02-11-26 Regular Board Meeting

001Hi, good evening everybody. We're about to begin our Regular board meeting it is 5 30 p.m. On wednesday february 11th and we are going to begin our board meeting We're going to start with the opening of the meeting roll call. Dr. Ariel cruz bella present crystal hernandez israel viareal present rudy corona present ruto sol gomez present Orlando lopez present alex reyna Alfredo perez present tony torrez Next we will have the pledge of allegiance and the invocation. Mr. Villarreal Good afternoon everybody Today, we have two outstanding students from dr. Cash elementary under the leadership of principal. Ezequiel rodriguez For our pledge of allegiance. We will have jesus bella who is a 10 year old fourth grade student at dr. CM. Cash elementary He is the son of rubin and cynthia garcia His favorite subject is science

002because he finds it fun and enjoys doing different experiments Jesus has achieved many accomplishments including earning good grades and being a member of the national junior honor society He is also proud to serve as a student ambassador representing the school with responsibility and pride Additionally, he participates in clubs such as band and soccer where he continues to develop his skills and teamwork In his free time jesus enjoys playing baseball soccer and going fishing Jesus would like to thank his parents for choosing dr. Cash elementary and for always supporting him He also wants to thank his principal. Mr. Rodriguez for giving him For giving students opportunities to participate in special events like this one for our invocation. We have isabella esparza Isabella is a 10 year old fifth grade at dr. CM cash elementary her favorite

003subject is math because she enjoys working with numbers and solving equations Math challenges her and helps her think in various ways In her free time isabella likes to dance take dance classes where she can express herself and have fun She has also participated in cheerleading and one of her proudest moments was being named co-captain Being a leader has taught her the importance of responsibility and teamwork Additionally she participates in the soccer and running clubs which help her stay active and learn to work well with others Throughout her school years isabella has earned all a's reflecting her dedication and hard work None of this would be possible without the love and support of her parents elizabeth quesada and alfredo esparza Who have always encouraged her to do her best? Isabella would also like to thank the

004teachers at dr. Cash elementary and everyone who has helped shape her into the person she is today Will both of y'all please join us. Will everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all honor the texas flag I pledge allegiance to the texas One state under god one and indivisible Good afternoon Everyone, let us take a moment to pause reflect and give thanks We are grateful for our teachers staff and schools and leaders who Uh, jesus and isabella, will you please join us at the front to be recognized? And will the parents remain standing? For your recognition as well as our principal. Mr. Rodriguez The

005next portion of our meeting is special recognition Mr. Luis guanzales our director of public relations will be here to present these Madam president board of trustees and superintendent. Mr. Perez guests here and guests online as well Buenvenidos a todos and good evening to everyone who is here with us Today's day we get to celebrate the accomplishments of our outstanding students and staff across the district We're going to begin with a very prestigious High five awards from san dino high school. These are the superintendent's high five These students ranked in the top five of their class every semester From grades nine through 11th grade The following students were awarded the traditional gold jackets that we have had here in san dino high school for decades And so the recipients of the superintendent's high five include Aries

006aguilar Alder arguelles abru nirel ariatia Brianna castillo joanne davila joanna davila jonathan davila Jacqueline marie flores de leon brisa garcia alan mauricio lareda jr cristo naive lenan gabriel lopez Marelia mancias dana larissa martinez catalina morales Jose javier muñoz savannah rose ramirez shailia renee sosa Again, these are the students that received the beautiful gold jackets traditional recognizing the superintendent's high five list For being at the top of their class every semester from the grades nine to eleven At this time we can also include mrs. Manuela lopez san dino high school principal Join us in the front, please and sandro romero's director of counseling and academic Advanced academics, please join us in the front as well And at this time, can we please have the proud parents family members and supporters that are here joining our outstanding

007students? Please stand to be recognized for the support you've offered your students over the past 12 years Thank you parents and families for being here and being supportive of our students In a couple of months the communications department will begin the billboard That will go up in april well that we recognize traditionally on the expressway billboard ad featuring our san dino high school class of 2026 high five recipients At this time i'm going to turn the mic over to our assistant superintendent for academic services miss delia cornet Who is here to share the outstanding accomplishments of three campuses? Good evening the honor roll Presented by the educational results partnership erp is part of the national campaign for business and education excellence erp uses student achievement data to identify and recognize Successful schools with high levels

008of student academic achievement levels and a reduction of achievement gaps among student populations Only 15 percent of all eligible schools Made this year's texas honor roll list And three of them are here in san marino cisd Our first campus dr cm cash elementary by print led by principal ezequiel rodriguez The next campus we'd like to recognize is ed downs fine arts academy led by principal ashley camacho garza And the next campus we'd like to recognize is la encantada elementary led by principal miss silvia garcia Our next recognition is one That recognizes one of our outstanding members here at san vito cisd each year members of of the of 20 test Tespa, which is the texas elementary principals and supervisors association Regions throughout the state of texas recognize a colleague for their exemplary services to the

009association recipients of the of this award must show a strong commitment to advancing the principalship and advocating for texas pre-k 8 and their educators The 2026 region one texan of the year Is san benito schools assistant superintendent of academic services Was named the region one texas elementary principal supervisors association, which is texas And that is dina cornet our assistant superintendent for academic services. Congratulations for being the region one texan of the year Congratulations cornet And I think she has a date coming up. I think early the next summer being recognized in austin So congratulations to miss cornet The next recognition comes from the superintendent's office and this is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of communities and schools in cameron county san benito schools celebrates the 30th anniversary of cis cameron county san benito schools has

010been a partner with communities and schools cameron county since its inaugural year In 1996 we celebrate their 30th anniversary and acknowledge our continued partnership supporting our at-risk youth Encouraging family engagement and providing community outreach at this time We have representatives for from the communities and schools cameron county. We have our executive director miss eva fedes our finance coordinator jennifer baz duac and Irma federnandez our data specialist and supervisor representing the cameron county organization Happy 30th anniversary. I know that a couple weeks ago. We were featured at your celebration luncheon as san benito being the 30 years partnership continued partnership with communities and schools We're the only district in cameron county to do that and we're very proud of that accomplishment So on behalf of the superintendent board of trustees, congratulations on your 30th anniversary And

011we have a little small token for you as well And mr. Benes is displaying our trophy we received as partners being acknowledged at the luncheon Congratulations. Thank you to cis And we look forward to 30 more years Of course, I won't be here or we won't be here But we will be here in spirit always right? Thank you very much Madam president board of trustees superintendent benes that concludes our recognitions for this month on behalf of the communications department We want to wish everyone a happy valentine's day weekend and please follow us on facebook for a lot of the postings we're doing this week show your love which will Uh showcase our students and staff throughout the district showing their love for san benito cisd And what goes on at our campuses and our departments

012every day. So again, happy valentine's day to everyone The next item on our agenda is public comment item on the agenda is public comment Before we begin I will remind our audience members of the board's procedures for handling public comments The public comment portion of our meeting is available to the members of the public according to the following At a regular board meeting the board shall permit public comment regardless of whether the topic is an item on the agenda Posted with notice of the meeting At all other board meetings public comments shall be limited to items on the agenda posted with notice of the meeting Anyone who would like to speak during public comment must sign in prior to the start of the meeting and list the topics They want to discuss an individual's public

013comments to the board shall not exceed five minutes per meeting Please keep your comments or criticisms civil and courteous Please avoid using profanity and refrain from making personal attacks on others during your opportunity to speak We ask that you do not discuss students who are not your own children In addition the participating individuals should adhere to the following State their full name and what organization or group if any is being represented indicate the topic about which they wish to speak Shall I frame from commenting directly on any individual employee or public official by name? But I may refer to a specific appointment area job title or the board of the whole and shall I frame from attacks on individuals? Lastly after at least one warning from the presiding officer Any individual continued to disrupt the

014meeting by his or hers word or actions The presiding officer may request assistance from law enforcement officials to have the individual removed from the meeting If a speaker is seeking board resolution for a specific complaint that concern should be addressed through the district's grievance process District policy dgba has been established for addressing employee complaints Policy fng is the avenue for filing parent complaints and policy gf addresses community member complaints Grievance forms can be obtained at any campus administration office or at the district central administration offices We have one public comment by miss mary maney Good evening superintendent board president and members of the board trustees and Members of our district and community they're here Tonight as usual I want to start off with thank yous We are entering the testing season, which is the favorite

015of all of us teachers and Needs special wanted to do a special shout out for those testing Coordinators who are managing to try to put some sanity into this season And not overly stress the teachers any more than they absolutely have to So, please no more tests. Don't add any more to the calendar. We're full Security has been absolutely wonderful in dealing with what we've got and Keeping us into our areas at least at the high school where we are Um you know, so we're not getting into any problems of people not doing what they're supposed to um the cafeteria workers and the Have been just incredible trying to get lunch lines up and move lunches into this place and and over to that place So they you know, there's a whole lot of Background

016in this that people don't get recognized They just assume it's the teachers and it's not we have a whole bunch of Secretarial staff hourly staff that come in and support and make The job a lot easier than it would be if we were all on our own um I have noticed that we have got an incredible number of kids getting ready to participate In a wide variety of clubs and a wide variety of topics. We've got uh stock Not stock market live show livestock market Whatever it's called. Um Sorry, i'm trying to do a stock market game and it's playing in my mind at the moment. Um We've got so the ffa is really putting out a lot of that. We've got hosa. We've got fcla we've got Everybody doing major competitions during all this

017and it's like we had so many come in last month at the thing at the thing being um The board meeting so they all got Some acknowledgement we've got people going off right now for districts and nationals it's just one of these that we're very blessed with the student and the Support people that are actually helping be able to let us do the sports that we are doing One thing on the agenda. I I do want to hear what's happening with pack. I can't wait for it to open up I'm right now. The next thing is the notarium would be really nice but I figure i'll probably get a Be able to talk you into a thousand dollar christmas bonus before I get to see the notarium anytime soon So but we'll find a location

018for it eventually hopefully but again, thank you for the support that you have given us and The wisdom to have hired the quality and level of staff that we have now if we could Just get a few more bus drivers and a few more security officers and maintenance workers You know the people that are really undervalued Uh to come in and help us out. We would be so much better But do you think I do thank you for what you're doing to help us make it more plausible for us to actually recruit them in so Good luck. Have happy valentine's day and May we have a very successful testing season. Thank you Thank you. Miss maine Okay, the next agenda item is board report on behalf of the board of trustees. I like to thank

019all of our administrators here For all the hard work that they're doing. We know that as miss maine mentioned testing season is here and it is something that causes all of our blood pressure to go a little high, but I know that y'all have been preparing teachers have been preparing and it's been an it's been an interesting year with some new curriculum Across the district and certain things that the state legislator has placed on our laps and we just want to thank you guys for all the hard work that you're doing because you can Really see it and we're excited to see how our students do this year this next year We do have a lot of exciting things We have our wrestling team that's going to state at the end of the week and

020we have our basketball season soccer season We have a lot of Student activities going on just like miss maine mentioned the livestock show is coming up as well. It's already february It's already the middle of february spring break is almost here. I know we just had the mini break But spring break is almost here as well Um, and I just want to thank everybody from the bottom of our hearts for all the hard work that you're doing Does anybody else have anything to say? And then the next agenda item will be mr. Betta's superintendent's report Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate to all our administrators You know just hold fast we're there What we've worked for all year long. I mean we're here now for the testing part of this This school year. So, you

021know, just hold fast when we're behind you. I know we're going to be fine But I do want to congratulate a lot of our groups now I see more and more students getting to the state and national level, which is really exciting So, you know, good luck to our wrestling team going out there this week We got a couple of kids going to state and then a lot of our Ffa kids will be out there at the mercedes getting ready for mercedes livestock show So good luck to all of them. We kind of take the show every year at the livestock show So we anticipate that again. So But yeah, everybody have a happy valentine's day as we get into the rest of these little breaks and season of of this spring so You know

022That's it We've got some exciting reports and presentations coming our way. So our first one is agenda item 6.1 Presentation by matthew montemayor cpa for car rigs and ingram on the 24 25 district audit I don't know how exciting our district audit is but This is really exciting for me because you know, we get to work on your district audit every year We look forward to this meeting to get in front of you. Well, good good evening board president members of the board superintendent My name is matthew montemayor. I'm an audit partner of car rigs and ingram We do have a powerpoint to cover an overview of your audit report I'll do my best to cover some information included in the report for you As introduction I did serve as an engagement partner. I was

023responsible for overseeing all stages of the audit We did have an engagement manager also in field work and they were primarily responsible for corresponding with with management and fulfilling our request list and and and Supervising audit staff that we had out here when we conducted field work We also have engagement quality control reviewer at car rigs and ingram that kind of serves as a second set of eyes over the audit Report just to ensure that you do have a quality report in front of you This slide covers overview of the annual comprehensive financial report So your district does go above and beyond the minimum requirements and you present a comprehensive financial report What makes it comprehensive is you add a transmittal letter. You also add various combining fund financial statements in a statistical section Uh

024every year I say management discussion and analysis That's a section of the report that if you read that section You'd get a good understanding of the entire report and its contents because it does have a narrative overview of the entire report It also contains condensed financial information fund level financial information as well and Information on the district's capital assets and long-term debt As you can see the many sections of the this report, you know Combined into over 200 pages of an audit report and if that wasn't hard enough to do I think some recognition is deserving of your finance department They did receive the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting from the gfoa's office. That was for your recent last year's audit report for 2024 So hats off to your finance department for

025being able to receive that report that that award for the year Next i'm going to cover an executive summary of the audit process So I always like to describe the audit process of consisting of two separate components You have you know the financial statement audit and you have the audit of the federal awards. We call that the single audit, right? Your district does receive and expend over seven hundred fifty thousand dollars federal grants and that requires an audit over compliance So in the financial statement audit we audit the basic financial statements. This includes the governmental activities Each major fund and also the aggregate remaining fund information of the district The audit is also performed in accordance with government auditing standards Audit of federal awards. So that's the second component of the audit. That's the audit

026over compliance And what we do there is we audit for compliance with the compliance requirements described in the omb compliance supplement in accordance with the uniform guidance This year we did have three major programs that we audited for compliance Those were the title one part a that's one of your biggest programs Or second biggest I think your biggest is your child nutrition cluster But title one part a is one of the programs we audited. We also audited a special education cluster your idea b funds And then the last program we audited was the 21st century community learning centers, that's your after-school ace grant Reports that we've issued we issued three reports this year The first report you could find on page 17 and that's the independent auditor's report This report will contain an opinion over

027the fair presentation of your financial statements That's our opinion as auditors whether or not we believe your financial statements present fairly in all material respects your financial condition And the report that we've issued or the I should say the opinion that we've issued is an unmodified opinion That's definitely the best opinion that you could receive as a result of the audit You can consider that to be a clean opinion something that you would be wanting to receive and anticipating to receive as a result of the audit The second report that we've issued is on page 177 That's a long title of a report But we we refer to that report as a yellow book report and this report doesn't provide an opinion But rather provides their scope and results of testing internal controls over financial

028reporting and compliance and other matters So if we identified any deficiencies or findings that we considered In the audit those would be reported in here. We did not identify any material weaknesses nor did we report any significant deficiencies And the final report is audit. Oh, sorry federal awards And that is another report where we provide an opinion over compliance and we also issued an unmodified opinion Next a little bit of financial highlights. This is your stable of net position This could be found on page 29 of the audit report And this will give you total assets liabilities and the difference between the two being net position You'll see your total assets 156 million dollars deferred outflows of resources. Those are 18.8 million dollars total liabilities roughly 150 million And deferred inflows of resources of 28.1

029million dollars And the difference between the two is your net position. You did have a deficit net position. That's 2.4 million dollars previous years was 565,000 This is all of the financial funds of the district all in one Presentation includes capital assets and long-term debt So some of the reasons for the decrease you'll see that total assets and deferred outflows of resources decrease about 16.1 million dollars There was a 17.2 million dollar decrease in capital assets There were some previously capitalized costs that were disposed of during the year You did have a 5.1 increase in current assets. That was primarily in cash and investments And then lastly four million dollar decrease in deferred outflows of resources. That's related to The district's participation in the texas retirement system. Those are estimates related to the pension liabilities

030If you added up those those increases and decreases you'd get a net 16.1 million dollar decrease in assets Liabilities where you would expect here is is if you issued new debt or you issue new bonds you'd anticipate liabilities go up You didn't issue any new bonds during the year You just continue to pay down your existing bonds And so liabilities decreased 13.1 million dollars Um 1.7 million dollars was an overall decrease in current liabilities. Those are primarily accounts payable other accrued expenses And then payments and amortization of long-term debt that decrease your long-term debt balances of about five million dollars And the last thing again deferred inflows of resources related to the trs net pension and opeb liability. Those are estimates related to your pension plan Or to the state's pension plan this is the

031changes in that position you have to squint to see that slide, but I'll read off some of these numbers here the total revenues 133 million dollars in total expenses 136 million. So your expenses exceeded your total revenues about three million dollars and the Change in in that's your change in that position a decrease of three million. So you went from 565,000 To 2.4 million dollar deficit And this is a government-wide presentation if you're wondering when I mentioned deficit, what's the deficit, right? So primarily that was created with the implementation of gatsby 6875 when you had to recognize these really large liabilities related to pension That created a deficit in that position nothing unique to your district Every district had to recognize those liabilities as well total revenues Decreased 6.8 million dollars Now primarily that decrease

032was you did have a negative special item of 2.4 million dollars Um that was something that's infrequent in nature. You don't see that all the time That was regarding the disposal of the previously previously capitalized cost related to the performing arts and I think the Nanatorium project as you dispose of that item, you also Offset that against the proceeds you received from from some I believe a contractor's Bond you received about 13.3 million dollars of those proceeds that offset the disposal of capital assets So special item you're not going to see that every year You could extraordinary items are a little bit different in in in gap Those are you know caused by things like natural disasters and stuff like that, but there's this is called a special item So you did have a negative

033special item of 2.4 million dollars one of the biggest changes in revenues is the operating grants and contributions and and so operating grants was Down 7.9 million dollars and you might be you know wondering that but in previous years you you were District just like all the other districts that were receiving ESSER funding And and last year was pretty much the last year any more ESSER funding was was around And so that contributed a lot to the decrease in total operating grants and and and revenues You did have an increase in state aid grants about three million dollars to offset those other decreases Expenditures for governmental activities these decrease as well 6.6 million dollars So you had a 6.8 million dollar decrease in revenues, but a 6.6 million dollar decrease in expenses And and those

034were primarily when I looked at those side by side you did have a decrease in instructional expenses of 3.8 million dollars also security monitoring services about 970,000 facilities and maintenance roughly 625,000 and then General administration expenses increase one million That's the government-wide financials, so i'm going to kind of cover a couple a chart here. These are your capital assets The district has invested in capital assets net of accumulated appreciation Roughly 74 million dollars there in the far right column You'll see and and this this kind of graphic would just give you You know your beginning capital assets any additions you had to capital assets any disposition or disposals and then transfers transfers out You did have some some capital Asset activity I believe you did some turf renovations throughout the district Those those were recorded

035as additions to capital assets and then that fifteen point point seven million dollar decrease that's the disposal related to the To the previously capitalized costs the district had Long-term debt as I mentioned earlier, you know, you did not issue any new bonds or any new debt So you'll see that additions column. They're all zeros down there You just continue to pay down your existing bonds as you should And then also you did have some, you know amortization of previous premiums on bonds. So you went from 84.2 million dollars in in long-term debt to 78.6 million so decrease your long-term debt balances by paying paying off your current bonds So that's the government-wide presentation of capital assets long-term debt Assets liabilities net position Now we'll take a look a little bit about on the governmental fund

036level primarily your general fund, right? That's that's where the district operates. You you you budget for things like property taxes, you know your fund level you also have Primarily, you know instructions coming out of instructional expenses are coming out of general fund. So if you wanted to see how your general fund Looked at the end of the year You'll see that for balances as of june 30 of 2025 revenues were 112.7 million dollars Expenditures and other financing sources or uses That's 121.8. So your net change in fund balance was a decrease of about 9 million dollars Revenues were actually up from the previous year. If you look down below you'll see last year revenues were 108 million Expenditures and other financing sources were 115. So net change in fund balance in prior year was about

0376.4 million dollars Um and and these are you know recurring items this is anticipated I guess with all the esser funds going away and those expenditures coming back to the general fund You're having to absorb those costs You're having to do strict budgeting tactics and and monitoring your budget as the fiscal year goes by Just to be sure you could plan for those additional costs coming over to the general fund But if you looked at unassigned fund balance as a percentage of expenditures You're at 26.2 percent Last year's percentage was 36.3 Now one one factor that we always measure kind of how well the district is doing is is how many days of operations? Do you have an unassigned fund balance? I calculated 90 95.6 days of of operations and unassigned fund balance. So that's

038well over 90 days Most most municipalities most governments aim for about 90 days 60 days around that that number and you're at 95 days So so you're above that that that threshold Last year's days in operations were about 134 days So that did come down a little bit, but you know you budgeted for that in your general fund. And so But but nonetheless you're over 90 days of operations and fund balance to cover here Oh the single audit, let's look at the single audit real quick and i'll get through this fairly quickly This is a summary of independent auditor's results Everything I covered on the independent auditor's opinions that we've issued is summarized here We issued both unmodified opinions over the financial statement audit and the audit over compliance We did not identify any deficiencies

039in internal controls that we consider to be material weakness Nor did we report any significant deficiencies And that's detailed here in this summary of auditor's results The federal funds expended as of june 30 of 2025. That's 24.1 million dollars compared to 32.1 million You know, so there were some extra grants there last year. So there's a reason why you know your grant expenditures decreased But the two major the three major programs are listed there as well as I mentioned title one part a special education cluster and 21st century grant your after school ace grant Required communications. This is something that we communicate to to all Boards considered those charged for governance were required by professional standards to communicate any matters such as significant difficulties Or disagreements for management. We did not have any of those

040During the audit Your financial statements contain various estimates estimates for things like depreciation, right? If you if you acquire a capital asset you have to estimate the useful life, right? How how many years is that asset going to provide service to the district? And that's an estimate we've evaluated those estimates Determine that they're reasonable in relation to the financial statements There's also adjustments throughout the audit process either corrected or under corrected We did not have any uncorrected adjustments. All of the adjustments were corrected and provided at the conclusion of the audit We obtained some written representations from management. That's just them representing to us that they accept responsibility for these financial statements And provided us with all the information that we needed to conduct the audit and lastly advisory comments these were Advisory kind of

041best practices comments that we made and we communicated that in a management letter to management We did have an exit conference where we went over those comments in detail and covered those with with your management team And that is All I have for the presentation of the audit report To recap what I would take from the presentation if we did issue A clean unmodified opinion over the district's financial statement audit and also over the audit of compliance a single audit But if there's any questions for many members of the board or any other schedules or numbers you'd like me to cover I'd be happy to do so So basically we got an a I would say yes, I would say Unmodified opinion a clean opinion could could be considered an a yes, sir. Thank you

042I just want to thank you and your team for all of your hard work Is there any way we can get a copy of the slide deck? Yes. Yes for sure. I'll be sure I didn't email Copy the slide deck and we'll get that over to you so that way you have it and and A final pdf copy of the report as well I know the pdf copy that went into your board packet was a was a draft watermark And so there will be a final report without a draft I'll have the signed board certificate The next line of business will be to submit it to ta Do you Do you see This throughout other school districts as well kind of just like with the general fund having to recoup all of the esser Yes,

043yeah, so that's a good question So, you know just across the state of texas, right with all the esser funding without got pumped into all the districts There's significant amounts of that and and and the grant allowed for supplanting of local funds, right? So, you know you'd pay for something at a local fund so you could you know now paying it for out of esser And so as those esser funds run out right now all those expenditures come back to the general fund But it's kind of like a double-edged sword right because they're coming back to the general fund But you know from 2020 to 2025, you know You know the costs have gone up right things things are a little bit more pricey And so and so you're having to absorb that and and

044it takes careful budgeting. It takes You know monitoring the budget throughout the fiscal year rather than you know You know at the very end of the year and just to just to be able to account for those those additional costs So I got a quick I got a quick question for you. I'm sorry Do you foresee I mean with your experience sort of seeing this across the valley or across the state with your company Do you foresee any type of assistance coming in in your future as far as public education entities are concerned? I know the recent Legislative session they did they did And maybe miss feders get to talk a little bit about this, but they did they did change a little bit of the funding so the states Give out foundation school allotment.

045They give out a big chunk of that and the foundation school allotment and the available school funding and and And that was a long time coming because it hadn't it had been kind of stagnant for a while with the state funding This most recent year There was a change and and I believe the the per capita rate for the available school funding that that did increase That's just talking state funding, right? and and so federal grants You know There if you just you know read headlines, right? There was some some You know reviewing the department of education and their state grants There were some reductions in allocations that district received for various federal grants, you know and but Visiting with your with your finance department when we looked at that we asked that question and

046there weren't significant reductions You know there were some but nothing, you know major to where it would impact, you know significantly Does anybody have any other questions? Thank you so much for the audit and thank you to our finance team for working diligently on this as well. Thank you Agenda item 6.2 presentation on school buses and senate bill 546. Mr. Rosa transportation director Good evening president cruz Superintendent Perez members of the board and the audience today First of all, let me start off with i've got to recognize my staff for The logistic part of transportation It is it is something else if you haven't been behind the scenes these guys are well Oiled machine and I want to thank them for making my job a little easier Not much easier, but it's a little easier

047on something. So but tonight is about You know, i'm following matthew. I'm going to give you more numbers Okay, uh, and it's kind of like me stepping on a scale in the morning I don't like the numbers, but it is what it is. Okay, so We're going to start with with this here senate bill 546 and it kind of prompted You know, I mean i've been doing evaluating everything in transportation. I knew this was going to come up Uh, this is kind of putting us on the forefront. We're putting on on the crossroad. So senate bill 546 Let me push the button here and hopefully I got it right All right. So in a nutshell All right senate bill 546 came into legislation And it's requiring that all school buses operated or contracted by school

048district be equipped with a three-point seat belt system Okay What does it mean three points? It's like the ones we have in the car All right, one point here one point here and one point over here. So when they bring it across That's what what they're asking for in doing so that prompted us to Through ta and through sentinel we have to submit a report So part of my presentation today is i'm required to present to you the findings of that What is it going to take to get our school buses up to? Compliance to meet this standard When do they want us to get this done by 2029 mr Does that do you want us to hold other questions for the end of the presentation or throughout? You can throw questions at me at

049any time. I'll try to answer everything as I can. Okay, so let's go to the next Section here. This is part of what I have to do throughout this year So we started early in the year back in september Making sure that we have the tools that I got access to sentinels so I can submit this report Okay, that's done acknowledge the seatbelt study requirements We're working. Yes. We i'm looking at all the buses. What do we need to fulfill this? Okay? Determine our reporting obligations. I've got an estimate and cost of what we have That's part of what i'm doing today and then presentation to the board. I'm getting that done It's not due till may the first but we need to get it done now That way you guys are aware of What

050do we have to do in the next? six months To three years Okay, and the last part of course is submitting to uh, everything all our findings and i'll do that Probably after the board meeting next week. I'm going to submit everything through sentinel Okay, so that's my timeline, uh that i'm working on there All right One of the big questions that we need answered tonight and and miss Perez can help me out with this one It's a school board determine does the district allow us and does it have the funds to be able to Retrofit the buses or we just replace all these buses all together That's pretty as basic as we can make it. Okay I'm going to give you the good bad and the very ugly And and to be clear, this

051is unfunded by the state. That's very clear Yeah, so it's really sorry miss maine. You're not getting your thousand dollars. I'm going i'm taking your money Okay But uh, that's where we go. So, uh, of course some of the and it's a simple report It's really more of a survey that we're that that ta is doing and putting together There could be some grants coming up to help fund this We don't know If there is or how much there is it's still up in the air. So it could happen And it could help us. So definitely if it comes up, we're going to jump on it, of course So of course number of buses how many are equipped with seatbelt? No two-point system And three-point system. That's part of the evaluation that I have to

052do Okay Estimated cost, of course, i'm going to bring you an estimated cost also Kind of hard to see here. I did take the liberty and put a person take these slides A paper should look like this could have been on there. I snuck in before the president The superintendent secretary caught me doing slipping in before, you know, see that but it's in there. It gives you some numbers So this one there's a lot of data On there, we're going to look at number one Number one, basically I have the four or five questions being questions that are going to be asked of me So this is the data that I was able to put together and if you look across At the very top starts at 2007 all the way to 2024 And I

053have those numbers there because those are the ages or those are the years of the buses that we have Okay, so all the way across and you look down each column We have a bus that's out there One bus is 2007 You keep going down. That's 19 years old how many of us First motor transportation is more than five years old. I got a bus. It's 19 years old. Okay Go all the way across and I have it highlighted in red. It says the age 19 17 16 15 14 12 11 All the way eight all the way to eight now. I stop at eight for a reason Those are ones that require putting in the seat belts total of 44 buses Okay 44 buses now My first initial thought was okay. It was well,

054you know, it's like let's go to o'reilly's Let's get a bunch of seat belts and let's start replacing said no As we did the research here goes my staff. Okay, sir. This is what we have to do Okay, all of a sudden is now you don't replace the seat belt you replace the whole seat Okay And then lately the next thing has come up on some of these buses you have to replace the whole flooring Okay, so it's not just a a simple retrofit. Okay. Well a seat well, you know, no problem. So well, yeah Well, there's 25 30 seats in a bus Okay When we did the calculations you can look at their 77 passenger bus Right now when I started looking at this information is it was anywhere from 30 to 35 thousand

055dollars It's gone up to about 45 Per bus Okay Do the numbers and I see it in red there for the 77 passenger buses We have 33 of them at this is that thirty five thousand dollars per bus. This is 1.15 million dollars If it goes up mccallan just did their presentation their estimate was closer to 45 000 Okay, that goes up to 1.485 million dollars That's on the 77 passenger bus On the special need buses, they're a little bit smaller They got a few less things because of wheelchair access those kinds of things a little bit less But still it's going to be anywhere between 37 to 40 maybe 40 thousand per bus All total that's for 1.8 1.8 million dollars at the high end. Okay, that's what it would cost for us to

056retrofit Uh our buses that we have in place right now Question what does a new bus go for right now? We're 125 we Have once we because we have the bus comes in a plane bus We have to add the cameras. We have to add a few other things on there We're looking at close to 180 to 200 The estimates the estimates i'm going to show you are a little bit less than that because that was that was back in september october But i've got some round numbers. So that way it gives you an idea Okay, it's gonna cost me close to two hundred thousand dollars per bus and I need 40 buses All right, that's eight million dollars Okay, those are rough numbers, but it's pretty close All right, it's pretty close. So Uh

057going back to this page I'm trying to see if there's anything else that I wanted I just want to show you that the one on the number two on the bottom left corner It just shows the breakdown by the years which ones are regular buses, which is our uh sped bus And if we do have a white fleet, which is our our smaller buses usually Uh, maybe some of our some of our space sped use it. I think our 18 plus program has one of our buses as well Okay, just uh, but there is a lot of information. I just hit on the the main ones. We have a total of 66 buses 22 of them are in compliance 22 Okay Now of those 44 we have about six or seven that are out of

058commission completely That means they're not running anymore. We started pulling parts off of it So we could use to repair some of our other bus not major parts, but some parts Okay, nothing that it's gonna hold us liable in case there's an accident or anything like that We'll make sure we do that But any questions on on this part right here again, we need to retrofit by 2029 keeping in mind The whole state is going to do this Seats are going to be short We do have a quick question The labor that you're putting on here. Is that Outsourced or is that being done? It's gonna have to be outsourced because that's the other thing that we asked was Uh, so can I get my mechanics to come in and do the flooring? They need

059somebody They need somebody that's certified in that area to be able to do that because of the liability issues Okay, they don't want to say one of us I kind of play with the macoys and you know Put it on there and just turn me out No, we want it done right because we're talking about our safety issue and it goes back to our kids So they want to make sure that somebody's going to be certified I think i'm going to retire and go get certified and install Seats and buses, okay Okay, so yeah, we did ask those questions. Thank you Certified here in the valley to do that. I think there's a there's maybe one or two some of our bus companies They're they're revving up and they're they're getting their people certified to

060do installations, okay Either way, we're going to have to outsource That I don't but I will find out because I wouldn't mind getting one of our guys getting certified and trying to get You know the buses or the seats So I got a quick question for you so I know previously uh, there was different ways to finance these buses there was different options on how to How to uh, you know How to come up with the monies for them like for example leasing the buses and others, you know stuff like that. So is there any other? Options that we can that we can foresee that we can break down and see One of the things uh towards the end of this presentation. I've got to break down and we we took that step and say

061You know what? Let me talk to leasing. Let me talk to let me look at grants and let me look at so i'm going to show You three different scenarios. Okay. Thank you, sir Again tonight is really going to be about determining where the board board wants to go We're going to try to retrofit or we're going to try to purchase buses. Okay now going back and i'm going to go back Going back to the original question how many of us drive a vehicle that's more than 10 years old five years old A lifespan of a bus is supposed to be eight to ten years old Okay by 2029 Okay. Remember we've got buses that are 19 years old At 2018 those are the eight year olds. Those are my my young younger ones there

062That still need to be retrofitted They're going to be 11 years old already now. Do we spend the two million dollars? roughly a million 0.5 or whatever retrofitting a bus that we might get rid of in the next two three years That's the question that should go through your head. Okay. Yeah, it's less money But guess what i'm going to have to buy buses eventually because i've got to replace them Uh, these buses are winding up in our shops a lot more often Okay, and we have beautiful streets in samarito that you know, we've got smooth rides. We gotta take that into consideration All right Uh, it happens even with our bus driver forasitos. They're jumping around and got more going to the to the doctor's office We hear it all but it comes with

063the territory it comes with the territory So keep that in mind as far as the age is concerned because yeah that 2019 You know or the 2017 they're they're not going to last very long. They're running well mechanics doing an awesome job of you know They picked it we'd run down to the store you go get it and before the next run Okay, and any given day any given day? This is just the routes that means in the morning picking them up in the afternoon drop them off back at home We probably move a little over 4,000 students Okay just on routes Now we had another 500 600 shuttles during the day vma High school vma high school back and forth That's another group Last group is going to be our trips all right, so

064Athletics is probably our biggest one. Why because we have you know Right now we're getting ready baseball season. That means the baseball team is going to mccallan The softball team is going to brownsville. Okay, i've got to send two buses out there. That's high school now. I still have jv freshman middle school Okay Even middle school when the team plays at home I got to get them from riverside To bobby marl I still need two buses seventh and eighth grade. You're gonna what? Oh boy friday night football 13 buses. I got cheerleaders. I got banned. I got the football players I got so there's quite a few so you can imagine we move that many more students with our shuttles And with our trips, that's quite a bit. That's quite a bit that we're handling

065for our buses Now keep in mind in the buses in the morning afternoon We have 48 routes Okay, 48 routes However, they run that route number one might have to go and run that one Twice maybe three times Sometimes they go get the elementary come back drop off the elementary go back for middle school and high school Sometimes it's go back and get middle school Drop them off go back and pick up high school So that driver will run two or three times and run that route two or three times, okay Yes, sir Yeah, and that's why I brought this up because those buses do run. I mean a lot of them run most of the day Okay, because even though I have 48 routes They really run them at least about a hundred because

066sometimes they run that route twice or three times Okay, and some of these are I got to go to la cantada la paloma Right, you know rangerville those kind and they go all the way and we and i've driven We've driven out there and done all the routes all the way behind harlingen To right across the street Is brownsville's isd and across the street san marito isd so we that's how far those areas are are stretched. Yes, sir We're spending a lot of money. Yes That's the number I was trying to put together today Yes, and I will put it together because we do need to know that Okay, and in consideration how much fuel do we use also? And that's going to come up in some of the ones questions. He was asking about

067the different types of buses Okay Any other questions on this point? All right Again, so tonight we need to determine whether we're going to purchase buses or we're going to retrofit and it could be something We can we can wait it doesn't have to be tonight I've got till the end of this year to try to make a decision and submit it It does have to be part of a board meeting end of the school year or calendar year end of the school year So may 29th I've got a report. I've got a report. So miss bettis. Was there anything else you wanted to add to this or No Mr. Pettis and I had spoke about that one. Sir. Did you want to add? No, just that we're doing a full cost analysis on all

068of this right now. So Uh, we we are trying to see on the leasing options Um You know, we see we see also the amount of stress that the buses are going through And yeah, it probably wouldn't be smart of us to put forty thousand dollars into a bus. That's 15 years old. So yeah, but we do have to do a cost analysis which we're doing So the next uh, the next three slides and this is only so that way you could have a ballpark figure on what it would cost First one that we ran into there isn't a grant that has been put out the last few years By epa, okay Uh And epa what they want the basic premises of this grant is they want to go they want to go green These

069are electric buses Okay, and in their in their presentation or their their their idea was look we will We will pretty much give you so many buses, but you've got to give me some buses So in other words, I got to trade diesel for electric All right, that was the thing so that was not a feeling at all mainly because I can't afford to lose any buses All right Highland electric, uh, I met with them early in the year and somehow We managed or I managed to talk him into he was able to find some buses for us. This is i'll give you the buses No, you know no charge. Well, there's going to be a charge somewhere We're going to but he's able to find us some buses. You don't have to lose anything

070All right, 10 buses Just 10 buses and we calculated 10 buses because we would figure they run about 200 miles on a charge All right, so we're not going to do long haul with these buses. It's going to be inner city We figure 10 buses will get us through all the inner city. Not a problem make our runs come back We can charge up by the time they go to make the next route So we can get by with 10 buses. They're about three hundred thousand dollars a piece All right, so you're looking at you know a good chunk of money paid by the grant and that's Base cost for the bus. That's not the cameras we have to install We can talk them into just get the cameras and everything else that we in

071it Okay, okay Uh in the with that said, okay, of course our buses are equipped with the radios right now We would just move those radios from the buses that we have now to Your newer buses, I guess you would call it that way can't do the cameras But in the cameras, believe me it comes they come in handy because not only do we have on the inside We have on the outside so in case of an accident or something like that We go pull the video and we right away and we get calls almost every day And turns out that miko was the one that started the whole thing, you know Those things happen, you know, we're used to those kinds of things. So our cost Our cost would be somewhere between fifteen to

072twenty thousand dollars per bus per year the reason being is With this company they would come in They would supply all the charging stations They would work with aep to get the power that we need to set it up They would also With that actually cover the cost for the electricity. That means we would save on fuel Okay, they're putting up all the upfront money to get that done. So but they're going to charge us, of course Twenty thousand dollars bus. I don't think it's twenty thousand. It's gone down. Uh, last last I heard He said he could probably get us to fifteen thousand dollars a bus 150 000 a year Okay So that would be and it would probably be for ten years That's the electric bus option, okay Purchasing the buses we didn't

073I did meet with with some of our I guess transportation people that you know, like an international bus Okay, and they gave me an estimate what would it cost and you can see there It says three units six units twelve units fifteen units twenty units. Now, of course, we'd love to get twenty this year Remember we need forty four Okay, of course they would cost and we're looking at a price of uh, I want to say 150 000 160 000 dollars Which mr pedas are brought up again. That's a plane bus We do still need to add the cameras and all that might get a little bit higher than that Prices are going up Okay Twenty units will cost us a little over three million dollars They're breaking it up. They're breaking it up into

074six painting six payments about a half a million dollars a year Okay I think it's five hundred and eighty two thousand one hundred dollars per year just to give you an idea that would After six years with interest three point four almost three point five million dollars. That would be a flat-out purchase We want 40 buses double that Okay, that's a flat-out purchase. So you got your electric which is part of the grant You've got a flat-out purchase. Uh, the last one and I added in here just recently we talked to a company Uh dnm leasing they're willing to willing to try to lease of the you know buses and all that it would wind up 448 uh, let's see Trying to get the numbers hundred would be a payment. Uh, one thousand eight hundred

075and seventy, I think a year That right? No, middle On this lease the monthly payment. That's a monthly payment. That's a monthly payment. Yes it is. It's 120 months Correct yes on this lease, it's it's like a car lease like a How many years would it be? We are looking at what do we say? Uh 20 buses on that Mm-hmm Yes, 20 units Yes, 20 units on that Okay. Now keep in mind Uh, mr. Casas and I we sat through all of these okay And he has all you know, he's got the insight on all the purchasing things What I wanted to give you is some numbers some possibilities do we have to go with dnm leasing now There's several companies out there But it's going to be pretty close to that. Okay, it's going

076to be pretty close financing is financing If we're going to finance, you know, whatever the going rate for finances, that's what it's going to be But this will give you a good ballpark figure. You're not going to miss it by much three options our Suggestion it's just a suggestion. Of course, we go after some of the electric buses Get it our inner city, but we need the diesel buses so we can make the long haul Okay, i've got 13 buses going to corpus and i'm worried about that one because they're going to corpus on a saturday We're going to try to we're going to make it happen All right. I've got two or three mechanics are going to be on standby just in case All right, and we've had once every Oh, I would say

077once a month already we've had to call the tow truck and go get your bus All right It's going to happen But those are my options. Those aren't my options. Those are the options. I bring you those are the things that we have You know the numbers at my scale the numbers don't lie Okay Any other questions on that? Yes, sir, um I recently traveled and I At where I rented a car They offered an electrical one But the one thing they told me was don't run it through the car wash And so I was like I don't want an electrical car then I mean if you're telling me not to run through the car wash What if it rains and so here we don't get a lot of rain but When it does rain

078we get a lot of flooding areas areas And so can you find out what you can and i'm glad you said that because with any one of these companies They're ready to come in And and give a presentation and give a full presentation I can talk to you about the You know electric buses and all that but it's better when you hear from them because they know all the inside information They've tested them. They've done all of these, you know different things one one interesting thing If a bus goes down the electric company if a bus goes down And it takes them three days to fix it Okay, they're going to pay us To fix it Okay, we're not going to lose money. We're actually make money because one of their buses is down They're

079actually going to be paying us for that Okay, so there's a lot of pluses. There's a lot of questions. We're still fairly new with electric Uh, they're getting better. They're getting better. There's some options again I'm now going to be looking for direction from you guys And if you say we need the guy to come in and do a presentation You know, he called me this morning said i'll go over there and i'll be there tonight And also he's ready to go, uh, the guy that i've been dealing with is out of houston Okay, so he's he packed up, you know, and said i'll just go over there and you know, talk to you guys Any one of these that were ready to come in and give you the details i'll tell them Let me

080just give them the numbers when they're ready. They'll let me know And if you're not ready, you'll let me know either way Okay, so Thank you. Mr. Drossel some other pieces of information that I just wanted to share with you Like you alluded to miss dr. Cruz We are we have a 4.7 million dollar transportation budget The state aid that we get is seven hundred and seventy five thousand dollars So this is a severely underfunded mandate, um Unfortunately, it's still a mandate So we are going to look at whatever we can do with within our means and hopefully next few senate bills will Address it just a little bit more any other questions on our end over here Okay, so the big question for mr. Buddis is Does purchasing buses equipped with three-point seat belts

081fit within the district's budget and plans to proceed with purchasing buses to come into alignment? with transportation code Currently, that's what we're looking at But we do have to do a cost analysis We have we have to talk a lot about the electric buses and the diesel buses and see what the pros and the cons are Obviously, there's a lot we're going to save in diesel, but our electric bill is going to go up I mean, so that's we do have to look at all those things But yes, my recommendation would be that we start to look at a plan for replacing buses Okay One before this was even brought up. We were already talking about our buses are old We need Okay, if I order a bus today It's going to take a year

082to almost get it Okay, and all and we have to replace all of these by 2029 They need to be retrofitted or replaced. Yes. Well, you can tell what way i'm leaning on that We do have a way but keep in mind it uh idea just ordered 80 buses Is I think preliminary numbers we're looking at probably leasing Because then we don't get into the rut of we're using a bus that's 15 years old on a lease We have to turn do we have any current buses that are being leased? No, so we've never leased we've always just bought out front Yeah, that's something that we definitely need to look into like Staggering leases and things like that Does anybody else have a question any questions? Well, let's thank y'all so much. We'll do our

083work on the rn to get some funds for this from the state Next is consent agenda In order to promote efficient meetings the board may act upon more than one item by a single vote through the use of consent agenda Consent items placed on the agenda shall be marked with an asterisk Consent items are items for which no board discussion is anticipated and for which the superintendent recommends approval Prior to the time which approval of consent agendas had at the request of any member of the board of trustees Any item on the consent agenda shall be removed and given individual consideration Um, we're going to do things a little bit differently here So If there's any objection to any of these items on the consent agenda I'm going to ask each board member individually if

084they'd like to pull one from the agenda so we can pull it out for discussion This is the first time we do that So i'm just going to give all of the board members about two to three minutes to look over the items on the consent agenda And then I will ask them individually if there's any items that need to be reconsidered Okay, now i'll go individually and ask each board member. Mr. Dana. Is there any agenda item that you will like to be pulled for discussion? Mr. Gomez, is there any agenda item you would like to be pulled for discussion? No Miss head nod this no, mr. Villarreal Mr. Lopez. Oh, mr. Corona all of them None, okay at this time since there is no objection all of the items on the consent agenda

085Will be approved So moved i've got a motion by mr. Lopez in the second by mr. Villarreal all those in favor. Okay, they are all approved Now we are on our action agenda Agenda item 10.1 discussion and possible approval of the 24 25. Samuel cisd district audit. Mr. Perez So this is the audit that we went over earlier the presentation. I asked that the board approve The 24 25 samuel cisd district audit report. So move I've got a motion by mr. Lopez in a second by mr. Gomez. All those in favor motion approved The next agenda item is agenda item 10.2 discussion and possible approval of Gmp1 site package for the performing arts center as presented by d wilson Perez and members of the board Aaron As mentioned, uh, we're here to present on the

086gmp1 and seeking approval My name is aaron handley design manager with the wilson. We're serving as the design builder on the performing arts center project um I you all have the actual gmp report package in your backup I'm going to hit some high points and summarize if you have any questions About the specific report we can get it up on the screen. I have it on my usb If you have any questions during the presentation stop me and ask But If you want to go to the first slide One of the first things I wanted to do was get everyone on the same level with terminology and numbers Last time we were here. We presented the column on the left labeled ccl ccl, which is the Construction cost limitation. That's the budget that d wilson

087has in entirety. We started at 22 685 But that also includes our soft costs and the gmp package is in cost of work It's cost of construction only so that's the right column the cost of work So the initial approval was for 20 million eight hundred and forty two thousand of construction cost Just so that everyone's on the same page of that and then this was the same history that we went over last time There was some previous additions that were made So the current approved cost of work is twenty two million three hundred and nineteen thousand Any questions on that before we move on because that's a key point Okay So the first thing I wanted to do is explain what's in the gmp1 package Does this one work or So we're going to

088do selective demolition There is a current scoreboard out there and a couple of light poles on the site that we'll have to remove We're going to do site clearing and grubbing where we have to scrape the site of all the grass Excavate six inches of the topsoil We're going to do surveying to locate the project erosion controls temporary fencing The cast in place concrete for the light pole bases and the transformer pad All of the underground utilities for the site fire line hydrant the taps to the water line the underground site electrical and telecommunications conduits the earthwork for excavating for the detention balancing the site Building up the building pad underneath the building The base material and the lime treating the subgrade underneath all the paving and building areas landscape irrigation sleeves underground site domestic

089water and sewer and the site storm sewer system So that's everything that's included in gmp1 There is some stuff that's excluded Which we're on the drawings, but we're not including in this package so This won't include anything related to the building so there won't be a foundation There won't be any of the under slab utilities yet because we're still working on finalizing the design It won't include any of the asphalt paving or the concrete drives. We're going to wait till later in the project to execute that It would include the striping or traffic signage any of the landscaping the landscape planners Irrigation system the actual light poles or any of the wiring for the electrical or telecommunications So this is just All of the underground preparation as we finalize the project the rest that scope

090will be in gmp2 Any questions about what's included in gmp1? The process So if you go to the next slide This is the cost breakdown that was provided in the gmp package And so the far right column which is highlighted in blue is all of the cost line items that I just went over That will be included in this first site package. The total of that is two million sixty seven thousand So when we went through this new cost estimate and we got real live Numbers from our trade partners going out to bid We did update the overall estimate for the project. And so the previous estimate was the twenty two million three nineteen That was previously approved The current estimate the way it's designed and the way it is now with the scope is

091twenty two million seven hundred and thirty So we're currently four hundred and eleven thousand dollars Above what was approved but we do have some strategies for how to get the project back aligned And so i'm going to go over those And you can see the first column is our preliminary estimate The second column is the current estimate and then as mentioned the far right is the gmp line items For phase one any questions about any of the cost of breakdown? So I did want to just reiterate The current scope of the project the building itself has not changed all of the primary functional items are still existing None of this has changed Still the same size building you're still getting a 900 seat house. All this was previously presented All of this is still in

092the building project The the layout for the building is still the same. We are refining the design So there's minor changes here and there with you know details constructability wall sections But the layout has not changed since the last you've seen it Same thing with the exterior appearance the renderings This is still the building we're delivering And we want to do everything we can to to not Detract from the the actual functioning of the building and deliver as much as we can for the money that the district has available so This was the site plan that was previously presented So we had previously talked about how we're going to utilize the existing parking lot To minimize the amount of new parking that's still happening We're still in close proximity to the fine arts building because

093they will be utilizing some of the existing fine arts space on vma One of the things we found out was assumption that we made was that we there would be cost savings By tying into the existing chiller plant We found out that that assumption was not accurate once we started digging in with our trade partners and the engineers It turned out that it was more affordable to do a new chiller a standalone chiller for the new facility And so that's an assumption that we've already sort of crossed out And as we got the pricing back for this gmp1 We found that some of the things that were included in the site scope are now coming back a little bit higher So i've highlighted the loop road and that's going to be the first thing i'm

094going to talk about Potentially altering the scope So as mentioned right now, we're 411,000 over And these are some strategies that we can execute to get the project back in line with the budget The the first one is an ask at the beginning of the project the district had set aside 200,000 dollars for Any unforeseen or extensive site improvements that may come about one of the ones that was thought about was maybe excessive detention Or anything else like public utilities that might have to be extended The geotechnical recommendations that we received after our preliminary estimates Were extensive and more than we had assumed in the initial estimates. So that was one of the biggest busts on our estimate was the earthwork and the requirements for lime treating the subgrade additional excavation additional select fill bringing

095back in and so Now that we have the site designed and we understand all the implications of the site We don't see any more unforeseen or unexpected expenses And we would ask that at this point We reallocate that two hundred thousand dollar allowance that the district held back To the project to cover some of the unexpected expenses with the geotechnical recommendations So that project that allowance was already in the total project cost It's just moving it from the owner side to the construction cost And then the other two strategies are specific scope adjustments that we could do That would accumulate about two hundred and eleven thousand of additional savings To get us back in line with the budget The first one was the removal of the loop road and the second is optimizing the storm

096system There's an existing storm swale along the existing road Every time we cross that with a drive or a sidewalk we have to do an underground storm pipe and those are Some of the costs that were exceeding what our assumptions were So this is a diagram showing the loop road Originally we had intended to take that all the way down to the road that connects to the ag barn Just to because the the loop the drop-off loop there in front of the school does get a little congested You got a lot of buses there. So we were trying to avoid all of that We do feel that without that section of the road the red portion the site still fully functions They would loop through the part the new parking lot the yellow section there

097Rather than going out of the south end But in order to do that, we would have to update the paving in that parking area. It was Currently allocated as low Or light duty pavement we'd have to upgrade that a little bit for the bus travel But even with that offset, we do think there'd be about a hundred and forty thousand dollars in savings by eliminating this loop road And then the other is optimizing the storm system And so as I mentioned you see there on the right side of the project We had we're proposing two drives on either side of the parking and then a mid-site pedestrian access to the project By removing the southeast drive We could eliminate a long section of that underground storm pipe And it would also reduce some of the

098site balancing requirements for that We would also remove a portion of the sidewalk that enters the parking lot there the gray box with the yellow outline we would remove six parking spaces which were currently over the minimum requirement To connect the two parking spaces so you could still loop through both And you would now have the three drives instead of four And then the the pedestrian sidewalk in the middle of the site We would remove that crossing so that we could eliminate another section of storm pipe and then on the west side of the project We had our civil engineer our design team had Worked within the loop road and added the detention there But what that did is it created another section of storm pipe on the north side of the project So we're

099just going to slide that over To reduce that section and so all in all by eliminating these three sections of storm pipe and some of the paving We would save 71,000 additional dollars to the project and that would get us to where we need to be in alignment And if you eliminate that mid side sidewalk that's on the east side, right? Correct removing that sidewalk then where it's going to be the crossover for the so the The section that's there on the existing parking doesn't exist right now. There's no sidewalk along that road on that side The sidewalk ends just north of the chiller plant. So if you're coming from the school You would cross over Just north of that driveway that i'm removing And you would enter from the plaza to the project If

100you're parking in the existing parking space you would either If you're going to the scene shop or back a house you would come in the sidewalk at the north If you're coming into the plaza and the main entry you would come in at the south Is there an access door on that east side though? I mean There is a door right to the left of the sign in the plaza But it's not a main entry. It's it's more of a back a house door so Any questions about either of those strategies? and then Just want to give you an update on the schedule. So We just presented gmp1 the red dot there on the red dashed line is this board meeting where we're seeking approval If we get approval tonight, we would move into construction

101of phase one with our groundbreaking next friday the 20th And then we're currently projected to deliver the 100 cds May 8th, and we would be presenting gmp2 on the june board To start with the building and the building after that would take approximately 18 to 20 months So we're still on target for the january of 2028 Sort of target date for completion of the entire project and if there's no other sort of uh Discussion on either of the specific strategies. This would be our recommended motion to Get us back in line with the budget. How difficult do you see it to be if the future? Plans of this project require us to Make that finish that loop and Add sidewalks It's it's definitely a possibility right now. We have a contingency in the project that

102we're still holding on to We did reduce the amount of contingency because we are further into the design And so, you know, we don't need as much contingency as we move along If we find any other savings we could leave that as a bid alternate It's definitely something that would be much easier to add in the future even outside of this project Than if we start taking away from scope on the building And so it's best to be conservative now in phase one And then if there is savings we can always have bid alternates on the second phase So I think that answers my question anybody else have any questions no question thorough presentation Um at this time i'd like a motion to approve gmp1 as presented and reallocate the owner's $200,000 side allowance to

103the project and authorize the design builder to execute budget aligned strategies as presented I've got a motion by mr. Cuadrona Second and a second by mr. Lopez all those in favor And groundbreaking is when the 20th the next friday, thank you for sure No delays on the groundbreaking What was that? No delays on the groundbreaking Shouldn't be no. I mean, this is the ceremony. Uh, we're gonna we're gonna have a piece of equipment out there We'll have some renderings. It'll be for the community Uh, we are still pending the permit, but it's I think we're really close to getting it. So Activity should follow shortly thereafter. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Moving on to agenda item 10.3 consideration and possible action on senate bill 11 resolution Regarding the period of prayer and reading of

104the bible or other religious text mr. Betos So today we present senate bill 11. You will have to vote on this I'm just going to give a little bit of background information for the public Senate bill 11 is a statute that allows the school board to adopt by record vote on a prescribed resolution a policy requiring every campus of the district or school to provide students and employees with an opportunity to participate In a period of prayer and reading of the bible or other religious texts on each school day in accordance with the law A school board does not have to adopt a daily prayer period but a board does have to vote by march 1st, which we are doing today On whether to adopt a resolution on the matter Importantly existing federal and state

105law already protects every student's right to pray voluntarily And prohibits coercion Senate bill 11 does not create that right it creates an optional district-run program That would create a daily period of prayer that carries specific implementation and requirements So a record vote means that I have to go left to right and ask everybody for their vote One at a time but before that I would need a motion to either adopt or decline to adopt a resolution in support of senate bill 11 considering that Students already have the ability to pray and practice and read the bible and protected by federal law and the burden that The logistics is going to cause on this bill to be passed Because there's a lot of things I need to get consent you need staff to Document and it's

106it's going to be a lot of additional work on staff and so I am Motioning to not adopt Senate bill 11. Okay, so we have a motion to decline to adopt a resolution in support of senate bill 11 I will ask board members from left to right I do need a second by mr And now I will go ahead and ask from left to right in support to decline the adoption of a resolution of support of senate bill 11 Mr. Dana Decline mr to decline Mr. Wilmes decline myself decline Miss Hernandez decline decline decline decline Okay, so that means that we will not be adopting a resolution in support of senate bill 11 Moving on to agenda item And just to clarify like miss Hernandez just to reiterate what she said Our district is going

107to continue to protect the students constitutional rights. We still allow voluntary prayer Prohibit coercion and this allows us to focus district resources on instruction and student support Nothing changes regarding a student's individual religious freedoms Now it is 7 15 and we are moving into the closed meeting In accordance with texas government code open meetings act the board may move into closed session for the following reasons section 551.071 For the purpose of a private consultation with the board's attorney on any or all subjects or matters authorized by law section 551.074 for the purpose of considering the appointment employment evaluation reassignment duties discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee Or to hear complaints or charges against a public officer or employee It is 7 16 and we're moving into close meeting everybody. It is 10

10816 pm and we are reconvening into open session agenda item 12.1 employment resignations retirements and terminations Mr. Perez Yes, I ask the board to approve the employment resignation retirement and terminations as discussed in executive session I've got a motion by miss Hernandez and a second by mr. Gomez all those in favor motion approved Agenda item 12.2 consideration possible action to renew term contracts for administrators for the 26 27th school year. Mr Perez, so I ask for an approval To renew the term contracts for administrators for the 26 27th school year Got a motion by miss Hernandez and a second by mr. Rana all those in favor motion approved agenda item 12 point No, you haven't 12.3 consideration possible action to renew probationary contracts for administrators for the 26 27th school year Mr. Perez, it's also

109the I ask for the The board to approve the renew probationary contracts for administrators for the 26 27th school year Motion by mr. Gomez all those in favor Motion approved agenda item 12.4 discussion and possible action on the proposed non-renewal of the 2025 2026 chapter 21 contract employment of lh Yes, the administration recommends the proposed non-renewal of the 25 26 term contract of teacher lh I'm old got a motion by miss Hernandez and a second by mr. Gomez all those in favor motion approved agenda item 12.5 discussion possible action regarding level three ml at this time i'd like a motion to grant in part the grievance from agenda item 12.5 I've got a motion by miss Hernandez and a second by mr. Rana all those in favor motion approved If there are no objections, the

110meeting is adjourned at 10 18. Thank you everybody. Have a good night