001[Music] good evening ladies and gentlemen I apologize ol for the minor delay technical improvements were happening and I shant stand in the way of those welcome on this nice cold yaka winter evening to the February 18th uh board of directors meeting of the Aima School Board uh this evening unfortunately speaking of technical difficulties we do not have Spanish interpretation services available so we apologize for the inconvenience if you need to take advantage of those please reach out to us and we will follow up with you in the future if you wish to make public comment this evening there are two opportunities available for you the first option is for commenting on agenda items hold please my Improvement screen has overtake on my regular screen but give me one second there we go first comment uh
002option is for commenting on agenda items only the second option which comes towards the end of the meeting is for all other topics in order to speak tonight please sign two forms to sign in form and the guidelines form located in the back of the room Barb would you please take the role director Navaro Jr present director rice here president Becket president directors Walker and vice president Vian Nea are excused thank you very much we are in flu season and we are down a couple of our members this evening for healthcare issues and we would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to wash their hands as frequently as possible during the weather um at this point in time I'd like to invite you to please join me in standing for the Pledge of
003Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America stand na indivisible and jce I apologize I thought we were moving straight to the acknowledgement the character word of the month is persistence demonstrating determination and continued effort to achieve goals despite challenges today the schools of the AKA School District rest on ancestral lands of 14 confederated Tri the people of the yak Nation inhabited more than 12 million Acres across Adams Bon Chalan Douglas Franklin Grant kitas K counties today we honor those native peoples who are tied to the land through history Legends and culture we acknowledge our descendants who live in the world today we thank the caretakers of this land who have lived here and continue to live here since time immemorial an acknowledgement is a simple powerful way to show
004respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase indigenous people's history and culture it also honors the truth as a school district we will continue to build upon our relations with aak a nation thank you Barb in our board docs this evening is a link to the obituary for Dan Iman a educator and Coach here in our Valley and I would like to ask uh all of those in attendance with us tonight to please take a moment of silence in his memory thank you we have two different recognitions this evening the first is our National Technical Honor Society program and I believe Raymond director Navaro Jor will begin this thank you yes thank you it's with great pleasure that get to recognize our CT or our YB Tech students the board of
005directors would like to congratulate this the following YB Tech students for their inter induction into the National Technical Honor Society the National Technical Honor Society is an educational nonprofit ex excuse me that exists to honor recognize and Empower students and teachers in Career and Technical education and we do have quite a few students representing the aamal school district and we'll start with AC Davis High School and if you're present today any of the students are present we'll ask you to come up so we can uh shake your hand okay so first of all from AC Davis High School I believe it's ay Martinez Casanova career pathway is construction and class of Fernanda marily AA Aila our career pathway is dental assisting class of 2025 Marlene Alejandra Garcia Mendes career Pathways Physical Therapy Technician class of
0062025 and also Adan Ooa pz career Pathways electrical and class of 2025 [Applause] yeah it's looking Dapper this evening yeah yeah one more Applause for Adan representing Davis High School and from Eisenhower High School Hannah ly tubs rear Pathways automotive tech class of 2025 as benitz career Pathway Dental Assisting class of 2026 ABA Alicia Marie Eagleman career pathway nursing class of 2026 JoJo T Martinez career pathway computer technician all right JoJo's here today computer technician class of 2025 [Applause] okay and continuing from Eisenhower High School is sta Alexandra Martinez sandal career Pathway Dental Assisting class of 2025 and also from Eisenhower High School David bahena derones career pathway teacher Academy class of 2025 all right Yakama online also had a representative a student that also inducted that's Alisa Renee Dillinger career pathway computer technician class
007of 2025 and yakal satellite um Isaiah Elisa sodia career pathway entertainment media production class of 2026 a about of Applause for all our students that were inducted thank you yes we also have their um faculty advisor uh Mr Clen C who's here here and taking photos not just some random stranger that walked up thank you again congratulations to our students thank you for being here tonight we are um always excited to celebrate your achievements along the way and it is interesting to see all the different uh career Pathways that are presented as we get to take these opportunities to see the success so it's it's very very fun to watch uh moving forward tonight we have our uh National PTA and Founders Day celebration and ysd uh PTA and booster clubs recognitions and to begin
008that I'll turn it over to director rice thank you president Becket in honor of national PTA Founders Day which happened yesterday the akma School District Board of Directors wishes to Express gratitude acknowledging the significant role that their ptas or booster clubs or other parent organizations have played locally regionally and nationally the efforts of these dedicated volunteers has been instrumental in advancing parent engagement and advocating for the well-being of all children and families particularly those in our district I'm going to read through the names and if anyone sneaked in the back I'm going to ask that you follow the same pathway that we um had had the students go for PTO groups that's parent teacher organization groups from Adams ele Adams Elementary PTA president Israel Moreno Adams PTA vice president Maria sedo barge Lincoln PTA president
009Tomas I can't read that Romero bar Tomas Romero also from barge Lincoln PTA vice president Natalie tinao from uh Discovery Early Learning their president their parent president is Yami yth jacobo Rodriguez also from Discovery Early Learning the parent vice president Macy Moore from Garfield their parent president is Jessica avara also from Garfield their parent vice president Leah Williams from Gilbert their parent president is Felicia snow also from Gilbert their parent vice president is Tracy Anderson from Hoover Elementary their parent president is FL Reyes also from Hoover the parent vice president is Fatima Rodriguez roblo from McLure Elementary their parent president is Kathleen Aragon also from McLure the parent Treasurer is Sadie Barnes and from McLure the PTA secretary is Heather Flyn from McKinley parent PTA organization their president is Patricia Cesar casares pardon me Patricia
010casades also for McKinley their parent vice president is Irma marado from Knob Hill their parent president is Francis Logan also from Knob Hill the parent vice president is Megan McCormack from Ridgeview Elementary their parent president is Sue Stoneman from Roosevelt Elementary their parent president is Michael ke K and the parent vice president is Caitlyn Crutcher from Wilson Middle School their parent president is Marita madreal and the parent vice president from Wilson is Brienne Smith thank you director Walker let's have a round of applause for all of our officers from our PTO groups tonight we have a number of individuals to recognize who are leaders in our school booster clubs school and Sport boo booster clubs I should say uh we'd like to recognize those individuals as well they are Candace hooks of of Davis parent
011boosters Les Henderson Davis boy basketball Terry Dove Davis band boosters Susan Temple from the Davis PTSA Jennifer Hull of Davis volleyball boosters Marilyn James tus Davis girls basketball jod gassing of Davis girls booster official Sherry Williams of Davis football Kelly Hall from Davis fast pitch Raquel Cortez from Davis choir antonet guo of Davis band Cheyenne amaran of Davis drama Kevin Collins of Eisenhower track and field and cross country Marcy Logan of the Eisenhower choir Kristen GES Eisenhower choir Kevin Collins again with the Eisenhower choir booster club Nora Lopez Eisenhower boys and girls soccer Katie Allen Ike boys and girls soccer Marcy Logan of the ike drama booster club Greg Lowden from the Eisenhower drama club Shantel Vargas of Eisenhower Senior parents boosters Gloria spier Eisenhower football boosters Jessica Chase Eisenhower football boosters lilan Vargas Mendoza
012Eisenhower band Monica agiro Eisenhower band April adinon Eisenhower dance Brandy Stevens Eisenhower boys basketball Elizabeth Gonzalez from Ike boy basketball and Holly Stevens from Eisenhower tennis can we please have a round of applause for our parent volunteers from our booster clubs don't think we can overestimate how important it is to have these parent volunteers working in all of our school buildings around our district and we appreciate them very very much and their service to our district in the thousands of hours that they put in exactly collectively I I can tell you that we couldn't do what we have to do in this District without the parent volunteers their their commitment and and their dedication to their children and the students of this District are just invaluable very well said at this point in time we'll
013begin our um section of reports to the board and this evening we have a report on transportation from the director of transportation in the yma district Mr Art Rodriguez welcome art floor is yours well good evening uh board members and superintendent green thanks for having me here tonight to talk about Transportation um like to start out with our current operations that we have for this year uh we have about we have well we have 66 drivers out of 69 allocated for our department um we that's including our on top of that is three mechanics five office staff one one permanent trainer um those 66 drivers are currently servicing 60 61 routes that Serv as General Ed routes uh special ed routes and preschool that preschool includes ecap um and so those drivers and and currently
014in the system that we have our servicing what we call two Bell System they are servicing you know we have our high school which and high school and middle school buildings that run about the same time 8 o'clock in the morning and they just miss at 2:30 2:35 in the afternoon so that's one Bell and then those same routes are servicing Elementary which we have 14 elementaries that dismiss or that arrive in the morning at 8:45 and dismiss at 3:15 so uh trying to paint a picture of that uh as as far as currently is that we are doing a we are doing a lot of work we've been doing this work under the tube Bell system for a long time we're pretty efficient at it as as we are going uh but I'd like
015to share that that currently um we don't have much room for adjusting in this current model system but I wanted to share what we're doing now we are good at what we do at the moment uh I think we can do more and I'll get to that in the next couple slides I also want to note to it's currently this in our operations is that we boosted our student Counts from last year fall numbers we were up 300 um and we are up and then we kind of took a small dip for the winter count we were up 231 students so we from 300 231 and usually it drops from the fall is our biggest number that kind of goes down throughout the three times that we count throughout the year so currently uh we
016are doing I think we're doing a great job of what we do now what we've been doing in the past so at the end of the last year we had these we had a lot of reviews on departments about budget cuts and how we can we save money and do business differently so one of the things we did that we we tried to do was reduce our Charter footprint and what does that mean well we use a lot of charter buses in the past to try to try to cover the trips that we had going on in the district uh last year at this time we had 88 Charters used up to this point from September to February this year after refocusing what we are doing and how we are doing it we are at
017five charter buses that we've used this year which is a huge change in how we do business um one is we are saving about right now estimated about $2,000 this year in Charter costs and that's that savings isn't just for transportation it's for all departments that use that service um we've kind of committed saying we are going to do that with our own drivers and by doing that we are boosting ing their hours our drivers don't require uh aren't the cost is cheaper for us to use our our private fleet versus our Charter Fleet that we we book through our vendors so we say there's a considerable uh price difference in that you know uh in the cost of how we do it and then if someone else does it for us um that was
018one of our goals our other goals that we had are of course reducing overtime in our shop we had a transition last year where we had uh we have three position for our mechanics we were feeling we had one and we brought on a second one as we were going through retirement and uh retirement of two former mechanic so we've reduced that footprint we're under 10 hours for each person this year which is a great a great change for us financially so some of the challenges now that we are operating our are now because we have 61 routes we have 66 drivers we're trying to get the 69 is that we are running out of space uh potentially we have to go farther than that if we have to go above 69 uh we are
019already currently moving things around our yard to make it more efficient to park staff um staff parking we partnered with per Tech to have 10 spots from them and their lot that's next to us um but also just the number of buses that we have uh and the bus maintenance of our buses sometimes we are we are running you know we're running short we like to have a buffer of how many buses we use daily and have on hand for spares but on some days we are pushed to that limit with all the trips that are going out that we are managing now but we are maintaining that also want to think about just some of the other challenges always routing right how can we route more efficiently how can we service more students what
020are the main requirements that we do every day our main requirements are for sure sped transportation mckenny ventos and then of course General Ed Transportation so those are the main roles that we have those are the challenges every year how can we do more with what we have now without expanding too much and and running out of space one running out of equipment two and also having enough drivers to do what we want to do every day so one of the things I was looking at to possibly save more and more money and also provide uh more service for our students was look at a four bell proposal So currently I mentioned that we are doing two Bells and and why would we want to have po Bells what does that mean that means we
021have po Bells we have a bell for Middle School we have a bell for high school we have a we split our elementaries into two groups as a proposal uh the challenges for transportation I already mentioned are driver shortages we are still not at 69 uh even though we made a great impact this year we only we haven't lost any drivers this year due to income like they they want to they're they AR leaving us to find a job that that gives them more hours somewhere else we do have the facility challenge that we are doing right now we're trying to provide a livable income for our drivers right so before we took those 88 trips this year away from Charter um that that that increase the drivers that want the more hours so that
022they could stay and be satisfied and and provide for their families and then the goal right now is also to get to financial solvy uh and what I mean by that is can we save money and still do more um so why do what can we do more with right so if we have four Bells we can we can run a more efficient transportation department we can provide a better service to our students and what I mean by that is we can eliminate eliminate transfer routes for elementary we could probably provide direct School uh busing which means uh currently our model is that we have a bus for elementary that picks up at three or four different elementaries throughout the afternoon before it finally empties out we could possibly have buses that service just certain
023schools by themselves which reduces uh with student management issues uh the principles are dealing with just their students on a bus not four different elementary schools um that's a service we could provide doesn't save us money at that point but it does provide a better service for our elementary students of course more efficient use of transportation resources if we can reduce a number of buses we need to use per day uh that that cuts down on on our our that uses our drivers are different capacity provides them more hours because their runs their routes are longer currently our average route time is about for our drivers five hours five five and a half we would boost that to six six and a half based on the number of runs we would do um in a
024day um and so one of the things that we want to do is also attract more students to a transportation there is a reimbursement for every student that we Haul uh yearly a couple years ago uh Transit went to a free we used transit first off we used transit uh we have a Transit zone for Eisenhower and Davis let me take a step back those Transit zones are used because we cannot provide that service with the number of buses we have so we have 61 buses servicing uh high school and middle school but we we have these zones of the city that we don't service we require those students to use City Transit as a source of getting to school we used to count those students every year we we lost six 00 kids in
025our count because we used to we used to buy those bus passes from City Transit and then the state would reimburse us for buying those and give us a bump for every kid that we provide a passport well that's free now um and so so with going to four Bells we believe we can eliminate our Transit zones and still provide that service and get those kids service back to them we also can uh look at uh decreasing the route times of our buses they're not hauling so long but they're hauling as much same amount of kids they're shorter route times because they're not going as far they're not servicing a high school and a middle school but they're servicing a high school they're servicing a middle school and they're servicing an elementary and then another
026Elementary so it's time to look at that I mean it's time we can still continue going as we are going now but we want to offer more service reduce our cost um I believe that's a new a new uh place to look as opportunity for us to look at and see if we can make a change for the for the future give us that capacity to grow because we'll we would shrink our number of buses that we are using currently and we can still start to expand service back up right now we really can't expand anything we can just maintain so um it's an opportunity hope it doesn't sound gloomy to you guys uh but I also want just to to give that out there put that out there for you I've been spending half
027the year looking at that data trying come up with models and I do have believe have a model that would work um I don't have much more to say at the moment so I wanted to share that that piece of VI where we're at currently what we did financially to help improve uh reduce cost for the district um talk about that challenge of that we're at capacity where I think we're at now we can maintain it but do you want to do better you want to be more efficient and then what what does it look like and what what are the possible opportunities that we can get out of it so I'm here to answer any questions you have you have any questions from board members this even I I have some um first of
028all congratulations on your cost savings thank you those those were really encouraging numbers yeah our driver's happy about it too because they have more work to do and and they want to do the work so I'm I'm proud of them for helping us with that and congratulations on pairing down the charter costs I know know that those are are pretty ex were pretty extensive yes under the old system um by going to it what what impact does a forbell system in transportation have on kids arriving to school on time do you know what I'm do you is it going to cause a change force a change in the system for the schools themselves yes if if it was to be adopted yeah if it was to be adopted it's just an idea right now and
029it is a change in the model um currently of what we would start right so yeah it would it would impact some students it would impact families that's one of the that's one of the the areas of concern that we that any any Community would have but is it can we provide a better service can we provide a more efficient system that's worth it for everybody and and that's where um that's where I'm coming from Dr Green do you want to briefly elaborate on that I was just going to share that uh we have several districts around the state that have gone to a different Bill uh bus schedule uh for the reasons that are being provided here uh most recently when my family when we were in Federal Way and our students were in
030our youngest was in elementary they went to a two Bell System where they had half of the elementary school start about 30 minutes earlier and uh than the other group of of elementary schools and that allowed the buses to make the routes and uh there was a significant cost savings to the Federal Way School District so there are districts that are are looking at those opportunities uh throughout although we also understand that there's some uh work that needs to be done if we're going to go down that route and so it's not just something that uh we say will happen can't just snap your fingers and make definitely not so there's some work that needs to be done and I think that did you want to make a comment good you're you're not so what
031what you have before you is I would say the standard two Bell tiered system so you either you run a two or a three Bell so larger districts so when is AA we had the same thing we split the elementary schools and we had a small Gap in middle and high what that allowed us to do then is you have fewer drivers with longer routes so when you tear up a system you have fewer drivers of longer routes but then um I also had the ability to untier the system when late start times were of uh dour the issue dour and so I went back to a two tier system and that cost us a million and a half dollars to do it the other way so that in that in that model you have
032uh fewer drivers or more drivers driving less time so basically just think about your utilization goes up both on drivers and the equipment so it saves on footprint the sacrifice generally is the logistics we are down when we talk about CR cutting we're now looking at efficiencies so it's it's Logistics and operations this is as far away from the classroom as you can get um so that's where we're at now we are now down into the couch cushions as I've discussed many times we we cut and now we're looking for operational efficiencies based on just true Logistics and um how to operate better so but I mean that's where we find ourselves as an organization but it is it is a very successful way to use your drivers and make them have a higher wage
033and also save the district quite a bit of money thank you thank you art it was a great presentation you're welcome any other questions I I do just just for clarification between right now we have Elementary bell schedule and a secondary bell schedule and the secondary being middle and high school are the earliest bells of the day and the elementary schools are later yes we would be expanding or or extending into the into the morning hours the element day so from a from the standpoint of a member of the yaka Community who's driving to their workplace every morning in in Midtown yakma downtown yakma wherever they might be this would not necessarily impact extra traffic in those early hour Rush times it would extend traffic from busing systems into later in the morning that that's
034accurate I think that's that is that that is correct and we we saw we saw the traff deteriorate in thisal we went back to a two-tier because it pushes more routes in the peak time where you as youve noted you spread out the routes and so you've that n if it goes later you're you're in the back end of the peak the peak just anecdotally I think it's an interesting concept I think the um the opportunity that we've should say opportunity the situation we've created and enjoy with the Yan Transit and with our um School Safety and Security up you know groups will be really important to lean in on but definitely I think it's important for people to know that that wouldn't wouldn't affect those people screaming down some at you for an Ting
035Point night hopefully anyway don't know who they would be okay any other questions I have a few questions so Ju Just a comment though I just wonder how that might impact families which send perhaps kids different kids in different schools if what I heard correctly is that there could be a difference in start times for different elementary schools so how would that impact families right where you have older kids taking the younger kids to schools perhaps and maybe one one child going to a school starts at maybe 8 o' and another child going to another school starts at 815 or 8:30 just wondering how that might impact our families in terms of U many of them work you know leaving the home early and leaving older kidss charge of younger kids it's it just yeah
036I just wonder if we got any feedback from from Community we haven't yet because this is the early stages of an idea but it is something that would have to be uh the community have have input on this okay it will have an impact it will cause a time for adjustments to be made um but you know uh depending how we put this together uh one of the big concerns I put into it was we don't want to switch high school and middle school to start after Elementary because a lot of those families need those older students to come home first so they'll still be coming home first if this was to be adopted down the road we want to keep that intact because you know they do provide that uh family support daycare support
037for siblings supervision and so to to mess with that too much would I think yeah would would be something that would be definitely definitely to be talked about with the community and parents and students also when when I see the the phrase here livable income that concerns me can you elaborate so I can understand that better so we pay I I would say we pay competitive rate wage for our drivers hourly hourly rate the problem that the challenges for our drivers is is our our contracts for routes which is our base pay goes from is a minimum of 4 hours to up to 6 hours right and so current model is I would say a third of them are about six and above based on seniority they pick the bigger routes they pick the extra
038add-ons that go on the day but the majority of the fleet is under that that Mark so most people when I interview them say hey how many hours can you give me and I'm quoting them 20 hours to 30 hours right so most people want 40 hours how can we get that boosted up just to keep them here one is trips I always encourage people to sign up for trips that boost your pay it's not always consistent every week but if we're doing you know 88 trips uh since September and we're going to end up probably doing uh I think last year our numbers were 300 trips that were ched out so we're going to have a big rush this summer or the spring and and just keep encouraging our drivers if you want the
039hours this is where we can get the hours our rates our pay is competitive with an hourly rate to an other hourly rate City transits rate other districts rates um but they also pay lower because they offer more hours so we either have to boost our pay per hour hour to attracts drivers and then hope that's enough or we can boost their hours keep the pay at a competitive rate that it is and and make reimbursements off that from the state Forks who are hauling more students so it's really a balancing act so it's not that we're not offering competitive salaries it's more the FTE right it's like a 0. five or yep 6 FTE yes okay also you you mentioned you had 66 drivers and 61 routes yes so how does that work a
040couple I think it was two years ago we changed we in this in this part of trying to attract drivers um we would train a driver we as a sub if we had all our routes p uh our subs would be used as a need need basis but we always needed them we never had enough so we after covid came out we were looking to to we lost all of our subs during covid we had a retrain and re bring them back from because they weren't working during covid and one of the one of the thoughts was we need permanent Subs we need people that know we're going to be committed to having them work every day so we basically have a route schedule but it's not assigned to specific route um and so that
041keeps them here because that means they get the benefits they get to be a part of the seniority basis they some of them choose that are higher up to do to be a what we call a floater so there's a substitute that makes their own schedule basically tells me hey I'm available on these days only or I'm a floater which is a permanent sub driver that's going to be here every day on that piece well not all the 66 are full-time permanent employ bus drivers the 66 are permanent okay they are permanent yes but there are about seven floaters right now all right and then another question I had how many do we have any routes on a daily basis that are cancelled there are some there there are some that are there have only
042been a few that have been officially cancelled but we are doing it we doing every effort to on a day that we are short what I what I want to say before I go to that um Mr Navaro was that our absenteeism for the last since January 1 of this year has been anywhere from 14% to 20% a day that's covering trips that's covering call-ins that's covering long-term leaves okay so there's always this this this fluctuation anywhere between the highest is going to be 20% the lowest is going to be 10% and that that's somewhere between nine drivers and 15 drivers a day that we're trying to figure out who's going to cover what so when when I asked this question years a couple years before we would C routes uh maybe once or twice
043a week trying to figure out stuff but now we are trying to be very cognizant of what we can do we know we have some routes that are smaller we try to fold them into each other right uh we try to Service uh we try to we know there's capacity in the morning so the the morning we don't normally cancel a route we are able to because the numbers are lighter in the morning than the afternoon so we can we can combine a route for the morning if we need to that's what we're doing um we've also reprioritized last couple years to make sure we don't cancel any sped routes uh because our main legal obligation to do that service so we are focused on the gened side trying to shrink that in the afternoon
044that's when we do have a few cancellations on and the afternoon because the the numbers the buses uh the counts swell a little bit they get there more in the afternoon that ride home and so we have to be more cognizant of that but there's I think we've done a better job this year than we've ever done on cancellations we do see parents gr messages going out just warning people that hey we are not we don't have a driver for this route but we are servicing it with this route trying to combine trying to give parents an option that we're not leaving kids out there well thank you for clarifying that I I I don't envy you I sounds like a very complex job and system that you run there with Transportation but thanks for
045all your work you're welcome thank you thank you director Rodriguez for for being here um one of my first tours when I'm became a member of the board a little over three years ago was at the transportation facility and it was fascinating to see I enjoyed that tour very much um it might be fun for the five of us to go down there someday and and do that as a group one of our site visits might be down there at some point in time but we really appreciate uh the report we appreciate the work that your team does uh taking care of all the students in our community on a day-to-day basis so thank you very much for being here tonight it's my pleasure thank you good night yes and so I am still being
046occasionally reminded of the little things and if you uh joined us this evening for part of the recognitions uh we would love you to know that we appreciate you being here and that we also recognize that your time is valuable and if you have things and places to be attending to we won't be offended we'll take a a two second or two minute break whatever it might be required if if people would like to excuse themselves that would be just fine if you'd like to stay here with us the rest of the evening that's completely fine too but we do want you to know that that is completely understandable if you need to move on with your evening so at this point in time we are moving to uh updates for members of the board
047do either of the members of the board have anything you AR thank you president Becket we are in week six of the legislative session and things are starting to move a little bit due to the pressures of deadlines um the first deadline for um moving bills out of their house of origin policy committee the cut off deadline for that is this Friday and that would be if there was a if there was a bill Bill put into house education for example they would have that bill would have to have been heard gone into approved through executive session and then it moves out and it moves over to the Senate education committee so they have to be out of their po their house of origin policy committee if there is a a fiscal note on it
048that has a different um a different deadline that would be next Friday the 28th for for policies for bills to be out of the house of origin fiscal committee so because of the these deadlines and because there are so many bills um rushing through uh things are getting pretty pretty condensed as far as getting stuff heard and getting things moving uh through the legislature this week um there are a number of bills that are still valid and will continue to be valid until at least Friday um I get a weekly I think it's weekly um update from the was State School Directors Association government relations folks that gives us the gives me the um status of the various bills that that wasda is watching in addition to what they call the bill watch this is
049a a PowerPoint presentation that they send out and I can forward those on to you if you'd like if you're interested um in them if not I can just keep an eye on what's going on and if we need to uh provide some or sign in for some testimony they're doing remote testimony allowing that again this year which is quite handy for those of us who live on this side of the Hill um but there just know that there are a lot of people that are signing up for testimony for the bills I would say especially as the session goes on if you get to the rest of us that would be great okay great I'll do that oh one more thing there is there has surfaced a um a a fair amount of interest
050on a simple majority for bonds bill you'll remember that um in order to pass a bond you've got a 60% passage rate requirement as well as a 40% um 40% of those who approve it 40% of those who approve it in the prior November general election yeah so last last year's general election you have to have 40% of those votes that number have voted must have voted in the bond election so You' got two points of reference that you have to you have to do little barriers that you have to climb over um this bill would there was talk of a 55% passage rate 52% passage rate this bill which is don't know that I have the bill number um this bill would be a 50% plus one and that's getting um a fair amount
051of interest on the part of of legislators so we'll see how where that one goes and then director R I believe that that's a constitutional amendment still required for the people just for for a larger Community has to be passed out with a two-thirds majority out of the legislature and then it has to go before the General Public for a simple majority vote identical to what we did for simple majority and levies back because because it is constitutional it's in the Constitution so it won't if it passes out it won't happen right away it has to go through like the second layer of voting from the public well as always thank you for um representing us with wasa's legislative affairs committee and keeping an eye on a lot of different bills a lot of a
052lot of different bills during the session so thank you for that Dr Green would you like to move to the superintendent's update tonight thank you and building off of what director rice has shared um I've been to Olympia uh once uh last week to Lobby uh significantly throughout the day I've been able to testify virtually on four different occasions in the last six weeks so things are moving forward forward so I won't uh repeat any of the items that were shared by director rice because we're getting the same information just from different sources so thank you director rice for sharing that information uh the Olympia visitation last Wednesday was a success I was able to meet with two legislators two Representatives uh two senators uh attend one of the U sessions while I was there
053and then a unique opportunity to meet with several lobbyists uh from across the education world as they convened uh to plan and and and and talk about where certain bills were at certain moments and that will continue uh throughout the next uh month or so until we finish the session uh the only other item that I have to share with you is one of U Mutual benefit between yaka Education Association and the district uh there was Outreach on the part of WEA uh to uh the uh lobbyist that we have in uh in the management side and a joint editorial between myself and the yaka Education Association president Franny Guerrero has been written and is in the hands of our Washington Education Association it does call out the inequities that exist in the uh State
054funding model that we currently have uh it calls out the Paramount duty of the state and uh challenges are uh State lawmakers to fulfill their constitutional obligation recognizing that what's happening in Yakama is something that is resonating now across the entire state so I'm very excited about the U the coming together of ya president frany Guerrero and myself and being able to Advocate collectively and collaboratively on the behalf of of the district itself thank you thank you Dr Green we uh move to our calendar update section which in board dos you will see a lengthy list of board um board meetings school events Varsity sporting events District events Etc is there anything specific that you would like to call out this evening the only thing that I would call out is that our March 3D
055meeting is a site uh visitation uh and it will be at uh Wilson so that's a four o'clock meeting look forward to that the second and part of that item on our agenda is for future agenda topics does either member present tonight wish to suggest any item for a future agenda topic I think given everything that's happening back in Washington DC and the Reliance that we have on federal funding in our budget I think that there might be some value in whatever it is that we know and I know that we don't know too much right now because things are happening Fast and Furious um if we could get an an update or just bring us all up so that we're all on the same page of what what impacts are rolling down the highway
056toward us is that light at the end of the tunnel a guidepost or is it a train and I'm I fear that it's a train but um if we could get an update on that I think that might be of interest to the board and it might be of interest to the viewing public as well I agree with Martha thank you Martha for bringing that up because I do know that the current Administration has has thoughts about Department of Education right as a institution that's been for for so long but also some of the policies or the executive orders that he signed in terms of Dei diversity and so forth and how that may impact our our district since he's made a lot of threats in regards to that right so and I I agree
057with the director rice that we that' be a good discussion or some good information to have and a discussion for in the future thank you both I think that's an excellent suggestion and I I would like to um just thank Dr Green and Bob no both for um the conversations and advice that they've both provided in the last couple of meetings that we've had as as we put agendas together uh to to be focused on uh the here and now and the present and the legal and um both state and federal law both uh play into our um our world here very closely and I have appreciated your guidance on those those items and uh look forward to um being able to Pro that conversation with our board in the future so thank you for
058those suggestions um that turns us to much lighter matters Financial update from Mr Cooper thank you Jake for being here and the floor is yours was that a um like a challenge or so um before I begin my presentation I want talk about the calendar generally I'm not talking about the school calendar but our budget calendar so uh director rice talked about uh ongoing legislative session but I want to let you know what is likely to happen so March revenue forecast is not until March 20th historically the chambers will not release a budget until after the March revenue forecast for those of you who've been hanging around a long time that is generally the normal Cadence so because of course they want to have the freshest Revenue numbers POS possible before they create a budget
059sign a die is April 27th sign a die is the last day of legislative session the statutory deadline for any certificated reductions is May 15th per state law of course there's a strange stat part of the statute that let you extend if the legislature goes beyond I do not recommend ever using that statute because there's no way that if they finish a district could ever fulfill their legal obligations right between May 15th and June um I do fear potentially long session they haven't talked special session yet but as you we know when there's budget troubles we have a new governor and the legislature that's not necessarily getting along with the governor like not even allow him in the house Chambers as example so we have a lot of those things sort in around us it
060reminds me of the great time during the Great Recession when we had the same issues right large deficits looming Revenue forecasts and then downwards spiral so I I just want everybody to be patient so last year we were able to start early because we had a we were able to identify a larg deficit and it was the second year of the bayum right most often second year the bium they kind of reup the budget don't do a lot of work so much more clarity so I just want everybody to know the calendar we're looking at also to bring it to the near term January is when um budget becomes actual very important time for CFOs because now we start buzzing around because we've done these estimates projected enrollment and different drivers in the budget and
061now things are real so um I did a reconciliation with staff uh at the end of January and all the puts and takes so I over projected High School enrollment as we've discussed in the Bea however we I was conservative in CTE transitional bilingual Etc so after all the puts and takes we're only about three4 of a million to a million dollars less than projected so we're the budget you have adopted and we forward is very solid so I want you to know that when we go to actuals um that's the most important time and you're able to adjust so near term our portion and how everything came in up in CTE up in sped up in tbip down in Bea but the wash was only about three4 to a million so that that's of
062of your 280 plus million dollar budget revenue is right about where we needed to be so I wanted to go through that in the near- term superintendent and I talked uh yester yesterday or today and we talk every day um that probably the first board meeting in March will kind of provide a update of where we're at um and I want to say that uh with a grain assault because I talked to the administrative staff last week and right now as I call the puts in takes the swings are very large so the ipd or Cola I've T discussed before every percent is about a million bucks for us on the local Levy um Governor insley's budget came out with 2.4% ipd that's 2.4 million for the our increase in Levy from one year to
063the next is only 2.6 so anytime we get a CO that's going to suck all that money right out of the system that's what what's been happening these last few years large colas good for the individual I say bad for the organization financially so we don't know about that there was also in the budget a reduction in retirement contributions on the employer side that's like a reverse Cola so they lower it we save a million so they way they have it now if the employer contribution gets lowered we'd save a million so you can see on the swings they're they're rather large and we don't know about Lea which is a huge driver for us and then there's also a swirling and I also um saw that Bob Ferguson continue to support as an example
064strip away national board certification funding which um but also potentially save the district money because we have employees that are not funded by the state uh that we also pass those funds through so that being said I just want you to know the big picture there's we are not hiding the ball or not being transparent we just got actual numbers and now we're moving forward and we have huge swings in legislature um which is this time of year but we'll have to wait a little bit longer because it's sign of dies not until the 27th of April that being said we'll get into the presentation um you heard me say many times your Chief Financial Officer cash is King and that still is the case so uh very important as we continue to implement systems
065um my office and me in particular personally um there's a tighter level of control as we build these systems and so the budget is now performing as I anticipated to and I know that sounds funny but we talked about behavior of a large budget like this but um for now month-to month I lost my deck a man with no deck okay now cash flow line um budget to actuals continue to be stable um yeah the enrollment the enrollment is flattened out and we will continue to lose students slightly as the New Year progresses as um art talked about but what I want to point your attention to is that now I only bring that to your attention because it is a smoking projection um and accurate for the month because I do enjoy that but
066as you can see um I do want and I talk about that trough in the middle right the trough in the middle tells me a lot as your C CFO when it comes cash so right now that trough um remember we have $4 million of extra cash in there for liquidity purposes so if we didn't have our tax anticipation note we'd be about $4 million in the trough you see the trough is eight um that's a good sign we have stabilized in the middle of the fiscal year and then of course we'll watch with um as it make sure the taxes come in and our spending continues to move in line but as for now um cash is in the line of projection most importantly and we should see that Trend continue as we move
067forward okay um there's a revenue comparisons we talked about as you can see the teal bar is the actuals um as the revenue comes in since we are a reimbursement basis you can see sometimes they lag but month to month Revenue except for that October period is very close to projection um again cash flow is what we're really watching at this point in time and as we drill in there's the expenditures so as noted earlier in the presentation uh September to December slightly below budget um we were slightly above above our projection in uh January that was the payroll just was a little bit larger than anticipated but as you can see our budget actuals continue to be in line so we're not overspending our budgeted amounts uh the MSO Material supplies operating cost always
068more volatile um the district reduced a significant amount of MSO budgets uh as you can see if you look at the historic as example month-to month um Esser of course kind of BL um uh raises up those numbers in those earlier fiscal years but you can see month-to month we we are down for the most part when it comes to our mxs which is which is good um we are not in a place right now our budget um where we can make many more material supply and operating cost reductions because if you get close to you know that mid 80s in labor you really don't have enough uh Material supplies and operating cost to keep the lights on by curriculum keep your Safety and Security up an infrastructure additionally since Yakama does not have a
069significant amount of Capital Money actually no Capital Money all the pressure to keep our buildings up to date is in the general fund so we expend more in our general fund than most districts do because we just don't have the capital fund any questions I know I covered a lot of ground but I I thought it would be good to cover the dates um in particular since it's such a long session and also let you know that the CFO was pleased with the January actuals compared to budget and that there any for the smoking projections that we had yes here for January look as a CFO you got to take the good when you can get it I mean you saw how my fall last fall and summer went okay so um but all in
070all we are stabilizing which is always the goal my my goal is to be stable and boring financially not personally and um we'll keep you updated and watch the legislature I I do have a question yeah so it's regards to enrollment you said a flatline but I was looking at that chart and I don't know what page it is but it looks like it's it may look it it looks like it's indicating an upward change right except for November so September that was plus 66 yep from previous year October plus 32 and then the drop 32 for and then we likely will see a decrease throughout the rest of the year that's generally what happens I'm just trying to grab on to maybe it's a trend or something but because it's it's increased over the
071last year so and I I next year's projection I mean next year I have us down about two 220 and really that is only roll up and roll out yeah so and the birth rate is still our kindergarten class is right around a thousand so hopefully that's a good our precipitous decline right now is likely slowed um we don't know of course there are macro things that may affect our enrollment such as immigration policy that we we can't model that you know I I don't have any data to determine how that's going to affect us and director rice on the federal front every my colleagues I know a few um they don't believe like the big three will go away I'm thinking USDA title in idea right those are the biggest chunks of federal money
072for us but if he shuts the Department of Education down who is going to monitor those things that I don't know nor nor shall I I do know historically um for example some of those uh programs were administered under depart under different departments way before I was contemplated um many many decades ago and so I don't know like USDA is an example they administer our food service so that doesn't Doe um and so other funds as well flow through other departments and so you know we'll see but again I'm not hearing from I have a few friends that actually pretty close in DC and who knows but what they're telling me is they do believe like the big three will remain intact other than that which is are big funding drivers for us right those
073are those are the biggest I find it hard to believe that they would give us money and not monitor that I don't I could be wrong I did not say that there wasn't going to be any monitoring um and mind you our federal money and I do want people to know this our federal money locally is some of the most highly audited and regulated funds of any funding you can get we have Auditors come in every year and for several hundred hours and every year they have to look at between 25 and 50% of all of our federal funds in direct audit so those funds are audited heavily one more from director so with just a change in in those the first five months is that impact our budget our projections what is that du
074to that b our projections from last for this current year well that is in part why when I talked about our January portion becoming very close to actual that was those were part of those numbers okay and the other reason too and I would my will give uh credit word credit is due is our special education's up nearly half a million dollars because our IPS are in compli I mean that's a half million dollar swing alone just in our IPS just um so efficiency and then of course just hard work by a lot of staff is increasing Revenue so thank you Mr Cooper we appreciate the report very much so this takes us to our first opportunity for public comment this evening Barb do we have anyone signed up for comment this evening on agenda
075items not on this section excellent thank you then that will take us to the approval of our consent agenda the consent agenda this evening includes the approval of minutes of January from 2025 notific ation of approval of warrants for January of 2025 approval of personnel action items and the budget status reports for January of 2025 does any member wish to have any item from the consent agenda removed for individual discussion tonight hearing none then can we get a motion to approve the consent agenda from tonight's agenda please I move that we approve the consent agenda as submitted second it's been moved in second is there any further discussion hearing no discussion all in favor of approving the consent agenda this evening please say I I I any opposed please say motion passes thank you very
076much section e is our approval section and the first item this evening is the approval our superintendent contract director rice or Dr Green you wish to speak to this first or to the process first before we move to the action item we have um the the president delegated to me uh the evaluation process and um discussion with superintendent green on his contract for this year and um that has been accomplished and we are at a point now where um all parties are agreed on the U elements of the contract and it is submitted to the board for approv thank you director rice we have a requested action item that the board of directors approve the superintendent's contract as discussed do we have a motion so moved second it's been moved and second is there any
077discussion yeah I I just want to say I do appreciate the superintendent work um that that we've um seen so far right lots of good things that are happening in the district lots of good initiatives and and just what what comes to mind and I know this is this happened few years ago but just a change in the culture change in how you know relations with our unions and so forth which I I believe just um it's resulting in big dividends now and and making uh you know we're making our district a stronger District so I just appreciate the work you do Dr um Dr Green and and just uh The Continuous excuse me the continuous work right The Continuous moving forward to serve all our all the students in the yo School District bringing
078in quality topnotch um superintendents and directors and staff and and so forth that that are joining in with the effort to move forward and helping all our kids move forward in their education and that to provide that quality education to all our students I know that we may not have seen the results that we've wanted this year but there's so many different variables and factors that are that were that are coming up against us and I know that the faculty and staff are doing an awesome job as well in terms of following our the leadership of Dr Green and and moving forward towards that Vision right that all our students in the M School District can be successful in in education and also the personal dreams and goals so I just wanted to make mention
079of of that I do appreciate the work you're doing Dr Green and and working with the board and I look forward to to continuing the work that we're committed to doing in in the city of yako thank you um I would add um again again thank you and uh appreciate appreciate the opportunity to work with you and this um Endeavor I also want to say a special thank you to director Walker and to director re for the work that he've done with the evaluation process uh over the last couple of years and for the extra hours and work that you put into that I think boths well for the entire board as a as a body and we recognize the community input that you've taken into that uh as well as our staff input and
080the student input with our student voice Council so we appreciate that very much um all nothing else hearing anything else Barb I would like to ask that we please call a ro tonight on this item director Naro j i director rice hi president Becket I motion passes three to zero thank you bar that takes us to section two which is our second opportunity for comments this evening from the public uh this would include comments on any item not on the agenda and it looks like we have Mr kind of is signed up to speak Steve would you like to come to the podium and address the group welcome Steve how are you oh good good glad you're here thank you a retired educator um that's all I got to say with um their idea that
081how to deal with government is to break things and and then pick up the pieces later it's a lot easier to break stuff than it is to make it then probably about a year from now we'll figure that out but anyway um I was uh I like to these days sometimes I'm bored so I look at OSI stats and um um some of the stats that I noticed you just approved a um new contract back for the superintendent um I noticed that um his overall pay according to table 15 Route 11 on the um School of portion and financial services School District Personnel summary profiles um is 372,000 $79 with $85,100 of that is uh additional pay I've um noticed that still um the superintendent uh works the least number of days uh in the
082county for sure and um I could only find a few uh the state average for a superintendent the number of days in their contract is 256.50 days according to OSI um there are uh I believe he's number 10 in the state um I know our numbers uh for students are I believe around 19 or 20 and um I could only find two districts that get as much uh or a little bit more extra pay Richland and Renton so um anyway um I would just say that last month I gave you a copy of the uh top positions of the governor um uh lieutenant governor District ATT and so on and I will say that um as a community we're paying a lot of money uh more than what the governor makes to the superintendent and
083even our assistant superintendant all make more than the governor in yaka and I and looking through OSI stats in many districts and what they're paying their superintendant I'm sure that has something to do with financial problems in many school districts um and if you tool through some of those tables like table 15 Duty Route 11 and 12 you will find that information and um as a taxpayer it makes me concerned that um we're paying a lot more than the governor's salary over um and projected government salary for sorry if you want me to is uh effectively right now current salaries 204,205 218 uh 744 for next year and um the following year it'll go up to 234 275 and that's for the governor all the other positions all make less than that including the superintendent
084of Public Instruction for the entire State his salary is 166,00 $62 next year it'll be 171 765 and the following year in 26 175 200 just let me know thank you Mr McKenna thank you for being here tonight I don't see anyone else signed up on the signin sheet do we have a need for an executive session this evening I don't believe what we do our next schedule meeting is our March 3rd 2025 meeting will'll be meeting at 4M at Wilson Middle School we have no further business on the agenda this evening so at this point we are adjourned thank you all for being here