Litchfield Elementary School District Board Meeting 11/18/25

001Mic check. Mic check. Test. Test. Test. Test. Are we good to get started everybody? Hi everyone, thanks for joining us. Today is Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 and this is the regular meeting of the Lichfield Elementary School District governing board. I hereby call this meeting to order. We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. If you could please stand and join us. Next, we will take a moment of silent reflection. Okay, next we will move on to our recognitions and celebrations and this will be led by executive director Nanis. Good evening, President Zida, governing board members, Superintendent Davidson, my fellow cabinet members, and members of our community, both in attendance and online. Tonight, we'll be celebrating two amazing groups of people that we have here in LSD, which are veterans and our principles. This evening,

002we are deeply honored to recognize a remarkable group of individuals, our veterans, who have chosen to continue their service by dedicating themselves to the students of Lichfield Elementary School District. Unfortunately, uh there's quite a few of us that were not able to make it tonight. Uh but we still have a few veterans still here. Uh Dr. Stone, myself, Moss, and I see a few others in the crowd. Your commitment to our nation is a testament to courage, sacrifice, and the unwavering resolve. And your decision to bring that same spirit of service into our classrooms, offices, and school communities is a gift that strengthens our district every single day. We are profoundly grateful not only for your service to your country, but for the service you continue to give led 79. Your leadership, integrity, compassion enrich

003the lives of our students and inspire us who have the privilege of working alongside you. Tonight, we celebrate you. Thank you for choosing to serve, for choosing our students, and most of all, for choosing the Lichfield Elementary School District to serve. [applause] Now, could you please I invite you all to come take a picture with Dr. Davidson and President Zida. >> Also, too, there's some cookies back here for all our principles and our veterans, community members. Feel free to accept help. All right. Thank you for your service. [applause] All right, continue on. There you go. Pass out those cookies. They're really good and they look nice. All right. Thank you. All right. On to our second group. Continue on. As October came to an end, we wrapped up National Principals Month. So tonight, we come

004together to honor, recognize, and celebrate our outstanding school leaders, also known as our principles. Your selfless dedication to your students, your staff, and your school communities, is truly commendable. Student success does not happen arbitrarily. It is the result of intentional leadership, thoughtful decisionmaking, and the tireless work of committed professionals like all of you who guide and support our learners every step of the way. Because of your leadership, our students are not only achieving, they are thriving. And a bit later, you will hear as director of assessment and accountability, Brian Owen, highlight some of that success. You help them succeed as they progress through their educational journey from elementary, middle school, and on to high school, college, and beyond. Your influence shapes not just their academic paths, but their confidence, their character, and most of all,

005their dreams. So to Amanda A. Costa, Barbara B. Roby Tanya Rodiger Corte Sierra Michelle Hill Dreaming Summit Denise Lundberg Lichfield Elementary Leslie Willis Mabel Pageant Dr. Kimberly Hill, Palm Valley, Vanessa Zuniga, Rancho Santa Fe, Cara Fox, Scott El Libby, Sarah Fantisia, Verado Elementary, Courtney Frasier, Balencto, Meredith Noce, Verado Heritage, Luke Jenkee, El Thomas Hec, and Troy Gilbert Elementary. Christy Sartiano, Verado Middle, Cassie Harge, Western Sky Middle, Kyle Martinez, White Tanks Learning Center, and Sarah Rosenthal, Webw Creek Middle School. Thank you for leading your students and staff to believe, belong, and become the best Lichfield learners possible. Your impact is profound, and we are grateful for everything that you do for us every single day. [applause] Guess what's next? >> And if anybody wants to share any words, feel free to come up to the podium.

006that intro every day when I walk into my camp. >> Absolutely. >> It felt real good. >> Absolutely. Remember, if you can't see the camera, smile. >> Awesome. Thank you. Okay, [applause] >> once again, feel free to partake in the cookies on your way out. And Vanessa, we we see you out there. We hear you and we miss you. >> Yeah. Thank you, Moss, for making sure they all take cookies. Thank you all for coming so that we could celebrate you. And we also understand if you now want to leave and go home to start your evening. Thank you. And we are now going to move on. Uh since we have no public request to speak, we will skip that and move on to the adoption of the agenda and consideration of the consent agenda.

007I'll go through and see if anybody has any items that they wish to pull. Miss Moran. >> Um yes. I would like to remove items 6.1 and 6.11 both of the outofstate travel requests. >> Do you mean 6.10? >> Yes. 6.10. Sorry. >> Okay. >> And 6.11. The out ofstate travel requests. >> Gotcha. Uh Mr. Owens, did you have anything you wanted to remove? >> I do not. Thank you. >> Mr. Mike's? >> No. >> Miss Wallace? >> No. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, with that, if someone would like to make a motion. >> Um, I move to adopt the consent agenda minus items 6.10 and 6.11 as presented. >> A second. >> Having a motion for Mr. Owens and a second for Mr. Mike's, I will call for the vote. Miss Moran, >> yay.

008>> Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Mr. Mike, >> yay. >> Miss Wallace, >> yay. >> I'm also a yay. Motion passes. Okay, with that we will now move on to I guess that will be 7.1 for the approval of out of state travel request to attend the Cisco live conference. Uh Miss Moran, I'll let you start with your questions. >> Yes. So um as I think we all know districts have been under scrutiny for out of state travel requests. So I will be pulling all out of state travel requests going forward so that we can discuss those and make sure that we as a board are in line with um approval of those. So um on the first one which is now 7.1 uh my this is a a pricier conference than normally what we

009see. So my primary questions and I read the letters that were attached. Thank you for the additional information. I appreciate that. Um I'm not opposed to this. I know that our networks are in desperate need. So I completely get that. I am just wondering how I guess my question is is this the most effective conference to get us what we need really based on how much of our current networks are Cisco or do we plan to implement more Cisco products because I know that they're pretty specialized. governing board president, members of the board. Sorry, it's coming up. Um to answer that question, we just are utilized last year, my first year's -ate money to replace everything in house with Cisco. So, we are moving to be a full Cisco house here in Lichfield. We still

010do have Ruckus access points. However, Troy Gilbert is going to be built with uh Cisco access points. So, Troy Gilbert will be our first all Cisco. And to your comment about uh this conference, it it is a week-long fully deep dive into everything Cisco. We get to see what's what we're doing with our latest switches. It gives us the opportunity to talk to Cisco TAC, which is their engineers on um some issues that we are experiencing now. hands-on labs. Um it is a week-long fully fully immersed in in in um the opportunity to talk to engineers uh see latest and greatest and then some of the main big things are um security. So we're really working to uh improve our posture in the security landscape here as well. So those are some of the key

011points. >> Okay, great. And I I I don't disagree with going especially based on the feedback that you just supplied. So Troy Gilbert will be all Cisco. I know Cisco is pretty proprietary and then we'll be migrating as we need to. We have some sort of plan for that over the next few years that that we need really a Cisco expert and a backup Cisco expert on staff in order to be able to maintain and and keep these networks working. Correct. >> Uh correct. We we we're utilize -ate funding to to save on the district. So, as -ate funding the the devices that we currently have, we're purchased with the ruckus. They're still good, but as those start to age out, we're going to slowly start replacing with all Cisco. So, I foresee us in

012the next 5 years literally will be 100% a Cisco um product in house. >> Okay, great. And I know on the surface this um as I mentioned earlier is a more pricey conference than our staff normally goes to. However, I know this is a drop in the bucket compared to hiring consultants to come in and help with some of these issues. So, the fact that you're getting 5 days worth of training um and like you mentioned, there's some deep dives and things like that um makes me in favor of this conference. So, thank you for the additional information. >> Board member board member Moran, excuse me. Uh, one of the opportunities Cisco provides uh, their clients is learning credits, but because we buy them through and we save a large price due to a certain

013frame reduced uh, percentage that we maintain, we don't earn those credits anymore. Um, which is what we've done in the past uh, with Mr. Cruz was to utilize those credits to discount that cost. But they've changed their their model. Um, and so hopefully this isn't a repetitive thing every year because we do agree like the cost is definitely more than what we we've seen us use in the past. And it it it will require us to dig into what are the local ones that we still have access to it. Um Ruben and some of his team will participate in the cyber security here locally uh with the state in December. Uh but we will continue to be mindful of that as we we do that. Uh but we have been able to use those -ate

014funds to make sure that uh the cost of Cisco isn't really impacting us the way it would if we were not. >> Okay, great. Thank you for that information. >> No other questions from me. >> Mr. Owens, did you have any questions or comments? >> No questions. Thanks, >> Mr. Mike's. >> Uh no, I don't have any further questions. I appreciate you pulling it from there so we can kind of sus out some of this uh information, but I think it's great steps and great use of resources that we're um we're moving forward with. So, thank you, >> Miss Wallace. >> No questions. Thank you. >> I don't have any questions, but I just know as a wife of an IT director that IT conferences and all of that stuff are pretty pricey. So, this

015to me, while it is pricier than what we're used to as a board seeing for what our admin staff and our when we send other people to conferences, seems pretty reasonable for a week-long conference. So, um I am glad that you guys are getting this opportunity pending approval to do this. And with that, if somebody would like to make a motion. Can I make a motion? Is that what you said? President. Sorry. Um I move to approve item 7.1 as presented. >> I second. >> Having a motion from Miss Moran and a second from Mr. Mike. I'll call for the vote. Miss Moran. >> Yay. >> Mr. Owens. Yay. >> Mr. Mike. >> Yay. >> Miss Wallace. >> Yay. >> I'm also a yay. Motion passes. >> Next, we're going to move on to 7.2,

016which will be the out ofstate travel request to attend the RTM conference. Miss Moran. >> Yes. So, as I stated earlier, I will just blanketly be pulling all of these. Obviously, this one is not very much of a cost impact. Can you refresh my memory, though? Did we already approve some people to go to this conference or is this a first request? >> Um, Madame President and Miss Moran, um, the board did approve my opportunity to attend an RTM conference earlier in September of this year and so I I did attend on our behalf to at an RTM conference. >> Okay. But this is a separate one. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Okay. Because I think I did some research at that point in time and it it definitely seems like a very valuable um

017conference. And is the reason that the event cost is zero is because you are presenting our staff that's going is presenting. >> Yes, ma'am. RTM will cover a certain certain cost associated with travel um if you are attending as well as presenting. >> Okay. And Miss Moran, just to add a little extra um information to this request, it was during that time in September when I had a chance to attend a variety of sessions um not just from a vendor perspective, but also fellow educators across the nation as they shared their story and their success stories. And so, um, as as I heard and listened, I thought, uh, this would be a great opportunity for us as Lichfield L to share what we're doing, uh, around, um, actualizing our strategic plan and putting in uh,

018things in place such as our scorecard and just felt like it would be a great experience, not just for our team to present, but also to share the success that Lichfield is having. So, I've been working behind the scenes to give us a chance to share on a national forum some of the work that our team is involved in. So, that's how the opportunity um came about. >> Great. I think that's fantastic. I love to hear that we are tooting our own horn, if you will. No other questions for me. >> Mr. Owens, did you have any questions? >> No questions. >> Mr. Mike, >> none for me. >> Ms. Wallace? >> No questions. >> I don't have any questions. If someone would like to make a motion. >> I move to approve item 7.2

019as presented. >> I second. >> Having a motion from Miss Moran and a second from Mr. Owens. I'll call for the vote. Miss Moran. >> Yay. >> Mr. Owens. >> Yay. >> Mr. Mike. >> Yay. >> Miss Wallace. >> Yay. >> I'm also a yay. Motion passes. Okay. Uh we are going to move on to the next section. discussion items. We will start with the Troy Gilbert Elementary School construction update. This will be by Dr. Stone and Mr. Enen. >> Madame President, members of the governing board, Dr. Davidson. Uh Dr. Stone and I are proud to present the construction update for Troy Gilbert Elementary. You'll see a lot of photos because there's a thousand words that go with every photo, right? And so we'll just move right on. So far, we've completed the, as you

020can see, the schematic design, the design process, the groundbreaking ceremony that we had in May. Um, construction started shortly after that in June. And our masonry top out, which is a major milestone in construction, occurred on October 31st. Um currently we're working on the school facilities board um approving our adjacent ways verification that was delayed due to some permit issues that we've had with the county and updating some of those things with pricing and such. The building envelope dryin which is a major component which is ironic that we're talking about it today. Um will occur probably around January depending on how much this rain affects us. Substantial completion is still looking at the summer uh this 2026 with the district furniture fixtures and equipment going in uh mid July as well. School is still opening

021in August and we're on track for that. Here's an outline of the campus that you've seen before. Just reminding you what our campus will look like. The contractor, Core Construction, has a drone that they fly over the site about once a week. So, they get multiple views around the site. They also go inside of every room and do a 360 of every single room. So, we have really good opportunities to not only see the progress, but be able to look back in the future and see why or what has happened. Here is uh May about the time of that groundbreaking when you can see that they kind of cleared a few things and set up the the fencing. And here's midocctober where you can see all of the buildings from a bird's eye view from

022the northwest looking with the white tanks in the back. Here's another uh shot from the southeast uh about the same time. As you can see, a lot of the masonry has been uh mostly done on at that point. This was just a couple weeks ago, right before we created this presentation. As you can see, um that's the gym in the foreground right there. Um with the kitchen and the cafeteria behind it with the roofing, um trusses and decking on is the admin building and a couple classrooms. Here's an inside view of what you might see from the contractor as they go into every room and do a 360 so they can kind of see the progress. This is uh building 300, which is the furthest along building. So, they're starting with that one and then

023they're moving to other classrooms. They're working on the classrooms first and then they'll move over to the administration and the gym and cafeteria and kitchen. Building 100, that's our administration building. As you can see, uh, none of the studs are in, but it has a roof that's been completed at that point. When I say roof, that's just the trusses and the decking. The roofing is starting. It was supposed to start on Saturday. They pushed it. I haven't heard back from them again, but it'll start in the next couple days. Uh, I took a panoram um, and our weekly meetings. We we walk each week with the contractor through the site and go over um the happenings and inspecting things and making sure that they're where they should be per the plans. This is a panoramic

024view of the courtyard um which is something that they do not do a uh core doesn't do a one in the courtyard. But if you were to walk out of the admin building, this is the first shot that you will see as you walk out uh to greet your student or go to their classroom on uh on a particular day. Uh on the right there, there's a contract architect and some contractors in the background as we're walking through. I'm open to any questions that you might have for us. >> Miss Miranda, did you have any questions or comments? >> I don't have any questions, but I really appreciate this presentation because it's exciting. I'm glad that we are making progress. I can see the vision coming together and I'm really excited for our students and

025staff that will be going there in August. So, thank you so much, >> Mr. Owens. >> Yep. No questions. It's exciting to see that obviously we're on track and that's the goal. And then the pictures, they just make it seem more and more real every time that, you know, oh, there's a roof, [laughter] right? So, cool. Thank you, >> Mr. Mike. >> Yeah. No questions for me. I appreciate all the transparency with everything kind of keeping us up to date with everything. I guess that's maybe why I don't have really too many questions for how you guys have handled the process and everything. So, I appreciate that. Thank you, >> Miss Wallace. >> No questions. Looking good. >> Thanks. >> I don't have any questions either. You guys are doing great. Um, thank you for

026all that you're doing. They talked a little bit when we went to our uh LTH school showcase last week about just random details they're working on and just there's so many things you don't think about like are they making sure to have the right colors and just silly things that really matter. It like you don't think it'll matter but it really will matter and somebody will complain about it if we do it wrong. So, I appreciate everybody that's working on this project and making sure that everything is done correctly and to the Lichfield standard that we are expecting. So, thank you guys. >> One one request is just at whatever point you deem is appropriate, we would love to get on the campus and see at some point in the construction process. So, a tour

027would be fantastic. >> Mr. Jenke did invite us to come out on a Thursday if we want to when they do their walkthrough. when we came to the showcase. So, >> we do we do have weekly meetings on Thursdays uh that we would be able to just let us know ahead of time. Wear closed toed shoes and long pants >> and we can all wear our hard hats that we have. >> There you go. >> Thank you very much for the information. >> Thank you. >> Okay, next we are going to move on to 9.2 operational fund balances and reserves presentation from CFO Vaughn. This is less exciting than the last presentation. Sorry, Michael Vaughn. >> Am I allowed to? >> I'm sorry. What? >> Am I allowed to agree with that? >> I mean,

028you you can it's [laughter] it's it is factually true. So, >> yes. >> Okay. Uh, Madame President, members of the governing board, Superintendent Davidson, colleagues and community, thank you for joining us tonight to discuss the district's approach to operational fund balances and reserves. Tonight's presentation aligns with the district's strategic pillars, but uh has of resources but has impact on all areas of the district strategic plan. Additionally, this presentation aligns with governing board policy 3-101.01 on fund balance. Reserves are effectively the district's emergency fund. And just like in your personal finances, determining the amount of an emergency fund uh you want to hold is a balancing act. You want to make sure that you have enough to mitigate your risks, but there's not much benefit in having too much. To help ensure the district is taking

029a critical riskbased approach to our reserves, the district evaluates the model published by the Governmental Finance Officers Association for operational reserves. Um, and starting this year, as I mentioned, we've actually incorporated it into our board policy. The governmental finance officers association riskbased model asks governments to consider their risk exposure in several areas detailed on the slide. These ex these include extreme financial events, revenue stability, expense volatility, leverage, liquidity, uh the extent operations are supported outside the general fund, growth, and the need for reserves for capital projects. The district has significant risk to extreme events, revenue stability, liquidity, uh, and, uh, positions supported from other funds. The district experiences some risk due to inflation factors and expense volatility, which uh, will actually serve a significant portion in our uh, later conversations tonight, and some risk from

030leverage due to our energy water savings uh, lease. Our bonds do not provide leverage risk due to being tied directly uh to a tax levy. This slide shows the inflation adjusted base support level or funding received per student from 2002 to current day. This graph illustrates a couple of significant points. First, when the state has significant budget issues, as it did during the Great Risk Recession, school districts can and have taken a cut. Second, inflation has had a significant impact on the district's purchasing power in the last couple of years. The inflation funding adjustments the district districts do receive are not sufficient to keep up with inflation. We are currently operating on the equivalent of 2018 or 2019 per student support in terms of purchasing power. When we talk about reserves, the GFOA identifies their

031recommendations as a percentage of operating revenues. In Lichfield, we have identified these as our recurring M resources as well as revenue from funds we consider part of the reserves. The various components are detailed on the slide. [cough] [clears throat] Sorry. The funds we consider part of our reserves include all the funds that can be used uh for fairly broad purposes uh including all of those on the slide. However, I would like to point out a couple of these including community schools funding which uh supports our preschool and extended day programs. These fund balances are largely restricted to those two areas, at least in practice, until those programs are being operated sustainably. And gifts and donations, which includes a large amount of resources that that are restricted at the school level, and so they may be

032more difficult to actually deploy uh as reserves uh if it came to uh needing to do so. Traditionally, auxiliary funds are also considered school-based funds. However, legally there's not the same restrictions on use. The specific funds may become more significant a part of our discussions this year and in future years due to the due to the structure of our reserves changing. And really what I mean by that is which funds the the money is is sitting in. As of last year, most of these funds, with the exception of Medicaid, gifts and donation, and impact aid, have ongoing expenses in them that closely match with the revenue that comes in. For 2026, meaning the current year, we proposed a position to be funded from the impact aid fund, which means it now fairly closely aligns with

033expected expenses in that fund with the revenue that comes in. And later tonight, we'll talk more in depth about use for Medicaid. We'll need to manage moving forward the gradual shift this will cause and where our reserves are being held and ensure we're comfortable with the accessibility of our reserves. Based on the GFOA riskbased model and the district's characteristics, uh it is their recommendation and our governing board policy that our reserves should fall within 3.12 and 3.9 months of operating revenues. Litfield ended last year with 4.1 months of reserves, which put the district at slightly above our targets. This played a role in our discussion on the 2026 budget where we planned some level of spendown of the reserves with our budget planning. I will provide an updated analysis on our reserves in my next

034presentation tonight as we begin looking at multi-year forecasts. At this time, I'm available to answer any questions you may have on the district's approach to financial reserves. Miss Maran, >> I appreciate the approach. We've obviously talked about this many times and I was part of the, you know, the approval of the original approach, but I will be a broken record in that I don't like us being above our upper limit. And I think that's going to resolve itself which we will talk about in your next presentation. However, just for the trends, um we're at 34.51% this year. Last year we were at 34.14 and the prior year was 34.4. So it's hovered in this 34% range. Again, just, you know, I I feel like the upper limit is where we need to be. And I

035I understand that likely that will be where we end next year depending on how everything shakes out. So, um I think this is good and I appreciate the transparency uh of the presentation. >> Mr. Owens. >> Yeah, I feel like this is the teaser before we find out what's what's going to happen. So, um I too agree that, you know, it's important to have this um to be in the middle there, but I don't want to be over. We need to spend the funds where we can when we can, but Obviously, next presentation looking into the future. I know there's a lot of things that are gonna that we can't control, but and we want to be ready for those, but looking forward to the next one, >> Mr. Mike. >> Uh, no questions for

036me right now. Thank you, >> Miss Wallace. >> No questions. I agree with what they both said. I'm all about spending our funds, but as they have let me know, we're gonna do that. >> I don't have any questions. We don't need to beat a dead horse. We We all I think we're all on the same page about where we want to be, but your next presentation is going to explain how we're going to end up there anyways. So, uh, with if there's no other questions or comments, I guess we'll move right into the next presentation with more exciting news. Not really. Madame President, members of the governing board, Superintendent Davidson, colleagues and community, thank you for joining us tonight to discuss the budget timeline and context for fiscal year 2027, which is still bizarre

037to say. Tonight's presentation aligns with the district's strategic pillar of finance, but impacts all areas of the district strategic plan. Since I have been at Lichfield, we've taken approach to budgeting that begins by taking a holistic view of the district's finances, trying to both balance reoccurring expenses to reoccurring revenues, but also looking at our reserve levels or one-time resources to determine what our best approach is for the coming year. During that process, it's regularly been asked why expenses typically or almost always come in under projection. Understandably, this can make it difficult when making strategic decisions at the board level. As a result of these conversations, each year I've worked to try to make our forecasts more and more realistic as opposed to simply being conservative. Uh this has taken the form of starting our budget

038conversations with prior year actual expenditures to capture typical vacancy savings in our forecasts, forecasting employee turnover when considering the potential cost of proposed raises and studying how our actual spending by the end of the year relates to our incumbrances at various points in the year. The result is that we have a have more realistic forecasts. However, it is also an estimation process that could result in us coming in either above or below forecast. Uh it it it really truly is still an estimate. Tonight, we will uh update our forecast for 2026 uh and look at primary drivers behind the change since we last looked at it in March when the governing board approved the projected budget for this year. We will then briefly discuss some state and external factors we need to be tracking this

039year before closing with discussion on goals and uh focus for the budget process for 2027. This slide is from the March 6th presentation on the projected budget for 2026. You can see at the bottom of the second column that we anticipated overspending our M revenues by 2.8 8 million. As we move to the next slide, please note that 2025 has come off the forecasts. So 2026 will be in the first column, not the second. This slide shows our updated forecast of overspending M revenues by 3.9 million. We will now spend some time going through the primary drivers of this change. This slide shows that the change is being driven fairly evenly by updated expense and revenue estimates. We will begin our discussion on the expense side. The change in expense estimate is being driven by

040two primary significant factors. Salary and benefits being higher than anticipated and an increase in special education costs beyond what was included in the forecast. The change in salary and benefits are being caused by ultimately positive outcomes that simply cost more reduced vacancies and reduced turnover. We will look at that more in depth here in a second. The change in special education forecast is being driven by contracted staff and outplaced students which we will also look at more in depth in the coming slides. One of the ways we've worked to make our forecasts more realistic is to incorporate salary savings into the forecast by beginning with prior year actual expenses without modification for savings from vacant positions. And what I mean by that is in the forecast we're not adding back costs uh assuming that previously

041vacant positions uh become filled. Traditionally speaking, that that results in a fairly accurate forecast because even if that exact position is filled the next year, you uh very regularly have a like position somewhere in the district that might be vacant for the same period of time. [clears throat] This has worked well in the past due to vacancies being rather stable across the system. Um, as a result of this forecasting, however, significant changes in vacancies can cause variances from the forecast. In this case, we saw a significant decrease in vacancies in special education aid positions as well as teaching positions being filled by other methods than a traditional certified teacher such as a long-term substitute or other programs uh such as the partnerships we have through certain universities. This result resulted in an increase in salary

042and benefit costs from our forecast. We also saw decreased turnover in a number of employee groups that caused the raise to be more expensive than forecasted as a result of the variability in this data. The forecast you'll see tonight do not include a turnover reduction to the cost of the future raises. Next, we will talk about special education. Each year, as part of the forecast, we specifically include planned changes in special education costs, such as expanding a self-contained program to more classrooms or a change in related service providers within the forecast. We also include an amount that we forecast simply based on historical trends of costs and student enrollment uh for 2026. That amount was $1.4 million. And so to be clear, that amount that we put in our forecast isn't because we've identified any

043actual true change we intend to make in special education. It's simply trying to capture the trend that we see year after year in special education. However, special education costs are actually on track to be 2 million over from last year, excluding salary and benefits, which were included as part of our previous slides. This increase is being driven almost entirely by the cost of contracted staff and outplaced students. We'll first talk about outplaced students. Outplaced students are those students whose IEPs or individualized education plans require them to attend a more specialized school outside of the Lichfield Elementary School District. As a result, the district must pay tuition and other costs for transportation and related services to these schools. Very typically the cost of supporting these students at these specialized schools is significantly higher than funding we

044receive for the student. This slide shows the change in the number of students being supported at each school and average cost of attendance which includes tuition as well as transportation related services and other costs. Our revenue through state funding formulas for these students range from $7,400 to 46,000 with the average being a little over $30,000 for context. This slide shows our outplaced student population grew by six or 33% year-over-year. We would like to celebrate with our families and special education team that two of these children are actually in the process of coming back to one of our schools. um we all look forward to welcoming back welcoming them back to our campuses. This slide shows a summary of contracted positions year-over-year. We can celebrate a reduction in special education aid positions. However, we've seen significant

045increases in contracted teachers and smaller increases in related service providers. and working with our spe special education team on this data. We believe the increase in contracted teachers is a result of ch uh of an attempt to keep our special education coaches providing support as opposed to serving in that teaching capacity when vacancies arise. An additional component to contracted workers we want to bring forward is the wide use of contract agency workers serving as substitutes for our special education aids. We have spent $90,000 on this through October um for those special education aids. In terms of our budget work, this simply reminds us that without further changes, uh there's not really opportunity to to absorb this in M. I'd like to pause uh for questions on the expense side of our conversation prior to moving

046on to revenue. Miss Maran, >> I mean, I have some overall questions that I'll wait until the end, but but primarily here, you know, you provided us with some information on the outplace students. So, can you give me a number? You said the average in funding that we get is 30,000 per student, but we're obviously spending more than that, but I'm having a hard time coming up with. So, I would I would compare the $2 million that it's costing us to the approximately $720,000 in funding that we're getting. And that would be the 24 students times $30,000. So, let me do the math on that. Um, so you're telling me we have 1.3 over $1.3 million in expenses that are due to unfunded mandates. So, our state legislators are making laws that are requiring us

047to spend $1.3 million more than what they are funding us for 24 students. Is that accurate? >> Approximately. >> That seems approximately accurate. The reason I I shared the the revenue side and the expense side is simply to bring attention to the significant budget impact of outplay of the outplace student population [clears throat] growing. Uh and we'll talk about it when I get to the revenue side, but um as your special education population grows, uh it does bring in more resources. it just simply doesn't bring in enough resources to cover the cost um of providing those services or in this case paying other organizations to provide those services. >> Okay. So, do we have any control [cough] over [clears throat] any of those pieces? So, um, we're going to quickly get out of my realm

048of of knowledge, but what I will say is whether or not a student attends one of these schools is an IEP team uh decision. Uh obviously that IEP team includes a lot of different stakeholders from those that work uh at Lichfield Elementary School District, but also uh the parents of those child uh the the providers of services to those children. Um the state does publish a list of uh authorized, if you will, private day schools. That's the uh term for these types of organizations. They're actually exempt from state procurement uh requirements. So we don't do um and I don't honestly know how we would do uh any sort of procurement work uh in this area. Uh we do uh plan to to look at uh and this is obviously the the very beginning step of

049this the various costs uh associated to which school. They don't all provide the same types of services. So, it's not as if you can just say this is the cheapest one. This is the one we're sending our children to because uh they all do provide different types of special ed services. But there there may be some um opportunity to uh on the margin uh impact this. Uh I'll also bring attention to our white tanks learning center. Uh that is an attempt by Litzfield Elementary School District to uh keep the number of children that we're outplacing outside of the district uh lower. Um but that's also something that that we'll need to uh really look at because similar to everything else um there is a certain number of students u that need to be there to

050to make all the numbers make sense. So there are various things that we can do to influence this whether it's um you know driving those those conversations or identifying uh alternatives but truly the state basically gives uh districts a list um and that's that's who uh you can go to for these things. I hope I answered your question. >> Yes, that does answer my question. I know we have a new director of special ed, so I'm hopeful um maybe that can help to drive some of these conversations about placement. Don't get me wrong, I want what's best for students, but it is not fiscally responsible of me to say that the state is going to pay $1 and we're going to add $2 for all of these students to give them what is needed. the

051state obviously should step up and actually fund what they want us to spend because this is coming at the cost of other students as well. So I would just like for that to be more in line. Um so I'm hopeful that we can make whatever decisions we might need to make if there are some within our control to make sure that the students are getting their needs met at the most coste effective um placement possible. And I'm not saying that hasn't happened in the past, but maybe with this now shining a light, we can uh come into that with more scrutiny or look into more options. Um because I understand we have a great special ed department and that's why people move into our boundaries and we have an obligation to serve them and we

052want to serve them, but it is difficult to swallow the unfunded mandates. For me personally, that's all I have on this portion. Thanks, >> Mr. Owens. >> Thank you, Mr. Owens. And Miss Moran, I just wanted to comment on your piece regarding a new special education director. And I was having some conversation this morning with some of our administrative team who are in the special ed department. And it is true the um turnover in that role over the last three three years hasn't probably allowed us the opportunity to dig significantly deep in the cost associated with our outpaced children. And so I I do think over time we can um do some problem solving and and not just talk programmatically but also from a related service perspective even to uh the transportation piece and how

053we can uh maybe bring some of those cost and that manpower back to Lichfield instead of having to contract it out. So just uh it is an important piece that we have to remember stability does matter in some cases and I think in that role it certainly will add value over time. Yeah. And can I just add one more thing just for my other board members? So when we look at this special education increase, those expenses are going up 40%. 40% from what we forecasted. So it's a combination of things, but that's a massive increase that we can't sustain. >> Mr. Owen, sorry. Is this an issue for other districts? AB: >> Absolutely. So, uh, on Friday, uh, I was at the business, uh, uh, portion of Guppy, which is, uh, the Greater Phoenix Education,

054um, management coalition, something like that. And um at the end uh you know they open it up for is there anything else that that the group would like to have further conversation with? And obviously I had my hand shoot up and say can we just talk about uh special education cost containment. Um and everyone uh basically sighed and said yes if you think of anything can you please let us know. Um I will say that um as part of that conversation um I heard a couple of different things from from my peer CFOs. Uh one was um just sharing with me what we're experiencing which is it it doesn't seem no matter how much you forecast or set aside that it's ever quite enough. Um and um that it's happening everywhere. but also that there

055is a a study group um coming out of the superintendent version of Guppy Mack on special ed cost containment. So, uh they did uh ask for uh members that of the business group that would be interested in joining that conversation. So, I did volunteer. Uh my hope is by by doing that work both uh locally at Lichfield, but also being engaged in that conversation at a at a county and state level is that I'll be exposed to as many of ideas as we possibly can be as we uh work to address something that truly is a statewide and uh I would imagine but don't have as much visibility into that it's also a nationwide uh problem. Yeah, it's just interesting the the first, you know, you presented on two kind of bigger issues and the

056first one is we're doing a good job that's costing us more money, right? And the other one's costing us money and we can't do anything about it, honestly. Yeah. >> So, thank you. >> Uhhuh. >> Mr. Mike's. >> Um, yeah, I appreciate board member Moran pointing that out. I mean, it's a staggering cost that we have with it and then trying to make sure we do what's best for kids as well. Um, additionally, I was I actually kind of had a question with and I don't mean to catch you off guard if you don't know the answer for the the $90,000 through October for the the substitutes, the contracted substitutes that we have. Is that is there is there like some sort of comparison that I have? I mean, is that kind of through the

057roof this year through October? Is it is it uh something is there past couple years that we've had it? and maybe elaborate what I mean I don't know what that what that means what what does that mean for a substitute >> that's contracted for >> um those substitutes are serving as substitutes for instructional assistance in our self-contained programs or uh for one-on- ons um our use of that uh in prior years was a bit sporadic uh so it is up um it seems to have become more widely used uh this past year. We um have looked at alternatives. Uh I don't know if you recall and I I apologize I didn't look up what date the governing board approved it but we did approve uh a substitute rate for classified uh employees to be pushed

058through ESI which is the same provider of substitutes that our uh teachers our certified positions uh use. So we are working uh diligently to move that work from the contracted arena to I suppose it's still technically contracted but a much more advantageous uh contract than than what is presently being used. >> Okay. Yeah. Because I'm just trying to figure the math. I mean it's only through October and we still have quite a few. And that's why uh there's a slide later in the presentation, but we talk about next steps and uh addressing that use um is certainly a a potential next step. >> Right. And then uh last question I have for these outplaced um places for for these students. Are these are these numbers that we have based on you a full full year

059each year they attend? Like I know you're saying we're you know potentially there's two that welcoming two that are coming back. Is it kind of a prrated piece per per month or how's it how does it work with these? >> It is a it is a monthly tuition cost. So as those two come back we will see uh a decline. Um uh a lot of these students stay there year round though. Um I mean some do come back but a lot are uh placed there for the year. Thank you, >> Miss Wallace. >> I don't have any questions. I agree with Miss Moran that the our legislators need to look at these funds and there's not a lot that we can do about this. But when these are increasing at 40% that and it's affecting

060all schools across our state, this is going to be a big issue for a lot of people. I don't have any questions. I just I hate the situation we're in, which is nobody's fault. Well, it's it's our legislator's fault, actually, but um it's nobody's fault that's here in this room right now. Um, and I appreciate that we're going to be looking at all the different creative out-of-the-box ways that we can try to solve this problem because at the end of the day, families come in and have IEP meetings and we can't guarantee what they're going to need until they have their meeting. As a parent that has those meetings, I know what that's like. So, um, some of these numbers are just kind of very shocking to see how much money it's costing us. And

061um I agree, our legislators need to do something about it. And at one point they were talking about doing a study of special education costs, but who knows what actually happened with that. So um I'll let you continue. [cough and clears throat] All right. Now we will uh look at the revenue side of the forecast. To forecast revenues, we ultimately have to forecast student counts and the resulting a average daily memberships. We utilize the work of a demographer to forecast general uh education enrollment trends which we utilize in our forecast. We also must forecast special education enrollment which for that we've been using historical trends. Our enrollment this year is down around 100 students compared to forecast and uh weighted average daily membership for our special education population did not grow as historical trends would

062have suggested it should. Uh these changes are driving the change in revenue estimate. So what does this tell us about our special education situation? Each year we estimate expenses based on what we know we're we are changing as well as historical trends and we have historically done the same with special education awaited ADM. However, in 2026 expenses are outpacing historical trends and ADM is underperforming historical trends. This means our cost for educating special education students is growing compared to the resources we're given to support these students, which really just goes to the conversation uh the board's been having tonight. You might be wondering from our previous slide, if we're down 100 students, how can that result in only 37.9 uh reduction in ADM on the general education side? This is because a disproportionate amount of

063the decline, actually over 100 students, is from our kindergarten cohort. These declines in kindergarten are being partially offset by increases in other grades. Because kindergarten students are not funded as a full student by the state, the resulting decline in ADM is smaller than the uh number of students declining. Based on this change in forecast, we've identified some next steps we'll be exploring in an attempt to course correct. In reviewing the data behind the forecast, we noticed a significant amount of overtime being utilized by certain areas of the district. We've met with supervisors and will be monitoring this closely through payroll and human resources. We will uh also be working with our special education team to consider alternative structures for contracted substitute use. Uh we will be meeting with the Arizona Department of Education to look

064at pursuing high-cost special education grants that may be able to help provide additional financial supports to cover uh services for specific special education students. We will continue to push open enrollment and attempt to bring more students into the district where we have capacity. and we will be doing a more detailed look at the changes in spending from 2024 to 2025 in order to see if we can identify other areas of focus. These are all efforts towards course correcting our revenue and expenditures. However, there are some structural budget opportunities that I will share with you next. >> Can I ask a question before you move on? Um, can you just tell me more about this overtime issue? >> Sure. Um, you probably will recall um I think it was last year uh we moved quite a

065number of of uh positions that were salaried to hourly. uh because we were uh anticipating a change in I always say the wrong law, >> fair labor standards, >> the Fair Labor Standards Act. Um that change actually didn't come to fruition at the federal level. They pulled it back at the very last second. Uh we moved forward with our change uh for a number of reasons. Uh one, uh so much work had gone into that change. two, some of the positions that we had salaried, upon deeper reflection and review, we weren't really uh certain that they truly met the requirements to be salaried. So, it it from a legal perspective, it was a much uh more advantageous position to be in to have those positions be hourly because you're never going to get in trouble

066with the Department of Labor uh for having people be hourly, but you could very much get in trouble for having people be salaried that don't meet the qualifications. Um I apologize for the cough. Um so that's really the origin of the issue. Um it's really primarily uh one employee group at our schools. >> Okay. So what is the procedurally what is the approval process for overtime? and and I'm assuming at this point we've already had a conversation and maybe how that should go. >> Yeah. So, uh overtime approval has been uh handled at the supervisor level which is why um we had the conversations at the supervisor level. Um there's no external to the supervisor employee relationship uh approval for overtime and because uh the district manages salary and benefits costs at a district level.

067It's not assigned to any school or department budget to be managed at at that level. Um, frankly, there's no real incentive um to manage that cost. >> Okay. Other than someone is going to look at that and if overspending continues, there will be changes made to the people making those decisions, I would imagine. >> Right. >> Okay. But since this is in this presentation, just to reiterate, those conversations are already being had now, and so this should be less of an issue going forward. >> That's the uh hope. So, we had the conversations uh this past week. Um Sandy and I will continue uh to monitor over time. Um, I actually looked at uh at hours versus expected hours for every single hourly employee in the district for every single pay period uh >> of

068course >> through today. So, um I I'm I'm very confident to say that it really is one employee group. Uh we have talked to all of uh those supervisors and we'll continue to to monitor the monitor this scenario. >> Okay. Thank you. Sorry, can I ask a question about the followup? This employee group is a group we expected that we might have some overtime from when we did this, right? >> That is true. Uh I will say it's substantially higher than uh I would have expected. >> Okay. >> Sorry to ask an operational question, but uh is there any way I could get some more power? This is no longer charging and I really can't have my computer turn off. [clears throat] >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Can I ask a question that maybe

069Dr. Davidson would answer while you're doing that? Um, one of our potential next steps is continuing pushing open enrollment where appropriate. Um, can you give me any specifics behind how we're trying to do that? Thank you, Miss Moran, for that question. And uh it's a good question because here we are talking about revenue and we realize that more kids in our classrooms brings us more money. Um we've engaged certainly it's an ongoing process, open enrollment, working with our families um and trying to support uh those families and getting their their children where they want them to be. Over the last three weeks, um we've asked our um the clerk in our area who handles open enrollment to um dig deep with um those uh families who are on a waiting list. And we started uh

070if you remember in policy and in our regulation or practice of sorts that list um starting in alphabetical or A through what have you um for priority. So, we started at the top and have begun working with our families um to um move if they wish or to decline the open enrollment opportunity assuming space was there. Uh and now as we move into this week, so that's been about a two-eek process. As we move into this week, Miss Moran, we're starting to address what uh is seen as letter J, which are those students who are outside of our district, not connected to our schools. And so I'm really excited to see um you know hopefully some data by when we come back from fall break or Thanksgiving break I should say to find out um

071are we having more kids into our schools that were otherwise not with us. So excited for the data and I'll certainly share that with the board when we have it. >> Okay. One item to consider is I know there are families in neighboring districts who have tried to get into our district in the past and we have not had capacity. So, I see other schools, charter schools and that sort of thing that advertise, you know, that they have um capacity and so I don't know if we're to that point yet, but I do think we have had a reputation of not having capacity. So, I think we would need to somehow make the public aware of that. I don't know what the best way to do that is, but I would hope that maybe that

072would be part of this plan as well. >> And Miss Moran, thank you for that. Um last year um with um Michelle McDaniel who's part of Michael's team um we began to your point if we had to say no due to capacity we began also offering alternative spaces where we did have capacity and some of our families have taken us up on that. Um but yeah, I I hear you on that. Thank you. >> I I'd like to add just one other thing in that uh area. Um something else that's exciting about uh getting through these weight lists even if uh it doesn't result in um those offers being accepted. Uh and that is we do still have new open enrollment applications being filled out and being submitted. And so if that weight list is

073low, uh we actually have a much better chance of being able to offer to those uh that are presently applying um because of the priorities. It's it's very far from a first come first serve situation. But if if we can get the weight lists uh down to nothing essentially uh it does mean that those who are applying today will be at the top of the list. And obviously if you're applying today it means you have interest today and you're much more likely uh to actually accept. So so that's part of the strategy too is to uh try to get through that weight list by offering and being told either yes or no. uh to be able to diminish the weight list to a point that we can truly uh uh welcome in those who are

074applying today. So I do think this work will um result in additional students whether or not it uh it results in net additional students because we constantly have uh children uh both coming in and going out. Um we'll see, right? All right. Are we ready for me to continue? Okay. >> Yes. [clears throat] >> As I mentioned uh in our earlier conversation on reserves, Medicaid is one of our only remaining reserve funds that has significantly more revenue coming in than we have planned expenditures each year. As a result, we could shift $500,000 of special education spending to Medicaid. The Medicaid fund can be used broadly for any purpose because uh it is partial federal reimbursement of our special education spending from M. And so it's not actually restricted to special education because it's replacing those

075M dollars. uh but many districts do use it uh in part to support special education services. As a district, we already do and we can expand that usage to support the balancing of M either in the short or long term. We will continue to have discussions on this structure and our reserves in general to ensure we're comfortable uh in the specific fund level location of our of our reserves and the nuances that come with that. Also, through the legislative process, the one-time funds that we received last year were continued on a one-time basis for 2026. As opposed to having these revenues go to capital, as is our typ typical recommendation for one-time funds, I would recommend we bring these into M to help offset the decline in revenues we are seeing from what we were

076expecting. In the next portion of the presentation, I will show two scenarios without the shift and one scenario with the shift. Uh at this time, I'll pause for any questions you might have before I continue on to the various forecasted scenarios. >> Miss Moran, >> um just to make sure I heard you right on this. So Medicaid right now we use at least partially to fund our special education, but you're saying going forward you would consider using a larger percentage of that. >> So last year uh we had about half a million dollars more in revenue come into that fund than uh we spent. And so what I'm saying is for this year or the future we could shift uh roughly that amount uh from M to Medicaid. Uh and that assumption has I just

077want to make this clear too that assumption has been in all of our previous forecasts. And um when we get into the scenarios, I'll actually point out today uh where that is uh in the slides we've been looking at because I want you to be able to see when we get to the scenario with the shift. I want you to be able to see that shift. Um but it's always been been part of it. Uh and that's where I've been talking about where our reserves are being held because as we've um for example last year as we spent more in M than we brought in our fund balance in M declined and for example with the Medicaid with that 500,000 it means the balance in Medicaid increased. So in total our our reserves did what

078they did. uh but the location of the reserves have shifted. >> Okay. And then is that similar to the shifting of the one-time revenues from the state from capital to M meaning normally we'd put that under capital because we don't want to have operations that we can't sustain with ongoing revenues but is it the kind of thing where if we spend down the revenues potentially or we spend down the the reserves It's kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other because you would take this one time and use that to replenish the reserves potentially anyway down the road. Uh yes. Uh part of the reason I'm suggesting bringing that one-time revenue over to M is I'm truly viewing that as a one-time scenario. uh we have a forecast adjustment where where our

079revenue uh is down about the same amount as the one-time revenue. And so essentially the decision we would be making is ili utilizing that runet one-time revenue to to make up for uh the forecast adjustment. Um I'll talk a little bit later about the state of the state's budget. I won't go into great uh levels of detail. um they can surprise us. We have no idea what they're going to do, but uh they have similar conversation to conversations to this at the state level. And they're really um isn't a lot of uh data that would support that that one-time revenue uh continues. Um, of course, I honestly didn't think it would continue into 2026. So, so we might get lucky. Um, but there isn't really a lot of data being talked about at the legislative

080level uh that makes it look like there there really is resources to continue that into the future. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I have no questions, >> Mr. Mike. [clears throat] >> None for me, >> Miss Wallace. >> No questions. >> I don't have any questions. All right, before we begin looking at the detailed forecast, I wanted to share some of the assumptions built into them. First, we've modeled a 2% raise simply to allow us to see what our most recent raise amount uh looks like moving forward. Uh when we look at projections together, you may notice that it's showing a significantly higher cost than our 2% raise has in the past. It's being driven primarily by our shift of performance pay which did not receive the percentage increase in the past to

081base pay uh that uh was done last year in our performance pay restructure. However, it also is being impacted uh by not continuing the practice of reducing the cost by a projected turnover rate. In response to the forecast variances, uh we've continued to forecast the cost increase of special education services, but have not included an increase in ADM for special education students. Uh in these scenarios, we've kept intact the assumption that vacancies will remain consistent year-toear. However, we may look at loosening that assumption as we get further into the staffing process into for 2027. It's also important to note that over the time horizon um covered by the projection, the district will have to consider with our community the continuation of the M override. Uh these projections all assume the continuation of our very valuable

082uh 15% override. Um simply honestly because I didn't want to bury you in so many different scenarios. We will look at three scenarios. Scenario one is an aggressive estimate of overspending M reoccurring resources by 3.9 million. This is the projection we've been comparing against in our conversation so far. We will look at a more conservative estimate of overspending M reoccurring resources by 4.5 million. We will then look at scenario one with the shift to Medicaid and one-time revenues we discussed. Each of these scenarios is shown in two slides. One that focuses on expenses against reoccurring revenues and one that focuses on one-time resources and our reserves. These two slides work in conjunction to [clears throat] allow us to understand the impact on the district's overall financial position. Namely, if we're overspending, how long can our

083reserves support that behavior? Or if we're underspending, how are our reserves growing compared to our targets? [cough] [clears throat] I will walk you through this scenario to help you better understand what we're looking at. You can see at the very top we start with projected weighted student count and the resulting recurring revenues from the state funding formula and M override. We then start with a projection of where we will end this year from an expense perspective. To come to this number, we do a lot of analysis around our spending or planned spending that we can see in our accounting system and various things that can affect how that ends up such as historical trends in the relationship between incumbrances and ultimate expenses at the end of the year. How utilities are tracking compared to what

084we have encumbered for them. Overtime expenses, the potential cost of vacant positions if filled during the year. the budget available to our schools and departments and how those have historically been spent. An amount for utility costs increase that we calculate using historical trends. An amount for potential increase in property liability and prepaid legal costs. Um, and then we bring those expenses forward as the starting point for the next year. We include the potential cost of the 2% raise, which you can see has a line there. changes in projected cost of Arizona State Retirement System contributions based on ASRS's estimates of contribution rates for that year. Uh the amount of medical and other benefit cost increases the district plans to absorb. an initial estimate in the potential cost or savings from applying our current staffing standards

085to enrollments for that year, the set aside for increases in special ed costs that we've been discussing so much tonight, and the cost of our employees continuing on the performance pay structure and longevity stipen program. This then results in an estimated spending level that's brought forward to the next year. Again, many of these figures are ones that we can attempt to influence, but we cannot always control. For example, during our budget process, we can discuss the level of raise to give, but outside of energy savings projects like significant ones we have undertaken recently, the cost of utilities is really uh quite difficult to manage. You can see on the last row of this table with these baseline assumptions without intervention we will be overspending our M reoccurring resources significantly. Now if we hold these figures

086at the bottom of the table in your mind we'll move to the next slide. >> [cough and clears throat] >> This is our slide that helps us look at how the differences between our M reoccurring revenues and expenses impact our reserves. You'll notice that the bottom row of our previous slide is brought forward as the second row on this table. We start with our current level of reserves. Uh bring forward our difference between M revenues and expenses. estimate the difference in revenues and expenses in our other reserve funds and calculate a resulting new reserve level. We then compare that against the various targets we've set in policy. You can see in this scenario we end 2026 with no excess reserves and still within our reserve targets. However, without intervention in 2027, our reserves are estimated

087to be 200,000 under even our lowest reserve target set in policy. The only difference between the first and second scenario is where we ultimately end this year expense-wise. This scenario is more conservative from scenario one and assumes we will end the current year overspending our M revenues by 4.5 million. You can see under this scenario, [clears throat] we still end 2026 with our reserve target uh with our reserves in our target range, 1.5 million under the top target, but 4.8 million above the lowest target. However, without intervention under this scenario, we would be 1.3 million under our lowest target by the end of 2027. Now, let's look at the scenario with the shift of one-time revenues to M and expenses to Medicaid. You'll notice that compared to scenario one, this shows our overspending of M

088reoccurring resources in 2026 as 3.4 million or 500,000 less than in scenario one. This is due to shifting 500,000 to Medicaid. We will see that and the impact of the one-time revenues. On the next slide, I'll bring your attention to a couple of different figures on this slide. First, you can see the projected change in other reserves went from 868,000 on uh other slides to 368,000 here. That change is the movement of 500,000 of expenses from M to Medicaid. The remaining 368,000 uh is almost entirely made up of projected changes in our gifts and donations funds which can be more difficult to access at the district level. This practice, if continued, would shift our reserves from primarily being an M indirect cost and Medicaid to having gifts and donations play a more significant role. Additionally,

089on this slide, you can see the infusion of 491,000 of one-time resources into M. As a result of this structural change in this scenario, we would end 2026 with a tiny amount of excess reserves and be within our reserve target for 2027, but be significantly below it for 2028 with a significant amount of our remaining reserves, difficult to access because of that shift uh of more of our reserves being in gifts and donations. Uh, one thing that we can think about too, uh, and again, I just didn't want to to show so many different scenarios is we don't, uh, we we aren't required to move all of the one-time revenues to either M or capital. I can I can split it. And so if it is the desire of the board to end 2026 without

090excess reserves, um we could we could probably target that um with how much of the one-time uh resources we move from capital to to M. Uh, I would recommend this movement for 2026, but honestly, not as a long-term strategy because of where the um reserves would end up um being. This slide shows a summary of all the scenarios we've looked at this evening to help us try to come to a conclusion. Ultimately, without intervention, overspending of M revenues is likely to be within or be between 3.9 million and 4.5 million as we've discussed. And as we've looked at the individual scenarios, reserves uh are showing a need to address this imbalance by 2027. Due to the structural changes uh it would cause and where our reserves are held, I would recommend the structural budget change

091we discussed for this year, but not necessarily as a long-term strategy. Before moving on to state level context, other local considerations, and our timeline for the budget cycle, I'd like to pause to see if there are any questions on what we've shared so far. >> Uh yeah, M. Moran. Moran, any questions? Yeah. So, one of the things I did in looking at this was to try to look at where our forecast was when we looked at this at BART and where our forecast is now. So, one of the things that you mentioned that's impacting this is of course the special ed and so we already talked about that I think for the most part. The second piece is the salary. So, we made changes to the base salary and so that is potentially impacting this

092forecast by about $300 to $350,000. Um, I know we're, as you mentioned, we're just assuming a 2% raise. I guess I would say if we have to tighten our belt, maybe we look at something less than 2%, maybe we look at a 1.6% 6% or however you know that that would shake out so that we can get to a balanced budget, I know that will not be popular. Um, and will not be fun. But if we're looking at a realistic forecast here, um, which, you know, it's hard for me because a forecast is only as good as the assumptions that you're making. So, you know, I look at 2030 and I think we'll never get there, of course, but, um, we have to start talking about it now. So, I'm I'm completely in favor of

093basically controlling whatever we can control in the current year in 2026 to make sure that we don't get to those danger places in 27 or 28 that we've seen other neighboring districts get to. And so, I know there are a lot of different things um that we can talk about. I'm sure that you all are talking about some of these things as well. And so, I look forward to hearing more about those things. Some things that I'm thinking about as a board member are our campus profitability are some of the additional revenues that we've talked about being able to potentially utilize with some of the land that we have and things like that. So, I want us to continue those conversations to of course look traditionally at all the different categories and where we can

094cut back on expenses, but also to look outside the box as well and um be creative and and find a way to [snorts] uh raise this danger flag now and make sure everyone's aware that these are going to be positive changes I think in the long run. But um but we can't wait. We do not want to wait. At least that's my opinion as a board member. >> Mr. Owens, >> I have no questions. Thank you. >> Mr. Mike, >> um I agree with a lot with uh what board member Moran said as far as taking advantage of some of those controllables that we, you know, have right now and um and then wait and as we have other possibilities of resources coming in, you know, I you know, totally agree with that that piece.

095I mean there's like like she said too, I mean there's a lot of stuff embedded in the forecasts that sometimes we just don't know um what really is going to you know work and of course when you get all the way to 2030 some of that stuff can look pretty scary and so taking taking proactive steps um is is important with this. So >> Miss Wallace, I don't have any questions. Thank you. >> I don't have any questions either. I'm sure you're going to come up with a lot of great options for us to discuss that don't involve taking away our 2% raise hopefully for our teachers. I would really hate to I would like that to be like a last last option if we're looking at cutting. So, >> and I honestly do think

096um we're seeing this this budget process that we've de developed honestly work. Um, and what I mean by that is we are in an okay spot right now. Uh, the data is telling us we need to make a shift. Uh, we're seeing that at a time where we are able to make a shift. You know, we aren't I hate naming other districts, but we aren't in the position that other districts are in. And this process of looking forward um and looking at current and seeing what that may look like uh I believe is a strong process to help keep us uh going in the right direction. And so uh I think this conversation is really uh evidence that that our process is working because um you know it's highly likely that we end this year

097without excess reserves and I think that's been a mutual goal uh of u the governing board and of myself um at the direction of the governing board and it's also uh alerting us to the fact that uh we can't maintain that uh uh level of spending that is allowing us to spend down the excess reserves and allowing us to address it before it becomes a truly uh significant problem. So I just wanted to to share that yes uh to a certain extent I think forecasting out to to 2030 does give uh really unrealistic uh numbers because it's assuming that we're not doing our jobs by adjusting uh when these forecasts say we ought to. Right? So all right I'll get off of my soap box there. Uh we've covered some of the Lichfield specific context.

098Now I would like to share a couple of updates on the state level that color what we might expect from the state in their next budget. The aggregate expenditure limit is a provision of the state constitution which limits the aggregate spending of school districts in the state regardless of appropriations approved in the state budget. In the past several years, this limit has been exceeded and the legislature has approved allowing school districts to exceed the limit. Luckily, uh, for the year we're currently in and for next year, the aggregate expenditure limit has been addressed, but it's not been addressed long term, and it will be an item we have to keep an eye on each year. Uh, I just don't like letting that fall off off our radar because if if that ever were not to

099be approved by the legislature, it would be uh very significant not just for Lichfield but for the entire K12 uh system in Arizona. based on recent information uh published by the joint le legislative budget committee which helps monitor and forecast the state's budget very similar to the process we're going through tonight. Uh, the budget is expected to have 66 million to cover one-time costs for 2027, which sounds like a positive position until you realize all of the items they considered to be one-time, which are realistically ongoing. The JBC even has a name for these items, ongoing one-time. Um, included in these ongoing one-time costs is $183 million of appropriations to the school facilities oversight board. In their most recent presentation to their finance advisory committee, the JBC shared that there are at least $580 million

100of 2026 one-time appropriations to be considered for the $66 million of available resources, including at least $378 million that are already considered a very perplexing ongoing one-time expense. Uh as a result, we do not presently anticipate significant additional increases to the base support level or other revenues beyond those already anticipated by the JBC, which includes the standard 2% adjustment to the base support level and a similar increase to our capital funding. Additionally, maintaining the one-time funding that we're shifting to M here for 2027 will be a challenging conversation at the legislature given that state level budget context. Another significant local consideration is the Arizona public service rape case presently making it through the the corporation commission process. APS is advocating for a 14% rate increase, which is not included in the projections I've shared today.

101As you can see, in 2025, we spent 2.6 million with APS, and our utility costs tend to rise each year, even without significant rate increases. One of our water utility providers, Liberty, is also in the process of requesting a 38.4% 4% increase on water charges and 53% increased on waste water. >> What was the water percentage again? >> 38.4. In case the legislature cares, I would love a 38.4% increase in my per student uh revenue. [laughter] >> Can I ask a question on the APS slide? Um, can you tell me how I I believe the idea behind your work with Far was to keep at least some of our utility costs even with what we're currently paying. Do we are we seeing any of that yet? >> We are not yet because so much of

102that work uh is still being constructed. Um I'm very hopeful that we will see some of it next year. Uh but attempting to forecast that um really honestly shouldn't have much of an impact on the forecast because the entire intention of the energy water savings programs is to utilize that savings to pay for uh the improvements that were done. uh where long-term and when I say long-term I mean hopefully before my retirement uh we see uh savings is after that energy water savings lease is paid off and we're still benefiting from those increases right now uh that the benefit of those uh improvements is primarily twofold. uh it does serve as a bit of an insurance in that uh it helps cap our increase and so uh through for example the solar uh projects we

103will become less reliant on APS and so um the increase will hit us less than it would without the solar. The other significant increase, and I I suspect uh those of you who were on the board will recall this, my first year in the district, we struggled to a certain extent to uh replace uh um HVAC units in a pace that kept up with uh their decline. And uh the very work really did allow us to solve that problem in a way we were uh struggling to do so on an individual um basis. >> Okay. So the varigy work is really in an more of an investment in the ongoing maintenance of the equipment. It it isn't really because we're paying back the leases and stuff, so it isn't really keeping us even. We're still

104going to see rate increases on top of that. >> We will. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> While we're on utilities rel, I just want to make sure I kind of understand it because that was one of the things that stood out from the March to November numbers. You know, for instance, 2027, it's showing 486,000 as opposed to the forecast in March was 206,000. I mean, is that that's captured in >> So, that's primarily me uh really looking back at how we actually ended 2025 and updating that historical trend data that I used to forecast the increase in utility costs to incorporate 2025. >> So, it's over 100% increase. Yeah, you can see uh how the the rate of increase has changed even on the the APS data that I have on the slide

105there. Uh it really has uh continued to increase over the last uh handful of years. >> And then just for clarification, that's obviously >> on top of that they want 14. Yes. >> And whatever this Liberty utility percentage increase could be. I don't want to misspeak so I'm just going up on my So Liberty is in the process of requesting a 38.4% increase on water and a 53% increase on wastewater. >> Thank you. I'd be happy with either of those uh percentages coming to my revenue. >> Mr. Vaughn, excuse me. I just wanted to add with the very piece if if we go back to that um the guaranteed savings rate is is a minimum because that's the one thing they can't control and so it puts us in a very difficult spot but as

106uh Mr. Von highlighted the work with HVAC units already uh replacing over 500 of them. We will start to see some of that savings this year. Uh and built into the deferred maintenance to the bond program or replacement of other units along the way. So we'll continue to work through that to uh ensure our HVAC units are in the best possible place than they've been in a long time. Uh as we start to talk about the bond sale number three in the near future here that will allow uh Mr. insurance and and and our guys to start working on what that deferred maintenance can do to help with that also. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm just glad that we have been doing that because otherwise what would we be looking at for expenses? >> It's

107it could be very gloom. Yes. >> All right. I agree though it it does make me thankful uh for our work in trying to manage um our reliance on some of these uh providers. Considering all of this context both internally and external to our organization, the district needs to begin moving back towards a structurally balanced budget. We are on track to spend down all our excess reserves which is appropriate. uh but if we continue as projected it will be very difficult to rebalance uh due to the increases being ongoing in nature and our reserves are projected to go under our lowest targets set in policy. As a result, we recommend targeting a reduction in expenses for 2026 2027 school year. There are several reasons to begin working towards balancing our budget. The trends we are

108seeing in special education costs and enrollment uncertainty are statewide issues and will continue applying substantial pressure to our financial position. The opening of Troy Gilbert will have an uncertain impact on the budget. Uh more facilities typically means more overhead costs. Um the uncertainty and [cough and clears throat] potentially large increases in our utility costs uh that are potentially on the horizon and our reserves projected to fall below our lowest level reserve targets without intervention at the end of 2027 are all reasons to begin this work uh now. As a result, we are proposing the following goals for the 2026 2027 budget process. First, pursue a structurally balanced budget or at least get closer to that mark. Second, target competitive compensation for retention and recruitment. And third, maintain a timeline for transparent contract issuance for staff.

109At this time, I'd like to pause for questions and discussions before we move on to discussing our timeline for the budget process. Miss Maran, >> um I would just say that I'm in agreement that we need to start action sooner rather than later on the controllables that we um can can take action on. Uh I am in favor of the scenario three the shifting of the um one-time funds uh as well as the split as you mentioned in potentially the capital or the uh one time from the state um in order to get us right to our target basically from a from a reserve standpoint. Um I think that would be great and then from there you know we'll have to just take it yearbyear and and be a little agile. um as things come

110up. Uh but yes, I'm I'm in agreement with the goals and uh look forward to continuing the discussions. >> Mr. Owens, >> I know when I've asked before like our reserves, right? You you always talk about how not all that money is accessible or it's kind of not there, but it's in a reserve. What's the ability say after the end of the year we do have more reserves than we like we wanted, right? We're above the the top end or the middle. How easy is it to shift those funds like immediately to to cover something that's deficient or put it in like you know like that's a one time then right? Okay, end of the year we have all this money now we can use it one time. Can we do that? Does that make

111sense? >> I think it makes sense, but I'm I'm thinking my mind might be >> we have a bunch of money left over. Let's spend it. We have that, right? If we're over budget. >> Yeah. So, there's a couple of things we can we could do if we wanted to quote unquote spend it. Um we could prepay some uh expenses. There are some that uh some expenses that school districts are legally allowed to prepay. Uh one one scenario on that that uh we will likely talk about in other contexts in another time is we can prepay our ASRS contributions. uh why that's such a fascinating uh option is while uh there's a balance of prepayment with ASRS, they invest that money just like they invest the uh pension pool. So there's actually opportunity to uh

112earn much more of a return than uh we could uh through the avenues districts are allowed to directly uh invest their monies. Um, we uh could in theory uh have a governing board meeting and approve a one-time stipen type scenario um like a signing uh stipen for signing your contract by a certain time or or something like that. The problem is um to have that be board approved in time to spend it before the end of the year, you're still not going to have those final final numbers. Um it's still a projection, right? Uh trying to spend it at the very end of the year when you have certainty. Uh really your only real options would be to prepay something that that I could prepay at a moment's notice and just um you know send

113>> prepay can we prepay our gez can we prepay our APS bill? >> Yeah. I don't know if I want to uh give them any more of our money than uh necessary simply just because that doesn't actually get us any any benefit. But um we could uh at this point our our our biggest benefit would be either to prepay ASRS or uh we could send uh some money towards uh Valley Schools who also uh invests uh proceeds from school districts. Um but those really would be our two real options that could be done at the very end of the year. Um, now that I think of it, there's also an opportunity to uh prepay ESI. Um, and they provide a small discount um, if you do so. Uh, I do think it would be more

114financially advantageous to have the money actually invested than uh, just pursue that discount. But but those are the only three that I I think really truly could be done at the end of the year when you when you have certainty of what the numbers are. >> Yeah. I mean, I know you're thinking of all the things. It just seems like we're projecting everything. How do we know for sure at the end? Right. So, thanks, >> Mr. Mike. >> Uh, no questions for me, >> Miss Wallace. >> I have no questions. I'm learning a lot today. I feel like this is very indepth. [laughter] I'm not trying to be funny. I really am learning a lot and we've heard a lot of information. >> Well, I'm I'm glad you're learning a lot. I mean, that there's

115a reason I call this presentation the budget context, right? Because we're trying to to set the context for our budget work for for next year. Um, and I hope uh that we're in agreement that we've done that tonight. Um, and and really kind of set some direction on uh what our goals are for the 2027 budget. And I really do honestly think we needed all of this context uh to do that successfully. >> I don't have any questions. We are learning a lot. I won't even complain that it's 37 slides because it's really important information and it helps us to be better board members and to make more informed decisions going forward. So, President Zama, might I interject please real quick? Um, just wanted to highlight one of the words that's on the screen right

116now says transparent. And one of the things that uh we've um done, not just in tonight's presentation, but also we've shared this information with our administrative team as well as our superintendent's advisory committee just to let them know where we are, what um kind of what's in front of us and how we do want to be transparent, but also um there may be a time in the near future where we do have to take action to Miss Moran's point. And so we are seeking feedback from those groups um just to you know essentially showcase that their voice does matter in this in this thing called education that we give here in Lichfield and um just excited to see what we get from them. But um just wanted to highlight how important that transparency piece is

117to all of us as we look forward to the budget season. And we can see tonight we're discussing budget reserves, our timeline, and other goals for the budget process. In January, we hope to have data from our compensation study. um all of this feedback work we'll be doing uh and our initial administrative recommendation or ideas uh for the 2027 uh budget cycle work calendars and contract language. In February, we will have additional budget discussions providing more clarity and direction on the initial thoughts or ideas. And in March, we will have the benefits renewal discussion and hopefully bring closure to the budget process with a renewal list and issuance of contracts with any approved changes in compensation included. At this time, the team is available to answer any questions you might have on the district's proposed

118budget process for fiscal year 2027. Miss Moran, >> no. Timeline looks good and I've had all my questions answered. So, thank you. >> Mr. Owens, >> no questions. Thank you, >> Mr. Mike's. >> None for me. Thank you very much, sir. >> Miss Wallace, >> none for me. And again, thank you for all of the scenarios and all the information. I appreciate my education on the budget tonight. >> Uh, no questions. Just thank you. This is a lot of work and we appreciate all the time that you put in and all the thought that goes into making sure that we can understand this and that the community when they decide to watch this and they have questions and we point them to this presentation online, they'll be able to understand it better. So, thank you

119for your time. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we have one more presentation. It's the 2025 achievement comparisons and letter grades. And this will be by Director Owen. Thank you very much. Good evening, uh, Madame President, members of the board, Mr. Superintendent. I'm going to Give us just a moment. Thank Thank you, tech team. I'm Brian Owen, director of assessment and accountability. And tonight, what we'd like to do is update you on some recent data that has come out from the state department since our last achievement update that we gave. Uh there's a lot of this data aligns to that readiness pillar. The first thing I'd like to talk about are the 2025 U ASA proficiency comparisons statewide. So that's one of the files that AD has released since our our last meeting. Just want to

120remind you of the state trend. This is five years of state data. And really when you look at our five-year trend at the district, it looks very similar to the state's trend. When you look at stability increases and decreases, there's one that stands out to me is that decrease in sixth grade math in our district, which we did not see at a state level. here just to remind you of the ASA statewide comparison uh Lichfield Elementary School District proficiency in yellow and the overall average state proficiency in blue. So this data we haven't presented yet. One of the things I like to do with that statewide public data is I like to do district comparisons. So there are three main comparisons that I like to uh look at just to see where Lichfield falls. One

121of them I like to do is this auditor general peer group. These are the most similar districts in Maricopa County to Lichfield. It does look a lot like last year. Kyne and Lichfield are very similar scoring. In fact, Kyne in Maricopa County is the most similar district to Lichfield that I've seen. Then I like to compare to this group of 10 uh West Valley districts. Looks very similar to what we saw last year. can see in ELA uh Lichfield at 49% and in math Lichfield here at 42%. And then I just like to see overall at the state level and I know that's really difficult to read on here. Um this is ELA but for all non-charter districts if I rank order them where does Lichfield sit? And I do want to point out that

122these are reported districts. Um, and you can see if you can read some of those names, you can see some of the districts that have higher proficiency than Lichfield, a couple that have lower. See a lot of traditionally highscoring districts. That's what ELA looks like. Here's what math looks like. And then to sort of summarize, this is what uh our statewide ranking has been over the last four years. You can see scores did come down slightly here at Lichfield and that's represented there in the uh in the rankings and the percentile and again this is a comparison of reported districts. So there's a minimum end count that needs to happen before uh the state can release it publicly for fur reasons. I'm under the impression there are about 270 districts non-chartered districts in Arizona. So

123if you look at ELA there's 190 reported districts. If we were to look at all the districts, um, that percentile probably would be different because if a district doesn't have at least 10 proficient students, it's not reported. So, those are probably a lot of districts that have very few proficient students. Any questions about the statewide data and district comparisons? >> Miss Moran? >> No. No questions. Thank you. Mr. Owens, >> no questions. Thank you, >> Mr. mics. >> None for me, >> Miss Wallace. No, no questions. No questions. >> Beautiful. I'll move on. The second part of this is uh our school letter grades and district letter grade. This was released, if I remember correctly, Wednesday, October 29th. So, since the last time um we met and just a brief review of the state's definitions

124of each of the letter grades. I just want to point out the difference in language there from distinguished performance high performance adequate performance there for the ABC brief overview of the model components 50% growth 30% proficiency 10% EL and then the final 10% in that what they call acceleration readiness which is just sort of a whole group of individual indicators the state board did approve the cut scores are the same as last year 84 00 A 72.0 is the B cutoff and 60.00 is the C. So here's a summary of all of the data for all the components for all the schools that were released. I'll give you just a second to look at it. And I do want to point out the footnote that I have here. So if you see the percent tested

125for Verado Elementary, it's low. That's because the scoring center did not receive a box of scorable test documents for Verado Elementary. It was a total of 80 grade three math documents. And I also point out the highlighted cell um Rancho Santa Fe is under review. I submitted an appeal for them yesterday and I'll talk a little bit about that when we talk about appeals here at the end. So in summary, nine A schools, four B schools, two C's and then branch of Santa Fe right now is under review. And then the district will al also got a letter grade which uh they just use a straight grade point average calculation by using all the grades at all the schools um A4, B3, C2 and the calculation currently comes out to 3.47 47 350 is the

126A mark. If Rancho Santa Fe's appeal is granted, that uh district GPA will change to 3.55. And some highlights and celebrations. So, we had two schools that uh made the jump two letter grades. Thomas Dreaming Summit went from a C to an A. Two of 10 schools statewide that accomplished that. And we have three schools ranked in the top 10% of all non-charter evaluated schools. Binsto eyeing that 100 point mark. Lichfield Elementary and Verado Elementary. And again, just a footnote about um the scorable materials that were lost and not scored. That would impact third grade math proficiency. We don't know how because they never got scored, but there would probably have been an impact there. Uh more celebration. Scott Libby Verado Middle did move up one from a B to an A and the overall

127district GPA increased to 3.47 pending that outcome of the appeal. We do have a couple areas of focus. So Corte Western Sky dropped one letter grade B to a C and as well did Roby and Mabel from an A to a B. So for the appeal that I submitted for Rancho, I submitted under the category of adverse testing conditions. They um had a technology issue that required the students in the middle of a test session to stop testing. So they sat in front of computers for about three hours while we tried to figure out if it was something on our end, something on the state's end. And because it was so widespread, it was 71 students trying to test. the state said just discontinue for now. We'll have to figure it out later. We did.

128Um but my argument is that the disruption was so great it had a negative impact on those student scores and that was in the third grade math. So this is what the appeal timeline looks like. It closed yesterday. So the committee will evaluate all the appeals and then um send a recommendation to the state board at the end of January and um update the files sometime after that. We will know at the district what the recommendation will be before that board meeting. And that's my update. Any questions for me, >> Miss Maran? >> Um, no questions. I would like to say that I am encouraged that overall we are moving our GPA up in the right direction. Hopefully, we get that little nudge from Rancho as well. And I want to give kudos to LTH

129and Dreaming Summit for their move up to A's this year. So, job well done, >> Mr. Owens. >> Yeah, no questions. Pres, uh, always appreciate your uh, presentations and just how concise they are and to the point. So, appreciate it. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Mr. Mike's. >> Yeah. No questions for me. Thanks for all the information and breaking it down. Uh congratulations to all the schools with their their movement especially, you know, two that moved two steps for sure. That's a that's a huge accomplishment um for the community to see as well. So I appreciate all that. >> Thank you, >> Miss Wallace. >> No questions. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh no questions, but uh like my other board members said, congratulations to LTH and Dreaming Summit for their phenomenal growth

130that they showed this year. Um, that's a true testament to their staff and to their leadership there and the work that they put into doing that. Um, I was able to talk to Miss Hill the other day when I was there for the Thanksgiving feast and she talked about how she just started crying when she saw her score. It was very exciting for her because I know that she was hit hard last year. So, and I know that our teachers and our staff all take it very personal with some of these grades. So, um, I'm very excited for them to see that growth for them. >> Thank you. Okay, with that we're just going to try to move this along and get out of here quickly. Uh we're going to move on to legislative updates.

131That will be Dr. Davidson. >> Thank you. President's item, members of the board. Um this is a a new little item we try to put in at least every once in a while just to keep the um board a breast of the things that are happening across our um local government. So, um, bottom line, the legislative session is getting ready to get moving. Um, here's what I do know. February is an important date for us. It also is for the legislatures. Um, with them having certain timelines in which they can drop and propose their um, their bills. Um, this session as a whole, the 100th day of the legislative session would be April 21st. U, we know that often gets extended. So, just kind of putting those timelines out in front of our board just

132as a piece of information. Um, certainly we know Prop 123 is going to continue to be a a topic of conversation. Um, but inside that, um, and Mr. Von spoke to that a little bit about uh, state revenue and what that might look like and how that impacts the vote on and the work behind Proposition 123. Other areas of contention inside that conversation will be uh protections for ESAs, um teacher salary as it relates to state creating and maybe adding additional resources for teachers. Um the school capital lawsuit that's out there and how the legislature chooses to address that. Um those are all some things that we have to be mindful of and certainly we'll we'll um keep our ears open to. Mr. Mr. Owen, you spoke to this, I believe, a little bit, the

133idea of of dead cash and how do we uh in school finance uh address that money that we have sitting in our coffers that we can't use. Um vacant space will be a topic of conversation. Um certainly there's been some conversation as well about deregulation to title 15, which is the Arizona revised statute that applies mostly to education. Um there's a lot of conversation in in areas around superintendent qualifications, transparency, salaries. Um you've seen a little bit of that on the news. Certainly student behavior and supports for staff um will remain a topic of conversation as well as graduation requirements. So, um, bottom line, I anticipate just as last year and years before, it's going to be a busy legislative season and certainly education will be impacted, I guess, either positively or negatively depending upon

134how you look at it. So, I'll keep the board posted, but just wanted to bring you some information. Thank you. >> Miss Miranda, do you have any questions, comments? >> No. No questions. >> Mr. Owens, >> no questions. Thank you. >> Mr. Mike, >> none. Thank you. >> Miss Wallace, >> no questions. Thank you. >> None either. Thank you for that update. I look forward to our legislative session next year. It will be very interesting. Um okay, we're going to move on to reports. We'll start with Dr. Davidson. >> All right, I get to continue with the mic. Thank you, Madam President. Um per Mr. Owen's presentation on data tonight, I'm certainly proud of our students and departments for their aligned efforts in helping us to meet our district's mission of student success. Student success

135is seen in measuring ways and in a variety of ways as our staff and students build in the areas of the Lichfield learner. And so just a reminder to our our folks out there and in the audience tonight, communication, character, teamwork, problem solving, continuous learner and content expert. Um so that happens in a variety of ways. Some areas I just wanted to highlight over the since we met last. Um and many of our board members have had a chance to attend some of these things. schools had amazing trunk or treat experiences for our families. Veterans Day celebrations. Um, a lot of things going on with Love Our Schools Days. The most recent Thanksgiving feast had a great turnout at Lichfield L today. Um, and even despite the rain or in spite of the rain, so

136had a great turnout. Um, and you know, our just want to highlight as well the work that our curriculum team is doing. um just to ensure that our our students are getting what they need at the first best instruction tier one level and teachers and and our administrators alike really becoming content experts. Um today, as a matter of fact, we had um our administrators and coaches learning more about our science curriculum both at the elementary and at the middle school level. um some things to think about as this season moves along and you'll hear a little video coming here in the near future just around our staff and our governing board and and just u being thankful for everything that everybody's doing. Certainly have a high amount of gratitude and just asking our team during

137the holiday season to make certain that they're taking care of themselves um physically and mentally. Uh an important piece for our calendars. December 2nd, that is our first community tour from at Scott Libby Elementary and Verado Heritage. We've put out um first and foremost a strategic offer to individuals who want to attend. But uh Mr. Noanas and his team will be blasting that out to the entire community here uh in any minute any moment um just to really try to ensure that we have people who are interested in seeing and hearing and learning about what's in our schools. And um lastly wanted to highlight uh the efforts on behalf of um many of our administrators here at this table. We were asked by ASBA and ASA at their annual conference in December to do a

138presentation and to highlight again some of the real positive work that's happening in our district. Our title for that conversation will be our northern lights making vision visible all year long. And for us again that's around student success. So, thank you for your time tonight. >> Thank you. We'll move on to reports from the governing board members. We'll start with Miss Moran. >> I love that title. I'm kind of obsessed with the Northern Lights. So, kudos on that. Um, so for my report tonight, let's see. I was able to attend another safety road show at Balen Sodto. So, I want to give a shout out and a thank you to Director Moss and Director Fletcher for your clear presentation and the Q&A that informs our students of the consequences of their actions and helps to

139keep our students and staff safe, which is our top priority. Keep up the good work with that. I was also able to attend uh the first school showcase of the year, which was at Western Sky Middle School, and it proved to be both informative and productive. I especially appreciate that Principal Harge and AP Gold addressed topics aligned with our believe belong become mission. Thank you for hosting us at Western Sky. I also was able to attend the Awa Fria High School District Veterans Day breakfast and that is a community event that recognizes veterans and supports the junior ROC program at Awafria High School. I was honored to attend this celebration. And lastly, I was able to take some time to serve at two Thanksgiving feasts, one at Western Sky Middle School and the other at

140Palm Valley Elementary. It's always a joy to see parents and families on campus spending time together and enjoying a delicious meal served with love by our staff and volunteers. Thank you to Dr. Mary and Carl and all of our food service department for your hard work to make this an annual tradition. I really appreciate it. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and are able to spend time doing what you love with the people that you love. And I hope that this can serve as a reminder to be in the moment because we are not promised tomorrow. So, I'm going to close with lyrics by the tragically hip and their song, Ahead by a century. With illusions of someday cast in a golden light, no dress rehearsal. This is our life. Thank you, >> Mr.

141Owens. >> All right. It is school showcase season, which I always enjoy. Um, so I got to attend the first one at Western Sky Middle School. also attended um what's could likely be the last one at El Thomas Act, but it's the first one for Troy Gilbert or no, it's >> whatever. Um but just awesome to to see the campus and knowing that they went from a C to an A and how um things have really turned around there and I think it's a lot of momentum going into next year when we open up Troy Gilbert. So that was really cool to see. [snorts] Um had my one-on-one with Dr. Davidson. Um, personally, I attended the Verado Elementary School Apex fun run. I didn't participate this year, which was probably good. I would have saved

142myself some embarrassment there. Um, and uh, yeah, I didn't I unfortunately didn't get to attend any of the the Thanksgiving feasts. My wife did. Um, and she just said it was awesome. So, um, appreciate all the the staff and everything that helps make those happen. >> Mr. Mike's. >> All right. Uh, yeah. So, I agree with uh board member Owens about the showcases and when they come around, I really um enjoy getting down to uh visit each one of the campuses. Unfortunately, I had to miss the uh El Thomas Heek one, but I did go to Western Sky. That was great to sit through and visit with some of the students that came in to talk to us about some of the great things going on over there. So, that was exciting. Um and then

143the other two things specifically were the Thanksgiving feast. went to Verado Verado Middle to help out and Mabel Padet. Um definitely two different experiences with what the Thanksgiving feast could look like. Uh it was u it was great kind of uh was Ed Verado getting a chance to see how quickly uh Sam could dish out the um cranberry sauce. So good job on that piece as they were coming as they're coming through. I had to take that over by the way when you uh ditched us later. But uh on to more important things, I'm sure. Um but uh anyways, that was that was that was a great experience. And then at Mabel Padet, I have to admit one of the most interesting things was when you still had more things to give the little these

144elementary kids more stuff that had to be on the plate. However, the plate was absolutely full. [laughter] where the milk goes and where the silverware went and all that stuff and seeing them uh grab that with their two hands and uh it is a miracle that most of them made it to the table. So, um kudos to all all those students that were successful with that. But massive shout out to the food services uh department for taking care of that stuff. I mean, they I mean, they're they're all in. They run it with efficiency with all the volunteers that come in. they're set. They know where everybody needs to go. Um it's it's quite a process and and it's great because everybody's walking through there with smiles on their faces. Parents are there, you know,

145it's just kind of this nice little uh connection that parents get to have with with the campus uh that they get every so often. So, great experiences for that. So, thank you, >> Miss Wallace. Um, I was able to attend the Western Sky Showcase as well, which was very nice to get to see that campus and talk with the leadership there. And um the and I was able to serve at the uh Palm Valley Thanksgiving and I got to see all the grade levels come through which was a lot of fun. and my husband actually was able to serve with me for a little while there and it was a good family serving day. Um, and it was a great experience. The the what our food service is able to do and the amount of

146people they're able to feed is is really amazing. So, I would highly encourage parents to volunteer for that. Not just go eat with your kid, but you know, serve for an hour and see what that's like. So, it was it was a really great experience to do that as well. And I think that's all I have. >> Okay. Um, this has been a busy month. I was realizing as I was going through all the things. Um, I was able to attend both the the Western Sky Middle School showcase as well as the Thomas Hecroy Gilbert. Um, very different feelings at the campuses because each of our schools are have different feels, right? that they were both equally informative and I really appreciated the the staff that talked to us, the students that talked to us

147and the principles. So, thank you to the principles for putting those together for us every year so that we can come and see them. Uh I also was able to attend the AARA Veterans Day breakfast event. I appreciate that they invite us to come and that is a nice event where they can recognize the veterans that have come in and are now serving our students who have served our country in the past. And I appreciate all of the people that do that anywhere in this country, but I really appreciate people that come into the schools, especially we have a lot of them here in our district as well. And so, thank you to all of the men and women who have sacrificed much of their lives to the military and are now coming and helping

148our children be better and do better. They are really good role models for our students. So, uh, I also have an eighth grader this year. So, I was able to attend the AUARIA Academyy's presentation that they have for our eighth graders that are going to be going on to high school next year. That was, uh, really informative to see what they're doing with this academyy's model that they're rolling out. And, you know, they're in their third year now. So, I guess we'll see how that totally spans out next year when they go into year four with the students that have been able to be in it the whole time. Um, I'm cautiously optimistic to see how that works out. I highly encourage parents to really dig in that have eighth graders going into high school

149next year and getting all the information that they need about the high schools that their kids will be going to. If you have special needs kids, I really really encourage you to start that conversation now with the high school of what that looks like for your kiddos because it will be a different experience. And so I do recommend that you start those conversations now so it's not a surprise when you get to high school. Um, but they do have like transitional meetings and stuff. So, that's one way, but start now. Don't wait till that comes. Um, I was also able to attend Thanksgiving feasts. Uh, I served at White Tanks at Dreaming Summit and then Lichfield Elementary School today. And then I have three more coming up later this week for a total of six

150that I'll get to serve at. Uh, the White Tanks one is one of my favorites to come to. It's small obviously, but um, it's fun to see the kids there with their families. And even though they said the kids were having a interesting day that day, they were all super well behaved while I was there and they were all excited to have their parents come in. So, it was fun to be there for that one. I will say that Lichfield Elementary School might be my most memorable one I ever go to because I got to leave as a drowned rat today because it decided to have the sky open up on us as we were finishing up and going home. So, that was fun because that doesn't happen very often. Um uh and as I've

151said in the past, November for our family, we always do a what we're thankful for every day and we say something we're thankful for. So I just wanted to take a minute to say that I'm thankful to all the teachers and the support staff in our district for what they do for our students. And I'm especially thankful for all the people behind the scenes. I feel like we have a lot of staff members in this district that we could not do what we do. Our students would not be as successful as they are if it wasn't for all these people behind the scenes making sure that everything is happening. So, um, it takes every single person in this district to make it be the success that it is. So, thank you to everybody that gives

152their time here. And thank you to the families that choose to send their children to this district because this district, I might be biased because all my babies have come here, but I think it's an amazing district and we have the best teachers that there are. And so, you couldn't pick a better place for your kids to come. So, thank you for entrusting our district with your students. And thank you to this board that I sit with. This job is a lot at times. And as a board member, there have been times when I've served on this board where it's been less where I've wanted to be here than others, but I currently really enjoy being here and doing this job. And it's mostly due to the people that I get to work with because

153they make it easier to do. And I appreciate our staff we work with. So, thank you very much. And with that, thank you to everybody that gave us the administrator reports. People watching, go and read them. That's how you know what's going on. and also attend the community event that's going to come up on December 2nd where you can see our schools in action, kind of see behind the curtain. I encourage as many people that can sign up for that to do it and see what's happening. Um, and with that, if somebody would like to make a motion to adjourn our meeting, >> I move to adjourn the meeting. >> A second. >> Having a motion from Mr. Owens and a second for Mr. Mike. I'll call for the vote. Miss Moran, >> yay. >>

154Mr. Owens, >> yay. >> Mr. Mikes, >> yay. >> Miss Wallace, >> yay. >> I'm yay. Motion passes. Thank you for joining us. This meeting is true.