001one uh uh and I hereby call this public hearing of the Bowmont Independent School District Board of Managers regarding the proposed 2026 2027 budget and proposed tax rate to order Let the record reflect that a quorum is present Uh the first agenda item is the public hearing on the proposed 2026 2026 2027 budget and proposed tax rate At this time I will recognize Superintendent Massie and CFO CFO Cheryl Hernandez for the presentation presentation Good Good evening board of managers I appreciate us all being able to be here today and letting us talk a little bit about the budget I'm going to start us off I will hand it over to Cheryl in a few minutes but I I first wanted to be able to kind of give you some background and the why behind some
002of the things we're doing and what it takes to align the budget to priorities So we're going to start off with our mission and vision in Bulma ISD to perform at the highest highest level we as a a central office team have to align so that our systems are also aligned to the mission and vision It's the most important thing And if if you remember our vision is that every student in BISD will be known supported challenged and prep Thank you People know it too There There it is right there So it's the most important thing And it means that every single department even outside of schools and academics has to play their role Even if you're over facilities or operations or you work on HVAC or electrical all of that plays a role into
003the success of a school district And And we have to make sure our money and our resources are all aligned so that students can be prepared And that means we're going to be working on plans that will take away away from hiring outside vendors all the time including on things like HVAC and and plumbing and electrical and training our people inhouse to do the job so that we can save money and use our resources the right way So that's one of the things we're going to be doing making some hard choices about what to stop We're going to be developing and are developing a leadership team that that understands both the complexity of the work that has to be done here but also the responsibility of of stewardship And next week in the real board
004meeting I'm going to talk to you all about stewardship a little bit more and how that that plays a role what this intervention is really meant to look like And so I want to give you just a little bit of information information about stewarding We're going to talk a lot more next week but here's the basics that I can give you for tonight It takes leaders leaders that are putting in a disciplined effort intentional urgency It is urgency is different than going going fast It has to be fast in the right direction with the right decisions and choices A sustained attention is is harder than it sounds It means that you can't get tired or get weary of doing good You have to keep going You going You have to keep going Faithfulness Faithfulness Faithfulness
005Faithfulness Because one day you turn around and you wind up seeing the fruit So the sustained attention attention cannot stop We have to realize there is a serious responsibility that we have to this district I look at it a lot as like like putting a baby in my arms that someone else has handed to me and ask me to take care of it for a week and in this case several years years and I have to give it back in a way that it is healthy sustained growing learning so that I'm proud of what I have have done while it's been given to me That's a serious responsibility And that responsibility requires us to also be able to to make tough calls It's not just caring It's caring in a way that pushes all of
006our departments departments in the right direction And that begins with an honest examination examination of our resources how they're currently deployed and whether our investments investments are serving our mission And I want to remind you of the mission Uh the our mission is lines lines to the vision You remember the vision is known supported challenged and prepared But the mission is that our teachers will be at the highest highest quality It will be the norm to have exceptional teaching That leaders are held accountable accountable and that student outcomes are measured every day in every class period That is what is going to get us the results that that we need All of our budget has to align to that one thing So you might ask what is is a deficiency and how does it play
007a role in examining our district resources I am so glad you asked that question because I'm telling telling you So I do want to tell you what about a deficiency and we're going to talk a lot about deficiencies in the next 10 10 minutes So you think of a deficiency as some type of a weakness or it is an an inconvenience But for us it's not just that It's a condition that interferes with the the district's ability to achieve our mission This is core We have to make sure our our deficiencies are seen That means we have to look for them That's something most districts don't do They're They're not trying to find out where they're spending their money well or not well They're just going with the flow So we have already in the
008first six weeks started paying paying attention to our deficiencies and where we can improve Guys 6 weeks is not near enough time to really really align deficiencies to the mission It's only a starting point It will be a long-term sustainable effort But all of our deficiencies contribute to a system that is maintaining the status quo A deficiency heaps you at at drift If you remember we brought up drift in the last board meeting Regression drift If you are are not proactively looking for your deficiencies and acting on them you will be off You will drift You will regress in your systems You will maybe not even maintain the status quo You will fall below it And next week when we get in front of you you again you will see the preliminary scores of the
009end of course exams and third through 8th grade and you will see see just how we have drifted So tonight I'm going to focus on deficiencies There are three types of deficiencies I want you to pay attention to and I'm going to share with you Number one are missionritical deficiencies two systemic deficiencies and three structural deficiencies All of these matter a a lot So let's start with the first one Mission critical These are deficiencies that undermine the ability to build systems where exceptional teaching is the the norm Does this look familiar to you This is the mission statement Exceptional teaching is is the norm Leadership is accountable And measurable growth happens in the classroom every day It is things that misalign us to this this exact goal We can't have students that are known supported
010challenged and prepared if we don't have accountable leadership measurable growth those are necessary Mission critical deficiencies actively destabilize a district's ability to function on mission So I want to give you a few of them These can be seen in any district by the way These are not nuanced to Bowmont but a lot of these are happening in Bowmont So the first one is campus campuses campuses operating amidst mixed messages That I mean this when you have vendors on the field when you have got purchase services happening where someone else is coming to train your people Even I told central office I don't even want you in the classrooms until until I train you the right way You are a vendor on the field in my eyes until you've got under my training and I can
011approve that you know what what the message In fact many of you have been on more school visits with me than the people people in central office So you know more about the mission than even some of the people that work here I would trust you right now more more than I would trust some of the people to send my message into the school system Campuses right now are operating on mixed messages because because of vendors Technology practices that prevent students from accessing high-quality instruction We made a decision at the last board meeting that impacts this one Why Because it at Paul Brown Learning Center or Rer Center they are are 100% focused on digital technology as the classroom teacher That is not accessing a high quality instruction Transportation systems systems causing late arrivals historical
012practices This is just how we do it that compla that create a compliance risk whether it's in special special populations or even in bus routes whatever we're doing That's just the the way we do it instead of following actual policy law that is not going to function well Discipline systems where behaviors preventing preventing teaching and learning master schedules that don't align to instructional priorities An example is is students showing up to school at 7:45 and not starting instruction until 8:30 That is a deficiency in in learning Failure to provide required and highly effective special population services I told our special education lead this this week that I want her to create the highest quality special population services in the entire state of Texas where people would want to visit us not just for the model
013but because of how great and how effective our special populations are becoming and positions that do not directly support instruction and student outcomes Positions we'll talk about that in a minute Those are all missionritical deficiencies Those are all resources resources that have to be navigated in a new way And the more we ignore them the more that we drift away from mission So So we this administration will not be ignoring them The second one though is systemic def deficiencies These are reoccurring orational weaknesses caused by by inconsistent systems unclear expectations lack of of training fragmented processes They have processes We have processes but they don't have there's nothing in writing There's no no documented strategy for how to see what the long-term accountability is for it We're still looking for those those things and misaligned
014accountability or no accountability When you're in a systemic deficiency they require this requires more time It's redesign coaching operational alignment training that's happen over and over and over and over over and over So you train and then you watch it and then you coach it and then you train and then you watch it and you coach it and every time a teacher rises to the the occasion or a leader rises to the occasion you raise the bar again and then you raise the bar again So that's not something that you can just train one time When we train in July and August it's not going to be done It's barely the start and then it's going on going on going on going going on going So this is something that's going to take a little
015bit more time to retrain systems and to to create systems that are completely effective Here's anam here's some some examples of our systemic deficiencies Inconsistent instructional delivery across the district Remember this is not just just Bowmont This happens in many districts everywhere We're just courageous enough to call them out and address address them Lack of observation and feedback systems that actually actually grow teachers PLC is a learning community It's the planning time that teachers get every single day day during uh the school day They get an hour every day or we will give them an hour every day I don't know how much time they had this past year but a PLC is is supposed to be a time where you're planning for the next day's lesson Those when they become more meetings or teachers
016don't meet together they just just stay isolated or siloed and they don't actually solve problems together for tomorrow's lesson then you're not improving instruction Weak Weak campus systems for student and staff attendance Everybody knows we have a student attendance problem My guess is we also have a teacher attendance problem and I'm I'm going to get that data as well very soon Inconsistent hiring practice that that result in a v v variability of staff quality So we're right now been working on our hiring practices to ensure that we get the right right people And once we get the people in we're also going to be doing a lot of training to make sure that they rise to the the occasion where we need them to be Departments operating independently I know this to be true true
017in Bowmont I know it to be true in all every district I've been in that most departments operate in silos and we've created a system already where every every department when that I get briefed on something every department that has anything to do with the decision has to be in the room and that's on purpose so that everybody that's associated transportation I have to have the schools team the academics team the operations team in the room when we're talking about transportation because it all impacts student outcomes All of of that is necessary Communication structures causing confusion or delayed execution So we are going to do a better job at communication We're not that We're getting getting there day by day Lack of leadership development pipelines so that we don't have to stress out right now
018We're we're pretty um doing a a lot lot of creative thinking about how to get teachers in the seat by August 12th and trained and ready to go And right now we don't have pipelines that have been created in the district but that will change We're going to have pipelines and weak weak data collection processes so that we know the scoreboard and we can act on the scoreboard So those those are systemic and then the last is structural Now these are even harder to to actually break down because they are conditions embedded in the district's district's organizational design It's in staffing patterns financial structures facilities the culture of the district and some historical operating habits that are not not highest quality highly effective Luckily Cheryl Hernandez has has been kicking some butt with the financial
019structures So she's ready to tear down some old walls and build up some great things where where where it's supposed to be And she's going to be able to give you a great presentation in just a a second Structural deficiencies usually require require significant planning usually political navigation and organization st stabilization to correct it And it it's even more long-term I'm going to give you an example It It wasn't too difficult for this team of eight to for me to propose for you and you to agree on the down of the credit recovery center Paul Brown Uh what we did was close down a specific section of a program and moving the program program basically to these other two sites Right That wasn't too difficult But now when you start thinking about other things that
020okay well what do you use that building for How do you solve the problem of being men early childhood center when it's one of the worst facilities I've ever seen have no money to contribute to fix it How do you make sure that Pathways our alternative school is in a facility that doesn't feel like you are the worst kids in the district district and and we're going to put you in a facility that feels like that We are trying to contribute to growth not destabilize it But those kinds of decisions can't just happen in a quick board vote There's There's a lot of conversation that needs to happen where we can engage the community come up with ideas propose ideas that we can move forward in a direction direction that makes sense not just for
021today but for the future That is our goal So here's some examples of structural deficiencies Long-term budget imbalances caused by historical spending P patterns I'm going to give you an example of of ESSER I'm going to give you that example in just a few minutes But ESER funded positions are a huge huge problem Also things like South Park Park before we just aimed at South Park Peach MacArthur MacArthur was one building preK through 8 That building was supposed to have one principal principal for the whole preK through 8 but it's the lowest performing school in the district at a a 45 in state accountability And so what they did was throw more money at it Let's give them another another principal another more APS more staff Let's separate them But they're still on one org
022as a prek through 8 Still a a 45 So it didn't solve the problem Throwing money at problems doesn't solve them We'll talk more about that in a second Facilities Facilities deterioration It doesn't matter that we don't have a bond We still have to fix HVAC We still have roofs that need to be fixed We still have plumbing that happens all the time when it rains especially It really stands out how bad the plumbing is We still have electrical that that needs to be replaced and that all has to find a way to get done We cannot do it in one year This is a long-term plan plan has to be really come together as an entire force to say how are we going to solve these problems And when Cheryl tells tells you where
023our money comes from you'll see why that's so complicated Academic gaps that developed over years even decades The academic academic gaps we have right now uh I am listen I am not even worried at all You guys are going to see such growth in one year You're going to see gains like you've not seen seen in decades I promise you that No question What you won't see is grade level We are not going to reach grade level in a year We're We're not going to level in two years It's been decades where the academics has not been challenged to improve to to raise the bar if anything anything they've left the bar where it is or or lowered it And you can see it in the scores So this isn't me just being mean It's
024it's in the scores This is not a surprise to anyone It's been there for for years It's why we're here But the academic gaps are going to take many years to overcome Community mistrust because because of the academic failures It's not something that's going to be solved overnight Compensation systems that are not aligned to student outcomes we've already started started big changes to align that chronic enrollment decline You're going to see that tonight Historical over reliance on programming partnerships stipens grants vendors purchase services putting money into someone else's hand to save the district We're not going to do do that It's in our hands and we're going to do what we can to grow this district in the way it's supposed to be grown This team's going to do it No outside vendor is going
025to do do it Cultural normalization of low expectations and risk adverse to lar lar redesign Guys it didn't take me to do do this Any superintendent could do this with vision with passion and with a team moving you in the right right direction anyone can change their trajectory as a district But it does take a a board that is willing to take the risk with the superintendent And that's what most superintendents don't get to have I I feel very blessed that you're in the seat I'm thankful that wasn't even in my notes Overall NC is not just the goal goal alignment is So yes we want a balanced budget that's efficient that puts the money we're we're supposed to be aiming it at instructional instructional excellence but we actually want to be aligned as a
026district that our departments understand the the mission I preach it every Monday when I'm in cabinet training cabinet We have a cabinet meeting but we we do training We do leadership development together every Monday And every Monday I'm pushing this mindset that we are a team and we do this together No team team gets to be separated or siloed We're all one We do this together It is about us doing it together But been been rep prioritized to reflect the district mission rather than historical patterns This is what we've already started doing Resources will follow what matters matters most Instructional quality leadership capacity and student outcomes So here's the things I want you you to see There are changes that I've heard rumors about that people are really frustrated or concerned about And I want
027to give you some some background Here's where we come back and talk about the ESSER funds The ESSER funds happened because of COVID Every school in the United States got ESER funding Uh a lot of money A lot of money And it was to help overcome overcome academic strains during COVID and the years following CO Well that Esser funds ended ended 2023 Some district use and you can use your ESSR funding for whatever you wanted to use it for Some districts put it in in non-re repeatable financial piece I'll tell you what Dallas did Dallas built a sea center center that's going to last forever I mean pretty much forever there That's going to go on and on and on Kids are going to get the benefit of that CT Center actually brings in money
028because you get more coding for every single kid that goes and goes on a CTE pathway You actually get more money from the district from the state that way So it's going to bring in money long term But a lot of districts didn't do it well Houston was one of them that didn't do it well and Bowmont didn't do it great either They put money into into positions that you have all these extra people now that got paid with ESSR funding The ESSER funding is gone So all got moved into the general fund So now the general fund got shrank to cover all these extra positions like wellness coordinators Every wellness wellness coordinator is paid through er funds Now they're on the general fund now Everyone had an instructional coach but a lot of added
029instructional coaches were were brought in because of ESS funding So they brought in a bunch more instructional coaches I have a whole big thing about that that I won't talk about because because they're not very effective And behavior interventionists bringing in a person to solve behavior on your your campus instead of solving it as a community on on your campus It's It's everyone's job to solve behavior not a behavior interventionist job So those are positions that we've started removing so that we can align to student outcomes outcomes instruction Every dollar must place Every dollar must must earn its place by strengthening teaching learning and the conditions that allow both of those things things to thrive It's mandatory So when you look at what we've done to help our students be known support challenged and prepared
030We have changed staffing so that we have our extra staff impact instruction every every day Two of the people people that do this are the resident teacher and the student support coach So when we removed ISS teachers interventionists we We removed wellness coordinators It's to put in place adults that are going to be able to be in the classroom every single year whether a teacher has has a baby and is out for 12 weeks or just is sick or has an emergency and has to leave the classroom No reading and math class up through through 10th grade will ever have a substitute because these adults will solve that problem That's not and you'll never have a behavior interventionist that can do that or a wellness coordinator that can do that To solve the problem of
031instruction we have to have have staffing that makes sense for instruction And you also probably notice we've put out some feelers to help draw more people to to Bumont We're adding stipens for our hard to fill fill areas including a retention stipen for our prek for our K through five reading and math content content so that teachers that are staying in 3 through five reading and math can get the benefit of saying thank you for staying We've also raised principal salaries to a new base salary to show the the value We're going to make them work a lot harder trust me And we're going to pay them for that hard hard work It comes down to this and then I'm going to turn it over to Cheryl We have the job of of governance this
032team of eight right here And it requires us to ask to act courageously We have to to identify deficiencies and we have to act on them in a way that will sustain not just decisions for today but the decisions for the future that will sustain a healthy Bowmont And Cheryl is now going to come up and and take us through the money side side Thank you Superintendent Superintendent Massie board of managers Tonight is our budget and tax rate hearing and we are going to go over a number of things in in the first Oh can you hear me now Okay So the first thing is budget preparation and adoption And the district's budget budget begins every year July 1st and with a June 30th year in we're required to have a budget appeared by June
033the 19th but since we're here with our public hearing obviously we've met our deadline since it's ju June the 16th and and um we have posted it online on our district website for for the public to um look at anytime that they want to And then we did uh publish our notice within 10 days I I think it was actually uh 13 or 15 days prior to this meeting which we're required to do and then once the moves the budget which will be next Thursday at the June 25th meeting Um you will be adopting the budget and and then we will will post the approved or the adopted budget on our website as required Now we have to hold this public hearing for our budget and our tax rate We're going to talk about the
034tax rate but we're not actually going to ask ask the board to adopt the tax rate next uh June 25th because we cannot do it until we receive our values from the appraisal district and those don't come in till July 25th Okay And then of course there are times times when during the school year that we have to amend the budget and those are done during the the board meetings We present those to the board and it happens typically every month because we have to have board approval to change between functions and the function function is where the money is going Is it in the classroom or is it in the nurse's office Is it is it in school leadership So we're changing where we're we're spending that money We have to come to the
035board and ask for approval So this slide depicts depicts our funding from all different sources and and we um classify our sources as local state and federal And state and federal regulations require many of these funding sources to be accounted for separately separately to ensure that the funds are used only for their their intended purposes Governmental accounting is what this is called fund accounting So we have different funds It's like have set of books for for every set of dollars that we have to separate And that's why we have three different budgets for the board board to adopt And and as a result when we maintain these we we properly track all the the revenues and expenditures that are associated with that funding source And as you'll see the majority of our local local revenue
036is um property tax collections 57.86% of the funds that the district receives receives overall is considered local funding with the majority as property taxes And then the next next section is 27.98% That's our state revenue And we receive a lot of state revenue from um um TEA And then our federal funding accounts for 14% This is is a breakdown of our f federal grant awards and um we have to apply for these funds annually annually and they provide supplemental funding for student specific student populations and educational services Each grant grant is accounted for separately It has its own fund and the uh primary grants that we apply for are the IDAB formula formula and preschool Those are the um um individuals with disabilities education act part B and they provide funding to support special special
037education and related services for students with disabilities And then the next section is our ESSA or every succeeds succeeds act and those are title one We received title one title title two three and four Title one is the majority of it and that's to provide additional academic support for economically economically disadvantaged students And then title two supports teacher and principal principal recruitment retention and professional development Title three supports our English learners learners and then title four supports the student well-being academic enrichment and school safety safety initiatives Also receive additional uh federal programs Carl Perkins is is um a career and technical education grant and it supports those students that are on the career pathways And then then our Head Start program that's Bingman Head Start And that program is primarily prek And the Head Start
038Start supports 80% and the district has a 20% um required contribution match And of course whenever there's other grants we do apply for for them as they come available but these are just our recurring ones that we do annually Now we're going to talk about our um um enrollment and ADA We we showed this slide in May to the board and we're showing it again again because it it just tells the story Um you can see the decrease in in our student enrollment but the blue bars are a lot higher than that gray line that's below and that's our our ADA We get funded on that that line not the blue bar So whether those kids are in the classroom we still have the expenditures We still still have to pay the teachers We still
039put the lights on but that gray line is what we get um funded on But so if you look at at 2025 2026 our ADA was around 89.6% So if you're looking at at 175 day school calendar that means the average student was absent about 18 days during the year If they're they're not in the classroom they're not learning So both of them are important the enrollment and the ADA the attendance attendance basically because it's how we're funded but it also helps when the kids do come to school Um we did did show that 10 fewer students would be approximately $74,611 But if you look in the grand scheme of things when we're looking at at 554 fewer students for this next school year it's impacting us over $2 million and and that's significant significant
040declining enrollment because you have to make adjustments because we have no other way to have any other funding So we're we're looking at our historical taxable values and as you can can see that they've increased signific significantly and much of this growth has been driven by industrials expansion and construction projects throughout the prochemical and industrial sectors of our community And you know as a board member you may be asked you know how come my property values keep going up How come my taxes keep going up Well you can tell them we don't set your your values That's up to the Jefferson Central Appraisal District They are solely responsible for setting the values in in Jefferson County and and that's for the all the entities the city as well as other um um governmental entities The
041appraisal district sets them for all So fortunately it's not your responsibility and you can tell them that that you have no control over what the Jefferson Central Appraisals District does But overall they are projecting projecting an increase We don't have them yet They did give us that um some notification that we are going to see an increase but we will not know what our certified certified values are until July 25th But for presentation purposes we're showing the M taxable taxable value We do have a debt service taxable value We call it INS interest in syncing It's higher than this because because there's some that are taxed for INS purposes and not maintenance and operations But that tax rate is going to be set based off of of what that value is So a common misconception
042misconception is that increasing property values automatically result in more revenue for the district Under Texas school finance formulas that's generally not the case If student enrollment and attendance remain same they just just don't change from year to year An increase in local property tax collections is typically offset by a decrease in state funding So the way that the funding formula works is the only way you get any additional revenue is if you get more students or or you can get your students to come to school more so we don't have control over that either So So let's look at the tax rate So it look this is um a projection We went ahead and posted posted what our projected tax rate for 2026 27 at the same rate We don't know what our tax tax
043rate will be until we get our certified values So instead of um posting it and then then having to repost it because um it does require a posting if you don't adopt a rate that's that or lower So we chose to put the projected because we have to adopt our budget so early and it's required to have have that in the notice So that's why why you're seeing it And the board will adopt two different tax rates a maintenance and operation tax rate and an INS tax rate And And the INS tax rate is for debt service It can only be used for debt service But once they're received the values from the appraisal district we will will submit those to the state and then the state will calculate our maximum compress rate We don't
044even get to do that The state does it for for us And then we will add our enrichment pennies to that amount and ask the board to approve that rate And then the INS rate will be be calculated Um typically it's calculated once we submit our values and everything to the tax office they will will um calculate that and send it to us But that will not be done until later on So we don't have to worry about that for the June June board meeting So the remaining tax capacity we actually um in 2024 the the voters of Bowmont ISD approved the voter approval tax rate election election and we always called it the Vader because it's easier than saying voter approval tax rate election and it allowed us to access additional enrichment pennies under
045under the state schools finance system And prior to the election we had only access to five golden pennies By law you cannot raise raise your tax rate as a school district unless your voters tell you that it's okay and they all it just is a majority for them to approve it So when we were we were dealing with just uh the compressed rate plus the five golden pennies Once we pass the the Vader then we got three additional pennies that were not subject to recapture That's why they call them golden You get the highest yield from from them And then there's copper pennies We access six of the nine available pennies and then that did did get subject to recapture because the district will have to pay recapture to the state and then um they
046have a lower yield because of the recapture So that's what it looks like We have 14 14 pennies that we will add to the maximum compress rate that the state calculates for us And as a a reminder the district is required to adopt three budgets So we'll be bringing this to the board the general fund the debt service fund and the ser nutrition nutrition services fund At the June 25th meeting the board will be asked to approve the budget ordinance and resolution and that's that's going to formally adopt all three budgets under a single agenda item So this is the general fund It this is the main operating fund of the district The majority of all of our expenditures and revenue sources run through the general general fund Now we've adjusted our revenues to to
047reflect the declining enrollment which means we're going to have some uh renews And um um overall we decreased uh $1.2 million We had some things increase and and then the of course the decline decline enrollment is a decrease But we managed to um maintain our balanced budget budget and um we reduce spending in in several operational areas and then we aligned our resources with the projected student enrollment as well as the instructional model model and then we were able to present this ballot budget tonight This is a slide that depicts depicts how we plan to spend the 187.6 proposed proposed budget So the budget does include a step increase for teachers and eligible staff additional additional work custodial work days and custodial pay increases for recruitment and retention and an increase in the district's health
048insurance distribution to $500 per employee per month And as you can see the majority of our expenditures are spent in payroll Roughly 80% 80% and payroll is basically we're we're in the kid business and we have to put people in front of our students So that's why um 80% is spent in payroll Um the second category that's the next next highest is professional service Um the largest part of this this is our utility cost We pay um to keep the lights on and our water bills bills and that's roughly um almost half of what this or it was it was close to $6 million for our facilities Then we also have legal services audit services appraisal district fees Uh uh we actually pay the appraisal district um this the entities share in the cost of
049the appraisal districts cost to operate and our share is around $1.5 million for um they base it off of the values that every entity has and they create a formula that you know if you have a lot of value you're going to pay a lot of their costs and of course they share their budget with us so that we can know how much it's going to be but we also have copier leases included in that as well as some facility maintenance contracts our our yard services services and stuff are in there And then our next uh category is supplies and materials These are in classroom materials textbooks technology supplies maintenance materials and then operating costs are $8 million The majority of that $8 $8 million believe it or not is our property insurance for the
050district which is about uh it was 8 million last year and I think uh we brought a proposal to the the board and it was around 6 million somewhere around there So that's the majority of of that And then we have the smaller uh capital outlay debt service This is going to be the last time the the the board will approve a debt service expenditure in the general fund because we will be have paid off that bus lease that was done several years ago So we're looking looking forward to not having that part of our budget because then we can take that million and put it someplace else And then our transfers out are to the um capital capital projects fund to to fund our HVAC and roof repairs that we anticipate having and hopefully
051we'll have enough funds to cover everything that we need The next and that the board will be uh uh adopting is our debt service fund This fund accounts for property taxes collected through the interest and and sinking tax rate and they're legally restricted We can't use those those taxes for anything other than paying the bonded debt Um each year the district calculates the amount needed for for its debt obligations and we set that in INS rate accordingly Most most likely we'll be amending this budget once we get our certified values because we're just projecting what these numbers are and we also want to take the opportunity to pay off debt as we have in the past And just to give you an idea this is our annual debt requirements and our our outstanding debt As
052of today we owe just a little little over53 million in outstanding bond principal That's just the principal Um Um to put that into perspective when I joined the district in 2015 Bowmont ISC had approximately approximately $379 million in outstanding principal debt along with an additional $266 million in future interest obligations Our annual debt payments when I was hired were were around $30 million You can see our annual debt payments are starting at 17 and they go up to 20 20 and then at the last they'll be under five million But over the last last 11 years the district has actively managed its debt portfolio through bond refundings and the fee strategies And as a result we've reduced our outstanding bond principle by more than 226 million while also generating significant interest savings for for our
053taxpayers so we're not having to levy that that higher tax rate to pay down that debt And so it's reduced that long-term debt debt burden plus um our future debt costs and it's helped to ensure that our taxpayer dollars are are efficiently used as much as possible Nutrition services fund accounts for the district's operation of our cafeterias cafeterias at all of our campuses Over the past several years the district has participated in the community eligibility program That's we call it C and under it's a USDA program and it allows allows schools with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students to provide free free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students without requiring household meal applications So all of our students have been been eating free breakfast and free lunch every day for the past several years
054And And in this fund um it accounts for all of the child nutrition workers that um work on the campuses as well as the administration of the nutrition nutrition services department And it included in here is a an hour increase for all of our hourly workers to help ensure the meal meal times for the new instructional model as well as a dollar increase for every employee on the campus Um you'll see that on this fund fund there is a budgeted deficit and it's intentional It it does not indicate a financial concern concern but due to the strong program performance and additional federal reimbursements through the C C the fund balance grew to a level that is not allowed and it under federal guidelines we have to spend that down So the district's district's required to
055utilize a portion of these accumulated reserves on allowable child nutrition program expenditure And And so um we um have been doing some equipment upgrades because the revenues exceeded exceeded the expenditures So the money's sitting in the fund and now we're going to be spending it by uh budgeting a a deficit And we've been able able to replace some walk-in coolers some walk-in freezers the um serving lines will improve improve efficiency and reduce weight times for our students so that they can get to eaten their meals before without standing in line hopefully for a long time But um in addition to these um improvements improvements that we're spend in the funds we're also going to be asking the board in the future future to approve some generators so that we can put them on our walk-in
056freezer so that if we do have a power outage We don't have to worry about our food going bad because if we have a food loss typically with our deductible it's not not covered And then this is a breakdown of the expenditures by the fund And you'll see it's a little bit different than the general general fund because the majority of the expenditures are not spent in payroll They're spent on food food purchases needed to operate the meal program And then payroll is the second largest category followed by capital capital improvements for that spendown plan And that that concludes my presentation But I would like to recognize our team Anybody who worked on the budget would you please stand and be be recognized because especially my finance team right there there Thank y'all for recognizing
057them They are a great team I could not not do this without them And so now we're going to open it up for questions. Any questions Yeah I have a question It's a reoccurring theme that that the loss of money for students not being at school Your thoughts on that to correct correct that for students to come to school That's the easy answer. Yeah. No I mean obviously we've got to work together It's it's more than just a school district asking students to come Parents have to come Transportation has to be on on time Everybody's got to be a part of the solution We're going to talk more about what some strategies would look like in a future meeting but But we are working on getting attendance better. Thank you Cuz that's a lot of
058money That's just and educational opportunities opportunities that's lost And we we have to fix that. We have to Mr. The The the enrollment numbers here that accounts for truency for moving out of the district for going to charter schools It's It's kind of the full picture in terms of just anyone leaving the this district We're not not showing up. Yes those are our numbers for the school year um if you include all the the we we get a report that shows where the district uh the students have gone to charter schools or private schools and and it's 20 over 20 something thousand students So these are the ones that are actually going to be attending that we're projecting that that they're going to attend We're hoping that they that more come back. Absolutely Thank Thank
059you Any other questions? I have a quick one. So on the um on the recapture part part on the tax rate when we um do the pennies and the Golden pennies. Yes. Can you explain that to me in a little bit more detail I know that's probably I don't want to take too time. So you want to know about the recapture part? Yes And how that how you get your how you use your pennies and your all of that What? So um let me let me see if I can put this so you you can understand it because I understand it like because it's no big deal for for me But in in the way that school finance works for school districts you have students come to school and that's what we we call average
060daily attendance On top of those average daily daily attendance you get special weights for like your your student students with disabilities or you have some atrisisk kids and you receive additional funding for them and and all of these FTEEs are put together to create something called weighted average daily daily attendance and then they look at our property wealth Okay And they divide it into they took wealth divided by by the water and they come up with a wealth per student and there's a certain level that if you're over it then you're going to collect too much money from your taxes that you don't get to keep because the state only lets you keep the amount on the average for all of the school districts So we're considered property property wealthy and as we decline in
061our student enrollment it causes our water water decrease But my property values I showed you they're just keeping on going So we could be paying more recapture if I I had these kids come back and come to school That would increase my water where I wouldn't have to pay as much much recapture I hope I hope I did Okay. Is Is that that the Robin Hood thing? Yes the Robin Hood And now they call it something else Um chapter 49 instead of chapter 41 And And it's all they want to make sure that they're funding school districts all the same Even though we're not all the same but they try to come up with these ways to help you know school districts like ours that have economically disadvantaged disadvantaged children they they give you extra
062money And for our our CTE we get extra money for that too So the more of those FTEEs that get into our WA that helps us. Quick question on the Can I ask a a question Uh on the attendance is there an ideal number percentage-wise of like how many students that that should be coming to school 100% But right now we're operating at about 89% Is there a a state number that's usually like hey when you're about 90% 91% this is where most people are at And I think the state state average is closer to like 93 or 94 something 94 There's some school school districts um districts that I've been a part of that they're like in elementary they're at 98% So kids love to come to school you know, and it's not what
063what maybe I read or I hear in the community oftent times is well this doesn't match the the socioeconomical background of like Bowmont or Houston or Dallas but we would maybe you could inform us that that's not the case Like there are are people in similar socio backgrounds or you know financial statuses similar makeups that have higher than 89% attendance attendance rate Is that right? Yes Okay there are But since co I think that you saw a bigger decline because prior to that we were at 92 93 for the district and now it's it's just gone It it just hasn't become as important maybe or showing up to school. Yes. Okay Any additional questions All right Thank you all so much for the presentation It was great Thank you you Okay Now we will hear
064public comment regarding the proposed 2026 2026 2020 budget and proposed tax rate Uh individuals who have completed the required signin process by the the deadline will be recognized in the order received Um speakers are requested to state their name before beginning the the remarks Comments should be directed to the board as a whole and should address the subject of this public hearing Ms Smith will you please call the first speaker? Sabrina Winger Winger Winger Hello Sabrina Winger 2345 IH10 7770 Good evening President Wheeler Superintendent Massie and to our appointed board board of managers Last month many stakeholders stood before you to express their concerns about the loss of immense amount of talented talented educators that we would experience In In response to this hibbrin BISD has offered a remedy of stipens We plan to attract
065new talent with an extra $15,000 as long as as they accept positions in critical areas On the other hand those who already have jobs with BISD in those those same critical areas will only receive an extra $7,500 This is half of of what a new employee would receive These employees are the ones who stayed when many around them were packing up their things to leave leave to go to a new district The employees who decided to stick it out no matter no matter how scary the future looked Then there are the new and old employees who are not in these critical areas They will not receive receive anything Not to mention our pair of professionals who just went through a complete overhaul And let's not forget our our administrative staff custodians maintenance workers cafeteria workers
066bus drivers nurses and many many more We understand the crucial need and importance of attracting new talent to BISD But wouldn't it be more more beneficial to reward the loyal employees more than the new ones I myself stand before you as one of the the MPs who will not receive any type of stipen because of the area I teach in is not a critical area In conclusion I'm asking asking that you would consider all these things when approving the budget for the 26 26 27th school year Thank you. Thank you. All individuals who signed up to speak have now been recognized. Okay Thanks Uh thanks to everyone who provided provided comment Is there anyone else who wishes to speak tonight Okay Hearing none Public Public comments are now and the public hearing is now closed
067Uh there's no further business before the board The public hearing is adjourned and the time is is 6:03 Thank you'all you'all