001okay the special special school board meeting will be Oh will come to order will come to order one routine manners a call meeting to order and verify quorum present through a roll call board member Montoya present or member aspas secretary so vice president Wells present secretary so are you present yeah I am president did you not get my book place we didn't hear you but now we have we've counted you in we do have quorum so to executive session a convening executive session discussion on personnel matters regarding the board's goals and expectation of the superintendent as permitted under in MSA 1978 section 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion pertaining to the two threatened or pending litigation regarding legal advice as permitted under in MSA 1978 section 10-15-1 h7 of the New
002Mexico Open Meetings Act motion do I have a motion yes I do I have a motion yes I do I have a motion yes I do I have a motion second second roll call vote board member Montoya yes for member aspas secretary so vice president Wells yes and I vote yes we will go into executive session for getting my past the future looks bright ahead don't be crazy 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act discussion 10-15-1 h2 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act
003discussion pertaining to to threatened discussion pertaining to to threatened discussion pertaining to to threatened need pending litigation regarding legal need pending litigation regarding legal need pending litigation regarding legal legal advice and as permitted under legal legal advice and as permitted under legal legal advice and as permitted under in MSA 1978 section 10-15-1 h7 of the in MSA 1978 section 10-15-1 h7 of the in MSA 1978 section 10-15-1 h7 of the New Mexico opens meeting motion meeting New Mexico opens meeting motion meeting New Mexico opens meeting motion meeting exciting motion I have a motion second exciting motion I have a motion second exciting motion I have a motion second okay to um board member Montoya yes board member aspas yes secretary so yes vice president wells yes and i vote yes we are out of executive
004session no action three report and possible board action a update on budget analysis and staff recommendation by superintendent carlson and finance director satania got it right are we projecting um am i next on the list yes this is it yeah go ahead and put it on there i'll just start talking while you're doing that uh good evening everyone uh board president haski obily and members of the board uh thank you all for joining those of you who are in attendance and i know that there are probably some folks online uh hopefully there are some folks who will be watching this on youtube so they can get some of this information um there's there's two sections to this the first is is the first section is the budget analysis update and the second section is the
005budget analysis update and the point of this is to take a look more than anything in our staffing levels in our various schools and to see how our dollars are being spent um in an attempt to actually right size our buildings so that we're not overstaffed and so i've asked for mr satania and for those of you who are listening in just so you know mr satania is now on day 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. 42 42. IN A RELATIVELY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME HE HAS AND LIKE MOST PEOPLE LIKE TO SAY HE'S BEEN DRINKING FROM A FIRE HOSE UM AND JUST LEARNING AS MUCH AS HE CAN
006UH ALONG WITH THE EXPERTISE HE ALREADY HAS BUT I'VE ASKED HIM TO GO AHEAD AND TELL US JUST WHERE ARE WE AS FAR AS THE STAFFING WE HAVE IN OUR STOOL OUR SCHOOLS AND HOW ARE WE DOING AS FAR AS OUR ATTEMPT TO USE OPERATIONAL DOLLARS TO COVER THOSE THE SPENDING AT THOSE SCHOOLS AND AND I THINK THAT'S A REAL IMPORTANT THING FOR OUR COMMUNITY TO SAY THAT ARE WE GOING TO and understand that we're given by the state because of the size of our district, it's almost impossible to operate our district with the operational funding that we're given. So we do need to utilize federal aid that we get, federal dollars, grant monies, especially our impact aid. But the board has a goal, and that goal is to not use as much of that
007impact aid as possible so that we can use that money to fund buildings, because we do have buildings that are in disrepair and that need to be taken down in some cases. And we do have some projects that are in the queue, especially Newcomb Elementary. So everybody kind of needs to remind themselves, when we're talking about staffing levels, if we do need to get lower staffing levels, we're also, we may end up losing some folks in the process, but we're doing what's best for our kids, because those dollars are gonna go to our children in the district, and that's where they need to be going as we move to right size. Again, I'm gonna use that term, right sizing our buildings, so that we're just at adequacy. Now, just before everybody gets up in arms
008or worried about some of this, our classrooms, as they're currently staffed, are actually very small compared to most districts around us. I hope everybody understands that. But we're not talking about making classrooms that are overflowing with students. We don't want an elementary classroom, a fourth grade classroom, with 28, 29 students, because that's a difficult number for a teacher. But 24 is generally the limit at that age group. So we're trying to get a little bit closer to that number, and we're not close to that number right now. Same thing at the high school level. A high school teacher can have, I remember having well over 150 students, and in some cases over 160. Most of our high school teachers currently have maybe 80, 90, 100, 120 students, per day. And so when we talk about
009increasing those numbers, we're not gonna be blowing 160 out of the water and needing waivers from the state and just overloading class sizes. But we do wanna make sure we're using our money correctly. And so that's what this is all about. So Mr. Cittany, if you would, go ahead and go through the slideshow, and I'll try to describe what's going on, and I may pass off to you here and there. Again, this is addressing inefficiency, and the need for our agencies to maximize dollars for our students. This is about right-sizing classrooms and utilizing our resources in a manner that's effective improvement. Go ahead. Okay, so there's two portions about this. The school operating cost is percentage of SEG income, and what's that? Solution is considered by the, did we drop a word there? Sorry, I
010apologize. That's okay. This is, I'm changing this minor hiccup. Give me one second. This is by the board, okay. Go ahead, do the next one. God bless you. Again, so I talked about the different funding sources we have. We do get, this is from last year, correct? Last year's funding, we got $65 million from our SEG funds. SEG, for those of you who are unfamiliar with that acronym, is State Equalization Grant, and that's the money that's generated by our students and given to us through the state of New Mexico. Impact aid, this last year, we had $31 million. And for those of you unfamiliar with impact aid, impact aid is the money that our students who live on reservation land, on government land, and also includes students who live on Air Force, Army, Navy bases,
011military bases in the country, because those kind of places are not able to generate income tax. So the government gives us impact aid to offset what we cannot collect in terms of income taxes in those properties. Then we also have grant funding. We have a variety of grants that we get, most of them federal. I think most people at this point in time understand that some of that money is probably gonna be in question in the coming years, given our current federal government. Enough said about that. The average SEG amount we get per student, just so everybody knows, so the state gives a base amount, and then they add to that base amount depending on various factors. This year, we have a base amount of $25 million, and that's the amount we get per student.
012This year, they've added some factors, including secondary factor, as well as a factor for ELL students. So that unit value is gonna change a little, or the unit value is gonna be given, but the factors are gonna change the amount we get beyond that unit value. With 4,520 students, that amounts to $14,429 per student from the city of New Mexico from SEG. Okay, some of the things that- Question. Yes, sir. Just for a point of clarity for our audience, what is the value of the impact aid per student currently? I'm gonna hand over to Mr. Cetenya for that one right there. He's gonna go 31 million divided by, he's using a calculator if anybody wants to do it. Just go 30 million divided by five. If I'm not mistaken, it's about $4,800, $4,700, $4,800 per
013student. Ballpark. I don't know. I think that's what that is. It's about $6,637. So for 4,500 students, that's about $4,600. For 4,520 students, 30 million. I didn't do 31, I just did 30 million. It's about 6,637 per student. I took 30 million, which is, and I can do 31. So if we do 31 million and divide that by the number of students, which is 4,520 as of February of this year, that's on average $6,858 per student. Or just if you wanna estimate and round it and just go 30 million. And divide it by 5,000, make it easier on yourself. And you just get 6,000 per student, roughly. That's just impacted. Yeah, throw in the federal grant, that number goes up per student. Federal Title I monies is included under this number here, which is the
01426 million. That accounts for current funding with grants, all grants. Thank you for the question. If we can go on, next slide. So this is gonna be kind of difficult for anybody to see if you're on YouTube. I know that even folks who are in attendance here, but basically what this shows, it shows at all the different grade levels, you can see on the bottom there, for various years, starts at 2019-20, moves up to 24-25, the student count per grade level. And if you just look at it just in general, you can see that pre-K numbers actually go up. And that has to do with we're serving more pre-K students. But taking that not into account, or, you know, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to get that out there, but I'm gonna
015be able to get that out there. I'm taking it out of the picture. The kindergarten numbers, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, all those show kind of a steady decline throughout the years. So we're losing students throughout those years, something to the tune of over 200 students per year, grades K through 12. It does seem to stabilize in the high school, 10, 11, 12 especially. And that's partly because those students were kind of already in the system, and those numbers don't drop as drastically. This slide just shows you the five-year historical birth rate trends throughout San Juan County. The county as a whole has been losing students. If you can't read the bottom, it's Native American students, indigenous students, white, non-Hispanic, and then Hispanic. And the only one
016that's remained fairly constant, sort of, is Hispanic. The other groups have shown a steady decline. So we're losing students throughout San Juan County. And again, stop if you have questions. I know that the board has seen these and pretty much understands these as well, and in some cases maybe better than I do. But they do want to stop me for points of clarification from time to time. I'm going to go ahead and have, I'm going to have Dominic explain this one while I take a drink, so you can explain where you came up with these two. Yeah, so President Haske, board members, Mr. Collison, thank you very much for allowing me to present this report. Thank you very much for allowing me to present this report. Thank you very much for allowing me to present
017this report. With the information that was just set up by Mr. Carlson, is that birth rates and student count is declining. And with that means less money over time. If we receive money from the state for SE, based on the SEG funds, and it's allotted per student, when you have declining populations, you are going to receive less money over time. And the SEG number is based on the SEG funds, and it's allotted per student. And the SEG number is based on the SEG funds, and it's allotted per student. And that's very important because that's what And that's very important because that's what other school districts without the supplement from impact aid use to run their school districts. So my analysis really does focus on what, how are our schools individually operating, not only on their
018own, but their shared costs with the district, based on the income each student is generating from SEG funds alone, not considering impact aid. As a measure, we're looking at the cost of health. And there's two areas that we look at. One is the school district and shared salaries and benefits costs. And the reason why we look at benefits and salaries by itself is because typically in districts across the state, salaries at a district account for 90% of a school's operating budget, 90%. 90% is responsible due to salaries. So we wanna look at that. And then, I'm sorry. And then in the purple section, what we're looking at is school total operating costs just for the school and divvying up the districts shared operating costs to that school. How are they performing just based on the
019SEG income that each student is generating? So that's what we looked at. And then the next slide, as a part of the analysis, was the operating costs as a percentage of SEG income. And what you'll see here is first, we've listed all the elementary schools, the middle schools and the high schools are in the next slide. We look at how many students are at each school, the number of staff to give you an idea, again, because those salaries account for a large portion of the budgets, and the SEG income, which is, if you remember, on average, about $14,500 per student times the number of students in each school gives you your SEG income. Now, just like your home, when looking at your home expenses and revenues, how much you bring in your salary versus how
020much you spend every month as a part of your house and your utilities and your bills, what is your income to expense ratio? Now, that last column in the gray column is the percent of the total. So Newcomb Elementary has 165 students. That represents 3.7% of the total student population. So if it represents 3.7% of the total population, how we're doing this analysis is that we're assigning 3.7 of the district's costs that are not associated with the total student population. So that's the total student population. And then we're assigning 3.7 of the district's costs that are not associated directly with the school center to that school to offset income that's generated and shared by those students. So what you'll see in the first column is, for example, Newcomb Elementary, and not to pick on Newcomb
021Elementary, they're just first on the list, is that given the amount of SEG income, which is about $2.4 million that they're generating at their school, their salaries and shared benefits, their income, their benefits, their benefits, and salaries from the district, are costing 144% of that amount. Meaning that they are operating at a deficit when just trying to pay for their salaries and benefits at that school and their portion of the district's salaries and benefits that they share for that school. Now, it's in red because it's operating at a deficit. Ideally, where you wanna see that number and where we're turning things red versus a different color is that, ideally that target is that your salaries and benefits are to be less than 90% of your SEG income. And that is sourced by the New Mexico
022ASBO organization amongst business managers around the state. That is the target. So anything in that column that is over 90% is marked as red and signifies that the school is operating at a deficit. The next column, which is in purple, is not only including salaries and benefits for the school and its shared costs from the district, it's considering all operating costs for the school and its shared portion of all operating costs for the district. So that includes fixed costs such as utilities that come every month to not only the school taking 100% of its utility costs, but it's also taking 3.7% of its utility costs. So that's 2.7% or its share of district costs. Right now, given if you gave its share of district costs and its own costs, it's operating at 225% of its
023total SEG income at that $2.4 million per student. That means that it's taking, it needs more than double the amount of SEG income that is currently generated by the students with state funding to operate, and that's going to be its share of costs for that school. Now, what's concerning is that you will see all of the elementary schools are operating at a deficit, some at 225%, others closer to 150, when taking into consideration total operating costs. Now, the point that we want to drive home as a part of this analysis is that, yes, this analysis is only looking at SEG income, but what this starts to tell us is, is that we are using impact aid, our impact aid, at a very high rate to offset our operating costs at levels that are impacting our
024ability to save money for future projects. And we're using it at a level every year that exceeds the amount of impact aid that we're receiving, and we are rolling over impact aid from previous years, and even using that extra amount from previous years, and we keep going down and down and down and down with that impact aid. So, moving on, we'll show- Before you go to the next slide, just let me real quick. A lot of folks who are listening in, the board had some real good questions about this, and we talked about it before, and I just want some people to kind of get an idea, and I just want some people to kind of get an idea, and I just want some people to kind of get an idea, if you look at
025those numbers, you notice there's some big differences. I'm just gonna use a high one and a low one just to kind of, you know, just provide an example and kind of show a point. If you look at Judy Nelson Elementary using 92%, so they're actually getting close to that 90% we're talking about, whereas Newcomb Elementary is at 144%, so why the huge discrepancy right there? Why are we funding that school more? What goes into that? The main thing that goes into that is class sizes. Because of the student population being so very small, there's class sizes, and I'll give you just an example that folks could probably understand. There's also dual language there that we don't need to get into, but if you just look at numbers for a grade level, at Judy Nelson, you
026might have 80 students at a grade level. If there's 80 students at a grade level, typically you're gonna probably have four teachers, 20 students per class. That's pretty easy to figure out. Whereas at Newcomb Elementary, we're getting down low in our numbers, so low that we might have, in some cases, 25, 26 kids in a third grade classroom, or a third grade level. Well, as a district, we've decided to fund that with two teachers, which obviously if you divide 25 by two, you get 12 and a half. We don't have the students. We don't cut them in half, but we do put 12 in one class, and 13 in the other. And so that's something that, it's really difficult as the numbers get smaller per grade level to staff those classrooms appropriately. And I gave
027some examples to the board before, and I think for the most part, they understand it. And hopefully that explanation helps people to see kind of why there's a big discrepancy between say, the lower numbers and the higher numbers. Any questions from the board on what I just said? Hopefully that was somewhat clear. Yeah, I think it's kind of self-explanatory. It also goes back to like, the economies of scale. Bigger schools have a lot more resources or classes or that you can actually have bigger, it's more, I guess, cost-effective with bigger schools and smaller schools. And I've seen other schools, they have the more expensive components with their higher poverty costs. Exactly that. Exactly. And the other portion of that is that if schools are actually, if they're not going to be able to afford the
028cost of school, they're going to have to pay for it. So, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And I think that's actually right size for the communities they have. If those schools are filled, if we have a lot of empty classrooms, then we're heating empty classrooms. Yes. And so that does kind of go into, factor into things too. I mean, we have to staff, for instance, if we have custodial staff, even if some classrooms are not being used, they still count as square footage. So buildings that were built, I believe Newcomb Elementary can hold somewhere like 400 students somewhere.
029What is it, 600? If it's that high. It's a lot higher than 500. It's a lot higher than 500. It's a lot higher than 500. It's a lot higher than 165 students. It's a lot higher than 165 students. So that's another thing we just need to look at, is right sizing our buildings to make sure we're not building huge schools that are not being occupied. Again, when you're losing, at one point we're somewhere around 9,000 students. We're half that now. And we basically have about the same amount of schools. And I just want to go back a couple slides because we can actually tell based on historical birth weight trends, in our county, we're unable to get the information just for our school district. But every story here is painting the same picture, which is
030that we will be getting pre-K students at ages four and five. Well, we know that they were four and five, in 2020 or 2021. So we know what those trends are, that are coming, and we know that they're coming into our schools. And that data supports that we are not getting an increase in students. We are going to continue to get a decrease of students, which means less students, less money per student from the state. And we have to be thinking about, as a part of this analysis, how do we want to plan for the future and make sure that we're being fiscally responsible for our students and using that money and having it go to them. So back to the operating costs, as a perspective, we have a percentage of SEG income to understand
031the financial health of each school and of the district moving into the middle schools and high schools. As you can see, it paints the same picture. We have the number of students times the amount of money that we're getting for each student, which generates this SEG income for each school. Of that, understanding how much costs for each school and their shared portion of the district costs, you can see that every student, every student, has a different amount of SEG income. has a different amount of SEG income. Every middle school and high school is not able to operate on SEG income alone. Now, to understanding again, with full disclosure, this does not include impact aid, which this school needs. But impact aid is only half of what we get for SEG income. So even if I
032gave a bonus to each school and said, okay, you know, if you get 150% for impact aid, the concern is that your percentages for total shared costs for each school, most of those are over 150%. So even when considering impact aid, our school operating costs are exceedingly pushing the margins, which are impacting our ability to save money into the future. So, to bring in the point, for both school and district shared salaries and benefits costs, 100% are operating, of our schools, are operating at a deficit. When looking at school and district shared operating costs, when only considering SEG income, 100% of those schools are operating at a deficit. Now, the conclusion, which I've already mentioned, and just to reiterate, is that the district is operating at a deficit relative to SEG income, and that's because
033the district is operating at a deficit relative to SEG income. is relative to SEG income. CCSD is not able to operate on SEG funds alone. Continued use of impact aid for basic operations impacts the board's ability to plan and save for future projects and priorities. So, Mr. Carlson, this brings us back to solutions that have been previously considered by the board is district right sizing. And right sizing is a focus, is a focus, a focus on adjusting under capacity classrooms and schools, maximizing SEG funds for our students. and schools, maximizing SEG funds for our students. So, part of the analysis that I put together is looking at those salaries. And why right sizing? Well, again, salaries account on average, 90% of operating costs, at a minimum, are for districts across New Mexico. Ours are actually
034more than that. And under capacity classrooms are a major contributor to schools operating at a deficit. Less students are sharing more costs relative to the income that they generate to serve them. So, what we looked at in analyzing capacity was first teacher classroom capacity analysis. And this analysis is based on the analysis that we did in the past. And this analysis is based on the analysis that we did in the past. And this analysis is based on the analysis that we did in the past. And this analysis is based on the analysis that we did in the past. And this analysis is based on the maximums that are set by the state. that are set by the state. And to reiterate Mr. Carlson's point is, And to reiterate Mr. Carlson's point is, we're not looking
035to hit the state's maximums. We know that we prefer, as a district, to keep those classrooms not touching those maximums and hitting the max, but that there is this sweet spot that gets us closer to that maximum and helps make our schools more efficient. So that we can make sure that we're actually that we can get those dollars back to the students. So the sweet spot is based on that state max, and then we've identified two different areas to facilitate this conversation. Ones that are in the yellow, that might be a little closer to that spot, and then there's ones in the red, which are severely under capacity classrooms that we're looking at for each school. So for example, for grade kindergarten, the state maximum is 15 children per teacher. Now you can exceed 15
036children in a classroom, however, that would require an EA, an assistant, to go into that classroom if you exceed that max. Again, our goal isn't to exceed those maximums. Our goal is to get in that sweet spot. So for kindergarten, we established that sweet spot greater than 11. So we're looking for kindergarten classrooms that have 13, 14, or 15 in their classroom. Where we established the yellow is any classroom that has eight to 11 students in their classroom, and any kindergarten classrooms that have less than eight, we classified as red. And we've used similar ratios for grades one through three, which have a state maximum of 22 per classroom, grade four through six, which have a state max of 24 per classroom, and given seven through 12, the kids don't stay with one teacher. It's
037calculated a little bit different for grades seven through 12, and the way the state calculates it is that a teacher is ideally not to see more than 160 students a day, as those students move across into different classrooms throughout the day. So our example, last example for our sweet spot for grades seven through 12 would actually be any teacher that has 131 students or more that they would see in a day is our sweet spot. So again, we're not trying to push our, all the way to the maximum, we're just trying to get in that sweet spot to create those efficiencies. So this analysis on the teacher classroom capacity, we use those sweet spot yellow and the red to look at each school, and it is important to note, we have excluded bilingual, dual language
038and sped classes. We are really looking at core classrooms or core subjects in high school to understand where those inefficiencies exist. We understand that the arts, that music might have lower numbers or bilingual or dual language, that is not what we're looking at in our analysis. So with Newcomb Elementary, you can see that we've identified six classrooms that fit that criteria. And we have one in the sweet spot, three in the yellow and two in the red. That means that of the six classrooms, five out of six are technically under capacity, and a 50% of those classrooms are professor area meaning 83% of those classrooms, are under capacity. So following the same logic for all the other elementary schools, you'll see that has 50% of his classrooms under capacity. has 65% Judy Nelson has 32
039and Eva B has 67 meaning that of all of the elementary schools 58 percent of our classrooms that were identified across elementary schools 58 percent of them are under capacity um for uh for high schools and middle schools again you can see uh in the total column that's kind of there in the middle the number of classrooms that have been identified at each school and you can see the under capacity percentages for each school we also included the student count for some schools and would like to point out that some schools at 127 aren't even going to be able to make the sweet spot and we acknowledge that so we are aware of that that given the size of schools that there are some schools with the numbers they have that can't even get their
040numbers they can't even get their numbers they can't even get their numbers that into that sweet spot which will which raises other concerns not just about teacher and classroom capacity but also raises concerns about the size of school in relationship to the number of students inside that school that's where we would start to look at inefficiencies of whether you know we're operating empty classrooms and how much is that costing the district with classrooms being empty and that's only being shared by 127 students for example at Newcomb Middle School so just to point that out but all the other percentages you have Sabadaya for 80 percent Kirtland Middle School 94 percent of 16 classrooms that were identified or under capacity Newcomb High School 63 Shiprock High School 63 and Kirtland Central High School 42 percent Career
041Prep High School has been eliminated out of this analysis just to get some more information on that and I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and just give that the schedules and how their schedules work at that classroom and how teachers share students it would there's further analysis to be done with Career Prep High so with specific to middle school and high schools we excluded non-core curriculum teachers again these are only classrooms that we're looking at and doing capacity analysis on core classes which include math science history etc this does not include bilingual classes we're not looking at dual language or sped or PE or arts we understand that those classrooms are going to vary again we're only looking at those core classrooms to understand where we are being inefficient potentially in our school
042district so with that being said I'll let Mr. Carlson discuss yeah actually you and I can both field any questions the board might have and before we move on to the next item on our letter IEP for sped for sped yes but it's excluded so again we're only looking in for high schools and middle schools we're only analyzing those core classrooms math science history everything else is excluded because we understand that those classroom sizes and specifically those types of classrooms are needed in our schools so even though those teachers might have their own have under capacity we know that that that curriculum is important too so we're not looking at those we're just only looking at in under capacity classrooms with those core classrooms mr staniel go ahead and i think i kind of get
043where you're going with that so the reason we excluded both of the elementary and also the middle of high school level any special ed classrooms any special ed teachers so they're the amount of students they can service is based on different factors and so you bring up the idea depends on the level of students the level of special ed for instance level four students are kind of the most severe students you can only have eight students in a class for that class to be completely full you should not have any more than that anything beyond that you should have eas and that kind of thing so a student who's at a level two you can a teacher can have a case level of up to 32 students so it just depends on what the levels
044are so that's why we excluded it because that's a completely different and every year we have to figure that out as well and but but i'm glad you bring that up yes and we're doing the same kind of thing with ftes for special ed teachers but that's something we do every year anyway and and the other thing that's happened throughout this district and i just want to throw this out there we've looked at our educational assistance as well and they're not in this these formulas and everything that mr satania's created but um we need to have a certain amount of eas and teachers for special man um we need to have a certain amount of eas and teachers for special ed students and also for perhaps kindergarten classrooms or first grade classrooms that one of
045the things that one of the slides didn't go over is if you have over 15 students in your kindergarten classroom you can have up to 20 actually but when you break that 15 you need to have an ea in that classroom so we have had kindergarten es extra eas we've had quite a few one-on-one eas throughout the district as students so in a tennant move through grade levels and they get up into maybe seventh or eighth and especially in the high school ninth tenth eleventh twelfth you don't need those es usually for those students and so we've employed somebody who is no longer needed and in most cases we've kept those folks so now we find in our situation where we have more teachers than we need we also have more educational assistance than we
046need based on the numbers so that's that's not really included in that but it kind of goes along with the same same thought so if I may I understand the point that you just made as far as excluding them specifically for the different levels but then again you have those especially in the elementary schools to where you have the lower levels with the IEPs like level one level two in the general education classes and again overloading that teacher and you say you break down and it's 24 and 40 percent have IEPs and how is that going to be addressed again to serviceability of that educator in that classroom working with those kids certainly trying to provide an education to them at the same level of general education but really doing a disservice when you have
047that high a number you know I'm saying this and asking this question in regards to either the parents or teachers that may be listening or even the NEA for that foreign taking that into consideration of the overloads of IEPs in that classroom if you get to the point where you only have one classroom at one grade level fourth grade 24 kids eight have IEPs now again how does that work for the educator in being able to provide a truly equitable education to all the kids not just one over the other so I think that's also need to be taken into consideration rather than just saying okay cutoffs 2024 whatever may be and not even taking consideration on IEPs that are in there but actually trying to provide that quality of education and being able to
048split that class and having a benchmark to ensure that they're equally distributed in those classes if you have to sure sure I'm sure sure and and we do that that's something that we do in each grade level and you brought up an interesting case there if you have just one class with say you said 24 regular 24 students total of which perhaps eight of them would be specialist students each of those eight students would basically if they're let's say they're all level two students which generally they would be in a regular classroom each of those would be basically be one fourth of their special ed teachers caseload as well so they're getting they're getting special ed services from special ed students and we find that this should be the case as well this is what
049we know we certainly get wait for classes that most Me too towards half of the time teachers if you need special ed students guess it totally work out each of those eight students if you decide to a extra class Jimmy Zhou their caseload teacher as well as that teacher in the classroom. If it were my school and I had that many in one grade level and there was no way to divvy those students out, I would think about doing some inclusion, which would include more help for that teacher in the classroom. That inclusion could include whatever EA you might have available or the special ed teacher themselves. So there's lots of ways we can work on that. Does that make sense? It does, but I just wanna make sure that those teachers get that help.
050Because again, those general education teachers are not SPED teachers, irregardless of it's level one or level two, irregardless of it getting pulled out or not. If you're trying to provide that education, that equitable level to all those kids, and then you have to turn around and work with those eight students in that classroom as the example to try to be able to teach to them. And you can't do that at the same level that you can as the general education students as well. Sure, and it's a great question to bring up those students, but if you have 24 students in a fourth grade classroom, I guarantee you across the district, and I know that several of you have asked us to use test scores a lot, those special ed students may or may not be
051much lower than several other students who are not identified as special ed students, who may be ELL students, who may be in the SAT process. It's not easy. If you're a classroom teacher, just the fact that you've got identified special ed students in a way is actually better in some cases, because if you have students who are just as low who have not been identified, and you're servicing those students, you're providing layer one instruction, trying to figure out how layer two and layer three is gonna look, and they don't have an IEP in place. So there's a lot of things that go into it, and it's very difficult for a classroom teacher. I don't know that I'd wanna be an elementary classroom teacher. Well, certainly the principal and the counselors and the others that look
052at those, they're not gonna be able to do that. I think some of the new tools ahead of time, especially when you're talking about the chem folders that they pass from grade to grade, or school to school, need to scrutinize that to ensure that there is a level distribution, and that in and of itself is equitable for those educators themselves, because you certainly don't wanna get to the point where you're overloading them. Right. Now I agree with you. Valid point. I think that would be the big point out of that would be that we really need to look at each of the classrooms, and take all those into consideration when we're making decisions. Certainly those principals again working with the assistant and the superintendent and the other directors to say, hey look, this is a
053situation that we have, this is what we need to do. We may have to have an exemption for this one grade, particular to how many IEPs we do have in that class. Absolutely. That's common sense. Absolutely, thank you. Application. Okay, continue please. More questions or are you? Yeah, I would also say that some of the smaller schools like people ones, Newcomb or some of these other schools, it's almost gonna be unavoidable. They don't have classes, like a six-week class probably gonna have like 10 kids or eight kids. And that's a core class. Is that fair to say? Yes, and that's been taken into consideration when analyzing whether under capacity, which is why I pointed out the Newcomb Middle School. But the other point which is not presented here today and is going to be future
054analysis that you'll see from me is then that becomes a question of how efficient is the school? Is the school itself under capacity? Do we not have enough students and students coming in to support the size of the building? Because at some point when you only have, say for example, 16 students, you might not be able to put them into one grade. You might wanna split that grade. Okay. Again, you're still creating an inefficiency, but then that becomes a question of sizing and to use your example, creating economies of scale. So when your building outgrows the number of students, potentially by moving those students into other schools, you'll get those economies of scales where you're not having to have two teachers that really they're playing on the margin, but you're not having to have two
055teachers that are playing on the margin. So even if those schools or those eight children or 16 children total could be absorbed into other classrooms that would be sized appropriately, that's where you get that economies in scale. So even though positions might be down, you might lose a position, that money and that economies of scale and that savings that you create with that, that money that you're not putting towards a salary, that money can now go back to the students. Okay, are there any more questions or comments? Madam President? Yes. Members of the Board, Superdick Carlson, there are snacks in the back if you need to step out and get something to eat provided by Cheryl and Alfreda. Here, so. Oh, nice. Let's take a really quick break if you all wanna grab some snacks.
056We'll be back in five minutes. Resume. We have almost all Board members here. All right, we will continue on the agenda. If there aren't any other questions or comments on letter A, we will move to B, update on bond analysis and staff recommendation by Superintendent Carlson and Finance Director, I said it perfect. Cetania. Cetania, sorry. Yeah, I guess the other part that's missing is, okay, we have the classes and so forth. But what about other like ancillary staff? Has that been looked at? Yeah, so ancillary. Custodians, transportation. Yes. This one just looks like it's classroom instructors. Yeah, so 90%, again, going back to the point that salaries occupy 90% of a operating budget for a school, or at least that's the target. We're over that, right? So yes, we're looking at ancillary staff as well.
057But again, a majority of our staff, we're looking at the staff as wrapped up in the schools, not necessarily the school districts. And at the level of under capacity across the districts, there is a focus on schools, but we are also looking at those shared salaries from the district as well. So, go ahead. To jump on that last comment from board members. So how many educators do we have in the school district? Educators, I know we have a total staff of about 700, that's not gonna share my other schools. Round number is about roughly 600. Yes, yes. About 750 total in the district. About 600 of that is staff that is working at schools. So again, because they share a major portion of that, that's one of the primary areas that we're looking for this
058fiscal year, in addition to the rest of the district. Yeah, I'm not picking on one over the other, so that leaves, you know, not. I'm not counting the custodians of the buildings. Certifying in all your process as, 55, 60, maybe at all the different locations all together, which comes up to approximately 100, maybe 103 at admin. Now, when you're talking about right-sizing, and right-sizing for educators in the buildings, common sense would say you would right-size your administration, to the need, because I can harken back to a time, where some departments were a lot leaner than what they were this was when they had 6,000 students so again right sizing needs to occur all the way around understand yeah and that's something that we are looking at for example the finance department I'll put my department
059out there you know we have stopped we have stopped just opening positions out to the public to say oh we need to fill that position so that is a part of what this analysis supports right and however in certain departments regardless regardless of the size of that district for example in finance you have to have a separation of duties so the person that is collecting the money Understood can't have a separate position can also pay the check Understood so one of the things that we've looked at is comparing the size of our operations to other school districts Los Lunas even APS Farmington how many is how many how many HR individuals how many finance individuals how many operations individuals are required regardless of scale you get more economies of scale with larger school districts but
060when looking at a central office there is a required amount of certain amount of positions within those regardless of the size of the school so are we looking at those ratios absolutely are we looking consistent to other school districts absolutely but again it's a little bit different at the central office because again they're representing one two quarters one third maybe one a little less than a third of your of your staff but that's not just just central office employees. That is warehouse. That is transportation. That's bus drivers. So, example for warehouse, you have five, we paused. We paused on opening a warehouse position. They went from five to four. I took 30 days to evaluate that situation rather than just replacing that position. The warehouse at a district of this size, right, square footage, come
061to find out when you take a moment to look at that, you have to have one person at the warehouse at all times. You could easily in a day have two of those other warehouse individuals in Kirtland and another two that need to go move a box or make a delivery all the way out in Newcomb. Five at its minimum already is kind of what you need to do to operate a warehouse at bare minimum for this district. So, what I would like to communicate to you is that, yes, we are looking at those district positions, but we are accounting for what is actually, what are the equivalents to other districts and understanding what is actually needed for a district of our scale, regardless if it's 4,500 students or even when it was 7,000 students.
062Oh, absolutely. I understand the geographical aspect as it's worked into the whole equation. I used to run the warehouse. So you would understand, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, so. Mike, the other point that I'm trying to make too is that when you look at the scheduling of the days where an educator works, somebody correct me, 180 days? Mm-hmm. Is that what the contractual obligation is? Uh-huh. 185? 185. I'm looking for HR. Okay, then you look at somebody in admin. Mm-hmm. Is there a true justification to have those people in admin working the two, five, 245 schedule? Or is, let me just pull something out of the hat. Let's say in data where somebody's collecting data, I don't know, maybe on ELA. Is that a position that needs to be funded 245 days a year, or could that
063be funded maybe 210? That's an excellent question, and that's something that we have actually taken a look at with HR. So for example, there are certain positions that are getting full-time benefits, maybe, for example, financial secretaries. Okay. That they don't necessarily, not all financial secretaries, but we've identified positions that are operating at that year-round that don't actually need to be operating year-round. So in other words, when we're looking to create efficiencies, one, is the position actually needed to function the district in a whole? And then two, does their schedule, their year-round schedule, actually fit? So yes, we have identified individuals that could move to, from a financial secretaries position, but we don't have a position that needs to be operating year-round. So from a full-time to a 185 schedule, yes. Okay. And the other one
064that is important, obviously, we're an educational institution, and that's what we strive for our constituents to achieve, and even go on to a higher education or trade school. But when you look at the efficiency and effectiveness of the pay and the return on investments of matching the pay that is commiserate to credentials, and the fact that you have to have a degree or a master's degree, and you have to have a degree or a master's degree, and you have to have a degree or a master's degree, and you have to have a degree or a master's degree, and you have to have a degree or a master's degree, has anybody analyzed that? Or has anybody taken a look at, as for example, in the state of New Mexico, in order to have New Mexico licensure,
065you have to have a minimum of a master's degree? Yes. Those types of things. Again, I'm not opposed to people making money, but obviously, there has to be a greater return on what the expectations are of the individuals in those positions, supervisor, coordinator, those types of things. Absolutely. And there's a lot of facets to what you just said. And that's why it is so critical to be having this kind of conversation. Because this kind of conversation about the budget, creating efficiencies, really puts everyone up to the stand to really understand and work as a team, the team that we're working as a part of Mr. Carlson's cabinet, to analyze and ask those questions amongst ourselves. Now, I think one of the things that you point to has other factors involving union negotiations, understanding how teachers
066move through the New Mexico public education system in terms of pay. Those are all things that I ask questions about to my fellow colleagues to try to understand how we can poke holes and measure that with progress with the assistant superintendent and what positions that we're considering. Again, what are the needs of the district? So, there's, but again, it's when we're talking about this, it's a very complex issue. There's a lot of questions to ask. There's lots of different factors. It's not that we're not asking those questions amongst ourselves to try to do what's best for the students. So, that doesn't really answer your question because it kind of touches on other people's areas and I just focus on finance. But I think having these types of budgetary conversations at this level really drives those
067conversations up, which are important and that you're pointing to. Oh, absolutely. And I'm going to say something here and I know some people are going to get a little tweaked about it. When you look at what's happening at the federal level, the Department of Efficiency, you know, and you look at how people are being paid and what they're being asked to do commensurate to what those credentials are. We ask teachers to have a minimum of a bachelor's degree, okay, four years of education. What are we asking for the specialists? What are we asking for supervisors? What are we asking for coordinators? And I'm sure if we did an evaluation, you'd see that there's people that don't have that but yet are in those positions and are making more money than an individual with a four-year
068degree. Absolutely. And I think that's all, those are all conversations that we're having. I can speak specifically to financial secretaries is one of the things that our department has been looking at. We have not, as the finance department, have historically been a part of the financial secretary hirings. We have not been able to get them to be a part of that process, making sure that they might have some background in finance or accounting. Because of that, we, schools, high schools are hiring financial secretaries that, and we're there to provide this, but the training that's needed, but again, pointing to your question and looking at how are we analyzing credentials of people before we bring them into positions? That's something that we're looking at. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
069you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I know that other departments are looking at as well, so that we are being as effective with our students and producing results well into the future. Oh, absolutely. And when we're asking again, and we're pushing this, like I said before, educational institution and the importance of that. And we have people making more money than the educator. Yeah. To me, that doesn't jive. And I'm not, I'm not here and I'm not. I understand. Yeah. I'm not opposed to people making money as public educator. My parents were public educators my whole life. Yeah. And so is my sister. So I'm in full support of paying teachers more. What we're talking about today with the analysis is how are we actually using that money
070and how can we be using it differently or more efficiently such that we can support other goals set by the board? Thank you. Go ahead. And thank you for that question, Board Member Aspis. From my standpoint, as a member of this cabinet and this team under Mr. Carlson's leadership, I can tell you that. Yes, we are. We are. Yeah. We are taking that into consideration. And I would ask that a lot of the JV1 teachers have the specialty, correct? I mean, special ed, math, those hard to fill subject material matters courses. Sorry. Sorry. That's a little bit out of my wheelhouse. Okay. In terms of identifying those individuals. I guess the big overall takeaway would be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
071Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing is, I think, that would be to make those considerations, in terms of the specialty. And then, also with that ratio, with special education students, with regular, what is it, combined classrooms and to make all those considerations. Because those are points that would impact teacher size. Yes. Dr. With having that knowledge, Dr. Meredith Holmes. Yes. Dr. Meredith booty objections. Dr. Yes. Yeah. Yes. which overall, if you didn't have any SPED students, then this would work very well. But if we're putting all those things to really need to be considered, just as I'm just reiterating what everybody's stated, just to make sure that we're looking at all those things and making all those considerations when we're talking about these positions. Absolutely, and I can't speak
072for Mr. Carlson, but I can say being on this team and having these conversations over the last 42 days as we move into this budget analysis and how this is informing the board about decisions moving forward, those types of considerations are at the forefront of every single decision that we are making. We are not making any decisions lightly. We are making sure that any considerations are based on data and that ultimately that making those decisions is really about making sure that we are maximizing the use of the funds we receive for those students to go back to our students to serve them the best way that they can. Thank you. Then now we will move on to letter B update on bond analysis and staff recommendations by Superintendent Carlson and Finance Director Satanya. Satanya. Satanya,
073that's okay. I'm hearing this. Satanya. It's all right. Would you like me to? I will do this, just to introduce this. I'm happy to yield almost the entire time of this particular subject to Mr. Satanya as it's very much in his wheelhouse. And again, as I brought up before, there's quite a bit of this information he's known previously, but there's also a lot that he has just really delved into in the last few weeks. And he's got a pretty darn good grasp if you ask me, and he's able to articulate that grasp. So, again, Mr. Satanya, go ahead and I'll let you continue on. Thank you, Mr. Carlson. I'm here today to discuss with the Board and especially with the public, our debt service. And for those of you that are unfamiliar with debt service,
074debt service is part of the mill levy that is taxed to our property holders, not just individuals, but also APS, the subsidiaries of APS, and also even the property values that still exist from the PNM plant. Their properties still are valued. And right now, for our debt service, we are charging, we are getting 6.3% of taxes for debt service. Now what does debt service mean? Okay, well, you get your property values taxed at 6.3%. That 6.3% is set aside to pay down the bonds, to pay down the debt that the district has issued in the past. That includes if you are paying down the principal of that bond, plus the interest payments to the individuals that hold that bond. Now, we have two outstanding bonds with this district that were issued in 2014. That were
075issued in 2014. That were issued in 2014. That were issued in 2015. Now, what's important to know about those two bonds is that bonds can be issued and paid down in a year, or you can issue a 10-year bond, a 17-year bond. You can select the period of which you pay back that bond to the bond holders and the interest payments over time. We, these two bonds are set to expire in 2029, meaning that we are continuing to use the money we, we pool from our taxpayers to pay those bonds back and the interest payments. We still have a couple years left on these two bonds. Now, to set this conversation up for the public and for the board, is that two years ago, it was brought to our attention that we are collecting a
076lot of money for debt service that way out, amounts that does not necessarily justify how much money we have to pay back. So we're making more money than we have to pay back. Two years ago, the board decided to pay some, down some of that debt, but chose not to make significant reductions to pay early payments or pay interest early, or not, excuse me, not interest, but just to make early payments on the bonds to reduce that amount of money that we were collecting. There were concerns by the board, Please turn up your cameras guys, or two years ago that because PNM's plant was closing that we were going to lose a significant amount of revenue from being able to collect from those property values. Therefore, the board at the time chose not to pay
077down as much debt. Now, hindsight is 20-20, and here we are a couple years later, and what we've discovered is that even though the PNM plant was closed, their value of property is still worth about $75 million. That's the value of their property assessed by the state. The expectation would be that it was less than that, meaning that even though we were collecting more money at the time than we had to pay off for those two bonds, we chose not to pay down extra payments on those bonds because we thought that PNM would impact that income more significantly than it did. What happened is quite the opposite. Yes, the income from the PNM plant went down. However, the APS plant value went up because there's more demand. Also, APS has subsidiaries that also have properties
078on our school district. Those values also went up. So, as our income went down over the last couple of years, it actually was offset by APS's value increasing. Now, what that means is two years later, we find ourselves still collecting too much debt to pay down debt that we really don't have. And this past month, it was brought to our attention by our current financial advisor that over the last two years, they've been working with the state to avoid having the state enforce bringing our debt service, our tax amount, to zero. Because if you keep making more money and you don't have justification to pay down that debt, what the state will do is they will force you, if you have too much money, they will move your tax rate, down to zero, and they
079will force all that extra cash to be used to pay down future bond payments. So, you won't be collecting more money and you're having to use your excess money to reduce down for those future payments. So, this has put us in a situation that the board has to consider this year, given the timing, because it is not ideal for anyone and this school district to have your debt service, your tax rate, and your bond payments, to be reduced down to zero. So, if you have a debt service, that portion of the total mill levy, 6.3%, all of a sudden go down to zero. That would be considered a missed opportunity for us to actually use that extra money for other reasons. So, with that being said, there are some options that we know that are
080available to us. Two of the options and what the proposal is, is debt service, technically, can only be used to pay down debt. Well if you don't have more bonds that you've issued, then how else do you use that money? There is a way, with the state, and an option available to reclassify that extra money that we have been collecting, that extra taxes, to reclassify that money to be used for an education technology note. Now, notes are just short term bonds. Bonds are bonds. are a longer term period. Notes are pretty much the same thing, but they have shorter terms. So, for example, what you can do is the state allows you to reclassify and allows you to offer an education technology note to pay down and use some of that excess money and put
081it towards technology. So, what the proposal is currently and that we're working towards is issue a one-year education technology note to maintain our 6.3% tax levy through 2026, meaning that we can show to the state that, yes, we have excess money, but what we are going to do with that is issue more debt for technology. That is the note that we would be issuing, and it would be for one year, meaning that you would pay back whatever you borrow. You'll pay that back in one year. You will use money, that excess money, to pay that down. So, again, that will help us to maintain that level. Then, because elections only happen two years, issuing a note will only allow us to keep that tax rate potentially for another year. But what about that second year?
082There's a gap. Do you issue another education technology note? Possibly. What our proposal that we won't be deciding on tonight, but I do want to make public with the board and present to the board, is that this coming November, that we issue a bond, given we're going into a bond election. Now, the note would allow us to spend money on technology this year, this upcoming fiscal year, and the bond funds would be available in the following years to allow us to issue more debt and justify and maintain that rate. Why is that beneficial to the school district? One, we're in need of new technology. We're in need of laptops for our middle school and high schoolers, also for our staff around the district. We need that technology. That technology is very expensive. By issuing this
083and allowing us to use some of those funds, it actually helps us. Use our SEG funds. Instead of using it on technology, it allows us to use that, use and supplement this with potentially a note as an option, allowing those SEG funds to go back to our students. The bond, issuing that, will help us for all the projects that the board has considered in the past. It will allow us to set monies aside to support those capital improvement projects, those large amounts of money that are needed, to support those projects and show the state that we have the funding set aside to begin those projects. By issuing the bond, that will allow us to keep the rate into subsequent years in the future. The education technology note will help us to immediately address the concern
084that the state has let our current financial advisor know that next year they will be moving our rate from 6.3% to 0% if we do not take any additional money. So if we have a significant change of interest, we will be able to popularize our plan and we will be able to get the plan into the school district. And if we have a significant change in interest, we will be able to get the plan into the school district. So we will be able to take the plan and we will be able to get the plan to the schools that we've been working on. And we'll be able to do all these things that the school district is very proud of. So this is what the proposal is currently. Again, we are not asking for a
085vote on this. We would like to go back to the financial advisor, work out these details, and bring this back to the board at a later date, for them to vote on. and dealing with our debt service are the top priorities that we wanted to present and introduce to the public and the board as soon as possible. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Okay, thank you, Mr. Satanya. Oh, did you have anything else? No, I don't have anything. I was listening if you were gonna get it right. And you did, thank you so much. See, I hit and miss. No, it's all right, no, it's perfect. Thank you so much for trying. Okay, thank you. Now we are at number four, adjournment. I adjourn the special school board meeting. Can I have
086a motion? Just as a point for clarity for the audience, we're not taking any action this evening, correct? Correct, no action tonight. Make a motion to adjourn. Second. I second. Okay, board member Montoya? Yes. Board member Aspis? Yes. Secretary So? Yes. Vice President Wells? Yes. And I vote yes. Thank you, we are adjourned at 8.19.