Board Meeting 10-27-25

001All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to call this meeting of the West Dallas West Milwaukee School Board to order. Um, board member Keller, would you lead us in the >> pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] >> All right. And Sarah, would you call the role? >> Mr. Becker >> here. >> Mr. Keller >> here. >> Miss Carr >> here. >> Mr. Verbos >> here. >> Mr. Lee >> here. >> Miss Kaiser >> here. >> Miss Deal >> here. >> Miss Le excused. President Burns >> present. >> All right. Proper notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the open meeting laws of the state of Wisconsin. uh

002for our agenda tonight. Are there any modifications? >> There are no modifications. >> All right. And then I believe we are going to start right up with our Doc Key student showcase. Are you ready to get rolling? >> We're ready to rock. >> Thanks for having us. My name is Greg Gells. I'm the principal at Daki Project Based Learning High School. I'm joined tonight by Braden Bast and Aiden Danforce. They're fourth. They're going to be sharing out on a project that they did. Um, I have like two slides to share and then I'm going to hand it off to them because we all want to hear from the students. So, I'll try to be brief. Um, I brought you guys a little gift and it's uh it's something from our school and something that has

003been made in our school. So, the mugs are printed off our sublimation printer in our business class and they are matter of fact I'll go to this next slide. They are uh part of our Phoenix market. So, some of you came to our grand opening of our um of our market, our studentr run store. Everything in that store is created by students, made by students in their business class. So, we don't like farm that out to other places. Students make it. We find out what students want and we they make it for the business class and then they have it in the in the shop. So, anytime you're at Daki, please come walk through. They'd love to see that you're checking out their work. And then on the bottom right there, uh, so they made

004the mugs, but on the bottom right is our beehive. We've had an active beehive for about four years. They harvested the honey a couple weeks ago. And so inside those mugs you'll have see a little bit of honey from our be bizness and um hopefully you can enjoy some tea and continue to enjoy the mug as well. And then lastly on the uh the handle of the mug is just some important dates. Um our uh eighth grade discovery nights are coming up. So those two dates are on there for eighth grade families that are interested in learning more about Daki as a high school option for next year. And then also our exhibition nights in January and in June. So of course you guys are invited to that and encouraged to come. This is really

005my own major, my only major slide before I hand it over to the students. Um, just a quick connection with our theory of action. Uh, I won't go through everything on the left. I kind of wanted to summarize it on the right. So, I I apologize there's a lot of words, but this is my only slide. So, um, the bottom is really where do when it comes to our goals for our school, and that's what this is, right? It's like our our goals. And then the the if thens are kind of like our our how we're going to get there, right? the work we're going to do. So, the things that we want to do in order to get to our goals of of having our value added score um for next year's report card

006being at a three-year above and also moving students um that uh are in low risk and college pathway one typical year's growth and also how to move our students with some and high-risisk students in into aggressive growth. In order to do that, the bullets above just talk a little bit about that. We want to be using u highquality universal instruction. That's what we're working on with our staff. We want to be using priority standards and success criteria. If you ever visit our school, you'll see that we have learning intentions and success criteria that are very clearly posted and referred to by teachers and and and if things are going well, students can repeat those two and let you know what they're learning and why, which is the next bullet that talks about giving teachers frequent

007feedback about our ELF, which is our adult learning framework for the first 100 days of school. Those are our two main focuses is learning intentions and success criteria. We feel like those lay the foundation for the other pieces that we need for instruction. Moving on, we want to build a collective capacity in our staff to provide challenging high-quality lessons at grade level, right? We want that for sure. Ongoing collaborative data cycles. We're really working with our core content areas to have collaborative meetings and as part of our PLC's and our uh instructional coach and myself are in those meetings weekly. So, those are going very well. We want to create a shared ownership in student outcomes, which is something that we've really had success at Daki with a smaller school and a very boughtin staff,

008but we want to continue to have shared ownership of all student outcomes. I should all in there. Uh, and again, those are the things that we are doing in order to reach those goals that I that I talked about a little earlier. So, at the end, there's time for questions probably mostly for the students, but if you need anything for me, I'll I'll be here as well. But again, I just want to introduce uh briefly our two 11th grade students. So, they're going to be sharing out on a project and their learning that they had last year in their world history class. And this is Braden Bass. Braden, wave so they know it's you. And Aiden Danforth. And I'm going to pass it along to them. Here you go, gentlemen. >> Um hello. Um, as

009we said, I'm Braden Best and this is Aiden. And our project was learning about um Roman uh like artillery and weapons and such. And one of the things we came across was uh the catapult, something that is very cool historically, and we figured there's a lot of history behind it. So we could work that into our world history class to try and research it the history uses of the catapult and how it has applied to modern artillery and weaponry with um >> um so our world so we as we said we did this for a world history class it was for half a credit um I guess um We're >> sorry. >> Oh, no. You can go back. I had a driving question. >> Uh, drive away. Drive. Uh, our driving question was how do

010artifacts from uh ancient Rome reflect the culture, technology, and social societal values of their time and what uh and what um relevance do they hold for us today? So, we're hoping we can uh answer those questions and show you what we learned about it. this movie. >> All right. Uh so our priority standards that we had to address were uh investigate how language and culture can uh unify a group of people. Uh evaluate the factors that contribute to uh cooperation and conflict among peoples of a country and the world. Uh we also had to evaluate the purpose of which a technology is created and analyze the consequences intended and unintended cultures. Um we also had to evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources to apply knowledge and major eras, enduring enduring themes, turning points

011and historical influences to an analyze patterns of change in the community, the state, the United States and the world. Yeah. So the our portrait of gratitude um >> graduate. >> Oh, graduate. Sorry. Yes, my bad. Uh for working together and thriving together. Um, we had to collaborate effectively and contribute positively in uh both group and independent settings >> as well as be able to communicate clearly and effectively to everyone given exhibition night as well as do that through any medium whether it be written, verbal, digital, or with our catapult physical. And pretty much just bring that show it to the world that we can do cool things. We've done cool things and I mean we plan to do more. >> Yep. >> So, uh so here we have um a a poster of some of

012uh examples and the things we've learned about catapults. Uh we have a list of the importance uh the importance of catapults such as um their uses in war. That was a big thing. um they were able to take down like siege towers and walls and everything like that >> as well as their current um kind of evolution into modern weaponry and artillery which I do I do believe we had that on a slide at one point >> with like mortars things like that but it was historical part of that there's they're really interesting cuz like rain >> you got this >> no I don't [laughter] Um, >> got to help me out, man. My brain is not >> So, we have uh different types of catapults listed. Um, on the left is the traditional catapult.

013This is more what most people would think of when you think of a catapult. Um, in the middle is the ballista, which is then um it's a type of catapult, but it just shoots giant arrows basically. And then we have the trebuche uh which uses a weighted system to throw large rocks over great distances. >> Um I and honestly that's about it for what we learned. Obviously there's a ton of detail for um how they were used in war. All three of these examples and more could have been used in a variety of different cases. Each one of them having their own uses like the trebuche being used more for long distance and the ballista being more for taking out other artillery such as this. Um >> yeah, I think that's about it for this.

014Um, >> this is a timeline of our process starting from the top left down to the bottom right of us going from the very beginnings of the catapult with some pieces of wood to eventually getting it launching and working. >> Mhm. >> Which was awesome to see. >> Yeah. So, this wasn't the main point of the project. This is just the deliverable, but it was a very fun part of it, being able to build such a cool project for our school. Um, here are some more photos of just the final assembly. Um, on that left photo, you can kind of see a reference photo of what we were using to inspire our build and then obviously what we ended up actually having. brain, do you guys know what the the when you talk about the

015inspiration for your build, like what time period or country or where this this model came from? >> Um, so like we were talking about, we um we were specifically focusing on Rome and their style of warfare. Um, but that this the catapults been used for hundreds and thousands of years across many um generations, I guess you could say. So there is an exact uh pinpoint of when they were used. They've been used across a good chunk of history and still are used in variations today. Can you tell us more about like the here's some other pictures of you guys, but some more of the research that you did and the learning that occurred? How did you uh come about with deciding on this type of canop? Well, most of it was with it being when

016you think of a catapult, this is the type that you think of. But that also tied into how this is the Romans version of a catapult because it was originally the Greeks who kind of did catapults, at least from what we could find. And then the Romans were like, "Hey, that's neat." And took it, made it like this, and that became the standard for catapult. And so we found things on some web sources of blueprints and schematics of like different types of catapults that were from I think it would have been like what 100 AD or something like really old that were photocanned online. And it was super fascinating to see how people drew up blueprints and schematics from [clears throat] 2,000 years ago. Yeah. questions. >> I would just jump in with one other

017thing like this. We we want our students to be motivated by their learning in such a way that they're doing it on their own. And these two students were doing a ton of this at night. They'd come and tell me what they learned and what they found out. And then you saw some of the pictures didn't have a school background because over the weekend they had it like in their garage and they were like building it at home. So um so so much of our learning has to occur at school. But then sometimes students want to take that when they want to build a really big project, we obviously can't invest that much of our instructional time to like building of the physical project. But when we have students like Braden and Aiden that really

018want want to do it, I was like, "Okay, we'll we'll do the work we can to get the donated, you know, materials for the project, but you'll have to end up doing some of it on your own because I can't have you like in the gym for hours at a time trying to do that." So, they did a lot of it on their own. I just wanted to recognize that. Any questions for them? Yeah. >> Two things. So, what did you catapult and how far did it go? >> Okay. We originally intended it to fully go like a catapult. It launched a dodgeball maybe five feet. >> Okay. >> We highly underestimated the thickness of the rope we needed and the amount of rope that we needed. I mean, in that image that you can

019see, that rope, we ended up I pretty sure we ended up switching that out for a like stronger and thicker rope and much more of it because it could barely like lift up the arm, >> but it we did get it too long. >> And that's the point is that you took your failure and made it into a success. >> Kept improving course, which is several days >> is really part of the process, which leads me to the second part, which is kudos to the to the school in itself. So, I listen for certain things as we talk about project-based learning. And um some one of the things that you said uh Aiden is you >> Aiden Braden >> Braden um you you made reference to well you know we made this wonderful catapult and

020so to the eye and to the person that's just coming through to see they're like wow look at what you made. But it really wasn't about that. It was about the process and not the product itself. And I and you you actually said that in your own words and and that is really important that it isn't really about the final project, which is what we always heard a lot of teachers and parents saying through the years, oh well, we've been doing projects for years. And it's not about the project, >> it's about the process. And I think that's what you captured today. You really did learn a lot along the way. >> Thank you. Any other questions for our presenters? >> Just a quick question. Would you be willing to have a bunch of elementary

021kids watch you chuck pumpkins because I think that would be the highlight of their life. >> That was the goal. So, >> we we brought that up last year as an idea with um one of the teachers to have as like a like a kind of festival for like spooky season, fall, >> and we were going to do it, but unfortunately that teacher actually ended up leaving this year, so it kind of fell through. >> Well, don't take it apart. I could just see this being like a really fun like which student can guess how the furthest it goes, you know, that I could just see really fun things to go with this. >> We do it have it at school as an artifact. We just didn't want to lug it. >> Yeah, it's kind

022of hard to move a cat. >> Can you go back to the the page of where you have the standards up? I just want to go back to that real quick. So, when you look at uh the first standard um dealing with language, cultural um the contributions to conflicts like how can you uh compare that experience or the historical experience maybe to what's going on today? How do you align that? Um, so obviously like we were saying, there's a lot of um like weaponry today that's based off those other designs of the catapults. So um like he said, a good example would be like the mortar, which it's just launching like large mounds of weaponry and that's obviously something that's going on today. There's wars going on, everything like that. So we can see those

023in use today. Okay, my last question is uh concerning the technology. You said that the Greeks I believe had the first version of the catapult or maybe one of the earlier versions. >> Yeah, it was one of the earlier versions. H >> how did the Romans improve on that invention? If do you have any any idea how they may have up upgraded it a bit? Any any ideas? >> If I remember right, it was more of an upscaling. Um they wanted had increased the size, increased the power, everything like that. And then from there um had like made it more widespread use. Um as we know the Romans kind of took over for a time. They had widespread >> um control and once they started using the catapults that kind of spread around the world

024as everybody was using them then once they started to use them. >> Okay. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Other questions for presenters? Board member Becker. Thanks guys for coming in. Uh I'm curious about um immediately I remember a science project I did with my dad and it was we actually he built it was an armor. We had a golf club attached to it and just kind of swung it and let it fly and just trying to predict roughly where the ball was going to land. I kind of wonder about extended learning with with this uh catapult like um thinking about the math and the physics applications um and even materials applications where you talk about the rope um have you given any thought to doing something similar in the future? Could it be used for

025more instruction? I think about just that there's a lot a lot of roads you can go down with this and even if you don't have a shop class dedicated to it, could it be something that you >> Mr. Becker does not know what he walked into because these two want to probably share the next thing they're trying to get me to let them do. >> You're you're you guys are big thinkers. What is your next thing? >> So, we've been talking with Gells and a quite a lot of other teachers and we think if we can fit it in with the class um obviously show our learning everything like that because that is the more important step. We think a cool deliverable would be making um like an Iron Man suit type of deal. making

026like an uh exo suit. So, trying to get bigger and better for our deliverables because it's a cool way to show we're learning >> whether that's weaponry or for a computer programming type, you know, class or lesson. >> When I was in Minnesota, I was studying engineering for a couple years. And one of the side projects that engineering students could do was be on the solar car team. So you learn programming, you learn design, you learn manufacturing, again, material science, all these different things that you can get into. So it it really is it might seem simple, but it really could lead to some very interesting and much more complicated things. Awesome. Good stuff, guys. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Other questions? No. All right. I will just say that if

027you need it, I have a physics activity that deals with building a catapult and doing all the math with it. So like, you know, let me know if you need it. But otherwise, thank you so much everyone for presenting. Thank you for coming. I know this is a difficult thing to do and come and talk with a whole bunch of adults with a lot of screens, but thank you so much. You guys did a great job. >> Thank you. All right. Wait a minute. >> They should be standing focus on. >> All right. All right. So, that'll take us to item number seven, which is our superintendence report. And it looks like we have some participants coming up here soon for it as well. So, good evening. We do have a couple of updates I

028want to bring to the attention of the public. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has released certified financial figures for the state general fund uh general school aids for the 2526 school year based on student counts and year-end financial data. The aids are the largest form of of state support for PK through 12 schools in Wisconsin and are funded based on current year data. We will hear uh our figures on tonight during u board action. Um we we have of 421 districts 111 which is 26 26% will receive more aid for the 24 26 school year than they previously did. So, uh, as you can see, uh, the need for aid is more prevalent than it's been in the past. And we're looking forward to hearing the report tonight from Mr. Mars or Mars. Nars, I

029wanted to call him Dr. Norris. He's working on that's what I wanted to call him. I messed that all up. We're crossing our fingers. All right. Uh, October celebrations, uh, National School Lunch Week. We have Unity Day on the 22nd as well as school bus safety week this week. You're a good man, Charlie Brown. I have so many questions and I'm so excited growing as as a kid growing up and watching >> Peanuts on TV and reading the comics. More like watching it on TV, I'm not going to lie, than reading the comics. not a comics guy, but I'm so excited to uh to to see the the production. And Shel, are you ready? All right. >> All right. Good evening, everyone. I'm excited to introduce some of our cast members from Your Good Man,

030Charlie Brown. So, when I call your name, if you guys want to just come on up here and stand. Tonight, we have with us Aiden Johnson, who's a sophomore at Nathan Hale, and he is Charlie Brown. Lilia Herertado, she's a senior at Westalis Central and she is playing Lucy. Angelina Grudamont, a senior at Nathan Hale. Peppermint Patty. Georgia Prober, she's playing a number of characters. Tapioca Pudding Blanket and she is a senior at Nathan Hale. And McKenzie Lutz, who's a junior at Nathan Hale playing Loretta. So very exciting. Uh we encourage you all to come and see them. performances are November 13th through the 16th at Nathan Hail. And I gonna ask him a question because I'm really curious like Dr. Robinson growing up seeing Charlie Brown and this is the season of Great Pumpkin.

031Um what it's like playing a cartoon or animated character in real life. So if any or all of you would like to respond. So, I'd say playing a cartoon character is very different than playing like a regular person like a couple of different productions that we've done over the years. playing a cartoon character, especially something as as iconic as Charlie Brown or Lionus or Schroeder, is trying to represent like to show how the comic books made the characters come across over the plethora of years that they were on TV or in newspapers or magazines. And that's just the the main part is trying to capture the uh the character itself otherwise than playing a a regular person. That's the That's the main part in my opinion. >> Good evening. I'd like to add on to

032what Aiden said. Um, playing a sort of cartoon character, especially one whose personality is so wellknown, such as the Peanuts characters, is very different from um portraying uh characters in different shows. Um, for me personally, I am not like Lucy. And one of the wonderful things about acting is that you get to be someone completely different from who you actually are. And one of the interesting things about the show specifically is that you not only have to give up like who you naturally are, but you also have to take yourself back like seven years and become a child again. And so it's a very fun experience to do so. And it's something that I've enjoyed about the show specifically. >> [laughter] >> Hi, I'm Angelina Gridmont. Um, I think playing a cartoon character, I think

033it is really different than being a human cuz one, these characters are very young. Um, you have to think like you're a child again. And I guess that's the point of acting though cuz you're not who you are on stage all the time or ever. But that's okay. >> Yeah, it is really fun though and you guys should come see it cuz [laughter] Yeah, it's really fun. I don't really know how to answer this question cuz it's a musical. Hi, I'm Georgia. Um, I think adding on to what Aselina said, aside from the fact that all of us are 14 plus acting like we're five and six years old, um, the weird thing about playing a cartoon character is everything is played up by like a long shot. Nothing is like small in the show.

034Everything has to be over the top and big because that's just how they are. And typically you don't see that a lot when you're playing like a person because you're trying to capture more like nuances than like just trying to make yourself look like you're in a cartoon. So I feel like that's probably the weirdest thing, the most different thing about portraying a cartoon character. It's really fun. It's a good time. Hi, I'm McKenzie. Um, I think a really interesting part about uh how we're doing our production is that there's no unnamed ensemble. Uh, everybody, since there are so many characters in the Peanuts, uh, everybody has a name. So, it already kind of gives you a structure to build off your character in the ensemble, you're not just another unnamed person. Not saying there's

035anything wrong with it. It's just it it's a little more fun to have a little bit more structure and uh be able to have a little more freedom to uh develop your character that way. All right. Well, I just want to thank the cast for coming out um and all that they do and again encourage the board and if you need tickets to reach out um we'll make sure that you have a a seat at their show. We do picture. >> Oh, okay. We're going to grab a picture. Yep. Just wanted to say, Aiden, I will be rooting for you >> because I I have always want Charlie Brown to come out on top >> and he never seems to do that. So, I'm rooting for you. >> Kick that football. >> Just kick the

036football. That's all I [laughter] want. >> Right. moving towards Ready? [clears throat] >> Usually the main girl. [laughter] No, no. Pig, >> remember that character. >> Shel, you're up. Yeah, show up. >> All right. Uh, I just wanted to take this moment um unfortunately Scott Gshide um wasn't able to attend tonight due to another commitment, but to thank him. Um, as many of you are aware, um, Scott is retiring. Uh his last day is actually this Friday. And uh again, like I said, I just want to take a moment because for those that don't know, Scott was very, very instrumental in helping to create what is now um our West Milwaukee Youth Theater. He had been involved with productions primarily at the high school level for quite some time. Um, but both Scott and Jordan

037Pard, who is our incoming director, were the two that were um, crucial in getting our youth theater started with now, as you know, eight productions a year and 3rd through 12th grade. So, we are going to have a reception for Scott um, coming up in December on the 18th at the rec center from 6:00 to 8. It's openhouse style and we invite anybody and everybody um, to just stop by and thank him as well. So just a a show of gratitude and appreciation for him and all that he did. >> Students in transition program. The students in transition program would like to extend our appreciation to several community partners for their generous support. Thank you to Aurora Hospital for multiple donations of school supplies. to Marta Milwaukee area retired teachers association for providing school supplies

038in Target and Walmart gift cards and to Forest Park Presbyterian Church for once again contributing to a wonderful donation of school supplies. Your continued generosity makes a meaningful difference for our students and families. our team of the week. I had the opportunity on last Friday uh to support our boys volleyball team. They defeated Greenfield in straight sets uh which is three to nothing. And so we are looking forward to the next round uh on tomorrow night at Franklin. So if you if any of you board members want to find me, that's where I will be at the game. So would encourage everyone to come out in inside of the entire community that may be listening. Come out and support the these young men. They are they are really a sight to see. They are they're

039they're great. They're great. So uh also from this past weekend, we did have several qualifiers uh for state uh cross country. So, we want to send a shout out to Cota Bruner, Ethan Plier, and Piper Miner for qualifying for the WIA state cross country tournament, which will be next weekend in the Wisconsin Rapids. So, send a special shout out to those student athletes as well. >> All right, couple of community events. We had some instructional rounds I participated in last week and this week. Uh we had full leadership meeting West Dallas Rotary Club. I did participate in the winter jacket distribution at Persian Elementary School with the Knights of Columbus. We had our board retreat here last Sunday. I participated in a meeting with employee Milwaukee collaboration uh efforts and city schools meeting uh was

040held at Central High School on the 21st. MATC partnership meeting as well. And then of course the volleyball game that I just um talked about. Tonight we have our voice representative is Toby Wymer. Toby is a senior at Daki. She's a member and two-year uh captain of the Central Dance Team. She's a senior girl scout and Badgerette pompom camp Allstar. Now, I would not have known what that was until three months ago. So, I I know exactly what you're talking about now. Uh Toby, go ahead and I kind of introduce you, but what's going on at DOCI Central if you want to talk about >> again? Hi, I'm Toby. I am a senior at DOT Key and some fun things that we've had going on is we had our eighth grade presentations last week Thursday.

041I was a representative for DOT. Um, we just went around telling all the eighth graders at FLW what do about and we also have had our crew challenges which crew is like our home room. It's a lot of academic intervention time but we also bond with our community and our most recent crew challenge was our kindness challenge. It's just where we could show how we could be kind around our school. And I believe one of our crews gave staff pet rocks, which I thought was pretty cute and pretty cool. [gasps] Um, and our hope squad is hosting their first spirit week this week, their first spirit week of the year. And they're also recruiting new members, which is pretty cool. It's a very exciting spirit week. I'm personally very excited. And as you as Gails

042has said, our first discovery night is on November 12th for the eighth graders. And then we have another discovery night in December and then our exhibition nights in January and June. >> All right. >> Thank you, Toby. That concludes the superintendent's report for tonight. >> All right. Thank you, everyone. Um, that'll move us to our public comments section. So, at this time, if anyone would like to address the board, you may sign up in the back of the room or in the Zoom link which is posted in the chat. Uh when you come up, introduce yourself with your name and address and you have three minutes to provide comments. The board cannot discuss, debate, or act upon any item during the public comments portion of the schoolboard meeting. Follow-up may be provided by the superintendent

043at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Uh currently there are no one signed up and I don't see anyone racing back there. So I will wait for just a little bit. All right, little bit is done. So, at this time, I'm going to close the public comments and then uh that'll take us to our board reports with the 9.1 being the first one of our board calendar. Uh so with that uh tonight, October 27th, uh we have a regularly scheduled board meeting where we are, uh working on the approval of the financial budget and tax levy, financial stability and efficiency workshop which is dealing with the compensation model. Um and then on November 10th, we will have another regularly scheduled board meeting. Uh no topics currently, but topics to follow. And then November 17th, uh,

044we have a regularly scheduled board meeting, uh, that is going to also have the teaching and learning workshop and the state report card results. There was a regular scheduled board meeting on the 24th, but that is scheduled for the 27th. And so the night of the 24th is now free. Board members, >> 17. >> The 24th got moved to >> 24th got moved to the 17th. >> Yes. Did I did? Oh, well, terrible. All right, so the 24th, the week of Thanksgiving, >> I know. I'm just >> jumping and jumping the gun here. So, yeah. So, that'll be our uh work for the next month. And then, uh from there, we also have our committee reports, which tonight I believe is board member Kaiser for the financial stability and efficiency uh committee. >> Yep. Thank

045you. So, we met um October 22nd. Uh tonight you will hear the first draft of the compensation model. It will be presented tonight by Bob Kinsey and I believe Courtney Bank. >> Yep. And then you will also hear tonight our final budget approval and tax levy. Um there's going to be a big workshop and discussions on these, so I'm just going to leave it at that. Um, in old business or new business, we have our annual audit coming up every year and we have some health insurance information coming out to teachers over the next uh, professional development days. And that's my report. >> All right. Questions for the committee or topics that you'd like to see? Seeing none, thank you very much. Uh, and that'll take us to 9.4 four other updates and information which

046I currently do not have anything. So we will move on to where >> what did I do? >> Oh I did didn't I? Um so I'm just out of my sorts here. It's because you know I don't know. [snorts] So I did skip board member reports. So board members do you have anything that you would like to share that you participated in or worked on here? I attended the Knights of Columbus coat distribution at Persing and um of course welloiled machine. The um the principal did a wonderful job of making sure that the kids were coming in with the sizes that they need. It ran smoothly and and the kids were well behaved and did all the wonderful things with manners. But the thing that really struck me was um it was a really warm

047day. It was 71 degrees and I was walking to my car afterwards and it was recess and there were kids with those coats on at on the playground at recess and I thought, "Oh, they were not letting go of those coats and I just thought that was that spoke volumes." So, I thank the Knights of Columbus. >> Thank you. Other board reports. Anything else we want to share? No. All right. Nah. Uh, I'd like to share just a couple of things. One, uh, the board retreat that we all participated in, I thought it was an excellent opportunity for us to, uh, work with one another in a way that helped us work on our leadership styles and our abilities to work as a team as far as how we're working on what's helping our district

048move forward. Um, I think it was a pretty good learning opportunity for me to hear more about all of you, but hopefully it was likewise for the rest of you and everyone that's working with us. Um, the other thing that I did participate in uh, which was a little different this last time is we did uh, as Dr. Robinson said, we had the uh city schools meeting and that was at uh central and we actually were able to bring a couple of our uh other additional city leaders uh into the school and look over all the renovations that were going on and they were really excited about that. We also brought in uh former board member Jeff Sikitch and so he was able to see that as well because that was something that he was

049very excited about as he was working on his last uh year on the board here. So, a lot of good things going on over there and I think everyone's going to be really excited when that finally comes and opens up here, which I believe our soft launch is is slated for uh mid November here yet. >> 23rd. >> The 23rd. Yep. >> 26th. What dates are running again? >> He said the 23. See, it wasn't just me that No, not all right. Superintendent is doing too. >> 26th. All right. So, but it's coming soon. Uh, and I think we'll we'll be really excited with that. So, >> um, see that's why I went with the generality. Um, but that is all I have for that. So, um, then that takes us to our other updates

050unless there are any other updates for from the board. Nope. Okay. And then I have no other updates. And so then we will move on to our consent agenda item 10. [snorts] And so our consent agenda tonight includes 10.1 the approval of minutes, 10.2 the employment summary, 10.3 supplementary contracts, and 10.4 our financial summary. And so uh at this time, does anyone need anything separated? All right, since nothing needs to be separated, I would look for a motion. Move to approve 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4. >> Second. All right, I have a move and second. Is there any additional comment on the motion? All those in favor? >> Those opposed? >> All right. And that passes, which will take us on to our action items for tonight, which is the 2526 final budget and tax

051levy adoption, which will be presented by Mr. Morris or doc Dr. Morris. No, [laughter] >> I think they planned his jokes today on me. So, you don't let it go, do you? >> Pretty funny, though. I got a good [laughter] laugh. >> Well, with that, I'll be taking the next two hours to talk about this tonight. >> And and and note, he [laughter] >> he and I have already talked about this, so no, it's not. >> All bets are officially here. So, I got you back here. >> All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. >> Um well, I I will for opening remarks just say the um it's always an exciting time to get to the budget final presentation because we spend six plus months discussing it. So, finally to have something come that's finalized

052and done regardless of the changes every year is always nice to kind of move on and then we get the three-we break before we start talking about it again. So, >> um with that, we'll jump into the the final budget and tax levy adoption. Um kind of going off of Dr. Robinson settlement. We we tried to highlight tonight two different things. So showing the changes from about a month and a half ago from the annual hearing to tonight and then at the end you'll start to see what are the year-over-year changes. So like what was the aid last year, what is aid this year because they're different comparisons but I think important and we'll talk through the differences and why in a little bit. So the first thing is a quick agenda. We'll talk about

053the state budget. We'll talk about what the importance different dates. um as I mentioned changes from preliminary budget and then how do we get into the development of a tax levy calculation followed by the proposal of the all funds tax levy historical tax levy mill rate showing kind of what has been and what we're projecting and uh seeking recommendations for approval tonight followed up by mill rate and then uh finish up with questions so so as you guys know as we've discussed on July 3rd of 25 governor Iver signed into law the 25 uh 27 benial budget or act 15 included a the ongoing $325 increase per student, zero increase in per people categorical aid, a substantial investment in special education, um up to 42% projected to land around 39.8 is what the projection from

054the state is this year. So up, you know, roughly a 10% increase after all expenses considered. And then low revenue ceiling stayed the same. Our um finalized per pupil amount for the 2526 school year is 11,763 and then next year our recurring referendum will be baked into the per pupil. So this year it's called an exemption, a recurring exemption. Next year it actually goes into the per pupil amount. So that'll be amvertised. Just so you're aware, the two big dates that we talk about from the annual hearing to today is the annual hearing is predicated off of a July certification and tonight's hearing is is predicated off an October certification. The main difference in July, DPI for state aid is working off of district's budgeted numbers, their expected revenues and expenses. And in October, the

055state's working off audited financials that every school district's required to submit. So how much you spend dictates how much you get. And so that's the big change. It's called known as shared costs. And so what we'll talk about tonight is that's the levers moving in the state buckets. So that's that's the big change that we'll talk about tonight. Beyond that, membership is is is is a big thing. So as I as I kind of teed up here, the the things that we now know are the following. Our finalized equalized property value. That was no change. Resident membership. Membership is different than enrollment. Membership is the number of kids who are residents of our school district who attend our school district or attend other public school districts. Okay, that includes independent charter schools, that includes open

056enrollment, etc. Uh we finalize private vouchers and special needs scholarship. We review and uh can include our audited 2425 revenue expenditures. That's for across all public school districts. Our uncounted people allocation that is an open enrollment function. there was no change in that number. And then our transfer of service costs are finalized to the state of Wisconsin. Those all kind of play a big factor all in one big bucket into finalizing our district's total revenue and our total tax levy mill rate for the school year. So what are the changes? So this is a nice table that that shows you kind of what are the buckets and changing and sometimes what one thing goes up for something else to go down. So we'll talk about that here. So, our transfer of service is is uh

057a projection based on the number of students that we have claims for. That number came in uh a little bit lower mainly for one reason. We had a student that we thought we were going to be able to claim that we weren't because a student was actually open and rolled out and came back and that's not claimable. So, that's a kind of a a finance uh thing to add to our process for next year. Our revenue was was pretty close to what we thought we projected. That's the revenue limit. That includes uh exemptions such as private vouchers, etc. Our aid, we saw about a $2 million decrease in aid. And I'll talk through kind of why that was in a second. You can see that the our total tax levy was an increase of about

058$800,000. The fund 10 tax levy uh portion of that is 48 million. That was about a $2 million difference. Our energy efficiency was there was no change to that. Our capital referendum levy decreased by 1.1 million and that's because of a bond premium. We'll talk about that in a second. So essentially of the of the $2 million increase to fund 10, 1.1 of it's offset by a decrease in the bond premium that we got from the referendum. So the total impact of the changes to the community is about $900,000 total. So it's the levers of the equalization aid um playing out and then our fund 80 levy uh saw no change. So why did we receive $2.3 million less than state aid? As Dr. Robinson mentioned in his report um about 301 school districts saw

059a decrease in state aid. That's mainly because the state produced no more dollars into state aid this past bienial budget the first time in uh a long time that that's happened. Um other things that can happen. Okay, so we saw and I'll show this in a minute other district spending. So if school districts across the state who are heavily aided spend more than their budget, that's going to increase their bucket of state aid. So that happened. um we had a slight a small decrease in state and in our shared costs. So we budgeted for the previous year about a $700,000 deficit. That $700,000 was for the IT computer refresh. We ended the year our audited financials showed we had about a $650,000 surplus. That difference is about 1.3 million. It's off of the budget to

060actual. So we actually had a $1.3 million surplus to the state even though it was only really 650 to the district. That makes sense. And the last one was we received a premium on our referendum bond sale. Meaning upfront we got uh about $1.1 million to help make this year's payment, which means if you look at the previous slide, that bond premium payment has gone down by about 1.105 million. So that offsets the aid. So of this, the difference is really about a million dollars less aid. That 1 million out of the 2.3, we should receive an increase in the previous year because that bond premium will fall off. We won't have that again. So, so here's kind of the interesting piece that um Michael Ksky, who's behind me, kind of dove into from the

061state's perspective. Here, here are a couple different This is a shared cost slide. In green, you can see the districts that outspent their budgets. So, Green Bay had a shared cost estimate of $27 million. They actually spent $294 million, $22 million more. Milwaukee uh had about a billion dollars that they spent. They projected 970. Um so, that's a $71 million increase in share costs. These are the different things that happen across the state that impact the budget. So you can see the percentage change in what they projected to spend versus what they did spend actually ends up realizing real dollars in state aid. So Green Bay got about 4% more in state aid, so did Milwaukee. Grafton about 5%, reine 5%. So these these are big numbers, right, that take away from the pot. So

062when we see and I would call it about 1.1 or 1.2 two, in real aid decreasing, we're in the bucket of school districts that didn't get more because one, the state didn't pour money into it and because of the reasons I mentioned before. So, um, it's just a reality that 70% of the school districts are going to be having the same conversation tonight as we're having right now. So, so how do we get to the tax levy? First, it's our revenue limit authority and our aid and the difference results in our total tax levy for the school year. So our first is looking at our going off the formula looking at our revenue limit authority. Our total revenue limit authority isund about $109 million which is up by about 10%. Now, um that $10 million

063difference, 60% of that is the operating referendum increase, right? The different the rest of that is um private vouchers. That's going to be the increase in the per pupil and the things we've discussed already, but that roughly 60% of that is the operating referendum we mentioned. Now, this is going to show year-over-year. So, previously we're looking at from September to today the month difference. This is year-to-year 2425 certified budget to 2526 certified budget. You can see here revenue limit authority up 10%. State aid only down47%. So we roughly ended up getting what we got last year in state aid. We just were projected to get more and we ended up not getting that which has happened a couple cycles in a row now. Um our equalized property value we actually our equalized value actually went

064down 2.4%. Um and the state average growth was 8%. So that we thought going into the July estimate was going to produce more aid because the more property poor you get, the more aid you get, but that did not materialize for the reasons we mentioned unfortunately. So um our private vouchers increased uh about a million dollars, 14% increase from last year to this year. And this is kind of a nice look at how that's changed over time. So uh it's important to note here that the columns are the budget year. So 23 24 25 and 25 26. The top row is only the non-referendum levy. We're trying to compare apples to apples. So as our ref as our total levies increased this year it's increased for the operating referendum that hasn't been the case in

065previous years. So we wanted to just show of our total non-referum levy what's the percent been to show overtime. And you can see the the amount for private vouchers has gone up um by about a million every year. And so this year um you know that portion is now 19% of that um and impacting our taxpayers about a$158 per uh in the mill rate. So and this is the last year of the WPCP cap meaning next year we'll it's unclear of what that'll look like and we're kind of looking to the state to provide some guidance on how that's going to look. Um that's that. So our all funds tax levy is 57 million uh a little over a million that's up uh 20% from last year and this is kind of the breakdown. So

066the fund 10 portion is 48 million. The non-referendum debt service that's energy efficiency is 1.7 as I mentioned the referendum debt service is down to 3.1 because of the bond premium credit we received and the fund 80 uh uh levy is 3.825 825 totaling just over 57 million. To get the mill rate, you take the total school tax levy divided by equalized property value and multiply that by a,000 to give you the mill rate. So if you uh put in the equalized value over the total levy that produces um $818, that's up uh from last year at 661. And we're waiting to see what the new state average mill rate is for this year. So, what that means for every homeowner, uh, for every $100,000 in value, they pay $818, um, in val in into

067the school district. Um, but important to note that, you know, a large portion of that's coming from the private vouchers that we showed before. So, a $158 of that is from is going directly is pass through dollars from um, the taxpayers to the school district of the state of Wisconsin. So, here this is uh, I I want to talk about this slide. This is I'm near the end here. So our all funds revenue uh which includes you know fund 10, fund 27 um fund 50 etc fund 80 is 164 million just shy of 165. Our all funds expenses is 185. And the reason that there's a staunch difference here is that we've already received the revenue for the referendum and now we're expensing it. So it shows an upside down budget but it isn't because

068as you mentioned at the b I mentioned at the bottom here the general fund is balanced or fund 10 portion is balanced. It's just that we have um I guess I wouldn't say negative expenses, but we're spending more than we're getting this year in fund 10, I'm sorry, in fund 80, in our referendum fund, and our fund 50. And those are three funds where, you know, we're sitting in a building where we're having capital projects be done. Um that's an example of what I mean. So, um that this will likely be our new norm for a few years until those those uh projects are completed. So, so coming soon, this is kind of a a kind of FYI, we're working on a a page for the website called Understanding Your Tax Bill. The coming soon

069to the district website is actually a hot link to uh Hamilton School District. This is an example of something they have. So, we're going to be working internally to build something like this in case you guys or we receive or the schools or the community gets questions or inquiries about how do they read the school district portion here and what is it based on? trying to build something as a as a way to point people to if they have questions. Um, so I think with that I would take questions. >> Questions? Yes. >> Uh, the mill rate that we're voting on tonight, how does that differ from the last time the last estimate from the last time that we met? >> Um, we have that mic. >> Pull that up. >> Yeah, we'll pull that

070up if you don't mind, Brian. Yeah, thank you. Good question. >> Okay, while we wait, other questions >> uh was 8 805 >> 805 up to 818. Yeah. So close, but yeah, the state aid difference is really the reason. >> Yeah. No, that makes sense. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Other questions from the board? >> Yep. >> Oh, bunch of for the referendum. >> I don't think I had that included this time. Yeah, >> you had that broken out, Mike, from the operating versus the capital. >> Yeah, [clears throat] I think it's important to have these figures because if we get one once because it'll hit the mailbox. >> Sure. >> That's when the people will start to yell. And so I think knowing the amount we were nominated is this much for the

071referendum and we can break it down by recurring >> sure >> what the capital was but I think that's important along with the um the 93.3% of the non subtract out if you know what the mill rate is am refund you subtract that out say roughly 20% of the remainder is going right to vouchers so that's a conversation that I plan on having as much as possible >> um with anyone that I had discussion with about these property that >> I I do know that there was no change in the revenue for the referendum. So any whatever we showed in the annual hearing which was less than the community promise is going to be less this year actually because the bond premium the levy for fund 39 went down from 4.2 to 3.1. So the

072portion of this increase is less than we told the community it was going to be which is a good thing. >> And it's less than we said it was going to be in the annual hearing. So um we can pull it up here. Mike's got it here. >> I think it might be good numbers for board members. >> Yeah. And I can certainly update this presentation afterwards and reshare it with you guys so you have it. Um but the um the $5.8 million cap or operating referendum came in at 0.54 so 54 cents for the mill rate and we communicated 56 cents during the referendum campaign. So it's less than that number won't change because we're receiving all those funds. The $70 million capital bond is coming in at 32 cents and we communicated 44

073cents. Now, that will change over time and we'll get closer to 44 cents as we're levying more dollars. But you have to remember that part of what we're going to be levying going back here to this slide is the nonreferum debt service. So that number, that 1.7 million goes to 900,000 next year. So if you just decrease that to 900,000, that difference is 800,000. that'll go on to the referendum debt. So, there will be no new taxes to people. They're already paying it. >> So, but that'll shift the mill rate. That'll increase the mill rate for this portion, but it won't be new money for the taxpayer to pay. Um, and the same thing will happen the following year because there's only two years left of that. So, that 1.7 is going to shift completely

074to the referendum. >> And the last piece here is that um that 1.1 million that we lost in state aid will come back to us. So that'll be decreased off the general fund tax levy and be put back to the referendum tax levy if that makes sense. So um [snorts] while the 57 million is what it is, I don't anticipate that substantially increasing for the referendum at all. It's just going to be the the the methods for how we're taxed will just change. >> Right. And for me that's great because that's what we communicate. >> Yep. And like that's what I want to make sure that the conversation brought back to about this is that the numbers that you're seeing is what we communicated or less. It's not more. >> And the increase is not

075only because of the referral. >> Yeah. >> It is also because a substantial increase in vow 14% increase over last year over a million dollars from last year. That's not a small amount. Mhm. >> And so I think that is the thing that we that we need to talk about and I'm sure all of us that people understand like look the amount that this went up is more it went up more because of vouchers than for the referendum. >> Mhm. >> You have this together it's $1.58 for vouchers this is 86 cents >> for the mill rate for the referendum. >> Yeah. >> Which I understand go up to 42. Still less than $1.58. So I think that's just an important thing that we as board members need to be cognizant of and aware of

076so we have those conversations with people when those things that the because we're going to hear it that we can make sure we can talk intelligently and with hard numbers on that information because I think it's going to be important people understand um about that. [clears throat] >> Yeah. In in some you know the total referendum levy is 8.9 million and ref and vouchers are 9.3. So in some you're right it is more. Yeah. >> Yes. Yeah. And the difference is vouchers is not something anyone voted for. >> No one put that on the referendum and said yes, I'll pay more for that. >> Yeah. >> We put that on the referendum. People voted to pay more for that. >> And so that is the bigger difference in my mind. >> One is uh one

077was giving permission for that. >> Right. >> The other thing though I wanted to ask about was the loss in aid that received this year. 1.1 million because of the credit that we got for the >> Y >> the um referendum, >> the bond premium. >> And then the our budget we passed last year being a $700,000 deficit being ended up being a $650,000 surplus just because >> we did a good job with our budget. But oftentimes I find that districts that do a good job with the budget seem to get penalized versus those who don't do a good job with their budget and spend over what they think. >> So are there things that we can do? What things could we have done differently >> so that we couldn't we wouldn't have lost as

078much aid as we did this year? >> I think yeah I think we've tried to over the years tighten up the process so we meet pretty much every two weeks starting in April to go through actuals and I think the by nature I'm just very conservative with where we're at when we come to you guys for budget amendments. So, I think as we get closer to that time in April and May, we likely are just going to have to forecast out and go, okay, what is 20% 15% beyond that estimate? Because if we shoot higher and we end up lower, it's going to benefit us in aid. That's that's likely the best answer. Um because last year there was a couple different buckets. We we received more revenue in buckets that we didn't anticipate like

079state Medicaid. We got more money in that area for students special need. It's like it's hard to predict what these things happen. >> And so um I think that's a conversation Dr. Robinson and I can have around you know should we overt transfer so we not really losing the money just being allocated different fund which is an expense. So that might be an area where, you know, maybe we come to the budget amendments and we say we think it's going to be three and we're going to actually expense another million to 46, meaning the district's not going to lose the money. It's just going to be placed in a capital fund account, >> right? >> To protect the taxpayers, >> right? And that's I think that's the key thing. It's it's silly that you have

080to do it, but you know, we're trying to do the right thing and say, "Hey, we know we have something that we were meaning to spend this year for something. We weren't able to get it completed." So, we [clears throat] want to make sure we set it aside and say, "Yes, we're being responsible with our money. This is a deficit, but it's money that really is coming from last year's budget that is in fund 10 that we're going to use for this purpose." We would have been better off not doing that. >> And even if you would have ended up being 700,000 in the hole, that money was still money we had set aside with a purpose. We all know that. But doesn't look from a from a spreadsheet perspective, we're doing it the right

081way. >> Yeah. >> But because we did that where we end up losing, you know, our company in in a day that would have gotten is now being shifted to the tax year. So, and the same thing with 1.1 mill know we were going to get that credited like how how like with the whole bond thing like do we know that was coming and is there something we could have done like under budgeted by 1.1 million to offset it? >> It it wouldn't have mattered because the 1.1 million is just shifted to a decrease in the 39 levy so that it just offsets it >> but it reduced our aid as well. Right. >> Right. But it also decreased the expense we also had. >> Okay. So it's a one for one. >> Yeah, it's

082a one for one. >> That did not did not that affect the tax levy though? >> No, cuz if you look here, the capital referendum levy went down by 1.105 million. >> Okay. >> So that's that's that's what I was saying is we actually got 2.3 less in aid, >> but 1.1 of it is a tick fort, >> right? >> So the the 1.2 is really districts spending more money, >> which no little control of, right? >> And our shared cost, which we have, to your point some control over, right? And maybe the budget amendment process in May just has to become, you know, we're going to overshoot this a little bit, but protect the district by putting it into a trust 7346. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And that's I think, you

083know, we're at the point where these little sorts of things are some things we can do with our budgeting because we're on top of the big stuff, right? We're not going to come up like over five million >> where $5 million go. We're not doing that anymore. But I think that when we're talking about referendum type um you know bills for everyone in our community, the more that we can do, if we can save 40 bucks off someone's bill, >> I mean that's only 40 bucks. But I think at the end of the day, if we're doing everything we can to try to do that, we can talk about that intelligently, >> that that's something that lets the community know that we're doing the very best that we can. Yeah. >> To ensure that we're

084not >> charging them more than we absolutely need to do that or that they said that we can. >> Sure. And and the good news with this is that we know that next year there's going to be no more stated in the bucket. So what can we do to control that? We know the 1.1 bond premiums coming back which will just be another offset in our tax levy. And by just trying to allocate more money into these trusts, we can try to increase our shared cost to try to get, you know, the three or $400,000 back into the district's >> Yeah. >> taxpayers. >> Really think my biggest concern though is is next year's budget just because we don't know what that voucher number is going to be. That's my biggest concern. It went over

085in one year it went up over a million dollars. Well, next year there's no cap. So then what the heck are we going to >> Yeah. And we've requested the weight list from the state and haven't got that back yet. >> At least they give us an idea >> because because it's it's unclear like what is that number going to turn into without any direction from the state? We don't we don't control the weight list. Students apply and then they're granted voucher status based on hierarchy of the process. So do you have students in the voucher? I mean there's like a process to it. And so we we haven't got that from them yet. So we're cur I'm curious to see what that looks like. So the other thing that I learned too is that

086the voucher system isn't like there's not a year-by-year verification of that. So if you qualify in year one and then your family's income triples, you don't have to reverify, >> right? >> And so I wish that would change as well, but that's a piece for you guys to know. There's many families that access that voucher program that are well beyond the income requirement because they were when they qualified. >> It's not like we have annual processes we have to go through for that. Thank you. >> Yep. All right. Other questions? Yeah. >> Just to piggy back off that, I would see this is stuff I would love that we do in a retreat or in a workshop where we talk about how do we put together the messaging of >> what these vouchers there was

087a cap. Now there isn't going to be. >> And how does that reflect and affect our public and how's it going to affect our district where there's so much we can do and there's so much up in the air now, >> right? And so this is something like our communications committee in or workshop, whatever it is, this is the stuff I would love us to work on that by the time we get to the WBY meeting or convention in January, we're touching every single person saying, "Hey, here's what's going to happen and here's our concern." And so if there is another day of action >> at the capital next year, >> we have a better understanding of saying, "Hey, Senator Larson, hey Rep. Angelo or Tenoro like these are our concerns and here's the solid

088numbers on it. >> Yeah. >> So, I mean it's a little off topic here, but it also is really pertinent to the budget for next year. >> And I was going to say the same thing. We've talked about a few times having like a monthly resolution, something that goes to the legislature just so we're not trying to get there waiting for seven hours to speak with 5,000 other people. when it comes to budget time and landing on deaf ears, like if we're reaching out to them every month, they can't claim they didn't know. They can't they can't claim we didn't come to them. And I think just as uh Mr. Lee, Miss Kaiser said, like the more people we can get this to more frequently with more numbers, more concrete evidence, like I think it

089just I think it really makes a better case for us. And I'm just looking at the uh slide seven where 301 out of 421 districts received a decrease in aid. Uh, I mean, [clears throat] yeah, I think we have to make the case more more frequently and this is a really perfect time to say like this is our budget and this is where it's fallen and this is this is not because of something we've done wrong. >> Yeah. And and maybe locally, you know, depending on, you know, how, you know, pending approval and getting into January, maybe we need to do some communication to the community around what this looks like and how to understand this. And maybe that's a video. I don't know. We'll have to talk about that. I think there's an opportunity

090there that you know maybe getting ahead of that might be better. I don't know. It's a good question. The other thing I want to mention too on the tax bills so you guys are aware when school districts pass capital or non-recurring I forgot Phil to mention this or nonrecurring operating referendums those are listed at the bottom of how much that is. I believe it's the mill rate and I also believe it shows the year it comes off. So for us the capital one that was passed it will show that. it will show that very clearly in the tax bill list it separately. So, um just so you guys know peace of mind if you have constituents that ask it's like it's listed. The one thing that's not is the operating because it's recurring because it's

091per perpetuity just so you guys are aware. So, okay, other questions from the board? >> No. Okay. um for the numbers and the communication piece to talk off of uh what board member Lee was talking on. Is there a reason that we can't put those numbers and those breakdowns on the website in addition to that coming soon piece for their >> Yeah. You mean like the referendum mill rate and things like that? Well, just like the breakdown of our that budget piece of what we may or may not pass here in a little bit, but how it breaks down and then the percent so that someone can see it and so then it's not just the board members communicating and having those numbers. Those numbers are available to the community at large. >> Yeah, I

092think we certainly can build something out. We're going to be working on the tax bill analysis. So, I think having even some hot links to different aspects could be certainly done. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I'm I'm just thinking of something fast too for showing that breakdown with with [clears throat] those links so that people can see like 20% is due to >> vouchers. >> Here it is in the breakdown. So just just something obvious something big and you know that way we can >> you we're not we're not talking about it alone thing. You're like go look this is the same thing we're looking at. >> Yeah. That that's what I think was when I was talking with Dr. Robinson trying to give you guys a place to point to as opposed to be the

093only source of information. I don't want that to happen for you to be able to speak to it but then go hey but these qu you might want to look at this here I'll send you a link to it it's easier for you as and us too so >> y yeah absolutely okay >> another question yeah go ahead >> one more suggestion actually I know we talked about trying to get the municipalities to add the voucher line into the communications they sent out with their um tax bills and if we're having that example like you're building like Hamilton like we could also have that in there as well. >> Um the only difference is we have to show our four different municipalities with your tax. >> Yeah. >> Different, >> right? >> Um but maybe

094I don't know a situation you [clears throat] put in your municipality and then that takes you to like the West one or Dallas one or the one. >> So then you can look and do it. It'd be great. You could put a situation is like what was your tax bill? You put it in and then it would run it through an internal calculator and say okay this is much going for school district this much. just watch this for the you know it would just tell from your individual tax bill this >> sure >> requires some interaction from all to go and actually be involved in doing it >> if it was that simple it's calculation too hard to build but >> sure >> um it'd be another thing where you could yeah it's not just

095me like I can put that up on my page >> but you can set on the district page and say hey you got questions on here's answers and >> you can figure out exactly how much you're paying from your tax bill for your >> for the school district how much you vouchers Sure. >> Yeah. Certainly something we can work on. I mean, I think building out a website where this has this information that's easy to see, understand, tables, you know, links to things, tax bill. I think all that isn't difficult to do. We have the information just building it. And, you know, we have a few months until these things start to go out to the public. So, we certainly can bring that back to committee and things like that to workshop that out a

096bit. So, >> okay. And I would say the sooner the better just so that we get that conversation rolling and we can >> Yeah. >> We can direct the our narrative as far as like where [clears throat] you can find the best information. >> Yeah. Um All right. Any other questions on that? All right. So then what we were looking for here then tonight is we're looking for uh whether or not we're going to approve our um tax levy. So at this time I would entertain a motion >> move to approve um 11.1 the 202526 final budget and tax levy adoption. >> Second. >> All right. Uh has been moved and seconded. Are there any other questions or uh items to deal with the but the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor? >> I

097>> those opposed. All right. And that passes. Thank you, Mr. Norris. Um, and from that point then it'll take us to our workshop 12.1, the financial stability and efficiency workshop compensation model draft one. Do you guys need a couple moments to set up or >> if you want to give us a minute or two to get set up and we'll get started. >> We can wait. I don't know that we need to go in recess for that. continuing on with our workshop. Thank you. All right. And then we have Mr. Norse. Are you starting us off with that? All right. So, this will be our our compensation committee and >> presentation. So, all right. >> All right. Well, thank you again for having us here this evening. I want to just start off with some

098quick introductions and I'm going to lead the first couple slides here and turn it over to um the team here to kind of walk you guys through kind of what we've been doing for a little under a year now. So, um, to my right is Rachel Cruz, communications. Um, Bob Kinsey on the committee and social studies staff at Hail, um, and Courtney Vang, principal at Hoover and Mike Lamscar, assistant finance manager here with us. The people that could not make it are Sarah Pond and Janet Delcat and then D Garcia, our director of talent acquisition is here as well as on the committee. So, uh, we have spent way too much time on this presentation and way too much time as a committee working on this, but we've spent a lot of time on it

099intentionally because this this is really important for the school district and the retention of our staff. And so, um, big shout out to, uh, the team here. They've spent a lot of time getting this ready for you guys because the goal of of tonight is for you guys to leave here feeling comfortable and confident that what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're going to how it's going to look in the next step. So, um, just want to thank them for their time and all the work they've spent both before and after school on this stuff. So, all right. So, what we want to do tonight again, we want to give you guys an overview of the committee's work to date. We want to talk really specifically about why this is important. We want

100to give you guys detail on the process we use to get here. We want to talk about what preliminary outcomes we have both from the comp model, which you'll get shortly, and the financials of what this looks like shortterm and long term. We really want to get into some detail about how the model works and the priorities behind it and what the next steps in employee feedback are. Um, we would ask you guys to hold questions until the end. We have about 50-ish slides we want to get through and we want to get through all of it before we get into the details on this. Okay. Um we're not going to have all the answers tonight, but we know that this is workshop one of two and there's a lot more to come with this.

101So um a lot of what you might ask or might be thinking might be coming tonight or might be coming in the future. So just please note that. Um so our why I think the biggest thing I could mention besides retention staff having unknown growth paths regional compet competition in prior models the biggest why here is that a lot of the efforts of the referendum were to get staff competitive for tomorrow which is today the biggest unknown that teachers have in our schools is what are they going to make in the future and at this point today we can't answer that question and I think really successful organizations public and private can do that to some degree. And I think historically school districts have had the ability to do that. A lot of research has

102come out that if you'll see on your piece of paper, which we'll talk about in a minute, a lot of districts about 5 to 10 years ago moved to performance compensation plans. You can simply Google this. There has been studies after studies after study. The most recent one system did a study on districts moving away from performance pay and CPI models. They're moving back to steps and lanes. So, this is timely and it's researchbased. and what we're going to be talking about tonight checks a lot of boxes for a lot of people in this district but also across the state and the country. So really excited the timeline this is kind of the the flow of the evening. We're going to stop on these dates and what uh Bob and Courtney and Mike will speak

103to is the work we did in each meeting date. So we're going to bring you along the ride so to say. So as we get into the weeds a bit or high level it'll be what we did in actual meetings. So you guys will be able to see the precursors to those things um as we go through. But leading up to the involvement from the committee, the district, which would have been the internal team, myself, Rachel, Mike, Sarah, Janet, and D, we worked through assembling a district level compensation team. We identified the problem and need for revamped compensation model. We developed a survey professional educators and then we had a meeting with our leadership team, our principles to talk about what were what were they looking for out of something like this, right? From the

104hiring LEA, what does that look like? How would this how would something meet your needs? From there, we assembled a district level compensation team. We identified defined the problem with them and we developed a survey which we'll talk about in a few minutes. So, how did we get the committee? Who's on the committee? How do we how do we get that? Staff were able to complete a brief information short answer questions to indicate their interest level in the survey. Essentially, anyone in the district have the opportunity to submit to be a part of it, right? Um the committee members were selected on the following basis. Representative from all schools. We wanted representation across elementary and secondary as well as student services and other positions within the professional educator group. We wanted representation that was inclusive

105of our professional educators spanning a variety of years. We didn't want everyone on the committee within their first three years. We didn't want everyone in the last three years. We thought it was important to keep a variety of people across years in the district on the committee. And then we also wanted representation for administration. Principal Vang and Principal Gells were the elementary and secondary reps. So who is on the committee? This is a breakdown and it kind of shows you in columns uh which breaks down kind of the elementary versus secondary staff and then in uh Manila versus blue you can see the the years of service that they span. So it's it's a balanced group and then in in gray you can see the internal team that I referenced that's been spending our time

106on this to um get us where we are today. So with that I'm going to turn it over to I believe Courtney to walk us through the first committee meeting. >> Well good evening everybody. Um, so I'm going to kick things off with as Aaron said, once we came together for a team, um, for our first team meeting, the first thing we did was really work on setting purpose. And I think the second bullet point up there, uh, really addresses the big like the big focus of not only this first initial meeting, but kind of our throughline through all of these meetings, which is the me versus we. It was really difficult for staff members who've been in this work for a long time, been with the district for many years, to often step outside

107of that and say, "While this compensation model may not mean I'm going to be getting a $10,000, $15,000 pay increase, um it is what's going to be best for our district long term. Um and we'll kind of walk you through um over the next couple of slides how we ended up getting at the model that we're going to present to you this afternoon and how we got through that to think about a model that um is particularly in pertain to a couple of priorities that will share how we got through to those priorities and how they come to be in the model itself. Uh, so I'm not going to go through this in detail because I believe you have a schematic that walks you through this, but ultimately I think the biggest takeaway here is

108just to know that there the district has been through several different compensation models. Um, as Aaron shared, a lot of things changed post Act 10. Um, which has brought us through today and we as a committee went through this as well. So, we understood the history of where our district had been, where other districts have been throughout uh Wisconsin, and then ultimately where we wanted to get to um by the end of our time together as a compensation committee. All right. So, uh we gave a survey last spring, I believe. Um and as you can see on the board here, we had about 50, it was an all staff survey. Um around 52% of staff ended up responding. And you'll want to note that while the compensation model we'll be sharing today focuses predominantly on

109the compensation for professional educators, this was a survey open up to all staff. Um, but professional educators were the bulk at nearly 80% of respondents giving their opinion on this survey. And you can see how it was broken down by years of service as well as which campuses had uh the largest numbers of employees filling this survey out um to give their voice in how they felt about compensation at our district. So one of the first questions we asked was do you believe our current compensation system meets district priorities of attracting and retaining highquality employees? You can see the response up there. Next question. with the projected 9% increase. We wanted to know if they believed that their compensation would be regionally competitive. So, you can see the three responses in the breakdown up there.

110Uh, do you feel that the district is taking the appropriate steps to address employee compensation and well-being? this was good news that while most people didn't totally agree with the compensation model the way it was on um last year um they see that we are taking the steps to make changes and to take feedback from staff and then this slide highlights uh what the biggest concerns were with the current compensation model. So you can take a look there and see one of the biggest um components was the lack of competitiveness to other regional districts. Um and then the lack of salary increases beyond just the cost of living adjustments. So um you'll see a little bit more about this coming up and how we tried to address some of that at the committee level. All

111right. And then one of the other questions was how satisfied are you with the current compensation model? And as you saw in that initial survey question about how they felt about being compensated, um this this question just mirrors the responses that that first one addressed. Um and then what type of model would you prefer in 2627? So I'll give you a second if we can just pause on the slide for a minute to take a look at the different models that were presented on the survey and how people landed. Okay. Um and then this last one is just a little bit of a heat map that shows you how um staff the priorities that staff had and how they would like to be compensated. So the thing that was listed at or came across as

112the most important was tenure. Second was education and the things that were least important to people were being compensated for their involvement in their school community or micro credentials. All right, I'm gonna pass it over to Bob. >> All right, [clears throat] thank you. I'm Bob Kinsey over at Nathan Hale. Thanks for having me. So, when we moved into our second and third meetings, then we I think had a pretty clear mandate from the survey of some priorities that staff had indicated. And so what we did is we took that information and then internally within our committee, which is quite inclusive, right? We started to really figure out of those priorities, right? how would we prioritize within that group yet further? Okay. Um and so kind of referencing back to Courtney's previous point, uncertainty or

113the lack of understanding of current compensation clearly drove a lot of our work then. And so one of our main activities for the next two meetings, if we go to the next slides here, was to I would say do a conduct a quite extensive comparison of other existing compensation models that exist across the state. Um, we had uh quite a heterogeneous grouping in the fact that we weren't bound just by southeast Wisconsin, but we picked districts around the state, but also with a mind on having districts that were at least representative of similar size in both faculty, students, also in some of the demographics that we have in our district. And so we looked at their different comp models with the perspective of our priorities and trying to see if we could determine the priorities

114of these, you know, different comp models that we looked at. And it became pretty clear to us, and I'll allude to it again on the next slide here, um, that our priorities are similar to, but are not exclusive or I shouldn't say inclusively the same to all of the districts around the state. And so some of the pros and the cons are the things that we identified and again I won't go over the entirety [clears throat] of the list but I think benefits things that we learned as a committee or that we we kind of appreciated was the ease of understanding of a comp model is important. We want our staff in this district to be able to look at something and fully comprehend exactly what it means now and what it could mean 5

115years in the future. And if that meant flipping through 38 pages, that was probably not going to be acceptable for us, right? So, we like that kind of transparity and clarity. And then the fact that for I think back to our previous um slides, a goal with retention or trying to turn this district into a clear um you know, lighthouse district or a destination district where people want to remain, not just to try the waters, but to to stay. And so we saw some really nice examples of that. The cons, I think we were I can move kind of quickly there. We we saw a lot of things that we didn't necessarily want to do um as comp models, things that were either logistically or financially not feasible for us or would put greater burden

116on the system instead of actually solving problems. They might potentially create more problems in implementation. So, >> um, so following that review of those different districts and diving into those, uh, unique models, what we ended up doing is as a team in our fourth meeting this past summer, um, was to do a priority analysis. So, we took a survey as a group now that we've had lots of insight into these different models, and we ended up coming up with some of our top priorities. So, you can see here, and I'll give you a second to take a look um at what the group came up with and which things were like absolutely a no-go as far as a priority and a compensation model for our district, and which things came out on top. Um, and

117then from those four things on top, you can kind of see what stuck out is that clear and transparent structure. um the need for additional pay for high needs positions, the retention salary bumps at certain points throughout people's tenure, and then um a value for years of service here in the district. From there, we took the survey again in that same meeting and tried to delionate a little bit down further into um for the top, I think it was 10 priorities, how we would rank those top 10 priorities. And you can see it didn't change it a whole lot. It just started to um show us outside of the top four where other priorities fell in the mix of things. Um once we came up with those top priorities, Yep. Go ahead. We came up

118with what our committee's priorities would be and we also already knew that we had the district priorities of wanting to make sure that this was sustainable, regionally competitive, um that everyone when everyone wins when we move forward and that it was fiscally responsible. Um and then we match that with our committee priorities. So you can take a look there at the five top five committee priorities that we came up with at this meeting. And then we use those committee priorities to ultimately start crafting um the potential compensation model which Mike's going to talk you through a little bit here. >> Sure. Thanks. Um, okay. So, after we went through five meetings together, uh, we took all of that uh, information back to the district and, uh, with the the district team, we started to craft

119out what a model could look like. Um, before we did that though, um, and I know we'll get into kind of the thoroughess that uh, you guys know Aaron very well, we're going to go through a bunch of different options and scenarios that we could potentially put into place um, with this compensation model. First thing we needed to do though was um what what type of money do we have in order to implement a model into 2627. So the first thing that we did was um kind of look at uh well we do have a board committed uh amount of money through a couple prior actions that um occurred in 2023 and 2025. So we have about 4.75 um of fund balance towards uh implementing and um starting a a uh compensation model. Uh but

120not only the the board commitment, we also have things that are already aligned within our current budget to um account for increases every year for our staff. Um so our current model um some might call it a model. Uh we we have these micro credentials. we have um a compounding yearly increase for staff um kind of a retention thing um that we provide about $355,000 um of budget dollars every year for those things. So that can be added uh into uh the roll out of this new compensation model as well as we account for CPI um and this current year is looking like we're going to end up around 2.8% 8% um as as all the data that we have right now shows. Um so that is currently in our our budget models. So if

121you add all that together really we have about 2.6 six or so million dollars to um start uh building this compensation model and get our current staff in the model and placed um accurately and uh consistently with all of those priorities that Bob and Courtney laid out that that we went through in our committee meetings. So, um, we'll get to to more of the analysis of the the model that you'll all see tonight, um, later on in the presentation, but, uh, we thought the it would be a good thing to kind of show what what we have available to build the model. >> And just quick to note, the board commitment, we did divide that into four years. So, that means that we're not going to expense the 4.75 in one year and then not

122have the money in next year to do it. So, dividing it into four gives us four budget cycles to build that back in. And if you can recall when we developed the OPED plan, the idea was the savings over time should help to fund this. We believe in five years it should be able to be completely funded. So that's just kind of the background for that. Um, so after Mike did all of his magic with the financials, um, and came up with a draft model for us, at our meeting in this past September, um, just about a month ago, we were able to start diving into the model and looking at it more explicitly. Um, you can go to the next slide, Aaron. All right. So, a couple of characteristics of the model that was

123put together. One was that it was focused on a steps and lanes model which we saw on the staff survey was a big um priority for a lot of the staff that they expressed they wanted to see a steps and lanes model again. Um the three lanes would be for education a bachelor's, mast's and doctoral lane. There would be retention bumps built into the model at different years of service. There's 30 steps total or 30 years essentially and each of the step or each of the lanes is broken down into six quadrants. And then there's also market rate adjustments for high needs or hard to fill positions which we'll talk about in just a couple of slides as well as a 7-year external cap. um meaning that we can compensate people that are coming into

124the district up to or for seven years of exp of prior experience because that's what we can afford. All right. Um so I won't go into each one of these in detail. I believe you have copies of it now in front of you. Um so you can look at each of the lanes and how the bachelor's lane differs from the master's lane which differs from the doctoral lane. You can also see on there the six quadrants. So you can see when there are retention bumps at certain um years of service and um what those numbers are in the kind of leap category all the way to your right. >> All right. So kind of the the functioning or the mechanism at work here then when we look at the steps and lanes really there's kind

125of two ways that you look at it. So completed year of practice, right? you would move down a cell in theory, right? And eventually we'll kind of maybe switch the way that that's spoken of, but as we populate that, right? A year will move you a cell. And then you have those columns or those different lanes, if you will, and those would represent completion of of higher levels of education, right? As you move from left over to right. Um on the next slide, okay, so kind of previously mentioned here are these market rate adjustments. So, one of the key priorities that we identified um as a district and as a committee and as we looked over further compensation models in comparison, we noticed that this was a a really high need to consider these things.

126These would be areas that are difficult to fill or harder to find candidates in these positions. And so, if you look at those three columns there, in essence, for the positions, we created what is called a delta. And those deltas in essence are factors that allow us to enhance or or increase a person's cell count based on the need or what would be considered a market rate for that position, right? Because they're more sought-after positions. So on the following slide then we kind of get at on the next slide here um how those were determined. So an assessment was conducted of area districts that we would say we're in competition with or that would be other employers in our region. And so by looking at what would be a fair market rate within this climate,

127then we developed these deltas so that we would remain competitive in those high need placements. And then as already mentioned before, right, honoring those seven years of external service, right, trying to make sure that we're at least competitively seeking these professionals um to try to bring them in and then hopefully retain them based on the retention bonus. >> And one quick point to make, Bob, to just couple with what you're saying is I think we're trying to shift the thinking around what is high needs into what is the area pay because every teacher's high needs. I think the committee understands that. I think you would all agree. It's just that what an average of what a position is paid is what we're trying to be competitive with. Hiring a school psychologist at a certain rate

128is different than than saying their high needs. Well, we're trying to pay them competitively to keep people here. I just think it's a different level of focus on a different metric. So, I just want to make that point. >> Okay. So, this isn't going to be like an AP pop quiz. I'm just we're just gonna we're going to work through some we're going to work through some scenarios here. We'll call this modeling. Um, so this first this first one is a general example of just like how we use the steps in lane. So there's not really necessarily any sort of trick to this. We're just trying to show that in a scenario such as this one where a current teacher who's teaching um high school English year, five years of experience in a bachelor's degree,

129you would use those steps, those cells down. And if we look across then right we would be able to see that they would be moving from completing their fifth year in E. So then the next year when we populate the compensation model if if this goes to plan would be going into F then right that just that one year would increase one step. So they'd move from 55 something down. Okay. So then there's we'll look at a couple little examples. So this was part of the work that the committee did. We were tasked with going through some scenarios. one to see if this made sense and was as transparent as clear as we were hoping and two to also kind of do a real systems check on whether or not there were oddities or like

130moments that you know the the compensation model kind of glitched or we couldn't figure it out and then we'd need to process through that further. So I don't know if you would like just a moment to take a look at the scenario. I'm not testing you here. Um, but if we're looking at that same general position, high school English teacher, uh, six years of external experience, so this would be someone coming into our district being hired in that first column of a bachelor's degree. If we if we advance it here, right, because of those six years, we would honor their six previous years. And as we then put them into the comp model, they'd be starting their seventh year, which then puts them at G, year seven in the bachelor's um, lane. So then we

131we kind of add a couple variables, right? So in each of these scenarios, we scale up by a little bit. So the two variables that we add here is now we have a special education teacher and not only a special education teacher but one that has master's degree. And so when we think back to that previous slide where we looked at needs assessment or market rate and I had mentioned deltas before [clears throat] when we look at a teacher such as this in one of those more difficult to fill spots they have a delta of three. So we're in the second lane now of masters, right? Based on their education level, they had those two years. And then if we advance it here, um those two years plus the delta that looks to give them

132a a fair uh market rate for their position and expertise would then actually move them down those three more years. And I would put them in at an F in the mast's category. And I think the thing here to think about is they come in with two. So they start at three. >> Yeah. >> So then the three on top of the three gets you to six or F. >> Yeah. >> It's a weird nuance, but you got to always look at the number. That's what they finished. >> Yeah. They completed those two years. So they go into their third. >> Yep. >> And then the the last of the scenarios from that round of um committee meetings, scenario three, add yet another kind of variable to this. if we were hiring an occupational therapist,

133which is yet kind of a yet another category over in our market rates. Um, so now we're going to actually add them into the doctoral or the furthest right of the lanes based on need to fill. And so even though a zero years of experience coming into profession here, they have a delta of four based on market rate plus they're in that doctoral lane. And so when we play out how that would work on placing them, so it's actually going to give them as in essence like they completed four years. Those were the deltas. And so they would come in then at E in the doctoral lane. All right. >> All right. So after so Bob kind of went through some external examples if we were making an external hire. So of course um the

134committee had a lot of questions about like well what does how does this impact me? where will I fall on our placement um our compensation placement? So, I'm going to try to walk us through that. A few things that we are going to take into account as far as criteria goes. One, similar to external candidates would be at education level. So, we need to know what lane are they going to fall in, their current years of service both outside of and inside of the district, their current salary. That's going to be important to note um because we do have a $1,000 floor and a $4,000 ceiling. Um and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a couple minutes. Um and then we also wanted to make sure that external hires wouldn't be provided

135more benefit than internal hires. So somebody getting hired outside of the district isn't going to make more than somebody already working in the district in that same position. Um that was a big focus for the compensation committee and it was one of the biggest priorities that staff highlighted. Um as I mentioned previously there is that external cap of seven years. So if they came in with 15 years of experience we're only honoring those seven years um uh seven of those 15 years and then also taking into account the market rate or the delta um that their position is assigned. So, similar to Bob, this is a pop quiz actually. Um, is uh the internal example of where we would place somebody. So, this is somebody already working in our district, elementary school teacher. So, there's

136no delta here. Um, they have the following credentials. They're currently sitting at a 2526 salary of $66,95.99. They have 13 years of experience completed, assuming in the district, and they have a bachelor's degree. So, take a second, see if you can figure out where this person would be placed in next year's model, correct? All right, you can click a forward. All right, so they'd be placed in cell M. And the reason being is it's the closest years of service value um in that cell. Sorry, it's I should go to my slide. It's a little hard to read up there. Um, but they've finished their uh 13 years of experience. So, that's where they're at right now. Um, and if we were to give them credit for all 13 years of that experience and going into

137the following year would actually put them at cell 14, $71,332, but that would be a $4,426 increase. and we have that $4,000 cap. So, we actually have to place them at the cell below that at cell keeping them at cell 13. So, they'd still get an increase for the coming school year of $3,719. Um, but they would be placed in cell 13. Okay, got all that? All right. Um, the next one is an internal example. Another internal example, high school English teacher. So there's no deltas here. They are making $56,731. They have four years of school completed and they're in the bachelor's degree lane. So take a second to see if you would figure out where they are placed. All right, this one's so they finished the four years. So, you would think they might

138be they'd be going into their fifth year of completion, but the reason they're going to be placed into cell F um is because they if they were to be placed in cell five for going into their fifth year, that $55,68 is actually less than what they're making right now at the $56,731. And we don't nobody's going to lose money in this model. So that's why we would jump them up to the um step six. All right. Final internal example here. We have a middle school teacher making so no delta making 52,974. They have five years completed and a bachelor's degree. So we're sticking in the bachelor's degree lane. So take a look at where they would be placed just initially. You can click ahead, Aaron. So, this in this example, this person would be placed

139into step six um because when they finish that fifth year, they would now be making 60,000. They'd be going into step to uh step six, $60,69 being their salary. Um it is more than the $4,000 ceiling. Um, so this is an example where it that $4,000 ceiling would need to be broken um in order to bring them up essentially to the market rate um that this position is slated at. Um, so we're honoring the fact that they have five years of experience. And if anybody else, so if we were to hire an external candidate at this same amount of experience, so five years of experience, a bachelor's degree, they would be placed in step six making $60,969. We don't want any internal staff members to make less than what an external person would come. So,

140in this example, we would need to break the $4,000 ceiling to bring this person up to market rate. And that is going to happen for several internal candidate or I say candidates, but internal staff members um in order to bring them up. So, essentially what this is saying is that this candidate or this person, example three, is currently underpaid for what they are doing. I think you're up on this. Um I have 46. >> Okay, I'll keep going. Um so in this meeting number five, um what we ultimately did is after going through several of these examples, looking at the model overall, we ended up taking another survey to see where did people on the compensation committee feel like how did they feel about the compensation model that we put forward. So you can see

141we had everyone at a three or above at this first meet or this was the first meeting in September. We then had another meeting in October which Bob is going to talk to you a little bit about in just a couple of slides. Um but you can see that in general staff are starting to feel pretty good about the compensation model. There's still a couple of holdouts though. So take a minute to review this slide about how they're feeling. Nobody's only a couple people are really in love with it. Most people like it or can live with it. So pe people do not want us to honor the micro credentials if that meant that we would decrease salaries. Lots of feelings about the micro credentials. All right. So, from that first round, there's a few

142changes that were made, and I'll let Bob talk about that going into our October meeting just a couple weeks ago. >> All right, perfect. Okay, so um as some of you may have noticed, it seems pretty straightforward, right? And and easy to navigate and then you start running into all of the real life scenarios where like there's those little nuances of placing people. And it also then kind of opens up the question about like, well, is this really honoring loyalty of staff that have been here and looking at where retention bumps were u and I won't have to look back but I'll show you kind of a point of this later as we move forward some questions about whether this is really hitting the priorities that we had set forth. So not that any of

143the work was bad but communication right was was being kind of developed here. Also, just to give some context of what's going on regarding or kind of around the same time as this meeting, um, compensation committee members were tasked with kind of holding a very general, not super detailed, but meetings to their staff or to their learning communities, their locals that they're part of. um one to kind of keep them apprised as the work that we are doing but also two to make sure that there weren't major questions, concerns, some sort of lag in the system of communication where we were like outpacing the information that uh the rest of staff was was privy to. So I think that kind of drove the October meeting then. So one of the real keys here was trying

144to understand how we can honor student uh students teachers that have been in the district for kind of the longest portion. And if you looked if you kind of remember back to our earlier slides, this would be really a demographic of teachers that is probably in the minority in the district. It's probably our smallest population for people who have made it 15 years or plus um in the district. And so is there enough in there to sweeten the pot? Because for most of the retention bonuses, it's pretty young teacher heavy, which totally makes sense and that's faithful to uh the priorities, but we want to make sure that there is benefit to to everyone involved. So, that was a big part of it. Um, and then that that second part down kind of at the

145bottom there was to make sure that committee members weren't just able to to hear the information, but that we had a level of comfort and confidence in the compensation middle that we could in fact talk to um board members, community members, our staffs back at our local, would we feel comfortable fielding questions? Is the model in fact that transparent? Okay. So one of the things then that was developed in response to that previous meeting where there were some some questions or communications brought up was the exploration of the longevity table. And so this was I would say kind of an additional piece. So it's not a step or a lane. It's not within the eternal the internal workings of those 30 steps or the quadrants, but this is kind of an additional component to the

146compensation model. And so this is based only on years internally within West Dallas West Milwaukee school district. And so if you look um so for people who have been 15 years or plus right there are a stipend amount. So this would not be added to salary salary would be calculated and then this would be added to that at the at the end of calculation there. And so you can see the rate there. At the end of that, we re-erveyed our committee members to try to see if this moved the needle, if in fact we felt more confident with the process. And I think the the the chart really ex you know expresses this perfectly. Now three is the minority and pretty much everyone is in the strongly agrees or feels completely confident in communicating these

147ideas. So confidence is up and I think we can also then say that we feel confident fielding questions and then also on the next one here what I referred to before is our blue Pac-Man. Um also I I think it shows not just the popularity of the idea of a longevity stipen but I think what it really gets back to is the fact that members of the committee feel heard. This is genuine collaboration. It is communicating from our schools. It's communicating one another in meaningful ways. The committee then is able to use that information and and be flexible with what we're creating to really get back to the priorities because it was very clear that for that 15 plus the air quote loyal, right? People who have been here the longest, right? This I think

148was a major step in the right direction. Do you want me to keep rolling? Okay. So I think at the end so we we then not only surveyed but then we were asked uh you know if we had any questions what feedback we would provide uh if we had any you know kind of things that we wanted to put on top of agenda also our thoughts on the work so far and I think you know we've come a long way from those early first you know two or three meetings to where we're sitting now where instead of thinking about what could it be and how will this committee work and I think for some of us in this district who have been here long enough. This is my 20th year, right? If we've been on

149other committees or different groups throughout the years, right? Are we being heard? Are we feeling valued? I mean, is this really moving the needle in a positive way for teachers in our district or not? And I I mean I think these are just a small sample of what I would say is kind of the overwhelming feel in the committee right now is that not only are we doing good work, but the fact that like this feels like it's going to another level and is actually not just being heard, but impacting change, right? It's bringing about some real real thought to this process. >> All right. So to Bob's point, we now we've hit kind of the the priorities of the committee. Does this fall in line with district priorities around well is this financially feasible?

150Is it going to be are we able to sustain this over time? Um so we did look at more than three options. um they just weren't worth putting on the slide because if it wasn't going to fit in our current budget or within the the con not well the constraints of of a district budget school district budget um we weren't going to entertain that. So three of the uh options or scenarios that we significantly thought through and and wanted to see if it fit in the model are kind of presented here um at the top of this slide. So the first thing was well what would it actually cost if we could just place everybody at their years of service that they have um in the district and then also um while um giving them

151access to those seven years outside the district that we would be um allowing people an external hire to come in at. Um so that would come in around $3.25 million. um which if you can remember 20 30 slides ago um that was a little bit outside of um kind of that budget. So uh really the only one that really makes sense within our model is option three here um where we're going to provide um pretty much all staff with anywhere from a,000 to $4,000 of an increase over their 2526 uh salary. um with some people getting beyond that based on some of those exter uh those other criteria. So that would be kind of like what what we're going to entertain going forward um as a team um was option three and then again the

152reasons why being the financial implications uh due due to budget constraints whether it's the state and local budget or what we have um prepared in um our current budget model. So, uh, to show you kind of a rundown of how we figured that out. Again, that total budget number was a recall from prior slide. And then what does this model cost? Again, the model implementation costs about 2.35. And then adding on that longevity um, for those staff that are 15 years and above will cost an extra 268. So, you can see it does just squeak into the budget there. Uh, and this is just kind of a a visual of uh we did as an as an internal team here look at if we were to place everybody that's currently in our district today, where

153would they fall? And this is kind of what what came out. Um, now you'll notice there's a huge chunk in that section G to to K um area. And you'll see that there's quite a few PhDs. That doesn't necessarily mean we have that much staff with a PhD. um it's just they would fall into the PhD lane based on their um descript their job description or or what they do for the district. Um and the reason being uh for the the mass amount around uh letter G or letter K step those steps is because we need to um prioritize our internal staff and get them up to what we would be um viewing an external candidate at. So um that's kind of those those markers as to where they would actually be placed. So, uh,

154is it affordable going forward as well? So, not only is it affordable in 2627, but, um, we have to project this out and really there's so many different, uh, scenarios or things that could impact whether this is feasible going forward. So, uh, I think the best way Aaron and myself and Sarah thought about, well, well, how how do we really scale this out to 2728 and beyond? um we're going to the the things that we thought about were well what if nobody left what would it cost us going forward into those years. Well um projecting that out it looks like uh just step moves and without taking into account people getting master's degrees or doctorates um the financial impact would have be about 1.95% if everybody just moved that next step in 2728. Currently, most

155banks um they plan for about 2%. I know over the recent history, our CPI in the United States is quite a bit higher than that, especially Wisconsin. Um so in those high CPI years, the budget will allow for additional increases to the model. Um and you can see we we plan for this hypothetical example here in this situation. Um again, and and just to go back to that prior slide, you don't have to click back or anything. We do have a bit of a runway for the first four years, but then after that, we need to build in um kind of some other ways to to make this work in the budget. So, say there was a year that we had a 4% uh CPI in in the district. Well, we're only providing for 1.95%

156in the model. We are kind of held to CPI as a school district because that's collective bargaining up to that amount. So what what can we do with that additional 2% or how does the model move with that extra 2%. So a little bit of a breakdown on that. Again, don't hold me to these numbers because this is just a hypothetical scenario here, but say that we had that additional 400,000 in this example be after we moved everybody within the model. Um there's $1,000 for staff that are beyond the model. I don't think we really touched on that quite to this point. There are staff that make above the the final step in the models that you guys have in front of you. They will still receive an increase every year of up up to

157$1,000. So that's kind of outside that initial budget and we wanted to show that there. And then projecting forward that longevity stipen will likely increase if staff are to stay around. Um, so we have that remainder of $400,000 ifish and that will get applied to the entire model going forward in order for it to to stay sustainable going forward because if we keep that step one in the model at a static dollar amount, well, we're going to be behind other local districts and regional districts and really anybody that's trying to hire a new staff. So that model does have to move with with CPI over time and that will be accounted for going forward. >> So kind of bring us home here. We're almost finished. So this this is kind of the next part of

158like so what what comes after this? So pending your guys' feedback and questions which we'll certainly take into account as we proceed. November we have a meeting on the 5th and then we are launching into individual staff meetings with principles and their school staff to walk them through kind of where's the committee been doing and what's it look like. We got about 20 minutes of content and about 10 minutes of questions. Heavily relying on our staff and their leadership on the committee to be able to help again exercise how does it work? How did you get there? What's it look like? How does it impact me? Local level is best here. Um we meet in December and the work of November and December is going to be around developing a compensation committee handbook. So that's

159a look for when we are back to you guys in February is what have staff heard? What have you heard? What does it look like? What's changed? and what's the handbook look like? That's kind of where I'm hoping the devil's in the details starts to come out. You guys have specific questions really deep. That's likely where it'll live. Um, but this gives you guys a nice timeline of what's to come. So, we got about November, December, January. Committee meetings, also one in February. Um, staff meetings will occur from beginning November 10th all the way up to Christmas at every school. um looking to come back to the board for a workshop again in February to kind of share back and what's different, what's it looked like, what have we heard, and then potentially board action

160in February, and then we would be going back out to schools in March um in April prior to the board approving contracts and base wage increases. So to kind of to finish up here, bringing us right back where we started. The goal of tonight was to give you guys an overview what the committee's been doing to give you guys the why behind it, the process we used to get here, what the outcomes have been for the comp model and financials, to give you really some detail about how it works in case you guys get asked. You guys talked to a lot of staff and teachers. We want you guys to feel somewhat comfortable into kind of what you heard that you could maybe reproduce some of it or point to point someone the direction and

161kind of like how we intend to move forward from here and how we're going to get employee feedback. So I hope you guys feel like those objectives were close and at this time I think the committee would take any questions you have. >> I got to say 7:16 we started so it's 50 minutes just for the record Dr. Robinson. Just for the record, I asked Rachel before we started. Just want to get that out there. So, >> well done. >> All right. So, questions from the board. Yes, Mr. Keller. >> I have a couple. And I I do want to say I was a little worried when I saw how many slides there were, [laughter] but good job, Erin. Um, first of all, thank you. Um, I think this is good and important work. Um,

162I'm excited by the steps and lanes. I think just based on our district and the way everything's heading, that probably makes the most sense. And I think it's a a good way to give credit to the teachers that are are here and that are staying here and and so forth. I think my first question because again I think all these things are great and I believe that is a key importance. Do you believe that we are going to run into any situations when we are recruiting externally where we're not going to be able to be competitive based on the year of service cap or whatever the case might be? I think the in terms of being competitive, no, I think if we are hiring people that are around those number of years that we honor,

163I think we'll be very competitive because that's what the market rate has. That's the analysis. I think the challenge to be fully transparent, I think the committee's discussed it is you get an employee that's branding from Walkshaw with 15 years and offering them an 8-year salary. Yeah. Likely not going to be very competitive. I think it's just going to be a reality >> and uh challenge that our principles and our schools will have to a degree. >> Um but as you guys have heard, the challenge with that is it's honoring internal staff too. So moving that number up, >> you're going to it's going to increase exponentially the financials you just saw, which will decrease the model in turn. >> So it was this delicate balance of how we got there and that was kind

164of the challenge, but okay. No, that makes sense. Um, I had one other question and this just kind of struck me and you probably don't have the information but when you were talking about that all survey all staff survey results early on and the question do you feel the district is taking the appropriate steps to address employee compensation and well-being. I found it I don't know if concerning is the right word but the fact that we still had 26% say no after we've had the referendum to kind of try to help that and we're going through this process now. So, I guess my question is, was there a follow-up question to that? Like, why do you feel that way? I I guess I'm just curious because sometimes perception becomes a reality. And yeah, it's a

165lower amount, but that's still a higher amount than I would expect, I guess. >> No, it's a good question. We didn't we did not have a follow-up. This was kind of the I wanted the committee to be grounded by the teachers, you know, not that the committee would go rogue. They're the opposite of that. I just wanted there to be some data to go back when they go back to their staff. It's like, this is what you guys wanted. We're trying to deliver. >> Yeah. >> And I think hoping I'm hope I'm hopeful that through the process that might shake out where that number gets significantly reduced. So, um maybe we tee something up when this is approved and done that we send something out that's similar to get some >> before and after to

166a degree. But I'm hoping the committee and their work in the buildings local level, you know, when are there's conversations ongoing about like Bob said, this is real. You are being heard. This is like a real thing that's open for people. So kind of sometimes like what we do dispels those things and action real action happens and people change their opinions. >> Yeah. Let's just find a way to get collect that data after >> because I would argue not that we have this data but I would argue that we go back two years ago that number would have been in the 30s. >> Oh >> and now at least >> but action [laughter] but action did that right? You know what I mean? Not that we have that data but I think it's a good

167point Brian. So >> thank you. >> Okay. >> Other questions? Yes. >> I guess I have two questions. one uh well first of all thank you for how quickly you went through like the high level I appreciate um one how often does market rate adjustments do we need to relook at that >> is this going to be a yearly thing by yearly every couple years how often does that change >> it's a good question I think um I think one that we to we discussed briefly at the committee I don't know if we've weighed too deep into that yet um we we certainly don't want to overreact or underreact to something so certainly something the committee will take up but you know every two to three years an analysis could get done that way um

168you know sometimes there's anomalies with things you know these the sample size of these positions to not get too detailed >> some of these positions don't have massive sample sizes you know some of these districts have one is teacher >> right >> we so yeah I hope that answers it >> no yeah absolutely um my other question was we did pass a recurring $5 million >> so when I say to a teacher says to me where's the $5 million yearly coming back into the model. Can you explain that? >> Yeah, so that that actually is outside of the model. So their current salary with the 9% increase, that is the operating reform they passed. So if they ask that question, it's like that was what your increase was from 2425 to 2526. >> Thank you.

169Y >> yeah, the bulk of this commitment is board committed finance the dollars. So yeah. >> Okay, other questions from the board. Yeah, this car >> [gasps] >> I know there's a good reason for this, but I think I just need you to reexlain it to me. So, why are the steps um the letters of the alphabet and not one, two, and so on? >> Yeah, good good question. And something that will the years will actually come off when we're done. So, the years, as you kind of heard Courtney's explanation, without the numbers next to the letters to get to your question, it's kind of a long road. I apologize. the it is impossible to place an internal teacher without the years because you'd say 10 years what number is that I can't I have

170to count them a you know I have to do it really actually honestly I do so we need the years next to them to place people but when someone's coming in like picture this model in five years it will only have letters because the the steps don't actually represent years for some people if you're a school psychologist with no years of experience you're starting out at five >> Mhm. So you're [clears throat] that's not five years, that's just step five, which is whatever letter that is. I can't add them, right? Um so that's to I think Bob's point of does the model actually honor your years, hence the development of longevity stipen because I feel like it does to a degree, but not really the degree that what we talk about. Right. So um I

171hope that answers your question, Jane. Yeah, I heard that when I when I attended the meeting and I remember thinking, "Oh, >> that's important and that makes a lot of sense, but completely >> yeah, >> it left me. I need that." You'll jump those levels if you are if you're a bachelor and you go to a master. Well, >> go to a masters. You know, you'll be like, "Oh, I'm an H, but now I'm a J." And we're going to start hearing that language in a few years of the people going, "Well, I know if I'm in the steps and lanes and I jump here for this year." You're gonna hear people saying, "Well, I went from an H to an M or H to J." And like that's going to be the change versus

172I've been here seven years, but I'm at a nine. It's not going to work that way. >> Yeah. I think it'll be for populating the initial correct and then after that, you'll fade. >> Yeah. The the the the lane steps and lanes are are good when you're creating the model, but it creates a lot of confusion >> midstream. And I think that's where we are right now. And and when when uh Aaron came and debriefed with me over time like look you might want to hide that number. It was numbers there at first >> and now we went to the letters because it can it can really be a a confusing thing. That's what people first they hone in on that number and we don't want that to be the case. So that's that's another

173explanation for that. >> So I'm kind of viewing this in November when you guys get the handbook. They'll all there'll be an internal addendum in it which will be like a one-time thing. How did people get placed? That's a one-time thing, right? And that addendum will have the number for placement like for the ease of explaining placement, but after that it will not be there anymore. >> I'm Yeah, sorry. I'm thinking uh other people questions Mr. Becker. >> Uh kind of similar to Mr. Cow. saw the 52% staff completion. Did you find that encouraging, alarming? None of the above. It's just What do you think, Rachel? >> If it's compensation out, I I I guess I would have expected it to be a little bit higher, even if they're come even if they're responding to

174>> I think going back to one thing Courtney said is that if you look in the blue box on that slide, um it says that the employee group participation, so when we broke it down by that, it was almost 80% of professional educators that took the survey. So that's significantly higher than that 52% overall completion. And when we sent out the communication, it was very clearly explained in the communication that this particular round of compensation committee work was going to be addressed around professional educators compensation. So I think they probably had a more vested interest in providing the feedback. Um, so I think if you like look at it broken down like that, we actually had almost 80% of our professional educators take it, >> which I think is more encouraging than when you look

175at that 52% overall. >> Agreed. I had missed that rank, that wrinkle. Thank you. Um, >> I'll [snorts] also add this too. This was this was put out the same time as the uh the strategic plan survey and so Aaron and I kind of talked about that conflicting surveys. A lot of material out there. So >> survey fatigue. >> Yeah, exactly. So that that that could have definitely played. We >> And the other one I was going to say we were when we're talking about hopping from one lane to the other. So you know some of us get our masters in our 40s. So if somebody's been here for 15 years then they just jump right over on the same letter. They just jump over to that lane. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, if someone today

176has a bachelor's and they are placed next to you in the bachelor's lane and then we'll have a process for, hey, if you're going to finish your master's degree before June 30th, you'll have to submit this form and etc., etc. But then for the 2728, they would slide down and over. >> Great. >> Exactly. Exactly how you're thinking about it, Mr. Becker. Y >> thanks. >> Question. >> Just one more based off of the response to Mr. Becker. Um, since this round was really focused on the professional educators, when are the other employee groups being looked at? >> Yeah, good question. So, um, not that that not that the other groups are less important, just trying to tackle the bulk, right? So, that's kind of the why behind that. Um, but the goal here is

177for 267 to go through a similar process. I I would argue that in the current level of thinking in the internal committee it will be different in nature because there are it's much more complicated with employee groups we have people in positions that are the similar category of employment but very different positions >> and market rate I mean you might have 50 employees 42 of them are going to be specific to a certain trade so it's very difficult to do so um yeah we're hoping next year though yeah >> yeah just to add to that that that's one of the challenges that we're having right now is trying to identify where does every employee land. >> Yeah. >> And for example, the it's been the tradition districtwide where we have individuals who are labeled as

178a school secretary or secretary, but they don't do secretarial work. >> They're more like a clerk or more. So, it's kind of we really have to fine-tune where we are and identify specific categories for individuals and that will help us. So share we are already starting that process yeah of identifying how that looks other questions >> sure Mr. So this is a huge [clears throat] amount of work. So thanks for putting the time and effort into going through all the possibilities. This was discussed over a year ago. This is going to start. I was trying to think about I was doing this. How would I go about trying to get it done in a way that was going meaningful and that people would buy into and feel like they were being heard that we were

179answering the questions and [clears throat] solving the problems that were really there, not the ones that were perceived to be there. So I think that um via the surveying and ensuring that we're getting a diverse group of people to work on this and doing it over a longer period of time for the product that we have here in front of us today. So I understand that that is not something that happens overnight nor and I also understand that doesn't happen that's not well planned. So I want to thank you all for putting in the time and effort. I talk really loud to ensure that um uh that this can come forward before us because I think if it was something that the board had to come up and do, it wouldn't even be close to

180this because it'd be very very difficult for us to be able to um understand and really comprehend the needs um of a staff of as diverse and as as large as the one that we have. So, thank you for for taking on that task and for continuing this work uh [clears throat] so that we can get it to the finish line. That's first and foremost I wanted to say. I'm on the financial committee so I've seen some of this already before. Um my one question that I had was has there been any thought about how this could potentially be taken advantage of? And so what I'm talking about is we have our longevity bumps that happen at certain times and we are going to like competition unless something majorly changes in how education is funded

181in this state will never change. there always going to be people getting poached from this place to that place and someone getting a crazy contract offer to go over somewhere else. Has there any thought about someone doing that? working here um say year in year four gets a crazy contract off to work somewhere else for a year and then come back the next year for their you know within their seven years still then they get that big contract bump >> because for me the biggest thing that I want out of any competition compensation committee is consistency right we want people to stay >> we don't want the skipping back and forth between districts that we see now >> and so has there been any thought about rules about >> how many years you used to

182work here before and when you're going to be placed into this model because you could go and you're uh you're making more money there and then you come here and you get that five grand bump because you're you hit your sixth year >> and now yeah great but yeah but you were gone for a year and your your students lost that consistency or your staff your building that you're in lost that consistency. Yeah, I don't I mean I wouldn't say there's been extensive discussions, but I think the first thing I would think of is that my initial thought is that well the the model itself is market rate competitive. >> Are there pockets where it's slightly below, slightly above? >> Sure. Sure. I couldn't say that's not true. But I think the thought is even

183throughout the discourse of the referendum is that the thought is that will people stay if they're overpaid by a thousand? I would think so. overpaid, right? Would they stay if they're underpaid by a thousand? I think a lot of people that like where they work and like where they work and who they work with aren't leaving for a thousand. >> Sure. >> And I think that's what we're talking about. And I hope that the $5,000 raise creates a carrot for people who already like their job. >> Mh. >> That go, hey, I might get two grand this year. It's like, but you're going to get six grand next year. Like, I think people I think the discussion around employee retention is going to shift from financial into other things. And I think that's going to

184be a different level of work for the district about like what are we doing to address retention? Is it at certain schools? Is it in in certain employee groups? Is that employee group market rate? Like there's going to be deep dives into this stuff because it's going to have to be themes because I don't think it's going to be across the board financial. So could that happen? Yes. The other thing is they would lose a year of longevity to that >> because longevity is local to Bob's point. >> Y >> So you leave for one and you come back at five, you only got four. Mhm. >> So, I would I would say like the person that would do that probably doesn't like where they work that there must be another problem. I guess I

185shouldn't say doesn't like there's probably something else going on. Um, but could it happen? I'm sure it could. You know, anything's possible. So, >> and there's nothing built into the the program about, well, I worked here for 10 years and then I left for five years and then I came back. They're treated as an external employee as soon as they leave, right? There's no like I banked >> this much time. >> Yeah. If you if you have if you leave at your 10th year and work two and come back, you're going to get placed at 8. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And I think if if this all gets all passed or everything like that, that should be absolutely very clear in every exit interview for every staff member that leaves. >> Yeah. >>

186Like just so you know, >> like I want to make sure you're very clear on what you're deciding to do. >> Everyone you not that it's all comp You're right. It's not all because of money. There's other reasons that people leave jobs, but I think that that should like be like in the letter. Like just so you know, if you decide ever come back and you work here again, this is where you'd be placed. >> Yeah. I think and I think one of the one things that comes up, I don't want to say in every conversation, but I bet you when Rachel, Mike, Sarah, Janet, D and I go out to the schools and talk, one of the things that will be a theme is, so just so I'm clear, this will be teachers asking

187when you approve this model, it's not going to be when it's in place, deals get done. Mhm. >> It says eight and you're placing this person at 10. That that is the one thing that it like it's it's like a sour taste in teachers minds because it it's happened before. >> Oh, you're saying like outside of the plan. >> Yeah. Like if it's eight, it's eight. And if it's eight plus the delta, it's eight plus the delta. Like it's whatever's done is done. It's not like, well, we need to hire someone. It's August 28th. Yeah. >> It's like this is the plan. >> Yeah. >> And it's that's one of the challenges I think we're going to have to work through is like what do you do in that situation, right? So, but >> well

188that's where the reevaluation of market rate thinks that comes in, right? If you can't hire someone at that level be then that means that the market rate probably isn't where it needs to be. >> Yeah. >> But as I mentioned in the committee like I think it you can't overreact or underreact, right? You could have a spike in one particular position over year for whatever reason >> and we can't keep changing because it's going to be really hard to budget for that >> every single time if we keep moving the deltas around every single year. I think it needs to be kind of a pattern of a change and that you can see some sort of consistency to before you start making those delta changes. >> Sure. in my opinion. >> Can I comment just

189real quickly on that? I think one other [clears throat] thing that came up early on when we were comparing comp models in a [clears throat] like-minded but not exactly the same scenario, other districts have components that are connected to what I would say is like involvement categories and those are really subjective and I'll be honest like back to the bad taste or are things off the the table getting hired to be a essay or you know being a a scholarship essay reader or somebody being involved in x amount of times of additional PD. I think those are like shadow hours that like that could be anyone getting hired at any time to do those. If somebody's going to get pay bumped or scaled because they're the favorite or they got some sort of benefit, it

190would negate all of this work. I I will tell you as a 20-year veteran, the transparency need and the honoring of years comes back to that exact point. I mean, like it it needs to be that blunt, honest. I've been here this long and I've done this and this. It's not who I know where I was on the lucky favorite, you know, committee that got this other thing like that would destroy confidence. So, >> Mr. Pell, >> sorry, just two more things and this goes back to the conversation with with Mr. Lee here. Um, I would argue that staff needs to be clear of how leaving the district and trying to come back will impact them before an exit interview because at that point, it's already too late. they've already made the decision to leave

191and and most of them aren't going to change their mind in an exit interview. So, we need to do a good job of communicating that prior so that that that can be part of their decision-m process, right? If they're thinking they might just leave for a couple years for whatever reason. Um, the other thing, and it's not really related, but it kind of is just based off of your comment before, that's why exit interviews are so important because it never has been just compensation, right? Like that has probably been a big piece, but it's always been more than that. And if this is truly market competitive, we're going to have to start addressing those other issues if we haven't already. So, we need to identify what those things are and we need to make sure

192that we're putting the appropriate effort into making sure that we are putting the same type of resources into those issues as we are as all of you have into this. >> Thank you. Other questions, comments, suggest? Are you sure? >> Yeah. >> It's okay. You can come back in. >> Anyone else things, thoughts? No. Okay. Um I had a couple thoughts and one of the things and this is just from bouncing back and forth between both public and private life. Um the cap of the years of service I think it feels like it ties our hands. Um especially when we do need people and you know if you want to bring in somebody who's maybe we find somebody who's looking that's a teacher of the year nominee that's something else that we want to pull

193in but they're at 15 years we can't compete if we say well you can't make more than the person that's seven years in because then we and then we can't take advantage of their experience which I would expect that if we're hiring somebody that has more longevity that's been in teaching as a career They're going to come in and be able to help and train and work with our younger teachers and so they're going to be able to do theoretically more than what a seven or eight year teacher can do. Um I do really love the longevity bonus. I think that that's great. Um I guess when I I participated in a few of the meetings um and so I guess one of the questions that I had here is can the LEAP be a

194sliding component? Right. um where instead of it being that at this lane you get this which maybe you adjusted or whatever but you do continuous years of service at five years you get a bump because you've done it and then we can recognize people's years of service but they're not going to get that bump. So they come in they get their 15 years and then if they work for five years they get that first bump. That way, any of the people that are longevity-wise there for longer are going to make more overall by being there, but it's not going to tie our hands and say, "Well, we can't hire somebody at 15 years because we can only hire up to seven years because otherwise we can't we can't pay them." >> So, not to speak

195to the entirety of your point, but the scale was explored. The reason it was not proposed is because then every person would have their own comp model. Aaron would have his own based on when he came in. His scale would be moved down. It would be Aaron Norris's model. >> It wouldn't be a it wouldn't be a uniform scale because when you >> would be a uniform scale with the years of service and then the three pieces and then the only slider would be years of service. So at five years of service, you get this at and so that's the same piece for everybody. >> But the model is predicated on where you're placed and every five. So if you come in at three, it's in two. And if you're saying every person when they

196come in based on where they're at, the model this the scale changes. It would be in we'd have a model for every single scenario. >> If you come in at 6, it's going to be your retention's at 11, at 16, at 21. If you come in at 1, you're at 5, at 10. If you come in at 2, you're at 7, you're at 12. You see what I'm saying? >> I I do. I guess the thing that I'm also thinking of is if we're talking about making it where um we're validating people, right? If you bring in somebody that's at 15 years and you say, "Well, we're only paying you for seven years, you you've already started off on a bad relationship." Well, now well, one, we won't pay you enough. And then two, now

197you're kind of poison good because you're not being taken seriously as an educator and a professional for that entirety of your career. Like >> if I'm in the private community and I have 10 years of service and I can't get paid more than someone else who's only been in the community that I'm working in for 5 years, I'm like, well, I'm going somewhere else, right? That's not >> Yeah, I think that's not something to do. >> I think what the committee is saying is that we're looking to market to people eight years or less. I think that's the unfortunate trade-off of maintaining competitive salaries for our current employees and to just build up our base of people who don't leave. So eight turns into nine, nine turns into 10 and then I think that's the

198thinking >> which I would love but there's going to be places where we can't do that. I mean and and two on the market rate adjustments right we have those right that we can do. So if you come in with two years experience as a technology educator, you are you already have a bump of seven. So it's already putting you way up above. And so now when you're talking about well we have the halves and have knots as far as where you get bumped or don't get bumped. This delta bumps them outside of that too. >> Yes. >> And then we can't hire anyone who's in um technology education that has more than two years experience. Really? Well, no. It'd be it'd be this if they have seven, they go to eight plus the seven,

199they'd be at 15, >> right? But then we also have the piece of no person will get no external hire will get paid more than a seven-year internal, >> right? So all all of our teched people will get scaled to that. So if any of our wood shop teacher, if they have two years is going to move to where we hire someone externally at, >> yeah, >> they're they're not going to get paid less. >> They're going to get the delta plus two $2. Yeah, >> they're moving all internal people to where >> Yeah. Where they should be, right? >> It is a conundrum from a hiring standpoint though. Correct. Like it is >> right. Like you're going to have the trade-off like Erin is saying from the financial standpoint is that you're somewhat >>

200uh stuck hiring people at external candidates, right? >> Seven years or less because that's all we can pay them to, >> right? But I think that was the rational is that it's financially sustainable. And this goes back to the infancy of steps and lanes like pre-act 10 for those of you who worked in that environment. People didn't leave when they had 20 years because no one would pay them for 20 years of service. It was it was >> equally the truth >> along with people didn't leave. >> It was like the second reason. You know what I mean? So it's not like this is a madeup thing. This is this is consistency with other districts too. Okay. I guess I would still be concerned that because [clears throat] of the environment that we live in,

201as Mr. Lee said, that other groups will poach us and then market rate is going to be jumping up and down and it's because they're going to be like, well, they're making this and so we're not going to be able to compete. Um I if if we want to limit ourselves to seven years or less, I think that does us a disservice for both experience and expertise and leadership within the schools and it does tie our hands. So that's my concern. I love what you guys have done. I love all the work that you guys have done. I'm just concerned from a hiring standpoint. If we get our hands tied with something, then we're gonna there's going to be points where it gets broken and then we're going to be back to the point where

202it's like, well, all right, well, it's broken and then we go here and we go there and so it's not going to be consistent. >> So, that would that would be my concern um for moving this forward. >> Yeah. And I I think to just be very honest, I think the committee just weighed into that concern and there we at this point we don't know how to resolve that without making the whole the rest of the system unattractive from a market perspective. I think that's the that's the rub >> to do that would mean what >> I think that's the challenge. >> Okay. Um yeah, sorry. >> Clearly I lied. So sorry, integrity is not my big thing tonight. Um I I I think what I'm hearing from this conversation is that we are banking

203on this model doing what we've been trying to do for a while and that's to increase employee retention. So if we in increase employee retention, we're going to be going out to market for these positions hopefully a little bit less frequently. Um so hopefully again hopefully right that this will be less of an issue. But I think going back to one of the things that we like to look at all the time anyway because it tells us stories is we're going to have to pay very close attention to the data because we do not want to get too far behind that curve if it is becoming an issue. So we're going to have to monitor that regularly if we're seeing some challenges. We might have to raise our hand and take a look at this

204a little bit more quickly than we thought we had to. But it depends on what the data is going to tell us because we also can't jump too quickly, right? We have to make sure the accurate is telling a complete and accurate story. >> Mr. Lee. >> Yeah. Another piece that um we talked about in committee was that when we talk about market rate, it's not only just what the other districts are paying, but how difficult are we having in hiring a particular position. So the deltas that are built into the system are not just based on what other districts are paying. But if we can't hire a first grade teacher no matter what then that changes that is something that tells us we need to change the delta for that position so that we

205can hire a first grade teacher. So that's not something that was talked about, but it was talked about in committee. And I think it was an important point because it provides more flexibility and it provides the ability to pivot when needed when particular positions become harder to fill even though we might be paying what is considered market rate for our area. >> Basically, supply and demand can be different per district for a variety of reasons. >> Precisely. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Lee. Other questions? Yes, Mr. Veros. >> Hey, I'm just sitting here. [laughter] >> Hi, I'm here. Well, isn't there now, and I know, and I'm sure that there's a clear answer here, but isn't there a a a possible structural option to resolve what President Burns is concerned about using the Delta

206structure to give a value to uh an outside hire based on their their tenure elsewhere? There's no way to build a system on that that shows a reflected value. the >> the challen the challenge is affordability. So if we increase seven to 15 and the 4,000 cap applies to people north of 15, the number you saw would exponentially increase. >> Okay. >> That it it's it's just a financial >> Yeah. As I was looking at the Delta thing, I'm like, "Yeah, maybe there's a Okay. Yeah. All right. I get it. Thanks." No, >> one suggestion that pops to mind is making that uh that 10-year bump uh more comparable to the 5year rather than 3500 you have it at 5,000. And I understand it throws off your calculations entirely. But if that's our focus is

207trying to make sure we're we're we're catching that then is that a way to kind of uh alleviate that seven-year. >> Oh, yeah. I was going to say that. >> Yeah. Just that I mean some some kind of compromise between the two concerns and then I think maybe that keeps the people I I believe we we've had the it's 0 to five we keep them and then five to 10 they're out the door. So, if we can keep that carrot out there, I don't know if 1,500 bucks is enough to make you stay another five years in a district >> where you're not happy, but um something >> No, I'm saying make it five at five years and five at 10 years. If you want to keep them a little bit longer, make our skew

208our experience just a little bit >> further down the road. Yeah. >> Disrespect. >> Yeah. >> And and I would agree. I would agree, Mr. Becker. I think I think the challenge here is that like kind of with Mike's point with residual CPI, that example he gave where there was a $737 left per employee. How that would actually play out. This speaks to your question a bit, is the 737 is what the average employee would get. Well, how would that get outlined to all employees? It might mean an initial teacher, the first cell on your paper might go up by $290. And the power of the 290 at the beginning ends up giving the person at the bottom like $1,100. >> So [clears throat] like one little change on here by a,000 bucks might go

209from 2.6 million to 3.1. Mhm. >> And it might be nominal, but as the 1500 compounds and multiplies across, you know, 500 people, little changes. I think I changed one time here from five 50,875 to 60, which is like $125. And Mike's like, "Yeah, that was 150 grand." >> Yeah. >> It's just things like that. You know what I mean? So, >> and absolutely. And that's just that that's really more like like a strategy question about if that's the strategy or the philosophy that we want to take, if that's the emphasis. It's just like uh >> yeah, >> you know, we like when we're doing benefit design in my day job, it's the same kind of thing. Like if we want to have an algorithm that tells us where we want to invest our benefits,

210well, we can just do a little every benefit gets one point, but the ones that really matter like, you know, stars, quality scores, that kind of stuff, maybe that's a two or three. And then like you just build in >> right >> those extra funds where you really want those funds to go, where you want the people to be. >> Um, and whether the board's interested in bumping up that figure, if it's that important, if it's a if it's a make or break kind of a thing where it's going to push our quality or our our test scores higher or >> I don't know if it's going to push us in the direction we want, is it worth investing in? >> Yeah, it absolutely could be done if the budget to do it went up.

211>> Yeah. And I I know I think somebody else had asked like what what was the what was the idea for revisiting the model? >> Um was retention of staff and predictability of their future. >> Oh, I meant as far as like at what point will we review these numbers? Was it uh was it every two years? Was it every three years? >> Yeah, I think every year the board in my opinion talking with Dr. Rob, we got to flush out a little bit would be to have like an annual compensation meeting or you guys would get in the weeds of how many people did get an approved masters, how many people are sliding down, what's our retirement data look like and try to get a line of like what's that going to look like

212in terms of movement and then depending on the cadence of market rate, there'd be a review in that. And I think that's where we'd have to team with HR really deeply to go like where are we seeing are we seeing themes in exit interview data? Are we seeing themes in employee resignations at different positions or at schools? I think it would need to be a pretty fleshed out cadence of workshop with that because I think that you put your money where your mouth is, right? Like back back the work by putting dollars behind it. So I >> I don't know if it's off the table. I just think it might be something that's to come, you know? >> Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is definitely not trying to again make you rework all this stuff

213just down the road. Food for thought. >> Yeah. >> I've been [laughter] thinking for two hours. I know. I know. >> Yeah. >> I'm gonna put her on the spot. Toby, did you have any comments about every all of this stuff that was talking [laughter] about, >> all this important stuff? I think honestly the only thing that I've really been thinking like throughout the whole thing is that I think this is like um well I had a thought and then it escaped me. >> Um >> I don't know a lot of the teachers and staff at my school are a lot of like the most influential people in my life. So, I think like having them have a say in this kind of stuff and like even if it's like even a little bit, I

214think that's really good because I know a lot of them do leave because of like pay and stuff. So, yeah, that's my thoughts on that. >> So, you can go to school tomorrow and you're going to tell them what >> what are you going to tell them with those teachers? [laughter] >> She's tired. >> No kidding. >> Yeah. Um, yeah. I don't I don't know what I would tell them. >> Yo, you can start by saying Yeah, you can start by saying I I saw 50 plus slides. >> Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I can't start by that. >> Anor special. [laughter] >> It was under 65. >> Yeah. >> Dr. Morris. >> It was It was 50 minutes. [laughter] >> Um, all right. other questions from the board. I know we're we're kind of lingering and

215yeah, I think you guys have done a fabulous job. I know that we're asking questions and I know that part of it is because we haven't been involved in the entire process and we do appreciate all that you've done and I do want this model to be reflective of what the teachers and the staff really want. Um, and just like I said, my concern is tying our hands because if we tie our hands, it's going to make exceptions and exceptions will mean that the rules get broken. Um, so that that would be where I would just kind of as you guys are moving forward, how do we how do we get rid of those exceptions and make it some work so we have less? Well, maybe um that would be my only thing. But I

216think you guys have done fabulous. I love what you're presenting. I love the ideas that you're bringing. Um, and I think this is really good work and I hope I hope to see more of it and keep watching it get refined here over the next little bit and I hope the staff responds well to it um as you guys present it. So um >> thank you. >> Yeah, thank you so much for your time and appreciate it. So thank you. >> I got to get reorganized here. >> Oh well, is there any other business? >> Yep, you are. [laughter] If there is no other business, then we can um and there's no objection uh we can adjourn our meeting for tonight. >> Move to approve item 13, end of recording and adjournment. >> Well, now

217there's a motion on the on the floor. >> Now that there's a motion on the floor, I need is it >> second. >> All right. The motion has been moved and seconded. Are there any other uh questions or things on the motion? No. All right. All in favor? >> I I >> Those opposed. All right. We are adjourned.