001Good evening everyone. We're going to call to order the workshop for the College Station ISD Board of Trustees. Declaration of a quorum, we have seven members present. Uh we have no uh people signed up to speak on hearing of citizens, so we're going to move right into our workshop sessions. Our first one is a TASB policy update and we have Ms. Hester and from TASB we have Ms. Kadlecek um who is going to present to us. Thank you for being here. Good evening and thank you for um being here tonight. We I brought Amy with me tonight so that she could help explain better than I possibly can um the changes in policy for the DOI so that we could be very clear. You all have received it in transmittal and you have it in
002front of you. So I'm going to turn it over to Amy. We appreciate her coming from Austin to this for us tonight. Good evening. I'm glad to be here. So um Chrissy had asked me to come and just explain a little bit about the changes that we have made um particularly pertaining to the local policies that are impacted by the district's improvement plan. Um when DOI started after the legislative session in 2015 TASB had to really stop and think about how are we going to reflect those um exemptions that districts choose to um exempt [clears throat] themselves from and so that it is accurately reflected in a policy manual. And so from the beginning what we would do was try to explain each district's individual exemption and what their rationale was and what their plan
003was and put that in local policy. And then we added a note to the legal framework just to say something in this policy, something in this legal framework may not apply because the district has an exemption. And that's how we've kind of rolled along. Of course, after this last legislative session, when so many of the common exemptions that districts around the state have routinely used and included in their innovation plan, many of them the legislature came back and said those are no more no longer eligible. And so we had to make changes to districts um DOI policies. And then also, it's also just a common time so after in 2017 when districts first got their um innovation plan approved, it was good for 5 years. And then again, so 2022 was kind of a a
004key time when districts started um re-upping their plans. Sometimes in between, they would make amendments. And then now that um you know, after 2022, they made new plans. And so we're getting to that point where many districts, because of the changes and wanting to amend their plan, they're doing a total re- um redo of their DOI plan at this time. And so it gave us pause and we made some decisions in our policy in our policy department about how can we best communicate what is the district is choosing to exempt itself from. Um every district's DOI plan, while it's very common from district to district to see the same exemptions, exactly what the district is going to do um as far as implementing whatever uh change that they're going to utilize there, that is a
005little bit different. And trying to articulate that clearly in each local policy gets to be a little bit tricky. What we realized is that we were also creating policy language sometimes and in hindsight, we feel like in some ways it's unnecessary. When you think about it, your DOI plan has gone through the whole process to be created and then the board has approved it. And so in essence, your DOI plan is your local policy about whatever exemption that you all are choosing to um make a a decision about and and exempt yourself from. So, we will continue to always put the note at the top of the legal framework and the applicable legal policy, but instead of making changes to local policy, we're going to rely on the district's individual DOI plan. It has to
006be posted on your website. It's posted on TEA's website. It's easily accessible for folks. And if somebody's looking in your policy manual and they see in the legal framework a little note that says something in this legal policy is impacted by the district's innovation plan and then it points to policy AF local, which is the policy that says we have chosen to have a a district of innovation plan, then it also points you back to going and finding that um DOI plan posted on your website so that the stakeholder can read the DOI plan, see what the exemption is. The only time we're going to put something in a local policy now related to the DOI plan is if the local policy already addressed the topic that is related to the exemption. And the best
007example is um the policies related to um complaints and grievances. Many districts have chosen to exempt themselves from all of the requirements under Senate Bill 12 related to the changes in timelines particularly. And so, we do need to accurately reflect that in local policy because your district administrators rely heavily on those local policies as do your stakeholders should they need to um follow that policy to file a formal complaint or even try to get an informal complaint or grievance addressed. So um once you all notified me, once Chrissy notified me that the committee had worked together and the board had approved the revisions and amendments to your DOI plan, I said, "Good to know. Send me the whole plan. Let me review it." And then I went into your policy manual to find where all
008of the exemptions in your DOI plan were already represented in your policy manual. And then that is where I came up with the recommendations for the changes to the applicable local policies. Um so in the packet that you've received, you will see that there are um or I hope you've seen that there are a number of policies where provisions are being removed, and in some cases the entire policy is being marked for deletion. Um and when you see that, it's because we had added kind of artificially um information about that particular topic. Um the local policy didn't need to address You didn't need a local policy provision about that topic previously until we at TASB had decided, "Well, they have an innovation plan. We better somehow communicate that in local policy." We're going to rely
009on your DOI plan now to to communicate that, and therefore we're taking it out of any local policy and only including it in those local policies like your grievance policies where we need to clearly articulate what choices have been made um regarding that. Any questions regarding that part of this? So there was a packet of policies here, and as you've looked through them, I think it's pretty clear. You can see especially like on that first one where I've marked the DOI note at the top of that local policy for deletion and then a paragraph about your state teacher certification. That doesn't mean that that is not part of your DOI plan anymore, but the requirements related to state teacher certification are legally driven. They're in your legal framework. That's what you've chosen to exempt yourself
010from. So there is a DOI note in the DBA legal framework. And then we will just put your local policy back to including only the local provisions that are related to the topics on credentials and records that are required in local policy. The next example would be DCA and you can see that that was an example of where we created a local policy just to say something about the district's choice to extend the probationary contract period for employees who are new and need to be on a probationary contract. Most of the time districts don't even have a local policy at this code. All of the provisions addressing how the district has to implement the local policy or implement the requirements related to probationary contracts are in your legal framework. And so we created this policy
011completely unique and so that's why we're going to delete it. Again, the main thing is your local DOI plan explains what your plans are are going to be as as far as how you're going to implement the five of eight rule as it relates to folks coming in on probationary contracts and the experience that they they've had in school districts prior to coming to your district. So we without going through policy by policy, which I'm happy to do as well. I'm what I really want to know is do you have any particular questions about any of these local policies? Not really. My only question, did you say the legal policy did it change at all or was that was that clause already in there calling out the you know, the district of >> The DOI
012plan. Um so, if for the exemptions that you've had in your DOI plan since before y'all you you made your recent amendments to include the exemptions from the new requirements under Senate Bill 12 related to the complaint policies, those did have um the notes at the top the So, for example, the state teacher certification, the class size um exemption, the one about the five of eight rule for probationary contracts, those have all had a note at the top. Um and it will con- they will continue to have a note. We're actually updating that note a little bit, so that'll be updated when I process all of this for you, but they've already had that note at the top and they will continue. And then with your new amendments like with um the three complaint policies,
013a note will be added to those legal framework policies. So, your original question is of did they change the note part didn't change. The policy more than likely changed though because of course there were there was a lot of change to pretty much every legal policy in the policy [laughter] manual after the last legislative session. So, there have been a lot of updates there. I think we've done a lot of uh discussion on our DOI policy over the last months and so I think it's just important to kind of point out that these changes that we're looking at in this packet aren't changing what we are doing as a district. It is just um an effort to clean up the policies and make it streamlined like they things that were in the DOI before were
014also in our local policy in a way that they didn't have to be spelled out there because they were in the DOI. So, just as not to like create confusion for anybody who's listening to this, this packet isn't a change of policy. It's just a change of how we're wording it and where it's going to be. Is Is that fair to say? >> Absolutely. That's a great summarization. Yes. And even with your complaint policies, the three complaint policies DGBA for employee complaints, FNG for parent complaints, parent and student complaints, and GF for public complaints, those policies are not substantively changing. We've put the note at the top. We've done a little bit of stylistic clean up. We used to spell out the the number 10 and now we use the digits. Um we used to
015always include or designee and after superintendent and that is being adjusted throughout the entire policy manual because policy BJA already provides for the superintendent's delegation authority, so we are trying to remove that phrase and just make it a little simpler for reading. Um so, that's Those are really the only changes. These three complaint policies are putting your policies back to how they were prior to your DOI plan um adding those amendments. And starting in September, we'll meet with DEIC to go through this entire plan and we'll work the entire fall on what the plan is and then bring a new recommendation when we have to re-up in March of '27. So, this wouldn't require any action at a future meeting cuz we're not necessarily changing those just restructuring. Okay, so it's a informational. Okay, thank
016you. All right. We we do have to vote on these policies though and you know, we'll do that as normal the next board meeting. >> Okay, so this is >> But these policies do we need to update these policies? So, you will vote on the policies at the next meeting. Normally we do workshop. >> is a first reading. Okay. All right, thank you. >> And then as um Dr. Cartwright was saying, when it is time for you all to review your current DOI plan and look at re-upping it and going through the process to get it um adjusted, one of the things I suggested to um Chrissy is after the committee has worked on it, um then if if they'll send it to me and let me review it for them first. There are certain
017exemptions that um you know, some of those have gone away because of the last legislative session, common things that were common exemptions, but also there are some things that I think some districts have added exemptions in their DOI plan not realizing the flexibility of the statute already, and so we do like to point that out and I'll be able to give some feedback and insight into that before the board it's presented to the board for final approval. And then at that time, it will also let me know if we need to make any additional changes to your policy manual, if you're adding any exemptions, or if you're deciding that that exemp- a particular exemption is no longer something you all want to include in your plan, then we would make the proper adjustments to your
018policy manual, and I would prepare drafts as necessary. Okay. I would just add I real quickly did a search for our DOI plan and it of course it is on our website for people if they want to look at it and like you just discussing it was approved for the 2022 through um 2027 time frame. So, it's Okay. Well, we really appreciate you being here um and meeting with us and um thank you for your time. You bet. You bet. Okay, our next uh workshop session is going to be a budget advisory committee presentation. We're going to have Mr. Carl Detloff will be the presenter from the budget advisory committee. I'm not for sure if he volunteered to present, but he graciously accepted the offer. >> Yes, I can do this. All right. So, the
019the purpose of the committee, again, we just really had a great opportunity as a committee to serve as ambassadors, review our current previous budget situations, plan for the future, and look at viable options. Also, you know, we uh looked at cost containment initiatives provided by the school district that you will continue to learn more about in the upcoming months to implement some of these solutions. Again, our task as an advisory committee was just to provide input. Certainly, the Board of Trustees will have to approve every endeavor and opportunity that we have for a budget containment and cost containment initiatives, and then the leadership team will certainly implement those solutions as the board sees fit. So, it was a great committee, and I just appreciate the opportunity to serve on it. Okay, here you have headlines,
020and all you have to do is go to your favorite social media site or any periodical or newspaper if they're still in print and read these headlines across the state of Texas. Um so really I want to kind of provide the context for my remarks tonight through the current lens that I have. So I want to provide a a state overview of the budget situation and then kind of funnel it back down to CSISD and the implications it has from a statewide lens to your current budget initiatives. Um really when you when you think about it uh I was a former superintendent for 9 years in a in a like-sized school district as College Station ISD. I just retired after 33 years in education. Now I serve as the deputy executive director for a nonprofit
021organization that focuses on school finance and policy and we currently have about 450 school districts that are members. So these headlines we feel it, we see it, we understand it from across the state. And I also take this time to brag that the board of trustees in College Station ISD, the leadership team, the CFOs, the superintendents have been exceptional over the last 30 years. So you guys have been great financial stewards and I want our listening audience to understand that. Um you know across the state you've been conservative fiscally and have done what you needed to do to provide opportunities for the kids in your school district. So I applaud you for that. In our work we've seen polls and estimations that about 50 to 60% of school districts in Texas, remember there about 1,012
022school districts in Texas, 50 to 60% are adopting deficit budgets. So this is not new. You're in a position you've been great financial stewards and I applaud you for doing that. It's just where we are now. Um And this next slide If you look at the decline in enrollment and College Station is experiencing this and districts across the state of Texas are experiencing this, too. From 2007 to 2019, there's a 21% decrease in birth rates in the state of Texas. This is higher than the national average. Also, if you look at families, in 2020 actually 2000, the births per family were about at 2.5 births per per family in Texas. That was reduced to 1.84 births per family in Texas in 2022. So, a lot of the declining enrollment we're seeing across the state is
023really applicable because of the the birth rate decrease. Um So, also, if you kind of move through this uh I'm going to take my glasses off cuz I think I can see this better without. As you move through this slide, reduction or elimination federal funding. I think Heather Doc and Dr. Harkrider will kind of talk you through some of those specifics, but the stagnant funding or funding with strings. What we're saying is despite a historic 8.5 billion dollars infusion into state public education it is targeted in different buckets and allotments. So, you have the ABC allotment allotment of basic cost. You have the teacher retention allotment, school support allotment. So, what's happening is is from a legislative standpoint, all these allotments are targeting now. So, what happens to districts like College Station, it is eroding
024local control. So, you were elected as a local official to represent College Station ISD, but you are losing local control because the funds are targeted. So, it gives Dr. Harkrider, Heather, your CFO, less opportunity and for you less opportunity to put the monies where the local resources are needed. And that can be problematic. So, we're seeing that across the board. Um, I think a a great example of this target allotment is Texas Education Agency yesterday. They released uh and they said it was part of the school safety allotment that you need now an additional for every 500 people that are attending an event, an extracurricular event, you need a school resource officer. You're probably doing that already, but every person on top of the 500, for every 750 new attendees, you need an additional school
025resource officer. In my former school district, Central High School on a Friday night, we'd average about 9 or 10,000 in attendance at a Friday night football game. That would mean we would need somewhere between 10 and 12 school resource officers available. So, this just came out yesterday, but it's a classic example of a targeted allotment and also a classic example of an unfunded mandate because there are no new monies coming in for this. It's supposedly coming out of the school safety initiative that actually doubled from 2 years ago from 180 million to 400 million. But still, you're you were using those funds to supply and employ your school resource officers. Now you'll have to ensure that there's one for every 750 attendees. So, band concerts, you know, large extracurricular activities, it could be problematic. So,
026I think that's one of the risks too now is that they're targeted funding. The legislative session won't meet until next January in 2027. Typically what happens is you don't have a omnibus school finance bill and it's every other session. So, what most likely will happen this session is you'll just have between 400 and 800 million dollars of cleanup with current initiatives. So, they'll clean up House Bill 2, 400 to 800 million dollars of cleanup, but there won't be radical or omnibus school finance legislation again. So, if you think until probably the next session. So, what that would mean is that spring of 2029. So, most likely you won't see any new funding until September of 2029. So, what we've been recommending for districts is that you've got your current levels of funding and you'll have
027to work through that. Now, let's talk about vouchers quickly and I may need to sip a water for this one. That's right. Uh So, there are about 274,000 applications for the school voucher program in Texas. 1 billion additional funding was set aside. This is on top of education and yes, you know, that funding was it well, some students are going to leave the current school district and go to a private school for the educational savings account or voucher. So, there was about 274,000 applications, but also if you look at the data, about 73% of these applications are already in private school. Now, a billion dollars was allocated for this and even I can do Carl math. If 73% were already in private school, that means the people in this room, all of us taxpayers, are
028paying about 750 million dollars out of our pocket that could be going to public traditional public schools. That if you just take the 75% of 1 billion dollars. So, it's another funding mechanism that just started with the 89th legislature. So, another funding mechanism, uh vouchers is on top of the school funding mechanism that's currently in place. So, my estimation and guess would be that this will continue to increase as the applications increase. Also, you have to remember that in the voucher program, $10,500 is allocated for students that are accepting educational savings account. I think what could be more problematic is $2,000 are offered for home school students. So, all of these things together are going to, you know, put an additional crunch on local school district budgets. So, that's the voucher. So, all these together
029are working to really impact your local school district budgets. Uh the budget minimum payroll of 84% that you can see on the slide. And and I think Mike and Tim know this better than anybody from having real-time experience doing this. In public schools, most school districts in Texas are about 1,012 school districts. 80 to 90% of almost every school district in Texas, their total budget is made up of personnel. So, the only way that you can really impact and reduce a budget is through personnel. I think many times districts, you know, get caught up in reducing general supplies or they don't offer great course offerings for students. And when this happens, I think you also can impede the great culture that College Station ISD has created. The way you have to go about reducing a
030budget with significance is through personnel. And College Station ISD pays about 80 84% of their entire budget goes to personnel. And this is typical of all school districts in Texas. So, that that is the way to meet that requirement. The other option is facility. You can look at headlines across the state and the merging of and consolidation of schools. So, you know, at some point in time, perhaps long after your tenure on the board, but maybe in the 2030s, we may have to look at consolidation or merging of campuses or perhaps looking at campuses that don't have high enrollments. Uh In my past and previous experience, you could typically save about $800,000 by closing a campus. Of course, you also have to remember the duplicative efforts of your administration cost, your counselor, your nurses, your
031assistant principals, your principals. So, all those costs can be impacted as well. Uh You guys have done an incredible job on the budget. You're going to be A-OK because you've been great financial stewards, but in the future, I think we know that we're going to have to continue to look at cost containment initiatives and and how that may be completed. I'm putting my glasses on as I go to the next slide here. Oh, this was I was so interested in this. You One of my roles uh in my superintendency was how I always thought about how I can create a pay raise for teachers and all employees. In my former school district, a pay raise of 1% cost about $800,000. Here, I believe it's about 1 million or 1.1 million dollars for a 1% pay
032raise. And remember, the early glow from the honeymoon has rescinded and the arms race for compensation will continue to increase with school districts despite the 8.5 billion, uh, you know, historic levels uh, that were funded through the teacher retention allotment. So, uh, one of the task of our committee, we also looked at, okay, we want to provide continuous teacher pay raises, whether that's this year, next year, 3 years from now, what does that look like? What's that percentage? So, how do we generate additional funds? What can we reduce to generate additional funds? Again, knowing probably until September 2029, there'll be not a significant new funding, um, so that we can create a pay raise opportunities, uh, for our teachers. So, I think that's a a critical attribute of of what we're looking at, too. So,
033uh, so, we kind of talked about underutilized campuses, review of staffing structures, uh, the staffing reductions. Uh, Dr. Harkrider and uh, Heather have have implored to me that, uh, there no one in good standing will lose their job. So, for the record in CSISD, everyone that is an employee in good standing, which is probably 99% of everyone, will continue to have a position in the school district. Although, it may be a different position. So, those reductions will come through attrition, and that's the easiest, uh, most practical way to do it. So, uh, as you combine positions, I know that, uh, you know, in some of our school districts, we see, uh, you know, even in the central office and administration building, and I know Dr. Harkrider's mentioned that, uh, they're also going to be reducing
034in this building as well, but the combination of positions. I know in my experience, we, uh, had a PEIMS, a student data person, and executive director of schools, uh, we merged those three positions, provided the individual with the $12,000 raise, but you save $100,000. Uh, so, uh, all of those are are options, uh, for school districts as you look through attrition and staffing reductions. Uh pay for substitute and bus drivers. You simply cannot do your business of educating uh students uh without quality substitutes. And it is extremely difficult to find quality substitutes. Uh but we are just so delighted and privileged uh when those campuses have and our principals will tell you that uh when when they have a uh exceptional substitutes on their campus. And then um the evaluation of of all programs. Uh
035we mentioned this in our budget advisory group, but uh you know if you look at the research, students that participate in extracurricular activities, their graduation rates are higher, their attendance rates are higher, and their GPAs are higher. So I would offer keep the high quality programs that CSISD continues to offer in extracurricular activities. Most likely your bands at both high schools probably uh have 300 student attendance or participation. Um of course it it you know it's it's your choirs, your your drill teams, your soccer teams, your softball, your volleyball. Um and I will share uh speaker privilege because I'm just a citizen now. Uh and that is it perturbs me that people don't realize the outstanding school district that is in their backyard in College Station ISD. My spouse and I, Judy, also a a
036teacher in College Station for many years, uh we don't understand when you have two award-winning high schools, incredible elementaries, middle schools that people are choosing another option. So um you know I I think it's perhaps the old fishbowl analogy uh that you know when you're in the bowl, you don't understand what a great uh aquatic experience it is. How was that, Mr. Martindale? Was that a good embellishment? Put on the way Carl can put it. [laughter] So, uh I just want people to understand that it's you guys have done a tremendous job and and I wish more people uh would would appreciate the high quality of education that the students receive here and I just wanted to say that for the record in case I'm not invited back. So, with that, I will turn that
037over to uh Dr. Harpwriter or President Ivey and uh tell me what I can do differently or for specifics, I'll turn it over to district leadership. Well, I just want to say first, thank you to everyone who served on that committee. Um it is um a gift of your time and efforts to be a part of that, so we appreciate that. And I do just want to open it up for the board to ask any questions that you may have. I don't have any questions. I'm I got the privilege of serving on this committee and I just wanted to thank um Carl. That committee was made up of some really outstanding people. Um it was great to have your perspective as an outsider and having run another district. Um I want people listening to know
038that yes, they there were so many great discussions. Um but it was just a privilege to serve on that committee and thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Anything else? >> I think they're waiting on Heather in the workshop, so they're going to let you off easy. My My wife is making white bean chili tonight, so I'm going to Well, I think you did a I think you did a great job of just talking back to us, so Thank you very much. I stood up for white bean chili. All right, and that is going to move us into our 2026-2027 budget workshop. We are ready, Ms. Wilson. Good evening, Miss Iggy, Dr. Harkrider, Board of Trustees. Appreciate the time tonight. So, we're on to our fourth budget workshop, but you're going to be excited
039to see some numbers tonight. So, we hope to have some things for you. We'll kind of look at the current budget landscape. We'll look at enrollment trends, fund balance, and then we'll look at the estimated 26-27 budget just to talk through where we are at this point and where where our next steps are. So, if you look at the current budget, we're turning really well for revenue. One question you might have is on that minimum foundation state revenue, it looks like we're a little bit over collecting state revenue. I really think it's because of an overpayment. If you look at what I estimate right now as today, we should have about 29 million in there just as which is a little over 300 to 500,000 more than what you see in the budget. It's just
040if you look at what we thought we were going to have for enrollment and what we have now, we have less students and so they've kind of overpaid us. And so, that's what you're seeing in that revenue account. Just to kind of give you a heads-up in case you have questions there. Another thing about College Station ISD, you're probably very much aware of. We are a school district that pays two times a year. We pay in February and Jan- and in June as well. And so, you see taxes there at only 95.4% collected. Typically in a school district, you might be closer to 100% at this time, but we make that other payment in June. So, you'll see the rest of those come in in our June payments. When you're looking at our total expenditures
041for the budget, we're about 75% of the school year complete and about 71% of the budget is expensed. So, we're in a really good place with a solid budget. You can kind of look through each little piece of that and kind of get a estimate where we're at. Um one thing that I really kind of like to break it down because as Mr. Dunlap said as well as you are very much aware that 84% of our budget is in payroll. So, something you really want to kind of monitor is that first line there, payroll cost. So, we budget about 130 million in payroll and we've only spent about 71% of that payroll. Now, one thing you want to keep in mind with College Station ISD is we have a robust TIA program. And then you're
042going to see over a $4 million payment go out that's going to be booked to June and so you'll see that a little bit later. So, when you're looking at that percentage, you'll just kind of keep that in mind. But 71% so you should feel pretty solid about the budget. Okay? So, board priorities, we've talked about these. I'm going to just throw them one more time. This is something you guys adopted early in the process for our our budget this fiscal year. Um and I'm just bringing them back for reminders. Uh in addition, we just heard from our budget advisory committee when they were looking at things. I appreciate everybody that served on that committee. They got to look at a lot of information. I tried to talk them into accounting can be fun. I
043don't know if I didn't bore them a little bit, but there was a lot of great information that we were able to go through to kind of come up with these ideas. When we look at the budget tonight, we're going to look at several things that we've kind of been looking at uh compensation expectations. We looked at staffing ratios. Of course, I want to show you that fund balance usage, kind of where it would be with we had a past a deficit budget and then kind of where our future lies there. Um talk about kind of what we've done to balance some of the deficit with department and campuses, class size reduction and then just establishing the revenue resources. So, we can't really talk I know you've seen the cups before, but I just really
044want to kind of take a moment just to talk about the cup because what's going on in the state of Texas and he kind of touched it on it a little bit is our cup is shrinking in a sense. It's shrinking because in order to fill a cup, you've got to have ADA and then you've got to have the students. And so when we don't have students, we lose funding. So our cup gets smaller. Does it matter? State, local, we all know it doesn't matter if our if we have a lot of property wealthy or not. If our cup flows over, it goes to the state. I'm talking about cup size. Our cup size is shrinking across the state of Texas because of enrollment shrinking. So just look about our enrollment, here's just some historical
045information on enrollment. Of course, you all know that we shrank this year in enrollment. Uh and you can kind of look at the reasons why. He talked about birth rates. You can see how it's affecting us. Our earlier grades are smaller than our our older grades. So you can kind of see how that falls there. And you can also kind of see when you lose a grade, a 12th grade class is 1,062. If you're really not seeing in a huge growth in the area, you're not going to fill that up and you're replacing it with, you know, a 950, 910. And so that's your first thing there. >> [snorts] >> And then you throw the vouchers in, you throw the charter school in, you throw the home schools in, and that's really kind of what's
046happening in the state of Texas. So this is college stations birth rates and kind of how we're looking. Now, I'm excited to see that we might have some COVID babies this year. So I'm kind of banking a little bit on that. So we hope they show up. And and our kindergarten numbers are solid. You see closer to a 959, 960 versus a 910 that we experienced this year. So I really kind of think we could see that just from looking at those data right there. Uh moving forward, you can kind of look. We just sent tend to tend to trend down a little bit. Like I said in the last budget meeting, you can see pop pockets of our district is growing. Pockets of our district have aged out. So there's just a combination of
047all that that we kind of just have to stay on top of. And as some of our campus start to age out, we'll still have to move things around just to fill up those campuses or look at other things like you talked about earlier, if it's time maybe to close one of the campuses is aging out and move those kids. But those are things like you said that are future conversations, but as you continue to look at these numbers, it was a great opportunity to start the conversation with our community to let them know what we're experiencing, to know why we're experiencing. It's not just a college station thing, it's a a state of Texas. You look at the headlines, you're going to see it all over the state of Texas that campuses are closing.
048And they're doing that so that they can provide additional opportunities to their students and give raises for staff. So we all have to be a little bit more frugal. But this is just some of the revenue impacts when you start seeing those decrease in students. Um it's it I feel like we still have to kind of bring out what we've done in 25-26 cuz we've made huge steps to kind of close some of the gap on our budget. Um we're we evaluated class sizes last year. We did it again this year for secondary campuses to look if there was any way that we could reduce staff there. Uh we reviewed intermediate and elementary staff. Uh we looked at 25 to 1 for our intermediates and we looked at um 22 to 1 for our elementary
049campuses. We had to make dis- hard decisions in the district where there possibly could have been a some reduction just because it didn't make sense with the students, we left the teachers there. So there are a few things there that everybody's keeping in mind that our top thing to do is educate our kids and do what's best for them. Um in the numbers you're going to look at tonight, I am reducing one of our campuses by three teachers. If we can't roll that into Title 1, I'll have to roll that expense back to the budget that you're looking at tonight. We're trying to look at class size reduction. It's one one our um highest need campuses and we want to keep those class sizes small. So, we're looking at what we can to make that
050happen. Um, these are some of the things we did last year again. We set staffing models, reestablished those staffing models, made sure we're equitable, and we brought that into this school year. We adjusted those campus budgets and so we adjusted again based up on the makeup of the campuses. Um, of course we're still working on that attendance incentive and we see that our attendance is staying high. In fact, our revenue went up a little bit this fifth six weeks cuz our attendance was a little bit better. Um, our co-curricular pupil allocations were still in place and our our department still built zero-based budgets. So, this is kind of what I just discussed that we rolled into 2026-2027, but that's what you'll be looking at tonight. So, these are some of the staffing adjustments that we
051made. Uh, there's a reduction in 11 elementary teachers. Some campuses saw increases, some campuses saw larger decreases, and it was all based on the 22 to 1 based on um, based on their anticipated revenue for the next year with boundary adjustments. Um, like I said, there's three teachers in there that that could be three less teachers in that pot. We're we're still evaluating that, but we needed to go ahead and get you some numbers tonight. Can I interrupt just very quickly just to clarify? Are we talk When did these adjustments occur? Are these things you're planning or things that occurred over this last year? These are things for next year. For next year. This is moving forward. >> enrollment moving forward. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for clarifying that. Intermediate, we're going to see a net
052zero. We're increasing one teacher at campus, decreasing one teacher at a campus. We had to hold it another campus based on our student needs. Uh, there's one teacher that we're anticipating for middle school, one for high school, and then reduction of an intern administrator at College View High School. Um, Blair's going to talk a lot later later on about the sped adjustments, but there's a lot moving parts there where we're taking central offices and putting them back on campuses to fill needs that we have there. But like I said, uh she will she will visit with you guys a little bit later. And then career and technology, of course that's that three teachers that you guys have already talked about, the one custodian, and the one nurse for the CTE facility. >> [snorts] >> Okay.
053So this is the slide I brought forward before. I've reworked the numbers and they're exactly the same that has been presented on the total estimated revenue going forward to next year. We're estimating about $152,559, okay? Um putting the numbers together, when you pull the budget with the new budgeted numbers from our departments and campuses, you're looking at about an estimated number at this point. Uh with those cost reductions in staffing that you saw on the previous slide, we'll reduce that by 600 on an estimate about $622,000. So we're looking at without raises about 155 and 8,000 for um next year for estimated expenditures for the 26-27 year. Before we kind of move forward and look at other things, I want to talk about the fact that we changed our fiscal year. Because of that, a
054lot of times that you see in public ed is we have retirements of teachers. And so we have some higher pay teachers retire and we replace those with less experienced teachers, one year, two year, three year, maybe five year teacher, five year experience teachers. And so they're a little bit less pay than you would see with someone with 30 years of experience that could be retiring. And when that happens, you're going to see some savings. But we're going to not going to know that at this point in time, so we're not taking those estimates into those numbers. But those are some potential savings that we will see as we move forward. That when we adopt a budget in June, we're not going to have all the staffing done and we're not going to be able
055to roll the numbers in. So, we're we're really building them off of a position count with the estimated cost of that position. Does that make sense? Okay. Uh yes, sir. And and I can't remember, Tim, what you mentioned at the last meeting of benefits. Do we know how we're tracking with >> We've got it out to bid right now, and then we're hoping to bring that to you in June, but um it's still in the early bidding process. They haven't >> Okay, I couldn't remember. All right. We're still in the RFQ plate. Okay. All right, thank you. >> Mela, when does that end? May 6th. Okay. Okay. Good to Okay. And then estimated 26-27 revenue from the previous screen is 152, so that brings us to a $2.44 million deficit. Okay? So, just to kind
056of give you some information, this is some of the information that was presented to the budget advisory committee, but this is just how we compare to our peer districts. So, we're up on the top, College Station ISD, and we break it out by 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 years, and that's just the markers we look at when we compare ourselves to other school districts. Bryan is not so much a peer, but they're because they're local, then we consider them a peer district. The other ones are based on enrollment and makeup of students. I'll give you just a second to kind of look through that for I move on. >> [snorts] >> And this is based on 25-26 the TASB salary studies. And districts across the state, they'll submit their information in, and that's how
057we use it to compare. So, I have to comment because we're looking at this because I feel like the common thing that we hear all the time is that we do not pay as well as Bryan, our teachers. And you know, there may be some historical reason for that, but just looking at these numbers, we are actually not far from where they are. Is that correct? I mean >> That that's correct. We pay more for them in certain >> In certain categories, yeah. Yes, ma'am. That's great. So, we're kind of right there together, I would say. Uh teacher substitute pay, that's another thing that was mentioned earlier tonight. I just want to bring up how we relate to our peers. I'm I'm sorry, that's not right justified. It's driving me crazy. But, um anyway, you
058can kind of look and see how how we match up. So, that's kind of where we have a concern. We do have a 77% fill rate, which is honestly a really good fill rate. Uh but, we want to be fair to those individuals that are stepping in for our teachers. So, that's something that we kind of need to look at. Another thing that was mentioned tonight was bus driver pay. Uh we have 22 unfilled bus driver positions and 10 bus monitors that are unfilled. And you can kind of look at the pay. That's something that we kind of need to concentrate some effort to as well. So, you can kind of see how we compare to our peers. More importantly, down the road at Bryan ISD. Okay, so I I I always hate to put
059these things on the information, but we have to put the numbers up there, but they get a little jumbled in the mess. And so, what we kind of put together is for professional staff, which would be your administrative and your teachers, looking at a 1% raise and a 2% raise. And then, if you drop on down, you're going to see paraprofessionals and auxiliary staff. Their midpoint is quite a bit less than a professional staff. And so, we kind of run the ran those numbers at a 2% and a 3% uh raise. In addition, we have bus drivers in a different pocket. And we looked at a $1 per hour raise or a $1.25 per hour raise. And so, looking at both of those. And so, you can kind of look through if you gave a
0601% to administrative staff and a 2% to paraprofessionals auxiliary and raise the bus driver pay by a dollar per hour, it's going to cost us about 1.366. And then of course, if you do a 2% raise to administrators, um and then a 1% for paraprofessionals and auxiliary and bus drivers at a dollar 25 an hour, it's 2,354,000 is what the cost of a raise would be. Um I do want to point out House Bill 2 is worked into these numbers. So, if you remember, if you move from 2 to 3 years of experience, you were supposed to get 2,500. And if you move from 3 to 5, you get 5,000. So, as they walk through and those teachers move up, we have to make sure they is received at least 2,500 from the previous year's
061salary model and 5,000 when they hit 5 years and above from the previous year's salary model. So, I had to work in additional funding because if you look at a 1% teacher raise, that's $650 a year. And I have to make the difference up on the House Bill. If you roll it to a 2%, we gave them, if you remember, we gave them 1,250 last year for those years of experience. A 2% would be 1,300, so we just have that little bit of money we'll have to make up to get the 5-year step to to 5,000. The percentages are You said midpoint are based off midpoint. >> sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. And it's a 1,300 for a 2% on teacher midpoint. And I know those aren't huge compared to the overall, but you're saying
062that that additional money required from the House Bill is not provided? It will be provided by TEA. Yes. >> it will be >> the legislators. We turn in every year how many teachers qualify this and then how many teachers qualify for 5 years and above and then they [clears throat] they fund the money through our summary of finance. Yeah, I just I want to say when you're talking about deficit, obviously you know, it's you're it's a balancing act. But, I'm especially grateful to see extra monies being allocated to the paraprofessionals, which has historically been not a highly paid position. And I think just I want to call out acknowledging the work that they do and that they're historically have not been paid very well. I'm really I'm happy and thankful to see that we're pointing
063that out and trying to start making up that deficit. So, I appreciate you guys doing that. Thank you. Okay, so I I I just want to bring up historical deficit budgets. And it's really kind of the makeup of your district. So, this the first column that you see is the original, that's the original adopted budget. When you look at the next column, that's the final amended budget. So, as we amend the budget through the year, when we end at the end of the year, that's our final amended budget. And then the last column is your actual. So, that's what it turned out to be in real life. It's hard to look at the 24-25 year because we adopted a 12-month budget, we rolled it somewhat to a 10-month budget, and then we had to post
064a 12 in a sense. And so, you can kind of see how we posted a 10-month. So, that's the 14 million that you're seeing there. And then the others are pretty explanatory. Okay. I mean, I'm glad you're showing this um I guess what it's showing is in general we are conservative budgeters, right? I mean, is there anything else you can add to that just besides the fact that we need to plan for worst case and hope for best case? I mean, that's what it's kind of showing. And we're trying to tighten up on that right now. So, we've done a lot of tightening up to see if we can come. But, yes, we have been a conservative budgeting. And you want to be a conservative. You really want to look at that revenue and make
065sure you collect 100% of your revenue, and then make sure you can cover 100% of your expenditures. But, if you think about it, when you have a $150 million budget and you only expense 98% of it, you've got a big number left over, you know? Bigger than we anticipate. And that's 98%. I mean, that's usually typically what happens. You might spend 99 to 99% of your budget, but then you have some money left over. Um and that's just to cover to make sure we have enough for legal fees and and and for utilities are big numbers that left over. Fuel is one that you want to make sure you mark. Sometimes you hit it right on the dot. Hopefully, sometimes you have fluff left over. I appreciate that. I mean, I with that [snorts] much
066money um you need a little plus or minus, and hopefully we'll Yes. You always want to make sure you can cover 100% of your expenses. And additionally, for us to adopt a deficit budget is not new. It has been almost every single year and not out of the ordinary. And sometimes we come out close, sometimes better, sometimes not as good, but this is not a new thing for us. No. And and typically, even in my previous district, I budgeted 100% of my custodial and my bus drivers. And if you saw right there, 22% unfilled positions, well, that's I hate to say that, savings to the budget budgeted, but not are not going to happen. You budget sometimes at 100% fill rate for custodians, but then you run short sometimes during the year, and those are
067savings that come back to the budget. Some school districts don't budget 100% fill rate. So, you just got to know your district and know what they're doing in your district to know what to expect. And even in times of tremendous growth, we were still adopting a deficit budget. Yes, sir. And you I'm a little confused. I just want to make sure I understand. I understand what we original is what we voted on. Final is what actually happened. I'm a little confused about what actual is. >> Okay, so final is just the finally amended budget. So every month we take a budget amendment to the board and we adjust. >> Sometimes it could be for a hail storm, sometimes it could be for something that happened that we come to amend the budget. >> Okay. When
068that happens, you have that amended budget there. A lot of times when we bring a budget amendment, we don't mess with the bottom line unless there's something big that happens. Okay. And then you have to amend the bottom line. And then your actual is just really your actual revenue and your actual expenditures, not even looking at budget, but what actually happened outside of the budget. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so fund balance. Going just a little bit further. Our board policy says near to 3 months operating expenditures. It also says assigned and unassigned fund balance. Okay, so when you look at fund balances, you have multiple buckets. You have a non-spendable assigned and that may be inventory that we already have. We have to earmark that off. It's already actually spent. It's a prepay.
069We already bought it, but it's not going to be until next year. Therefore, it sits on the balance sheet account and it has to be set aside. It's non-spendable. Sorry, spent in a sense. Committed is when we come to the board and commit fund balance and I'll come back to that one. And unassigned is everything else. It's unassigned. It can be spent on anything. Okay? Committed, we come to the board and that's for like I just came to the board last time and I said we've got a roof. You know, here's the roof. We want to commit that fund balance because we know that we're going to have to pay that roof in next year's budget. Okay? The other thing is a commitment for the change in fiscal year. I want you to understand you
070don't have to see woppy numbers anymore. That is a committed set aside in that committed column just to protect us so we can get through this times. So, when you look at that unassigned, you can feel pretty comfortable that that is truly unassigned. Does that make sense? Okay. So, when you put everything together and even when you look at the first rating, it's going to say, "Do you have a budget where your expenditures exceed your revenue? If so, you've got to have 75 days of un of cash on hand, basically." Another one of the markers is you have to have 60 days of cash on hand. And so, what I looked at was 75 days of cash on hand. So, I took the budget and the deficit and I looked at the two different raises.
071So, if you look at the first raise where we give 1% to professional employees and 2% to paraprofessionals, you're looking at 156,375 in expenditures. Your deficit would be 3.8. 3 months operating is 39 with this. And then you kind of got to look you've got to add that deficit, so you're a little bit high or then the 3 months. However, like I said, it's around 3 months. And then you can look at cash on hand to match match your first rating, you would have to have 32 million in that unassigned bucket. Okay? If you go down to the next one, it would be 157,000 in expenditures. Your deficit would be 4.8. Your 3 months would be 39,340 requirement for fund balance to make that 3-month marker and the 75 days cash on hand would be
07232,334. >> [clears throat] >> And Okay. All right. That's all the fun I have tonight. Are there any questions? This is just really kind of the beginning. Um I would love to take back a compensation plan next month. And so you might kind think through things and kind of think about if you have any questions that you want to send to Dr. Harkrider or to Ms. Egie um because we want to bring that back in May and adopt a a compensation plan in May. Yes. And then we will we will bring uh what we what we've done so far is all the budgets are in. We're sorting through all of it, going through it in a fine-tooth comb, especially on those um but we feel pretty good about the numbers. I'm not really seeing anything.
073Another positive is insurance. It looks like we're going to be kind of flat this year again, which is kind of exciting. It's like property is going down, casualty is going up, but we think that we're going to see a decrease overall. So um and then there's some other things played into that. So I've estimated flat there for insurance, which is a big number, you know, it's our 2.6 million off off the bat. So Anyway, I appreciate your time to Yes, sir. I was just going to say thank you for the information. And [clears throat] and I know we're still several months out, but well, you just mentioned compensation next month. Um uh and Dr. Detloff was just here visiting about uh the market and the job market and retention issues and all those types of
074things. Um my mind said at this point is we have a healthy fund balance and and we are going to have to make a decision whether a healthy fund balance is important to us or retaining and recruit recruiting quality people with our students is more important. So I I I know we have lots of conversation left, but uh thank you for the information. With it's obvious that we have a chore before us the next month or two. Okay. Thank you. thank you for the presentation. I think a lot of those numbers are helpful and just thinking about um I think looking at all those deficit budgets in the past is really helpful, too. But just putting in perspective, if you combine that with, you know, what we heard already of decreasing student enrollment, um we
075can't just look at the past, right, and say that because we've always had deficit deficit budgets, it's all going to be okay. That was also when we were having increasing student enrollment. So, um this was all just really helpful um to put some of it in perspective for us. So, appreciate that. >> Okay. Thank you. All right, that is our last item. So, that's going to bring us to item E, adjourn.