001Hi, good evening. It is 6 p.m. The Board of Trustees of the Brenham Independent School District is now convened. I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present. Sorry, just one second. All right. Well, in collaboration with our families and community, Brenham ISD is committed to providing an exceptional education for all students in a safe environment. As a Brenham ISD Board of Trustees, we are here to provide local citizen governance and oversight. The management and day-to-day operations of the district are the responsibility of the superintendent. This is a public meeting of the Board of Trustees. School board meetings are open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed. Audience participation is limited to the public comment portion of the meeting. These proceedings are recorded and I respectfully ask that you please
002refrain from talking while others are speaking. Thank you for taking time this evening to join us for your interest in the Brenham Independent School District. At this time, Kyle Hafner will say the pledge followed by the invocation given by Sean Koontz. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for another day of life. We know we weren't guaranteed this day as the fact that we woke up and we're here means that you have something for us to do. Lord, we're thankful for the rain and Lord, we thank you for our health. Father, we thank you for a community that truly cares about its students and its kids and its future. And Lord, we just thank you for the opportunity to serve in this capacity. Pray that we do it well. Lord, we ask for clarity and also
003humility. We ask for wisdom. Help us to seek the good, especially for those who need it the most, as we seek to make decisions that is what's best for our community. And Lord, that we never get sideways with personal agenda or anything like that, so that, Lord, as we go forward, that we know that we've done something good that you would say well done to. And Lord, just pray for the remainder of our time together. Lord, it is a time where our community is lifted up and moved forward. In your name we pray. Amen. Okay, can I get Coach Spivey and Coach Jojo to walk up here to recognize the Cub baseball? Appreciate it. Appreciate you guys having us out. It's a long list. Most of them are on vacation or still playing. Thankful these
004two guys could join us. Pretty good year, 24-13 and one, just a couple accolades. Didn't lose a game for over a month at one point. First outright district championship since 2017. First district championship since the addition of the College Station ISD and Montgomery ISD schools into the district. Told Mr. Steele here, there's three juniors on this list, I'll get to them, but was notified at the All-Star game. Almost two weeks ago that we're now tied for the most selections by a single school in the Greater Houston Baseball Coaches Association Futures game and currently hold the record for most starters in that game set by our three juniors this year who all three started. One pitcher for each team and Owen Finke started at third. So pretty good year. Testament to these guys and their work.
005I'll start with our seniors and work down. Senior Jace Miller, honorable mention, academic all-state. Senior Caleb Maurer, honorable mention, academic all-state. Senior Landry Mendoza, second team, all-district second base and second team, academic all-state. Senior Dawson Kime, second team, all-district pitcher. Senior Drake Benke, unanimous first team all district designated hitter, first team all state outfielder, elite team academic all state, maybe the only time I'll get to say valedictorian for our baseball kid. So I got to throw that one in there. Yeah, there's still hope, man. Senior Dalton Hart, who's here with us tonight, unanimous first team all district shortstop, second team academic all state. Senior Brody Tucker, unanimous first team all district catcher and a Greater Houston Baseball Coaches Association senior all-star. Junior Braden Steele, unanimous first team all district pitcher, was a Greater Houston Baseball
006Coaches Association all-star in the Futures game. Junior Owen Finke, unanimous first team all district third baseman, was also a Futures all-star. And Junior Luke Hardy was our District 17 5A MVP. third team All-State first base and was also a Futures Game All-Star. For these guys, just an excellent representation of not only our baseball program, but our athletic program, our school, and our community as a whole. And we look forward to these two and their continued success inside and outside of our school and our program. So appreciate it. Okay. We didn't have anybody sign up for public comment, so we will move right into a... Junior high science department donation. I did not want to butcher your last name. I apologize for not saying it. Sarah, would you mind? Can you pronounce it for us? Chile.
007You want me to try it? Okay. Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Chilele. Chilele. There you go. See, I was scared for nothing. I've been dreading that all day. I should have asked ahead of time. Thank you so much. Yes, so we are bringing today, I'll let them share their story and passion for science education. Last year, we were very fortunate that they also gave a donation and sent two of our middle school teachers to the CAST conference, which these two science teachers are really excited to attend. And then they're doing it again this year, and it's going to be junior high. And so we are so honored. honored and appreciative of your gratefulness and your commitment to help improve science education in Burnham ISD. So yeah. Well, my wife and I, Lori and I are both
008science teachers. I started up in Maine and then I taught in Victoria, Texas, and then we've ended our careers in North Carolina, all teaching science. And in between there, we also met and got married at Johnson Space Center because we were in the education branch at NASA there for a while. So we have this background, long-term background. 32, 40 some odd years in and out of public education, private education as well. But we also found a need that a lot of kids go to the four-year college. We've had a strong desire to take a look at students that are going to a non-traditional two-year program. We're also funding a scholarship for them. Paired up with that is we want to give an opportunity to teachers also to go to science conferences to enhance their education
009get some more experience and also provide a funds for materials so these $2,000 per person is going to be for their registration their hotel their travel and a part of that will be for purchasing materials for the classroom Once you get those kids fired up with something whether you're blowing something up or cutting something up or just getting excited about it it carries a long ways reading maths all those are folded into science and we think that's a way to go and we've done that in our careers and we want to make sure this continues with uh here in this community here in brendan as well Based on the history of my students being in both of these teachers classes, this is a fantastic donation and I look forward to seeing how they use this
010donation because I know it participating in the pig pluck and other events in their classes it's it's a lot of fun and the kids enjoy it and so I look forward to seeing what happens here with with this donation and then document it and bring it back to Burnham ISD. And yeah, I'm happy to go ahead and make the motion to accept the monetary donation from the Chileleys for the Brenham Junior High School Science Department as presented. I'll second. Okay. Jess and Colleen made a motion, seconded by Sean Kuntz, to accept a monetary donation from the Chileleys for the Brenham Junior High School Science Department as presented. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all again so much for your support of Brenham ISD. Yes, please, please, please, please. Okay, next we're
011going to start. Doing this as the bond gears up to where we're gonna have maintenance and facilities updates so we can kind of see where we stand with The progress on everything we have going on in the district So I'd like to invite the representative representative from rice gardener to come up. Do you have some say? Yeah, I just introduced here Eric Come on up, please Eric squally with rice and gardener they are our project managers for all the construction work being done from the deferred maintenance bond that was was passes this past November so Very excited to get monthly updates from Eric kind of what's been going on and what's to come and He's ready for questions. So y'all y'all fire away. Thank you. Thank you Eric for being here. You won't have to
012tell me next time. All right I got a couple of slides nothing nothing Nothing too great, but just to kind of give us some place to start from Well, we're excited to be here. It's been a couple of months since You all invited me here and let me know that Bryson Garner was going to be part of this important bond program, and we're very excited to get started. And one of the things that when I met with Clay and the team when we were doing our interview process, one of the things we talked about was hitting the ground running, and something that stuck in my brain from the SPC meeting, and I believe Archer said a number of times, I'm going to summarize it, but it's slow down, hurry up. He had said a couple
013of times, we need you guys to move fast but slow enough that we don't make any mistakes. So that's something my grandfather used to always tell me, slow down, hurry up. So it kind of stuck in my brain, so I thought I'd share that with you all tonight. So on the agenda for, can I point and click? The other arrow that will do it. All right. So on the agenda is just kind of introduce our team Make sure everybody knows who's who who's going to be around the schools over the next couple of years as we're going through this bond program Kind of the first 90 days that hit the ground running and what we've been doing since the contract was signed on May 12th and then any questions that you all might have so
014The team is myself, principal in charge, but the main folks that you'll see the most is Jessica Cooksey. She is our senior program manager. She'll be working on this project hand-in-hand with a gentleman named Patrick Cooper. Patrick is dedicated to this project, and you'll see his face a lot. He has spent a lot of time with Scott over the last... week we've been doing some campus visits i'll share that here in a minute amanda andrus is also part of the team she does a lot of the behind the scenes work a lot of our billing she does a lot of research she she is invaluable in in our world and then we also have mark benton out of our college station office as we're getting into the projects and we're going to start bidding projects
015and and putting them out to the market We wanted to make sure that we cast a wide net to get as many GCs or trades partners involved as possible. We know that there'll be some here locally, but we wanted to try to hit some surrounding areas and we're sure they'll also be coming out of the big areas like Houston. So that's our team. And like I said, you'll see them around. So kind of the hit hit the ground running These were some initial bullet points that I had on our presentation when we met a few months back and since then I've got some sub bullets because we've been moving on some things so we said, you know, we need to do a kickoff meeting with the administrative team as well as the maintenance and and
016get the design consultants involved and We've already done that We we had a meeting with Christie and Scott and and some other folks from maintenance as well as one of the design partners just to go through the list the Priority list that you all have all probably seen in different meetings We started there and started going through that list in a about a three-hour meeting one afternoon in the maintenance area and went through job by job and had some conversation and kind of reviewed that project list. And then from that, we discussed priorities in the current state of the facilities and other questions that came up. So one of the things that we talked about is really understanding the scope, and that kind of leads us into the next bullet, which is the structured approach
017and developing the technical design criteria. And what I mean by that is in scope development, yes, we're going to Change an air handler, but some of your buildings are are pretty old and that may have a domino effect If we start changing some things in a building it may trigger code issues That that have costs associated to it And so we need to be able to identify those and make sure everybody's aware of that as we're moving down the road we also may open up a can of worms of The a word I don't want to say it out loud I'm hoping we don't find it but asbestos, you know in old buildings you find those sort of things or or other things water damage That can that can be had in buildings. So we
018don't know that it exists, but as we're moving forward We'll find those things out and so there will be costs and we'll be able to share that with the board and in the community and make sure everybody's aware of what we're trying to accomplish So from that, we set up site walk visits. They're in progress. Our last two will be done this week. We're doing the middle school and the junior high, which the junior high I'm excited to go into because I've heard lots of stories. So I'm looking forward to seeing the junior high. And then we'll be doing some scope validation. And we're collecting data and making sure we understand the ramifications. You don't just take a chiller out of a room. We may have to knock down walls. We may have to do
019other things structurally. There's, like I said, those domino effects. So we're trying to figure that out with our data collection right now. We're going to develop, we've developed a scope sheet, and it'll be something that we'll present at some other time. But it's showing what we have looked at in kind of our notes from these walkthroughs. And that'll go into developing an executable plan. Nothing. worth of doing is done without a plan. So we will put together a plan and how we're going to execute that and that will come with a schedule and costs and we'll bring it to the board and give you a recommendations on what those next steps are. And that budget pricing exercise will be important. Really, the sooner we can get some numbers that we feel comfortable about that allows
020us to start making some decisions on what makes sense and how to best use. taxpayer money and then we're focusing on the areas that were identified in the RFQ mainly mechanical and roofing and waterproofing are pretty much the lion's share of the scopes of work but there's some electrical some plumbing there's some interior work that needs to be had and then you know obviously a da compliance and any other issues that come up that we may identify so kind of moving Continuing through these first 90 days, we're going to be building that master schedule. We'll engage the design teams. Once the design teams are under contract and everybody's ready to move forward, we will identify these scopes with them and cut them loose to put the documents together so we can take it out to
021the market and start that procurement plan. How we procure things may be different. school by school, trade by trade, we're going to look for the best opportunity to be good stewards of the finances, whether that is bundling some things together with purchases so that we can get the best pricing and or with certain contractors so that we can get the best pricing for the district and make that money spread as far as we can. We'll meet with the permitting officials in... The local area make sure they understand what we're going to be doing ahead of time so that we don't run into any issues as we get into Into the projects and then transparent communication. That's one thing that we heard over and over and over again at the SPC meeting and That's how we
022operate. So you'll hear a lot of Communication from me when we come here and or one of my compadres that are not here tonight But you'll hear that information throughout we believe in being transparent. So That's kind of just a quick summary again. We've only been up and running for 30 days but we've we've hit the ground running feel pretty good about where we're at and We'll continue to move forward this week with our site visits. So I'll open it up if there's any questions think was a great overview we look forward to the reports coming up because I know once we start getting into it we'll have a lot more but yeah we're just like Archer said we're gonna go fast we want to be thorough and I know the community is looking forward
023to seeing some progress and hopefully we can get some stuff done this summer that's critical before the school starts but thank you so much yeah I just want to comment on one thing so trying to find some things that we can get done this summer Community is not going to see some of the things that we need to do. Right. You know it's not it's not the aesthetics it's it's the maintenance. So they won't be able to physically see that it may affect a classroom or maybe what teachers feel but they may not see what we do. So we're going to have to be really good at communicating what that is. And there are some of those items that are more aesthetic. on the interior side and we're looking at that list with Scott and
024seeing if there's any opportunities to maybe try to get some of those done this summer we know everybody wants to see some progress but we also want to make sure we're being good stewards of the finances okay well we appreciate that I know I've been approached by some people already but you know we have a fantastic media group here that when y'all speak here can help us get the message out so just the more information you can give us whenever we're on these updates it'll be easier for the community to hear it so thank you again great thank you um before you run away i've got a few questions um in no specific order here first of all um you mentioned code um we're not doing new construction so some of that shouldn't be an
025issue correct i mean we're not building up to If you build over $50,000 in a building, you do construction up to $50,000 ADA code, you have to upgrade all the premises to ADA code. Right. So when I speak of code, that's just one. There's lots of building codes. But when you talk about the communication and education building, that is. That can open up lots a lot of worms lots of cans of worms there correct, so we have to be very specific on the scopes of work that we can get accomplished and You could spend the lion's share of your budget at that building alone with Some of the issues it has with asbestos and everything else every time we touch something it'll trigger a code issue there So we've got to be very careful As
026to how we go about doing that work okay and that also the follow-up to that was you said permits since we're not doing a new since we're not doing new construction are we having to permit as the city told you we have to permit uh individual jobs because if you're replacing a um a chiller or an air handler or you're replacing a doing some plumbing repairs at a different whatever it is are they really asking you to do permits on all these and do you have a guy that we haven't met with them yet okay we're just getting the scope It can be because it depends on what it triggers. You're just swapping a toilet. No, that's not an issue. But if you are having to renovate to bring it up to code from an
027ADA perspective in that restroom and you're having to make sure that the stalls are the right size and you've got water fountains at the right height and you've got all of these things, that'll trigger city inspections. Really? Yeah. It's commercial construction is pretty pretty strict as to what we can and cannot do so that's why we'll have an architect and engineers on board and they will put the drawings together and We'll take it to the city and explain to them what we're trying to get accomplished and hopefully some of the things we won't have to Permit, but I'm expecting Like the roof replacement it'll have to be permitted So you can't just go up and do a million dollar job and not permit it. So just giving you an example I know you mentioned about
028the aesthetic stuff versus the things that the teachers will feel honestly, that's our job to communicate What is being done that is being helpful? I care about knocking out as many of those things as possible whether they're flashy or not I'd rather knock out replacing the air replacing the plumbing your place and water. I don't necessarily care about the flashy optics up front because that's our job to take care of that and we'll do that. I just want you to get in there and get it done as soon as possible. Preferably instead of 90 days, 60 days because that's when we go back to school. I don't know if you have a list of what you're planning on attacking in the next 30 to 60 days or if that's even been created yet, but do
029you have a list of what you're shooting to accomplish in 60 days? Not here with me tonight. still developing that we won't finish the walkthroughs until this week so we like I said we started middle of May graduation was the next week Scott could not dedicate any time to us that week so The following week we started meeting and going to different campuses and we're working around other schedules. There's cleaning schedules and other things that are going on in schools that prohibits us from being able to get into the space. So we're working through all those issues right now. Just one more question. First of all, thanks for coming. Appreciate it. Do you anticipate, and maybe this is too early to say, so you may not be able to, where we're like, we need to
030go and repair this, that, and the other, but we may see something like, we can't do anything on that right now because it would trigger too many different things. Is there anything that we're anticipating, or is that something we just need to wait on to look at? I'm just going to use the ComEd building as an example. I don't have all the data here in front of me, but Some of the work there is going to trigger some some major dominoes that you all in the community is going to have to decide is this where we want to spend our money because it can be. You all seen that it's an old movie I'm a date myself but is a movie out in a money pit. I'm not saying by any means that historical beautiful
031building is a money pit. I'm just saying that because. There's so many items that need to be addressed. If we go and change the HVAC and we don't do anything to the exterior glass windows and you have this large sucking sound of great air, now you have a humidity problem and everybody's like, I thought you changed the air conditioning. So we have to understand. all the ramifications. It's not just we're going to switch out an air handler. If it was that simple, and it might be at some of the newer schools, let's say here at the high school, it may be that simple in some instances. But in some of these locations, it's not going to be that easy. Thank you so much. We look forward to hearing next month's. Okay, great. Thanks, everybody. Thank
032you. Okay, we are now going to go into board member reports and comments. Kyle, I think I started with Archer last time. I'll turn my I'm good now. I'm anything just glad it's summer I guess I'll be the long-winded one today. I'm going to be quick. I'm going to be quick. So Clay posted today on social media, but if you don't follow Clay's social media page, it's a good page to follow. Clay Gillentine, Burnham ISD School Board Superintendent. But he posted that three of the board members here, we got to attend the TASB Summer Leadership Institute. So it was a good weekend of continuing education, networking with other school board officials and school board trustees. It was, you know, some great. programs there throughout the week and it was a lot of fun. So today
033I went and picked up my kids food for the summer meal program. Cassandra was going to text me an account but I haven't gotten it yet so I know they're probably still distributing meals over there today. It was still 6 and 6.30, but they're probably still going. But there was a good line there all day, so I know there are a lot of kids that came through or families that came through and got their meals today. I walked through the middle school when I was there this morning and saw a lot of summer maintenance going on, so I appreciate Scott and his team and the maintenance that's going on at the middle school through the rain and everything going on. There's a lot of desks in the hallways and a lot of floors getting polished
034and cleaned, so I appreciate all the work that those teams are doing. And then athletics, we've got a lot of... So many students involved in sack camps and sports training throughout the summer, being involved in doing all these camps. There was a soccer camp going on down the hallway right now a little bit ago. So it's just cool to see all that stuff going on. I think the baseball camp starts tomorrow for third through sixth graders. So, you know, we see football players, volleyball players, soccer players, basketball, baseball, all the sports are covering the summer and doing work. And there's some open gyms for the cheer team going on in the evening. So there's just a lot of activities going on that, you know, special thanks to all those coaches and sponsors. and staff that
035are participating in opening up the facilities for all these students to take advantage of some workouts throughout the summer. So that's all I got. I don't know what else I could say except we did get our training this summer. As you know, we do have to get training in order to stay on the board. And so we got a lot of opportunities to learn more and visit with other school districts and find out what they're doing. We find that a lot of them have some of the same issues we have, but we also feel like we're... ahead of the game in some cases so and also i'm i'm planning to volunteer for the summer meals program i don't know if you've done it yet but if you are out there anybody if you have some
036time you can find out more and find out how you can help volunteer so that everybody gets fed this summer thank you I just wanted to say thank you to all the different student body organizations around Brennan that has stepped up with the meal program. I know after the first one it was a little overwhelming, kind of got the word out, and I know I had a message today on SportsU, mandatory for anybody playing soccer, get your up there and load some meals. So I do want to say thank you to sports program, theater program, any program, NBISD that's stepping up to help out with this. I think, I don't really think we understood. how big this was going to be when we started it and then we're so fortunate that that it is so
037it's it's amazing but anyway thank you to all the all the organizations stepping up to help out because the food service crew is uh they were pretty overwhelmed after the first one okay all right next uh i'll invite miss mary gold up to talk about the essa title grant application Hi, Board. I'm Mary Gold. I'm your Federal Programs Coordinator. And I do have to say this is a first. I've never been in the middle of the meeting. I'm usually at the beginning or the end because this is a public hearing, so the public has the opportunity to make comments. Every year we... Burnham ISD applies for the S federal grant, which is Every Student Succeeds Act. This act is made up of four smaller grants, which are Title I, Title II, Title III, and Title
038IV. So I'm going to kind of give you a quick overview of them. It is nothing new. You heard this all last year and the year before that and the year before that. So just kind of quickly to go over this. Title I, this year we are awarded $1,200,000. $216,971 from the federal government. This goes to our Title I campuses, which you know that we have five Title I campuses. The majority of the money is divided among those campuses based on their number of low-income families. We currently... For payroll, we pay for STEAM teachers, coaches, some instructional aides. We do pay for some stipends, mentor and PLC facilitator stipends, as well as a literacy instructional coach. Out of this money, we pay for professional development. We also contract with Region 6 to help us out
039with some of that PD. have supplies and materials we must but per the federal government we must have a homeless reservation and we must spend a portion of this money on parent and family engagement and then any other costs that's related to anything professional development travel food any of those kind of things that is title one um title two title two this year we're getting 206 000 500 two hundred six thousand five hundred and thirty four dollars and that Britain ISD will spend this money on a district instructional coach as well as some PLC facilitator stipends we also out of this fund pay for professional development as well as some curriculum and again any professional development travel cost will come out of this fund This fund is strictly for teachers and for professional development. Title
040I mostly goes or does go to your students where Title II goes to your faculty and staff. All right, Title III. This year we do have a little change in Title III thanks to Sarah Montes who is a great addition to... We have two grants coming in under Title III. We have our Title III grant, Part A, which is $87,982. We are also receiving $11,750 under Title III for our immigrant students. We pay for out of this our literacy instructional coach and again professional development any kind of curriculum and any travel costs anything having to do with Food any of those kind of things out of title three title four We pay for our STEAM teachers, again, professional development technology, any kind of STEAM supplies, and any kind of travel, professional travel costs that may
041come with that. And this year we're receiving $87,982 for that. One small question slash clarification. In our board book on Title III, it says that we're receiving $64,411 and then an additional $11,750. And then Title IV serves to be $87,000. So is it $64,000 or $87,000? You are correct. It is 64. I apologize. No, no worries. I just want to make sure I got the numbers right. You are correct. It is 64. I was excited. I thought there was 20,000 extra. I was like, yes. Right. It is actually, yes, it is 64,000 under Title I, and then the 11,000 is for the immigrant. The 87,000 is Title IV. I do apologize. No need. I just want to make sure we got the numbers right. Thanks for all the hard work. I know this is not
042easy to do you guys staying after so thanks for all that How does this how does this just clarification? How does it stack up for? Between like the the last last couple years is this an increase is about is it staying the same as far as these awards? Kind of depends on the grant. I mean, like, Title I, I think, is an increase, not by much. Title I, it's an increase of $26,000 from last year. You're good. Under Title II, it is... We had a decrease of $18,000 for Title II. In Title III, we had an increase of $3,000 for this year. And then in Title IV, we have an increase of about $1,300. So it's about the same. And again, this is what we are allocated or start with. That doesn't mean this is
043what we end up with. So please note that. Like in August when they do their final evaluation, they could take money away or they could add money. It just kind of depends. Does anybody on the board have any more questions? Or is there anybody in the public that would like to discuss something for the district to consider at this time on the ESSA? Guys, are you all good? Okay, again, thank you so much. We appreciate it. We'll try to put you in the middle more often worked out perfectly Okay, next our chief academic officer Sarah Bohart will present information on a social studies instructional materials Hi, you can see in your, good evening, you can see in your board book where I kind of explained what we're doing. We are in a, the last time
044social studies curriculum or instructional materials came up for proclamation in the state of Texas was in 2015. So that has been 10, 11 years since Burnham ISD has purchased materials for social studies. We know right now that the State Board of Education and TEA is looking to revise and go out for proclamation in 2030. They're reviewing materials, looking at the student expectation and the TEKS. As the school board and Burnham ISD have worked over the last two years to really increase access to high quality instructional materials, we have purchased ELAR, we have purchased math, we have purchased science, social studies teachers have continually come to the Leading and Learning team and asked and requested for a supplemental bridge, if you will, for the next three years to have materials. So we went and met with
045some of our team leads that are strong social study department chairs and experts here in the district, our teacher leaders, sixth through 12th grade, and previewed one or two, and HMH, who also has our ELAR. was able to give us like a textbook for each classroom so each student would have like a the textbook and then a digital license as well and then a teacher digital license to just kind of be a stop gap for three years to have some good materials that and they can use as we continue to also follow the teaks follow the student expectations use our teaks resource system so it'll be a multitude of ways this is supplemental but it's definitely a need that we see that we need to fill so we're asking the board to honor the three-year
046quote for seventy three thousand one hundred and five dollars that will be coming from TEA's EMAT fund so it's a state fund that we are able to use to purchase State Board of Education approved materials and I'm assuming that it's allotted specifically for curriculum base oh yes absolutely I always want to make sure we get that out there makes it yes for instructional materials in technology Sarah I forgot What grade levels are these gonna fix through 12 6 or 12? Yes, it's secondary. It's to supplement right now Our elementary is utilizing some are using social studies like the social studies weekly Supplemental and then also we have Savas digital access Savas is our science for our elementary and so they're utilizing that as a supplemental that we've really seen a need in secondary our advanced
047Placement courses also are coming and asking for materials to this will not be for those particular courses But there is a need in secondary, especially when you differentiate the courses and the content so just for those of us who are School bless you out of school a long time when we talk about social studies. What is all that encompass, please? So it accomplishes like world history geography Texas history like all all the different Yeah, it's not just social studies it like encompasses any history maps geography world history all of that world's good We don't use 2015 maps then right? Right, but they are coming up 2030 is when they'll go back out in proclamation. So this is really just supplementing It's not a full adoption at all All right, I'll go ahead and make the
048motion to approve the purchase of HMH social studies instruction materials for grades 6 through 12 in the amount of $73,105 through the instructional materials and technology allotment as presented. Okay, I'd like for you to say that again. Okay, no, no, I second it. Okay, Justin Colley has made a motion seconded by Bonnie Breitmaier to approve the purchase of HMH Social Studies Instructions materials for grades 6 through 12 in the amount of $73,105 through the instructional material and technology allotment as presented. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Ms. Miller. Okay, next we will have the superintendent's monthly update. Yeah, thank you, Jared. I'd ask for my monthly update to come up before Daryl's finance update. As we're working through finance, of course, this summer, we stay very, very busy, as you know,
049with finance, right-sizing our classrooms and our campuses. So an overall look at position control raises. And, of course, the fund balance, as you are all very aware, our fund balance was too low in this district, and we've been working very, very hard to get that back on track. So he's going to show some projections tonight. While this is not a, quote, budget workshop this evening, you know, most of our noon meetings, our special board meetings are through the summertime because we do have that budget workshop time that we need together to really tease out these ideas and make some decisions. There's no decisions to be made with this tonight, but we very much want your feedback on the trajectory that we're on. Of course, the last budget workshop, we sort of identified, hey, within the
050budget, if 80-ish percent is spent on personnel, then really board when it comes down to what are we looking at. this summer in regards to decision-making it's position control and we've been right sizing the campuses and district and classrooms with your blessings if we continue to post positions so you know check there we've been able to accomplish that of course we'll have discussion in the very near future this next meeting about raises and what we can do to incentivize staff to to stay with with let's call it a retention raise as well as a cost of of living adjustment right for inflation insurance goes up every year uh it seems no matter the business you're in so have to right size that or people could could potentially be making less money right so you have
051to consider uh just the standard of cost of living but then in this district we're in a place where we need to build our fund balance back up right so again we feel like we're on a great trajectory to to do that but need your blessing on that because that of course drastically affects the other buckets right we're not talking about as much in the potential raise bucket if we're taking uh if we're putting more in the uh fund balance bucket so we'll look at that tonight i just want you to to look at it think about it digest it and we'll talk more about that in our budget workshop Okay, next I'd like to invite our Chief Financial Officer, Darrell St. Clair, to present our monthly financial update. All right, good evening. As Mr.
052Gillentine mentioned, there will be some information towards actually the end of my report here that will touch on the fund balance information he was just mentioning, but we'll save that for the very end. So we'll go through the regular information first. Absolutely. Yes, I am. I used to be a teacher. I know how this works. All right, so let's go ahead and look at our budget versus actual. Again, as I state each time, but I want to make sure everybody understands, this is our general fund, our food service fund, and our debt service fund, $199,240, and $599. Those three funds combined on this slide and the next slide, so you can see our revenue currently, well, currently, as of the end of May. right about 57, getting close to $57 million in actual receipts. And
053you'll see on the next slide that our expenses in these same three funds totaling 40, almost 43 million, 42 million, 709. So we're still definitely on track where we should be, maybe even a little bit below where we should be at this point. Just there and I've mentioned this I don't mention this every time but I know I've mentioned it probably a couple times You do have to keep in mind the the lovely August accrual Conundrum, I guess you could say We we charge we have to charge to the outgoing year budget Expenses for payroll for our 10-month employees mainly our teachers and aides and food service workers We have to charge the money that they work and earn in August but don't actually get paid until the new year budget starts in September. You
054know, we start school in August, the budget starts in September. So they come back to work for the new school year, but it's not the new budget cycle for about three or four weeks. So we end up basically having... It's not a full additional payroll because it's just a smaller group than our entire group of employees. But it's a significant amount of extra payroll expenses that hit the books in August in addition to regular August payroll. So there's extra payroll. The good news is we get to credit some of that back the next September. So right now, looking at these numbers, we do have some credits from this past September that are already showing up. But we've got additional expenses coming up when we hit the August accruals in a couple of months You would
055like to say I would like to say that they basically just wash each other out because we're getting credits from the old year and new charges from the current year, so they Approximately wash each other out There are things though that make them not be an exact balance for example if we have the staff working 26 days well that would make an example. Let's say 20 days last August and we get credits then for those 20 days in September the September we've already had But now this coming August we work 21 days So there could be a little, and I'm not saying those are the exact numbers. I'm just giving that as an example. So there could be some slight imbalance in the credits versus the expenses, depending on the number of days they actually
056work and the credits we get back. And then, of course, the other kind of piece of that is they don't make exactly the same salary this August going into the new school year. They probably won't make exactly the same. Rate of pay as they did the previous year because raises will most likely be in place So the expenses coming into this current August might be a little bit higher than So you see there's not an exact balance in this but it's pretty close So if we spend a million and a half one year we may get credits of We may have credits of $1.3 million, and we spend $1.5 million this current year. So it could be a little bit out of balance. But I say all that, trying not to confuse anyone. I know
057it's a lot to take in. It only happens once a year. It's one of those one-time-a-year things. But I say all that just to say that there are credits built into these numbers from this past September that future charges coming up in a few months will wipe out. These numbers are a little bit understated but not dramatically and we do have it will balance itself out for the most part So hopefully I didn't make that too Complicated but but anyway We are still on track and I'll get to a little bit more of that here when we get to the last slide with the projected fund balance any questions so far on the actual versus the budgeted revenues and expenses Next up we have our investment report and as has been the case pretty much
058every month when I come to show you this there's been just a very slight decrease in the rates. Some months it's been as little as one tenth of a percent. This time on average it was Actually, less than that, one hundredth of a percent a couple times. This time it was three hundredths of a percent. So, again, not really anything much to be noted. And rates have been continually just very, very ever so slightly ticking down. Don't know if they'll come back up anytime soon. It's possible. But I would say for the most part we're staying pretty level. So even those small decreases we have are not all that noticeable. Any questions on our investment report? Next up, we have a tax collection report. We've gone up just about exactly 1% in collections since last
059month. Last month, we were at 95% collection rate for our current collections. Now we're up to 96%. We still have June, July, and August to go. As I mentioned before our delinquents are actually picking up our delinquent collections are actually up about six and a half percent from last month So they're definitely jumping quicker now than the current because most of the current is already in so we Probably won't collect that much more in current year collections at this point any questions about our tax collections and now what everybody's been waiting for okay it is still very early although we have done some number crunching since our last meeting to try to at least come up with a a rough idea of where we think we'll end this fiscal year in a couple months i'm
060still not ready to go on record with a accurate number a very precise number but i will say that i feel pretty confident that we should end up with a million-ish Fund balance addition at the end of this year so that the ish The ish is probably plus or minus a couple hundred thousand dollars I mean, I'm I wouldn't be shocked if it was a couple hundred thousand less eight or nine hundred thousand I wouldn't be totally shocked if it was one more point one or one point two But I think we're going to be in the ballpark of a million dollars. So Seeing that that's most likely what's coming I've created this this graph here and provided some data for you So going all the way back to 2019 and then going up to
0612025 that the fy fiscal year so fiscal year 2025 is actually 24 25 school year so not the year we just finished the one before and that's the last audited data we have so when you see the fiscal year 2025 fund balance of 5.96 million dollars that's audited data that's hard fast absolute exact data Right below that the fiscal year 2026. That's the year. We're currently in 2526 so again, my Prediction is I'm gonna say right now is a million dollars added. So you'll see the five point nine six Going up to six point nine six So everything from fiscal year 2026 to 2029, of course is a prediction And my prediction right now, or my, I guess what I'm trying to show you is, if we continue to add about a million dollars to
062the fund balance each year through the 28-29 school year, then these are the numbers we would see coming into our audits as we go through. You may recall that TEA expects us to have two to three months of fund balance. So two months is about 16, 16 and a half percent of our annual expenses. According to this plan here, and I'm also assuming we would. probably have some increased expenses. So it's kind of hard to predict the percentage because I can maybe predict what I think we might add to the actual fund balance in dollars, a million dollars, but I can't predict exactly what the expenses will be in those future years, and it's the comparison of the two that tells TEA, do you have enough fund balance or do you not? So, you know,
063we could increase a million dollars, but if expenses go up as well, we still may not be up to the 16%. We still may be at 10 or 12 or 13%. This right here shows that by 2029, we would just about be back to 16%. So. I'm hopeful that if things play out the way we're kind of looking like they will, that in a few years we would finally be back where they expect us to be and where, honestly, where we should be, having at least two months of fund balance in the bank. That would be our immediate goal, our short-term. If you can say two- or three-year short-term goal, that would be where we want to be, at least to meet the threshold, the minimum threshold. If we can get to three months fund
064balance sooner than that, that would be great, too. We still have, what, two more legislative sessions coming up between now and then, so there could be great things happen. There could be not so great things happen. We just don't know. Any questions about... Yeah, no, I just want to add thank you very much for putting this together I know I've kind of been pushing you for it for a little bit now and I know how uncomfortable he gets when I push him out there and then you know Ask for him to give me a number even though I felt pretty certain as to what he was gonna say I just want to point out to the board from fiscal year 24 to 25 You see that on your line graph there you see how hard
065that was uh you know what a pivot we made there as we went down um to that 24 and then and then turned the corner there um you know we felt that as a team your teachers felt that the staff felt that uh it was hard i just i read your lips bonnie it was hard um i i feel very good about um the trajectory we're on now as you can see it's it's you know we are we are definitely being uh aggressive uh but not so aggressive that we can't take care of our people um in in both uh staffing support and in uh appropriate uh raises so again those are the buckets you have to consider you have to consider how aggressive uh am I comfortable with being with that line uh i
066i'm i'm comfortable with with this line we were all uncomfortable where you see the hard pivot um but this uh this fairly aggressive incline i i think we can come to you next month with um some comfortable numbers in regards to a raise here for this next school year so any questions for daryl you know what i'm gonna say yes sir We got to give all employees a raise next year. We have to. And I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad we're on the right track on doing it. I know it's still early, but I appreciate you. And hopefully we can move forward to giving all employees a raise next year. Thank you. I feel very comfortable saying that. That you know, we we are definitely going to be able to give a raise it's
067You know again, how how aggressive does does the board want to be in that? So? We'll talk that through the next month Somebody else have any more questions for mr. Sinclair. Okay Next we have I just had one. Okay. Is there any is there anything that does like predictive model as far as like, you know? school district our size potential you know maybe that's something you're crunching through you know where we can say okay maybe we're gonna go up by 3% you know as far as our expenses by 2029 is there anything that allows us to look at or is it just gonna be dependent basically every every districts different Well, part of it, of course, is our funding. So, you know, if we have more money, that means we can spend more money. And,
068you know, we shouldn't be spending more if we don't have it. That's one thing we're definitely trying to avoid. And that's why I say, you know, for next year, I feel pretty confident taking that same guess of about a million-ish dollars we could probably add back. Beyond that, we have a legislative session coming up next spring. And, like I said, there's no way to know. what they may or may not decide to do. I mean, we can make predictions based on the current funding formulas and what it mostly comes down to is our, well, two things. our ADA, which is based on enrollment, and our property values. That's the two big drivers, and mainly it's the ADA, because in the current system, even if we get gains in property values, it will increase our tax
069collections, even with the same rate. It would still increase the collections, the amount we would actually get. But then TEA is going to adjust their funding to compensate for that. So there's really not much to gain there. I mean, we could gain a little bit. We could maybe gain $100,000 maybe. But nothing grand. So really it's the ADA that drives any kind of forward changes, moving forward changes, upward changes in the near term. So we can assume that. Based on what I've seen so far since I've been here. I would not assume there's going to be any explosion of growth I mean that it could happen. I'm not saying it wouldn't but it's probably not likely if I was gonna use my Statistician skills. I would say it's probably going to be flat or maybe
070just a little bit Downward, but hopefully just pretty much flat versus downward Yeah, I was going to say that's probably a note. We've all seen news articles and reports about new subdivisions coming to Brenham in the Washington County area. So, yes, we could have rooftops grow, but the TA is going to compress our rate as we have more rooftops come in. And so there's not necessarily a huge influx of tax dollars because the TA is going to. you know compress our our taxable rate as i mean yes a year more rooftops come in potentially more students come in long term but that's still probably five six seven eight years away before we start seeing um you know some of the new developments new subdivisions that get fully built you know before the first handful of
071houses people moving into those houses so it's just something to keep an eye on a long term for the community because yes if we do have 800 more rooftops a thousand more rooftops between the different neighborhoods that are that are being proposed and come in yes that's potential for more students yes we need to keep an eye on that as a community and prepare for our future of brendam isd schools but it's just keep in mind that tax rate can always be compressed by the state and then we you're not necessarily collecting the full value of taxes on those those new houses Yeah, absolutely. I guess that's when we're looking at our, we're looking at as far as becoming more efficient as a school district with the repairs that we're doing and otherwise, that where
072we could maybe potentially drive down some expenses. So doing this stuff right as everybody's already spoken about, that's huge. Yes, we are very much hopeful that we will be reducing our M&O expenses, I mean, sorry, our maintenance expenses in the next couple of years since we do have some bond money to alleviate some of that problem now. One thing we heard about last week was there are school districts that are just losing kids. We hope to at least keep moving on and having more, but that's a scary thought. But there are places where charter schools are coming in, and we agree that we think that the best schools are public schools. and we hope that people will understand that too it matters it does matter not that we don't like having other school districts private
073school districts and everything but when you start losing students like some of these places it's scary because now they've got buildings but nobody in them okay so many more questions comments okay uh daryl you want to walk us through the budget amendments yes sir All right, so it looks like there's, I guess the way, if you count it, it looks like there's four budget amendments. We have three items, A, B, and C, for the general fund, and then one for our Tom Green fund. But honestly, the first one there for the general fund is really just one budget amendment, to be honest with it. So I've been talking, I've talked about this with our auditors, both. Both of the last two years actually more so this previous audit 2425 audit I've talked to miss white
074our chief appraiser about this. We've talked about it cabinet meetings a few times and We've all decided and and actually the auditor is kind of the one who kind of brought it to the forefront initially that it would Be in the best interest of all concerned to take the tax office budget out of our general fund. Right now, we have the appraisal district, we have the tax office. The appraisal district has its own budget. It's approved by the appraisal board, and that's in fund 896. That's been that way as far as I know for quite some time. So it's not one of the three funds that you approve each year as an annual budget. It's not 199-240 or 599-896. But the tax office budget is in our general fund one nine nine It is a
075small piece of it, but it's in there and it's mostly in function 41 There's a little bit in function 51 because they have utility expenses those have to be charged to function 51 But the bulk of it the salaries the contracted services the supplies it's all in function 41 Which is the same as our I say our central office mainly function 41 expenses is where you find those so There are some issues because when you approve the general fund you're approving in this case $311,000 of that is the tax office budget when the appraisal board approves their Tax office budget they're proving that same $311,000. It's already in our general fund. So there's some overlap So far, there hasn't been any major issues with that overlap, but there's the potential that there could be. At
076the very least, if they wanted to do a budget amendment and move money from function 41 to 51 or 51 to 41 within their $311,000 budget, you'd have to approve it too because it would also shift it in our general fund budget. I don't think that's happened yet, but again, there's potential. It could happen. The biggest concern that I have and that I think Mr. Gillentine has is the fact that all of this function 41, which as you see is the bulk of it, what was that, almost $304,000 that's in our function 41 of the 311, that is figuring into our administrative costs for the school district. Every year I have to submit a fairly lengthy report to TEA. I usually do this, I think it's due in January, about the end of January. I
077have to submit to them quite a few Function 41 expenses from the previous audited year, and they use that information along with PEMS data that they can collect on their own and put together what our administrative costs are for that most recently closed and audited year. That figures into our first report. Our financial rating report that comes out every year should be coming out in August, I believe. And so as you hopefully remember, there is an administrative cost ratio target that we're supposed to hit. And if we don't hit that, then we get docked points on our first rating. So, again, there's about $300,000 in administrative expenses that's actually the tax office that's not really our general fund, not the way we typically spend our Function 41 general fund money. So what the auditor has
078helped come up with is a plan to move the entire budget, the revenue and the expenses for the tax office, into a separate fund, and they've suggested Fund 462. So that's what this budget amendment is for, is to basically pull all the revenue and the expenses, balanced amounts. We already have a balanced general fund balance. We take out 311 on the revenue side. We take out 311 on the expense side. We'll still have a balanced general fund balance, general fund budget, excuse me. So we'll still be balanced. That'll take their money, their budget, and put it in their own separate fund. That way they have authority over that. It's still in our books. It still shows up on our audit, but it's not one of the funds you approve. So that kind of separates, gets
079rid of the overlap, and will hopefully help us with our administrative cost expenses going forward. So I don't really see that there's any issue here other than something that will improve all the way around. So I don't really think there's any downside to doing this. And everybody that we've discussed it with that's got a stake in this has agreed that it's a good idea. So that's what that budget amendment is for any questions about that one now Let me just echo that it's just a lot cleaner and it tells the story the correct story If you were to put us side by side with another district of our size It which it could potentially show administratively heavy and expenses with administration, which is not accurate Those those positions those funds are being used for an
080office that only two or three districts two or three i think there's two other districts in the state of texas that have the same arrangement that we do where the appraisal district employees and the tax office employees are actually employees of the school district right so the the you know the rest of the districts do not incur those costs so it's just it's not clean and it's not a clean comparison that tends to skew the data a bit okay any questions about that one okay then Then the the second budget amendment we did this last year I don't recall if we did this in my first year, but I know we did this last year We did move money last year out of the Tom Green fund balance over into the actual usable budget Technically
081what we're doing is we're we're charging it over to the budgetary fund balance But at year end when the audits done the budgetary fund balance transfers over to the real fund balance so if you have $200,000 in your real fund balance and you Take that $200,000 you want to spend and put it in the current usable budget Then it basically wipes out that amount in the real fund balance. So technically right now we're not changing the real fund balance We're just using this to charge against the budgetary fund balance But like I said at year-end it will it will be reclaimed out of the real fund balance and right now there is about just 213,000 502 we have had significant decreases I think That was a question at the last board meeting. So I looked
082that up this afternoon. In 22-23, we had almost $1.2 million in that revenue for that Tom Green fund. In 23-24, it dropped to $714,000. In 24-25, it dropped to $383,000. And this year, it was just under $300,000 at 295. So there's definitely been a decrease in the revenue, which is why we're now asking for approval to take. Basically the rest of the fund balance and move it to the budget to help pay for this annual maintenance tax note fee that we've been using we've been paying this For quite some time as far as I know with the Tom Green Fund, so we've got about 230 ish thousand I think it is that we can use and we need to bring this other money over out of fund balance To be able to make this payment
083this year or we can use the general fund. That's really the only two places. We can't use debt service. We can't use debt service to pay for a maintenance tax note. Maintenance tax note is a different type of debt than bonded indebtedness. It's not voter approved. The maintenance tax note is not. So therefore, you cannot use voter approved bond money to pay for it. You have to use general fund. Or in this case, we actually do have another fund we can use. But if we didn't have this, we'd have to use maintenance. Yeah, let me remind the board, too, that these funds are dedicated for that purpose, right? We can pay this. as as the district has annually for for years the only other thing you can do is construction which of course now we've
084got uh the bond uh money that we're using for that purpose so um you know to counterbalance that you should see uh we will see not should but we'll see uh less money spent out of our operations uh because we are are replacing things instead of fixing old things uh with with bond funds so um i highly recommend we make this move all right i don't have any other questions i'll just make a motion here um uh to approve the budget amendment as presented i'll second kyle halford made a motion seconded by kelvin raven to approve the budget amendments as presented all in favor All opposed motion carries next we have the consent agenda we can pull any items specifically or just approve the whole agenda as presented I make a motion to approve the
085consent agenda as presented second Kelvin Raven made a motion second by Justin Colley to approve the consent agenda as presented all in favor all opposed motion carries next we have monthly reports for information purposes and we have nothing for executive session this evening so with that being said with no further business to come before the board during this meeting at 7 16. thank you all for coming