001All the order? Uh agenda approval. Uh is there a motion to approve the agenda that approve the agenda as it sits? I so move. All all in favor, I. I. I. Those opposed, like sign. Okay, we're good to go. Uh agenda item, I just wanted to bring up two things. Um and I know that we do have someone working on it or we're going to hire someone to work on it. Are you aware of any of that? Not really. Okay. Our current mission statement as it sits, I believe is beyond our budgetary capabilities. Would you like to have any comment on that? Could we Could we pull it up and look at it? Sure. Yes, let's do that. Can you bring Oh, hi Dr. Majette. Hi, how are you? Well, thanks. Thank Is there a
002way that we could pull up the mission statement? >> Give me the What every child? What? What what what mission statement are you referring >> statement for I I believe it's happening right now, sir. >> Okay. But is it just the every How Who's doing that? Dr. Majette. I thought it was only the Austin. Austin is. Austin. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was good. I didn't see your fingers moving there. It's like I was good. I wasn't into it though. There we go. Every child by name and by need to graduation and beyond. Does it? That's it. We've had a number The reason that concerns me is we've had a number of people come in and they're quoting so that as if we're not doing our job. In my opinion, if we're number one What is
003it? 122 out of 131 school districts, I think we can simplify this up and and work on that until we get a little bit better at what we're doing as far as educating graduating kids getting our SOL scores up. Mhm. Yeah, I I thought it was more. That's pretty rigid, you know, one-line statement. So, you are suggesting that maybe we bring this to the bigger board to Well, yes, bigger board, but do you have Would you have any ideas? Well, I mean, if if it could hone in on maybe what we're trying to achieve right now and expand it, I would certainly be for that. I'd be just happy if we could get everyone graduated and get our SOL scores up. That would be fine. That That's I mean, the statement is good, but hey,
004what you said is even better. I'm okay with that. But Okay. this can be improved upon. I I think it could give us some focus and direction as well. But is it Well, at least to the graduation cuz the beyond part is is kind of you know, what are we supposed to do past that? Right. Okay, so we can bring Should we make a motion to bring it to the board? I would think so. Okay. And maybe we can save some money on the the professionals that were we're supposed to hire to do that. I think we we I think we can do that. I think we don't need to hire anyone. Yeah, I think that's something we can do. Should I make a motion to bring it to the board to change the mission
005statement to something more affordable? I'm in agreement with that. Thank you very much. Next is close to home consolidation. With the help of uh Can you bring up those those uh um maps? I can Austin can >> Well, maybe Austin. Austin can do so. Please bring up the maps. They should be up on the I don't know if he can get them up on the screen or not. I have Did you get a chance to look at them? I have them here on my screen. The reason why I wanted them up so that we could all see them is if you take a look at each one of these, the first one is Bass. We go all over the city with regards to that map for Bass. We're over a good portion of the city
006when it comes to Bedford Hills. Mhm. And if you take a look at the concentration on each one of these maps, um that's where the close to home is. Uh you scroll down to Linkhorn, all over the city. Palmer and Rose, all over the city. Now, I understand there is a lot to do with unitary status. Uh I got another set of maps and I will I will give this to you. And I'll add the This is I didn't get a chance to pull them up, but those are the maps in the bottom left-hand corner legend, we have the um population of uh the of the um of the students. I'm sure that someone would want to challenge us based on unitary status, but if we could get children closer to home, we're going to
007be able to save on transportation costs. We're going to be able to improve the educational opportunities because there's going to be less time on the buses. We're going to have greater opportunity for uh parent parental involvement. Uh I appreciate how we have a bunch of different types of schools and opportunities, but we're not succeeding at the at this point and I'd like to see something work a little bit more um positively and I'm thinking that by doing this we might accomplish that and not violate unitary status. Mhm. So, would this call for the superintendent and her staff to be engaged in or is something that we can just approve on the level here at the board? Well, it would have to be the superintendent because there's there's other things that need to be considered. Uh
008I I just want to discuss with you if you could see the merits. You can see the potential savings on transportation costs, see the potential benefits of improving academic success. Yep. Yeah, I I think I can identify with what you're saying. Um would you do you think the timing is right? You know, going back to even when we talked about the SOLs and superintendent and her staff maybe carrying a lot on their plate. Would Would you >> Absolutely. Do you think the timing is right for this at this juncture? >> considering we're not going to do it in 2025 or 2026 first semester. It would have The soonest would be uh September, uh you know, beginning of the 26 27. Should we wait? Well, if it's anything that we could do to improve conditions financially,
009educationally, I think it should be considered. When it can be implemented would have definitely up to Dr. Majette. Uh and the coordination of all the different types of things she would have to do and and satisfy. Um I haven't discussed it with her yet because like you said, she's got a lot on her plate. But if we you could see the financial at least the financial merit for avoiding transportation costs, reducing wear and tear on vehicles. Right. I was I was out riding around one day it was 5:00 getting dark. I saw a bus out. I saw a bus out dropping off kids. And I think that you know, that that was kind of it was late in the day and um it was extended hours. I'm just say I'm thinking of a lot of
010different things uh to get along uh to bring to the full board for consideration. Yeah, considering what you're saying, I think there's merit and my concern only would be at this juncture if we're going to have to load this off on her. Mhm. You know, a lot of stuff coming at her. Maybe give her a chance to maybe hit some more crucial things, but then keep this as a long-term or immediate Yes. something to look at. Yep. Yeah, I'll be I'll be Of course, you know, we can triage she can help she can explain to us the triage approach or you know, a prioritization of what's important. If she sees merit in something, she can boost it up. If she sees less merit, she can drop drop it down. She runs the show. Right. So,
011I make a motion that we bring this to the full board uh to be considered for Dr. Majette at her convenience. Okay. Okay, next on is the missions uh is a school board budget priorities. Uh Did you receive any emails of things that made you think about budget priorities? A wish list for you? >> I think we had that sometime, but I had not really paid homage to it. Do you personally have some um budget priority wishes? Yeah, I would say give me give me Do we have any more room for some more thought cuz I haven't really paid a lot of attention to it. Uh let me think about that and and maybe I don't know, maybe next meeting is that possible? >> No, we were supposed to have them Did you get my
012email saying that we needed it back today? No, I didn't get that. >> Okay. Yeah, I didn't get I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Uh I'm going to get reading the list of what people that have responded to me. And we can do that I'm just going to read them all and then we can I can choose reorder. This is not in any particular order. Um from one one member make the annual stipend a monthly line item. That's a budgetary issue for you and I don't know if that's a big thing, but uh for the stipend, the $2,400 per year stipend to board members to continue. A personal day for employees that don't have them or personal days for employees that don't have them. Uh bus driver pay uh bus driver and assistant bus drivers pay
013to increase from $14 an hour to $20 an hour. Dedicated advertising dollars for transportation department to hire uh you know, in ex- stand up those opportunities. Expand alternative education on all levels. Increase beginning teacher salary to $53,000 a year. Uh increase minimum hourly wage to $20 an hour. That's for the non-salaried people. And then maintenance budget increase to increase or maintenance budget increase to replace 20% of the fleet annually. Mhm. All right. Yeah, sounds good, but do you think we can hone in on what? Two, three or do we have an option all of them or what? Well, we are only 12 minutes into the meeting. I'd like to get as many done as possible. Right. So, let's start with the first one. Make the annual stipend a monthly line item on the on the
014monthly budget report. Does that make sense? Um yes, sir. Um that's doable. Absolutely. Do you think it would be better to have have it at when it comes out? What What is your opinion on this? Um well, I think that um we first of all, we annualize it to actually happen. I know in the past that the school board had elected not when we were in some fiscal difficulties elected not to get a stipend. I think we um definitely fund the budget lines for the full stipend for all school board members. >> Mhm. And how those school board members want to receive receipt of that stipend is completely up to the school board. We have the ability to do it annually or monthly. Okay. So, you think it should go to the board? Um absolutely
015if that's one of your priorities. I think it should Yes. >> Sure. May I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. Um so, good afternoon again. I I guess my I have a question about as you looking through the priorities, is it the plan to say, "Hey, you all going to decide on your priorities that will go to the full board tonight?" Or would we have an opportunity to have your full gamut of board priorities and then when we hear from the public week after next be able to sort of present a whole picture to you all of say, "These are some of the things you all were looking at as a a collective board." And then here some other items that the community is saying that, you know, the internal and external public is saying so
016that you all could kind of see a full picture because it may be something that you may see that the community saying it may actually sway I don't want to say sway, but make somebody shift sort of their thinking on what they have on as a budget priority. But I didn't know whether or not you all typically, this is my first time with you all doing this, whether or not you all look at it as a collective unit of hey, here all the priorities that the board members sent through. And then here's what the public has suggested and just sort of refine from there and start building the budget out from that place or do you all just kind of cut it now and say, "Hey, these are the priorities here our top two or
017three that came from a list of 12." Um I I'm I'm going to say it can be any any way uh all of those um the um idea of uh uh limiting uh my we could modify. And I'm looking at you and I see myself looking at away from you. Where are you? Am I looking at you now? I'm looking at you and I'm looking at you. We're good. We're good. I'm not used to being on this end um of things, but but yeah, just you know, I don't know. I guess I was just thinking I I'd hate for you all to to cut through all of it and then you may hear something that the public says on the second that may say, "Hey, you know what? This isn't bad. Maybe we can come
018back and and tweak those." So, I didn't know if you all said, "Hey, here the top three tonight." Or is it still going to be left kind of fluid that to see what we can and cannot do because right now they're just requests, but I think we'd have to compare it against the vision needs, external public, internal public and kind of look at it as a whole kind of putting a package together for you all and then have you comb through. Yes, of course. My point was well, when I was I just made mention that that's this was where this was where um we were uh talking about board members. So, to keep it open for any, you know, staff members, teachers, um administration, um community. Yes, keep that open until as long as we
019can. That's for sure. Okay. Okay. So, that's a great great question. I didn't I didn't mean to try to imply that this was the end of it. Right. This is just us talking right now. Okay. Thank you. Okay, there was a request to have the stipend to continue at this time. But like you said, when we go in into financial difficulties or hard times financially, we don't we're going to probably suspend it. So >> So So, the stipend was suspended in Okay. And now it came back last year and I believe it's going to be this year. So, it came back as an elective school board members who wanted it elected to take it, but not all school board members took it this past year. Yes, sir. Okay. It's $2,400. It'll help with your property
020tax or something. Just give it back to the city, I guess. Yeah, there you go. Okay, so that we can keep that on there. Um One person mentioned to provide personal days for employees that don't currently have them. Repeat that again. To provide personal days. In addition I'm assuming in addition to six days sick days. And they don't have any right now. For those that don't. Okay. I think that's a fair policy. Okay. Bus driver pay to increase from $14 an hour to $20 an hour. I think that's a good thing, too. That that might be a good retainer for some people that would be looking to drive. Uh $14 is a little bit lower. To attract good drivers and and and try to retain them. I believe they need their CDL to do this.
021Is that correct? That is correct. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's That's an accomplishment. >> I mean, that's almost below minimum wage, yeah? 14, yeah. 14, yeah. 14's below minimum? I think minimum wage is like 15 in this in this state. So, the starting salary the school board changed it last year was $17 an hour for anyone entering into employment here. So, the 1425 was the prior amount. We increased everyone to a baseline of $17 an hour. Well, it came from a board member. I'm not going to say who, but I'm going to say you should have known better. And that was only implemented last year? Yes, sir. That was that took effect July 1st, 2025 for this fiscal year. I thought that was a little low, but okay. That's great. So, that's going to go on.
022Dedicated advertising dollars for transportation department hiring. Uh I think if the salary is attractive you maybe could save on advertising dollars. That's the way I look at it. I mean, we can if the salary has you know, for example, if you took the money that you're going to put into advertising and maybe increase the salaries I think you would be helping the persons driving and then we could save some money in that regard as well. Okay. So I like your point. I was going to say yes, but Yeah. Yeah, we can Yeah. plan that out. No. Expand alternative education at all levels from elementary to middle school to um um high school. And the the programs. Extend them. Yes, it's a it's an open-ended request. Personally, I think we need more alternative ed facilities. How
023are we going to fund them? I don't know. I need to think about that one. Okay. Yeah. I'm in favor of that one only because I I recognize the need that uh kids who are disrupting the classroom need to be put need to have a place to go as opposed to being just put out um let's say long-term suspensions or any level of suspension. We should have them in a learning facility or learning somewhat of a learning just just outside of the way of people that want to be in the classroom to learn. Mhm. I remember there was some discussion I guess off record last time about that with EC Glass open up that possible facility. Yes. Did we talk any further about that or is that something that died? Well, we haven't been talking
024about further about that. That's That's one of the things I'd like to expand or continue talking about. Yeah. Yeah, I I see what you were I think there's room for that. Okay. Yeah. Change it from a weight to a poundage. Okay. There is a request to increase the beginning teacher salary to 53,000. Is it currently about 48? Uh we the school board just adopted for it to be the starting salary for teachers to be $50,000 a year and then hourly employees $17 an hour as of July 1st, 2025. So, it's 50,000. Yes, sir. Okay, so it's 50. Any any um Connection with the other school districts, is that sort of compatible with the other school districts like Amherst and Um so, I did an analysis. I didn't bring that analysis with me. We're about the
025middle of the pack as far as that goes. Um current $50,000 starting pay. Well, I would like to modify this one or add to it because if we're going to add a 6% increase for beginning teachers, we should add it across the board. I mean, our veterans uh our 10-year plus teachers our our 10-year plus veterans um I personally I always get upset when I see on TV my my cell phone provider, they give off all these great perks to new people and then I come back can I get some of that? Oh, no, no, no, you you already got we already got you. So, I don't like I never like when that happens and I would certainly be feel the same way if I see new teachers. If if this is going to go
026in and we're going to raise if we're going to raise it again for 27 I think teachers across the board should I think a 6% increase should go across the board. Yeah. Fair enough. And you know, we being a city I would think that we should be a little bit ahead of the county in that regard. Don't Don't that sound reasonable? Absolutely. >> a city of Lynchburg and then you have Campbell County or you have Amherst County and their salary entry is higher than ours here. I think that doesn't make us look completely good. Well Yeah. If we want to have good teachers and retain them, I think we should be fair to everyone. But we have teachers, too, that are sort of leaving and going to Amherst County. Another place is because of the
027salary. Well, I I don't know if you know, from from what conversations I've had, I think that the the biggest reason for teachers leaving either retiring or going to other other areas, veterans that is, their younger ones, yes, it's money, but the older ones it's always been a discipline issue. They've always said that they got hit one for the last time or they got swore at for the last time. Uh so, I think discipline is the issue, but I still think fair fair pricing and fair um uh compensation is something that we should have as our So, I agree with you on this. We'll bring it to the board. Uh another increase another request was to increase minimum hourly wage to $20 an hour. That's already we've already got. Uh but this is for everyone.
028We did it for bus drivers before. Um the request was for bus drivers just to by itself, but now anyone $20 an hour for anyone um who's an hourly um employee. That's good. You like that? Okay. Okay, there was a request for the maintenance budget increase to replace 20% of the fleet annually. So, that means every 5 years we turn our vehicles out. I would like to know if do we need the vehicles or I mean, wait you know, what's the rationale for the reduction? What you know, I I would like to have a little bit more background on that. I agree with you. Yeah. Cuz I don't want to suggest reducing without have a rationale. What What are you How How long do we keep our vehicles now, Travis? Right now, there's not currently
029a replacement plan. I'm I'm saying what's the Okay, maybe it's a better question is what's what's the average age of our vehicles? Uh we've got some that are over 15 years old. I was talking to the to a mechanic who was just the other day saying that he was he was doing everything he could just keep that one running. So, there there are some that are pretty pretty aged out. Okay. Uh do you think that we should have a a point at which uh a a vehicle comes to a certain age? Absolutely. What what age would you think that >> And and 5 years is is a great is a great starting point. I would have to sit down and crunch numbers and and go through the whole entire fleet that we would currently have
030and see what's reasonable. Okay. Um to say that, you know, it's easy to to to throw that number out there, but I need to sit down and and and really work through the fleet itself and see what what the needs really are. Just one more thing for you to do? Happy to do it. If I may, we currently have 20 Sorry, go ahead, Dr. Majett. No, I I I was just going to going to add to that. I was going to go back to one other thing, but as far as the fleet piece, with the board priority pieces and and that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier, it would be helpful. I'm glad you all are working through it um as the finance committee, but it would be helpful to us to be
031able to take now take that information now that we have your priorities and to be able to flesh it out and come back with hey, what's a dollar amount based on each of the things that people are requesting or they're saying that they'd like to see. So that we could put the numbers with it and be able to give you full detail on each of the items cuz I was thinking about your question, Mr. DePaul, just now. And um you know, with these items we want to be able to flesh it out. Like even when you mentioned earlier about the starting salary and things like that, it's always the goal to move the entire scale and not just take care of the new folks. But I you know, I think about all of those pieces
032together. Once these requests come forward then from you all as your priorities, then that gives us an opportunity kind of go back and get full detail so that we can say hey, this is what it would take to get there. You know, based on what your requests are and then um you know, what manpower, what what we need in place, but then also be able to give you a dollar amount for those things. That's what we need. Yes. Yes. Okay. So let me say this, in the event that um it would say exceed we would what have to go back to city council to ask for more money or what? Or we would could we do internal cuts to facilitate what we're trying to achieve? We're just now building our budget request to go to
033city council. Right. So it would be a part of that budget request to go um to city council. And along the lines of what Dr. Majett had said, the auditor of public accounts has a useful life asset of vehicles. And so depending on what type of vehicle it is, some have a useful life of 20 years, some 15, some 5 years. So it just depends on the type of vehicle that we had. We would have to do an analysis of what that useful life is according to the auditor of public accounts. Okay. Yeah. When Okay. Yes, sir. >> Yeah, I was saying going back to vehicles, if these vehicles are brand new when we get them, and we maintain them well, I I would think they should be able to tip over just 5 years.
034I mean, it's a good thing when you maintain a vehicle. I mean, if we don't change the oil and stuff like that, then obviously they're not going to last. And uh I got three old vehicles. I got one that's 20 years old. I love it. It runs well. I maintain it. And I could take it to California if I want to, but but anyway, that's just something to inject along the way. So I don't know if 5 years is a uh should be a fast rule that once they hit 5 years we get rid of them kind of thing. Yeah. I know when I was on the GLTC board, they had a hard and fast rule for when they had to retire their buses. Um there's mileage involved, there's um um there's there are a
035number of different factors, but I agree with you wholeheartedly that car's in good shape, there's no reason to get rid of it. Um uh and that was that was an argument I had when we were talking about the city buses. Um so um you know, if we're going to I don't know if that's the same with the school buses. If they have a different criteria as opposed to maintenance vehicles, but um whether they're gas or diesel or or electric, you know, I they I'm sure they have a certain life, but that's something that Their asset they they are an asset that's scored differently than a regular vehicle. Got you. Yes, sir. That's I kind of figured that. >> Yes, sir. Okay, so you're going to get us numbers, so we're going to bring this to
036the board relative to the research that you're going to complete. Yes, sir. Does that make sense, sir? Yes, sir. Okay. All righty. Anything else that's come up since we started chatting? Do you have any ideas, any thoughts of things that you'd like to see on the budget? Uh I think going back to some of the programs that we have, um if there ways that we can find some programs that could connect parents with the school and with their family. I I'm constantly thinking in this vein. You know, how can we get parents involved and with the school and also with their children. I don't know if there's anything here, but if there's some money that we have that is extra or some creative program that we can find to get some kind of parental involvement.
037Um make them parents a little bit more somehow to woo them into being interactive with the school and the children. To me this is a very interesting and important component, so money's if we have it there or we can create a program in that dynamic, I mean, I'm all I'm all for that. Super. Yeah. That's a good one. I kind of feel like you know, the schools are doing the very best they can, but I I worry sometimes about parents and what they should be doing in order to help enhance this process. One of the one of the things I heard uh I think my first year on the board was that parents were upset that they the children were going to school across town. That's one of the reasons that was I I was
038interested in showing this map. Or for some of those parents that want to be more involved but don't have the means by which to get to the school to be more involved. So I so I was going to that's why I wanted to bring up closer closer to home or close to home um attendance. So yeah, I I'm right with you on what you just said and we'll make that part of the what we bring to the board for priorities. Okay. Okay, just to uh summarize, we're going to bring to the board the following. Make the annual stipend Oh no, we're going to discuss whether or not to make the annual stipend a monthly or annual line item for the stipends to continue. To discuss personal days for employees that don't have them. Bus driver
039play increased bus driver pay to $20 an hour. And this again is for the 27 fiscal year. Dedicated advertising for dollars of for transportation department. We are not going to bring that because we're going to we figure more that money can go into paying better wages. Expand the alternative education program at all levels. Increase beginning sell teacher salary to 53,000 a year and 6% across the board for veterans and people that are existing. Increase the minimum hourly wage to $20 an hour for um all all hourly workers. Uh to discuss per the uh research of Travis Mr. Marshall that um we uh when it's going to be it's time to put in the budget for when to replace vehicles, maintenance vehicles. And to um invest money into programs to connect parents uh uh with the
040schools to become more involved. Mhm. Um I made that motion. Second? You're good? Yes. >> Okay. We're all in favor. Um let's see. This is going This is going to be an uh an something that we got to be specific with, but substitute bus driver pay and substitute bus assistant pay. Um we're going to um someone wants to raise it to $20 right now. To increase it uh to $20. I'm assuming that's going to be immediate. Is that correct? Um so I I believe that the request was to increase it to $17 an hour. We had been uh talking about um potentially for a retention and recruitment effort for bus substitutes to get them in um to cover our shortages, increasing to $17 an hour. It's currently 14.25. Substitutes are different than our regular personnel
041rate. So it is currently 1425. We have been discussing increasing it to $17 an hour as a recruitment tool to get substitutes to um come in for to to to to cover our um shortages. And so, we had been discussing it, but we never officially made petition to the school board. And so, we would like for we would like for if the finance committee sees fit um to vote to make that petition to the school board to officially increase both of those to $17 an hour, both the bus aide and the substitute bus driver. Cuz they weren't included in the 17 >> No, sir. They are not employees. So, they are outside of the scope of increases that we do. They are governed by rates, not by salary um type um discussions. So, we just
042would like to make that official and and uh petition the board to allow us to increase as a retention and a recruitment tool to $17 an hour for substitutes for that particular department. >> Thank you for explaining that. >> Absolutely, sir. What do you think? I think it's good. Good. Make a motion that we increase the this group of workers uh to $17 an hour. Thank you, sir. All right. Okay. Board member comments. Not much. I I think just the two of us here today. And uh we are getting some work done, and I'm hoping that when we get this back to the larger and broader spectrum of the board that they will be able to come along and come aboard with some of these things. I think they're good ideas. And they seem to
043be honing in on helping you know, the workers and also the students. And I I think that's kind of where we at, and what we need to be accomplishing. You know, how we helping people whether they be on the work side or whether we helping these students. I think we are on a a good track that can be very productive if we keep and are able to implement these things. Yeah. I agree with you. Well said. Um thank you very much for that. I have no comments. Informational items. The finance and facilities committee next meeting is Tuesday, December 9th at 3:30 p.m. Um this uh right here in this room. Okay. There's nothing else. Uh entertain a motion to adjourn. I so move. I agree. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, doctor.