001[Music] Welcome everybody to our workshop April 15, 2025, a little after 5:00 p.m. Call to order declaration of a quorum. Six members present, one absent. Welcome everybody. Thank you'all for being here. Uh item C, hearing is citizens. We don't have anything for the workshop. And then item D, D1, 2526 budget update. Miss Wilson. Good evening, Dr. Hark Rider, Mr. Horic, Board of Trustees. I appreciate you allowing me the time to kind of go over the budget update with you and where we are at this point. I kind of wanted to start off with just giving you a little bit of a legislative update, kind of where we are in budget considerations and then what the next steps will be. Uh, of course, the 89th legislative session is on its way. Uh, it will end on
002June 2nd. A lot of these bills that we're going to talk about tonight or kind of go through are really kind of going to be on the floor tomorrow. So, a lot of changes could happen and uh we'll we'll be watching those. There's two big bills right now. the Senate Bill 26 and committee substitute for House Bill 2. 2026 has a little bit different raises in the fact that if you're a smaller school district, they're going to give you more per teacher for raises. And if you're a larger one, they're going to give you a little bit more I mean a little bit less. And then they're going to increase uh TIA as well as some state liabilities for in uh for teachers. Uh committee substitute House Bill Two is a lot larger. So when
003they did the substitute, they kind of talked about several things. One of the big one is increasing that basic aotment to 6555 from 6,160. Uh when you increase the basic aotment, of course, that helps the district in the fact that it increases all of the different uh formulas that come off the basic aotment. The big one here is the golden penny yield. We usually get the only inflationary factor we get in our formulas is the golden penny yield because that's set based on the guaranteed maximum from Austin ISD and when that happens that gets to go up a little bit every year based on the values of Austin. Okay. So what they're trying to do is freeze it as current time right now. So the current rate for 2425 and then shift some of that
004to the basic aotment. there's just a little bit of fear there because when that happens, we just don't want that little bit of inflationary uh revenue that we get to go away. Uh then they're going to modify really our hold harmlesses is what they have in there. However, this one is they're thinking it's going to be an amendment to uh committee substitute house bill 2 that will be heard tomorrow. And then insurance to coastal towns that's not going to affect College Station ISD. uh they're going to look at special education and I'll show you in a little bit how much more that we pay for special education. So, we're really excited about the possibility here. This is something they talked about in the last letter of session after they did a study and realized that
005we're way underfunded on special education. So, hopefully some of this comes to light. You can kind of see some of the changes there. But then there's also a Senate bill that has to do with some increases in special education funding as well. They're going to look at increasing your bilingual aotment. And you can kind of see a little bit later tonight how we overspend what we're given from the state and the bilingual aotment comped aotment and then early education. They're going to make some changes there as well saying expanding it to prek. Uh they're looking at added a fine arts aotment. I think the main thing they're doing there is as we see all this cuts to keep sure to make sure that we don't do away with special programs. So they'll give us an
006aotment to kind of help us fund those programs. uh we can get additional funding set by the legislation in House Bill 3 back in 2019. However, you would have to move your end of school to 180 days because that money will not kick in until like you've gone past 180. They're looking at moving that back to 175. That's something school districts have asked for for a while now. uh they're going to aid uh there's a lot of school districts that get assigned state value and when that happens it's detrimental to the school district because they get their taxes based on what comes in in property value but then they get their funding when we talk about how much they're getting from the state they're going to get what the state has assigned and so it's
007very detr detrimental to a school district so they're looking at that along with some grow your own programs and hold harmless provisions you go back sorry go back on that one real quickly is the ones that state value assigned that like is that four ones that um like we got a little we got um reprimanded for not having our our values raised enough, right? Is that one of those situations? Yes. So you get you get a warning basically and then you get a year to turn it around and then after you turn it around, you've got to turn it around again the next year to kind of get out to get your two years of grace again. So that's really kind of what it boils down to. And Miss McAdams, you're you're referring to the
008appraisal district valuing properties in in the school district too low according to the state, right? Exactly. Okay. Even though even the year they were up 22%. Right. The state said it was too low. Yes, that's exactly right. You get two years of grace. Uh the raises are the main difference there. You saw the Senate bill raises earlier. Uh the committee substitute for House Bill three. the raises change where in our current law it's 30% the new law says 40%. So 40% of our raises the only kick there is it's 30% of raises 30% of your increase in your homestead exemption has to be spent on raises. This one's 40% but this one says teachers only. And so this is kind of look at the current law. The current law says 30% but it can be
009spent on counselors and nurses and uh librarians that they've done away with that in the house bill I mean house bill substitute but they're thinking that might come back to the committee tomorrow and kind of change that so it's not teachers only and they consider those other positions as well. But to go even further it's 30% of the total increase. 75% of that 30% has to be spent on those positions. 25 can be spent on other positions other than administrators. None of the in increase in percentage is allowed to be spent on administrators. Uh and then compensation includes benefits and insurance. Uh there are some other ones there with an increase possibly to help us with our loss in funding from our SHARS again that special education reform. You can read that through the PowerPoint.
010Uh there's Bettton Court of course is doing some things for early education and special education. And then another big one is the um safety grant. So right now we get 15,000 per campus. They're looking to move that to 30. And then House Bill is looking to move that to 37 and then move that P student funding from 10 to 28. Of course the House bill has it 10 to 14. Uh neither one of these will cover the mandates that were given to us in the last legislation to put an SRO officer or someone uh on a campus. That still won't cover the cost that causes districts cost districts. And then um this is a big one that we want really kind of want to watch out for because of course you've got your um SAS
011ESAs your um education savings account but we want to be mindful of this one as well because it opens our borders so that any kid can move between campus between school districts. So this bill and it's already been heard once can move kids between campuses and districts. Have they given any indication by how they define open seats? They have not. So they're talking about do you have capacity is what they're calling it. If you have capacity on a campus then you can take those students to your campus. There'd be parameters that we would be required to publish those quarterly and we would decide what those would be. TDA more than likely when they do that a lot of times they give the commissioner the authority to to set what that is. That's always a little
012bit scary. Uh so yes sir because obviously it's a big difference to have a seat versus all the other resources and the teachers and the things we need to correct because what it's not taken into account is I may have a uh seat I may have 10 seats let's say at an elementary campus and then I take those 10 students and then I have 10 more show up the following week to enroll that live here in the school district and now our class sizes are out of whack. So it it it create it's not as simple as just letting them move. It could create issues other places, too. All right. So, we're continuing to watch the ESAs. The other thing that you're seeing a lot on is bond elections. There are a lot of bills
013out there. You'll have those in the handouts that were given to you earlier. Uh they want to limit our defecence of our debt. uh they can do that either from decreasing the hold harmless that they give a school district or putting it to vote by our board of directors. However, you guys already vote on that. Uh there's a lot of bills out there to move the election day to November only. Uh and then there's even one out there that limits if you failed a authorization, you have to wait two years before you go out again. Uh and then the useful loss of assets. Most school districts set that up anyway. If you're going to use some of your uh bonds to buy computers or or vehicles or something like that, they ensure that the useful
014life of those vehicles don't aren't less than the bonds they're selling it for. But they're going to make us prove that. Another is the estimated interest would be included on the authorization. So, you would have to give them the principal amount and then what your estimated interest is for authorization for your voters. Could you real quickly what is the justification between limiting us from paying our bonds off early? What is is there any reason they've been giving given on that? They want to make sure because some school districts and and even College Station uses a lot of their bond funds for um upkeep to buildings. You might do HVAC, you might do uh computers, technology, vehicles. They just want to make sure that we're not pushing those bonds out to 20 years when those assets
015don't have a useful life any longer. Um, that's what they're just trying to dictate that for us. But I think the the can you say the bullet of pulling things off of paying them off early though I I I believe is also something they're in there that they're trying to limit. And that one doesn't make sense to me. The defense. Yeah, the defense. Exactly. Okay. That goes back doesn't make sense to me. I don't It goes back to one of our legislative priorities of local control and lack of local control. They're trying to control when we go out for bonds, if we get bonds, how do we spend bonds, how do we pay off bonds. They're trying to get into every facet of taxpayers money, and every school district in the state and tell you
016how you have to manage that money. Yeah. Because they don't like the way uh guess they have an opinion. They don't like the way certain districts spend their money. It's not their money. So, yeah, that's what it is. It's a control factor. That's a hard one though because I mean I think what we're saying is if we're in a position as a district, let's say um we are cost came in lower than we expected on a bond or something and we have money to pay off that debt early that is financially sound because we are going to pay less interest over the long run in doing that. And so I'm I'm with you and not really understanding the uh reason they would try to impose that on us. I I think it stems back to
017the fact that they don't want us to keep our tax rate at a level to be able to have extra money. They always want us to decrease that tax rate. So just like they're talking about additional compression in the tax rate and things like that, they're trying to keep that tax rate lower. And so what they're trying to do is make sure that we don't put a defecence in our tax rate that we're sending to the to the the community. And so they're trying to keep that down so that our tax rate matches up exactly what our bond. It's kind of truth and taxation and it kind of works into that. So that's I think what they're really after a little bit. But yes, local control and if we can get those paid off, we
018build capacity for later so that when we pass bonds in the future, we have capacity and we can keep that tax rate down and we don't have a fluctuating tax rate that makes a burden on our taxpayers. And so I think that's where it falls in. We need local control to be able to do things like that and pay less interest as absolutely and save money on interest for sure. Okay. So, uh I just wanted to kind of let you know where they're at. Of course, they're meeting tomorrow. So, we're going to find several things out tomorrow. I just wanted to kind of briefly make sure everybody understands. Of course, tier one is our uh tax rate that is set by the state. Tier two is actually where we have those three extra golden pennies,
019but there's a total of eight golden pennies there. And our voters approved the three additional golden pennies, and we have five pennies. I do want to point out though, when you're looking at the tier and how it's set up, the district does not have control. Just like Dr. Hark Rider said there's no no local control in how you set your tax rate other than if you go after those eight additional golden pennies and then three of them have to be voter approved. If I was to say let's don't use them this year, guess what? Then we'll have to go out to voter approval again and get those approved for the future. So, I just kind of wanted to point out that another thing I wanted to point out is as property values go up, and
020we've said this several times, property values go up, it does not affect a school district when it comes to the day-to-day operations of the district because the school district gets their money based on formulas. They get their money based on your 6,160 for each individual kid. And then they are given a little bit more based on the needs of the students that they're educating, be it bilingual, GT, uh, special ed, they get a little additional money for that kind of funding. So, we get our total amount of funding. Now, when I show you some things a little bit later tonight when we're comparing district, those are our comparison districts. So, we're similar funding, okay? And so, we're going to get close to the the same funding. Like, they might be 30% free and reduced. we
021might be 40. So you get additional money for that. So we try to keep it in the same comparison so that we have good numbers to show. However, we get a set amount based on our formulas and the state funds the difference. And so if I had low property value, my local taxes would be low and the state would pay a portion a larger portion. If we were about 5050, we' both put in the same pot. Okay? If I am higher property value, then the local taxes is going to put in a portion and the state's going to put in a lot smaller portion. However, if I am property wealth, and this is College Station sometimes, but not lately since we started compressing taxes, but if I am property wealthy, if I have additional property
022taxes and that spills over what my my summary of finance says, I have to give that money back to the state because back to the previous slide, the state sets our tax rate. Okay. So, I just want to make sure everybody understands that we kind of have to live within our means. We don't get any extra money because property taxes are going up. It's based on our students that we have in our district. We can't get any additional funding. And I just have to take the opportunity to add as well that the um it used to be that that recapture was all used for other public schools and you know, schools that didn't have as much wealth in their district. But that is that has changed and not all of it goes to public education.
023some of it now um goes to general fund and is used at the whim of you know of Boston. So that's unfortunate in my mind. Okay. So I just kind of want to briefly take you back to that basic aotment that 6,160. We have not got an increase in that number since 2019 but these are some of the costs that the district have had to absorb. We have given our our employees a 26.6% 6% increase in compensation. We are spending in general insurance and of course this is across the board across the state 392% more now than we did in 2019. Our fuel costs are up 49% more than what they were in 2019 and our utility costs are up 16%. So those are huge inflationary costs that are being absorbed by our general fund.
024Okay. Uh these are some of the discrepancies when you look at the formulas when we go back to saying okay we are formula based they give us so much money and we have to spend 55% of that on special education for example then when we send our information into tea they reallocate something called function I mean program intent 99 and that's saying a principal is going to touch those kids a nurse is going to touch those kids we all have some administrative cost with all of our additional kids and their needs So they reallocate out after we get our reallocation on our our program in 1099. Our district spends $5.4 million more than required more than we receive from the state. Not what we're required to spend, but what we receive from the state. Okay.
025We spend 4.1 that's based on mileage. Dr. Hark Riders talked about that several times. That's based on the mileage that we drive our buses. We get that money back. We spend 4.1 million more than what the state gives us for transportation. We spend 1.7 and that's when I was telling we have the SRO's on the officers. We've got TNT on our all of our elementary campuses. We have the security officers. We're spending 1.7 million more than what the state is giving us. And gifted and talented. We're spending 958,000 more than the state is giving us. And in bilingual, we're spending 430,000 more than the state is giving us to educate those kids. And so we all have different type of kids on our in our district, but they cost more to educate than we're receiving
026from the state. Okay, this is kind of another thing that we're looking at right now, and it's our loss in students. Um, I just want to point out, we estimated from the do demographer that we were going to gain 119 students this year. We're actually down 48 students. The demographer also says that we're going to decrease in students another 66. Uh, as well in on your desk, I gave y'all a maroon folder that looks kind of like this because when I gave you your PowerPoint, I did not have this in there. But I kind of want to just show you uh what the demographer is estimating for growth so we can kind of keep this in mind because you remember we don't get any additional funding unless we get additional students. We're losing students right
027now and in the future we're anticipated to lose even more students. So, we've got to kind of keep that in mind as we look at budgets. Uh, also we spend 83% of our total payroll, I mean our total expenses in the general fund on payroll. So, that's our highest cost. Here is a positive. Um, a positive is we beat the number from last year. Our turnover rate for College Station ISD is 17.6%. 6% and that is something that we need to celebrate. Teachers are not leaving like that like like in other places we're 17.6%. I want you to also keep in mind because we're at the bottom of this 17.6% and that's awesome. You look at the top and you see for ISD 24.3 and New KY 23.4 and Georgetown 22.9 those are a little
028bit higher. They're not bad but they're a little bit higher than us. But I want you to keep that in mind when I show you some other things. This is our makeup of our district. So, we're kind of a majority of our teachers are 1 to five years, 24.4%. These numbers have not moved a lot from previous years because I showed you the same graph last year and it hasn't moved maybe a percentage and that's about it. Here is our teacher salaries. And so, this is something I really want to point out because this is where we need to save some money and move it to our teacher salaries. Okay? But like I said, we have fixed amount of money. So, we have to work within our budget. Uh, you can kind of look at
029College Station ISD and our neighbor here, Brian. They're a little bit under to us. They they shoot up a little when 15 years. If we are blessed by the committee um for House Bill Two, that is written that we have to give more to older like more experienced teachers. So, that will kind of help us with that number and get that up. But um I I I'm hopeful that that goes through because we need to address teacher salaries at College Station. Are those are those numbers available in addition to just salary but total compensation so insurance benefits those kind of things where we can look at the total compensation. Yes sir. And I've got a slide on that as well. Okay. And uh Austin I don't know if that I need to free up space
030to continue. Thank you. Yes, they're sim similar in demographer and basically our student makeup. Um this is where our first year teacher is 51750. Uh, but I do want you to look because you remember that highest turnover rate was at New KY and Fory. Those are in those top tiers and they're are the highest paid. So, it's it there's more to it than salaries. When you come to education, it's about the district that you're working for. It's about the students that make up that district and the parents. And I think we're very blessed here. And I think that kind of speaks to the lower salary and then lower turnover rate. But that is something that we still need to address. Uh here's the slide. We pay the most in health insurance and you're going to
031see that a couple of times. 472 which is is a good $50 and this is a monthly cost. This is a monthly cost for employees only. Uh and then Forny was your highest paid school district and we're 3,000 for the total year different in in compensation just for health insurance. So we don't tell that story probably enough as we need to, but we do amazing things for employees when it comes to health insurance. And is this 12? Remind me. Is this 12 months or nine or 10 or what? Okay. 472 a month per but over 12 months. Over 12 months. Over 12 months though. I mean if I if I Yes. Thank you. Yeah. 472 a month but paid 24 payers. But it's 472 times 12 to get it onto the add it to those
032annual salaries to compare. Uh, and the last time I I brought this information, I did add the two of them together, and I'll do that for the future when we talk more on compensation. Uh, even though that you see where our salaries are and where we lie, look at us. We're above average on how much we spend in instruction and instruction related services. So, we're above average. We spend 59 point 82% of our total of all funds on instruction and we're above the average with all of our peers. So that say that's a lot itself. Uh here's our same makeup. Please make sure that you understand when I say 12% administrative personnel that's administrated across the board. That is your custodian supervisor. That's your directors on campuses, directors off campuses, your principles, assistant principles and
033things like that. Okay, so that's a big number. This is something else I want to point out because we we we kind of get that question a lot. We're below average on how much we spend in function 41, which is general administration. Okay, so we're only spending 2.74% of that money on general administration, which is well below our peers. And all of this information came off of frontline an analytics. Uh this is something when we're looking at budget cuts, I asked the system to give me what are my top eight differences on average per student cost. And so on their average per student cost, uh College Station ISDB is spending 948 per student on supplies. The average cost of those peers I showed before are only spending $655. Okay? So if you take that by
034the number of students we have, that's over $4 million difference. And so when you talk about what we're kind of looking at now to making sure that we're we're doing zerobased budgets and looking at all of the cost, that is our difference between our peer and college station. And so that's what something I know sometimes you think because we're 83% payroll, there's not a lot that can be found in supplies. There is. Okay? And so we've got to look at everything. We just got to turn over every stone to make sure that we're making the least impact to a student when we're making cuts and we will uh bond principal that's just has happens to be where we fall because we sold a bond. Uh group and health insurance I showed you on that graph
035that's another one that's their third highest that we pay more than everyone else and it reflects it in the numbers there. extraordinary items that just catches us because we've had a lot of hell storms lately as well as we've had to pay judgments for taxes and that goes into that account when they're large judgments. Uh the next one is salaries and so when we're looking in but this is not total salaries, this is paraprofessional and clerical salaries. We pay more than our peers in those numbers. Uh we purchased some land so that's going to fall out. food would fall out because of the fact that some of those school districts are going to be doing theirs with a third-party company and so they're not going to buy food. We buy food because we do ours
036inhouse and um we have an amazing food service department and they're very efficient and then they turn over a profit every year really kind of uh they don't cost anything. Uh our vehicles were high that year because of the fact that we had a bond program and we purchased a lot of our vehicles in one year. So just to kind of point out the one I want really kind of wanted to look at were those well we know health insurance so we want to keep it where it's at salaries for instructional positions and then supplies. Uh so this is kind of what we've done this far in our budget process. We spent a lot of time with training our staff just on how to build a budget, what goes into that. We've even go through
037gone through account codes. I've tried to talk them in that it's fun. I haven't got a lot of turn on that. Um but I'm still trying. But anyway, so we've learned how to use our account codes, what they mean. Um, and then we've built staffing models. I put those in your binder that you're going to find three in your binder. They're the ones that we feel uh best about at this point to hand those out. You're going to find an elementary staffing model, an intermediate staffing model, and a middle school staffing model. What that helps us do is get efficient, but it also helps us make sure that we're equitable between campuses. So, we have a formula based to make sure that we're treating every campus the same. Of course, title one campuses are different.
038So, when you look at allocations for title one, we're going to say this is how we fund our schools and anything above that is going to be your title one cost and they get additional money for those type things. Uh we've compared oursel to our peers to find out where our outliers are. We've built s zerobased budgets for all of our departments and we've evaluated those based on essential achievement and enhancement. We've still got some of those coming in, but we're working through them. Dr. Hark Rider is so excited when he gets to sit and look at budgets. Um, and then we have campus funding allocated by students. You're going to find that in your packet as well. And you're going to see exactly how we we allocated that out. We have allocated based on
039needs of students before, but we gave them all and said you can spend it however you want to. Meaning, you can spend all of that on a regular ed child. We gave the allocations out this year, but you have to spend it on the money that was generated for those kids. For example, if your allocation generates 5,000 for a sped student, that money has to be spent on the sped student. If it's generated for a GT student, that money has to be spent on the GT. We're trying to push some of those expenditures back to the campus so that they're controlling what's going on at their level as well. The items in your folder is really for you to take some time before the next board meeting, go through. I'll be available, Heather will be
040available for any questions. There's too much in there to try to go through tonight, but look through those and it's just kind of giving you a a glimpse into what we're looking at behind the scenes. We can cover more in May if you have some questions on those items. Awesome. And then we're continuing to monitor the legislative session. So, this is where we are right now when we start looking at the funding models for uh teacher efficiencies. Basically, we rolled it out as looked at everything 22 to1. That is what we're required to do as staff 22 to1. So just because of the decrease in students and this is really just attributed to the decrease in students we've decreased the staff uh will be able to to absorb seven positions. Okay. And that's 22 or
041less per classroom. Okay. Uh if we moved K 2 3 and four to 23 just one more student in the classroom we can absorb an additional four four teachers. Okay. If we moved all grade levels at elementary to 23 to one, we could absorb 13 positions. And if the legislation does not help us out, I think these are some decisions that we're going to have to look to. Okay? And this is kind of what now this is crazy on graphs. I understand. But let me try to explain what I did here. Uh if you look at the bottom, that is the size of a classroom. Okay? So if you say 23, that says I'm going to have a total of four grade levels at 23. Class size is 23. And then if you look at
04222, you can kind of see the difference. And so we'll look at the first one. Like if you look at the blue number, it says current enrollment 22 to1. So I kind of showed you if if we're 22 to1, what are our class sizes? Our class sizes are 15 16. You can kind of see like for example if you look underneath that seven I have six classrooms CLA campus grade levels six campus grade levels of 17 per classroom. I have I have um nine campus grade levels at 18 per classroom. So do you see what I'm saying? I don't have any classrooms currently over 22 to1. And then even if we make the adjustments, we would have a total of four if we were at 23 to one grade levels over 23 to a classroom
043and we would have saved 11 positions total. I just wanted you to be able to see the numbers and to make sure that you realize it wouldn't it's it doesn't work that way because of the fact that when you go on a campus you might only have four sections. So you have to divide those kids based on the sections that are available and it just depends on the efficiencies within that. And I want to be sure I understand the the yellow and brown and red that's what we expect for the demographer that will be next year. Yes, the yellow is what we expect. The brown and the orange those numbers are based on moving the class sizes that way but based on demographer numbers. Okay. I just looked at it two different ways. current enrollment
044and the demographer number and then I didn't decrease a campus if it didn't it didn't fall out on both of those numbers. Yeah. And the demographers numbers I mean it's a guesstimate that they do. So there's not an exact mass. It it changes. It varies but the last couple years we've been below the number that they set for us. So meaning less students than they thought. So that that's something to keep in mind. And it's something we talked about last month of giving you guys scenarios and time to think about what we're doing and what you want to do. do what we have the appetite to do. Um the bottom line is we have to anticipate until something changes we're not getting any additional funds from the state. If that changes different conversation of what
045we can look at and do uh but we can still get uh efficient with at least seven positions and stay at 22 to1. Uh but there is some and that that also includes uh space in each grade level at each campus to take on more students if we had increases that we're not anticipating. All right. So then we kind of looked when we looked at the funding chart at different positions and that we wanted to be equitable across the district in instructional aids outside of title one and outside of dual language. And so we kind of set a bar of 150 to one per campus and that would help us with five additional positions and save us 150,000. Uh in addition, you step one closer and you look at your clerical, this is even a
046little bit higher than what TASBY suggests our number to be. But if we do that, that's additional three uh clerical positions. And then we're looking at special education right now based on need. Um Miss Grande has come up with some information and we're just reviewing that. and then we'll bring you those decisions. If you look at the high school, I know uh Miss Leaf has worked really hard with Cordonics to look at those secondary classrooms and with the 25 class constant. That means you might have a few over, but mainly your class constant is 25. Uh we would be able to have nine positions there and a 607,000 in savings. additional staff based on equitables. Uh we would need to add a position to a campus when we look at everything to make everybody consistent
047based on numbers. A campus needs an additional position. Uh specialized positions, we're just looking at that as we go based on needs of the district. Um something I always want to keep in mind is we we have to abide by board policy and it says we have to have near three months operating expenditures. This is where we are right now. Uh, we've got 3.44 months of of total total fund balance except I want to point out the unassigned is 38,000. 38 million. Thank goodness it's not 38,000, but 38 million we wouldn't make payroll. Um, anyway, 38 million is what is unassigned. And um, we've just got to keep that in mind as we go forward because we do not have another year to have a deficit budget. We have to kind of work through this
048if the state's not going to help us out. And remember, too, regardless of the state, this is a a two-year process because this next year, because we're running basically a 10-month budget, it's almost smok and mirrors for the first year, but it catches up on us in year two. So, that's something that we've got to keep in mind. If uh you did less potentially in one year, you're going to have to do even more the following year potentially to catch up. Hopefully, best case scenario, something happens and shakes out in the session and we have an idea of what we're going to get financially. So, it gives us a lot more information to be able to make decisions because the further this goes into the summer to make staffing decisions, the more it puts us
049in a bind that we potentially would hire some positions that we're not going to be able to if this goes too late in the year because uh folks are already going to have jobs and they're not going to be looking to come. Before you leave that um previous slide, I'm glad you put the 3.44 months on there because it looks like our fund balance I mean as whole dollars has increased obviously but along that same timeline our budget has increased. So I think it's important to you know to track that as a as a percentage or of of our overall budget. So it's not like we are just have more money sitting around. we have more sitting around because we have to have a percent of our um our annual our annual budget. So, absolutely.
050Uh this is just where we are next steps. We're going to finalize those staffing models where we're kind of auditing through our high school model now. We're going to continue to review those budgets, the zerobased budgets and um continue to make suggestions in areas for reductions. We should get our preliminary tax uh re u estimates, sorry, estimates by the end of April and then we're going to continue to monitor what's going on with the legislative session. Does anybody have any questions? Do you think you can accomplish some of these scenarios by just natural attrition? So, not letting go of Absolutely. and that's our plan. Thank you for bringing that up. I have to say, I mean, it's pro I kind of makes me feel a little sick inside seeing how many um teachers were potentially
051looking at um reducing. I'm I'm glad that some of them would be from attrition. I'm also glad that some of them I mean are probably make sense because we do have our our numbers down a little bit. But I I'm going to I said this last time too. The thing that kind of that really bothers me though is that that's the only proposal that I've seen really in front of us is to impact as an impact in the classroom. I just hope that we I mean I'm so glad we can go back to the slide you had where you were comparing our um some of our C spending categories to averages with our with other other school districts and that we are well over on supplies. So I mean I I mean that's hundreds of
052dollars per student that we are under. I mean that's millions of dollars literally. I mean to me that is where I would like to to see us look have very specifics on where we could cut some of that and please understand that's what we're doing right now. Uh I just don't have all those numbers ready to present because we're digging through those. That's why we did a zerobased budget literally I have sat with Dr. Harker and we have gone line by line through some of these budgets just to see where there's some places that could possibly be cut. So we're in the process of doing that. Uh and we're also looking at other things as well. We just don't have we have to start really kind of at the campus level because of the fact
053that we want to go as quickly as possible there because we want to allow those principles to go ahead and make those hires and so we want them to be able to post their positions and get out there as quick as possible so we get the best teachers. And so that's kind of why we start a little bit with um the teachers. But we're not done with this process and we plan to go a lot. Correct. This is one metric that we told you guys we were going to present. We're looking at every single metric that there is. And I want to I want to be very clear and say this again. We're not cutting any teacher positions. Every one of these would be by attrition on the decision that you guys make on where
054we want to be on class sizes. So attrition, attrition only. So, but it's it's one of many things. And like I said, the the staffing when we talked about cutting and trimming budget, staff is the biggest bang for your buck, but everyone's budget will be reduced in some form of capacity. Just go ahead. Just the follow up on that. I I do um I'm very glad we're not, you know, we're not getting rid of any teachers except for attrition, but I still believe that it is an added burden in the classroom on, you know, to increase class sizes. It is. So, I mean, obviously, we got to make trade-offs and make decisions. I just am looking forward to seeing some other options out there and of course hoping that none of this has to be
055quite as drastic because of um as the state will come through. That's obviously I know the hope of every but when you're looking at a a state uh 22 to1 mandate for class sizes and there's seven positions we can absorb and stay at 22 to one or below in every grade level in the school district in elementary. Why wouldn't we do it? That's the expectation. still I think um I think our teachers it's more work on teachers and so we just need to be aware of that and careful especially if it's if it's aids as well and it's other you know other support folks across so that's the only that's my concern and and just to clarify presentation is based upon current funding models and so with whatever happens in the legislature It could all
056potentially change. The presentation is built on current funding models. Exactly. Okay. But where we're at now, we'll probably we're going home with the 22 to1. And that's across the state. All school districts really kind of look at that. And that's because and even we're graded on that on first rating. As we decrease students, we're supposed to decrease staff and that's a grade on your first rating as well. Uh and so that's just being efficient as a school district. the others. Yes, we're holding on, but we've got to just like with the staffing model, we've got to know where all of our positions are and start making a plan in case the worst case. Absolutely. I was just thinking the perspective of those of us on the board, everybody sitting out there tonight, people watching, um
057if there it's it's been past time, but if there's a time to contact your legislators, it's it's that time. Yeah. And Josh, the other part is regardless of if the state gave us the $395 per student, which would be outstanding, we still have multiple areas in this school district that we can get much more efficient with our dollars. And kind of like Heather said, uh, for years, our district has been behind the state average in teacher pay. You can't catch up with it overnight, but if we're in fish in areas throughout the district and we're saving x amount of money per year, that's additional money we can pass on to our staff. and start trying to kind of close that gap. We're in a position right now with who we kind of recruit against for
058teachers. We're at the top of that scale. However, uh that's not the goal. I mean, the goal is to be as high as we can be where nobody can compete with us if salaries were the only driving force. That's that's the goal of where we want to be. Can you help us understand how this um what are the next steps in this? Obviously, I mean, I think it's more we're waiting more for the funding side of this equation, which we really didn't I mean, talk about too much in here tonight. That's what we're waiting for from the state. But as far as what we're working towards to reduce expenses, um when do I mean, if you believe some of these decisions need to be made sooner rather than later, what is the time frame that
059you're we're looking at for doing some of these? I mean, we're going to bring uh more secondary numbers and department budget scenarios to you guys in in May. Uh we'll take another glimpse and a bigger picture as far as digging down a little bit deeper at the June meeting and more than likely depending on what takes place in the legislative session would have a special meeting after the June meeting as close to July 1st as possible to approve a budget on the information we know at that time because the budget would start July 1. If something changes in the legislative session after that and we get additional funds, we can always come back uh later in July, 1 of August, whatever that is, and amend that budget if new money's come in. Yeah. So, it's
060not in stone potentially of what we approved prior to July 1. How about for um May discussion? Where do you think we'll see next month? Um you're going to see close to complete budget with current law. Say again. you're going to see a complete budget with current law. Okay, good. So, we'll see where we are and then then we can look at the scenarios based on what the where the state is at that point. But I I do want to point out that going back to those salaries like Dr. Hark Rider was saying and even back to, you know, we've got to look as a district at our inefficiencies and we've got to look where the fluff is and we've got to be able to make those decisions to say we've got to pay our
061teachers more. And so we've got to look at everything. And if we can gain some of those inefficiencies and push it more to the salaries, that's what's that's what's best for our teachers. And so and then keeping classes at 15, sometimes you could take that up to 22 and that savings you're giving them back in salaries. And so you just kind of got to look at all of that and to make sure we're all of this and I think everybody in here is really working to do what's best for teachers and for students and in College Station. So yes, we'll continue to look at the inefficiencies. I have numbers, but I I want to be able to work through those supply budgets to see what we can find out there and then bring you some
062good solid numbers the next in May. Is that good? It is good. Thank you. And again, you had some powerful slides. That one I thought was powerful to me. And I also really like I hope people will see the one where we have that CSISD deficit spending compared to um the state formulas for some of for special ed for transportation. I mean, what is it's about $12 million in services that that we offer to our students and we're supposed to be getting the funding specifically for those services and we're not and we're having to take it away across the find it in other places across the board. To me, that was very powerful. So, thank you for putting that together as well. There's one thing that I did notice um between all the Senate bills
063and things like that. I mean, I think Angela Paxton's bill makes me a little nervous, but there's nothing we can do about it, but I'm just curious what UIL thinks about that. Um because you start switching seats within district. Uh I bet UIL has something to say about that. So, just curious if that was brought up. So, we'll we'll do some research on it. Um, but I I kept kind of seeing the constant in this and and it goes back to what we were talking about. A lot of these bills are are state controlled. Um, and and Mr. Ben said it tonight. If if there's a reason, I mean, we we preach it and say, "Hey, call your representatives, call Dyson, call Wharton, all of them." Um, if there's a reason right now, I mean,
064I've done it. I've talked to both of them and uh, you know, I've had good conversations with them. Uh, I think and I and I'll just say it. I I told them, "If you fund us on our enrollment, you'll never hear a peep out of me." And they laughed about it and I said, "I'm not joking. Like, you'll never hear a peep out of me if you fund us on enrollment because I might not play on the same playing field as a district, but by God, I'm going to have the funding to be able to compete and I'll I'll do that all day long." And so, that's the frustrating part, but I think a big piece of it is the state control piece, and and we're having to navigate that, and you're doing a heck
065of a job. Um, so we appreciate all that detail because uh if we can get any kind of local control into this, it it'll be a positive and we don't know what that looks like until maybe May, maybe not. We'll see. So, and I appreciate that. And I also want to say thank you to the principles and the department directors and secretaries on the campuses because they've done a lot with the budget this year and they have done amazing things. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, brings us to D2. receive a report related to the Shaq School Health Advisory Council. Siala, good evening everyone. Um, I am here to provide with y'all a brief um, overview of the work of the school health advisory council that we did during this school year. and I had
066the privilege of being able to collaborate with the SHAK committee this year. And so again, it's an honor to be able to kind of share just a little bit of the stuff that we went through this year. Um just as a reminder that the SHAK committee is actually one of those um situations that we're required to have in each district um by law. um state may not be able to uh fund and balance a fund budget, but they can make sure that we have um other representation sometimes, right? Um one of the things I like to remind everybody is we have our information out there so that everybody can access it and see what kind of things the SHA committee is looking at from year to year. um some years have more going on in
067them on years that there might be curriculum um renewals or um considerations. Um this year was not one of those years, but at any point any of the committee members, any of our community members can always access um our our agendas and recordings of our meetings so that they can hear everything that's gone on in our um committee meetings. Um and they can get to them by way of our web page. Um the SHA committee is kind of functions on the whole school, whole community, whole child model. Um that's been a continuum from when we've started it um you know several years ago. And so we've made sure that we keep that um philosophy at hand. Um and you'll kind of see that reflected in a lot of the presentations um the the breath of
068presentations actually that kind of um go through the year with the SHA committee as well. So, just kind of an overview, our SHA committee this year, we had a total of 22 members. Um, 13 of those members are community members. They're non-emp employees. Um, seven are actually district employees and we had two school board members that were, um, on our membership role as well. And then our focus areas. And so this year, um, just a few of the things that we kind of spent our time on is one of the things is we needed to look at our bylaws. And so we kind of um did a review of those early on and made a few adjustments to some things that needed to be updated to reflect the actual operating practices that we had in
069place for our SHAT committee. Um as well as we reviewed the wellness plan and made the appropriate updates so that the information included within that wellness plan actually reflected the current information that was specific for our school district. Um in addition to that, we also were able to listen to some presentations about um our overall counseling supports. Um one of our um district counselors came in and gave us a wonderful presentation to let us know um kind of what the state of the counseling department is for the whole school district and the breadth of supports that they have available for our students, our families, and our employees alike. Um, in addition to that, we were able to um, listen to a a report and have some great discussions about safe routes to schools. Um, and
070then also our child nutrition program was able to come in and provide us with some updated information about where they were with um, all of the nutrition standards and and their budgets and where we are in the overall wellness piece from the child nutrition standpoint. And then finally, we were able to get an update from our district safety um coordinator and then she was able to let us know about the different efforts that are happening across the district um with all of the changes in legislature and expectations um as far as school safety as well. So that was important for us to be able to get that update. Um for this year, we don't have any formal recommendations um for you. However, um what we did have is a lot of discussion about us needing
071to continue talks about the idea of safe routes. One of the things that we recognize is um you know that the school district does not mandate bicycle lanes and and crosses and things like that. Um however, um the opportunity to be able to continue having conversations and look for opportunities for us to collaborate with the city um in ways to um highlight safe routes to schools to encourage um kiddos and families to walk to school, to bike to schools to have that, you know, healthy interaction and that social interaction. Um just really kind of continuing that conversation. And so, um, as we go and prepare for the next year's SHA committee, that will be an area of focus that is recommended for them to continue having conversations on. Any questions? Was very quick. Not really.
072Just a thank you to Shaq and all the volunteers both from the district and the community that are a part of that and for the time they certainly the time they put into it. Um, and I appreciate that you're going to continue the conversation and and that you mentioned really the city impacts so much of that. So hopefully involving them would be a wonderful plus. So thank you. Yes, ma'am. And and that's another another area where the community can really get involved because quite often, in fact, I think this came up in one of the shack meetings. The city of College Station will do surveys as far as uh you know, bike lanes and and mobility and so forth. And so as as parents and and and teachers and staff members and so forth, when
073you have an opportunity to complete those um you know, hopefully it would have have some effect with the city as far as things that could make it safer and more convenient for our kids and parents. You bet. Thank you. That'll bring us to item D3, adjust minutes to instructional day. Miss Leafer. Okay. Good evening, Mr. Horack, board of trustees, and Dr. Hark Rider. I'm going to take a few minutes this evening to talk about um the why and the process of adding 10 and minutes to our school schedule. Um, so first I would like to start with um, our school district provides a lot of opportunities for our students across the district, different electives, whether it be CTE, foreign languages, things like that. Um, unfortunately, we are not able to provide all of those options
074at both of our comprehensive high schools. Um, so that all of our kids have access to all the things that we offer. um best case scenario for us to be able to provide the best case scenario for our students is to share students and to share our staff. To do that, we have to have an aligned a parallel bail schedule between our two comprehensive high schools. Um currently we start and end at the same time, but we have different um lunch periods, we have different instructional minutes, we have different um advisory times and things like that. So, um, the first thing we did was we brought both of our principles in from our comprehensive high schools to have a discussion about what were the differences in our bail schedules. Um, we had different instructional minutes,
075we had different bail schedules, we had different advisory times. And so, those two principles did a wonderful job with coming to the middle and talking about how we needed to adjust our schedule so that we were able to share students and staff across the district. Um we um looked at some sample schedules with at you know how can we make that happen so that all school we could share and all kids got the same opportunity. Um the only way that we're able to do that is if we added 10 extra minutes to our day. Um we talked about what would be the most efficient and what would be best for families and students and we landed on the 10 minutes would be added at the end of the day. Um, next we had to talk
076to our transportation department on running buses between the different campuses and what would that look like? Um, did we do high school only? Did we do middle school? What all what all campuses would we um involve in that? Um, adding 10 minutes to our schedule adds flexibility to the calendar by adding um some time. And I have um a um a a sample of some other districts to show you some exact minutes in a minute. Um but the flexibility in the academic schedule would be for the 26 27 calendar because we've already approved the calendar for next year. But that does allow us for some um professional development time for our teachers, whether that be working in their classroom, doing professional learning with the district or on campus. It provides for opportunity for some extended
077weekends or possibly a longer fall break as well as a possibility of having some um additional bad weather days in case we have situations where we're having to cancel because of rain, floods, freezing temperatures and things like that. So this next slide kind of gives you an example of min comparison. So we went and did some research. Um, the TA requires us to have a minimum of 420 minutes per day, which is 75,600 for the year. Currently, we have 445 minutes, which gives us 76,540. So, we're a little bit over, giving us a couple of extra days added to our calendar for different scenarios. So, our surrounding districts that we looked at, we started with Brian because they're our next door neighbors and they have a range from 445 to 470. So, some of their
078bands like for middle school example, they had three different bell schedules for their their middle school. So, not all their schools like elementary were the same, intermediate were the same. They had a lot of flexibility. So, I just gave you the gamut from 445 to 470. Magnolia is at 435. McGomery ISD is at 445 and Tombball is at 445 to 460. They also had some variances between their campuses. If we add 10 minutes to our day at 455, that gives us a total of 79,170 minutes, which is a a couple more days than we already have built into our schedule. If someone's asking where are we going to put the 10 minutes um to balance our schedules um we need to make sure that our lunches are all at a m a limit of 30
079minutes with a five minute trans uh transportation or passing period. Right now one of the campuses provides 25 minutes for lunch and 5 minutes to get to class. And so we want to make sure that everybody has 30 minutes for lunch and the five minute passing period and the remainder um if any would go into instructional time. So that's kind of the why that was kind of our process. Um are there any questions? A couple things to uh you guys think about uh number one adding 10 minutes to the school day. Couple things. If we left elementary at the same bell schedule, we would have to do intermediate, middle, and high school on the same because of transportation. TEA takes our minutes and it goes on the least amount of minutes. So if elementary is
080going 445, that would be our set number of days. I told you guys when we approved the calendar back in believe it was February that in order for us to create flexibility in our school day the only option would be to increase the minutes and then you have some increased flexibility. You have approved the calendar for 2526. However, you could amend that calendar if you had the appetite to do that. In our mind, we would like to take 10 minutes to the school day adds 3.9 extra days that teachers to the over the year. We would like to take those four days and create two days in the first semester, two days in the second semester that are 100% for teachers. Half a day would be for planning, half a day would be a work
081day. There's no district meetings. There's nothing else that they're pulled to at that point in time. Uh time is something we're all been chasing in public ed forever. Teachers need it. Uh I would like to bring you an amended calendar in May to let you look at where those four days would fall. I still think it's enough time for parents to make any transitions or anything they need as far as child care goes or we add the minutes, we do it for 26 27 and come back and and redo the calendar. But in in in my mind, we're gonna have the builtup minutes. I don't see why we wouldn't amend the calendar and give the days to the teachers for this coming school year versus waiting. So, is this if if I'm understanding this correctly,
082this will allow us to utilize our CT center for all kids, the block scheduling, getting kids there? Yes, sir. I think this is great. I I like that you're aligning the two I like that you included the principles um and really got their input. um aligning the two schools kind of do does away with the us versus them mentality sometimes between our two high schools. Um and teachers have been asking us for more time in their classrooms um just to to do what they need to do to plan. So I I feel like this is checking a lot of boxes. Yeah, I like the alignment as well. So this was primarily driven by the high schools, right? Driven by the CT center phase 2, right? you you have you don't we're not duplicating uh programs.
083So, in order for both high schools to be able to utilize it, they've got to be on the same schedule to be able to go back and forth and to be able to get there on time and get back because we're not going to have teachers teaching goalless high school kids welding and console kids welding. They're going to be So, have y'all had So, you said sounded like you talked with them to work on this. Have Have you had a chance to talk with the elementaryaries and understand what going to four less actual instruction days would look like? Because I know they're always with testing and all. You know, there's so much on you technically would be potentially adding unless you gave days off. Well, I mean, but not but not instructional days with the
084um it would just it's like maybe looks a little different. I'm just asking if you've had the question. I don't know. I mean, but that to have 10 minutes a day versus four extra days in a schedule with all the activities and things that that elementaryaries do. That's just one thought. I don't know if have you talked to the elementaryaries yet or not about that component. Not that specific, right? Yeah. I mean, I think the one thing that we could all agree on at every level is we need more time. How do we create more time? because during our staff development days that uh we have for staff a lot of times the district has to use some of those days for TEA requirements or things that have to go principles need time with teachers
085they also they need time to work on whatever they need to work on as well as they want to try to give teachers time in their classrooms to do what they need to do uh so in my mind we're building a CTE centerface to they have to have the same bell schedule that's not open for discussion to get kids back and forth otherwise we've wasted the facility and programs that we don't have kids interested in going to. Uh and the other part in my mind, it's a win-win from a standpoint of our teachers need more time. And so our staff development days isn't necessarily more time for them depending on what we have to do for tea purposes or what we need to do for a teacher. So it's a it's a balance. Uh I
086believe Jeff our next DEIC meeting is before the May board meeting. Correct. We would uh as a cabinet and with principal feedback earmark potentially what those four days would be get feedback from from principles take that to the DEIC say where they are and potentially bring you guys an amended budget in May. We would have it in workshop so we can have a discussion and then an action item in the board meeting if you decide you would like to to make a change for 2526. Otherwise, we could have all sorts of calendar options potentially for 26 27 and and I I'm assum I'm assuming the teachers would appreciate the extra planning time and I think the only other and I'm glad it's going to go through DEIC to have that discussion so they can have
087all that input. The other thing though, we really are asking um at least for that next this year if we did that it would be more work on teachers. 10 more minutes a day, the equivalent of four more. Isn't that right? They'd be working the equivalent of four more days. Yeah. But we're going to give it back to them. So I see what you're saying. Yes. Technically, yes, but we're giving the four back to them. That's why. But it's still the summer. It's the same number of days they have to be there and they have to be there 10 more minutes a day on every day. That's which again is the equivalent of four extra days. So it's the same amount of days they have to show up. I think 10 more minutes we need
088to rethink about that. I'm with you and I think the principles can get some feedback. Yeah. because ultimately we want to do what the campuses, you know, either way the 10 minutes have to come into play or we've got a a a facility that, you know, with our growth, but not with our growth, more our opportunities that we're able to offer that that we're not utilizing and why' we do the bond kind of thing. So I think with the feedback that we get from teachers to principles and then principles within the DEIC, I think some some good conversation will happen as it pertains to stuff that we're not accustomed to because we you know we can only imagine what the what that looks like in a calendar year for teachers. So um I I anticipate
089and I I charge all the principles make sure we get some good feedback because that's only going to help. I mean uh for us going forward. So that was my point and agreed. I'm not against and just to clarify I I mean adding the 10 minutes is not the problem. It's just more how do we approach that with the extra four days and make sure it's you know right for all the schools. So well and I think one thing that um I mean there's always some some some pain points when you're going to make a change like this. Um, but having been on bond committees, um, going back several years, um, there was a time when we were talking about putting certain programs at one place and then you had to be in school at
090that one place to be able to do those programs. And I had lots of friends and parents say, "Well, my kid would want to do that, but they want to be at their high school." And so one positive to this is we've come to a place as a district where we're going to say these programs are going to be at the center and we're going to be able to get you from whatever high school, you know, whichever of our three high schools um to to go to that. And so just throwing out that there is a positive in that too. And there there is some purpose in that. And so um we got to work through what looks best for our teachers and students. But that that point right there is something that I think
091we got a lot of parent feedback um back when we were doing the bonds. And we've we've also been asked by parents, our we have our students are shifting. We're not sending everyone to college anymore. We we have kids that want these skills and the CT center is going to equip these kids to to leave our nest with skills that can go out and get a job immediately. And so I like like you said, there is pain with all of this, but the outcome from it is I think there is is a huge positive. Yeah. And I do think um it's exciting to have more people at the CTE e center and have that center. I want to clarify though that from what Missy just said I mean what is the just to make sure
092par everyone's aware I mean is I don't know if we have a firm timeline for where everything would be offered at one place instead of the two campuses if I mean I know maybe that's the goal we still I mean something like culinary right now um at least the extended years are still only at CSHS I mean I'm not are we Yeah, there's not a goal that we're going to do exactly the same thing at both high schools. That's okay. I just want to make sure that was Yeah, because we have the flexibility right now based on the program and where kids are coming in. They can transfer from one high school to the other high school because of a program. I believe that starts their sophomore year, not their freshman year. So, they have
093the flexibility to move campuses. We don't provide transportation, but they do have the flexibility to be able to go. With the CTE phase center, you don't have to change high school. You can stay at your zoned high school and we're going to bus you back and forth. So that's the the difference there. But still not everything will be offered at correct. Right. To clarifate existing science labs and potentially add some programs there uh that we currently don't have there. Right. Yeah. Anything else? Thank you miss sleeper for your time. That arrange to item E adjourn.