got everything very good thank you any questions or comments from the public or the board i mean my only comment is the last time the gym was done was 1964.
madam president miss densmore the the salary level that we have presented to the governing board for the director position accounts for the five years of experience that is the minimum for the position and as i noted earlier his figure that he gave you did not include that so you're not you're probably looking in the more range of 30 to 35 000 in plan number four i want to be above board with that that did not include that's using salaries of what they currently are that's not going with the five years experience nor experience for somebody who would be coming in at the coordinator level as dr dean mentioned if you get a very experienced person they're probably going to want to experience coming in i'm looking at modified version number one i think that's what right is that what you were referring to number four the fourth option i'm referring to okay that that he presented the modified option we his figure of 20 grand cost did not include so experience now president densmore if i can understand here you see two directory student services one nine thousand one hundred seven thousand correct and you're wondering which one it would include correct um so the current position if you could answer why one is 99 and then the other one is 107.
we've discussed this in both our sr3 presentation um as an upcoming item the requirements for the stipend would be similar to the first retention stipend paid out in november employees who signed their contract and or were at work well work agreement for next fiscal year and work from july to the end of august will be eligible for that retention stipend again these funds will be prorated on fte or full-time equivalency and as with any funds these are subject to taxes that was one misconception on our first presentation i want to clarify with this second retention stipend as with the 2022 budget revision the 2023 budget will be directly affected if legislation does not pass with the exemption to the aggregate expenditure limit as noted in the 2022 budget revision the budget cuts are not presented in these upcoming present projections but i'll show in a separate slide what our contingency plans are if that again the aggregate expansion limit does come to fruition some good news for our employees is the ars contribution rate will decrease next year by point two four percent uh while this is a small cut it is a change of pace from the last several years of increases to the asrs contribution rate um so employees can expect a small increase in their take-home pay as noted earlier we are not reducing the mno transfer for the middle school leases due in part to the 2021 bond not passing emino will fully fund next year the lease payment as we look to maximize our budget to its full capacity we have we've been researching all the options one area where finance and human resources has identified a potential budget savings is within insurance so during the first review of eminem we'll briefly discuss uh higley's medical insurance and why self-insurance is the in the best interest of the district also while we don't have concrete renewal rates yet we can ensure that there will again for a second year in a row be no increase to employee medical contributions so again another budget savings and more money back into our employees pockets so looking at our budget estimates for both the 2022 revision and the compared to the 2023 estimates for fiscal year 2023 we are projecting a budget of 112 million due to the projected inflation um well excuse me back up one second at the top you'll see the 2022 sma revised budget that we just previously discussed so if you take that um versus compared to our 2023 projection of 112 million this is mostly due to our the inflation of two percent that we are projecting i will note that in 2021 the state inflation they realized seven percent but yet another outdated policies k-12 schools are limited to two percent inflation increase um per year so we cannot by law um budget for any more than two percent inflation uh for 2023 we are also going to um budget for no increase in adm uh as an additional contingency knowing that we can revise up next fiscal year like i just suggested um also noted is the 4.4 million dollar mno transfer that will be transferred to capital from our mno budget to pay for the lease payment there is a small savings with the arizona state contribution being reduced and that is also estimated in that budget number that you see there so doing the math on the difference between the estimated revised 22 budget our current year budget and the estimated 2023 budget we can realize we're projecting a budget increase of six million dollars uh the 2023 budget um well like i said increase approximately six million dollars so as i move to the next slide we'll talk a little bit about where that six million dollars is going in potential next steps so we've identified 6 million dollars as our estimated increase in budget capacity for going into next year assuming the aggregate expansion limit is exempted we have a few fixed cost increases that we have already identified as a fiscal 3 2023 budget impact first we are projecting an increase to our property casualty insurance for next year our property capital state also encompasses our prepaid legal we've had several large um we have some large property claims as well storm damage but we've also incurred several um more legal expenses due to impartial covet and other litigation that the district has been involved in so we anticipate an increase of approximately 75 000.
so that now the remainder of the meetings on the calendar you are adopting an entire calendar that was sent through board docs so that everybody has because we have to repost the entire calendar because it's an adopted calendar all right okay i see what you're saying the other the only other um there is no adjustment to the board calendar beyond the date and the time and then as a reminder your june meetings the two june meetings begin at one o'clock as posted on that calendar so you've got a motion to imagine i'm just making sure everybody okay so we have a motion to um motion by chris nunez is there a second to the motion second second by dennis bender okay so the order will be before i call for a vote so everybody's clear the board meeting on february 3rd will be starting i mean february 10th february 10th i'm just looking at my notes here move from the 3rd to the 10th february 10th 3 p.m closed session 4 p.m uh will be the regular board meeting the other item the other meetings will start at 5 pm same same calendar schedule all in favor aye aye aye any opposed hearing none that'll be the word thank you okay so the next board meeting will be at february 10th at 3 pm got a motion to adjourn some move second all in favor all right okay so we are adjourned at 11 14.
so i agree with you if it takes a couple of months in the grand scheme of things where you know building something that's going to probably outlast us all yeah i guess we have to suffer to do it right but it's better to do it right than i have to go back and fix things later but dr pantalone it was very disappointing to see that the skim coating process was not done the right way they tried to do it in stages in a gym of that square footage you can't do it in stages you need a professional company with a magnitude of men to come out with these cement trucks that boom the cement in that's already pre-mixed and it just comes in and then you start leveling it off so lan associates uh was stronger on that behalf that so now they're in the process of taking all that stuff up so that's where we are thank you okay so any other questions on the consent agenda motion to accept i'll make a motion mr capano may have a second place mr shelly it was a second thank you i'd like to take a vote now if i may uh this is a brew yes mr capano yes mrs fredo yes dr pompliano yes mr shelley yeah yeah are we ready for mr albany yeah i'm gonna present the star strong numbers now okay i'm gonna turn this off so it's not distracting okay you're good to go okay there we go uh yeah there's i think there's a there's a bit of a delay on the on the on the presentation for you guys okay so uh this is very similar to the park or and or njsla presentations that we've done in the past we took this test in october we received some early data very very quickly within a matter of two weeks and we uh but we received the official results in december like mr armageno said uh i left some of the slides that are part of the template so that when it gets posted to the website parents can read information on the test the assessments were designed to be administered quickly over a matter of uh 45 minutes in some cases uh it was a given so everybody knows that you're not going to go through every page of these no um tomorrow uh that powerpoint will be on our website for parents to view if they would like to see the pages that you're skipping correct we're just going to go over the district assessment and the demographic analysis that is pretty much it the assessments were given based on prior year standards so students in the fourth grade took a star strong assessment based on end of year third grade standards uh fifth grade end of your fourth grade and so on uh the let me skip to this district analysis speech um i'm not sure exactly how long the delay is between what i'm saying and what you're seeing but let's start this strict analysis uh our results our participation numbers were very very very good uh some of our elementary uh yeah uh some of our elementary grades had 100 participation some kids missed very few days we were affected a little bit by quarantine angela yes can you see this can you hear me hello i don't know what happened angela are you there i'm here okay so are you is can you see the participation numbers uh yeah it's not it's it's difficult to see so maybe some of the participation numbers you could just read together yeah the participation numbers were very very high we had almost 95 percent as a district and uh across all grade levels we were affected a little bit at the high school level by some quarantines but participation was very very very high uh our i'm going to present more the charts rather than the numbers because it's a little it's a little more pleasing to the guy um our gr our numbers overall were very comparable to state results just read what the colors designate because yes the colors the colors as opposed to the njsla that has uh five different brackets with the top two indicating uh achievement or proficiency rather the the start strong for reasons of speed and expediency they only divide it into three brackets the orange bracket means that our students need strong support the yellow bracket means that our students may need some support and the uh the green bracket means that students that less support might be needed meaning that they are proficient in the standards that they have this is the english english ela levels supports the numbers are percentages by the way they're not values of students that took the test so as you can see across ela our students were pretty much on par with state levels mathematics again very very similar nearly identical actually to state levels the the strong support needed levels are high very very high but they're high state-wide um which is which is not it's not great but it's encouraging that we did not as a district we stayed on par with with state numbers uh our science numbers are also uh we are assuming the same science numbers for the state are not available so we we don't have access to those we're not required to present comparisons to the state but we figure that it's uh it might be a little encouraging it's tough to see a lot of orange between between us uh so it's encouraging to know that we are not far off from the state and in most cases we're very very even uh the next set the thing i just want to point out is the fact that it's obvious that our ela scores are much better than our math school sports obviously but i think that's a result in talking about an administratively with principals with our supervisors uh don't forget our students some of them hadn't been to school for a year and a half they were virtual so we found out as most districts did that doing math virtually was much more of a struggle than obviously doing ela virtually so i think that's why we see uh our math scores uh not our students not scoring as well in math as they did in ela and that's something that we're working on this year now that everyone i was going to i was going to discuss in the breakdown of of what uh of what our numbers mean to us and how we use them we believe effectively the demographic analysis is required to present our male and female students performed fairly evenly uh in mathematics ela and science there is there's no big discrepancies from prior nj sla presentations or njsla assessments there's the populations in some of these cases are very small so you can see that asian black hispanic white all students all of those are greater than n meaning that the population number is greater than 10 however they're still small so the numbers are very skewed in our asian and black numbers uh that happens traditionally every every year in every every single njsla park that i have been a part of um same thing this is the ela results by ieps 504s els former els economically disadvantaged non-economic advantage and all students the the happy uh silver lining to these numbers in particular is that our former el students are doing just as well as a general population which is it's a it's a point of pride that our that our esl program uh is working so well our students are doing great in comparison to the general population in uh in all numbers in mathematics and science and yelling just pretty great so the uh the star strong narrative we determined this as as as a team going over the scores we expected the ela scores to be considerably higher than math or science in discussions prior to the release of the star strong results we had surmises the story would turn out exactly like they did because of the fact that reading skills suffered less during remote and hybrid instructions than math or science students were still required to read constantly while using google classroom and practice this practice and state overall results indicated the exact same thing in fact their breakdown on the site if you wanted to to check it i highlighted it in blue uh showed the exact same thing that we determined prior to receiving our scores back our scores compared favorably with the state our science numbers were a little lower so we do have a lot of work to do but it is encouraging that our genera that our students are keeping up with the state's general population um we've always performed very well in comparison to the state and we're we're keeping up with that tradition so as an additional metric the start strong scores were a welcome addition to our data pool however the reality is that they arrived too late to truly be a primary guidance for our instruction uh the revelation that they provided was that our students were behind but this is something that by mid october we already knew it was already painfully obvious to us so instead we determined to use the data as a metric to compare to other to other numbers right to to utilize them in a way that would that would make sense to us um so as all districts uh do you have any questions on what i just said okay okay so as with all school districts across the country uh cliffside park we were heavily affected by the continuing pandemic the most impactful change of the remote and hybrid nature was a lack of data that was the thing that hurt us the most at the start of this year is the fact that we had no state assessments the end-of-year assessments were hit or miss because in some cases students took them remotely students took them in person it was very tough to compare students one-to-one so upon returning to in full in-person learning at the start of this year we were determined to find the tool to diagnose our students quickly broadly and effectively and as a district we have settled on utilizing the ixl platform as our primary method of student tracking we utilize the data provided from the platform as one of our multiple measures to gauge student learning we feel very comfortable with the results uh primarily because of the fact that the ixl diagnostic that we gave to our students all students at the start of the year tracked very very closely with the results from the star strong assessment i have sheets and sheets of data on this if anyone wanted to see it but it was important for us to be able to show that the data corresponded closely because if the state department of education feels that the star strong assessment is valid as an assessment then the correlation in this case justifies the use of the isl platform as extensively as we have used it this year the diagnostic tool is an interim assessment designed to provide real-time up to minute data on student performance and growth with this tool we've been able to easily see where students are excelling and where and who may need some additional help the diagnostic takes a lot of the difficult work of gauging growth out of the teacher's hands and provides clear concise and very actionable data we've eliminated a lot of additional tools that were put in place during remote learning we felt that practice time in math was being diluted by an excess of platforms and we are focused on using less resources more effectively in ela we implemented the fountains and panel level literacy intervention system to help our most needy students the program is an intensive supplementary literacy intervention with a focus on quick and permanent growth that allows our students to exit the program hopefully in 18 weeks so um this is a concerted effort to move away from the title one lifers of the past children that need support year after year after year so we can help more children in the long run and that is um that's pretty much all i have does anyone have any questions anyone have any questions like i had said tomorrow to the website entire powerpoint but being virtual as it is now it's not as easy to see some of the data but if any of our teachers community members parents want to sco scroll through some of the data they can do that tomorrow from the website we should also make note that the stock strong assessment was given late september october because the new jersey student learning assessment was canceled last year which was formerly the park um and what the state did is the state needed data from for their reports to the federal government and uh really our students came back some students hadn't been to school in a year and a half and uh to come back and to be tested in an assessment uh was challenging for some students but i think overall as uh mr alban said uh we did very very well this september this spring coming this april and may uh we will once again go back to the new jersey student learning assessment where students will be assessed in science ela and math and we'll be back on that regular testing platform where we get tested in the spring so uh angelo thank you very much for taking the time tonight uh take care thank you thank you for having me okay okay good night uh before i call call for uh an adjournment any questions from the community or the board uh our next work session is february 16th our next board meeting is february 23rd and uh as always uh mr alfano will keep uh everybody uh informed of what's been going on if anything occurs between now and then if you could just stay for a few minutes after we adjourn just one or two quick items uh motion to adjourn i'll make a motion may i have a second please i second it mrs abreu was the second okay mr roman gino okay thank you very much thank you
the current position when we eliminate that is the current salary of that position the addition of 107 is including at least five years of experience that's the starting pay of that position at five years so when we eliminate it we're telling you what we actually pay for that position now and what it would cost to bring in so that's the same which is the same the seven is what we pay now and then but that 107 no other way we pay the 99 now but somebody coming in is most likely gonna gonna be at the 107. that's correct that was my question one director at 107 versus two right that is correct i know dr dean you mentioned our briefly mentioned as far as possibly restructuring that safety and compliance specialist position for whatever it's worth and i know you guys you know have your own way of calculating things we had we have a lot of police officers retired police officers in our community that i know were interested but there seemed to be a heavy concentration on this position requiring school administration experience which can sometimes people can look at that as being like two different career paths i don't know if you want to consider being a little open to revisiting that possibility knowing that these people might be able to bring a wealth of experience and just knowledge in regard to safety and things like that as opposed to having school principal experience or something i don't know if maybe that's the reason i don't know what the stumbling block is because i think we filled it at one point right madam president we we did fill it at one point in time and and certainly our own experience helps us shape our future decisions the skill set that you describe would be the skill set that should this be the option chosen that would be the skill set that we would be looking for in a safety and compliance coordinator and when i say the skill set that you describe i used the example earlier of possibly a retired police officer that's the skill set that would be looking for and that salary range with the experience that you were looking for because you said that's an extra for extra five years what would that salary range be if we know that for our director we're looking at like 107 6.
in addition as the district continues to grow we must keep up with the demand and additional teacher and support needs so we've allocated one million dollars for additional positions going into next fiscal year most of these positions are teacher positions to maintain or reduce class sizes uh miss martens also has an allocation of 500 000 in there if we do realize uh large amounts of growth we can address that with um to uh either teacher positions or support positions so we have contingencies all over um lastly we're batching for an increase in utilities approximately two percent um utility rates across the board much like everything is going up so we are being conscious of that and allocating a small increase for that mr moore um i had heard that gilbert is raising water rates is this two percent uh um is that accounting for that water race it is a portion of that yes okay um there's also been talks of um some of our srp rates going up as well i just wanted to make sure that we were allocating enough money because of that i heard it was a big jump and that families may be um seeing that on their bill soon so i knew that that would also impact us as a district so i just wanted to make sure that was enough that we've allocated to that yeah thank you we have realized some savings obviously with with schools being small savings we've been open for majority of kovid but there you know there was some savings in which the time we were closed um so that's why this this increase is smaller but we are consciously starting to budget for the increases going forward so lastly you'll notice that we have not determined a district compensation increase for next year until the legislation acts on the aggregate expansion limit we feel you know it's prudent to wait until that legislation either goes one way or the other before we make a decision on compensation as i'll note in the upcoming slides it's going to have a large impact on what we do going forward before we get there i will talk briefly about medical insurance changes so as outlined in the highlights the district is moving towards the direction of self-insurance this is one area in the budget where where we've identified potential savings what we know at this time is what we're looking at moving under the administrative kairos health kairos is a consortium group of basic schools cities and towns where they leverage pooled insurance to maximize benefits for those who are insured in the pool there are several other neighboring districts involved in this under the umbrella of kairos including chandler unified queen creek scottsdale unified as well as well several towns and cities so by higley moving self-insured within this consortium we will still remain independent but we'll be able to leverage the buying power of these other insured kairos has some benefits several benefits that will also assist with enrollment as well as benefits administration higley will also only be responsible for our own losses so we while we're leveraging these pooled resources we are still maintaining our independence so if we do realize low claims in a year we will realize those savings not the pool so it's a unique program in which several schools have jumped on in real life savings and that's why we're researching that at this time so again this is another area in which we are currently working on so as we move through the budget cycle uh we'll bring more information regarding this smooth transition to kairos what we know right now is we'll be under the same medical proprietor so it's united to united we're currently our medical producers united kairos is under united where we have seen potential changes possibly in our voluntary coverages so vision dental life there's several other voluntary coverage where there might be a potential change we do fully intend to bring all those changes to the board once we have a concrete idea of what those changes are but right now we're just in the initial stages of this transition so that is what i have on medical insurance as we as i mentioned um we do have some contingencies regarding the aggregate expenditure limit so if this expenditure limit were to come to fruition in this fiscal year uh higley again as i mentioned would have 16 million dollars at risk the proposal would be to reduce our budget balance care for it from fiscal year 2021.
i think he said 30 000. 30 000 more okay so that could be like 72. i'm present the whole plan i'm estimating be a probably 30 000 with experience 30 to 35 30 to 35 sorry i broke up in option four being conservative which is the same as modified option one who's on first and we wouldn't just look at i mean that would we wouldn't limit ourselves to a retired police officer right madam president miss densmore that is correct i was giving an example of the type of skill set that we would be looking for okay i mean given our relationship with luke i mean we could maybe even try to promote madam president miss densmore we have a great relationship with luke and many of them have the same skill set that would be sought any other questions comments concerns not hearing anyway then i'll go ahead and make a motion to approve reorganization plan option modified one as discussed second motion made by christine pritchard seconded by don densmore um okay motion carries thank you next we move to action discussion h5 action regarding a recommendation for compensation increase for the 2022-2023 fiscal year dr kalis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet mr hicks will introduce this item good evening madam president members of the board superintendent dr kellis colleagues and community members as part of our compensation recommendation for next year admin is recommending a retention stipend of four percent for next year this would only be eligible for current employees and would be based on their base pay earned in this current year it would require continuous employment through august 30th so similar to the plan that we implemented in paid in september we're doing the same thing but moving it from three percent up to four percent uh we would be using our esser funds to to do this um it does um does mean that it is only on their base paid it's not on all supplementals that are coming in so and it's only on employees so and it's only on the amount that employees are earned in this fiscal year so or in this year and so administration does believe that last year the retention stipend did did help we were able to get it approved by the board you were able to approve it prior to us issuing any of our agreements or contracts out and so that it does require them everybody to return them in the amount a lot of time that's allocated to them and we do believe this will help increase or maintain our retention of our staff it was also discussed at our iba our last iba meeting as a recommendation and they were approving of it and so i will stand for any questions or dr croto will help with support any questions if you have any thank you for the information and just to reiterate this is every dysart employee not just certificated classified as well everyone who's currently on our payroll right now madam president members of the board yes any other questions just had a strange question um because this was for those that stayed to the end of august correct um this isn't going to be a fair question so i'll just withdraw it thank you sorry i'll just switch everything i'm curious i appreciate the fact that it was increased from the three to the four percent with that said i am a little uncomfortable with this um being presented for for all staff i think it's really important for those in transportation anyone in the working in the classroom anybody supporting those teachers i'm not comfortable with this you know for administration can i ask why miss densmore i just the cost alone i i would rather see even more going into the classroom i would rather see five to six percent going into the classroom supporting our students supporting our teachers versus that going into administration but just curious our admin are working just as hard with the teacher and i understand the teachers and everything supporting our teachers and i know that there's a couple of school districts neighboring school districts that were giving five and six percent just like you were talking about um uh do we have the ability to do five just for a second do we have the ability to do five percent um mr hicks madam president members of the board so this is using escrow funds we do have it planned out and so this is having to make some adjustments to some of our future plans to cover the cost to go from three to four percent so i had put into our plans three percent for the for a three year period and so this would be moving that could it go up to five it could but it just means more is not being done in other areas um supporting either technology or some of our other supports that we have the esser funds planned out for for the next two years so thank you very much so back to the question about admin because right now our admin are in the classrooms covering teachers and the cafeteria and on the playgrounds where they i don't want to say should be in their offices dealing with a whole bunch of other stuff but they they are doing they are all across the district and even pulled from the district it's happened it's happening everywhere so but i'm just curious why not admin we're not unique in that but i think that we really need to focus on our classrooms retaining those people just do you think we would not retain admin and i'm just putting it out there just for a second if we did not do the dr kellis do we have an administrator shortage um will we madam president miss densmore when you refer to administrator shortage if you're asking if we have vacant positions with no administrators um we will have i want to say nine admits six which includes some current um um interim plus uh the district has received some resignation several resignations in the last couple so dr kelsey you were right at nine if you include assistance i was only including principals sorry so yeah nine nine with principal assistant principals um yes we do we will have vacancies to fill okay um nine out of our so almost half of our district madam president that's principal's assistant principles if you add all those together there's more than it's not half it's less than half um to mrs densboro's point valuing teachers if you want the teachers to have more than 4 percent i think the sr funds as mr hicks said can accommodate teachers getting more um we could give everybody more and teachers would get more as you requested if the interest is to not pay administrators as much just as much um as the teachers the the interest from iba and from historically is that we treat everybody equal that there is value in every employee's work and to why i say equal equitably if we treat everybody equal they would get the same amount right and i understand that that that argument equitably is that everybody's treated fairly and we are committed to treating everybody equitably i also share miss densmore concern about just blanket getting everybody a four percent um i know our teachers have shown up for us this year they've covered classes they've split classes and our administrators have covered classes and they've also helped in different areas also so it's not necessarily you know that administrators don't deserve a retention stipend you know i'm just saying let's look at the big picture maybe not every single you know employee has put as much into it not that they haven't put anything into it but they haven't given as much as our teachers and you know yeah we expect our teachers to show up and teach we are an in-person school we are in person learning and our teachers have done that for us this year they've come to school they've given everything they've got they've you know covered this and they've covered that and i i'm i'm really proud of our teachers for muddling through on this pandemic but i just i also share the concern about just blanket giving every single employee of four percent retention stipend madam president i could speak yes uh madame president chaffin it would be impossible to [Music] judge a person's effort and suggest that one employee didn't give their all there are teachers who didn't get their all their administrators who didn't get they're all there are teachers who gave their all their administrators who gave their all it is difficult to suggest that whether you're a custodian a bus driver who did get a pretty significant pay raise recently that any employee group um didn't put forth a good enough effort to to deserve the the increase um again this is what's best for for the district and i'll just be very frank and say to eliminate what any employee group is not good for the district it's not good for our community we have a lot of pride in our employees every single employee and we value every single employee and it would be disheartening to single out any employee group in this opportunity if you would like to recognize and believe that teachers should get more mr hicks has suggested that we can pay teachers more through the this esser account but when we value employees we value all employees and can i ask does this include our maintenance workers too because i feel like sometimes they're the unsung heroes because without our maintenance people i mean our campuses wouldn't be able to function is there a possibility of maybe you know giving the maintenance people a little bit more money a little bit more of a stipend because i don't know how anybody else feels about that but i think the one word that we're kind of missing the boat on and this is just my perspective is that the word in in all of this is retention we want everybody to stay with us next year or as many as possible to stay next year so it's not going to be a huge it is going to be a um a lot from the esser funds but it's not we need to focus on the word retention that's i want people to stay as many of them as they can i think what we have heard consistently throughout this whole school year every presentation is that everybody every single employee is doing multiple jobs when somebody is out with covet or the flu or whatever somebody is picking it up there and then including principals and administrators or however you wanted to find the position they're in the the cafeteria i just don't see how we can i value teachers but right now it's taking the entire team to keep the schools open and to keep these kids on track i see um i can i can see i can see both sides i i understand um definitely wanting to give a chunk of money to those who are kind of on the front line so to speak in the classrooms driving the buses doing the maintenance like everyone but we have also heard number one we've heard through presentations about principals that are going into classrooms teaching when they don't have so or if they don't have subs or they don't have teachers when there's some administrators in other districts that maybe don't do that and so we're fortunate we have those administrators so i'd hate to see i'd hate to see that go unnoticed or not rewarded um but i also i also get concerned about splintering it too much because where it's like yeah the teachers come in they show up every day let's give them more and then almost like miss schaffen just said like what about the maintenance workers we don't want to create a culture where anyone would feel like our board or our district is valuing one set of hard-working people over another and i i feel i have concern about that because again maintenance worker versus maybe cafeteria worker school bus driver who gets the schools here the kids here so that i worry a little bit about like if we splinter it too much and i don't want anyone to feel like again our administrators i know they've they've gone above and beyond too um they get paid more so i understand that piece of it too as far as but i don't you know unless we did some sort of maybe tiered system for administrators i don't i don't know i i just um i hear what the concern is about wanting to really give to those who are on the front lines i just i i struggle with the fact that i think um this year even our our administrators are some of those frontline people and i wouldn't want to cause any ill will or you know i really appreciate your comments and those from everyone um and i would agree i i don't think that administration doesn't just i don't think that they don't deserve anything i just don't i want i would love to see something tiered i would love to see teachers getting more um something more than the four percent uh if we were to if we were to agree and approve something tonight uh you know four percent for administrators and then maybe five percent for teachers i i would fully be on on board with something like that i i just think that to ms sawyer sinkhole's point retention is is key here but i think teachers are key i they're all they're they're they all are but for from what i'm hearing um not just in our district but other districts there's everyone is worried about losing teachers and those classroom supports and i want them to know that we value what they do which it doesn't help that some districts like i like i told you that are paying the five and the six percent and um i know you've seen that so oh yeah well if we have if they're funds because that's not mno correct okay so if it's us or funds and the funds are available then what if we in in this item is being presented as a four percent for i everyone my computer didn't die um what what if it was a matter of um administration gets four percent and everyone else gets the five everyone i don't want to do teachers because then you're going to offend classified staff or you know i think staff or staff so that would be the only question i would ask so and everybody was only expecting four percent so no one's going at home with less than what they thought would be presented tonight and it's still a chunk for administrators but then if the if the um if the will of the board is to really give out a little bit of extra for those classroom or school site working with kids type positions directly however you want to phrase that not just teachers then they get the thought so does that include maintenance does that include the bus drivers special ed we didn't talk about special ed unless the aids too right everybody welcome but they're not defined as a teacher so basically what what we're kind of mulling around is a four percent for administrators and five percent for everybody else is that investor money not mno right i'm on board with that yes madam president if i could speak um thank you for that and i i appreciate your acknowledgement that administrators are also valued employees the the opportunity to recognize all employees is is critical this is a one-time payout i understand i may hopefully understand what you're trying to say is that the um the percentage increase results in a higher increase so it's not an equal increase but it's an equitable and that's the challenge that you're dealing with is that there's a higher dollar increase because it's a percent increase on a higher amount if i'm reading that if i understand that correctly so if if it so pleases the board what you're talking about i think would work i will caution the board again that every employee group is valued and that by creating a differentiation of employee groups you are you're creating two different value groups it's not intended i appreciate the justification by saying that the dollar increase is still significant and i think as we consider that as the the premise behind your your recommendation there's value in that i would just be cautious about the uh the discrepancy when you separate out one employee group but i appreciate the the board's recommendation and i i would support that could you remind me last year we did this one-time stipend it was for everybody is that correct madam president miss grant that's correct it was at three percent okay yes or funds it's a higher amount to staff speaking to miss stensmore's um concern higher amount to staff just wanting a more of an increase bringing it up to five or do you feel like there should be um where you should there should be that difference a differentiation even if it was brought up to five percent so there should be like a um a higher amount for non-administrative staff or higher amount yeah a higher amount for non-administrative staff is that more your concern or is it just we think people in the classroom teachers should get more than just four percent where maybe that five percent would address your concern i think that they should be getting more than four percent yes okay it's not that i don't think that administrators have been doing an amazing job um i just think that giving administrators five percent might be a little bit they're on a certified schedule too much coordinators i know well and keeping in mind too that um nobody was expecting to get any more than four percent tonight um so everybody would be getting the four percent if this passed and as dr kalas said it's not a matter of so no one's being eliminated for getting the increase for retaining and for recognizing hard work done all year it's just because of that you know four percent of a six figure salary is much different than four percent of forty two thousand or five percent to forty two thousand so that's an entry i don't think you should compare it 40 40 000 that's an entry-level teacher we have teachers making considerably more than that out of your entry level i just said that that's entry level that was not a fair comparison why not we have entry-level teachers that are going to get five percent that's correct forty forty thousand i understand that but when you're comparing it when you say to a principal i just think that we don't you shouldn't be comparing the same it's not apples to apples that's all i'm saying i will move to approve the retention stipend of four percent for administrators for the 2022-2023 fiscal year for current administrators and a retention stipend of five percent for all other employees second madam president i may can we include language please of current employees who turn their contracts in on time and are retained who are with us through august 30th that's an important part it was part of the retention last year sure sorry that's not how the motion was written on here so we were just reading it as it was stated but absolutely that's important do you want me to reward it and presidents chapman luis is going to read it back to you for all remaining employees all current employees i'm torn because and just like dr keller said i don't want one group to feel like they are slighted more than the other and yes when we came in here the motion was or the the recommended action was to approve the retention stipend the four percent i i am going to approve uh i'm going to vote yes but i i still just have the concern that i don't want um administration to feel slighted no absolutely not i agree with that i understand they're in the classrooms and they do i mean i i acknowledge the work that is being done and that's why i feel like the amount that everyone was supposed to get including administrator four percent i don't feel like they should get less than that we are almost ready for the motion we just got a couple more periods and eyes to talk motion to approve the retention stipend of four percent for administrators for the 2022-23 fiscal year for current administrators and 5 retention stipend for all remaining employees for the 20 20 20 to 23 fiscal years fiscal year all employees must return a contract by the stated deadline that are continuously employed through august 30th 2022.
as i mentioned earlier it was approximately 16 million this reduction would wipe out all our contingencies from our current budget but we would not make we would not have to make any budget cuts to this current year the impact into next fiscal year we would have to make some reductions in or eliminate some of those additional budgeted fte that we just kind of talked about we would also have to propose no compensation increase as well as hiring in salary freezes with no budget contingencies in our budget we would be at risk of if there was any sort of catastrophe we would be at risk of having to furlough it's just not pretty i don't want to go down the list of stuff but this is potentially what we are preparing for if this were to come to fruition so um like i said the legislative groups and the advocacy groups that we are working with and currently involved with have a strong sense that this will be exempted for this year there's too much at risk for this not to be we are thankful and that we do have this contingency several districts that i've discussed that i've talked to do not have contingencies like we do and they would have to make current year cuts um mid-year so with that news it's already in a bad note but we will be back february 9th with our first review of our capital budget um as well as so february 23rd we did postpone i think on our original budget calendar we had us coming back for a second review on february night the aggregate dispensary limit deadline is march 1st so we don't feel that any change would be made between now and february 9th so there would be the same information presented tonight so february 23rd we earmarked as our second review um because we will have we do feel like we'll have concrete information on which way they'll go um and we can present that information to the giving board at the time march 9th we will ask for tentative approval like we did last year so we can issue contracts to our teachers we are always in competition with other districts on who can get the contracts out first and having that send approval approval allows us to issue those contracts and see who's returning for next year um at that same time we'll have a second review of the capital budget and then on april 20th we'll present the third review and tentative approval of capital that allows us to get out early um and place pos for those long term long lead items especially in today's climate most of our capital items in terms of any sort of hvc any of those long leak lead patterns or excuse me construction or building items are even exaggerated in terms of their lead time so it's important to also tentatively approve that budget so we can get ahead of those purchases and then like i alluded to in the budget calendar on june is the formal adoption proposal and adoption of the fiscal 23 budget and with that if there's any questions i'll be happy to answer thank you mr moore i just want to reiterate that um higley has done a really great job in our finance department over the last year at two um i'm very impressed with how far we've come as far as preparing for things cycles just so many different things in our budget that we've gone over and over again so when we talk about this 16 million dollar possible cut out of our budget that is strictly on the state legislature that is nothing that higley has done that is nothing that any school district in this state has done or deserved and i just want to make that very clear so if there's people out there that are listening tonight this is a state legislative decision that will be made and districts across the state will have to live with the consequences of that it's very difficult for me to sit here and listen and know that our federal government has been quite generous with cobit relief monies sr1 sr2 sr3 and then for our state to come in and say hold the phone we're going to cut 16 million it is absolutely atrocious to think about so if there was ever a time that anybody felt like they needed to advocate at the state level now is the time and i just want to encourage people to contact their state local legislators and fight for every district in the state of arizona not just higley but every district does not deserve this so that's all i have to say about that okay no other questions concerns sorry i think we can follow up with um to follow up your statement uh arizona is always ranked very low on funding and now we're going to be even lower they decide to take this money from us thank you because we'll be even lower on the ranking um it's disappointing it's disappointing to see what they're doing in the legislation um they're looking at also doing some other cuts to us for a governing board not to be able to pay for certain things professional development wise and it's just it's disappointing yes thank you okay thank you mr moore and we will see more of you in the near future okay moving on to 8.1 any future agenda items that the board would like to see coming down the pipe line yes no maybe so okay this is something um let's go ahead mrs sorry president keller moving forward it doesn't have to be any time soon obviously we have a lot on the board but will there be any kind of presentation to see how the first year of the virtual academy went and where we are and president caleb member schultz we can definitely add that as a an over your overview here of how things are going we can identify where i want to add to that this is not an exhaustive list some of our uh annual things that we bring to you on different things we did not outline here these are some of the special topics but absolutely we can talk about a overview year of hba for us as well numbers curriculum all the things we've learned and next steps awesome thank you dr foley i know you're very good about this but uh just a reminder if we could have some follow-up on the we had quite a few speakers for speakers today if we could just have a follow up on those that would be fantastic thank you yes more information to follow on those for sure um all right 10.2 i move i move that we move into executive descent executive session to just for the discussion or consultation with designated representatives with the governing board pursuant to ars 38-431.03 a7 second all those in favor i motion carries 4-0 and we will be adjourning in our executive session so we will not be returning here tonight thank you so much and good night you
does that sound right dr croto madam president remember chapman that that's correct and it's on the base salary of this current school year the base salary as mr hicks outlined earlier um and i still second just does this includes anybody that's on esi madam president miss grant it does not and uh to that point i just would for full disclosure that this does not apply to the superintendent i mean the superintendent would not be receiving an increase is that just because is that just an esi issue or anyone else or you're just choosing not to accept the increase madam president that is an esia issue okay so any current administrator would not be eligible for this anyway that if they were on esi any employee any employee okay okay esi employee and that is why base pay is important in this because you could have employees that are half on our our payroll sometime and on esi's payroll so they would be eligible for the portion that they're on our payroll so it's the base pay earned of this school year 2122.
so then esi employees will be getting it only just it will just be look based on their base salary it no no esi employees it when they are in esi they are not earning this benefit so teachers on esi will not be received that's correct so they'll be teachers not getting it do we need to include the base pay in the original motion or is that just understood i think we're okay let's discuss but dysart pays some of their salary esi correct no that we pay a portion madam president the let mr hicks explain but they they're not employees of the district they right we have a contract with esi to provide those services and they provide us those services through those employees but we the district pays esi they are employees of esi who pays them i see thank you motion carries next we're moving to uh request for future agenda items anyone okay move to uh jay executive session we have a call for executive session pursuant to ars 38-431.03 a1 for superintendent's mid-year evaluation i move that we um recess for executive session motion made by christine pritchard seconded by joe grant thank you what did you yeah yeah that should be fine you
hello chris cooper superintendent of clearwater schools here with a brief update i want to give everybody an update on our coven numbers the good news is we're trending in the right direction currently today on this friday we have 119 students out which would still be a little more than average on a on a typical day but not too bad for a winter friday 13 of those students we've been notified are positive with covet and 13 other students are household contacts so total or about 2 percent out with a covert related situation so as i mentioned that is trending downward uh two weeks ago we were at 137 on friday total absent uh and last week about 129 and now 119 so moving in the right direction also with staff that's also been going in in a good direction once we got through early on this week last couple days we've only had a couple of teachers who are out with illness we obviously have other substitutes in the building for professional development things like maternity leave personal days today uh things like that but as far as illness staff doing much better as well as i mentioned this is a community effort so we've appreciated everybody's help in keeping six students home and staying home as staff when we're ill and i still believe firmly that's going to get us through this and whatever comes next in other items we are wrapping up what your students may refer to as fast bridge assessment three times a year we do screening for reading and math to make sure that no student our district has a deficit that we're not aware of and then we can do some other diagnostic assessments to figure out exactly what it is they need to to get up to speed on any missed material as far as the basics of reading and math i hate to even mention this but there is a forecast for a pretty significant weather event coming up mid-week next week so please make sure that your information is up to date as far as if you've changed phone numbers or email or anything make sure you get that to the school offices so they can update your information so if we did have a school closing event you would get prompt notification through email text or phone however you choose the other way to do that is if we do have a school closure i will notify the wichita area tv stations ksn cake kwch speaking of winter we're in the middle of winter activities and no high schools wrapping up tournament week for basketball this week we had hosted rose hill in a wrestling duel last night and middle school as well has tons of things going on so keep on keeping on there and appreciate all the support and proud of proud of our students and all the activities they do looking ahead i did want to mention that we don't have school on february 14th valentine's day also happens to be the day after super bowl so we're all hoping that we get to watch the chiefs well probably not everybody but i'm hoping we get to watch the chiefs and then not have school the next day we do not have school february 14th and with that i wanted to let you know that we do have school on february 21st for presidents day just a reminder of that again appreciate everybody's help getting through this coveted wave hopefully we won't have to deal with it again but uh that's all unknown um that is really all i have for today this is mr cooper signing off work hard have fun and be your best self
shall we start okay hello everyone um i'd like to welcome you to the environmental commission of ann arbor um and i'd like to first say that i'm sorry to tell you that steve brown our chair is not feeling well tonight and so i am sitting in as co-chair and rita mitchell and i want to welcome you all to the january 27th 2022 electronic meeting of the environmental commission the meeting is in accordance with the executive orders of the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of cloven 19. we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting and i ask your patients if there are technical issues i'm new at doing this or not well-experienced and there may be technical problems who knows public comment will be via telephone only and to speak during public comment please call 788-0099 and enter meeting id 989-2851 and there will be some information on how to raise your hand and get the attention so that you can be called on to speak this information is available also on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city's website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 a t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch ctn so um with that let's move forward with our agenda um galen would you give the land heritage statement all righty i acknowledge that the land the city of ann arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinaabe including ottawa ojibway bodhi wadmie and wyandotte peoples i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the united states on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples the taking of this land was formalized by the treaty of detroit in 1807.