I just wanted to note thank you again for including the survey results and all the information on the actual um agenda item. Uh board members, if there's no questions or concerns, a motion to approve and accept the food service management company renewal with Southwest food service excellence to continue to manage our food service program for FY2027. May Dodge >> Second by Miss Kathleen Vance. >> Thank you, Miss Carlo. Oh, okay. Letter D is discussion and possible approval of the Barbecq Unified School District technology fees. Mr. Diaz or Mr. Bates. All right. So, this is the memo mentioning the um updated fees. Uh we have a reduction on the Chromebook fee by $10 to put it in line with the actual replacement cost. Um and you'll see the added cleaning fee. And you will also see um that we do have a lost card fee. Um continuing on the new year and >> is the is this retroactive or just going forward?
And so we have some uh intentional actions we'll be taking this year to make sure people understand how their pay is being affected. I'll talk about that at the end. Um so this year the years of service adjustment um we tried to apply that throughout the rest of the schedules. Again, some of the schedules are a little trickier and we're going to need a little more time to work on them. It just wasn't possible to accomplish it in the one year. Um so we'll continue to do that. Um it also includes the performance and merit pay which we kept holding off on because we weren't sure um if we were going to get our 70% approval. Um so all of those items um are being included. So for our certified regular ed uh group their minimum percent increase with all of their Oh, I do want to say also not included in that are the additional dollars for um as we wanted to create curiosity and um influence people's thought process through SOFG and and that parallel processing.
>> Going forward. It'll be forward for the it will actually the plan was to go forward for fiscal year 26 27 >> so we could have it active now um but yes >> I just so >> today's date any new fees going forward >> will be this >> and we could technically revise existing if you >> approve it that way >> okay then uh I'll approve it that way >> okay >> um I'd like to approve Um, >> oh, sorry. There's one other reduction, the charger cost. That's in line with our actual replacement cost for the new the new year, too. So, that's another reduction, and that's a common fee.
Um that's why we added those additional dollars. Those are um goal-driven dollars and it's a additional thousand dollars for uh certified staff through the performance uh base pay process. And it is uh, additional two hundred dollars. Those numbers are not included here. We don't know ahead of time where we're going to fall with our goals and, you know, so we just that's out there, but I didn't want to put it in these numbers. Um, so this does not include that. So minimum uh, percent increase for our certified regular staff is 3. 04% and max is 4.47. So you can obviously see it's a lot more than 0.79. That 0.79 is included in there. Um, it's a little bit more and again, this is the work of the committee and this is why each of these percentages are so kind of all over because each group needed different types of repair.
Um, so board members, just any questions? If not, uh, I'll approve with that revision as um as stated um to prior to now from prior to now. Um, so the updated knowledge of fees will be retroactive as approved from this date forward. Uh, student device agreement. I didn't see anything attached unless I'm looking at something different. >> Uh, student device agreement. attached but >> so what it is I think I just had the attachment on there linking to the agreement is that on there as a separate agenda item >> it is not >> okay >> can I approve it without that and we come back or is it the same one we were looking at >> I think it's the same one >> second >> yeah it should just be the fees so >> okay >> second by Miss Kathleen Vince do you understand Mrs.
As I said last year certified got the years of service, else their percentage would be higher. Um, this year it's uh, greatly based on their um, schedule repair. But a teacher in this district next year the least amount that they would get would be 3.04%. Um, and then going down our our hourly educational support staff, I know that that's been really important to us. Oh, you know, I do want to I do want to say something about that, too. I put some stats down here at 3.04%. Um, there are 17 teachers that sit at that lowest base. The rest um, and there's about 180 FTE throughout the district for those. The FTE some are like 0.5s here, so there's more people than FTE. Um, but of those FTE 17 are at that base, so they're at that lowest amount. The 163 are more. Can you remind us of the base?
Okay. >> Thank you, sir. >> Ben, this is kind of hard to look at. Sorry. I'm just going through this. >> I'm like trying to when I open something, it goes somewhere else and then I got to go back to where I was. But I'm sorry. No, we'll work through it. Weird. >> Getting lost everywhere. Okay. Letter E. Discussion and possible Oh jeez, I'm so sorry. Discussion and possible approval amendment for professional time for coaches during athletic events. Is that what you see, Mr. Diaz? >> Okay, >> yes, President, members of the board and and members of the team. >> I'm bringing back this memo. Um, we have previously uh approved this memo uh to be able to provide um uh the the time that um our coaches have used for uh for coaching purposes. Um however, we did have one particular coach that took time without pay uh but he still went through um perform his duties as a coach.
I'm sorry. Uh, the base is um, 50, it was 50,000. We're increasing that to 50,863, I believe, for regular ed teachers and it's slightly higher for um, our uh, STEM teachers. I think it's 51. I can't remember what uh, that ended up being. But last year we had that great accomplishment to get our salary schedule lowest amount that a teacher could make was 50,000 starting and then with their education and years of service they can move higher up into the schedule. [clears throat] So when we talk about that base, those increases are throughout the schedule. So if you add 500 to that, it 500 is going into the rest of the schedule also. So everybody's getting that. Again, it's it's a lot of stuff that I think we'll be able to bring to the board in the future and just it'll be a lot clearer, a lot less complex and um uh more concise.
So, because it is not as part of the memo, I'm bringing this memo back. So we can compensate that one individual um for the days that took off without pay to be able to be a coach um and to to be able to have the evidence that it was approved by the governing board for audit purposes. Okay. So um having said that I have highlighted on this memo that changes that I have made and I'm recommending uh the amendment uh is for coach uh the coaches which in this case is a coach that to leave without pay that they will be reimbured for the hours taken at this in this case it will be a total of $1,269.73. A motion to approve the administrative clarification that coaches performing assigned duties doing school sponsored activity athletic events within their own contracted work hours shall use professional time rather than personal leave to credit back the hours taken for the 252nd school year as presented with the amendment to include the individual um as as noted.
I know this is like a uh extreme question, but hearing the this the increase, I think it was like you just said like 800 or so dollars, right? Was there consideration of how that increases in the in the income tax bracket of 10% because of the $50,400 takes you from 12 to 22% in your income taxes? I I'm just making sure that people are aware of that. >> sure I don't give any tax advice and that's not my role. >> But what I'm saying is like I'm I want to make sure that people are thinking about those things and what impact that has on what people are taking home. Right. >> And and I think that's a big deal, especially when we're talking about every penny counts. And so you could be taking home less even though you're making $800 more. And I just want to make sure people are like, you know what I mean?
Is there a second? >> Second by Miss Kathleen >> B. What's up? Got lost again. Sorry. All right. Letter F discussion and possible approval to submit policy priorities for inclusion in the Arizona School Board Association 2027 political agenda. Mr. Sabala did provide us with last year's submission. Go ahead, Miss Vance. Tell us our top five priorities. >> I'll go through uh last year um or the year prior, we provided uh our top five priorities to the Arizona School Boards Association legislative committee. Number one was preserve and strengthen local control which I do feel strongly that we should maintain that um priority and and make sure that you know opposing any legislation that intends to lessen or curtail the legal authority of local school boards including their authority to approve curriculum should stand strong. Uh number two which we provided last year was improve outcomes for all students.
So that's kind of where my brain's been. I've been like doing all this math and that's why I asked the question I did about the 0.79. And for some people it's going to mean they're taking home less money than they were before. And I think it's a good point to clarify as we're making these things cuz yes, I know we don't give tax expertise or we're not tax attorneys, but it's also important for our staff to know that if they're doing this, I don't want them to have this thing of well, now I'm making less money, what happened, right? It's all on tax and to each its own, everybody's meant supposed to know their own salaries, but I think as we're making these changes, I think are there good conversations of what unintended consequences look like just because we're putting out numbers and saying, "Oh, look it, we're giving all these increases." And then it bites some of us in the butt, which to each its own, I just We We do We do have mechanisms for staff to be able to mitigate that.
um our rationale is to rethink and redefine the role and purpose of standardized testing and develop meaningful assessments and other measurable outcomes. I feel like that rationale if we maintain it um should emphasize the the students we serve especially as a state school and tribal land. But um y'all let me know what you think. Number three is the the top five priority. I'm sorry. Number the third priority item is adequately and equitably equit equitably fund district schools to at least the national medium per pupil funding. This item, if I'm remembering correctly, at the delegate assembly was it wasn't torn apart, but what it was was was taken out and it was more clearly like identified. So I think if we want to present an item to this type of degree, it might be in this new 2026 political agenda in a different it says it in a different way just if you're looking at it.
So, as public school employees, all of our staff have access to the 403b program, which is pre-tax dollars. So, you know, my what I would guide staff members to do, and I have shared this with staff members, is to take a look at those things, work with whoever your tax professional is, or if you don't have a tax professional, find one of the nonprofit groups that supports people, because you might be able to put $1,000 away into a supplemental retirement account and actually reduce your tax burden in doing so. So, we we do have all of those mechanisms. Um it's just, you know, it's sometimes difficult, even though we make those recommendations to people, to get people to understand how critically important it is um as a benefit to them to be able to take advantage of those things. We have some communication pieces and, you know, I'll take that in consider consideration of something that I feel comfortable sharing.
Uh number four is adequately ad wait the same one. Okay. Number five. No, I think we went with with the majority of the first two and the last two were items that we just wanted to make sure were emphasized. So I don't have anything that jumps at me other than for sure um supporting our our local control which again it does remain a top priority for ASBA and the association but I also want to talk about possibly including a better rationale for the improved outcomes for all students. Um I think that our position Oh, here's what I want to share. So as far as legislative committee, the state legislation has been presenting and putting forward different types of potential law which will require board members to take eight hours of like fiscal management and responsibility type courses in order to be an eligible member for the board, which is not it's not out of the it's not something that I would say, yeah, we couldn't do without.
Um I It Each person's individual tax scenario is so different. It's very hard to give blanket advice. Um but we can, you know, always refer people to their uh tax advisers um to determine how these increases could affect them and strategies. And And we definitely have access to um those TSA providers, and they're very happy to help people with tax savings and um setting up those uh accounts that we're eligible for as public school employees. Yeah, and and I don't think it's the direction of the board to go out to every person and make sure that everybody knows what's going on with their taxes, but I do think it's a good message to have when individuals or we're speaking of this this could be a possible unintended consequence and then it's up to them to figure out if it impacts them or not, right? But I I think it's also good conversations to have and while we're in that subject, too, I think wording and how we're messaging certain of these stipends are going to matter a lot because just recently I heard you know, with these incentives it will get people to be more they didn't say bought in, but they said something along the lines of to get them more into SOFG.
But we get a lot of that information when it comes to ASBA and their conferences and the standards of which they provide us. But this is something that the state wants to impose on board members before you can even be a board member. So there is some push back. There is some kind of like well who gets to decide what that actually looks like and why would we why would we need to particip I mean not why would we need to participate but we're so diverse and so different that type of training or whatever you want to call it because it wouldn't be something that they would pay for it would be something that would just be required it kind of it's kind so there was a lot of really deep discussion about it because when we talked to the attorney general general, we have to explain to them why our buses run so long.
We want them to be curious. There are some Our crossing guard who comes in for a half an hour a day, works before and after, is very little on our campus, is not getting our SOFG message unless they're coming to our board meetings or coming to our community events. And so I think when you have something that touches your pay, you want to understand it. For most people, that was definitely something that that we were interested in was to get more people to to be curious and to want to dive in. We want every single person in our district to have an understanding and I just don't know that that's really happening across the board. I think we are catching our big groups. I know our teachers are are more informed, our principals, our executive staff, but we need to reach every person and cascade that information out there and I think this is a method.
They don't realize that out here a bus route is four or five hours. You know, it's not simple down the road type of thing. So when you're looking at different types of fiscal types of education or training, it's going to they were really getting into well how is a a Puma County Superintendent or an attorney general or whatever it may be um or auditor general um how is that going to be dictated? So, just an idea, I mean, just just some some context for some of the things that the legislative committee's been really looking at. Um, I was nominated, so I'm on the committees, but it's not I mean, that's just one of the things that they were discussing. So, they were really looking for input on the political agenda. Um, I guess as far as what I can provide you all as input, it definitely is important for us to pretty much maintain top one and two, but I do think the rationale on the this on the on the why um especially regarding a state school on tribal lands and our responsibility not only to to them but pitting uh standardized testing and lumping us into a category I think is kind of unfair and overall disadvantage to our students, but I don't know.
It's just a tool. It's a layered approach. Which I don't disagree that everybody should know, but I I am going to push back on putting an incentive on getting people curious on an expectation that has been set by the governing board. Absolutely. >> That to me doesn't translate well. So this is why I'm saying that the wording and how we're letting individuals know in our system that it's not let's throw more money at you and you become curious about an expectation of a district. It's this is the expectation and ask you start meeting these certain things and then I believe it is our job meaning admins, teachers, or whoever is responsible for that realm to make sure that every staff member is receiving the expectation of the district and not the other way around. I do but not believe it is the employee's responsibility to become curious about something that has been implemented and is a non-negotiable.