001e e e test test test test test test test e e e still are we still getting everything ready to go and everything is good with our we are good to go we're to started hello welcome thank you for joining us tonight is Tuesday February 4th 2025 and this is the regular governing board meeting for the litfield elementary school district I hereby call this meeting to order the first item on the agenda will be the Pledge of Allegiance if you could please stand and join us thank you next we will take a moment of Silent reflection okay thank you next we going to move on to recognitions and celebrations this be by exective director Nana IM shonie wag jie of unw Excell and their to the success of every lfi learner under the leadership of
002our District's candidate support providers and the support and unwavering commitment of our governing board and executive cabinet l79 has become one of the districts with the highest me repe emph the highest number ofal certified teachers and candidates in Arizon today and if we keep on this trajectory year Max this remarkable achievement exemplifies our District's mission of providing legal Learners with a clear path to educational success ensuring they receive the highest quality instruction from some of the best educ in the states please join us in congratulating Shannon Jackie and Jamie for their harde earned success and for setting a standard of Excellence that inspires both their colleagues and students their dedication strengthens our district and reaffirms our commitment to Student Success thank you for all that You' brought now if I can invite you to come
003and take a picture come on up let's let's document this moment okay e all right one last thing uh as they say last but not least finally as the governing board appreciation month which was January came to a close we were scheduled to run a video at the scheduled uh end of the month board meeting but as this one got rescheduled we want to take a moment to express our sincere gratitude for your dedication and Leadership your commitment to our student staff and Community makes a lasting impact and we truly truly appreciate your service Although our planned recognition was delayed we would still love to share a special video featuring heartfelt messages from administrators students and support staff we got a nice variety of Staff across the district so please take a moment to watch
004as a small token of our appreciation thank you so much for all of the visits with our uh showcases and visiting our campuses and seeing all the hard work and good work we're doing and validating that and asking questions and interacting with our staff and students we appreciate you thank you governing board thank you for all your support you thank you to our governing board for all you do to support our schools from your pride Awards to your Daily Commitment to making sure our students have the best thank you thank you thank you to our governing board you're always so supportive in everything that has to do with Online safety for our children and I always appreciate coming to you thank you so much to the governing board for all of your support for our
005students and staff we appreciate you thank you for your support governing board thank you governing board we appreciate all you do thank you for your support governing board thank you thank you governing board thank you governing board thank you governing board we appreciate your help thank you thank you governing board members for all of your work your support on behalf of your respective communities but also your support of me as superintendent most recently I was asked about our governing board and I got to tell you that my response was quite simple I would put our governing board against any governing board out there in our state you guys are exceptional leaders you lead with your heart as well as your mind and I'm very thankful be working alongside you to make our district the best
006in the southwest Valley thanks [Music] again thank you once again thank you for putting that video together Sam I love me some little kids so they were very cute and to all of our staff too uh next we are going to move on to our public comment section of the agenda going to read this little pursuant to Arizona revised statutes AR ARS 38-43 1.01 this agenda item provides an open call to the public allowing individuals to address the governing board on any issue within the jurisdiction of the board items not listed on the agenda may be brought to the governing board's attention under this section of the agenda due to the Arizona open meeting law the governing board cannot discuss or take any action on items not listed on the agenda therefore pursuant to ARS
00738-43 01h response to public comment about matters not appearing on the agenda will be limited to indiv individual board members who may ask staff to study the matter respond to any criticism or ask that the matter be put on a future agenda for further consideration and decision at a later date please limit your comments to No More Than 3 minutes and no more than 30 minutes will be devoted to the public comment portion of the agenda when you approach the podium please state your name for the record our first Speaker tonight is going to be Mr Mike finnean hello everyone my name is Mike finigan for the LD School Board in 2021 and the rest of the nation the words diversity equity and inclusion were words that became magic but what do they mean and
008sweeping claims were made by past and present members of the LD School Board in 2021 for such a policy a lot of time money and resources were spent making it the district's policy syy Consultants were hired for $10,000 to teach the dysfunctional board how to work together and include Community input in order to implement this ideology District behavioral data was presented showing black students made up approximately 7% of the student population but were being disciplined 15 to 20% more than the other students of white asian and Hispanic populations this appeared to be unfair and a diversity Equity inclusion policy was needed to remedy it so we were told four long years have now passed since this imple its implementation implementation and it's time for this District to present hard evidence showing what this investment of
009time money and resources to create Dei have been many education and on school boards have criticized that tests and behavioral and disciplinary imbalances or other inequities are unfair the tests or the discipline problems are not unfair life is unfair and the tests and behavior data are measuring the results but who has control of Life who has control of the past who has control of the culture that people have in the present or which they have inherited from the past it's time for this District to throw out the toxic alphabet soup of critical race Theory CRT B conscious discipline CD and social emotionally learning seal and use its publicly funded tax dollars increasing proficiencies in ABC's and one 123s as a result of the 2024 elections the woke SP bigot in public education is being turned
010off America has voted it out as unamerican thank you our next speaker is going to be Becca I'm sorry I do not want to say your last name hello I'm Becca buo and I am here talk about the B on teachers teachers um it was made without input or prior knowledge to teachers and the reasoning for the in concerns over network security yet the district itself hased cyber dates without effective measures instead of an essential resource for teachers techology Department focus on improving overall cyber SEC Mees to prot datar risks exist across multiple platforms not teachers a blanket does not address the root issue of securing the district Network there are numerous shared with staffas and the role of the IT department is to find real solutions to security restrict access to tools that benefit
011teachers and students if certain materials security risks the district impls rather also a lot ofers in the district do not get any middle school art Etc so they actually with their own money for T resources to do the curricul so without having all these always talk abouten people um we have to have open discussion and direct discussion with individuals involved that are not using it appropriately um and so we have I have a petition from BTO with all the signatures um and I have also teacher quotes on how they use T in the classroom um many being our resource rooms do not have curriculum and so they have to use teachers teachers out of their own money we're not asking for money from anybody um to do those small resource areas and to provide a
012great education our next speaker is going to be Elizabeth War I'm Elizabeth horn I am a seventh grade history teacher at Theo and I'm also here to talk about the teacher teacher F I am one of those teachers giving by the district toach my class given standards and a lot of my lessons come from teachers teachers out of my own pocket and I don't complain about that what I'm upset about is that I found out on Friday that come Monday that would be taken away from me and I could no longer get to teer no discussion no conversation no nothing to say that it's been used inappropriately every one of my lessons is standard based um we have great scores and show growth I use it for my reading standards to help enhance that along
013with my history standards I'm a certified teacher I have a fouryear degree from ASU I have a master's degree from GCU and educational leadership I am certified to be a principal but I'm being told I can't pick the curriculum off of teachers teachers so it just feels very un like I am not being treated like a professional and I teachers are getting that message that we are not professionals and we can not choose the work that is being used in our classrooms so thank you okay we are going to move on to the next item of the agenda which is the adoption of the agenda I'm sorry so yes that was the conclusion of the public comment yes that was conclusion of public okay I would like to make a request for a future agenda
014item for the board to discuss the appropriate and inappropriate usage of Teachers Pay Teachers and what that could look like um based on our current policies what the issues are and make sure that everyone can have a discussion um and make sure on the same page thank you now we are going to move on unless anybody else anything else no we're going to move on to the adoption of agenda and approval of consent agenda I'll go through and see if anyone has any items that they wish to pull off of the consent agenda we're going to start with Mr Mike's first tonight do you have anything you wish to pull off the consent agenda I don't have anything uh Mr Owens I do not miss Wallace I do not miss Moran I do not uh
015I don't either so if someone would like to make a motion I move to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll second having a motion from Miss Moran and a second from Mr Mike I'll call for the vote uh Mr mikees yay Mr Owens yay Miss Wallace yay Miss Moran yay I'm also a yay motion passes next we will move on to our action items we're going to start with 8.1 which is School 17 name recommendation this will be started by Dr Davidson all right thank you Madame President members of the board community and those online um this gen item is just a an amazing item for me to be able to bring to the board this evening um certainly you had a chance board to hear in one of our most Rec meetings and
016conversation around the two different names that we were considering for School 17 one of the recommendations from the board was to seek feedback from the community on the why behind the names that might be chosen as well as maybe some just Gathering some responses some Community feedback and so before I asked the board to consider our recommendation I certainly wanted to share that we did um provide an opportunity for our community external and internal to provide feedback the responses that we got back were amazing recognizing both individuals as community members as um American Heroes as starters of the district I mean we could go on and on we got some great comments and uh I think any any of those people that are listening that respond could come here today and argue their particular points
017I think that the thing that pushed your administrative team to a particular um recommendation tonight and that is to um recommend School 17 being named after Gilbert the reason for that corresponded to some of the survey data that we asked our staff and our students to respond to and I didn't see this one coming so I wanted to highlight it before I asked Mr jany to join us tonight if you remember some of you our parents we asked our St our parents and our students to please rank order a list of opportunities that's part of our our dismission student uh Student Success are really giving them opportunities our families out of the rank board are ranked that they would scho our students to have more opportunities connected to military leadership that was the number one
018rank order of opportunities for our students on behalf of our families on behalf of our students that was the second highest opportunity was a connection to our military and um just knowing that Luke Air Force based in our backyard and certainly the the sacrifice that major Gilbert had given for his community and his country we felt like it was just the right thing to do to bring that as the name so with that said before I ask the board to vote I'd like to honor and recommend also join me here he'll share some insight but I wanted just to highlight some of the team members that are here tonight as well and I do believe they'd probably like to share a few comments as well vote mad president if you're okay with that absolutely all
019right certainly we have Mr Jan go and share a few comments about the work he's been doing and then I'll call some people to the vo thank you so I'll certainly be brief um we did share both of the the stories from both Mr rer and major Gilbert with our our staff members and our students and uh the feedback that we got from the staff on the campus and from the students was certainly that um both both applicants or both people that we were considering were were certainly worthy of recognition um our students were definitely um more towards major Gilbert they thought that his his story and the character traits that that he showed certainly with the sacrifice and the way that he lived his life was something that foundationally was was a great thing
020that they could aspire to be and that was a great thing to build our school upon so that was from a student perspective and from a staff perspective that's that's where they were leaning um so if there was a V and vote but that's kind of where we were leading as a as a staff on behalf of the agenda tonight we have a gentleman Who's online with us governing board members retired fourstar General Robin rant who certainly had an awesome relationship and a great connection with major Gilbert is General Rand are you out there with us tonight yes sir I am I am with you all right General R you like take a few moments yeah I was told I told first of all I have three minutes so I'm gonna go fast first thank
021you to the board I'm truly great can you hear me just to make sure you can hear me yes sir we can hear you okay I'm truly grateful for for what you do you rais my grandchildren and I never take for granted what our Educators do so thank you thank you thank you um how do I describe Troy and his family in three minutes first of all I'm just a wingman to Troy Gilbert uh three points I want to make if I could why School 17 should be named Troy Gilbert Elementary first of all it's Troy second is his family and third is your families the first point uh is Troy I'm gonna make it really succinct he's a hero simply uh this is not political this is not bipartisan he took an oath to
022the Constitution to defend us and on 27 November 2006 he did that let me remind you that I promise you that Troy did not wake up that day going I want to be a hero in fact I know what he really wanted to do was move closer and closer to coming home from a deployment to Iraq to be with Jinger and his five children in January unfortunately the enemy got a vote and he didn't make it home but 19 special operators did make it home because of his actions I don't have time to go into what Troy did but by any definition he fulfilled his oath to our constitution the second thing I would remind you is the legacy of Troy Gilbert his wife Ginger when I saw Ginger shortly after six months after Troy
023died when I met her uh when I returned to Luke I had known ginger for a long time but when I returned to Luke and met with her face to face she said to me my toughest duties today are to get up and brush my teeth but I have five children I have to take care of let me tell you what Ginger Gilbert has become a renowned author a speaker a mother a wife a widow let me tell you about those five children we'll start with Boston an Intercollegiate soccer player a master's degree in leadership their son Grayson the Clemson graduate who's pursuing his degree now in in physical and health and science a daughter who will graduate Isabelle from college this summer the twin daughters Aspen and annaise who are students at Auburn freshman
024students by any definition this family is what resilience and perseverance is and then as you mentioned earlier tonight the third point I want to make is your families Luke Air Force Base is going to be around for decades their families are going to attend your schools their moms and dads are going be willing to do what Troy Gilbert did on 27 November 20 2006 that their children can go to a school and and that is called the Troy Gilbert Elementary will be a reminder in a way to say thank you for these families who are willing to stand in the gap for all of us to me it's a slam dunk I know I'm biased but I strong strongly encourage you to name this school after Troy and his family I'll stop there thank you
025for this opportunity to talk about the man and friend the father and husband that I reveal over to you thank you all right thank you General Rand um just a note as general Rand talked about pedri Gilbert's children at the time his departure we had three of his children I just want to remind the of that on behalf of this uh agenda tonight we also have General Berkland and his wife Wing commander of the 56 fighterman at Luke airport State thank you for being here sir also we have with us tonight Samuel Smith and Stacy Holland Luke airport space School L on so thank you for joining and certainly I'd like to close the agenda item again before I make the final request and offer an opportunity for Miss Jinger Rella major Gilbert's Widow to
026come and speak and address the board she also brought with her her husband retired Colonel J hey thanks so much for having me my name is Jinger Gilbert rll um I just appreciate being able to speak for a few minutes came all the way from Tennessee for 12 hours for this meeting uh because I think my late husband Troy would have done the same thing for me if the shoe was on the other foot um briefly just to tell you who I am and why I'm here I grew up in a little town in Eastern New Mexico my parents were dedicated their entire lives to education uh as teachers and administrators at all the levels elementary middle school high school college um I then spent the next 18 years of my life pursuing my own
027higher education while simultaneously falling in love marrying and following the path of a very handsome young man named Troy Gilbert Troy was the first person in his family to graduate from college and the only one to ever become an officer in the military his dream was to fly fighters in the Air Force and he fulfilled that dream in the cockpit of the F-16 I know many of you have already read about him and heard General Rand so eloquently speak about him uh over and all of us talked on that Zoom call which was so great so I'm also limited on time so I just want to sum up the man he was in just a few quick statements I knew him better than anyone else in the world um so I hope the Simplicity of
028my words still holds the weight that they deserve Troy Was An Officer and a Gentleman he was an incredibly selfless human a devoted father an amazing husband a humble leader a courageous Warrior a talented fighter pilot faithful son brother and friend but most of all he was a man of God who lived a life that daily reflected the two greatest Commandments to love the Lord and to love others Troy's last heroic act on the battle fields in the deserts of Western Iraq near Baghdad on November 27 2006 it was was epic and no doubt about that he gave his life in a harrowing Mission saving the lives of over 20 special operators and numerous nearby army cavalry soldiers he won many distinguished medals day like I said it was epic but it was also expected
029expected because I knew the man Troy was and the oath that he took in both big ways and small ways Troy always lived a life of sacrifice determination always to do the right thing and to have compassion for those in need he was always ready to help and ready to serve Troy left me behind our bright future together ended and our five precious children all under the age of 9 years old were left without a father my oldest two boys were in second grade in kindergarten and sitting in their little desks right down the road from here at Corte Sierra Elementary School when I got that faithful knock at my front door on a Monday morning right here in litfield park our lives were irrevocably never the same the grief and loss often times felt
030unbearable but in the children's and my darkest moments this community wrapped its arms around us the Lichfield School District was so kind and so full of grace to us y'all gave my children a loving and quality education when they needed it the very most I'll never forget their teachers Miss Paulson and Mrs Santos also Luke Air Force Base and our church Desert Springs Community there's nothing that any of them didn't do for us in those dark days Troy's story was indeed bigger than life and the long tenure Journey searching for his remains after they were taken by the insurgents that he was gunning for it was a Miraculous Journey of him finally coming home to us in 2016 and is a tale worthy of telling your students we miss Troy's light his laughter and his
031love every single day and I've now spent the last 18 years without him since he's been gone doing everything in my power to car on Troy's Legacy and memory by not just raising his children along with the help of Jim with the same principles that mattered to Troy and I from the very beginning those children are now ages 29 to 19 but also I want to carry on his legacy by trying to emulate Troy's path of selfless service to others so to close thank you for considering Troy's name for your new school thank you for saying his name actually I missed the sound of it thank thank you for doing your due diligence to give this amazing new school an equally amaz amazing Legacy name my children I would be honored to see major Troy
032Gilbert on the side of the building I cannot think of a better way to encourage the Next Generation to pursue their dreams to stand up for what's right and to overcome challenges when kids are asking them why is your school named after this man Troy's Legacy of character courage patriotism and heroism I no doubt will leave lasting fingerprints on their young lives as well thank you so much all right governing board Madam president certainly you have the agenda item before you and uh our recommendation tonight is to name School 17 Troy Gilbert El Elementary as the permanent name for that school when it's uh completed so Mr jeny and I will any questions question Mr Mike did you have any questions or comments um I don't have any questions um comments are many swirling around
033my head as far as what I just heard and um amazing Legacy that uh that he had amazing story um of what I what I had a chance to dive into and honored to have his Willow here to talk talk about so we appreciate the story Mr Owens Miss Wallace I have no questions but thank you so much for coming for 12 hours to share that with all of us it was very very touching and it will be an honor after this vote to be able to name the school after your late husband and a hero to both the nation and our community Miss Maran I agree no questions but I am privileged and honored to be able to see major try Gilbert's name on the site of one of our buildings and to say
034his name over and over and over again in remembrance I don't have any questions either sorry a little emotional um thank you for coming and sharing your story with us and thank you to all of the people that came and and spoke about this man and what a legacy it will be to have our school named after him after we officially vote on it I think we know how this is going to go um and thank you to your family he didn't just make a sacrifice your family did and so thank you for what you guys sacrificed as well for our country and for the men that were able to come back and um I'm slow emotional so I'm just gonna ask if anybody would like to make a motion I move to approve the
035name for School 17 as Troy Gilbert Elementary School second having a motion from Mr Owens in a second from Miss Moran I will call for the vote Mr mikees yay Mr Owens yay Miss Wallace yay Miss Moran y I am also a yay motion passes we have a amazing name for our new school so let's govern governing board just because we don't get this opportunity very often and we have some guests in the in with us tonight would you all come down and join for a picture on behalf of School 17 please yes and then we were going to take like a a little bit of break sounds good e e e you guys good okay if everyone is ready we're going to get back into this agenda that was the most fun exciting part
036of the night though that was super great and I'm glad that we got to do that um next we're going to move on to 8.2 which is superintendent goal update this will be Dr Davidson thank you president Z members of the board and I am sad just to think this item is not near as exciting as that other one but uh but bear with me um this is a a modification to goal number two um for one of the documents connect to my evaluation and it was really just to um accurately reflect and provide a broader picture to um the stewardship of el Thomas heck school right now um it once read or at least the proposal the way it read before was to identify the type of magnet school for the future k Thomas
037he Elementary School change to it with board approval would be to provide alternative Pathways for the repurposing of el Thomas heck Elementary School including but not limited to revenue based opportunities and use of space by internal and external Partners so just want to really give it a a broad brush so I'll stand for any questions Mr Mike did you have any questions about this item which you weren't there for our thing so maybe it wasn't fair to pick you first when we hadm yourview so I'm going to go to Mr Owens next and then I can come back to you because you weren't unless you have something to say no I'm sorry yeah it's it's okay thanks um no I don't have any questions about the updated Mr Owens yeah just I definitely think it's
038more appropriate goal um it's obviously something you're going to be able to accomplish there might be an alternative and so I'm just looking forward to finding out um way to repurpose that when there's uh you know this decision is based on um a lot of factors and one of those is making sure that we are good stewards of our resources and so um if you know whatever that may include that's best for our students while also taking that into consideration we'll probably do it so just looking forward to those um ideas that you present Miss Wallace I have no questions thank you Miss Maran um yeah no questions just similar commentary in that you know the background behind this is that we initially thought this would be a magnet school and then having not done
039this before we found out that we have many options that we might be able to um put on the table to discuss on how to use this property in the future and so I agree with board member Owens that I'm looking forward to finding out what those options are and how we can best utilize um this property yes ma'am thank you I don't have any questions either um I am glad that we are updating this so that it can accurately reflect what it is that we'll be working on this year um and I also look forward to seeing what the options end up being and making sure that we are utilizing our space the most financially responsible way um with that if someone would like to make a motion I move to approve the update
040to goal number two as presented I a second having a motion from Miss Wallace and a second from Miss Moran I'll call for the vote Mr mikees y Mr Owens yay Miss Wallace yay Miss Moran yay I'm also a yay motion passes thank you next we are going to move on to item 8 three which is consideration and possible adoption of resolution providing for all matters related to the sale and issuance of school Improvement bonds of the district this is going to be by RCF Madame President members of the governing board superintendent Davidson colleagues in community thank you for joining me tonight to allow us to move forward in the sale of bonds related to our most recent successful bond election in November of 2023 the attachments on the agenda item include a resolution allowing
041the district to move forward related agreements connected to the bond sale process and disclosures the district will be making to potential buyers of the district bonds the sale is consistent with the plans for the bond program previously presented to the governing board and this sale in particular will primarily support the construction of Troy Gilbert Elementary School and front office security upgrad after tonight our next step will be meeting with uh rating agencies and other involved parties to move the process forward at this time I'm available to answer any questions you may have we also have Brian Lumberg from Ste the district's investment banker in the audience as well to help answer any potential questions Mr Mike did you have any questions I don't have any questions Mr Owens none for me Miss Wallace no questions
042Miss Moran don't have any questions but Michael I thought you were going to read all this to us I'll say plenty to you tonight that I figured I'd save us some time I did R you and everything looks to be in order so I appreciate all the hard work that you put into this I was going to say she was kidding and we we're going to save all of that energy for your next presentation um I don't have any questions either I'm excited to see us move forward and be able to building our new school and so whatever we need to do to get the funds for that seems good to me if someone would like to make a motion I move to approve the adoption resolution providing for all matters relating to the sale
043and issuance of school Improvement bonds of the district including delegation to the superintendent and Chief Financial Officer of the district to determine certain matters related there to as presented I'll second having a motion from Miss Moran and second from Mr Owens I'll call for the votee Mr mik yay Mr Owens yay Miss Wallace yay Miss Moran yay I'm also yay motion pass okay we are going to move on now to our discussion section and this will be a fiscal year 2025 2026 budget discussion this will also be led by our CFO because it's the time of year where it's the Michael vaugh show all the time it's so Michael vaugh and Sandy saterfield show but don't don't discount Sandy all right Madame President members of the governing board superintendent Davidson colleagues and Community thank you
044for joining us tonight to discuss items we've been exploring related to the budget for the 2025 2026 school year tonight's presentation aligns with the district Strate strategic keystones of Readiness relationship and resources all of them during tonight's presentation executive director saterfield and I will walk you through the district's budget workto date for fiscal year 2025 2026 we will cover the results of the annual compensation study and provide an on our benefits we will also introduce the work we are doing around performance pay and evaluation provide a strategy exploring retention of experienced employees and share some additional needs that were identified through the budget process each year we follow a budget process that begins by providing the governing board District administration and other stakeholders context on the district's budget position through this process we examine where
045we ended the prior year in terms of balancing revenue and expenditure where we anticipate to the current year and how that plays out over a multi-year time period we also examine the district's reserves to Target at the end of the prior year and how they may behave over a multi-year time frame this financial context allows the district to proceed with the budgeting process knowing if we need to be focused on the most strategic areas to add support due to available resour or if we need to be focused on maintaining or improving the district's financial position we then engage stakeholders in an exploratory process to identify possibilities for the next year this may look like surveys to staff presentations and feedback from administrators employee chats with school sites or one-on-one meetings with administrators to help identify
046needs the finance and Human Resources team work to bring to life these ideas and present them to the administrative cabinet for prioritization and to ensure alignment across the organization in November when We examined our financial position together we saw that the district has a very healthy emergency fund or reserves we anticipate utilizing 1 to two million of these reserves this year for continued operations however our reserves will remain in line with recommendations from the governmental Finance officers Association which are incorporated into the district's governing board policy which will be effective on July 1st coming into this year significant Staffing model changes have been made to implement a multi-year strategy to balance the budget after the expiration of pandemic related federal grants which increases the uncertainty in the forecasts based on this financial context you will
047see an effort throughout this budget to identify and utilize available nonm funding as well as offsetting savings where possible our hope with this budget is to address strategic needs and provide stability to continue the ongoing budget balancing work into school year 2026 2027 the administration is comfortable with this approach given the financial context of the district and the district's healthy Reserve position this slide details the location of the district's Reserve at the end of last fiscal year at that point in time the district had slightly over four months of reserves providing stability for our district I will now hand it over to executive director saterfield to discuss the compensation study that was conducted this year each year as a result of the independent compensation study we review the majority of positions held with our sister
048districts upon receipt of the results we culate current average of those districts in Pre and compare that to our in toet which positions a more inth Rie in this process we determine sorry in this process we determine an increase to our salary schedule to bring it to that average each individual employee in positions that relate to these salary and the employee as they comp that we are for all employees in any given and thenon the employee bying them most advantageous result in this are uring that our employees do not fall below where new employees would be placed with their education and years of experience our comparative analysis encompasses 11 surrounding districts as noted on this slide and these are consistently the ones we've been using how will get the what we found in our revie
049of the independent analis was that all of our employee groups remain highly competitive with a few exceptions as shared on our slide our teers on3 above our as mayed in recent years our performance comprises greater percent of our compens than the majority of our surrounding districts these monies are typically provided inun following the of the evu the process at our school visits we heard about the for more money in the which will be a focus of further study as an alternative to support our staff this year we identifi 35 positions that may need addal compens and are completing those indepth reviews to ensure we provide the best level of pay to our employes additionally we are proposing a 2% increase for all employe at our next governing board meeting and after completing the review of
050each individual employee in the impacted groups we will share the anticipated cost to fund our recommendations this year we are also doing considerable work on our compensation including the request proposal for health andary V the impa of required benefit contribs such as Social Security parison estate long-term disability workers compensation benefits and Associated costs are signific approximately 20% for each employee in add we also provide vision and life insurance for those employees with your support conducted the request for proposal process to do our best to provide the best insurance products or the best cost to our employees on this slide we have shared those vendors that responded to our request propal as you will and we were pleased to see our incumbents respond to our reest this is good news for our employees as we pursue
051the best product in a SL shares the work completed by the insurance committee analor each mtips provid a scoring R was provided to each committee M and the committe was given approxim to sub their indidual assments to our director as AES withcb who have been invited to participate in the best and final process the best and final process opport allows these to respond adds that are to a final decision along with the opportunity to modify their offering and their pricing after finalists have been determined the committee met again to R the best and final data and have been provided another scoring OPP to assist us in Mak final decision to bring forward for your consideration we do want to share that the asate renewal rates are expected around March 1st the typical time of releases
052each year the comparative analysis will be finalized following this made two certified employees two classified employees two administrative employees as well as representatives from finance and resources a big thank you to each person for their time it's a lot of work to take it in and at this time we would like to pause for any Mr Mike did you have any questions or comments so far no I don't have any questions comments as far as can imag Mr Owens yeah definitely thank you for all your work um as far as it comes to um I know we do this how often do we do the um the benefits um competition is that that's more recent because of changes we've made or no uh that's only more recent because uh we're trying to be strategic with
053our resources and compensation strategy the last time we as a district looked at at least the medical component of our benefits package was actually in the 8S um withfield Elementary School District was a founding member of the asbit trust and has been with as that entire time um what we're likely to see into the future is we try to be uh more strategic with how our compensation structure is structured and to make sure that we're continuously getting the best uh offerings we can is probably more like a three to five year cycle um and really the RFP process doesn't mean there going to be a change it simply means you're going to the market to make certain that you're getting updated pricing and so the process might find uh that as V's pricing is the
054most competitive that's being offered to us or it could find that another provider is willing to provide us better benefit offerings for a lesser price and so simply by by being willing to do that process on a more cyclical basis you can you can have some assurance that that you really are getting the best that you can um offer to your think yeah so I mean my point being is I kind of knew the answer to that but my point being is that one of the things when I became a board member um and a lot of times when I ask questions you know you don't want to get a response of just because we've always done it that way right um that shouldn't be an answer if it is the answer because we've exhausted
055all of the resources possibilities Ventures and that's the only option so I'm excited and I'm happy that we're doing this because when we find other opportunities to you know reduce costs to our teachers um that's more money for them that's more money for us so I I appreciate your work there I appreciate the um you know one of the biggest things I feedback I get from teachers is they feel like they're not getting paid as much as a brand new teacher and so making sure that that's that's not a concern of theirs um is is appreciated as well when it comes to the 2% raise how often or how many years in a row have we done that uh we've done it each year I've been here uh which um I'm finishing up my third
056year now um what what L did prior to me is a little bit more fuzzy that but that also um when you get too much prior to my time with the district you also start getting much closer to the 20% by 2020 uh time frame where significant amounts of additional resources were it's pushed into districts to support um increased raises the the origin really of the 2% really ties to the 2% inflation funding that districts tend to see State each year um in litfield our enrollment isn't actually growing when you look at uh us as a district um in its entirety and so uh we simply don't have um additional resources really beyond that 2% inflation investment that we get to thank you again my point being that you know we all understand inflation is
057much higher than 2% especially last year um that we as a district are able to find 2% to raise pay for our teachers when as you just mentioned you know we don't necessarily have the student population to fund that um I I hope our teachers appreciate that I'm glad that we can do that um I don't know if that's standard for most school districts I haven't had a 2% raise every year in the last three years um so I'm just glad that we can do that Miss Wallace I don't have any questions I appreciate going and find and finding the information for health benefits I'm sure that this team is looking into it but obviously the cost that they are paying for their families on top of what is covered for the individual is highly
058important because if you're if the cost for one company versus another is significant to add families or children children dependence that's going to very much offset how much they take home each month as far as percentage so I'm sure that that group is doing that that that's definitely something very important to look at because if as insurance continues to rise for what they're paying for their families 2% is probably not even covering the difference for the raise and insurance so I appreciate that we're trying to at least make it even and finding the best insurance to make that raise cover those differences Miss Mar I'm G to start with the context um slide slide six so I appreciate you including this because if you read really between the lines here what you're saying and what
059I would like to make sure is clear to my fellow board members as well as um staff is that this year we do anticipate we will dip into our reserves we have a limited amount of reserves and to board member Owen's point the 2% raise that we anticipate giving merely matches up with the 2% inflationary increase we anticipate the state will be giving us so if we're taking in the 2% giving that to teachers as we should um if we're going to match up our budget next year with this year we're going to dip further into our reserves now as been discussed in numerous years sometimes things happen and we don't end up dipping into the reserve as we expected but all that to say the current Year's budget is technically unbalanced because we're dipping
060into our reserves and we know we can't continue doing that so one of the things that has everyone that I appreciate you looking into is a way to cut costs and the benefits being one of those costs some things we have no control over like Social Security and that sort of thing what we have to pay into the retirement system but we do have some control and choice over those the vision plan the dental plan those types of things so hopefully we can shave a little bit off there which could free up um funds for us to give teachers additional um or if the state and the legislators decide they want to be generous that would be awesome and we could maybe give more than 2% because I agree that the actual inflation does not
061nor has it matched up with what our state has decided to give us to increase teacher pay um maybe ever so um feel free to reach out to the state legislators and let them know your thoughts on that the other comment that I would like to make is on slide 10 so when I look at SL slide 10 and I see the employee compensation and it says the words te teacher total compensation on average is $ 4300 above neighboring districts I say that's amazing so what are we doing to make sure that our employees know that because it's easy to look at other districts average salary and maybe not interpret that correctly in a comparison to what our total compensation is so what are we doing to help make sure that our own employees know
062that hey if you shop around these neighboring districts you should be compensated more than you would be compensated there again for retention type strategy so I I think potentially we'll end up with a unique opportunity this year uh because as we get deeper into the slides uh we'll start covering some uh other ideas that we have that uh potentially will have uh bigger changes to what our compensation structure really looks like so once once we actually have board approval and we're not just uh having discussions about it I think there will need to be some significant conversation around around compensation in which field because potentially it'll look a little bit different than it has in years's past so I think think that that's a a great opportunity that we'll have to make certain that we
063capitalize on this year okay and then will we include in that and maybe we've done this before do we normally kind of advertise or you know to our own horn about what we do cover for medical versus what other districts cover for medical or is that included in this $4,300 amount so the $4,300 amount is a starting salary uh and it doesn't include benefits costs not not all compensation studies actually look at benefits um the compensation study we did this year does does not uh the one we did last year was through a different provider uh and does look at benefits it's more more holistic but the reason we choose not to use that provider every year is that provider requires our sister districts to actually do quite a bit of work in responding and
064to ensure that we maintain a collaborative relationship with our sister districts I I don't think I can ask them to do it every year and actually get responses um so our approach with the compensation study has been as cyclical in the similar to what I was saying with with the benefits RFP in that we will do the more in-depth compensation study every couple years uh to make certain that it Still Remains valuable um but our current compensation study that was done this year doesn't okay okay I just I know that that is another differentiating factor that can easily fall between the cracks that employees might not realize how much we contribute to their medical specifically um versus what other districts may or may not be doing each year um and this is actually I'm going
065to call it a new statute but it's a it's a new statute betweenin the last couple of years um there's a requirement for school districts to provide what are called compensation statements um and when and those are on an individual basis and show an employee um not only what we paid them in a in a wage but also all of what we contributed asrs and medical it really truly is a total compensation statement that's it's well named um and so um we probably have some opportunity there to really highlight um what they are getting paid now they're not they're not comparative um in the sense of it doesn't have other District data on other districts data on it but it certainly provides a great deal of insight into what that individual employees total compensation package
066is um we probably have some opportunity to uh make that communication a little bit more strategically used but that's another um option that as we're discussing I can I can another okay when do those come out um I believe we've put them out around January but uh the statute doesn't actually require a particular time frame so um let me get let me get back to you on the timeline and provide you a Friday update on that okay it would make sense if it comes out around W2 time but that might not have it's either that or or after the fiscal year end um I'm not certain which but let let me get back to you okay okay no problem thank you um the only other thing I wanted to comment on was the indepth benefits
067analysis that you're doing with your committee and how I'm really glad that we're doing that because obviously it's been a long time coming as You' mentioned we may end up going with abbate still um but the fact that we've looked at it and at least tried to do some price comparison shows the prudence and and behind that so I appreciate that so I have a question about the health insance stuff um if teacher contracts are coming out after March 15th that's the plan right the idea originally was that we would have all these numbers in for their contracts when they go out but if you guys get that on March 1st and we're meeting like March 3D or fourth whatever dat it is um how do you do that I I do appreciate uh you
068realizing that Hail Mary that um we may have in the um really the asate renewal um is the final piece to the puzzle so the current plan is to have it figured out with the exception of the asate renewal um see if the asate renewal changes the the answer uh if you will and um be be ready to go um I may or may not have to ask for some Grace around hour um publishing time frame uh depending on when exactly we get that information um but our hope is the next governing board meeting we can provide uh some more insight into what the what the plans look like and the cost we do know uh because it it was provided to us um an upper range on what asbat renewal could be and so
069the commit has been um operating under the assumption that they come back at that highest uh cost um so we know that asate won't be worse than what we're currently anticipating but it is possible that they might sharpen their pencil um knowing that they're in this process and there are other finalists uh for the services that they provide um I guess in a long-winded way I'm saying we're going to do our very best I have every I anticipate being able to have it for approval on that um on that Fort um but it is a it is a question okay I for one would be okay if we needed to give you a little grace song as it meets our 24hour like legally law says so Mr Owens go ahead kind just follow up to
070that so are you saying that as go lower to us what I'm saying is last year last year they they gave us a number and they said next year your renewal will not be worse than this figure um what I'm saying is the committee has been assuming uh that asbat renewal will be that figure um but they're not contractually obligated to renew us figure they could choose to renew us at a lower percentage increase um than what they told us the maximum possibility was no I understand I'm sorry I guess I wasn't clear so what I'm saying is there could be a possibility where they would Quote us or give us a whatever but they could have gone lower or do they always have to give us the best option every time the lowest they
071can go so as B is a pooled insurance product and so they look at the um they look at the performance of the entire Insurance Pool when they're um when they're deciding the rate increase they typically uh provide uh a range of increases to the different districts in the insurance pool when you look at the history of the renewals which field has gotten compared to the pool as a whole our renewals actually have tended a little bit better than the pool as a whole but um they are essentially an insurance company and we don't have a great deal of insight into their underwriting process and so that's the other benefit to doing this RFP process in a cyclical basis because it we still don't have insight into the full process but it allows us to
072get quotes from others to compare if the end result is the most advantageous maybe I'm not understanding your question I'm sorry Mr no no no I I you you are but um so as bait right is associated and tied with asba right they are the branch of their as own School Board Association they their insurance fees and stuff that they collect from us also funds asba right my understanding is asba charges a um licensing fee almost to be associated with their name to asate and so asate does pay a portion of their proceeds it's it's almost it's a monopoly asbit is a monopoly through asba unless you go outside of asbaa sure good asate is the only Insurance trust that's directly tied with asbaa you don't have to be with asate um an asba member
073correct but you do have to be an asba member if you would like to maintain asate benefits I I I guess I mean I understand they're an insurance company right but being funnel through asba which is a public Association of school boards or whatever however you know um that they want it always give us as low as they possibly can go right I find that if that's if I'm correct in saying that they could come to us and say Here's a range that you fall in and we could say no and then maybe they could come back and oh well since you said no we can go a little lower that they could do that they can and in fact um that's where I that's where I have an issue that's my issue that's where
074I'm getting I can't remember if it was last year the a year prior uh but we actually have successfully negotiated a slightly lower renewal rate than than their initial offer so I can confirm that yes they they can um so so that's that's my that's my hang up I mean and if they're the lowest then yeah we're going to use them right but I I just find it um EXT concerning in my opinion that they are tied to asba and while yes whatever they have to make a profit they are still have the opportunity to not give us the best rate that they can to still be profitable to some extent but this is taxpayer dollars we're we're using and they so I just I do want to say that I don't think that that
075while I agree with what you're saying I don't think it's uh unique to asate I think any insurance provider um could enter into negotiations provide an initial renewal um proposal and then in the negotiation process um potentially offer a a better renewal no I agree I agree I mean they're all insuring companies but just because it is the asba one right like there's no other option you're an asba you have yeah like ASB you have if you want it so sorry Ryan do anyone else have any further questions comments yeah I guess I'm not understanding the issue with using ASB have should as if it's the lowest priced model it's going to be the best potential I'm just saying that I'm TR I would hope that ASB would give us the best possible rates for
076our staff so that we as a so we can be use as little money as we possibly can to get the best coverage possible and if it's competitive and it's the best then great but if they could do better then why don't they do that from the beginning because of their lead affiliation with asba not just because they're a private group that we go out to request I have no problem with asb's the best anybody else have any other questions or comments okay we can move on to the next section at this time I'm going to turn it back over to Mr v he's G to begin and Lead discussion as part of our strategic goal to redesign the evaluation instrument and performance pay compensation structures our team has reviewed academic research as it relates
077to Performance pay in our industry in many cases the results of the research are missed there is some evidence that a warning performance pay does not provide the that was an intended outcome of the program instead performance pay serves as a way to encourage underperforming employees to leave organization I'm going to wait for this SL sorry in reflection we have developed three goals for the performance Pace structure in litfield first we would like the performance pay structure to complement a cascading evaluation system system that drives alignment of goals from the superintendent to all employees second we would like to allow our evaluation system to drive our work in employee growth and development without risk to the employee we've seen that when there is deep connection between compensation and evaluation evaluators and and employees are more
078hesitant to have necessarily difficult conversations during the evaluative process with the potential to have a positive imp on student and employee growth third we want to ensure our performance compensation structure supports the district's goal of having a competitive compensation structure for our current and prospective employees we will continue to work with the career development committee and we'll bring an update to you at our next governing board meeting with some more details at this time executive director s FIY are available to answer any questions you may have on our work on perform Mr Mike no questions comments in regards to goals you guys have listed seem to make sense to me which way you're going that especially being part of many many evaluations that Mr Owens yes I miss Wallace uh I just to clarify this
079is potentially going to take effect not in the next calendar year but the following is that correct and what we're working towards uh so what we would be talking about with governing board approval is a change uh starting July 1st of 2025 going through June 30th 2026 okay so the teachers would be looking at this change for next school year yes okay Miss Miss Wallace if I can add please um part of the of my goal if you recall was to work through the evaluation system the tool as well as performance pay so and what you saw on that last slide is is kind of the interconnectedness that we have um the work beside the evaluation tool was for us to start at the administrative level begin that process as we develop that cascading system
080but I think Sandy and micheel and their team are looking at the performance pay piece which U I know they'll share more in the near future so interconnectedness um the hope would be of course that the performance pay model could be for next year the evaluation tools and system itself will be likely a two-year process based working understood thank you Miss Marine performance pay okay so my feedback on this would be first of all I would love to stop calling it performance pay if it is not pay for performance because that's really what we're saying in slide 18 is if a goal is to have an evaluation system that drives employee growth and development without concern for total compensation that means we don't want to tie any compensation to evaluation is that what I'm hearing
081you say um it's not that we don't want to tie compensation to Performance um but we are talking about separating uh qualitative evaluation uh metrics from that makes sense so so having the performance measures where you do have performance compensation be uh items that can't be um easily manipulated in a positive or negative way by the evaluators but more driven by the pure numbers of performance because what we've found is that when it is the more qualitative aspects of evaluation um evaluators are less willing to have those difficult conversations and we really see value in allowing the the evaluation tool to be The Driver of that growth and so we we're exploring the concept of of removing that barrier to those difficult conversations so that if there is growth that needs to happen from a
082qualitative perspective they're not also worried about underpaying the employee and having them leave the organization because they could go elsewhere and make more money even though all we're really trying to do is grow our employees to be the best gled field we can be okay so would you anticipate then that the performance pay what we currently called performance pay would be incorporated into regular pay potentially that's one of the things we'll be exploring with um with committee and during that committee work because if we shift a dollar amount of money whatever that dollar amount is from performance pay to base level compensation we then potentially have the opportunity to allow employees to make an election of if they'd like to continue receiving that money at the end of the year or if they'd like to
083see it in their by-weekly paychecks um it's a mechanism to to allow um us to respond to to the feedback that we've gotten that in a lot of instances when we're recruiting new Educators they're used to a a system with substantially more in the bi-weekly paycheck and substantially Less in June but also respond to the feedback of our existing team members who have shared with us that they like it in June and so um shifting some amount of that compensation from the performance pay which you can really only pay in June because you have to know what the performance was to base pay so that we can provide that election is part of what we're hoping to explore with with that okay so that would be similar to an option now of teachers who get
084paid equally throughout the year versus through the school year absolutely okay so same amount of money just different way of paying it out that sounds very reasonable to me um I guess what my would be because I mean the history behind this money is career lad and and systems that have long been eliminated by the different buckets that our state still likes to put all this money into so I would like for us to be more comparable again with other districts so that it is clear when people want to come to us or when they're looking to leave from us exactly Apple's comparisons but I also would like to leave whatever we're going to leave in this performance pay if we're leaving money in there that we actually are tying it to Performance and I
085understand what you're saying about the maybe more um qualitative or subjective aspects of our evaluation and hopefully working through that going to fix some of those um things that are that are in there now um so I look forward to seeing what that looks like because I think for our folks especially the ones that have been around a long time it's going to look really different and so we're going to have some big hurdles to explain that but hopefully it will end up with a system that is better for our teachers as well as for our students and the performance overall like you said remove some of those barriers to growth and constructive criticism without making it feel like a penalty and a punishment that's exactly our goal thank you for articulating it better than
086I was um I don't have any questions I'm glad to see that we are having these conversations and looking at doing this I know we kind of have tried to do this in the past and it didn't work out but we do know we're getting very mixed opinions right new people want it one way people that are hear one and another way and how do we accommodate both so I I I appreciate that you guys are trying to figure that out I I do like the idea that we potentially are going to move some of that performance pay into their regular pay uh so that they can see it in their paychecks and understand that they are actually making more money here than other places so um that's all all right next we would like
087to share with you some Trends both in the education Workforce as well as the workforce more broadly that we need to be in a position to address as we work to keep our school staff we knowe that there is a significant teacher shortage this is being driven both by the generation who is nearing the end of their careers being large in comparison to the generation entering the workforce as well as some concerns specific to our industry specifically according to the National Bureau of economic research we are in a period of historic lows of new Educators becoming licensed however the workforce is not shrinking as much as these demographic Trends would have us expect this is because employees are choosing to work later in life than they have in the past the percentage of the workforce
088that is older than 65 has grown 117% over the last 20 years in response to these Global Trends we would like to present you with a multi-prong strategy to retain experienced employees and Educators in litfield this strategy has three components including addressing compression longevity and a robust return to work program as executive directors saterfield and I visited schools this year we heard concerns of compression from our longtime employees as a first step of a multiyear process we conducted an analysis of employees on the teacher pay scale and calendar this analysis identified a of 61 employees who are being compensated below where a new employee with similar experience and education would be placed on the placement chart to honor these employees we recommend bringing these employees up to the placement chart at a cost of $91,000
089we believe this is a first step to this work and intend to do this same analysis for all employee groups for consideration during the 2026 2027 and future budget Cycles this slide begins our look at longevity the teacher experience index is the result of the school district employee report that school districts must complete each year and submit to the state during this reporting process districts share the years of experience for each teacher employed in the district as of October 1 we use this data to determine the number of years at which the district begins to experence an increase in the number of teachers leaving the district and possibly the profession for other opportunities on this slide a negative number indicates more teachers left with the stated number of years of experience while a positive number
090indicates the district hired more Educators at that level of experience reviewing this data at year 10 we see that the district begins to experience a more significant and consistent turnover of teachers to help address this concern the administration would like to recommend a longevity sement starting at 10 years of experience with litfield the stipend would provide $1,000 for employees with 10 through 19 years of completed service to the district and $2500 for those with 20 or more years of service to the district please note that we are specifically looking at years of service to Lichfield when making this recommendation this longevity program would be funded from classroom site fund for eligible employees and other funding sources for employees not eligible to receive compensation from the classroom site fund such as non-classroom support Personnel the administration
091is recommending cutting funding for the Employee Appreciation benefit to help support more meaningful recognition of employees in the form of pay increases that will POS positively impact them for the rest of their lives next I will discuss our proposal for the return work program participation in the Arizona State Retirement System is mandatory for an employee who works 20 or more hours per week the contribution rate for the employee and the employer is currently over 12% of the employees wages there is more than one way for an employee to retire from asrs that the most common is to reach 80 points determined by adding the employees age in years of service in the retirement system together to capitalize on the 80 Point option an individual must have commenced employment prior to 2011 after 20111 uh the
092rules changed a little bit but uh for the purpose of our conversation tonight um obviously if you started after 2011 you wouldn't be um so near retirement that this would be as relevant president utilizing this option would allow an employee to retire at age 50 if they had 30 years of service upon retirement from asrs individuals must not work for a contributing employer for the First full year immediately following retirement many School District employees who are able to retire may still desire to continue contributing to education therefore many districts have a re rehire work opportunity for these individuals to support employees who would like to begin collecting their pensions many districts have collaborated with contracted agency to retain the employee as a contracted worker doing so allows the retiree to begin to draw their retirement
093benefits through asrs while possibly continuing in their same position with the school district from which they retired the district facilitates this with the contracted agency typically by paying a percentage of the employees wages after the completion of the first year of retirement districts can welcome the employee back as an employee directly with the district without contract without the contract agency in between continuing to fill the position needed for our students and capitalizing on that employes experience and expertise while still allowing the employee to continue to draw their reement and pay from the district it ends up being a sign significant positive for both parties as stated in an earlier Slide the workforce over age 65 has grown exponentially and this is a way to support that Trend in Lichfield and even a little bit younger
094um as I stated in the example as previously stated the pension payout rules vary depending on when an employee began contributing to asrs and individuals retirement compensation is calculated using years of experience as well as the highest average compensation that the employee receed while actively working as noted on our slide for those with 30 years of experience the payout is 69% of the highest annual compensation which can be lifechanging for an individual the next several slides will walk us through an example of a present longtime teacher of witfield slide will show us the difference that the addition of a longevity sipon would provide an employee at the time of retirement the First Column reflects the total compensation the employee would receive in the last year of active employment without the longevity sipen um that we
095uh just discussed compared to the second column which includes the longevity stien as you can see for uh this employee and an employee that has 30 years of experience in the system that stifen would increase their lifetime benefit of one uh by $1,725 per year this slide allows us to view the earnings from the last year of active employment with the district um the year of service under the contract worker Arrangement um and then the first year back uh as an employee directly with LD you'll note that we're utilizing 90% of the last um active year salary for the contracted year and 100% uh of the last active year salary upon return to employment directly with the district these these percentages are aligned with other districts or in certain cases or more advantageous to which
096Fields employees compared to similar programs offered in other districts you'll note that our calculations reflect the addition of the $2,500 longevity sesin that we're proposing for your consideration during the year with contracted agency you'll note a significant increase to the retirees income based on compensation at 90% of the last year's salary coupled with their annual retirement benefit almost uh $51,000 um of an annual increase in this example upon return to active employment with the with the district the employee would receive 100% of their annual salary at the time of retirement as well as their annual retirement benefit this once again increases the retirees annual income by an additional $8,700 our hope is that several years of dramatically increased earnings before it stabilizes once again at that higher uh rate helps the continuing employe feel appreciated
097and valued for their experience and longevity in our district next we wanted to share what this looks like for the district as the employer as you can see during the year prior to retirement the total cost of the district for this employee would be just shy of $116,000 during the year with the contract agency the cost to the district is 102,000 approximately $14,000 of savings this savings comes both from compensating the employee at 90% of their previous rate and the fee uh the contract agency charges being less than the costant benefits previously provided to the employee upon this retirees return to Lichfield as an active employee the employees income would be uh $149,000 while the cost to the district would still be $5,000 less than their final year before retirement this uh reflects the payment
098of the by the District of the alternative contribution rate as opposed to the usual percentage that the employer must match for the employee to the retirement system during active employment when considering retention this is an Avenue that we anticipate our employees nearing retirement would value as we consider the data mentioned related to the increase in percentage of workers over age 65 this setfield and I are available to answer any questions you may have on on longevity and uh retention strategies Mr Mike slide two two main question I really had is the the number as far as we deed know the number of did number something you already know me well thank you and then also um the attachment to that is you know uh where did the concept going we're going to pluck it in
09910 years and then oh 20 years we're going to implement it there where did that was it from the research you guys found so you could elaborate on that yeah I might answer your questions in reverse order if that's okay no okay well then I'll do my best to answer them in the order in which you asked um if we go back to this slide uh this was the data that uh Sandy and I used really to try to land what you see negatives prior to year 10 um you see a jump in how large the numbers are at that N9 to 10 range and then the other thing I noted was that you see a consistent negative across the years whereas in the earlier years sometimes was positive sometimes it was negative and so
100it wasn't as consistent and so really at 10 years we we thought we saw a consistent loss of experienced teachers and we wanted to see if if we could help address that bumping it up at 20 years really goes to a different potential retention problem and that is there's significant incentive for employees in the the state retirement system to leave as they as they get closer and closer to retirement because your uh pension payout uh for the rest of your life is determined by your highest years of compensation within a window of your retirement date and so the hope is that by bumping it up a little bit more as they truly um enter that that retirement period is that that they don't feel as strong a need to leave us to bump up that
101um highest earning years and that we're effectively doing it for them um so they don't have to leave us to get that same result as far as how we landed on the numbers um part of it comes back to the size of our Workforce and our available resources um as as the team and I were looking at uh this concept because it was a concept before I quite knew how to pay for it uh we then began looking at um funding sources that this might be eligible for and classroom site fund at least for uh a decent portion of our um employee group that would be an eligible funding source from it and so what I did is I looked at the level of reserves we have in the classroom site fund and the level
102of reserves that we might like to have in the classroom site fund and we have uh excess reserves there and so really what I did is look at how much we have in excess reserves um I took a little trick from the state budgeting office and divided that number by three uh to uh see what it might be if we wanted this to be a more long Runing program um and then targeted that dollar amount um with this program and and just did math to figure out how much we could support paying uh with that dollar amount if if we do decide to move forward with this and we do uh see that it is beneficial what the long-term strategy would be to make this sustainable longterm is the increases that we get to the
103classroom site fun program would start going to to backfill and providing a long-term funding source so that by the time the excess reserves are spent down that we have a a ongoing funding stream to make this sustainable that was a really long-winded answer but do you have follow no that was was great appreciate that back Mr Owens numbers um the so it says looking at the next slide we have 38 36 employes that are service do we know how many teachers right now would be eligible for this so these are are these are our current numbers um no they're not you're not none of you are old enough none of you are old enough for this apparently we have fans in the audience of this idea I okay so a few yeah and then more
104and more okay this is my question Miss Wallace I don't have any questions but I really love moving the 61 employees to where they would compare as a new employee I know this is a terrible comparison but I hate that I pay more for my internet Than People signing up for a new program and it's the same with our teachers like we should value them above our brand new staff and so I think that is a wonderful place to start and I love that we're doing that I also absolutely love the work that you put into this in trying to figure out where to get this funds from how to sustain it and how to tell our staff whether it's 10 years or 20 years that we care about you and we want this to
105be the place that you want to be and for the teachers listening or here um you owe him a lot of thanks for all of the work that he is going above and beyond to to try to make sure that we can pay the teachers the most that we can and and that we do value that so thank you so much for all of your work in this I know that it's a big task Miss Maria um I also am in favor of the um compression adjustments that need to be made I think that only makes sense um to make sure that the compression catching up other people doesn't then again penalize the people who have stayed with us the longest I'm really interested to see the impact of this longevity dipen if we can
106get it in place as it is because I think another hurdle we're going to face there is just folks understanding how valuable that is I love the example of when you're saying it's going to impact their lifetime um annuity basically from their pension a lot of people have no idea how that works so um I think that's really valuable as well as the you know comeback to work scenario and not only the fact that that is a huge as you lifechanging potential um amount of income if they decide to come back after they've retired but in addition it's a win-win for us because it's less outlay for an even more qualified employee our expenses go down so as much as we can do with this I'm on board um let's see how many teachers we
107can not only retain because the other win with that is we know that the teachers we've had for a long time are doing good work with our students and we want to keep them as long as we can because that's in the best interest of Student Success as well so I I just see wins across the board with this particular program and I don't know if other districts are doing this um to the extent that we are now and if we need to um wait a couple of years see what that data looks like reanalyze the stien piece to see if we need to adjust that potentially once we get the funding more stabilized I think we should have an opportunity to do that as well so I look forward to seeing what this is
108going to be us I don't have any questions either I I appreciate all the work you guys are doing I appreciate us thinking of new and creative ways to make sure we're getting our teachers paid every dime that we can and I know that I feel well I feel like it's our long-term staff have kind of not really gotten the attention they deserve and that's really unfortunate because they are what makes the culture of witfield what it is by the people that have been here and given us so many years of their life important to our students so I am very thankful that we are looking at taking care of them right now this is a great great plan I'm excited to see how this works out as we move forward Miss ID oh can
109I add to that please real quick and it sounds like uh Mr Moran you might have been in the conversations that we are having um certainly our goal is we consider these initiatives over the next few years to continue to look at the data and see how it changes hopefully over time um the thing that I just want to for all those listening and as we represent our our different team members out there these recommendations are going to be for every employee group I I I was listening to the board and and certainly teachers are at top of mind we know what the data says regarding getting a qualified skilled educator in our classrooms super super important but what we I've learned we haven't always done a good job of of highlighting this return to
110work program with our administrators and our classified staff because to your point there is an opportunity that to really make a some Headway maybe your your um those financial goals you might have as you age like I'm aging right so I'm just super excited to be able to let every employee know that these things will be coming their way with the board's approval in the near future thank you yes thank you uh yes go ahead yes um I wanted to just add one thing about this program and the way we're approaching in HR our int is to invite people in as they begin to approach retirement so towards that goal we're having a meeting coming up and I apologize I don't know exactly what where we're going to bring in a the Contracting agency we
111use we're also going to have the Arizona State Retirement System there and our team will be there to help people understand um what we're currently doing we are able to move forward with our plan when we invite people in oneon-one to discuss retirement we'll do our best to educate them fully about this so they can see the longterm gain that this will have done and I just think that part is so important over the years I've had people say well this is too good to be true but it really isn't um you know it's an opportunity and a great way to support people whove given their life to the kids of this community or other communities so I just wanted to include that and then um Mr bom and I were going to transition so
112that I could talk with you a little bit about some additional positions and some position changes that we'd like to that we will be proposing based on our budget work so each year we meet the with the district leaders to gain their perspec needs district for our consideration two needs within our transportation department service this year the need for a district dri trainer and the addition of one CIT childing transit driver the driver trainer would represent a cost to our M budget of $70,000 and aligns with a strategic goal to create and sustain a successful transportation department by decreasing the time between hiring a driver and the actual start time so that we can get them on the road get children the CIT driver position represents no additional cost uh we probably would realize a
113savings from doing that because this is that area where we were paying so much uh for transport special some of our children who are Jimmy dento and so by having the smaller vehicles and uh us doing the transporting it saves the district money so that will be one thing we'll bring forward in our Community Education Department excuse me we realize that there's a need for succession planning to adequately prepare for the future a generalists loal option this would not be an expense to our maintenance and operation as the cost would be covered through our Community Education Program so that way we'll be preparing for future retirements and so that we have a plan in place so that it's a successful move in our curriculum Department the need for our programs data to support our El
114program as well that are under the um coll of assist previously assigned to that position would be absorbed into the new anal proposing and this once again this would not cost to our but actually would be compensated out of our impact the proped ches onent toim expession moving on like to propose or share with you what we'll propose for our position modifications that foris year6 the firsted change support our school sites comp ISU also we saw it as a way to help support theod attend that we Implement add provide additional supported crossing guard Duty coverage Etc as we've heard from our leaders this year that that has been a little B harder that sites to address the duties for the so we once the obligations were fuled of our of a wellness program under our
115benefits was the top tier request by our employees and with our F all three of them really the resources and relationship by the use of preventive measures to create a and school work envir provide staff and students we know that the teers in the our children are respons will ABB into and wills to a change to their calar toate their training GS into their work this results add the dist as our Transporters are rely work number ofs already and are compensated for the request also add the number also it will allow us to Bud because you know whatever number ofs are the others and if say you're as well as any of the other itly discussed Mr Mike this is a new guy question I guess but um so our attendance clerks are not we
116did look at um you know should they be eight hours should they be seven hours we knew we needed something more in needs of our schools but the cost difference between one hour was so significant um based on the additional holidays and those tyes of things plus the wages that seven hours seem to be realistic to accomplish the work and also to provide a little extra support and did I cover we did um you know this is a this particular recommendation or request came from many different sources which is one of the reasons why I at least could could feel so confident that it it was probably one that we we really needed to look at it came from uh our student information team that's ultimately responsible for our attendance reporting to the state um
117and very regularly has to be able to speak to our attendance reporting under audit um it also came from our school sites especially the schools that were implementing period attendance as we began looking at do we move this position to eight hours do we move it to seven hours there was um a decent bit of discussion around what was really needed um obviously also in with with the resource question and and the conversation really came to we think this work can be done in seven hours um and it is the the more fiscally responsible approach but similar to to all the other things that that we look at each year um we will have a similar feedback uh Gathering Loop in in future budget cycles and so what I would say is if we find
118that the seven hours isn't enough um it would be something that that would come up in our feedback Gathering and we would readdress in future years seven hours is more than attendance clerks have ever had in mfield and so I I do think it's it's probably a good um step to see if that's sufficient or um if more is required previous to to this coming year um the the attendance clerk position wasn't even a position that was truly mandated at our schools it was optional um at the employee at the principal discretion we have a lot of uh areas in our staffing model that that provide principles with discretion on Staffing with the intention being that they use um the data that they know of their student populations to truly use that discretion to um
119provide their campus what they truly need as I and the team uh really looked at the Staffing model uh this year what it really came down to is attendance clerks shouldn't be optional and so um we're we're proposing moving that out of the optional bucket and providing it at at s hours I know that was a longwinded answer but yeah no that that that's great because I'm trying to that how that's operating now espe that's tied to it and it well yeah and to not have to have a principle try to decide to stretch something one way or the other in order to get a big enough window of time to complete task you know task theend I do believe I mean I appreciate the explanation and I recognize that move as being pretty important
120I do think with this change um our our staffing model will be true to everything that's truly minimally required to run a school is provided under our staffing model and those discretionary buckets truly are uh allowing our principles to use additional Staffing to address um individual needs on their campus I think this was the last piece of the Staffing that was in the wrong bucket that you wrote Mr Owens yeah I think in general anytime um you know we're creating new administrative positions or non classroom positions right like that can be difficult from a perspective of okay that doesn't impact our students necessarily but um as far as like you know educating them but I think with these positions and with this leadership team these positions were designed and created with the students best interest
121in mind right like this is you can't operate in silos you have to look holistically and this like you talked about brings it to what it should be and what it should have been um I put I think it puts this in a good spot so while this isn't technically classroom dollars um I think this will have an impact especially um you know making sure that as a as a district we're just shored up and stronger I do want to Circle back um just because this is the last questions and um portion of this presentation to earlier um I kind of got a little sidetracked and triggered when you mentioned sharpen in the pencil and it took me kind of to a place I didn't want to go I guess but um I do understand
122that asate exists because of asba right it was created I feel like asate is very beneficial to us and to the state um to its members my biggest issue in the sharpening the pencil kind of triggered it was that as bate the revenue that it makes from schools and insurance and all that stuff is a significant funding source of asba and in my opinion asba has not been a good Steward of those funds and their policy and agendas over the last several years in my opinion were not used correctly and so my issue is that possibly our asbit fees or our insurance costs could be less if we had less money going to S asba to push those agendas so just for clarification Miss Wallace I don't have any further questions thank you Miss Maran
123yeah I have one question and then one comment but actually I have I live I have a comment and then a question and then another coment my first comment is I understand these tweaks as far as the um you know changes to the curriculum position as well as to the HR position totally in support of that obviously would we know more we will change things um to meet better meet our needs and so I understand that oftentimes that is going to require a potentially a position with more experience and that might cost us a little bit more so I'm I'm in favor of those tweaks my question is the Community Education generalist is that anticipated to be a temporary position because of the seccession planning or is that really an under supported department and we
124needed that anyway and we're just now going to get around to filling that and then it's going to end up obviously trickling down to those folks that fund that department which is our preschool and our um before and after school care I think it's a little bit of both um I think depending on what that ultimate succession looks like would would really depend on if that ends up being a permanent position or not um there's really no two ways about it the director of Community Education and wellness is as is the current title is a massive job um if you take a step side of school districts just for a moment and really um put perspective on what we're asking that employee to do they're running a fairly large and fairly successful um Child Care
125operation and they're also running a fairly large and fairly successful preschool operation which are two different things uh one is very focused on education one is is still focused on education but but less structured um and in the past year or so my timeline is a little fuzzy we've also added student Athletics to that position and so um I I don't know if it's fully reasonable to think that that job can be done to the best of abili uh by one person um but it's it's possible okay that that answers my question um I guess I take that to say that the department needs more support maybe we're not exactly sure based on how the current structure is what that might look like two or three years down the road depending on the secession and
126who who is in what position at what point in time but I'm hopeful that we will rather than mold these positions around the people that we end up with that we will decide what those positions should look like and we will fill those accordingly um when the time comes so whether we decide to have preschool run separately and before and after school care runs separately and then I don't know what that's going like you know or chart perspective but um I I hope that we are in the driver's seat with what those what makes the most sense for those positions and what that experience should look like and Dr ster has done an amazing job and I know he's been doing the job of multiple people for many years so I'm glad that we are
127going to give him some support and maybe even revamp to make this department even better than it's been in the past my last comment is on the attendance clerk position um I am in favor of that um overall especially if that can have any impact on the accuracy of the reporting um in light of the chronic absentee problem if they also have any additional time they can devote to correspondence with parents or anything like that um that would be helpful I think um in in um helping to solve or be a step toward reducing that issue in the district as well so hopefully that um is something that can um put in there when they have the time for that as well I do not have any questions but um I think that this is
128my seventh year now doing budget stuff this might be the like smallest list we've ever had actually of additional positions or modifications like ever that I've been here so that's pretty exciting I think we are doing our jobs correctly in working on working within our budget and that stuff which is very important right now so more than ever with all the everything else in the world and other school districts that are not us so um thank you for all of the work you guys are putting into this and I look forward to seeing how this progresses missa because I just it just happens tonight I have to comment after you comment so if you wouldn't mind yep right thank you ma'am um I just wanted to add you know as as we remember at the
129beginning of this year you know we have our mission belief theme and for us this year honing the past and unlocking the future and um as I'm listening to the boards I think the thing I just keep reminded of is yes we're talking about now but these experiences these opportunities that Sandy and Mike were presenting tonight they're really about the future it's really about how do we ensure that we have the right people in the right seats doing the right work and many of you spoke to it on behalf of children um this district is a great place but it's our job over here to just keep making it better and so uh I just wanted to add you know our thoughts around that future thinking in in regards to our budget so thank you
130I think that's all right you guys are all done awesome we have made it through big budget Talk number one in 2025 yay um with that we are going to move on to reports we will start with our report from Dr DAV all right thank you madam president here I am again um by the way team I'm just getting a little echo on this mic for what it's worth so as I'm speaking hopefully everybody can hear me okay um certainly a lot things continue to happen and I just want to celebrate and showcase some great things across our district um first and foremost one of the things we had a chance to do today and we met with our classified team a couple of weeks ago as our superintendent advisory Council group um an opportunity
131for superintendent and team to meet with a variety of Educators classified staff across our district just to gain feedback on initiatives and just kind of hear from them um what's going on in the world similar to what we share when we talk about our survey data the voice of our employees does matter and I think that was also seen um tonight so I just appreciate those people for being a part of that and sharing their thoughts with us and we've had a chance to be out alongside media View at our govern board show and some of our team here in regards to our Apple P tours uh and just really good conversation um around um the great things that are happening in our district um also just wanted to highlight um some of the work
132that's going on with our safety team some of you may have seen the news store we got positive press on the Southwest safety Summit so thank you moss and our team for just their work uh and the work that we're seeing across the district around problem solving and just Contin Improvement just those words continue to happen um it's one of those um big elephants in the room that sometimes we don't want to talk about but in light of some of the news coverage that's happening across districts in the valley um just wanted to highlight some work that's going to come out on behalf of Lichfield Elementary Mr Nanz and I have a little video coming out that just speaks to the community about where we are our financial um status and just how things are
133going in Lichfield and I I run run um an article of sorts that was written by a superintendent that had just some key words that I just want to highlight on behalf of the team that you have sitting out here and the team that's working on behalf of our litfield children um transparency accountability Integrity fiscal responsibility and compliance some strong words but I those are words that we value across our team and hopefully you not just saw that tonight but you continue to see that for a long long time with us um those are words in my opinion that lead to winning and being in a winning school district and on behalf of winning let's talk about some kids real quick um many you may have seen our athletes in basketball just did amazing things
134our Varsity Boys um they were not Champions but they had a great game and ended their season 10 and two that was our Western Sky Middle School varsity boys our varsity girls Wigwam Creek beat Madison to end their season 12 and0 as champions of their league her junior varsity boys dado Middle School beat the previously undefeated Madison Meadows to cap an 11-1 season and our Junior VAR city girls um that's bin stto they beat verado Middle School to end their season 11- two for the championship so just some great things happened on behalf of Athletics and um you know I'll just simply end with thank you for your work and if you didn't see it while we were celebrating our Gover board tonight we have some student posters done for you over there on the
135as well just giving you thanks appreciate you thank you thank you we will move on to reports from government board members and start us off Mr yes so um just my report out just a couple specific things that last week went to training learn more about what this school board business is all about got to dive into some policies legislative process and stuff like that so that was really informative I appreciate that those opportunities um and then the most important one was on the 27th we had an opportunity to visitado elementary school and once again just kind of knocks it out of the park what an amazing school that is just right when you step on campus it's welcoming it's they have everything together walking through seeing the kids um with those students and the
136instruction going on the principal just doing an outstanding job with everything there and then obviously we had a there's amazing parent support out there as well so it was a great it was a great my first visit to that campus defitely that was was a great experience Mr Owens yeah um uh attended right so attended the um brto Elementary showcase which was great principal pantas is doing a great job out there in her first year um touring Theus getting to go we had great dialogue a lot of discussion about kind of you know things they're looking at doing on campus really making it her own after acquiring that principal ship I got to watch uh we sneaking on my kindergarten finishing lunch and uh that's lunch with a bunch of gers is quite exciting and
137then um I got to go to an assembly on Friday at brell as well um they do great it's just so cool watching all the kids stand up and you know do the stuff and the when to cheer and when to be quiet and sing the national anthem and say the Pledge and say the school motto um that's that's the best part about in my opinion being a Schoolboard member just getting to see the kids whether it's kindergarten preschool all the way up to eighth grade is getting to see the kids be kids because I we all probably miss being a kid um and then lastly I just want to say uh it is February and in February we celebrate National Black History Month which is an occasion to celebrate the contributions of so many
138black American Patriots who have helped shape our nation's history so happy black history Miss Wallace I don't have much to share personally but since our last meeting the um SSO officers have been in the schools and I have heard personally from my own children as well as their friends how exciting that is for them um we are personally friends with a Goodyear police officer that has been picking up shifts each week in the schools my kids love seeing him and um seeing the other officers and developing those relationships so I am loving hearing about that and love that they are there and program is working as intended so thank you Miss Maran well for the first time in I believe seven years I have no official events to report during my board report however does
139not mean I don't have things to say so I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the barebones basics of what I do as a governing board member in a month at a minimum I spend two hours a week on email corresponden and an additional hour or two going through our Friday update which is a summary of various items from our executive team some items are for information only some are for our consideration and some lead me down a rabbit hole of research at the state and federal level then to prepare for our meetings um that usually happen twice a month I review the entire agenda and and um compile any questions and request information that I would like to have have in advance to make a well-informed decision during the meeting and
140the voting process this can take between one to four hours depending on the content and the topics that are covered in the agenda so my average is about three to 10 hours per week um every week throughout the year um to uh be the best board member possible and I say all of this just to illustrate to the public the staff and the family that I take this responsibility seriously and I believe that my fellow board members do as well we all spend a lot of time dedicated to this position so to add on to the board member appreciation comments and video from the beginning of our meeting I'm grateful to each and every one of you my fellow board members for your commitment and dedication to this board and District thank you I will
141close with lyrics from Dave Matthews Band best of mons around turns out not where but who you're with that really matters okay my turn um actually it was kind of a slow month I feel like for myself uh I had a lot of personal things kind of going on this month since our last meeting I was invited to participate with at coffee with the principal at Rancho Santa Fe Elementary School was able to come in and talk about big picture what does the governing board do how can parents stay arrest of what's going on in the district what's the best way to communicate with us uh I got to share a lot of information and I feel like actually principal Zuna learned a little bit from me too so that was kind of fun it
142wasn't a lot of people I do like that our schools have done this coffee with the principal thing and I'm hoping that we find a way to make sure that each of these events we we are making sure that they're valuable because parents are not going to come if they don't find Value and what it is that they're doing and I think that anytime you can sit down and have a conversation with your principal and learn more about what's going on your campus inviting guests in from District or governing board members invite any of these people I'm sure any of them would be willing to come in and talk um to get that more informal conversation with people is a good thing because that's getting people on our schools seeing what's happening and then they
143understand that we are really here doing everything we can to offer the best education we can for these kids and that that's all we're here for so um I hope that we continue to work out that that program going forward and that principles are sharing best practices with each other of what they've seen be successful in topics that are discussed and um so that we keep that program going because I know maybe some schools don't have as many people attending as they would like and I don't want to see it go away because in the past there's been some things where we've had curriculum nights and things like that where if schools don't have enough people coming they get rid of it and I'd rather not see us get rid of it I'd rather us
144see how do we make it be better so that people do come um I also attended the showcase at verado elementary school um it was exciting to see Miss Sarah Fantasia in her first year there it seems like she's really doing a great job of connecting with her students and her families and her staff um I appreciate her willingness to just kind of come in and learn this first year and not try to make a lot of changes I think most people know that verado is its own special Community right and you don't want to come in and just disrupt it that would not be that would not be effective in that community so I think she knew that coming in and she's really taking the right approach to build that trust and relationship with
145the community out there before making any major changes so that there's a mutual trust with them when those changes do come um I also was able to go with Dr Davidson and Miss Jennifer Benjamin and others from District to uh hand out penants for our national board certified teachers that were either renew their stuff or getting it for the first time and that was really fun uh we had two staff members at Mabel and one at Western Sky and every school has their own personality and every principal definitely has their own flare so walking into Mabel and the you know speaker going and walking through the campus I thought wow this can't be distracting for students at all but they all got into it they had fun the kids were excited so it was really
146fun to go and do that and I appreciate that our district makes a big deal out of it and that we were able to go and honor those members that did this I understand one of our teachers did it in one year which I think is amazingly also crazy like how you would fit all of those different things into one year when most people do it in two right so um thank you for inviting me to be able to come and do that was fun and with that I just want to thank my board members as well um there's a lot of stuff going on everywhere but um stuff going on in districts in our state that is just I don't know I I've scratch my head and ask what people are thinking but um
147I'm appreciative that we're here in this district and that we make responsible decisions and that we're all here being student centered and student focused every day so thank you all of you for the time that you put in and keeping our students as the main focal point in every decision that we make um with that uh thank you to our administrators that sent in their reports again community members please read that it's great Shock full of information to know what's going on in our district in each of our campuses and all of our departments um thank you guys for sending those reports into us we really appreciate them and with that I think we are all done someone wants to make a motion a motion to the meeting I second having a motion for Mr
148Mike and a second from Miss Wallace I'll call for the vote Mr Mike y Mr Owens yay Miss Wallace yay Miss Moran yay I'm also a yay motion passes thank you guys for joining us this meeting is