Budget Workshop & BOD Meeting 05/12/25

001Mr. Peter Perez, welcome to the board. This time we're moving on to B. We're going to administer the oath of office to newly elected trustees. Who wants to go first? So, Mr. Jesse says, if you just repeat after me, I do solemnly swear. I do swear that I have not directly or indirectly paid. That I have not indirect directly or indirectly paid. Offer a promise to pay. Offer promise to pay. Contributed or promised to contribute. Contribute. Contribute or promise or contribute any money or thing of value. any money or thing of value. Or promise any public office or employment. Promise any public office or employment. For the giving or withholding of a vote. For the giving or withholding of a vote. At the election at which I was elected. Or as a reward to secure

002my appointment. to secure my appointment or confirmation. Confirmation. Whichever the case may be, so help me God. Whichever case may be, so help me. And then you're going to your office. That was your statement. So I'll put it like this. You can read. I just I'm Jesse Tros Jr. Just follow me. Swear. I just swear that I faithfully execute the duties of the office of school board trustee. I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of board trustee of the state of Texas of the state of Texas. And will do the best of my ability to preserve I will do the best of my ability to preserve protect protect and defend the Constitution and laws defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of this state of the United States of this state.

003So help me God. So help me God. Sir. All right, Jessie. No. [Music] I Margaret Nina Pettis. I Margaret Pettis. Do solemnly swear affirm. Do Solomon's swear affirm. I have not directly or indirectly paid. I have not directly or indirectly paid. offered offered promised to pay promised to pay. contribute or promise to contribute any money or thing of value. any money or thing of value or promise any public office or promise any public office or employment or employment for the giving or withholding for the giving or withholding of a vote at the election or of a vote at the election at which I was elected at which I was elected or as a reward to secure as a reward to secure my appointment or confirmation my appointment or confirmation whichever the case may be whichever

004the case may be so help me so help me I, Margaret Edwin of Edis. I, Margaret Edwina Edis, do solemnly swear and affirm do solemnly swear and affirm that I will faithfully execute the duties that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of school board trustee of the office of the school board of trustees of the state of Texas of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability preserve preserve protect protect and defend the constitution of laws and defend the constitution of the laws of the United States of the state of the United States of the state so help me God so help me Thank you. [Music] Yes. All righty. With our new members of the school board, we're going to

005call the meeting to order and establish a quarum. We do have a quorum established. If everyone will please rise for a moment of silence. Pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Here almost I'm Okay. You sure? But not right now. Okay. I'm going to take it out. Thank you. Thank you very much. No. Yeah. wide and that's it. Michael is still Yes. I'm [Music] hoping one of those for the budget workshop. Everything is public. So if it'll let her log in to internet, we you can pull it up off just the website. There's nothing different from from Wisconsin. Yes. So, so get started. Okay, everybody

006looks like they were able to lo in. So, we'll go ahead and move on. Item number three, budget workshop. So, we have our our first budget workshop um today um which I would say is probably about two weeks later than our typical time frame, but we brought a change to the board to do it on May the 12th because we knew that we would possibly have two new people on the board and we wanted them to get the same information. The budget workshop PowerPoint that is online on the website and also on board book is um the same one that was shared with you. Um for the most part it's going to be review. It's a lot of review this first part of how school budgets are created um how school budgets come to be.

007So Amanda is going to go through um those slides first. Um it is the one very first one that says but recognized budget workshop number one. Um and again we're going to go through the slides. Um everybody should have had some time to review it already. Um in general terms budgets and finances for school districts. There are several acronyms that are used throughout the uh presentation. So, we have it as part of the presentation, but we also gave you a paper. That way, as we're going through the presentation, you would be able to look at those terms that all impact school finance in some way, shape, or form. So, why do we even have a a preublic a free public school system? Well, it is mandated by the Constitution. There are three main principles when

008we're looking at a public school. We're looking for adequacy. Is there enough resources? How can we make sure that there is enough resources for students educational need? Equity, similar access to resources for all state students regardless of wealth per student and efficiency. Are we being productive with our resources and little waste? We also look at operating by principles. Okay, so who is this budget for? It's for the students. Who are these students? There's students per grade level. There's also money that has to look that we look at when it comes to socioeconomic status, special programs, what needs they have, meals if they require specialized transport transportation, how do we educate them, what facilities do we provide, what type of support services, what instructional programs do we use, and then how do we meet and operate

009efficiently and effectively. And that ends up being our budget um and our audit. We shared the audit results with you and that usually happens in September or so after the fact and our audit results have always been excellent for bracket ISD. So as we go on we go in get a little bit deeper okay and we go into the plan and the budget. So when we start looking at planning for our budget we do look at a needs assessment. So we look at instructional needs and those are based on the district and campus improvement plans. We have a district advisory committee that seats teachers, all staff members, pair of professionals and community members. We discuss professional development. We we discuss instructional needs. Then we also have facilities assessments. We have support services that we look

010at. What are our transportation needs, our maintenance needs, and then we look at what are future projects, things that we can't get done right now, but we know are coming up. Um, for example, maybe a technology project. We know that so many laptops were purchased five years ago. Those are no longer going to be what we need them to be. So, they need to be refurbished. They may need to be purchased new. So, we look at long-term planning. We also look at policy. What is our fund balance policy? Our protection of our funds, how we're going to designate those funds, and the cash flow before taxes are collected. We have a general oper operating budget. And so here is kind of where I'm going to hand it over to Amalia and she's going to go

011over some of the things that are set in place in order for us to have our general operating budget, some of the things that TEA requires, and then how that general operating budget is created. It's not just a number we pull from the sky, but it's actually a formula with required numbers that TEA has us put in. So, Amaya, you want to pick it up there? Yes. So, the general operating budget, as Miss Diaz introduced, begins with the big picture of what we need to go into as far as the budget. However, the general operating budget does not include any special revenue funds. So, I just wanted to uh clarify that. This is just the general maintenance and operation fund. So we begin creating this budget by uh accumulating variables that come together and one

012of those is we have to set tax rates of course and then we're also constrained by constitution requirements. We have a lot of local law of law, state law actually dictated to us by TEA and we've got some local policy we have to keep into consideration when we start uh piecing together the budget. So in the budget of course uh generally speaking and as a basic budget we have revenues and expenditures for a school district. These are for the most part very estimated, especially at this point in time because there are a lot of variables within the budget that vary within time based on when they're officially certified by other state agencies, the state controller, TEA, and also based on when we have final static um data such as final enrollment and final attendance um

013information at the end of the school year. Um so some of the things that the Texas Education Code requires us to do. It stipulates that the superintendent and the board will define some roles and responsibilities um for all players um to be uh to input with and that would be the budget calendar. So, we've got that um we looked at it before, but it will also come um for your review uh in a little bit. And our budget must be prepared by June 19th or earlier. The board president must call a public meeting for discussion and public participation and budget adoption and we will also review that with you in further detail. Another part of the law is that no funds can be expended other than those that are budgeted um and adopted by the

014board by function and the board may amend that. We will uh discuss that also. The budget must be prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles. These rules are adopted by the state board of public education and some other local policies. So, one of the things that is a big requirement and it probably looks backwards, but it's the way school districts works is that our budget must first be adopted before the tax rate is set. Um, another thing is that a budget must be adopted before our budget must be adopted before June 30th or earlier. Amendments must be recorded in the board meetings throughout the school year if there are any amendments. And the only funds that the board must approve are the general fund, the food service fund, and if we have a debt service

015fund. Um, and only at the function level. And TEA requires us to file our budget with them by October. And we do that through PES, the public education information management system. We submit our da our data through the ping system over to tea and that's a necessary requirement because our data is then used by tea for identifying the type of students that we have identifying um what our values are and and then the funding that tea calculates comes off of that data. So that's key. Budget amendments are required before exceeding a function. So the board will um be approving those and those are necessary throughout the school year and we do keep a budget uh three years within our website along with our audit. Next screen basically your real simple formula for a budget. So

016as simplified as the formula looks you will um note that it's not as simple for a school district unfortunately. So let's talk about revenues first. Revenues of course are our financial resources. We have three types of revenues within the general fund. We have state, local, and federal. The local uh revenue is mostly made up of tax collections, a little bit of athletic revenue and fees here and there, but I would say 86 to 87% is tax collections. Then the next um funding source is significant funding source I might say is the state. The state will use a funding formula to calculate what they will contribute to bracketize these budget by um using enrollment attendance several pieces of information and then they generate what they will pay towards our budget. The federal portion is very minimal

017because the there is very very little federal revenue within the general fund because those the federal revenue is usually designated and kept in different special revenue um budgets. But federal fund um and general revenue might be things like Medicaid and impact aid and things of that nature. Just very minimal amounts. So now we'll talk just local revenue. Local revenue as discussed is basically tax revenue from the community. Um the tax the taxable property values are certified to us. We come up with a levy with the board approving a tax rate and we get our tax bills. Everybody gets one of those in October. So basically that is our adorum taxation. The tax rates that are then applied to those values are made up of different things in laws you might say. So the state in

018the past three or four years maybe has asked the school districts to compress their tax rates. Basically, they have dictated the rate ceiling for school districts because they're trying to reduce the local property tax burden from shift it rather from the local taxpayers over to the state because the state has had a pretty nice fund balance in the last few years. So, they're trying to change that and give the local taxpayers a break. However, um they will pay for local effort above what the rate they're telling us to set is. We're going to dive deeper into the rates also. So, the local tax rate is calculated by whoever the board designates. In the past, the board has designated the director of business and finance to calculate that rate. There is a pretty much a booklet

019um that that the state controller puts out calculating tax rates for all taxing entities and we use those forms to come up with a voter approved tax rate uh the interest and syncing a bunch of rates that are then required to be presented to um the community. So those rates are also part of our budget that is out on the website. They're also calculated and and included there. So, if we talk a little bit about how we came out up with our tax levy, the levy is made up of values and rates. So, now we're going to drill into values. The values are certified to the school district by the chief appraiser by July the 25th. And in those values, he includes all property, land, lots, homes, commercial, everything that is in King County. He

020certifies those to us by July the 25th. and he also certifies those values to the state controller but not until around October. And so we use those values of the 25th to begin our calculation for the budget. And again, um, once the state gets those values, the state then certifies to Texas Education Agency what those values are. Then the state education agency uses those values to tell us what kind of funding we're going to get. However, the catch here is that before that's done, the state controller puts puts the values through some tests and determines whether they're valid or invalid. And so to for the values to be valid and we're again talking about the values that the CAD sends to them, they have to be within a 5% margin of error that they have

021calculated. So if those totals are within that margin of error, we get what are called valid u values meaning what was submitted to them and those same values we used to calculate levy uh will be accepted. FDA gets those certified. If however the values are invalid, meaning they're outside of that 5% margin of error, the state will certify their value, meaning what they think the value should have been for King County. And and when we get those values, which we have gotten those uh prior to 23, we had over four years, that would cause a gap in our budgets because the state will certify a value that was very different than the value we had used in July to calculate our actual budget for the next school year. And that would that doesn't catch up

022because the timing until a year later and so we had to fund it as going through that. So um the timing issues related to the property value do cause quite a bit of an impact for our budget because in April the CAD certifies preliminary values for the current year which they have already done for us this year and that's where we also start building budget for workshops and the proposed budget. Then in July, the CAD certifies the final values. But if you'll notice, that's after our school year starts because our school year starts on July one. So in October, we realign the budget because by then we have certified values. We also have an approved tax rate. So we come back to you in October and kind of redo the whole budget um within parameters

023because we do estimate um based on kind of how we feel things are going to end up but in a legislative year that's another talk that's different because there's laws out there that may hit us. So another reason why um we or another thing I guess that the July values effect is that MCR which is the compressed rate TA will not give us a compressed rate until August the 5th. Again we already adopted a budget because they need the July values to get that rate um passed or approved for us. So, a few years back, um, some of you may recall we talked about moving possibly to like a September budget adoption because if you adopt a budget in September, some of these things have already been finalized. So, we're not it's always going to

024be a little bit of a guessing game, but school districts who have their budget adoption in September have a little bit less of a guessing game because some of these things come out in July. What happens is when a school district decides to do that rather than planning for a 12 month budget, now we're going to have to plan for a 15month budget because our budget typically ends June 30th, but we would be going all the way through September. So, the last few years, we haven't really been in a place where we would want to budget for those extra 3 months because we were already looking at a deficit just going to the 12 months. So when Amalia is working on all of the budget formulas, you know, she really does a very good job

025working with not just TEA, but we also work with MOC and other organizations that have formulas and they do the checks and balances to try to make sure that our preliminary numbers are as close as possible so that way we don't have huge budget amendments. Um, but again, this is a year where it's not really be up to us. It's going to be up to what happens with the legislative session come June. So, right now, we're we're we're basically going off if no laws pass, if no laws pass, these are the formulas, so this is what we have to use. And we want to do that because two years ago, we were in a very similar situation where they were saying these laws were going to pass and these formulas were going to change and

026then they went into several special legislative sessions and nothing changed. So, we like to air on the side of caution and say, let's say nothing changes, what are the current formulas? What are the current laws? And go based on that. Real quick, and the great the great hope is that the laws are are in favor to help our budget. Correct. Not to uh keep it as is or lose money. Correct. So right now the current uh laws that are in the current bills that are out there would be helpful. So what we're doing right now is we're passing we're going to we're going to move forward trying to get a budget adopted with the current law and that we're playing worst case scenario. So this is if nothing changes this is what we're going to

027be at. Okay. But if things do change, if things do pass, it's only going to get better. There's not necessarily anything out there that could take us backwards. So this would we're going with this is this is what the law is right now. This is what we know right now. It could get better, but it shouldn't necessarily get worse. So once again, we're still talking about just values. We talked about how do certified, but in October, the appraisal district will send them over to the um controller, but between July and October, we might also already have some changes because there could have been properties in ARB, there could have been people finding late homesteads. So already there we see differences between the July and October. Um then uh in January the controller so once again

028we've already put their budget. We're all the way in January and it takes them until January to tell us whether we're valid or invalid. And we're hoping always we're valid because then we don't have to make budget changes or amendments. But in the years that we have been invalid, um, it's been tight because there's been a funding gap and we've had to file an appeal and we had to do an audit and we've had to play that game with them about proving to them that our values are actually different. Um, then in August we get the final results from the prior year. So already we're in we're we've passed the current year, we're already in another year by the time the control board and TEA finally settled their numbers. So again, we do our best

029by estimating as best that we can to not affect a couple of years budgets really. So now we'll go into state revenue. So the state um has two types of tiers within the school foundation program. And we'll talk about tier one first. But before we do that, we I think the important thing to remember is that there's a difference between um what we generate and what we're entitled to. So our entitlement is calculated based on different student and district characteristics. How many students do we have enrolled? Um where do they live? Because that determines state funding. Are they GT? Do they have are they in career tech? Are they bilingual? Um what are values? What are what are our tax rates? So all of those things are captured by TEA by the October data, which

030by the way, we estimated it way back in around this time. And so then TEA says, well, we think this is your entitlement. This is your bucket. This is what you have to fill to educate those kids equitably um within your school district. And so then they calculate what we're going to generate based on our tax uh base and uh our tax rate and our property values. And so they say, "Okay, well, this is the bucket you're filling. Oh, you have enough to fill what we you have to uh what you're entitled with, but if you have extra, we're going to have to take it back from you and educate other kiddos." That's called recapture. So recapture has been something the district has been in for a while now because it is created by an

031excess of property values, not necessarily wealth created by individuals. It's property values that creates uh excess. So if we talk about the tier one allotment, it's calculated by the basic allotment which is 6,160 per regular student in average daily attendance. We haven't had an increase in that in since 2019. So, we're hoping we might get an increase this year. That's definitely going to help us. So, aside from the basic allotment, um that allotment also calculates different weights based on the type of student that might be funded. Career tech, special ed, um they get a little more than that and then that's kind of all added up in addition to small midsize a lotment given to the district. So complicated stuff, but because of the weight, that's the starting point. The 616. Governor, can I interrupt

032you real quick? Yes. Just for clarification, we've been stuck at 6160 since 2019. Yes. Correct. And the laws right now are we're anticipating everything they have. I think it's if a lot of other health jobs, that's going to go up. Yes. And so the basic aotment has been the same since 2019. Um, right now I believe that the new bill will fit it at 6,700 give or give or take. I don't know exactly because there's been so many changes in one way. Yes. But it's not a big it's still not a huge difference. So when you think so I I like to think of it as um they're giving us $100 for every year that they haven't that they hadn't done anything, you know. So, we're looking at maybe a $600 um increase. You know,

033anywhere between $800 increase. And that's been the controversy is the vouchers versus the standard allotment. So, probably you've heard a lot of that conversation. So, a voucher is going to be worth $10,000 versus a public school standard allotment is only worth $6,100. That's the that's the comparison and that's probably what you hear out in in the news. And we've been losing money because inflation and all the other economic issues we we've endured the last six years. Correct. It hasn't kept up with inflation. Everything else, right? Well, some things have kept up. This has not which is currently affecting could affect our budget if it doesn't go up. It's going to Yes. If it doesn't go up, it's prior to 2019, what was the average increase per It was very It was also very It was

034in the top 00 Jess maybe 587 I can't remember but it wasn't very much they don't usually increase that much they they don't normally it's not normal for them to increase it annually so that was that has not been a practicing norm so it hasn't been a practicing norm but it stopped in 2019 due to co so if co would not have happened chances are that there may not have ended such a significant well during the last legislative session honestly just got political because of the vouchers and so one bill was hosting um holding the other one hostage and so it didn't pass and we're starting to see a little bit of that again. So what I've been reading is House Bill Two is it passed in April but now with vouchers in the picture

035were made pass they're going to be holding each other up. So that's supposed to include state money for teacher pay liability and goodies but you know there's a lot of here and there. Okay. So um along with the the basic a lotment we have to talk about the maximum price rate. So there was a time in in the past when the local entities basically calculated their own tax rate based on their values and their needs. But uh I guess maybe around 2019 2021 around those years the state started compressing the rate meaning we we state want to tell you districts what rate to set and so we have a max rate. The max rate last year was 6169. Now that's the rate that the state calculates for us based on our certified values. You'll remember

036that I mentioned that in July we send those rates they calculate it and they give it to us in August. So last year's rate 24 was 6169. to that rate, we can then access additional funding from the state out of tier 2 if we locally increase that um ceiling and floor from the state by up to 17 cents. So, I think it's in the next screen. that additional funding past tier 1 is called enrichment funding because it makes us it gives us a little more on the local but the state compensates for the effort that's done locally. So again, tier 2 continues to focus on equity and the state will guarantee an amount for each penny of effort that the local community um provides to the to the equation up to 17 cents. Now the

037um guaranteed amount for Wada is the the amount that they say they will guarantee us that we're going to make. So if we begin with tier 2, there are As I mentioned, 17 pennies that we can go out as a community and vote on with the stipulation that the first five pennies do not require voter voter approval. the first five pennies can be voted approval and so border approval and we've accessed those five pennies in the last few years. So I will side note to that is I feel that it is important that we access those five pennies because if we don't um tea in in a certain way kind of penalizes us because we could have gotten some money from them and then if we don't at least adopt the NCR well that's for

038sure a penalty because 8 and then take away uh any collection that we would have had up to the 61. So after the five pennies, remember we have 17. The other 12 pennies require voter approval. However, there's also what I like to call I guess the sweet spot because if we adopt too many pennies from the local community, we're basically going to return it all back to the state. So we've kind of been there in the past. Um we could probably more more pennies um with an election, but will definitely take us into more recapture with more of those pennies because of the value of our properties. So in the next screen you see excess local revenue levels for each tier. So remember tier one is always going to be the basic unlock for the

039regular students and then weighted for the special program students. Then tier two has two levels. That first level is those golden pennies and they're golden because there there's no recapture. We we maximize out on those. Then the next nine pennies um 80% of the the value starts dropping. TEA only gives us 80% of the all and we start paying recapture. So we have to be careful of what we we u adopt as a tax rate you might say because of the way it's ever. So again it is kind of like a balancing act. as our local share increases, definitely TEA is going to decrease because they're basically saying you're covering your own education and we don't need to give you money. Um, and um, another reason why we are kind of in this situation because

040we've had market value rise, we've also added quite a bit of new property to our tax since 2019. Um, so let's talk about recapture. Recapture is as I said mentioned earlier it's revenue in excess of our ent what we are entitled to. So the entitlement is calculated by the formula and the NTA and then anything that we are able to come up with locally. So as we continue to decrease or our role, more properties might come in, we add more businesses, we increase utilities, whatever those reasons might be, the chief appraiser captures those values, and as that value increases, we we become as a school district more property rich. So more of the money then will go back to um TVA. So uh let's see excess revenue before 2019 wealth was measured in water now

041it's measured in excess of entitlement same explanation we just discussed a little earlier and we talked about how markets rise so the tax break does actually affect it to some extent because remember the sweet spot and if you collect too much more will have to get back to the state on top of adding more value to to um so a mcon conception is that recapture reduces what we provide to our kiddos. Well, remember we said that we have to be constitutionally correct with equitable and and uh funding through for all kids throughout the state. So, recapture doesn't reduce according to TA's entitlement formula the amount that each one of our kiddos gets. It's very different because uh entitlement is one thing and then what we're collecting is another or what we are um What our

042revenue is is another. So they will always make sure kiddos are covered for the entitlement and then we give back anything over that. They will never take out the entitlement to take back to themselves. It appears that way for us. Unfortunately, we cannot use recapture for debt or for capital projects or anything of that nature. And that's where I guess um there might be a little bit of unfairness if you look at it that way. Um so by the 15th of July TEA identifies us as recaptured. Why? Because by then they already have a lot of the data that they need for the prior year. Uh however though we selfidentify ourselves um around this time because we're prognosticating, predicting kind of calculating where we're going to be. And so we we we do a lot

043of data crunching and analysis to see kind of where we see ourselves way over in July of next year and we selfidentify and included in the budget because we don't want to be caught with TA calling us recapture and then it's remember they're a year behind so we have to be it's kind of crazy but we have to be ahead of them but they're year behind because of the data always being so far behind. Are we okay we're done? No. No, and we'll get into that. And and I think one of the important things to think about is that in the past um we've been in recapture where we've been allowed to net. Okay, which basically means the state gave us money and we just hold it and we give it back. Okay, so we

044just we we save it. We save it because we know we shouldn't spend it because they're going to ask for it back. So So we always say let's put that money in the budget till when they ask for it back, we give it back. But where we where bracket ISD has always teetered is that what happens when we don't have enough money from the state to pay what they're saying we need to give them back. Okay. And that's when there's certain elections that have to be called. You may remember us having some of these conversations in the past. TEA can come in and redraw boundary lines. Okay. So like taxes that are collected from certain areas of Kenny County would now go to U Valley would now go to Delw not the kids because there

045was a big misconception that kids were going to be sent over there. Not kids but the taxes collected from bracket IC district property would would go to different the boundaries would be redrawn if we have an excess in entitlement. Okay. Sorry. Um, so one of the the ways to pay back is by netting. One is by voter election and the other is the state will just take care of it. They'll redraw your own boundaries. And to what Mrs. Diaz was saying that in the past we've been able to to take, remember we mentioned earlier that the state put some money in the pot. Well, that money we were able to say, well, we'll use this to pay you back for recapture our excess. And that has worked out because there's been compression from the state.

046So what they give us has been kind of equaling it. But if we don't see compression this year, we're going to see. But if we see the increase every year, we're like right barely making it by a few dollars with what they give us and what we have to give back. So if if this year the laws don't change, we don't have enough we don't have enough coming from the state to pay them back. So we are praying that uh the law changes so that these formulas will change. But again all of this and Miss will explain all of that as we go through the workshop. Um it is looking like capture more than what we're getting from the state. But this is all when we get into the general education piece you will see

047more specifics and the actual numbers and we just need to keep in mind it's current law and hopefully there will be new law that will change is the funing. We're pulling the funding down. Are we putting it in a restricted bucket? Yes. Knowing that Okay. I'll show you where it is. They give us $5 and we owe them five. So, it's we and sometimes they overpay us because that's another thing. They they pay us based on some numbers that we reported two years ago. And because we know they're going to overpay us, we take it. We put it in the bank. We make interest off of it. And they don't want it back. They ask us for it before March 15. We give it till the March 13th. but we're making interest on them. So,

048we're holding it and they're okay with it. They understand it's a problem but because of the way they're paying this out. Um, so yeah, the next screen we just show you a little bit of historical data. If you can see the blue bar, see how the blue bar has changed over time. It's switched from prior to uh 2018 2019 the state um the state was about there you know with with local and as we added value to our role and as as we grew as a as a county it has flipped. So the blue bar in 2024 in 2023 24 is now a lot more than the orange bar which is what the state is providing and we hope that that will change um coming forward if the formulas change that will definitely change. So

049we already kind of talked about how we reduce excess local um revenue. We talked about consolidation detachment those kinds of things. Um the next uh slide is basically just a little um quote that the Texas Association of School Officials has put together um and kind of summarizing what we just talked about because there are challenges to how we fund school districts. It has a lot to do with adapting to the moving pieces throughout the whole year and the different variables and so forth. Um so we do our best to to pay. So, if we go into federal revenues, um probably the biggest source of federal revenues that US board approved are the National School Lunch Program. And um this year we're still under the uh C program, where is all of our children receive free

050breakfast and lunch. However, the general fund still subsidizes that program by almost 140,000 because it doesn't operate on itself. And that's not anything new. We always the the general fund has always subsidized it. But what is new is that our children have all gotten free lunch based on this program and hopefully we'll continue that because it is a 4-year program. I'm hopeful that I can bring you something in the next board meeting to kind of show you where that one is. Has there been anything um in regard to you know because there's word about Medicaid cuts? Oh yes, that's my next mys right under there. SHs Medicaid reimbursements. Yes. Um, you're probably very familiar with what's going on with Medicaid. So, in a nutshell, we as a school district received funding from Texas through the

051Medicaid program for providing Medicaid eligible services to students who qualify. And back in um earlier this year, there was a huge promotion because the fed sued Texas about the way they were um funding the program and qualifying their kids. And so in the middle of the game, Texas hit the brakes and came down to all our school districts and said, "Never mind, you're doing it wrong this way. You now owe us all this money." And so there have been very many school districts in Texas in the millions that had done that. So we had budgeted conservatively and in the last budget amendment that I brought, we reduced it and we might have to reduce it a little more, but we're nowhere near the situation that some of these other school districts are at. But I

052also think a lot of it had to do with the way we were conservatively processing well qualifying qualifying kids. So what happened was a lot of districts were overqualifying kids. So they were overqualifying kids and generating funds um where they really shouldn't have qualified for funds. So based on new criteria that child we should not have been built for that child. We actually were doing a very good job and the identifying what we were billing and who we were billing for. So, we didn't end up having to pay back. We just got a little bit less than what we than what we normally get. So we we still we actually we still came up above and not needing to give anything back because we weren't building for things that were unbillable which is where most

053of the districts ended up when they did the reviews of what they were building on those kids. We don't do that with Medicaid. No. And there is a bill out there that Texas is going to bail out some of the school districts if they do pass. They just don't know how they're going to distribute it because now there's a lot of talk about, well, that's unfair. We did our right and you didn't. Why would you keep it done? We didn't. So, I don't know how they're going to settle that. Um, yeah, if that bill passes, I don't know how they're going to distribute that. and and we actually had to look to even see like is it worth it for us to bill because billing does require a lot of documentation, paperwork and time from

054the staff, you know, um and because it is Medicaid random moments time study and there's all these other things. So it was taking away from the teacher working with the student because I had to work on Billy and it's not costing them. So then we we we stopped. We said you know what we're not generating enough money from this. We're actually when you think about time our kids were losing time with their teacher or with their pair professional because they were doing billing. So, I'd rather not bill, not get that money, but the kids get the quality time with the time because Texas made their changes and then a lot of things weren't billable, so it wasn't worth it. A lot of districts cut out, especially small districts like ours, because it wasn't. Um, so

055federal revenues, as we just discussed, are subject to quite a bit of strings. um sometimes matching funds. There's always special accounting and procedures. There's limitations, there's savings, there's tax. So with special with federal revenues, we're always careful um before we ask for it or apply for it. They have a lot of control over the money and they have a lot of accountability. Not the general does it, but the feds are going to be a lot more strict with this. So part two, if we if you will, we'll go into expenditures and fund balance. Now we talked about the revenue side how we generate money money where does it come how is it calculated miss introduced the uh workshop with explaining how we come up with the expenditure side of it. What do where do we

056need the money? So we have the needs assessments. Um now on the expenditure side there are also requirements by the state. So, we're also our hands are kind of tied on that side also because the Sage says, "Well, if you're going to generate um CTE monies and state compensatory money um or GT money, you're required to spend spend that money that you generate back into the program at least 55% of it. Then the other 45, you can skip it off the top to pay your electricity bills or whatever else you want to do with it." So we're also required to match to make sure we spend the 55 and if we don't we get paid on the on it and we're penalized by by TVA. So that's that's the minimum spending requirement. We also have

057maintenance of effort meaning for example if you spend a million dollars on special net the prior year. The next year you need to spend a million and $1 at least you need to increase it. So if we decrease it we have to explain why or make up for it and what have you. And then if we're on the federal grants, we have to show that we're what the federal grants are doing for us. We're also putting money in the general fund to kind of match that because we cannot supplement. We have to support federal grants. So the more federal grants we bring in, the more support we have to give from the general fund of the same type programs. Are y'all seeing any cuts in some of the programs that were offered through grants? The

058title one, which is our main funding, didn't receive cuts. So we still we still have those and some of the other smaller grants. Um the other thing that we're required to do is within our general ledgers or books, we have to abide by a specific coding structure that is dictated to us by TVA and it's very specific because this is the only way that they can compare apples to apples throughout the whole state. So we have a very long what we call general ledger code that's made up of um uh string of numbers, but the first number is always the fund, the first three numbers, and then the second is the function level. So, I'll kind of stop um there with you because as a board, you're only required to approve up to the funded

059function. So, fund general fund, function 11 instruction, and uh function 12, which we have a lot of functions that we'll go into also, and fund 240, which is food service. So, um if we get you to that point, the rest of it is detail oriented. That then is um booked as we as long as we do not exceed a function um we're okay. If we need money to change or fix or correct the function, you bring the budget limits. So, um again, the fund three three digits, the function is two. If you looked then at the um at the graph that has the blues, those are our functions. Right now, there's not a number assigned to them, but there is a vote number assigned to them. But if you look at the very bottom, most

060of our money goes to instruction. Almost 50% of it. So I'm just going to So whenever you see the word audited, so like this is final. This is actual. This is from last year. So this is from last year's audit. This is this is actual. So you can see that total amount of revenue that was brought in. Where did we bring it to the board for approval as far as where our money was going to go? And so I do think it's very important that we notice that the majority the huge bulk of our money does go into instruction. Um now one of the main reasons there is because who does the instruction? our staff, our teachers, our pair of professionals. So, payroll um goes into there. Instructional software, um resources, um supplies, you know,

061anything that is for instruction, as Amalia said, there's other codes that break it down. Instructional supplies, payroll, you know, those types of things. But the bulk of the audited expenditures for 2024 did go to instruction. And so then you can go on the side 43. Okay. So then if we if we continue going down the the coding we get into what's called object and that has four digits and and the object code then can um summarize our data by um salaries by utilities contract conservatives supplies other operating expenditures and capital um expenditures. Sub objects are really um another piece of the code that is locally used. We assigned that and we put the fiscal year on there too. But again, the structure is demanded by TEAA because if we don't code our posts this way

062within this structure, our data is not good and it's rejected by TV. So we we can lose funding if we don't get that right. Um the next one that you see there is now broken down by objects. So the first one was by activities. This is by objects. So if you see the green I mean I'm sorry the blue all of that is salaries. The orange is contracted services that's your utilities um air conditioning guys electricians things like that supplies and materials other operating expenses or fees travel things of that nature and then debt and capital expenditures. So capital expenditures in this case probably are things if we made improvements anything over $5,000 if we bought buses cars that's that's y'all follow the same um anything bigger than $5,000 with a life greater than two

063years we go by do y'all have a booklet that we go yes we go by the financial accounting standards resource guide which is produced by tea and so yes tea As a matter of fact, the feds just changed that to 10,000. The TA, they do the same thing. We capitalize um under OPA is 5,000. But as a district, anything over um current, I think we're doing 500, which is very minimal. We're probably going to need to up that to a,000. We tag it, meaning we inventory it for control purposes. So, we don't wait until we hit our 5,000 for control purposes, but we do for capitalization and depreciation. Uh fund balance So fund balance again, we take our revenues, subtract our expenditures, and hopefully we get a good fund balance. We we get a uh

064either we're equal or we're deficit or we get to save some. But unfortunately, that hasn't been our case, and we'll get into that. But basically, fund balance is the total accumulation of operating surpluses and deficits since the beginning of the local government existence. So basically if you go all the way back in time the 5 million that we have in fund balance has been going in and out in and out in and out kind of um the difference between what the budget has done for every year. It it will never go away. It is a number well it will never go away as a true number. Okay. So there's a difference between fund balance and fund drawing. We'll go into that also here in a little bit. So that's important to know. uh designations. So,

065as a board, when there is a fund balance, you can designate what you want to use it for. You may want to say, "Well, I want to keep 100,000 in case we get sued and we've got legal issues or if our insurance is going up, let's save some there in case we don't cover our deductible." So, there is policy for how the board designates fund balance. Um, and again, so we could adopt deficit budget, a balance budget, or a surplus budget. Um currently our 24 audited fund balance is 5.9 and that is in our audit. You can go out and see it in our um at our website. U that was last year's auditing. TEA recommends that we keep at it 75 days of operating expenditures. And I know that um or that we don't

066decline our fund balance within 20 uh less than 25% over three years. We we miss and I have always recommended that to even keep more than that and we've tried to keep at least 4.6 and 4.8 because remember we are not funded by TA. We're self-funded locally. So when do our taxes normally come in? They come in in December and January. So we need to have some some funds to operate on between um the tax collection process and December and January. So we probably recommended to keep at least that much in the to have liquidity. And then the next um schedule you see a history of our um fund balance since 2018. And I think one of the things just to keep in mind is that what we request for drawing from fund balance and

067what is actually drawn and used in the in the past three years for sure has never matched. Okay. So for example um we may say you know what we're going to have a deficit budget of $1.4 million. Then through the process that Amalia described, the amendments that are done, the property values that are updated, maybe the ADA changes, maybe a grant comes in. So we realign things. In June, you may have approved a deficit of a $1.4 million, but the following August is when it comes out that no, you know what, it wasn't $1.4 million. it was 800,000 which yes it's still a deficit and yes that's not where we want to be but typically because we have to go with preliminaries preliminary values preliminary this preliminary counts um you'll it's in in the last

068three years you have not seen the complete drop in fund balance that we have requested um when we do our approved budget right and that's the between fund balance and fund drawing. Balance is real. Drawing is the one that we are amending. That's budgeting conservative. Yes. Yes. So, moving on to those last screens there. In 2022, 2021 2022, it's just just to point this out, but it needs to have conversation. I know there's a lot of money coming down. That was interesting how there was a significant drop because we were able to use those funds and save our funds. One of those was also healthy. Yes, that could have been that you'll see it in the expenditure. I think that was 21 $3 million and we're going to talk about that actually in one of

069the we have on the actual that's coming up. Right. So, Texas school budgets in the news. I just a few things um in doing my research and wanted to share with you all. Some people are in very dark straits. We are too, but um thankfully we have a healthy fund balance um some people were not in such a situation. There's been several and I know we've talked about it here um just briefly several school districts that are opting to the 4 day because for right and we did try it here just kind of on a pilot basis and it did not go well. Um we had a lot of um community members that were that I think struggled with the Friday um child care and So it and we tried it just kind of every

070I think it was like every other we called them flex Fridays, you know, and it it did not go over very well. It's just like how much more money can you save? You're still having to pay. Yeah. The staff has to have operations gases and the staff contract is 187 days. So that's what their contract is. So we still had to figure out 187 days for them to be here. So it's it was very it was a very challenging calendar here that when we did those that flex right. So anyway just some info every every school district is in trouble quite frankly. So out of the 89th legislative session we've talked a little bit about them. They're not going to be in until June 2nd but I have been in update meetings every Friday um

071pretty much since they started and so has been CS. So, we're trying to keep up with it, but it's a little disappointing that it as things are progressing, we keep hearing politics intervening again and that the wheels are starting to come off the bill and that now this is not working. And so, it's very disappointing. I hope that we're not in the same situation. It's starting to feel Yeah, it's starting to feel they're asking us to talk to our representatives to talk to people up there and to tell them, hey, do something because districts are in large. Yeah. two two years ago, we were very excited and we thought things were going to really go our way and then it just kind of fell apart. And I think that we kind of had that same

072momentum this year. We were feeling like, okay, the state's really going to do something. The vouchers got passed. They're going to help us, too. And um you know, like I said, the we we sit in a lot of trainings. Um we we reach out to a lot of different organizations, one of those being TASPO, the Texas Association of School Business Officers. And so they put out a survey just to kind of see what were some of the most significant challenges that school districts were were facing. And so um 65% of the people that responded school districts that responded said deficit budgets. You know we were having to to plan to keep schools open to keep districts open without funding. Um you hear a lot about unfunded mandates. you know, um they're mandating and and and

073requiring more and wanting us to do more, yet the the finances aren't there. Um again, if you look at what they listed as significant challenges, um it's the same things that we face, deficit budgets, um complexity with state and federal regulations, aging facilities, low attendance rates. So, I spoke extensively to our district advisory committee about low attendance rates. Um and what are some of the things that we We talked about that here as well. Um, I actually even started recognizing staff that had perfect attendance because we were dealing with low staff attendance rates. So, I called them up and they got to come take their picture during district faculty meetings to try to encourage staff, you know, to to be here, you know, every day. But everybody's seeing staff attendance issues, school u student attendance

074issues. One of the challenges that we're not seeing um is rapid enrollment growth. Okay. So that's we're kind of on the the opposite end. Um we just had kinder register prek and kinder registration last Friday. Um we had 12, you know. Um and I honestly don't believe it's because we have a bunch of four and 5year-olds running around bracket not in school. Um historically our census data shows they're just not here. They don't exist. You know, um birth rate is down. So it's not that kids aren't in school. This isn't time. Yeah. Our our our other classes are about what we expect them to be. Eighth grade, 36, 38 kids, you know, seventh grade, 38. Fifth grade even still is at about 38. It's our lower grade. PreK, Kinder, first grade, we're looking at 30

075kids, 24 kids. Beautiful. Um, now granted, Friday was our first day and a lot of parents forget, you know, they they're going to wait till, you know, August, but normally we're putting kids on a waiting list for prek. So, it was a little disheartening, you know, to hear that that those numbers are are low. So again, um just other things that Tasbo shared with us. Um the deficit budget continues. The number of school districts that pass deficit budgets in 2024 to the ones that are predicting um having to do a deficit budget in 2025. You can see those changes. Um cuts planned. Okay. So are we going to make minor cuts? Are we going to have to make significant cuts? um 42% of districts do not anticipate giving up a race, you know, um and

076then another 48 think they would give, you know, give up a race. So, you saw that big portion that does have to do with salaries. Okay. Um so, an easy place to cut is salaries, okay? When you're looking at numbers, but when you're looking at people, that's the hardest place to cut because you're looking at people, you're looking And so that makes it that makes it very challenging and that makes it very difficult. Other ideas for budget reduction um overtime substitute cost elimination of resident substitute. We've done that. You know we we've already done that one. Reduction to non-classroom support positions. Reduction of assistant principles. We don't have an assistant principal at the elementary. We have one assistant principal. Um consolidation of programs into one campus. movement of instructional coaches. A few years back, we

077had two instructional coaches. We went down to one. Two dyslexia teachers, we went down to one. So, we have made some cuts to to staff. Um, and then I think this year, one of the big things that we're focusing on is elimination of underused subscription services. So, we started that last year and we started petting and we between Mrs. uh Price and Mr. We actually had a program um that was helping us monitor usage. So maybe we have a teacher that really likes this program, but if only one teacher is using it with her 10 kids, okay, then is that financially responsible? That program and we spent 8,000. I'm just making up a number. We spent so many thousands of dollars on it. Well, that one needs to be cut, you know? So, we're really,

078really, really looking at our instructional software to ensure that we have really good things for teachers, but we don't have so many things that they're all getting um limited limited usage. And I think that's just kind of something across the board. Um districts and what are their plans for salary increases? Um there's been several districts again over the last couple of years that have done budget freezes, you know, uh race freezes. They don't they they don't they haven't given raises. They've they've been at at a freeze. Um some are saying, you know, they're going to still do increases, but we're going to have to cut it from somewhere else. So, if we want to give it, that's fine, but where are we going to take it from? Okay. So, we it's going to cost us

079$300,000 to give teachers a raise. Okay, we can do it. Okay. But where are we going to cut the $300,000 from? So, we have to find those places. um or that small little portion of green districts that says we have sufficient resources to be able to do that. I would say that that our district falls in the yellow. Can we make it happen? Yes. But it's definitely going to cost us. It's going to cost us going into a deficit budget and it's going to cost us having to cut in other places if we want to focus on making sure that our staff has a race. Um then again they talked about the hardest things to control, the hardest cost to control. Um payroll, health insurance, property insurance, safety, you know, again, safety is another unfunded

080mandate. You know, um they put all these lists out of things that now we're required to have um and they didn't fund it. I got a purchase order forund over $100,000 to replace doors because they're not considered fire doors. Okay? And that was by the fire audit, you know, um, marshal that came in. And so, but that can't we can't use our safety grant money for that. So, you probably use local funds for that. So, again, that some of these are just kind of unfunded mandate. I briefly mentioned technology replacement. Technology is always changing and we want to make sure that, you know, we do have what what's teachers need and what students need. And then finally, we just kind of listed um our resources um that came from uh comproller prop other resources that

081you can use. Sorry, I couldn't see it on. So there's sources and references for where we where we got all of this information. We use Casey quite a bit as a consultant to be able to to help us. So it is 520. Okay. So um again, this presentation was shared with you. I do want to make sure that y'all feel comfortable in understanding how budget how a school budget is created. But we also tonight, one of the goals is to get into the compensation plan because compensation plans are the meat. They're the bulk of our budget. That is the first part that we approve. So that I bring we bring a recommendation to the school board to get compensation plans approved because once we decide this is what we're going to do for staff, okay,

082then we work the other numbers because we have to decide what we want to do for staff first. So if y'all have questions on how a budget is created, we'll take those now. If not, we're going to jump right into um the compensation plan. I just want to know where y'all where you all getting your training. you said you already have updates on the legislature that TASP um through several areas uh TASBO has constant emails, forums, u communications the region uh region 20 who supports us and then through who is a consultant for the region and just from peers and groups and and region 20 puts some out and then um our commissioner Morath superintendence call So we heaps of friends call probably once every two weeks and so we call in and he provides

083us with um updates. Um I also go to a new valley cluster where um superintendent meet and we get all the information from someone from region 20 that provides us with that information. So the next item, if you open that up, it's actually um bracket ISD 2526 budget workshop one. And so we start with the budget calendar which we which is something that's already out. It is public. Um it does have some of the changes that we talked about. We were supposed to do first budget workshop since April 10th. We kind of pushed that back so that we would have more information. Sometimes we push things back because we're hopeful that some of this preliminary information will will be out. So the budget calendar is there for all of you all to see. We do

084have another meeting on Thursday. Okay. So this is one of those weeks where it's a two week meeting, a two a two meeting week. So uh we have tonight and then we do have a meeting on Thursday and that would be to approve the compensation plans. So tonight we're not approving compensation plans. I'm sharing with you some information um and I'll take any feedback and then I bring it back to you all on Thursday to approve the compensation plan and then the other thing that we're required to do is to call for that public hearing. So I would send that information out to you all through email. Then on to review then on Thursday we'll go ahead and get um that public hearing called. Um so basically we start with just some preliminary information notes

085and information. Um after the last legislative session, there was there was nothing, you know, um there was no new changes. There was nothing um notable for several for several sessions. Um now we move into the 89th legislative proposed bill. And there are a lot of things that could impact school finance there. There's a number of bills out there that could impact school finance. Some of them have to do with um the allotment, the standard aotment, but some of them also have to do with special programs. Okay? So maybe increasing more money for students who are in special education. Okay? Um students who are in CTE classes. Um there's also some things out there that would specifically target rural schools. So even though you see this section here that's not notable for proposed bills, I want

086to make sure that everyone understands that we didn't use any of that. in creating our plans, okay? Because we didn't want to go into and say, "Okay, well, they're saying it's going to be this new standard aotment because then we'd be set we'd be creating a false picture because that may not be the case and we don't want to go back." So, so we're going with just just what we know. So, what do we know now for property values? Local property tax values continues to increase. What do we know from our property value study? What we do know, so one of the slides that we talked about was that we pre- identify ourselves for recapture because we don't want to wait for the state to come in and say you owe us money. We run

087our Amalia runs the funds and the formulas. And so it does look like our recapture is going to be 360,000. So when we're calculating our revenue and we have to make sure that we have that 360,000 untouchable to the side so that way when we the states has given back to us. Here you go. There's no issues and and we have that's where it looks today. Excuse me. 360,000 as of today. As of today under current law. Under current law and we're hoping we're wishing right but but right now we're going right now we're going wishless. We're we're wishing and praying and hoping and doing all that good stuff. So, other budget impacts um 14 and a half% inflation since 2019 with no increase to the standard aotment. While Amal was going through the presentation,

088I did find what the changes were and I did email that to y'all. So, y'all should have it now in your email. It goes back, I think, to 2014. Yeah. So, I already I sent that to y'all. It's a one pager off the TVA website if y'all wanted to review that a little bit more more carefully. Um, so what's next for our budget? Well, we have to have the special call meeting on May 15th and that's going to be to adopt the compensation plan and then to call for the public hearing. Yes, the budget doesn't have to be approved until June 30th, but our goal is to approve it by June 9th. Okay? So, we like to do it early. Um, we did have one year where there was an error with the newspaper and

089I don't know if y'all remember it came out blank and so because our numbers weren't on there that didn't count as putting it out there and so we had to make sure that we were within the 10 days. So since then we've always kind of done it a little bit earlier to make sure that um we have the days necessary in case there's any any hiccups. Okay. So our goal is to adopt it on June 9th which is happens to be a regular regularly scheduled board meeting. So we won't have to have a special call that would be regularly scheduled. So we're looking at estimated revenues and again just really highlighting that it's current law only. So, our projected refined ADA is at 470.793 and that's based on the fifth six weeks. What our uh

090preliminary property taxable value is, our collection, our state funding, our total tax rate. We're going to look at all of that. Uh what the trust tax rate is because a lot of this again doesn't come out until August 5th. What our entitle what our local excess is going to be. Can I read that statement here? If you look at the the we captured 362 and the state's only going to give us 319 under current law under current calculations. So in July the TA will have to tell us if nothing changed that we can't cover it with their number with net with because now we're captures more than any. So what you're going to see today is our estimated appropriations. So we are proposing a salary increase. Okay. So, we are proposing a salary increase of

0913% for all employees. The other thing that we're looking at is an additional adjustment for teachers who fall within that 10 to 20 years. And you're going to see why here in a few minutes. So, we have Cathy study some things for us. And one of the things that came out in the study is that we are really competitive in our salaries for zero to five year teachers. Okay. So for those zero to 5year teachers to come work for bracket, we're in that competitive market. What's happening is after five years, we lose our competitiveness. The gap grows. So a fiveyear teacher is going to say, "Okay, well I stayed with you for 5 years because I like working for a small district, but now I'm going to go to or I'm going to go to

092the Rio because I can make a whole lot more money over there." Because the gap is no longer small. It's a larger gap. So we're looking at two things. We want to recruit, okay? But we also want to retain, okay? So in order to be able to focus on retention, we are looking at some additional increases to those for 10 between 10 and 20 years. Um facilities and transportation projects. Um I'm going to we're going to visit a little bit more in close session, but we are going to put some of those things that we had talked about on hold. Okay. So I think right now we have to make be fiscally responsible and so if you recall at the last board meeting we had like the phase one for the fleet and putting some

093of those things out. We need to hold off on the fleet. Okay. And just and and not do it and put that money back in fund balance so we can use it for other things like teacher salaries and wait and see what happens if we with our wishing and our praying and then we can come back and revisit that. But I just really looking at where we were. Um, it's just not the right time. Do we need it? Absolutely. You know, I mean, do we do we need it? Y'all saw some of the pictures and the mileage and all of that on some of our vehicles. Um, but I feel like that the fiscally responsible thing to do is is to wait. Um, food service continues to need our support. Um, we're going to have

094to continue to subsidize that. So, with what I'm presenting tonight, okay, with the bud with the compensation plan that I'm presenting tonight, we're looking at a fund drawing of 1.3 million. So, I want I want you to kind of keep that in the in the back of your mind as we're going through what the request is for compensation funds, but it would be an expend a fund drawing of 1.3 million. How much did we borrow last year? 1.5. So last year we did 1.5, but we'll find out in August what the actual is going to be. And Amalia is probably going to be able to explain that to you here in in a little bit. Okay. But the year before was 1.4 and it ended up only being about 800, I think. So year 2024,

095right? Yes. Yeah. So fiscal year 2024, right? Still a deficit. Still a debt. Correct. We projected 1.4 and ended up with 64. So what was the 313 factor into your fund? Did you guys just get some money? We did. We got that 800,000 and we put So it was 800,000 that we received from the chapter 313 and we took we set aside 250 for maintenance and 250 for uh fleet, but then we're not using that. So it's all going back in the fund balance. But does that go towards a 1.5 of last year's of last year's? Yes. But but recapture ended up taking it because this year based on our ADA and our enrollment, we did go into recapture. So that money that we got from chapter 313 is what we're using to pay to

096the recapture. So the next chart is one of the ones that I I really like because it it kind of it tells a story. Okay. And Amali always tells me our numbers, you know, to tell a story. And so this one is she's been here for some of the story. I've been here for some of the story. And then some of the story was here was got started be before us. Right? So if you look at the way we uh she sets this up is she looks we put um our revenue which we talked about local revenue, state revenue, federal revenue and other funding sources and then we look at expenditures and then we look at that net change in fund balance. Okay. So what is it that we're that we actually need to use?

097Okay. So, if you look at that blue line, Amalia, please turn up and correct me if I'm saying it wrong because sometimes the fund balance and fund drawing throws me off. Okay? So, if you look at that blue line and we look at 2024, okay, if you look at the column 2024, last summer at this time, okay, I was coming to you all and saying, I need $1.4 million to make it work. Okay? Then we had the audited and it ended up being 648. And I and I I'm I catch myself from saying only because it it makes it sound like, oh, that's okay. No, we eventually want a balanced budget, but until the state comes in to do something different, you know, we're we're not going to be there. Then the following year, okay,

098would be what we're going to see what we're what we're saying we're going to see in August of this year. Okay. So again, we asked for 1.4. Okay. And it looks like the change is actually going to be 868. Okay. And then for June 30th, okay, um for this year, in order to fulfill the compensation plan that I would like to fulfill, we're looking at 1.3. But that's the number that we hope at this time next year changes to a different number. Does that does that kind of make sense? So then the other So the easiest way to look at this and this is why I asked Amalia to highlight it this way for me is that we have it in green and I mean we have it in blue and then we have it

099in green. So the green at the bottom is what the board approved for us to pull out and then the blue ends up being the actual. Okay. So if we look at I'm going to say my first summer. Okay. My first summer 2022 we said we need 1.1 and then when that was over we said great we didn't need the 1.1 we only needed 568 so we didn't end up using it all following year I need 1.4 n we work it work it work it okay then again you can kind of see how how that works did put on the bottom there that we have I think something that um mentioned the co year you know the co year of the grants you know so So, we have the grants during that time. So, if

100we're looking for the 2526 school year, then we're looking at the one that's going to end June 30th of 2026. Here's what the revenues are going to be. Local, state, federal, other finance, other financing sources. So, we're going to bring in about 8 million. In order to do this year's plan, we need about 9 million. Okay. So, I need to decrease expenses by 350,000. Okay. So, we're going to look at current instead of rolling over. We're not going to do the rollover method. We're going to have to look at each function very carefully and cut 350,000. So that way we can give the salary increase with the benefits of 257,000. So that way we would be at the 1.3 million. Are there any questions on this chart to help dive a little bit deeper? Okay.

101What what where does the the big jump in the expenditures come from? Last year I'm seeing 2024 was 8 million. Your estimation for this year 2025 was 9.4. forward. So last year was 9.498 and this year coming in is 9.547. Okay. But go back the year before that I show even in 2023 it's 8.4 million expend all functions expenditures. Then the next line is 8.2 million. June 30th of 2025 it jumps up to 9.4. That's going to be due to salary increases that we gave last year. Um and inflation things that utilities are more expensive. Um we had um so that so that's where so am I correcting that's where we see a big jump in inflation and the salary and the salary. So we've done salary increases two years in a row and then

102we of course just the cost of expenses last year was 5% if I recall yes it was higher this year 3% about half a million and we also gave that Yeah. So, it's really mostly open. So, we contract with TASBY to help us through the pay maintenance, the pay um systems maintenance. And so, if if you go through this basically, they tell you everything that they do. So, just kind they look at creating our market value by looking at districts comparable to us. um comparable can be because they are similar to us or because of location. So I know people well why are you comparing us to Eagle Pass? Eagle Pass is huge. Okay. Well, yes, but it's part of our market because a teacher can leave us to go to Eagle Pass. A teacher

103can leave us to U Valley. A teacher can leave us to go to Larredo. But then there's also districts that you'll see are similar to to our size. I just question back to that the charters. Are you analyzing it or is that period in see where we're at? Which columns are we looking at for expenditures that 9.4 is that annualized? Yes. So we have partials, right? So it's actual through April and then estimated May and June. Okay. So if you go to page 11 is where after looking at um everyone we were compared to bracket ISD is the orange line and the local market median is the blue line. So that's basically the comment that I made that if you look at 0 to five we're good. Okay, it's when we go past that that

104you see the gap and they even wrote the comment at the top that the teacher salaries at bracket ISD are below market at most survey points in the range. So they look at most most survey points and so we do fall below and then they did identify that the lowest market was at that 10year mark with being below about 5% of the median. So then we looked at that chart and we met with them and we said okay well what are some of the things that we can do to fix it. So you look at they they went through and they went through all the different salaries by degrees 0510 stipens that we give and there's a lot of information regarding salaries because we're a little pressed for time. I'm going to keep going but

105then I'll come back. Okay. Um, so I would like for you to go down to page 16. So on page 16, basically they evaluated all ourselves, our pair of professionals, our administrators, our teachers, and they made some recommendations. So it said most benchmark positions or below market medians. improving the pay structures will assist with recruitment and improve incumbent salaries in the future. So they're making some recommendations um in order to make us more marketable. So the first one is to adopt the proposed pay structure to improve pay equity. Okay, so that's the administrative professional pay plan and the non-exempt pay plan. Then recommendation number two would be adopt one of the proposed general pay increase models to improve market competitiveness. My recommendation that is listed at the top is the third bullet which is model

106two, the 3% GPI which includes a $1,675 increase for all continuing teachers. So everybody on the teacher scale gets $1,675. So everybody kind of goes goes up. Okay. But then recommendation number three is an additional adjustment that would be applied to teacher salary at the 10 to 20 year in both models on the proposed teacher hiring schedule to improve the market competitiveness. so that they run the salaries to be able to to close that gap. One of the other recommendations is for our special education aids in high need areas. So currently all special ed aids were paid on the same salary schedule. And one of the things that I requested that they review is a salary increase for those special ed aids who work with our most severe and profound students. So these are students

107who may require feeding, diaper changing, um assistance in walking, you know, um so they require um a whole lot more assistance than the pair professional who works with the special ed student who maybe needs his test read to him, who maybe needs um I don't know, some additional assistance, but it's not that high critical care. So the special ed aid who falls under critical care um would now change um in in pay rate. Recommendation number four addresses the gaps um that the district should conduct. Basically saying that okay follow these recommendations but next year we need to do a full-blown study. Okay. And Mr. Tasos the last time this was done was probably what about maybe six, seven years ago at least. Yes. And so the thing was is that I think it they was

108doing the salary study during maybe it was during co I'm not sure what happened but it wasn't done to the extent that it needed to be done. And let me tell you why I say that. So basically they looked at job titles and said okay you're a finance director. Okay so you should be here. And so they put the pay grade in she's the finance director. But what they didn't consider is that at Rapid ISD she's the finance director, she's the federal programs director, she's the procurement manager, she's the So they didn't take into consideration that in a small rural school, okay, your finance director is also all these other things. So it may appear like based on the title finance director that she's over, but that's because they didn't take into consideration number one

109her true job description and number two they don't take into consideration years of experience. So, so if if and when we decide to go with recommendation number four, the way I've seen it in other districts is that they actually review job descriptions and they even come in and do interviews. So, they come and do interviews to get a true picture of what are all the things that that physician covers so they can be accurately placed um on a scale. Does TASBY do that or it has to be contracted out? No, Tasman. Okay. So now you go into the actual model that we would like to bring Thursday for approval. So the model is a 3% raise and then the adjustments for teachers in years 10 through 20. So there's 15 of those who would get

110an additional adjustment. administrator administrative professionals 3% raise and then there's some equity adjustments that need to occur. the non-exempt again. So s so teachers, pair professionals, custodians, cafeteria workers, they all get the 3% raise. Okay? And then there's the adjustment for the aids for special ed high needs. So there's five that work in that category. And so they would have a 0.2 adjustment. So total in order to make this happen. Okay. We'd be looking at about, again, these are projections, a total cost increase of 188,996 to be able to do this for our staff. And that doesn't. That's just salary. So then you look at what would those guides look like. So on page 21, sorry, page 20, you see what our new hiring guide would be. So teachers would come in at 45,975. Continuing

111teachers would receive the increase of 1675. Then you look at the teacher salary plan development. Okay. And so this is the page where if you look at look at teachers with nine years experience, they get the 1675 plus an additional $1,000. Doing that brings them from the 95% now they they were within the 95% now they're at the 98. 15 it completely closes the gap. And at 20 it completely closes the gap. I keep going. So on page 20 on page 22 basically shows you that same chart that I had shared previously and it would show where our the orange is where our salaries are now. Blue is where we want them to be and green is where my recommendation is. So you'll see that it does close the gap at the 15 and 20

112and almost closes the gap at the 10. If you look at the next page, these are the this is the administrative professional pay plan that would be adopted. We have made some changes already to start cuts. Okay. So like our counselor for stronger connections was a 226 pay. We're making that a 217 pay. So dropping the days there. But then there's also some things that we feel like we need to do to address need. Okay. So you'll notice our our district did away with the librarian I would say at least five or six years ago and we've had a pair professional in that position. The person that does the library really is more of a manager because they're not just working with kids. They have to work with kids. They have to order the books.

113They have to monitor our checkout system. So, they do more of managerial plus. So, we sent the job description to TASBY and they place that person on um district library manager would be 187 um pay grade one. Because it would be considered a new position, we would open it. Okay? So, it wouldn't be an automatic this person is promoted. We would open it. The person currently working in the library could apply for the position, but so could anybody else. And then we would hold interviews and those would be those are the pretty much the changes in that one. On the notexempt, you'll notice that I also there's highlighted there. Um, I would like for our district to employ a security guard. So, currently we have one SRO assigned to us and one that is here

114when they're available. Okay. So, the so the county does a great job in sending someone to usually we have two people here, but for sure we always have one. However, lots of times when they're called to their main job because they're employed by the county, then that leaves us without anybody. And tonight, I am going to ask y'all to pass a resolution because TEA requires that we have at least one guard on campus. We would only hire one, but we would list it as armed preferred. Okay? But if we don't get an armed preferred applicant, then we already know where the unarmed one would fall. So we wouldn't be hiring a security guard unarmed and a security guard armed. It would be one or the other depending on the best applicant for the position, but

115we went ahead and put those in there so we would know what those would what those would look like. So we're enhancing security. we would be enhancing security and that position would be paid out of the grant. So that is not an increase to the budget. Okay. So for till at least 2627. So 2526 from 2627 we would be able to do it after the 2425. Our current one is up there for y'all to reference. Those are last year's just so y'all would have as a reference to be able to see what the changes. Then if you go down to page 30, we have a lot of teachers that come in and do I tell them that we've got excellent teachers on our campus. So instead of having to go out for professional development, we

116use our current excellent staff to be able to provide staff development to our teachers. So rather than contracting with some other company to have people come do something, um, Miss Price will reach out and say, "Okay, we're required to give ESL training," she makes sure that all our TEA compliance with the ESL training is provided. And then one of our teachers who does ESL may do the training. And so we have in-house training presentations and we pay the teachers $50 an hour, not to exceed $150 if they do a half day training or $300 if they do a full day training. Um the what you see on the bottom with clock and table and bookkeepers, we just kind of aligned those. They were all a little different. Some were 25, some were 30, some were

11720. So we kind of went with 20 all the way all the way down. And then election workers wasn't on there at all, but we've always paid our election workers, but we felt like we need to go ahead and include that in there so we're transparent that we have that available now. Um, stipens visiting with coach cha and looking at academic stipens. Um, we are making some changes there. We are looking at and you can typo there looking at a girls coordinator but um, looking at adding making sure we have country had an assistant but perhaps not junior high. They would pick up some of those junior high duties. So again, it's not adding to the budget. It's just taking this one out and using it. The girls coordinator would then be helping with that.

118Um we are not going to host um UIL district. We do not have the facilities. So we are not eligible to host UIL competition at bracket. Um, one of the things you have to be eligible to host for is one act play and our um, auditorium does not have the the right setup and and needs to be able to host. So, we took we took that off. Um, we currently have an elementary music teacher vacancy and so with our growing band, I would like when we hire the elementary music teacher for that elementary music teacher to assist Mr. Willis and so then he we would have an assistant fan director. It's not a new position. We already have the position. Okay, it's a vacancy. Um but we would add a statement there. And then the

119other place that I would like to add a statement is for those um staff members who have gone through the guardian training. So they are guardians which means they are armed on campus. They are trained um to deny and defend our students in the case of an emergency. Deny entrance or defend if somebody does intrude. Um in looking at surrounding districts, most of them were already giving a stipen. We did receive the safety and security grant and stipens can be paid out of the safety and security grant. So again, that doesn't add to our local budget because it would be we would give them that grants through um we would give them that through through grants and then and then the comparison to what it used to be. And then the other change that I

120think I failed to mention at the very top was um substitutes. We are looking at increasing um the pay for substitutes. Degreed subs would be $100 per day. It used to be 85. if that's bachelor's degree or above. Non-deree was 70. So that would go up to 70. Yeah. And so then that would that would go that would go up. Yeah. And then our cafeteria subs and custodians was $10. And so then it would go up to $11. Huh? We are going to get We're not going to get a break. No break today. Um, so I think that the best way to handle this it would be to y'all have this information. Um, because it is something that's presented and we do have we can discuss it in close session, but we do need to

121be ready to approve it or not approve it or tell me what changes you'd like to see made um for that Thursday. Yes, so that concludes our budget workshop. We've got about one minute or we could do a little bit of a delayed start. Okay. Then it's going to adjourn the 4pm special meeting for the bracket of trustees at 5:59 p.m. And do you want to announce have a delay start about 6:10? We will start the regular scheduled meeting for the bracket bill board of trustees at 610. 610 will start 10 minutes. Is that fresh? [Music] No. stand. [Music] Get a little bit stupid. I know. I can track. I can definitely track. Yeah. And I can just keep smells in special. We have a little bit of [Music] the crisis office. I know. He's

122down the hallway. No, thank you. They were all loose. Yes, sir. I was here [Music] today. [Music] Let's get out of it. 69. Okay. [Music] Circulation. Yeah, I got it. What? [Music] All right, we're going to go ahead and get started. This is a regular meeting of the board of trustees at Bracket ISD. It is May 12th, 2025 and we are beginning at 6:07. I appreciate your patience and us having a delayed start. Um, we do have a quorum established. If everyone will please rise for a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we're going to go on item number two, welcoming

123the new board members, Miss Diaz. So, um, thank you also, uh, for waiting and and being patient with us. We actually started since 4:00 because we're very excited that we welcome two new board members to our bracket ISD school board. So, if y'all will help me in welcoming Mrs. Edwina and Mr. Jessica. [Applause] All right, moving on. Item number three, reorganization of the school board officers. A for presidency. Do I have any nominations for president? I nominate myself to be president of the school board this coming year. I'm in my final year of uh serving the school board. I haven't missed any meetings in 24 months and I couldn't be proud to the board because I have no family member working with the school district and I'm accessible. I'm very fortunate he's returned. All right.

124Is there any other nominations for president's head school? I myself will be nominating for president school. Um I'll nominate [Music] Mia. Any others? Okay. Second vote. All is in favor of Mr. [Music] All those in favor of Mr. rescue and then Miss Claudia memo one pass bill for login number two for Claudia 2 president. Moving on to item number B vice president. There any nominations for vice president? nominate them for vice president. I nominate for vice president. Any others? Okay. For vice president, all those in favor for me two. All those in favor for Miss [Music] Py two. All those in favor of Jess. [Music] It's in that bathroom. So, we'll go around it again then. All's in favor of minimum two body zero. That should go ahead and hold me down for minimum. So

125we'll start that over for him three and for just four. One more go around or is that suffice? No, that's okay. For secretary. Any nominations for secretary? I'll nominate them. Any other nominations? All those in favor for Mr. Mill will be the new secretary. Y'all will give us a few minutes to reorganize how we sit and then we'll move on to another poll. too. I think we're good, right? Just Yeah, just you know, you may want to just wander off. That's going to be foression. All right. Back at number four, public cops to the point. Right. All righty. Moving on to number five, recognition. Miss Deals. All right. Well, first of all, boys and girls, thank you'all for being here. I hope you learned a little bit about how a board works and getting people

126on the board and how you have to have officers and all of that. So, it was a good meeting for y'all to be up. I'm going to ask Mr. Miller to come up first and we're going to recognize some staff members from Jones Elementary. So, we've been trying to alternate and recognize staff and recognize students. So, tonight Jones Elementary, we will be recognizing staff and these staff members have shown outstanding attendance and dedication to their students and you can go from there. I don't know where I put my back here, but every other month when it's time to uh acknowledge teachers and staff, I struggle with it because it's very difficult sometimes for me to to pick some staff members without possibly maybe hurting some feelings of another staff member because of what how I

127chose that staff person. But uh this time I I ran attendance reports for all of our teachers just at the end of a year just to check on how everything was going with our teachers and their attendance. And four of our teachers just really stood out. Well, four two teachers and two staff members just their attendance really stood out. And u you know we have some really good substitute teachers, but nothing takes the place of the teacher actually being in the classroom all the time. And uh all four of these ladies have been here. Um their attendance has been excellent. And I wanted to just take time to acknowledge these teachers. First up, Brandy Man. Thank you. Where is Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Rachel Robinson. I don't know if I'm There we

128go. I think she might have missed just a couple days of school and one her she's from way away and so her parents had never been to Texas. So before spring break they were getting ready to come to Texas. So she took a day off to get ready for them to come to Texas to see her. And I think she went to the dentist or something. And Miss Man, she's missed a couple days, but two of them I know were for 4 events, which she was, so technically that's not even missing there. Uh, next we have Kimberly Kirby. Thank you. Miss Kirby is she's here every day. I mean, I know she's going to be standing over by the the area where the little prek kids are every morning uh welcoming them to school. I

129never have to worry about whether she's here or not. And I know the the couple days that she's missed through the school years because her boys, I think one or two of them might have gotten sick, so she had to take care of her own children. So, uh, thank you, Miss Kirby, for all you do. And, uh, next I have Diana Flores [Applause] and Miss Flo, she's a repeat customer. She's she's already been up here once and earlier in the year just cuz I've noticed what she does. She she does all kinds of different duties and and and never complains. Whatever we ask her to do, she goes and does it. Uh but this time when I ran the uh report, I mean, she's she's missed one full day, two half days cuz her car

130broke down. So her dedication to uh the school and the students is exemplary. So, thank you all teachers very and and I'm going to add my two sets just cuz cuz you know I have So, I also would like to acknowledge Brandy because um not only does she teach full-time and come to work full-time, but she's also been a full-time student and she is going to graduate with her bachelor's degree. And so, She truly exe exemplifies lifelong learning. So, thank you. I know it hasn't been easy. So, so thank you. And then Miss Robinson, you are new, but I've heard nothing but great things about you. So, I'm excited. And then Miss Kirby started off as a substitute for us. So, it's definitely nice to see when we grow our own. And she went from

131a substitute for us to now working for us as a pair of professional. So, thank you. so very very much for all you [Applause] do. And it's hard to know what to say about Mrs. Bllois because she just truly does it all. I mean, she is the one that it's like, go cover here, drive a bus, she'll do it. Take kids on a field trip, she'll do it. Go pull an extra duty, she'll do it. So, there isn't anything that she won't do for our kids. So, Mr. Miller, great picks. So, at the secondary, Mr. Himemenz had lots of staff he wanted to recognize. Okay. But Mr. Himemenz is in a huge dilemma. Okay. He had so many kids going to state competition that we have to acknowledge the students going to state. So, we

132decided we're going to hold up on the teachers one more month and acknowledge those students who are representing Bracket ISD, whether they already did at state or will be going to state for representation. So, we're very excited. So, good job, but they're nice to love and to have. Absolutely. We do have a lot of kiddos representing bracket ISD throughout the state of Texas. And in particular tonight, we're going to present to you the ones that have recently gone to state competitions. Okay. So, Matthew Swatner, Matthew is a state qualifier for track 1600 me, right? All right. Congratulations. And uh pay close attention. You're going to hear some of these kids name settle. The next one is Daniel Pettis. State [Music] [Applause] qualify. We'll do a group picture. All right, another number six qualifier academic UIL

133state qualifier Matthew Swatner. All right, another state qualifier. Academic UI number says Charles Ker. [Applause] Okay, another state qualifier. Academic UIL number six, Jeremy Creek. [Applause] All right. Academic UIL social studies state qualifier Matthew Swagger. [Music] State qualifier band class one trumpet solo. [Applause] Daniel [Applause] Here we go again. Yes. And don't go too far. State qualifier band class one baritone saxophone solo. Matthew Swucker [Applause] and Matthew's a junior this year. So, [Applause] state qualifier back class one trone solo Benjamin L. State qualifier, Tiger Paws, Toros, Torlers, uh, two baton solo, Abigail [Applause] Malloy, state qualifier, Tiger Paws, three platoon solo trio, Ethan, Luna, [Applause] They do some great things with those batons. Another uh state qualifier type uh two platoon trio Kalista Pis. All right. State qualifier. Tiger applause to the team trio. Avery

134Deer. Congratulations. [Applause] Yes. Then we'll do one group. Group picture. Oh, you got me. [Music] Can I get my ladies up here to do the picture also? [Applause] Check. Good job. Thank you. [Music] We're complete with recognition. Usually give a few minutes for those who want to clear out and unless y'all want to say keep learning. Take it on out. They have to go make dessert for dinner. Oh, [Music] yeah. All right, moving on to item number six. Consent consent agenda has our minutes from our previous meeting and our donation. I'd like to cover the donation. We got a donation by the Lost Morris Lodge news. Um, so we did receive a donation from Los Morris um lodge in the amount of $500 and those that uh that specifically was designated to project graduation. Then

135we had a donation from the United Medical Center for $400 and again that's for our seniors project graduation. Then we had the Fort Clark uh Springs NCO Fort Clark Springs Association. Um they waved the fee for the fine arts banquet which was beautifully planned for and they did a great job. So it was a donation of a fee waver for the use of the of the club and then a donation from Henya and that was for $30 for project graduation. Thank you for [Applause] all I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. makes a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. All those in favor. Moving on. Item number seven, information items. 7A miss. So the first information item is

136just an overview of the 2023 2023 A throughF accountability rating that was put out by TEA. Um there was a lot of news and social media in regards to the release of the 2023 accountability ratings. We have not had an accountability rating in over two years and that is because um there were some legal issues going on. So what I did was I put together a PowerPoint um just to explain basically what had happened. And so if you will go to slide 10 and it says number 10 on there um it's after 2023 A through F accountability results date summary and then it's the feedback timeline that one. Sorry guys. So the reason that they were being held up in the court system was basically because of this timeline. So I highlighted it in yellow.

137So school starts in August and we are provided with information on where our students should be in regards to STAR, what the expectation is, what the passing score is going to be, what you need to get an A, what you need to get a B. And so all the information is put out. We share that with teachers. Teachers start working towards these goals. Right? In January of that same year, TEA releases updated target points. So, they're like, "Uh, changing the rules of the game. You've been working one semester towards this, but now we're going to change it and we're going to update these target points." Then, they still had not released the actual framework, the manual. So, the updated framework as to what was going to be on the test, how the test was going

138to look, what was the type of questions on the test, and all of that didn't actually get published until the spring of 2023. We tested in the spring of 2023. So, districts filed lawsuits basically because of what I highlighted there in orange. So, I added that in. STAR and EOCC testing is conducted in April. Months before the test, we found out that the new cut points was changed and this was after benchmarks and interventions. So, school districts argued or thought through the court system that those weren't accurate ratings because you changed the rules of the game in the middle of the school year. So, that went into the court system and that's why 2023 ratings were not changed. were not released. In the next slide, basically you see where in 2017 18 this is when

139the A throughF ratings began. Before they used to have exemplary acceptable so they had different titles for school districts. In 2017 2018 they started the A throughF ratings. 2018 2019 A throughF continued. Then we had COVID 201920 2020 2021 and they said okay you had COVID we're not going to give you ratings there was no test one year then the next year we were still trying to recover so we had two years we had one full year of what I would say co and then the following year where kids had a choice if you recall do you want to come to school full-time do you want to do school from home then they could change and decide synchronous versus asynchron synchronous. Those were the the big buzzwords. So we had two years of that and

140then the following year the new baseline data was captured. So they said let's see how the kids did and then they changed it. So the argument basically was that we had two years of co the year after co you captured the baseline and then you changed it and then no results were even released because of the the legal court system. So then we continued and basically what they looked at is well where was everybody at this time. So what I did is in orange here this is a this is a slide actually from tea but in orange I put where bracket IC was. So you can see that when you're looking at math grade level performance during co and even during the star redesign okay bracket ISD was higher during co and then up and

141then you come to the star re redesign bracket ISD was higher than the state than the state average is where we want to be again it's kind of like when we talk budget do I wish I have to ask for a deficit budget no you know we want a balanced budget do I I wish we were at the 80s instead of 58. Absolutely. But I just want to point out that we are doing better than the than the state average. That's for the English one and two, right? Not math. No. Um that's grades three through eight. The green one is grades three through eight reading and English one and two. It's total. And then the blue one is grades three through eight math and algebra one. Is this the first year that they start using

142I know. Um I think it was last I think it was with the star redesign 2022 start redesign within 2022. So then basically tea put out some information. Did the refreshed methodology this is straight from te TEA increase the standards making it harder for campuses to achieve an A? And the answer is yes. PA said, "We make it harder for high schools to get that A." And they did it because they increased the CCMR standard. Okay? So, what what um college and career military readiness and the graduation rate. So, there was a change that we knew would make it more difficult, but again, that change, the requirements weren't released until mid year. So by that time was almost too late to try to meet that standard because we didn't have that information. So then there

143was a couple of frequently asked questions. So is it possible for all campuses or districts to get an A under the A throughF? Yes. Okay. Everybody can get an A. They didn't. Some people were concerned they were only giving out so many A's. Well, that's not the case. You can get an A. Does the A through F system change every year? No. Okay. It actually hadn't changed in 5 years. Okay. It was the timing of the change that the districts were arguing. Were the 2023 campuses scale scores lower than 2022 because of the refresh methodology? No, the scale score was higher. And then did the refresh methodology have an impact on district ratings for most? Not all. Okay. But for most and so then it goes through basically all those questions. the five years. So

144kind of basically what I just what I just talked about. Then there was some additional information that was put out. So the 2023 school ratings were delayed because of lawsuits. That is true. Okay? And and I shared this with y'all because I always want to feel like I want to empower you because I know that when you're out in the community, it's like what happened? Why did we go from an A to, you know, we were an A, then we went to a B, and now we're a C. So what happened? So the the gradients were originally set to be released in August, but they were delayed until this spring. So this data is 2 years old. Okay. So since then, we've been collecting our own data, which I'm going to remind you about, but

145it is it is 2-year-old data. The Star 2.0 is harder and structurally different. Yes. Okay. So that was true. Star 2.0 0 introduced new question formats like drag and drop, multi-part answers, and short written responses to include evidence-based writing in order to reduce multiple choice questions. Even our third graders are required to type answers for into the into the computer for reading questions to whereas previously everything was multiplechoice. So, it is definitely a more rigorous test. According to the information gathered during the lawsuit, TEA didn't fully account for the COVID learning loss. And that's true. So, yes, TEA paused the school rating. So, they didn't rate us the two years of CO, but they didn't cons they didn't take into consideration what happened during those two years. Fine. you didn't grade us, but then the

146kids came back and you graded us without taking into consideration the learning loss that may have occurred during those during those um during the pandemic. So, was any additional funding? No. Well, they no additional funding was provided by the state to focus on learning loss or improve students instruction. So, again, not a mand they changed it. They made it a mandate. We want you to to score higher. we want you to be able to to do well on this more rigorous test, but no additional funding was provided um in order to be able to help us through that process. In 2023, the Texas legislature had the opportunity to raise the basic per student funding aotment. However, no legislation was ever passed even after multiple sessions. So again, two years ago, we were sitting here and

147we were very hopeful they're going to pass. They're going to give us more money to help students. They're going to give us more money to help staff, you know, to help with salaries. They went into session after session after session and they could never come up with with a plan. And so nothing happened in 2023. Two years later, we'll have it again. And we'll continue to to be hopeful. So I have shared this document with you all before, the state of the district um and in different reports. And so basically you look at 2019 I'm just going to look at third grade reading. And remember this is not the same cohort of kids. You have to look at it diagonally in order to see the same cohort of kids. But if we're just looking at

148how do our third grade students do well precoid about 76% of our third grade students were passing the star test. They came back from CO and different students but third graders okay new third graders they came back and our teachers worked really hard students worked really hard and actually after co we even went up to 80%. This is after co then we have 2022 star 2.0 0 star redesign. Okay, sorry. 83 and then star redesign we dropped to a 77 and then now 2024 78. So what I like to look at is where were we before the COVID pandemic, before learning loss occurred, before all this need for intervention and trying to get students caught up after two years of this. And you'll see that for the most part we have closed the gap. Okay,

149even with the increases we have closed the gap. But there's been an increase also in what is required to earn that A possibly if we were to take this data and put it in the old star. Yeah. Would we still be in A? Possibly. Okay. But because they moved the bar, we did we did lose that eight. So we had been at a 90 and then we dropped to an 89. Then we ended up um dropping to a 80. And in 2023 we went from an 80 to a 79. But I say that cautiously because if you look at how our students, our rating went down, but if you look at our students, our students scores are going up. Okay? They just haven't reached that next level. So our students are not doing poor. Okay?

150They're continuing to move in the right direction, but they've just moved up the bar. So, I really felt like I just needed to kind of give a little overview on that and bring bring that back up. Are there any questions on the 2023 Star accountability? I'm I'm making the assumption that the 2024 will probably be released within the next couple of months. They released the 2023 2024 which was last year um should be released, but that went they filed additional lawsuits um for 2021. So do you expect the numbers for the new uh in May to be higher? Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. So we've had two years. This will be the second year to adapt to this the 2.0. So we're expecting to go to continue to show growth. Yeah. So if you look

151at the first one, so the first year 77 was third grade, then we went to 78. So I'm hopeful that that's going to be 79 or higher, you know, and so that's kind of what we want. we want to see is is growth. Now, I also like to look at if you look at third grade in 2022, they were at 83. Okay? But then you look at the that's the same cohort of kids. They went from an 83 to an 82. So, you can look at data in lots of different ways. So, if you look at the same cohort of kids, we've actually gone 83, 82, 79. and all my color codes. I wish I could remember how I why I coded them that way, but um brown I think if you look at that

152third grade, those third graders that are brown, then they're they're brown in the next grade and in the next grade because those are the same kids. You follow the kids to see if the kids are showing growth and doing better. So again, like if you look at seventh grade reading, they were at 88 in 2021. Okay. Then as eighth graders they jumped all the way to 95 and then as freshman they would take the English one. So they remained in the 90s remember the color codes of the numbers are the same group of kids or you know some kids come and go but it's the same cohort. The other thing to add on the redesign is the way that the uh performance indicators changed as well. So they they added in the high low did

153not meet the approaches grade level meets. They added some indicators in there that that um even made made it a little bit more difficult to um I guess explain the difference between pass instead of saying pass or fail. Now it's approaches is not on grade level approaches is you're getting close to grade level. So then they added that high low approaches in there as well. So, so even though they redesigned in in change, they also added performance indicators in there. And then um and then I think the last big change was the star alt. So our special ed students again the severe profound take a star alt they made it a whole lot more difficult for a student to take a star alt test. So, a lot of students, not a lot, but some of

154our students who had previously taken who had qualified for a star al test now no longer qualified and had to take a regular star test. So, it just kind of messes with all your populations. I remember discussion looking you focus on reading well and reading and math. Yes. So I think our biggest concern is we look at kinder first and second because kinder first and second don't take the star test right but that's where we're giving them the foundation of reading and we were using other testing programs and seeing that our kindergarters and second graders aren't leaving their grade level on on level. So if we focus down here, then we're going to do a better job at that. Curious why why is the math consistent? There's a gap between the sixth grade and eighth

155grade that seventh grade period where it stays pretty low. Good question. So good good answer. Yeah, good question. Um so our seventh grade advanced kids take the eighth grade test. So your strong seventh grade math kids are pretty much taken out of the seventh grade population and put into the eighth grade. So it does it does two things. Number one, it takes out your stronger students. So that hurts us. And then number two, it makes this population smaller. So when the denominator is smaller, then it's harder. Now if you're um is that your advanced math students who are taken out of the equation. Okay. But even if your denominator is smaller, the the um your score is still you're left with your lower score your lower scoring scoring students. So if you if we have

156a class of you have a class of 20 30, okay, and 15 of your strong students now take the eighth grade, okay? You're left with 15. And of those 15 maybe five are your average middle you know and then your rest are your you have more struggling students in that in that cohort. Now Mr. Himemenz is working on a plan to address that. Um so so that way things are the seventh grade students still get what they need because they're advanced and they should get that higher level push and you know But at the same time, we don't want to be pushing them out too soon where maybe we're creating gaps at seventh grade because we're pushing them out to eighth grade. So that's it's more of a master schedule technique that we're going to

157be working on for next year. So we hope that that will that will be addressed. All right. 7B. Okay. 7B is just the overview that I usually provide on what we're going to be doing this summer for summer school. So, our summer school program is done with ACE. So, I gave a little bit of a description on ACE. This is a grant. So, um we do get a grant to help with our ACE summer program. Um it does not sustain our summer program in its entirety. We still use some of our general funds to um to fund summer school along with other federal grants to some to fund summer school. But basically what our summer program is going to look like for summer of 25 is on the second page. And so it will be

158students um based on the star results, okay, to be received by the state on May 30th. So we don't get their results until May 30th. And so on that last day of school, we'll pull a team together to make phone calls to let parents know whether or not their child um has to come to summer school. And I say has to because it actually is a law that they get so many hours of intervention. Um in addition to looking at star results, we also look at teacher recommendation based on their their grades that are needed for promotion. And then even the students who um maybe passed, okay, maybe they got that 70 but they did not meet the compulsory attendance law. So they have to come to summer school even though they passed because they

159did not have the correct number of the 90% of the days that they needed. Historically we look at servicing about 120 students during summer school. Um we did put out letters of intent so that way we would know who was going to be working with our students. We have 11 certified teachers that will be coming to work with our kinder through 8th grade students in the areas of English language arts, math and science. one care professional who will help with implementation of instructional software, one food service worker because we do offer breakfast and lunch, our ACE specialist and ACE director. They work longer contracts. So, as part of their contract, they already work summer school. So, we're looking at 25 days and that is asked for the ACE requirement. They're going to start on June

160the 2nd and goes through July 16th. The program is Monday through Thursday, 8:30 to 2:30 and lunch is provided. So, that is an overview of our summer program. I do have a question on that. So, we have um based on this the results kind of layers of kids that are going to be coming summer school because of attendance as well. Is there a curriculum that they're based off of? Like say if they failed the writing and their star test in the summer school, is that something that we're going to be looking at to see if they're improving? And if so, how does that change for someone who's coming for attendance purposes? So that they're they're put in classes based on need. So you might have someone working on attendance that maybe is just doing some

161remediation enrichment, like they're here to get their hours. So they have to do some work. But if they're here because of STAR scores, House Bill 1416 tells us that we have to use highly qualified materials and there's a list of materials that we're allowed to use. So they actually tell us what materials are eligible to be used during instruction. Do you all test them after the program to see where they're at the baseline? You know where they're at? Um I'm going to say when you do a it's diagnostic there's a a post that you can do. I remember. So, this is an annual TEA requirement that I have to bring to the board. That basically goes over the instructional materials that are used in our district. Again, TEA provides us a list of things that

162we can use. There's what they're they're called state adopted materials. So the state adopts these materials and says here's your bucket. Okay. And so from this bucket of state adopted materials what is it that you are what what is it that you're going to use? And that ensures that whatever we use um are is aligned to the T the Texas essential of knowledge and skills. So we have to fill out this form every year. If we don't fill out this form and we don't submit it to TEA then TEA will not provide our funding for instructional materials. So this basically says I resolve or certify that we're going to purchase these materials using the funds that are provided by the state and that the uh programs are done with fidelity and they are um off

163their list. And so like for reading language arts we use teach resource system really great reading I read ready star renaissance and sounds 7D 7D is a new program by this fairly new program um by the state it's called the teacher incentive a a lotment. And so basically what it does is it rewards top performing teachers. Teachers can earn one out of three levels of designation. They can be recognized teacher, an exemplary teacher or a master teacher. Districts create um basically a plan to identify what makes a recognized teacher, what makes an exemplary teacher and recognized exemplary or master. Um TEA has to approve your plan. TEA has to approve how you're going to identify these these teachers. If your plan is approved, okay, then you implement the plan and they track your data to

164see is this teacher producing results. Okay. After three years of implementing a plan, if the teacher is producing the results, the state actually provides um funding and it says, "Okay, you have this master teacher, so here is funding for you to award her a a financial incentive." Okay. Now, the reason I'm sharing this with y'all tonight is because Bracket ISD employed one teacher from 20 for the 2425 school year that had earned TIA designation at a previous district. Okay. So, because she earned that from the state, the state has sent her us her money. Okay. So, the state has sent us her money and she will be awarded prior to the deadline of August 31, 2025. So once they award once they're awarded and designated, this is the hard part is once they're awarded and

165designated, they don't really have a good plan for follow. Okay? So here you were, I'm just throwing a scenario out. This is not what's happening here, but you could be a great teacher over here, okay? And come to work and you've already earned your TIA designation and you continue to get the money, okay, without providing anything to the state. The state did not ask me for results or confirmation or anything. They basically said, "We're going to send you this amount of money and here's the name of your teacher." So then that teacher will be awarded that amount of money. So So they're they're the so they're actually really pushing that we continue the school district pick pick this up. Okay. So I am going to start digging a little bit deeper okay into this TIA

166aotment. Um basically if you look at the initial steps to begin the process is maybe getting a committee together bringing on a TIA lead because one of several of the districts that I reached out to they have entire departments. So they have like a department of instruction. So they have a reading language arts curriculum coordinator, a reading language arts lead teacher, and a reading language arts accountability person. So those three people get together and they create the measures for reading language arts. And then they have another team of three teachers that create the interior map. And so then again, they have to put this plan into place. Okay? And then it gets evaluated, see how it goes, and then if TEA approves it, then they start to send you the money. So for bracket okay

167um two things um number one we have to plan for the designation in our compensation plan. So we basically have to put in our compensation plan that if we receive a TIA teacher the money allotted from TPA will be awarded to the teacher. We don't really have a choice. They give us the verbage. We put it in our compensation plan and if the teacher comes in and the state says here's the money then you then you go and you have to take care of that for the teacher. The second thing would be if it's something that we want to do for our teachers then the next step would be to establish some TIA leads. Okay. So putting some dealers out there and saying okay this is a possibility. Can we put a committee together? Do

168we want to look at it and what do we want to do? How much work does it involve? You know, um does it build collaboration? Does it build animosity? You know, but I really think it's something that has to come from the staff. Is this something that the teachers, you know, are interested in and do they want to put in the work to do it? So, that's where we are with T. Sounds good. hold them accountable, keep teachers accountable if they wanted to continue that program. But that's the part that I don't feel the legislative plan the legislative plan corrupulated because they're not held accountable. Right. Well, if it was something that we adopted though, something that we once they're designated, they're designated. You take the rest of the year. Yeah. So, that that's the

169part that I kind of, you know, because once they're designated Okay. they're designated a master teacher. So like you earned your master teacher in bracket and you did a phenomenal job. You had 15 kids in your classroom and you got 100% of your kids to pass. Great. You're a master teacher. Then you go to Del Rio and and again made up story. Made up story. Okay. You go somewhere to a different district and you have 120 kids and this is really hard and I'm not really sure if I'm going to do this. maybe only have 50% of your kids pass. You're still a master teacher in TEA school. So there's there's a lot of pros and cons. So that's why I said I really think it's something the teachers need to really delve into and

170understand it because in a nutshell, high level sounds fantastic. You're going to be a master teacher and you're going to give me $13,000. Yes, I'm going to work and make sure that I earn that extra $13,000, but it's the consistency and the accountability after earning it that I that I personally worry about 7E. Okay, 7E certification status update. So, um throughout this year, we've been talking a little bit about where we are with teachers who are certified. So um going into this last school year 232 24 not 2425 so the the data is for 2324 and this was released in January of 25 from from TEA. So going into the 2324 school year uh statewide 56% of teachers were uncertified. That's that's huge. That's over half of new hires were uncertified. So then uh we

171look at our data. Okay. And so in 2425 this school year 38 out of 52 were certified. So that's 73%. Non-certified we were at 23%. So we had 12 non-certified teachers and we had two interns. Okay. Holding a bachelor's degree or higher was 50 out of 52. That that's at 96%. as we start planning for 2526 we some of those interns will not be returning. Um actually none of them will be neither of them will be returning. Some of those non-certified have not have now moved over to the certified list. So it's exciting to see that we will be um currently with the way things are we will be 84% certified teachers and then 16% will be non-certified 100% will have that bachelor's or higher degree and currently we only have about two vacancies. Now

172this was the year that um I had I asked Mrs. price to take on the district of innovation program. And so she did some very different things to help guide and mentor our non-certified teachers. And if you look at it, the year's not even over. And from 12, we're down to eight. So several of those teachers have been able to get hired, I mean, sorry, to get certified. And we have, I surprised, two to three more that are scheduled to test. And so that we expect that to look better. So Miss Price, tell us a little bit about what you did differently this year. Um I put our eyes on the spot. So I meet with them every six weeks. Uh one to two times six weeks. Um if they see me around campus, they're

173usually hiding or ducking I guess to say something. But um I just um I'm there to support them and and if and they have questions. Um I've contacted colleges to see what um we need to do to help out. Um I've created a checklist uh so that they can visually see exactly where they're where they're at. I think a lot of it is um just making sure that they dedicate time to it and then understanding how much the process and the length for each little component in the checklist aches. Um they've gotten confused over the state testing versus what their program testing is. So there's testing within their program that they have to do and then there's testing with the state. And sometimes when they would say I'm I'm preparing to take a test. We're

174thinking the state test and they're preparing to take a test within their their program. So, um just making sure that they they clearly understand um also have worked on guidelines um as far as how much time each set should take um and then just kind of just stay on top of them. So, and this was also the first year we had one of our non-certified teachers that was struggling with the test. And so, she specifically asked for a program to help her. She was like, you know, there's this program uh instructional program that her certification program was telling her, "It's really good. Get on this." So, we did get it for all of our non-certified teachers to be able to get on there and do the 240 t 240 tutoring to help prepare them um

175for the test. So, we we we really feel like we're making good gains there and and we're we're in a really good place. Is this certified just having your general teacher certification or certified in the field? It it depends on where you teach. So, um our secondary teachers have to It's not there is no um general secondary certification. You're certified in math, you're certified history, you're certified. So in your secondary teachers, what's the percentage of certified teachers in the field of study or the field of teaching? I that that would be another one I'd have to go back and and check it out. Um I'm sure you don't know off the top of your here. I actually have I don't know it off the top of my head, but it's something that I've been working

176on to share with you. It's a good question. Moving on. I appreciate it. Yes. 7. So 7F is another one of those that I just bring to the board every year. There is no change in this policy. But as we get ready to start talking to our seniors about their ranking and their placement, um it can get a little confusing because of our policy. Okay. So, um our policy if you go down to um page four of five, I think it's just important that board members be aware that for the purpose of determining honors to be conferred during graduation. Of course, we calculate um class rank. Okay. But if you look at validictorian and saludiatoran, so the validictorian and the saludiatoran shall be eligible students with the highest and second highest rank respectively to be

177eligible. Okay, they had to have been continuously enrolled in the district's high school for the four years. Okay, so last year it happened and we believe that this year it may happen again. We haven't formally notified people um because we haven't finished calculating but it is oftent times where validictorian is the student that was ranked number three or number five. Okay, because the highest ranking student wasn't here for all four years. So again, um sometimes that's a little different for some of our students who have moved into our district. And again, just so y'all are prepared, it's just we have our policy that says our validictorian and our saludiatoran must four years here. Miss Price, four, five years. Oh, no. Okay. But I don't think I think that's all that's policy. So, it would that

178you got from the barns. It's been consistent with we went over it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I'm going to say it's been long. I've been here now six years in some capacity and it's been that long since. Well, I was there for nine. And it was that it was like that in it was like that 94 we had somebody move in. We couldn't be another they were here all 30 years okay and then um 7G does not require um does not require board action um because it's the substitute handbook and substitute handbooks do not require board approval. Okay. But we always bring the handbooks for you all to for the board to review. So there was a concern that was brought to our attention about the lack of clarification of who was considered degreed

179for degreged sub pay. So we went ahead and made a change in the actual handbook to where it says degreed substitute bachelor's and above. So um we went ahead and made that change already. It's noted there. And then the other place that it's noted is when we do our substitute orientation. Um the second slide actually shows you where it said degree subs and it's bachelor's degree or higher. So these were things that were shared verbally. It a person came to substitute orientation. um it was shared with them but it wasn't written. So now what we practice and what we say is also documented. So we've just kind of completed that circle. You clearly clearly Yes. All righty. Moving on to number eight action items. AA Miss D is in the mic. So due to the

180newly elected board members and the reorganization of officers, it is necessary to take action on electronic signatures for bank transactions. It is the recommendation of the administration to designate the board officials president, vice president, and secretary as the authorized electronic signatures for district bank transactions. I have a motion to accept the administration's recommendation. [Music] I make a motion to accept administration's recommendation. Second 8B. Let's do this. So 8B was a crazy day. It was um Good Friday right before our Easter break and the power went out. Um the sixth grade building um had the classrooms have no windows so when the power goes out they're in pitch darkness. Um also our phone lines are tied to power, our computers are tied to power. So it also became a safety issue because we had no ability

181to contact the the outside world. So, we made lots of phone calls to see when it was going to be turned on. It was an hour, then it was two hours, and it was we don't know. And so, because we just really didn't know how long we were going to be sitting in darkness, um I did reach out to the previous board president and asked about doing a school closure, um asked for his recommendation, visited with my admin team. We had an emergency administrator meeting. So um in in align local school closure, the board delegates the superintendent the authority to close schools for reasons of public health and safety. On April 17th, 2025, Kenny County as well as a school district experienced electrical shortages impacting the internet and phone services. This caused health, safety, and

182security issues. Therefore, it was in the best interest of the staff and students to call in early. Um so we do bring a resolution to the board because we don't have it impact anybody's pay. So basically the resolution is to ensure that even though because we call for the closure every nobody's stopped in in their pay. So it is the recommendation of the administration to approve the school closure resolution as presented and the resolution is attached. If you have any questions I have a motion to approve the administration's recommendation. I'm making resolution. You can write it or you can say textur we read the whole resolution but I think there's some resolutions that it's it's specific required to it depends on yeah okay attaching to the minutes is usually no all those in favor I

183have a question by abstain from the vote for the minutes then I would also abstain for this one or agree to accept the resolution. So the minutes was something separate because that was part of consent agenda item. So that was an item that you alreadyain to. So now these are all individual ones. Okay. Sorry. Just wanted to That's good. Okay. Let's see. Just real quick, for the record, the lady we're here is a school attorney. Your name? I'm Hannah Kramer and I think I've met her so I haven't gotten a chance to meet you yet. I'll come shake your head. We'll do it in close. Thank you. HC, right? HC. Um, so as I had mentioned in one of our earlier board meetings, um, TEA did have someone come up and, um, conduct the district

184vulnerability audit. And so, BISD is required to have a good cause exemption regarding the number of armed officers on each campus. TEA states that we should have one per campus. However, we can do a resolution to be exempt from that requirement and it can be because of lack of staffing. It can be because of the way our building is. So, basically, we have the board just has to approve a resolution saying that we're in compliance through the resolution of not having an armed officer on campus. So the resolution was written for us by legal and um and so we have um the resolution that basically states that we will have a minimum of one officer. So as for the Texas Education Agency District Vulnerability Audit, the IC is required to have a good cause exemption

185regarding the number of armed officers on each campus. It is the recommendation of the administration to approve the good cause exemption resolution as presented. So it reads that we'll have at least without this resolution. You all have to have three, right? Correct. So that's why we weren't in compliance. So I wasn't in compliance, but the auditors came. This will now put us in. It seems to be like we're doing a lot of due diligence as far as I have a motion to accept the administration's recommendations tax resolution at a favor So throughout the course of last year, the 24 23 24 school year and probably the beginning of this school year in 2024, bracket ISD was invited to be part of the multi-juris multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan committee. So I attended a few meetings and

186then I actually felt it was more appropriate for Mr. police to attend um the meetings because it was about school safety, hazardous conditions, building conditions, what do we need to do in case an emergency happens. So, the county could not apply for FEMA grants because we did not have a multi-jurisdiction jurisdictional mitigation plan. So they put several committee members together to include the county, the school district, the city. Um I don't know Mr. Filiz who else was there. Yeah, you were there president. We had rotating guests from rail yards, pipelines. It was it was intense. Pretty good. Awesome. So they created this committee created this plan. Then it had to be submitted to FEMA at in order again this is not that we're getting any grants but in order to even apply for any grants

187this plan has to exist. So FEMA approved the plan and the next step is for all entities to approve the resolution in order to be able to move forward. So it is the recommendation of the administration to approve the hazard mitigation resolution as presented. We have a motion to accept administration recommendations. motion. All those in favor six. Yes. One 80. Yay. Amalio, you're on. So Texas Texas school district is not not exempt from liability incurred from the operation and use of school owner vehicles. However, insurance coverage is necessary um to comply with and insurance coverage is necessary to comply with that requirement. Additional coverage for other liabilities is not required for RSDs as they are considered an arm of the state. However, purchasing insurance is a key part of the school district's risk management plan,

188helping to reduce the financial impact of unforeseen events. Um, recent budget pressures and rising costs for insurance, repairs, and other expenses are making it difficult to maintain adequate um, property coverage. This year, if you notice, TASBY is not offering the buy down option for the dedu uh for the deductible, and it's reducing the covered and the um numbered windstorm limit to 10 million instead of the 40 million total value for buildings. And they've included a 1% of the total value per building covered deductible. And with the reduced coverages, we did not see a decrease in the contribution. And if you remember from our pres presentation in the workshop, one of the struggles that most school districts were having with the rise rising cost of property insurance is happening to us to there's some bills that

189have been introduced. They want to the state want for the state to help some of the the bill the school districts on the coast to give them money because of their hurricanes and things like that. But my um question to Tazby was well we are in a hailtorm bail. Are we going to get any of it? So that's why the debate is also going. Well, I mean is there any chance of somebody else out there that could provide the same coverage? Um yes, we would go out for bids, but it overall um all companies are doing the same thing. That's all. So it is a recommendation of of administration to purchase that motor vehicle insurance liability to comply with the legal um requirement and also to purchase the additional liability property and privacy information security

190and against violent acts um as for the coded premiums to mitigate financial risks for 25. Okay. Last year um we paid the full coverage and got we made the maximum amount for we got a better deal somehow. They've paid 20 something,000 for the buy down of the deductible from 250 to 100,000. So we encourage you by 150 but they're not offering us that this year. The the plan has changed completely what they're doing. Instead is saying we will go on a per case per claim. And then um let's for example if it were a claim on Jones whatever the value of Jones is 1% of that is now our deductible. Then if it had gone the the the situation was two or three buildings then you add all three values and that's why this year

191you see that I attached the list um that we got from TA for the value of all the buildings because the calculation is based on their values. If something were to happen, they go into they reach into those values, multiply 1% and that starts the deductive. Now those values include uh these old buildings are valued at that. Well, because they also include um contents. Okay. So they were newer building. It might be worse. It would be more expensive because this would be for replacement costs. Even though Jones may not be worth that much to replace a building with something new to me size, it's going to be even more expensive including that. Correct. And and even at that, our insurance did go up a couple of thousand. Um uh however I guess the silver lining

192is that the um in the last some 20 years I think or more we have not had a total of more than I want to say seven or eight million dollars in claims. If we were to have a tornado, it doesn't fall under the cap tendon 10 million as hurricane and things like that, which we really don't happen to us, but you never know. Regardless, they reduce our So then what bill is 152,000? Yes. 276 increase by And I know you prepared the budget all the all this is taken into yes money's earned right there. So the increase was 2569 which you see mostly in the auto. Um they didn't give us an increase on the property but then they changed all our deductive they took less risk obviously a motion to accept the recommendation

193of the administration as present. I make a motion to accept I'll second it in my program 152,76 will satisfy an invoice but this is common and we negotiated with them for a little bit it was much higher actually they were 10% all those in favor Yes. Sorry. So, our depository contract um TA requires that school districts have a depository contract with the with the bank. The contract has to be ex executed for the reasons that we need to have storage for our district funds and we have to ensure that the TEA can deposit funds into our designated bank account when they pay. Um what we are recommending as per BISD do DOI plan and legal review our attorney did review is to renew and extend the contract for banking services with the banking trust for

194the local school year July 1, 2025 to June 30th of 2027 for the next two more years. I have a motion to accept administration recommendation as presented. So second all in favor ag the uh CDA legal requires that we not list them quarterly. Um the investment officers prepare and submit to the order report of investment transactions for all funds that are covered by the public funds investment act for the preceding reporting period. This report shall be presented not less than quarterly to the board and the superintendent within a reasonable time after that period. Uh it is uh my recommendation to accept the third quarter investment report as presented. I have a motion to accept administration recommendation. Interest rates are still [Music] considering we were close to five wrong this time last year. They're still okay.

195They have plummeted. Close. All right. Eight. So, as we um discussed earlier during our hearing during our workshop, I'm sorry. Um the board does need to require need to approve rather uh budget amendments for funding function level. So, um, around this time of the year, we go into our budgets and start looking at at accounts and start realigning and recalculations. And so, we talked about um, recapture. So, recapture, you can see it if you go down uh, a little past halfway. Function 91 is where we record recapture. So that 243 is actually an increase to the original 69 that we had calculated much earlier in the year before we had more standard variables. And overall with this budget amendment we're um realigning the different functions with increases and decreases and then taking um 258,031 back

196into in these they'll already see to where we put back the fleet. So as we discussed in the in our budget workshop the money that you had said use for we put it back so that we did that amendment because we had already drawn it out to use it. So now she aligned it to put it back. The additional money that we had set for some of the maintenance that was not safety we already pulled it out and put it in the maintenance fund. Now we put it back in front. So as of 51 and the other one was in 34 and that just helps align it a little bit better for this year. knocking out one at a time or one. I'm sorry. Can they do all three at a time? They can. Um,

197but uh, yes, but I uh, let's see. The second one is a food service. So, just as long as everybody understands that's service one and the third one isn't any one. So, there's no So then it could be just um budget. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the budget amendments as presented? the work that Amaya did to balance this and put that and put these amendments together was huge. So, I mean it was it was it was all in favor. Item number nine. So this is our budget and expense report for the month of April. This does not include these amendments. So this is before these amendments. And as you can see, we're pretty much on target compared to last year and pretty much almost done with our budget with our has been

198my proof that I did call them in and tell them no more. We I did a lot of work as businesses, but I didn't do it alone. It took a lot all of us to give me a story so I could try to paint numbers. So, and to start cutting and reducing the increase in the next two months and how we're going to do it for next year also. Long detail. Very long detail. Sorry. lots of hours of stories. It has lots of chapters. Keep going. I would just open her door and put her sandwich there for her close a couple of weeks. I would just say go into my cage to close it. We did. She would throw me some food. You probably saw her vehicle parked here. We went and then 9B. I'm

199not sure. Do we have any questions on 90? 90. 90. Okay. So 9B is our monthly over 500 checks um per and it's much smaller for several reasons. Um we're not spending a lot anymore and what we are kind of spending is more out of uh well student activity. You'll probably see more of that in May. That's what mostly is happening. So this was this is kind of a wrap up of the year. April 10th April 9th was our deadline for purchase orders after this should be the end of except obviously emergency I just got one question on this one that uh that counseling service is that because we You didn't have that counselor hired a few days ago or is this Yes. So that we contracted out that that cont that grant required a

200stronger connections counselor and since we were unable to hire one, we contracted out two ladies. Um Anna has pretty much stayed with us till the end. Um, she's good through May 16th, but since we've hired someone, she's pretty much fine here. This is number 10. Okie dokie. So, first, you all received, and I will forward to the new board members, our beautiful list of all our May events. Did that marked up just a little bit with everything going on? So, so May was very busy. So, I will forward you the email and the invites uh to our new board members, but we've got lots of stuff that has already happened and lots of stuff coming up. Tomorrow is our dinner theater. Um so, I know that Mr. Busman RSVP um I don't know if y'all

201are interested. Board members do get in without a ticket. If you want to bring your spouse or guest, you just pay your guest ticket. If you're available, it's just send me an email text me and I'll make sure that we Yes. Um because we follow up with the FFA banquet. So again, if y'all will just let me know if you're going to be present, that way I can make sure that we're we have a special spot for you. May 15th is our scheduled for the compensation plan. So that's this Thursday. Um just wanted to make sure that we would have a quorum. So are is everybody available? Every store available for Thursday? Yes. Okay, perfect. Awesome. Um May 22nd is our athletic banquet. We have our art show which will happen on May 23rd. You

202can see that it's starting to come to life already. Our art show is held in here um since the office becomes an art gallery. Um May the 26 there's no school. Then we have all our awards assemblies and graduations. And again I just encourage y'all to to come and and celebrate with us, celebrate our students. They're just they're amazing. your amazing events and um we usually like to honor and and recognize the board members if you're present. So then um just kind of closing that up our summer leader leadership institute that takes care of that for us but I think by now she's probably from everything so I think we're we're good there. So for the department reports, um I'll start with the custodial reporting graduation. We're going to do what I recommended last month

203about being available for the graduation. Yes, everybody can give. Yeah, make a list or whatever. Yes, I'll put that together like I did like I did last last year that we did well last year didn't get implemented. Yes. Um so for custodians um auditorium is a is a big deal during the month of May because they have so much um events and it's also even being rented out for different meetings. So our custodians have been working very diligently on making sure our our auditorium is ready. They also have to do a little bit of extra work sometimes out at the softball and baseball field um to make sure that it's opened and ready and cleaned and pipped up because it is rented for some of our our local our local um baseball teams. Jones Elementary,

204their enrollment was at 239. Again, I just want to focus on not that I want to focus on it, but Kinder is sitting at 18, you know, kids. So, that's kind of where that's looking at our kinder class. So, we know that our enrollment is down a little bit there. All the look good. The attendance was on the rise. So, I think we were at 92% before, now we're at 94. So, it looks to be going um in the right direction. And of course, their events are all field trips and end of year activities. Lots lots of great great things. Um no discipline really to report or deal with. And of course, this last month we finished all our testing. So, um congratulations to Jones. Great job. um secondary board report. Um high school is

205at 157. Again, they're pretty steady. They've got two classes that are in the 40s. Um graduate junior high um enrollment is at 113. Their attendance also seems to be moving in the right direction. Junior high was at 95 and then high school was at 94.6. Um we've had a couple of discipline issues that we've been working with. Um, and then of course whenever I feel like I'll need to be aware of something, I do send emails. So you'll always get an email if there's something that I feel like, okay, the board probably needs to know that this that this happened for. I'll send a quick quick text message letting y'all know about just issues that are that are going on. The other big thing to celebrate is this is the month that we're certifying our

206CTE students. And so we will be certifying students in culinary, welding, graphic design, accounting, and education. So, I think I mentioned it last year or last meeting, but this is our first year that we'll actually certify two students with the educational aid. Yes. So, it's it's the real thing. That's right. So, we're excited about we're excited about that. Um Mr. So these reports um we did have our intruder audit from TEA come in um where they just come in regular plane clothes and try to get on campus. High school had already passed. We were waiting on junior high and Jones Elementary and they were here Wednesday of last week I think. And so we passed they were stopped. They weren't allowed to go in. Um so we are cleared with all our intruder audits. Um

207Mr. is also working with that engineer group consultant. They will be here tomorrow to start looking at putting in that vestibule and planning for the vestibule because remember that comes out of safety safety and security. And of course he's do him and his staff are doing a great job at reminding teachers about thermostats especially as we get ready to hit this uh little heat wave that we're going to be going into. So thank you Mr. Case for your report. Um the athletic report um I'm sure we all know this Matthew Schwatner who came up here several times. So um Mr. Co co coach Gagger highlighted Matthew's um success at the state track meet. Um our baseball team also went off into playoffs. So they made it to the first round. They won one game, lost

208one game and so it was a two out of three series. Um so they were divide by district. So again, our athletes this year, they did a phenomenal job. Um, cafeteria report shows that they served 5,391 meals. Um, so as we get towards the end of the year, if you have kids in school, you may start seeing that the calendar shows managers special or managers choice because at this point, we're just trying to use up the food that we have left. Um, so that way we we don't have anything spoiled. So they're minimizing their weekly orders as we get closer and closer to the to the end of the school year. So that was Miss Red's report. Mrs. Price's report, she hers was a hefty report. Spring is definitely um busy for curriculum and instruction.

209Um, she's working with the district advisory committee on getting our professional development set up for next year. She also has scheduled meetings with grade levels to review curriculum, review curriculum concerns, review curriculum needs, wants, um, and see what direction we need to go in. Um, also making sure that we're in compliance. So, there will be a new compliance, I don't want to say issue, a new compliance requirement in regards to special ed where we have to track the number of minutes. So if a student is supposed to get 60 minutes, what are we using to to track? So we started our new dashboard this year and Miss Price has been working with the COI team and so that um tracker will be able to be built into what teachers are already using in their dashboard.

210So it's going to continue to be that one-stop shop. Um she's also been working with cluster. We are increasing our special ed department by another teacher and so making sure that we're um making sure that the case loads are appropriately spread out. We don't want one of our special ed teachers to have 55 kids on their case load and another one of 22 kids. So she's been working with teacher case loads and the processes for next year. Um as as we talked a little bit about budget, we talked a lot about um enrollment and attendance and all of that is verified through PS. So um Miss Price is also one of the ones that does our data verification. So she ensures that all our PE data is clean, you know, and so double checks reports

211to make sure that that is correct. Um during the springtime, she's our district testing coordinator. all all testing documents must be kept for five years. So, we make sure that we're in compliance there, that we have all of those requirements. And then, as we talked about, um DOI, we've been working very carefully um and closely on DOI, making sure that our DOI teachers are aware that their contract is changing, that they're going to receive that 90% of the salary if they're not certified. And so, we've had them sign off on the add agenda and make sure that they are aware of that. And also one of the things she mentioned was um working with them on timelines because some of our our young teachers feel like oh I take my test and I passed so

212I'm certified. Well no you took your test and you passed. So now you have to apply for your certification. TEN has to verify it and then it has to be posted on ESP and so it's not a process that happens overnight and so you're not officially certified until that certification is posted on. So those are the department reports for do we not get those reports no more? You know, they used to be part of consent, right? [Music] Because they used to be part of a consent agenda and it was a feeling that they didn't want it didn't need to be something approved. So now it's just listed there for me to review. I think I think also part of the discussion was the vote or just that's I've that's I've a few nights but uh

213I want to say that with the discussion was that uh it was kept in consent agenda it wasn't detention uh I'm trying to think if I I don't think I've ever received uh package with question. [Music] We used to think last year we didn't fix. So for somebody who's new, could you tell me why that would be very beneficial or not beneficial to have copies of that? Um I I can see a thing where maybe doesn't uh uh uh go into the full length of the report. Maybe there's something in there that just gets missed. If you're a board member and you see the full report there, you might say, "Oh, tell me more about that privacy." And that would be why I guess we see that would be beneficial. Yeah, that's right. Not in

214advance. I don't have to you don't have to cover correct. So, we could put it informationational item instead of under superintendent reports and I can go back to uploading them. But I guess my question, how would they removed from the consent agenda from before? Um, if that's an action item. Yeah, I'd have to go back and and look at notes, but it was it was it was just a dis was just a discussion that they didn't need to be in consent agenda item. And so when they were taken off there was I don't recall there being I don't remember having a discussion. I know we talked about the the financials taking them out of discussion as it could be under information. The issue was that why were the discussion was why were they under consent

215and being voted on when there was no action needed on needed on this report. So they so that that's what it was. So they were and it was did anyone say when we came back from SLI that all of these reports used to be listed under consent agenda item but it was like we're we don't need to vote on them. They're justformational. And so then it was like, okay, well, do you all want to take them off? No, I mean, they were under consent. We were seeing them. You were seeing them under consent and then voting on them as part of the consent agenda item. So, we took off the department reports and we moved out the the business reports. today just seemed like number um today I think I I read more of it,

216you know, cuz I think that's Matt's thing, too, is I mean I did not read y'all everything that's that's in here, you know. Um I always just kind of go through and say, "Okay, let me see what I'm going to highlight from the department reports." And then I keep them in case y'all want to see them, but they're not loaded anywhere. But they've still been turning them in. So we can definitely put department reports and update it. Um if we wanted to do it officially then it would just say you know create an information item kind of the way we do a running information item button. I mean you want to change the way you do that. see you in advance. Well, you were getting them in advance on your agenda on your report book

217so you could look at when you got there for any questions you could ask. Meaning, you had to discuss them here for 30 40 minutes. That's why I asked why aren't they there to see and how I I I do not remember having discussion. I just remember said get back from SLI table and I think they should be on the board book for the public to see what individuals do or don't in my opinion I agree having they were in the obvious community and they were under the super given some advice about them being as an attachment I'm happy to talk about that in post session when we go on that was something I haven't discussed. This is Will you look at in July? Was that when they were taken off? No, they were there

218in August. But where are they in July? Cuz I bet it was June or July because if you're saying by August they were under superintendent already, that's not where they used to be. They used to be under consent. We didn't need in July, remember? Oh, okay. And that was after [Music] we can as Hannah said she can we can discuss in close session and not give direction on how you would like this one. We'll do so 51 will go into close session. Okay. So to government code 1.071 and 551.074 074. The board of trustees will join in close session at 7:5 We're live. All right, we're coming out of close session at 8:59 p.m. We have two action items to take. First action is going to be a recommendation to hire Miss Tanya Martinez, a

219second grade teacher certified, and Miss Carol Tristler, a fifth grade science teacher. Do I have a motion to accept the recommendation to hire? I make a motion to accept the recommendation to hire Tanya Martinez and Miss Trestler. Claudia makes a motion to have a second. Second. All those in favor? unanimous. Second item for business is the 2526 teacher contract being Miss Megan Davis renewing contract as a certified teacher and Miss Alexa Mos renewing as a DOI contract. Do I have a motion to accept this recommendation? I make a motion to accept the recommendation for the 2526 certified TE contract Megan Davis and the DOI contract for Alexis makes a motion. I have a second. Ricky seconds. All those in favor? Meeting is adjourned at 9:01 p.m. Wait, can you come tomorrow?