001Uh good afternoon. I call this meeting to order. Uh this Tuesday, April 8th, 2005 at 5:00 pm in the Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District number 35 governing board uh room uh district office 570 Camino Leto Galindo, Rio Rico, Arizona. Can we please stand for the pledge speech? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Roco, Miss Phobian. Uh, Mr. Guerrero, here. Mr. Ramirez, here. Mr. Beach and Milvasquez present. We have a quorum. Okay. Next subject is adoption of the agenda. Mr. Ru, thank you. [Music] Okay, executive session. Okay, we have to make a motion. Yes. Motion to approve the agenda as presented with a recommendation of
002removing uh item number three uh the exe uh the session exe executive session for the county treasur. Huh. So move. Second. Uhhuh. All righty. Um, all those in favor say I. All those opposed. Okay. Eyes have it. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Next one. Subject is called to the public. There's no call to the public. All righty. Moving on. And we have the item number two information discussion subject um fiscal year 2023 uh to 2024 audit results. Mr. Reuba. Thank you. I'd like to tonight is a our finances and and budget and and beginning with our audit results from the previous uh fiscal year. So, I'm going go ahead and turn over to M. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Good evening. Um President Tonight with us, we have Christopher Heinfeld and he is here to
003present um the audit results. So, I'm going to ask uh Christopher to come to the podium if you can go through the presentation and then at the end we're gonna open up if you have any questions. Okay. Right. Well, first and foremost, Madame President, board members, Mr. Superintendent, thank you for allowing my firm here this evening to present you the results on the audit reports related to fiscal year 2324. Um, I've got a brief presentation prepared, but as mentioned, please let me know if you do have any questions or concerns after the presentation. I'm going to incorporate some discussion about some required governance communication. So, these items are required communication to all of you and they're incorporated into a detailed page letter that that you should have received or will be receiving shortly that's addressed
004to the entire board. With that, just a brief introduction if you're not familiar with our firm. We're a local firm here in in Arizona. We have offices in Tucson, Scottsdale, and Flagstaff, approximately 55 employees, but really just specialize in audits of governmental and nonprofit entities. In this past year, we did approximately 85 school district audits here in Arizona. Um, I am the engagement partner on your district's audit and I'm joined by Lexi Diaz who is who is the the leader project manager for for our firm for the district's audit. We both have quite a bit of experience. Lexi's been with the firm for about five years, myself, 18 years. um worked with over 140 different financial and compliance school district audits and Lexi's done about 70 financial and compliance audits. So very familiar with with
005this area. That's a brief timeline of the audit. It starts each year with the issuance of an engagement letter and that happened this past year in June. It ends with the issuance of the reports which which was this past at the end of this past month in March. But in the middle there, we're doing field work, a lot of different test work and procedures, whether we're on-site or not on-site. At the time, our scope of services involves performing really three different audits. We're performing your financial statement audit. We're performing an audit in accordance with government auditing standards, and we're also performing an audit in accordance with uniform guidance. Really, three different audits going there. And then we're also completing the uh statemandated USFR compliance questionnaire. I always like to just begin some of these presentations
006with a reminder of responsibilities and roles. As your auditors, we're responsible for providing an audit over your financial statements and and ideally providing reasonable assurance that these financial statements can be relied upon by outside users. I say reasonable assurance, but that is actually a pretty high level of assurance when it comes to our professional standard. Now, management is ultimately responsible for reviewing these financial statements that we help to prepare and ensuring that they're accurate as well. We do perform as part of our audit inquiries with specific individuals about fraud and non-compliance to make sure that part's covered, but that's not necessarily under the scope of our audit per se, as we're really determining that the financial statements are materially accurate. Um, some of our required communication to to all of you include just making sure
007that you're aware of any new accounting pronouncements or standards that have been implemented during the year. There was one with Gatsby 100, but really didn't have an effect on the district's financial statements. We're also required to let you know of any significant estimates that had an impact on those financial statements, and those include the useful lives of depreciable assets as well as assumptions in the actuarial valuation for your pension plans. And that's the pension plan controlled by ASRS. Mentioned we do perform some audit services and I mentioned we help the district prepare the financial statements and note disclosures as well as the schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Some of the information that goes with filing that information with the federal government. Lastly, if we did have any disagreements with management over the course of
008the audit, like there was other items we needed to communicate to you, this would be the time we'd communicate them and we'd have them disclosed in that letter that I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. But I'm glad to say management signed a representation letter. We didn't have any disagreements and and everything ended accordingly with the audit. Now, as I started off, we're doing three different audits here. The first audit is your financial statement audit and that opinion letter is included in your annual comprehensive financial report. The government auditing standards engagement as well as the uniform guidance audits. Those are included in your single audit report. And then lastly is the USFR compliance questionnaire. So I'm going to start with the annual comprehensive financial report or the acter. Page one is your introductory section
009or or you transmitt a letter and just a letter from from management to the readers of the financial statements and the current and and future state of the district. H13 is your independent auditor over those financial statements. Prior years we've issued what we call a clean audit opinion or an unmodified audit opinion. This year we're issuing what we call a qualified audit opinion. So, what we're qualifying on or something that we had issues with was cash and investments with the county treasur. We weren't able to confirm the exact balances that the district has with the county treasur as I'm sure you're all aware. Now, we're not issuing a disclaimer and saying you can't rely on the financial statements. It's just that specific financial element that we're calling out and saying cashion investments with the county
010treasur is the issue at hand. all the other revenues, expenditures, receivables, liabilities are accurate and correct, and those balances can be relied upon. Um, page 19 is your MDNA or management analysis. It's a section in which is a great year-to-year comparison. You can see how the district's revenues or expenditures have changed from year to year or liabilities have grown or or decreased. Page 29 starts your basic financial statements. really encompasses all the district's financial statements as a whole. And then you have your fund financial statements starting on page 32. Those really get into individual buckets of funds that the district has. Page 43 are your notes to the financial statements. Those provide a lot of detail. If you're looking at your cash in and investment balances and you want more detail about how those are
011valued, you go to the notes to the financial statements. Uh page 65 is your RSI or required supplementary information. Just some additional information required in terms of government auditing standards and reporting. Page 71 starts your supplementary information or additional information. So all the funds maybe not included in the basic financial statements at that detailed level are detailed out in in the supplementary information section. And then lastly is your statistical section, unudited section, but just a lot of good 10-year trend information about revenue capacity, debt capacity, financial information, demographics of the district and how they've changed, maybe economic characteristics, and how they've changed over the last 10 years. The second report I'm going to talk about is your single audit report. This one has two different opinion letters. Really, the the key page to this report
012is on page eight. the summary of everything that's disclosed in the report. As mentioned with the qualified opinion, there's a related material weakness closed. It's it's an unusual situation in which the district itself didn't maybe have an breakdown in internal controls or material weaknesses, but it's hard for you to have a qualified opinion and not have a related. Unfortunately, that's where that's coming from. There were no significant deficiencies noted over the financial statements and there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies noted over any of the federal awards that we looked at during the course of our audit specifically focused on the child nutrition program this year. Then lastly, if there were prior year findings, we'd have to report a status on those, but I'm glad to report that there will findings. Lastly is the
013USFR compliance questionnaire. It's a statemandated compliance questionnaire about 31 or 33 pages long. Um about 200 questions just they wanting us to go through and perform various test work on 18 different areas just from student transportation to student attendance to procurement to credit cards um and everything there in between. We're required to just answer yes or no and then NA if it's not applicable. I'm glad to say that the district had a very minimal number of non-compliance items noted. Um, since we're at a school and and you could consider this a test, I'd say the district when you look at how many errors they had compared to how many questions and items they had to to respond to, I I'd say the district got an A. I like to at least let board members know
014when a district is doing really well and and this is no different than last year and how the district has has performed the last few years regarding the state compliance there. Then lastly, I I just want to thank Isela and her team and and really everyone at the district. It's it's not easy to go through an audit. We're talking about this audit starting in June and going all the way through March. that we're not auditing the district every single day, but it is continuous throughout that period and it does sides to get something like this done. So, just want to thank think thank management at the district for all cooperation in the process. Then at this point, I'll open it up to any questions or comments that that the board may have. Thank you, Miss
015Folian. I have no questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Guerrero. No questions. Thank you, Mr. I mean it I have none. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I have none. Thank you very much. [Laughter] It was it was a very unique. Sure. Yeah. This is a very difficult year, right? It's very difficult. The fighting we were not was not under our control. Yes. which is not our fault. That is a very difficult hard pill to swallow. We internally have very [Music] strong everything we can. So that was that was difficult. That was difficult. And especially when we were asked I was asked to put together an action plan to address like an action plan or an action plan to tell the county how to do their job. Um, well, I went back to kind
016to Kristen. He's like, "Yes, you have to." It's like, "Okay, it was it's hard. It's hard. I'm gonna tell you that I I really hope it's the last time we see something like that in our Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you." Thanks, Chris. And just another is just, you know, thank you, Isella, for always doing great job with all of your people. And I know how this feels. I have. Yes, I understand how it feels because it has nothing to do with you. Yet, it fall it falls back on on you, on us, you know, on the on the part of our of our district, you know, where the finances are there and it's just it's really hard. So, but thank you. Thank you very much for everything. Thank you for the presentation and President this is
017an action item and it must be a roll call vote. Okay. Roll call vote. Okay. Miss uh Phobian, you need to make a motion. I have to make a motion. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion. And this is the Where is a motion to accept the fiscal year 2023 2024 audit reports as presented by roll call vote? Second. Irero. I Mr. Ramirez. I I Okay. So motion passes. Thank you. Here we go. Moving on. We Okay. So the presentation subject the superintendent report. Mr. Chair Ver wanted to congratulate all the high school team. Uh also in their recent distance south we had a lot of folks also want to softball their continuing competing this spring as well. Want to congratulate the theater for their I think against Sweeney Todd that they performance last
018weekend. So congratulations to them on other performance. I think uh all the sets and all things together was very high quality and also remind the board that we do have new events talent show. So I think they'd be excited to see what ranks that they can do. Okay. Thank you very much Miss Phobia. Thank you. Um, I love the social media. I mean, to put out there all the kids winning everything and how well everybody is doing, it is highly appreciated. Well, thank you for those efforts. Um, we had a great site visit today at uh San Kayatano and to be able to go into the classroom and to just chat with the kids about what they're doing and, you know, they're they're able to answer. I mean, they're not just, you know, showing up
019waiting for lunch. So, um it's it's great to see the amount of learning that's going on, enthusiasm that they have for learning. So, that was great and um looking forward to all the things that are coming up. It's a great time of year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Guerrero. Yeah. Nothing to report. Nothing to report, Mr. Ramirez. Happy to hear you went down there. That's great. That's awesome. anytime a colleague from here goes to the school, it's great. Not so easy, but so busy. So, hats off to you for doing that. Um, yeah, I want to congrat congratulate the RHS students for taking first and second at the Mountain View competition for was it the band their instruments? So, they did a really good job. So, I saw that and I'd like to
020echo what Miss Fobian said that it's nice to see all that stuff through the media and get all that positive news out. Also, I noticed that you had open enrollment out there, which is great. That's awesome. Get that out there right away. So, I also want to congratulate the district, everybody that's involved in enforcing discipline at our school. Without alluding to any particular thing, just want to say that I'm after having that interview with Mr. Veruro when I was the president of the governing board regarding threats and that kind of stuff. It's nice to see us follow through on the credibility of the threats. It's really prevented us from getting parents all in a tizzy, you know, about things and rushing down the highway and all that. It's nice that we don't have that kind
021of thing. the alarmism. That's what it really was. And so I hope we continue in that spirit. I'm sure Mr. Lopez will continue with it in that spirit at Rio Rico High School. And it's it's great to see we followed in the credibility, but we're also we've been very good about the consequences as well, which I had mentioned there were two things to helping districts be successful. After I done my research on a bunch of different districts throughout the country, those were the two biggies. and it seems like we've done a really good job. So, hats off to not only Dr. Lunderville, but also you, Mr. Berdugo, for following through on that and taking advice of the not only me, but the rest of the governing board. So, thank you, sir. Thank you very much,
022Mr. Beach. Yep. Uh getting down to the nitty-gritty, guys. We're down to that what month and a half somewhere around there. So, uh, remotivate your staff and remotivate yourself because I know right about now with the testing and all that's going on. Things move quick, uh, at the admin level. We got graduations, you know, ceremonies to get ready for, guest speakers, etc. So, a lot going on. So, just remember, take care of yourselves and take care of your staff. Maybe uh find a way to remotivate them and and get them through these last and the students, too. Uh, Miss Ella, Prop 123, I think that's in June. So, yeah, everybody, Prop 123, I think, is uh gives our schools in Arizona about $3 billion. It's up for uh renewal, I believe, in uh in June.
023So, hopefully uh we're like those countries with zero tariffs. We're like, "Yes." Okay. And not like China. Okay. Yeah, that's come coming our way. So, hopefully it doesn't hopefully it goes through. Hopefully we find a way to pass it. Uh, what else? Uh, Mr. Rearia, kudos to you. I think Mr. John Chavez also. I remember uh especially Metaria got up here and said, "I don't know what's going on with my tardies. Tardies ga. We're gonna try this, this, and this." Well, it's working. It's working. Okay. So, uh, yeah. John Chavez, I don't know if he's here. Uh maybe doggo too, but uh I was looking at them. You guys are almost back to the 2015 levels, which was, you know, you're you're going in a downward trend. So, uh kudos to you, Mr. Chavez. Do
024I miss your data, but I'll throw you in there with them. Mr. Ammo, John, you don't get a kudos, you get a coup. Okay, we're going in the opposite direction there, but uh I know it's tough, but uh Mr. Lopez, I know you're going to the high school uh revisit what we were doing back in 2018 2019 and see if we can get a a grip on that. All right, but other than that, yeah, hey, the weather's changing. The pool's going to be open, right, Audra? So, uh yeah, let's end end the school year off on a good note. So, yeah, that's all I got. you got. Thank you very very much for all of that, guys. Also, I wanted to, you know, just everything that everybody says, I double that, too. Uh, the social
025media, I love the principles report, the discipline reports, and I like that they're smaller. Every time they're a lot smaller and smaller. Okay, I wanted to give a big shout out to Anelica. I think it's Whand. Uh, she's from Eureka High School. She made the 10,000 basketball points uh for the girls basketball team. Okay. So, she's going to be recognized. She was recognized, I think. You know, she also got a basketball and all these different things. I want to know when the baders are coming up. That's what I want to know. Okay. So, Mr. um Mr. Laughlin, if you're listening to me, okay, it's like I want to know when it comes. Anyway, uh also congratulations to all the sports and performances. I wanted to give a very big shout out to Miss Renteria for
026allowing us to go into the the school and and uh disrupt everything, but it was so much fun. It was so much fun. The kids are amazing. The kids are so well behaved and everybody was on task. Everybody was doing, you know, and then you ask the kids and right away they'll answer. It's like they're used to having people, you know, stop by and go in and all that stuff, you know. So kudos to you. You're the people that were with us are fantastic. Another thing is like the food. Oh my god. Hats off to the chef Luis Neido. I think that's his name. Oh my god. Really? It's like we didn't have enough uh things to take out to you know for carry on and take like little bags home but it was it
027was amazing. It was and we had a lot of really really positive discussions with the teachers and and the you know and the staff and that that that were with us and everything. So all in all everything was very very positive. Thank you very very much and thank you to all of the the um principles. Of course, it's uh the end of the year, the last, you know, the last stretch and hopefully um all of the testing will go good and all of the everything will come out perfect. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very very much to everybody. All right. Next, moving on. Number five, information discussion. The subject is the fiscal year 2026 budget update. Mr. Verdugo, thank you. This is the time that we start getting ready for dispersal of contracts and part
028of that is reviewing our budget. Um so tonight is a presentation but it's also an information discussion. There's no to be taken tonight just an opportunity to have some discussion with proposing answer and share the budget process. I don't know what that is like, but very long depth process that we have implemented over the years to make sure that we're strategically uh using all of our finances to make sure that we're in the right place uh to support our our growth as a district and moving forward. So, with that pres um Good evening again. Um, I must say that this is this is the busiest time of the year and the time of the year that makes me the most uncomfortable. They start to we start to see items that come um through your agendas
029that are action items and they are directly linked to the budget for the following fiscal year. So, I'm here tonight to share with you why is it and how is it that we're able to present those items on your agendas for us to take action without having an actual budget approved for next year. Okay? And it all starts with a budget process, a process that we initiate in the fall um with discussions with leadership. And I want to to share with you the the philosophy or the method that I use in our district is what I called or what's called the zerobased budgeting um process. And our process is focused on optimizing student achievement within our available resources. And that's very important, right? because unfortunately as we know um financial resources in school districts are
030like we don't have an abundance of and every year we're always depending on an election or variety or whether the legislature is going to approve the override of the aggregate expenditure limit. So, we're constantly having to face a lot of challenges to be able to define what are we going to have available. What doesn't change every year and what we've always kept as our priority in our district as we discuss budgets is academic achievement. We make that our guiding principle as we put together our budget every year. Um, and in the in the zerobased budgeting and the the reason why I always use this method is because it's a it's a method that allows us to focus on efficiency and not necessarily budget based on history. Okay? So I don't like to and my team
031knows that I don't like the whenever someone comes to me and says why are we doing this because we've done it like that for years. I don't accept that answer. That is unacceptable in the way we function as a business office and I find that unacceptable in budgeting resources for school. I think that every year it's an opportunity to view and discuss how we're using what we are accomplishing and if the way we are using our resources it's fitting it's meeting the needs of our students and our staff to be able to move the operation forward. With that said, um we start by setting um instructional priorities and those are driven by um the TLA office. So we work very closely um now with Megan before I was working with Mr. Shatner to make sure
032that those priorities are well defined. Okay? Then we go ahead and we fund those priorities. But I've said this to you in the past and I remind principles and leaders every year that we can fund everything, anything, we just can't fund everything. Right? So we need to sometimes identify trade-offs. And that's where sometimes some of the uncomfortable discussions come into play because in school districts, and I I hate to throw my colleagues under the bus, but you probably hear in the news a lot of the school districts up in the valley are having a tremendous amount of difficulties for next year with their budgets, right? And I think that the reason why they put themselves in that position is because for a number of years they bypass the opportunities to have those difficult discussions. And
033in school districts, they are very very famous for adding layers. We just keep adding. We just keep adding. We just keep adding. And then all of a sudden, we forget to revisit what we're doing. And if you start to dig into what you're funding and what what you're using, you start to find that sometimes you have redundancy. Okay? And it could be the same software or the same tool. You just have a different name for that software, but you're getting the same data, then all of a sudden you're paying for two of the same service. So that's the type of things that I'm trying to uncover and discover as we go through our budget discussions. And the first set um of meetings that we have is what I call step one. And in that step
034one, we ask our principles to come and we ask them to reflect on their staffing model. Remember that over 80% of the budget is dedicated to salaries and benefits. Yes. Um so the first question to our principles is how is the staffing that you have currently in place helping you or not advance your operation according to your academic goals? And that's where we start to have those discussions, right? Um and and that's what the first meeting is all about is reflecting on the current year resources. We're not even touching on the next year resources. we're reflecting on how they're using the resources this year and if or I'm sorry if it's helping them or not. Um then the next step is based on on the f information that we received for the first meeting then
035we start to identify the priorities for the upcoming for the upcoming year and discussions for the next meeting. Um in between the first meeting and the second meeting I work on budget um projections for the sites. Okay. and we'll go through those numbers in a minute. Um I start drafting a staffing plan and those enrollment projections, right? Um and then we document the goals using um a tool developed by the TLA office. So we start to bring those together and then by the time we meet again then at that point we solidify enrollment projections and we solidify the staffing mark and we actually make the principal signed their staffing mark. Um we ask them to sign because we want them to take ownership because that is really what is the driving force behind their operation.
036So we have a grid that shows all the positions for every for their school. We have that grid tells us how we're funding each position, right? What is the funding source behind the position? Um, and like I I mentioned to them in one of the grants meetings, I don't want you to become like an expert, but you need to know that your title one is funding your reading specialist and it's funding. you need to get to to to that level um to understand how we are braiding all the funding that comes to your school because there's tonight we're just going to focus on our operating funds or M capital with the school to get a lot of other funds right that come their way. So we want to make sure that we are strategically putting
037them together to pull them in the right direction. this time of year unknowns are our enrollment and then um first and foremost the budget from so those two things don't we don't have today and and if I was the queen of the hill I would probably put everything on hold and not do anything until we had solid information but I know that's not realistic nor feasible so therefore we move forward with projections and with some set aside that we have in place that I built into your budget annually so that we can have this discussions in the spring and not have to hold back and issuing contracts so that you can start moving forward because we know how important it is to start the hiring process now. So once again, tonight's conversation, we're going to
038focus only on two major funds and that is our M operating fund and or capital fund or district additional assistance. Just real quick, our M is the Did I lost? Yeah, it's off. We can hear you. The operating fund is the fund that it's dedicated mainly to sellers and benefits. Um I must say that I added purchase services in there. And you're like, what do you mean by purchase services? Unfortunately, sometimes we don't find the person to be able to hire them through a traditional hiring model, but we bring them through purchase services in the form of appeal. Um, we find that um in the area of um special ed, we have our psychologist and we have some of our speech pathologists and we have those services that come and we're hiring them. order rather
039than through the regular model of payroll. That's why you see purchase services there. Um ML also um pays for all the consumables, the utilities, the fuel and the the outsourced contract of um facility. The sherry on top operating fund is a support of our community by having that 9% MO. Then on the other hand, we have our capital fund. um and this capital fund and I this is where I I want to highlight how we've been managing our district. um we can and it's legal too transfer your capital dollars into your M and there are some districts that have chosen over the years to pull all of their capital dollars into their M or the majority of and what they're doing they're artificially inflating their operating fund right and it's what I call when you
040live outside your means when you're leaving a you you you're buying based on credit. You're overextending yourselves. That's not how we manage our resources in our district. We keep M and we keep capital. There's been some instances where we had the need to transfer some capital, but we make sure that we allocate that to a one-time expense. But we have a a project or we have something that we need to take care of and we do it and we do it for one year and then that's it. We make sure that we do not compromise our capital dollars into our M because we want to make sure that we're not artificially inflating that M. Okay. In our capital, you'll find the support for curriculum rotations, um technology and software agreements, furniture and equipment, uniforms, vehicle,
041big big ticket items. All righty. This is where the funding the foundation of our budget is our enrollment. the amount of money that we receive, what becomes eventually the budget limit because remember that in Arizona we have a formula that dictates a a limit. So we can't just I'm going to project this much and go past that and we'll see if the revenue comes in. It gives us a limit meaning we cannot exceed that and it's based on student enrollment. Um my projections of a student enroll enrollment are always very I rather revise in the spring if we have we capture growth but I I try to be very conservative. Okay. Um without undercutting or overcutting the for the operation for sure. So for fiscal 2526 ne next school year my projection calls for 3,390
042student 390 students um I base that on enrollment trends. Okay. Um the rollover data what do I mean by that? The so we already performed a rollover in our student um database. So that the number preliminary number gave us 3,262. Okay. Um that was when I put together the presentation for you. And then as of last Friday, April 7th, April 4th, we were at 3,37. Okay. So right along, moving right along in the right direction. Let's pay close attention to the third bullet. Third bullet is the difference between graduating seniors and my projection of incoming kinder. This is not new. We've had this variance now for a number of years. Um we are um expected to graduate Rico High School 399 seniors and my projection of kinder is 195 and that is very comparable to
043the current kinder enrollment that we have. Now I also for my projection I take into account what happens during the course of the school year because as if you remember the state of Arizona over complicated things for us and switched our funding formula to same year funding. What that means is that as we fluctuate in student enrollment, so does our budget during the course of the school year until we hit the 100th day mark. At that point, it becomes solid. So sometimes people come to me and we're past the 100th day. It's like, I enrol five kids and I'm like, damn. I mean, they don't I mean it's great. Hopefully we keep them and they start counting for us next year. But as far as monetary revenue, budget capacity, it sounds bad, but it's at
044that point it's just an expenditure for us and we're not capturing any revenue, right? That's the way it is. That's the way the formula is decided. Um, so based on my projection, I am projecting a potential loss in revenue of over $770,000. this just to make the board aware. This has been projection over the last three years that we've had the same type of and we've been able this year we've made up of that loss. And so we've pretty stable the projections of what we've had and it's something that we obviously continue to try to recruit students as much as possible but we also sure that we are fiscally responsible that our projections um are we want to make sure that everything we do going back to that says it's sustainable. We want to make
045sure that whatever is sustainable because the last thing we want to do is over and then have to cut something in the middle of the air or reduce things. So we want to make sure whatever we do sustainable. And so I always thank Brown for being conservative and making sure that whatever we do it's something that that can sustain. Thank you. Um busy busy um table. Sorry about that. Um but it just I just wanted to share with you where our ADM has been over the years. Um so before you do that, can I ask a question because otherwise I'm going to have a pile of them and I'd rather get a few of them out of the way now. Sure. Sure. So one I'd like to remind I think it would serve us well
046to remind the principles to remind the teachers about the importance of the 100 days because like all of us you know that have been here and have been teachers we kind of had in the back of our minds you know but we would hang on to some of those kalas you know that because we sort of had in the back of our minds that it was important but uh I I think it would serve us Well, to tell the teachers again, remind them of the importance, the monetary importance of trying to hang on to the kids and be patient with I think would do us well. So, because you guys see it up here, but they really need to see it down there and you talk about ownership. When they see it and you explain
047it very clearly to them, I think they try harder to hang on to them. I mean, if somebody told me that at a meeting, I think I'd work at it more. I'd say we got to be more patient. We gota try harder. You know, kind of back to what Beach is saying about firing up people, you know, teachers involved and firing them up. But I think it would serve us well. Thanks. Well, there's one. I'll ask some more later. Okay. Um again just a chart to share with you where our ADM and this is um the average daily membership um as of the 100th day um which is the final mark that's described. You can see that in um between 2023 and 2024 we experienced a drop 75 students and then between 24 and 25
048we experienced a drop of five students. I remind you of what Mr. Verubo just said that drop was projected to be much higher in the 100 plus and we were able to make up some of the of those of that loss. Just just one followup and Brown does a great job of the projections and looking at birth rates. So that's one of the major things that that we look at and the birth rates are very low and not only across Santa Cruz County but across and it's something that is going to affect public schools across the country. Um there are now 16 schools in area that are closing because of lack of enrollment. So they're consolidating schools because of the number of students incoming. public schools. I think that by peninsula is 10 to 12
049because they're the largest district in Arizona and they're projected to lose 160 staff members because of the reject reduction this year alone. Um so so it's something again that I just don't want to say that it's a dire issue but it's just something that the board needs to be aware of and we're trying to make sure that we're getting ahead of anything. And so you'll see tonight as we connect, it's very important for us to be strategic with any of the funds we have and again making sure it's sustainable because um we know that whether we can recruit and retain kids is very important as you you mentioned with that 100 days, but it's also just u there's just not a lot of kids out there. So but it's something that we have to make
050sure that any kid that we have that we try to keep within our district. That was that brings me to another question I was going to ask with regard to that but you answered it which was that it's not unique this business of the kindergarten getting smaller is it unique to us it's correct across the country that is that is not unique to district 35 nor the state of Arizona that is across the country what's going on that that's just happening just a lot of people choosing to not have kids at this point or have that plate for a while really there was a a lot of our church people are choosing to not have kids for whatever reason and we thought there was going to be a decrease there was a projection the co
051babies will come but it was the opposite very co people chose not to have kids so just a lot of research of uh individuals really focusing on themselves wanting to have their time not have kids or wait till later in life I guess at this point so there's just a long reasons in trying to research why because it but right now it's just the numbers have been smaller and continue to to be that way societal thing charter schools play a part in that and homeschooling I know a lot of people are homeschooling a lot of people are vouchers are playing a significant role the vouchers is something that we have not had to deal with um in in the past and I think there's a projection that our district would lose close to a million
052dollars of students taking the voucher and going to private school. It hasn't Phoenix Metro Tucson, it hits them quite a bit. Our neighboring districts, I mean, think and that's the other thing I was uh talking to their superintendent because he he called me all worried that we were stealing kids from them because we our district's border and one of their board members saw a bus load of kids, but they're actually our kids. uh but he was concerned because their enrollment is down. So they're one of the largest growing communities in Arizona uh with almost 12% growth community-wise, but yet they had a reduction in enrollment this last year. Um so so again, it's not something that's new to to us, but it's starting to affect all the surrounding. Wouldn't be anything wrong with that if
053the kids choosing to come our way? Nothing at all. Another way of looking at our at our ADM and I think one of the things that we've done and we do it every year as part of our budget discussions is we make adjustments from year to year. There's not one year where you're going to see the staffing model is going to look identical from one year to the next. We are making adjustments. We're making modifications. We are we are because our operation is going to be different depending on the number of kids that we're going to have in our schools. So now we're going to start to get into some numbers. Okay. So green section revenue green. Um I'm not capturing any new revenue for you tonight because the state formula the election everything's up
054in the air. So, I'm not here to try to to come up with a figure there, but I can tell you that my projection of carryover for next year, it's at 7.5 million. That is what we have today that we could work with. It's here today. We're not depending on anything. It's it's with us. Um contingency. I will always always recommend a set aside to address the whatifs. Um $2 million. um the enrollment projection I'm taking into account that of 772 same figure that I shared with you earlier in the slide and then the next one is that is in place today there is a potential that if the legislature doesn't approve the override of the aggregate expenditure limit and our archaic school funding formula in our state then the potential for our district of
055losing revenue it's the tone of $2 million I would like to see us increase our contingency because of the current situation in our country where everybody says the same thing and this is a political statement. Okay, but we we all know that we are heading into as the news has been telling us uncharted waters and we really don't know what the ramifications of this is going is going to be. It could be really the thing ever or it could be horrendous. And so I think that we should really tighten our belt every way that we can to raise that contingency because I'm I'm scared that if it doesn't go well, we could get hit by something so horrendous and we don't want to get caught off guard. And thus far, you it's like the superintendent
056said, you've been so good about the rainy day fund, you know. So in here, I'm concerned. I really believe that we should tighten our belt because we don't know where we're headed right now until we we see clearly until we can, you know, until the dust settles and we see or whatever you want caught it. You don't want to call dust till the clouds clear, you know, and you see where where this is going to end. Technically, we have 4 million. Yeah. So it's double that million. It's just that we also that million from the expensure limit it is according to everybody is going to to pass again we always have 2 million so it's technically 4 million that we have in their contingency but additional 2 million in case that expenditure limit doesn't pass
057because it become a political football that's something that at the end of the budgeting that they play with and threaten that they won't pass but fortunately it's passed every year and so hope is that we have that but so technically we have the four million that is what I was just going to say thank you Brown I got one question there with uh Miss Guthar in years past we've been operating with the assumption that that money was in our account is this budget does that have it that same assumption or did you that's That's an excellent question and I was really hoping someone would ask that question. The situation that we have at county treasurer, she took her cash. She did not have her actions have no impact on her budget capacity. Okay. So, I'm
058going to repeat that one more time. Miss Godfirst's actions, she took our cash. She did not. Her actions are not impacting our budget capacity. And I've been asked in the past, he said, "Do you need to reduce your budget by the number of millions that she took from your district?" And the answer is no, we're not going to reduce our budget by the amount that she took from us, right? It might impact our tax rate calculation later on. It's different. That's cash flow, right? That's the cash that we're bringing, but it's not impacting our budget capacity. So, you're not going to see a reduction in our budget to account for her actions. Okay. Just just to clarif our our budget. One thing that I will say and it's something that I say publicly is that
059it does affect because we've been very very that cash pays balance. That's how we're able to maintain our lower tax rates. We know the tax rates. We we've been very um cognizant of trying to make sure that it's stable. If don't get those funds back again, it doesn't affect our budget. What it does affect is our community. That's the thing I wanted to make sure that it's very clear. It will affect the tax rates, our rating as well, our rating um all those which we were going to be meeting uh recent soon because our we're up for evaluations um with so our bonding capacity could be affected. But what it does is that the thing that I want our community to know and we're going to be working with the the county to make sure
060that that it's not us taxing if it does increase that it's coming from the county because they have to bud our budget is what our budget is and that's what we um have our funds but that money would have to levy a tax if they don't have that cash and so our constituents are the ones that are going to have to that are going to pay the price for that that loss and so we want to make sure as much cash back as possible it's going to be turned over to our community that that's why that that question that you're asking it doesn't affect our our budget but it affects our tax rates and in the end our community is the one that's going to be paying the price well now that Mr. beaches brochure.
061I just want to reiterate something too with the message that we sent out in case people didn't hear it, which is we're not sitting around here twiddling our thumbs while this is going on. We're doing everything that we can rather quiet. This is the first time I've spoken about it publicly, but I'll tell you, we we don't sit around here twice. And of course, we're concerned about our community, and of course, we're going to try to get everything back that we can, but I I fear that we won't get everything back possibly, and that this could have ramifications though it doesn't affect our immediate budget. I had a quick question based on the contingency. Is that based on our on our budget? So that $2 million mark or the $4 million is that based on
062a percentage of our actual budget or how do we come up with that number? That represents 10% of our budget% of our operating fund. That's pretty standard. That is that is above higher than the standard Mr. Just Mr. Ram. Yeah, it used to be right Mr. Dunz was a maximum of 4%. Um so now we we don't have a a restriction. We don't have a maximum imposed by the state. Um, so since then we me being a little bit more conservative have increased that amount and now we are probably sitting at a at a 10%. Thank you. And just so you're aware, both districts are less than 4%. They don't they haven't budgeted the way we budgeted. You know, going back to the additional assistance, you know, they throw all of that into their operating
063fund and so they can't buy textbooks, they can't buy computers. Their buildings are falling apart. We've tightened our belt all all along since I've been a superintendent working with Miss Brown to make sure that we fund uh we have curriculum rotation, we have technology, we we fund all of those things. Um and then we tighten our belt on the operation side. And so we've been very cognizant of keeping that contingency. Again, there used to be a limit of 4% and we've always gone above just to make sure have that. Um and again, you you'll see we fund as much as we can. uh we're one of the in fact I think probably only district I know of that that uh wants all of school supplies and teacher supplies because we don't want them to students
064and teachers to pay for that. So it's something we very consistent of putting our money toward and strategically using it for our students and student achievement. I believe firmly that a lot of districts have suffered as a consequence of that change. But I mean it it's a moot point. It doesn't affect us, thank God. But because we're conservative about how we save our money for rainy days, we don't have that anymore, the 4%. But uh any I'll just let it go. Thank you. Making annual adjustments, Mr. Ramirez, has been key. Uh we are we have our funding financial position of the district today. We were one of those entities that would ignore the need to make adjustments from year to year and continuous status quo and just adding would be in a very different position
065today. Going to move away from revenues and into expenditures, right? We have what we call internally a budget planning tool where we track all of our expenditures that we're planning for next year. always at the top you're going to see compensation and staffing. Um so in in M we track um what we're looking for salaries benefits stipens staffing like staffing models that I share with you for the school any request to reclassify positions again the operation changes right the nature of the operation changes the needs of the operation change and we have to sometimes revisit if the makeup of the positions the job descriptions are actually aligned to what we want the person to be doing. um do we have the need for new positions? Do we have the need to restructured programs? Okay, and
066we'll talk about preschool and then um or operating cost. What are we doing to be efficient in this area with our consumables? This is where we're adamant about buying from uh contracts that are already established um by the state to make sure that we're capturing as much savings as possible um or utilities. And then the the outsour outsource outsource contract for facilities. Thank you. Um so in the area of compensation you'll see that we have salaries and benefits. For salaries the recommendation for next year is for to move forward with a 5% increase. Um in the area of benefits, the recommendation is to absorb the insurance increase for the employeeonly portion for renewal came in at a really really really good rate. Um yesterday I was at Puma Jaked and one of the district reported
067that from Cyros they received a 25% increase in their insurance. I was like what that is like crazy 25% it's like unbelievable. um 3.7% for for us. It was great great. So, and the cost of that 3 3.7% $112,000 and change um on our dental uh coverage and life um insurance, no increases. Those remain status quo for next year. Um I believe those um agreements or renewals are actually part of tonight's agenda. Um so, you'll have them on your agenda uh later to approve. Um we are actually through the work of the IBB committee your interestbased bargaining committee um there was an interest to reinstate the buyback of leave uh program policy this was a policy that we put on hold well remember how many years ago since when 2015 about 10 years 10 years
068ago 10 years ago we put this policy in place as a measure to cost savings because during those years we were really hurting Okay. And this policy gives the employees the opportunity to buy back okay their leave if they don't use it a certain amount of leave. Okay. So the the interest was brought to the table during our IBB conversations and the recommend recommendation from IBB is to reinstate the policy. Um now under our new policy program it's policy 4-302. um the estimated cost that we're projecting based on the parameters that we're putting in place and I believe the policy is also on tonight's agenda. Um we're estimating an annual cost of $91,000. Excuse me. But that is if everybody takes they save the maximum the maximum she says I'm maximum that it's stated in
069the the policy miss because we're not just saying you can cash out everything forget and we there's no way we can afford that. Um the policy sets parameters as to what balance you need to have in order to cash out and how much you can cash out. But I think you couldn't have a certain amount of days. Yeah. Wasn't it under a hundred or something like that? Yeah. You have to have a different parameter um for this one. You have to have um 70 days for this one. Yeah. 70 days, right? And you can only take 10. Uhhuh. Think of 60. Yeah. So, we're not allowing them to go below the 60-day mark was um it's their to be like 55 bucks a day. It's still pretty it's still the same. The the rate that
070we did recalculate, Mr. Ramirez, is for hourly employees. The old policy said that it would go back to the rate when they were hired. No, people have been here for 30 years. And then the minimum wage and all of that. So, we modified that based on those modifications, the parameters that we put in place with the work that we did together with IBB, the total estimated cost if everyone takes advantage of that is $91,000. It was a good incentive to keep, you know, to have good attendance. It really I think our district had probably probably even to this day has better attendance and what burn them up and I mean Watson and I got like perfect attendance like five years in a row something like that you know five times anyway we are doing as
071part of this um buyback policy is we're giving employees the opportunity to cash out by back those days prior to a break. Tell you why we did this. Two years ago, two years ago, one year ago, we modified the way we calculate the pay periods for hourly employees and we moved away from treating them as salaried employees because we were annualizing their pay and moving them to actual. That meant is that an hourly employee was not getting a full paycheck during fall break. where they were not getting a full paycheck during winter break, spring break and we always open a survey to all of our employees as part of the IBB process and a lot of feedback started to come in as to can we change this? Can you go back to the old unfortunately
072we cannot go back to the old month but we tried to look at how can we alleviate the concern. So, we are going to as part of this buyback um program, we're going to allow those employees that have and meet the criteria to buy back their days prior to one of those breaks so that it can help them offset not getting a full paycheck during that saves us money too because we get more than we save more than twice whatever it is that we give them, right? I mean, this is not a it's not a cost-saving measure. Well, I'm saying if they get a sub, they're going to end up paying the sub. Way more money. What do we pay right now? 120 bucks per for a sub. Yes. Twice whatever 55 bucks was. It's
073a savings for the district. But if an hour a win-win situation for everybody, an hourly position doesn't they don't pay for subs. So that doesn't really apply to everyone. Certified. Yes. Certified. Certified. Let's see. I'm gonna go and I don't don't want to keep you until 7 PM here. Um but the the budget planning tool, we're going to start to go through some um expenditure staffing changes by school and department. Um Puerto Rico High School. Um we are looking at um and actually in this this presentation I overed to Angie before we met the final meeting with Rio Rico High School. We are not decreasing or making an adjustment of 1.5 FTEEs for Rico High School. As a matter of fact, Rico High School received an increase in FTEES for teacher in the area of
074teachers. Um and um because we met with Hero Rico High School, they had their uh registration numbers and we based the staffing um based on that. So they are not going to receive a reduction of 1.5 um teaching um FTEES they are receiving an additional behavioral coach. Yes. Because the behavior behavior is elementary. You're right. You're right. My apologies. It is instructional coach. You're right. We have one instructional coach that's focused on ELA and those type of classes. And then we focus on math and science. So it's something that we need to know that they need additional support that position added for this year. Again the positions that you see try to either budget neutral or either we're adding or adjusting and changing a position because it's it's important us to try to maintain some
075of those things but are by sight. How can we affect change and keep forward at their site to improve academic achievement? So in the area of special ed, Rico High School's receiving an additional pair of professional uh with the IT um in the area of IT, they're receiving a dedicated IT technician for Rio Rico High School. Um and we are removing a 02 media center inventory technician. We're going from a centralized model to a decentralized model in this in this area. Um we are uh removing the intervention and personalized pathways specialist and that position is actually going to be repurposed for the elementary. So I'll share with you. Yeah. So just to to clarify the IT technicians um we now have one at each school site because each school now support teachers and students. So
076each cycle person before it was where they were sharing different. So now and then we get to elementary but actually switch from market specialist to then to this position because the high school the high school and this will help me transition to elementary IT technology teacher as we'reing all of our programs and needs TLA and miss we decided that that's something that was needed at the elementaryaries and so we'll talk about that when we get to the other sites mundi showing three changes adding one special ed professional same change um you'll see this change on the IT department for all the schools because we now have one dedicated IT person at all the schools so it is the same change that Mr. Vua just described and then I know Mr. wants to elaborate on the
077K athletic coordinator. So, so this is something that work. So, we currently have athletic coordinator at both school. So, we had a uh PE teacher um that was supervising the elementary because we had one PE teacher pair of pros that teach at the elementary sites. So, uh twofold. So, now each uh we had two PE parros. One parro is going to be changed to technology. um and then it will remain with one uh PD parent pro and then instead of adding a a new PD teacher to just overseeing that we're combining that position with the athletic coordinator at Guatundi uh and their role of responsibility is going to adjust a little bit because we've been wanting to add Ellen rescue inter murals um as as part of our programming. So the PE teacher is now
078going to oversee is becoming the athletic coordinator and uh be responsible for the parent ro as well as incorporating a new athletic program for the elementary which we're really excited about. And so that's something that uh because we know a lot of our students want to participate in athletics or do things. So now we're actually adding that um program uh and we'll start with uh we're working with that once we hire the athletic coordinator. Uh we'll work with uh start with the fall with with soccer and basketball and then baseball. We already have the the track with the the meets, but we'll now work with our high school to have some of our students assist with coaching and doing that type of thing. Uh Dr. Unreal implemented a referee program this last summer. So we
079we'll try to get that youth program really going and so we're excited about having this transition uh to that a coordinator. So it's repurposing the PE position into the athletic coordinator and overseeing that and adjusting some of the middle schools. Great questions on that. That's a it's a big change but it's something that we're really excited about having that use. We're giving the we're giving our students, our younger ones, more motivation to come to school and be able to participate. And I think that's great. That's good. Thank you for that. You're going to start to see the same items some of of the schools. Okay. So, now we're going to move into Calabasas. And Calabasas based on the enrollment projection, it calls for an an adjustment of four um FTEEs uh for teachers. So we
080see a reduction there of four. Then we see a fraction of the elementary band teacher. I want to share with the board that this position has been vacant all year. So this has no no impact on the services or the programs that we're providing our students. Um so that is going away. And then we have the computer teacher. And this is um where you see the intervention and p personalized pathway specialist that was removed from high school being reintroduced to meet the needs in the area of computers. And the reason being is is that we've gone one to one and what we've noticed and talking to Miss Bian that um some of our younger students really struggle with learning how to use the the technology. And so we had previously removed uh the technology class
081and so now we're bringing it back. We're going to be instituting a new curriculum and we have the parro that will be working and then the teacher that will be overseeing and also coaching. Uh that's something that we're excited about bringing that back because there's a big need for to be able to use technology said we have it but now we're we're going back to really having them how to use it. as a result of that need then we are repurposing one of the pair of professionals from PE to computers. Um so instead of having two um ele PE parapros now they're down to one and we're repurposing one for computers. Also just wanted to highlight um the teaching positions again are new to enrollment and they were actually based on enrollment projected to six
082um again meeting with them uh run our middle school program effectively. We could not reduce by two middle school teachers. So we had to and then tap into our contingency or repurpose and keep those two positions. And again it's something that we do every year uh is looking at how can we strategically use our staff. Um we're adding one um pair professional for the area of dance for Calabasas and then you see at the end that IT technician that's fully dedicated to Calabasas. Moving away from Calabasas into Mountain View. Same item. You see the the modification to the elementary band uh program. Then you see the addition of the computer teacher, right? We have that teacher that is going to be providing services across the schools. Um you see the um KA athletic coordinator concept
083that Mr. Redo just shared with you. Um the addition of the or the repurpose of that parapro from um PE to computer. That's why you see a minus in P and a plus in computer. And then we're adding one uh parapro for the area of special ed. um that IT tech dedicated to the school and then we are removing we're moving away from an assistant to the principal model and we're adding in its place a behavior coach just to clarify split between the meeting they discussed that having financially assistant principal at each site uh but shipped to a behavior coach site. We told that that done and so they requested that and it's something that responding. Next site uh Sai again I'm repeating myself here we see the adjustment in the lab program the computer
084teacher the KA athletic coordinator um program the reduction in the elementary P parapro turning it into a computer parapro um in this case we see a reduction in special ed parapros by three um then we are um adding that IT tech that is dedicated to this school Then reducing the 0.5 assistant principal, not assistant to the principal, my bad. And then we are um introducing the behavior code. Moving on to departments for the curriculum office. The curriculum office is receiving a brand new FTE. We're adding their staffing model by one and this is going to be a learning and professional development coordinator. I don't know if we want to elaborate on the purpose. This is something u there's a teacher shortage and so we have a large number of new teachers and a large number
085substitute. Um so we really needed to identify a person to work with those and so to last year's budget um we lost Mr. Shadler as assistant superintendent and replaced with director that never replaced Miss Media's position at the table. So, this is not going back to to but it's it's that we still have some capacity with and so but we knew that uh knowing that there's going to be continuation of long-term subs. we needed somebody to train those and so uh and that position is also going to look at creating a pathways program because currently we have a UVA pathways program that I don't want to discourage but been as productive as we need to out of that program that person is going to explore creating our own pathways program working with our high school
086possibly built this TED program as well to have students start going into the teaching profession um with our dual enrollment program and things of that nature. And so, it's really a a position that we're excited about. Um, you'll see later in the budget that we're going to be bringing new teachers and long-term subs early to be trained um by this individual and then that person's going to be able to support them in the classroom because that's going to be part of their responsibility of co-eing because again, it's just with a teacher shortage, we need to be able to develop our own and support. And so, this position in the area of human resources. Um and this is in response to um consulting services that were form late into um and the recommendation is to take
087her current office speime office specialist to full-time. uh reclassifying our current HR director to HR manager and then reclassification of our current HR secretary to HR technician. Um we currently have two HR one HR technician, one HR secretary and a half-time office specialist. Um, by reclassifying the HR secretary to an HR technician, I think it's going to enhance the department's opportunities to have cross-trained individuals and to have coverage at all times. When you have such a small department like HRS, it's very very important you cross trainin your staff so that those services can can still be there when someone is out. um in the area of um technology, we're just repurposing that inventory specialist into that additional IT technician, which gives us the ability to give one to each school, which I just shared with
088you. Um in transportation, we have the request to move away from the safety and compliance training, reintroduce the dispatcher. What is still currently under review is the length of the contract for the dispatcher. Currently the the 15 compliance trainer is at 11 months more or less position and the request that we have on the table is to move forward with the dispatcher at the 12 month level and we we have scheduled a meeting with transportation to to have that have a better understanding the need for the 12 month again responding to the needs of the district. um and recognizing that having long-term subs are it's not going to go away. They're they're becoming more and more just part of or staffing moms. The request came to add additional days to long 10 additional days to
089long-term subs, four additional days to new teachers, five additional days to alternative ed and computer parapros, and two additional days to PE parapros. The idea behind those is to align those positions to help them with professional development at the beginning of the school year so that they can be better prepared for um to welcome their students. In the area of stipens, we're looking at um adding or modifying the stipens. In the area of athletics, we are introducing a new sport at Rico High School. It's flag football. So, that'll be a a new stipen. And then we have a request to um add an assistant um coach for the golf for the sport of golf. Moving into preschool, the the school funding formula does not include any funding for regular pres. Okay. We are required to
090provide um preschool need preschool services. Uh if there the the student is in need of has any special special needs, right? And for that we're funded. We get funded. um but not for the regular program of a preschool. So we in our district we were using the funding from quality first preschool scholarship and the Arizona high quality early learning grant to fund that side of the pres the regular preschool program. Um it was brought to our attention by Dr. Landerville that we are not going to continue to receive that funding. Therefore, it was there was the need to restructure the preschool program and moving it away and and sunsetting the the regular part regular ed part of the preschool program and just keeping in place the services that we are required to offer. Okay. that
091uh our fault not not reapplying for a grant or no that's the grant funding is is being reduced and there's even first things first it's an unknown because of the uh tobacco sales is being reduced and this year they tried to introduce vaping a alternative because that's how the scholarships are funded um and there's a reduction in that. We used for grants before as well to to fund some of that. And the thing is is it's something that has been an ongoing discussion with the state to try to fund early childhood and they they just don't. Um and so our decision was some to run a preschool program about half a million dollars. And so it's very difficult to knowing that we had to tighten our budget um to have an unfunded entity like a
092preschool. We know how important it is and so we've been trying to work other entities and we're going to continue to do that work with respect and I are both on the board of that. So we're trying to figure out obviously can't we have conflated interest to try to not bring in both class in the district but we do work with them we're working with the boys and girls club to have some type of before and after school. So we've got that uh tenatively so that to have some because daycare we know is supported as well because they're trying to grow their staff and they need to introduce some type of resour because we know that they're grower the only school based preschool in Santa Cruz County and the other is that kinder is also
093part of it and is only those two together over half a million just in sales include fees which brings it closer to 600 000 and then a million dollars that we spend finally our kinder to make sure we have full day something that we're to bring back our county you know and from first he can tell you that something he obviously is very passionate about but we are an early childhood is what they call our county we just we don't have opportunities for each other. It's something that funding out of those grants and and we just can't absorb it as part of our at this time. The three to four teachers that were uh working in in our preschool, they might not be qualified to work with our special needs. Are they being absorbed? Human
094resources department is working closely with the program and guiding the staff as to what other opportunities within the district are available and that they are more than welcome to accept it may be different what they're currently doing but the teachers will be able to a teaching position and their pros opportunity for them and I know as met with them individually uh to see these are your options and make sure that we options for them and we try to let them know as early as possible um so that they can look one finish out their year but also look for within our district. What about related? No, not tangential. We for years I've seen instructional coaches, you know, at the schools and they do their thing and they try to teach us, you know, they the
095teachers they try to help us to become better teachers, etc., give us ideas and isn't there any way that they could teach a class? So they they do say that because in Germany they not only do stuff like that but you'd be surprised even the principles at each school have to teach a class because the Germans believe firmly that if you teach a class as a principal and an administrator every administrator has to teach a class at least one or two. I'm not saying that because I know you guys are going to start panicking and say, "Oh my god, how you not going to throw this on me?" But I'm just saying over there, you should really think about this food for thought that when you teach a class, right, and you make decisions as
096an administrator, you're making them for yourself, too, because you're going to feel them in the classroom. So, it's kind of cool because you're getting constant feedback with regard to the decisions that you're making for others. It kind of Yeah, it really makes you appreciate making very good decisions because otherwise you can't just simply say, you know, hey, we're going to go do this battle. If it doesn't go well, well, we'll regroup and go back out again. You feel it. You're on the battlefield. So anybody that is the reason I mentioned is for bel and that's I mean so it's yeah so teaches or math she teaches math classes you got two classes has two classes that she teaches so that's something that that we implemented this this year. That's great. It's very good. Oh, I
097want to say that I have heard things with regard, you know, how you always talk about perception. There are a lot of people that say, and I I know they're saying, "Oh, well, this district likes to hire long-term subs because they like to save money." That's a perception that's out there. I just thought I'd bring it up because I know how you are about that and you don't like those perceptions. So, I just Thought I'd throw that out there because people do say that. They say districts hiring long-term stuff because they save money and they just simply don't care that they throw the kids to the wolves, which isn't true. But uh because we have a teacher shortage, obviously, but I'm saying that I know how you don't like those negative perceptions. Just thought I'd
098bring it up. And I think that the 3,500 positions that are open in Arizona would say otherwise even especially in rural communities. I mean that that's something we're trying to hire. I we've been trying to hire and that's why we we have a lot of foreign teachers. I mean we're at our foreign teacher limit you know because we've we've hired I mean we're trying to hire as many teachers as as possible. I'm not throwing that out there to put you on the defensive day. I'm just saying because you do your reports you know with the public and that's something you might want to just people share with you. You know Mr. contribution. I had a really good conversation before them talking about hiring teachers and what that looks like and uh recruiting teachers from neighboring
099districts you say that publicly. We've um hired you, we're one of the districts that allows people to retire and we'll give them you know through the board support additional years more than 10 um you know so so we're trying to hire qualified people and so and sometimes you know if there is somebody that may be certified they may not be the best person I will say that publicly as well that sometimes it's easier to hire a long-term sub maybe better than right some of them turn out to be pretty And and again that's also why we have this position that we created to support them because we know that we want them to actually become teachers. So that's the training programs. Yes. That's awesome. Um on the other hand, we have operating cost. Um we
100are budgeting for an increase in utilities. The trust insurance renewal is we're still waiting for that. It's expected to come in the next week or so. Um that is reliability insurance. Um the facilities contract I know that u Mr. Beach is actually going to be participating as an evaluator in that committee. Um yeah we have we received a total of six proposals which was honest with you. Um this is not common and we're very very happy that we were able to attract other vendors to come in and provide that new competition and then we have um we're looking at a one-time allocation for a comprehensive assessment for the IT department and then we'll need um some consulting services for onboarding of our new HR manager. Any questions? Any questions? Miss Phobia, I have no questions.
101That was thorough and I I know where you are as of Mr. Guerrero, Mr. Ramirez. Yeah, you just mentioned this about things that you have to do with regard to these decisions and I it kind of brought to mind this purchase order that you talked about for hirees that sometimes we need to bring them through. You have people that you hire through purchase orders and I really caught me off guard. I was wondering do you have restrictions with regard to that? As long as we are compliant with our procurement guidelines, we can bring as many staff through a purchase order we need to. As a matter of fact, if it is to address listed on an IEP, um we don't even have to follow procurement guidelines. We just use the IEP as that becomes the
102legal document that allows us to bypass any requirement and hired whatever service we need to address the needs of our students. special education like occupational therapy, speech pathology. It's hard to those individual psychologist there just limited number of those. Very well. My sister's one. Yeah. So, speech pathologist when you say virtual services, those are usually what we hire those individuals like even special education teachers because they're just very many. Well, that's a good segue for my next question, which is why do we have a reduction of three dead parapros? They've been moved. So, if you notice that there was a parenthesis, it said moved to Mount View. So, there previous slides, it showed that they removed from that site, but to other sites because the special students were moved from Sang Mountain. How does this
103affect Mimi? She doesn't have those students any longer. Yeah, sure. program that they moved on. So they voted. All right. I just want to make sure and um see here um on a bigger picture and you may not have like this may you may tell me you said like well Mr. I mean doesn't that question doesn't apply to us currently but how do you see all these cuts that are being done right now through whatever means through doge or anything affecting us because as we know they they're going to cut the department of education and I've been hearing recently that this is going to affect how people do simple things like IEPs within the public schools And what what do you how do you foresee and the question is not just for you but for
104both of you here even for Dr. Lunderville. What do you guys how do you foresee that's going to affect us on a local level? You know I'm not I'm not talking about politics here talking about everyday funds. How will that affect us locally with funding? I think that if I may um the programs that I am um the most concerned that it might you know we have not received any notification that it's going to impact I think I am looking at Medicaid reimbursements to um probably be impacted by those actions um any competitive grant federal grant competitive federal grant I think it's going to um probably be difficult to obtain. Um those are the the two areas where I can tell you that it's I I'm expecting an adjustment to kind of follow up with
105been obviously a lot of conversation with the superintendent and then other items but with the so theoretically you know they're talking about dismantling the department of education to get rid of u the bureaucracy and and more funding into the states. So, that's the theory is that they're going to uh take it from what they're using to oversee some of those programs and then send it to the states to actually increase funding at the state level. But you saw what happened with our ESSER funds and our state superintendent that we lost $20 million because they took ESRE funds back to create a tutoring program. Not successful. And so then that money ended up going back to the federal government. So even if we do receive additional funds and it's directed through our department of education, state
106superintendent, doesn't mean it's going to get flowed to us. Um so that's again it's unknown. So so what we can do is only control what we can control. So, Miss Padilla and Miss Brown have been working to look at our grants and and how can we streamline to make sure that those funds that we do have are used the right way and then tighten the belt at those. Um, but we again it's it's unknown. I mean, that that's the biggest thing is is we don't know what's going to happen on that trickle down effect. Um, but we have to be prepared. And so we're we're making sure that we look at how can we streamline those positions because we give a 5% salary increase, that grant has to now absorb that 5% increase for those
107individuals that are employed through a grant. Um, and we can't absorb those positions in our M. Um, just so just so the board is clear. Um, so we're trying to be as as streamlined there as as much as we poss. So it's a good question, but there is just a lot of unknown. Well, I mean, we also know there's waste. So there's like two sides of this thing. I lived through the waste in the mid 80s. I tell you that there were a lot of charlatans at the universities. Didn't teach me a lick of anything that made me a better teacher. It was a waste. Downright waste. So there was a lot of waste there. But I'm concerned about how this is going to affect our kids because we're here to protect our kids. And
108so that's why I asked that question because I'm a little concerned like all of us are. I'm sure that this will affect our kids on a personal level and that maybe they're doing too much. you know, like I I think there's ways, but I I don't want to see our kids affected either or or at least I want to know how is this going to affect our kids over here. Like you said, sometimes they have these great ideas like taking the ESR funds and then doing this tutoring stuff, but then they the big flop. So, and those are things that we have no control over. We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know how they're going to or what they're going to suggest that it's a good idea. And so
109it's like time will tell. Time will tell. Time will tell. And that's it. The good thing right now is that we are prepared for any changes. Right. Will this affect special ed in any way? No. And and the last communication that I read is that title one and special ed should continue to that we should not experience a reduction in those areas. And then I read that Medicaid we can expect a reduction in competitive grants. So title one and IDEA special ed that we do. Well, I want to reiterate that I think that we should tighten our belt everywhere we can. I know that's not attacking and I know you guys have told me we're already doing a lot of belt tightening, but I feel that we should do more belt tightening for a myriad
110of reasons that of things that are coming down the pipeline. So, I'm just throwing that out there. Thank you, Mr. Beach. No, I have nothing. Thank you, Mr. Very thorough. Yeah. I also thank you very much for your presentation like always. You always do a good job. Very good job. And I'm very happy that you're conservative. Very very smart. Just to reiterate at our next board meeting, we will raise for very happy with that. Very very happy. All right. Moving on. The next subject is release of contract for Miss Alicia Baker. Mr. Veruisor is to Miss Baker and also wave liquid damages. She does the criteria that um any questions? No questions. Mr. No questions, Mr. M. And I have none either. Okay. So, then we're going to recommend a motion is to release Miss
111Alysia Baker from her 2024 2025 contract and waved uh liquidation damages in the amount of $1,000. Second. Already second. Already second. All righty. Any any further discussions on this? No. All of those in favor say I. I. I. Abstain. I was waiting for you. Okay. All those opposed say nay. Mr. Ramirez abstain. Abstension. Yeah. Uhhuh. So we've got four eyes, zero nos, and one abstain. One of one abstension. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so um we've got four to the motion pass. Thank you very much. All right. Moving on. Subject C. Uh Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District policies. Mr. Verzo. dates even to discuss equal opportunity prohibited sex discrimination. Good afternoon. Most of you are aware that January 29th, um, President Trump issued an executive order which required, um, the minute to that put back into
112effect the original 2020 Title 9 regulations. In June of 2024, we approved the changes that were made by that by the previous administration and now we're going to um basically reaffirm the Title N um policies that were in effect um and also um sure that following some of the additional guidelines that formed in the executive order. um those executive orders from President Trump um require that districts limit access to shared facilities. So I know for a lot of you um there were some concerns regarding transgender um use and non-binary use of um restrooms, locker rooms, showers. Um luckily our district did not change any of the um signage that is currently um at Rico High School. There are already gender specific restrooms. Um, a number of districts throughout the state are going to have to
113allocate funding and resources to put those um not you cannot have a genderneutral restroom, shower or locker room moving forward. We they are gender specific. Um, and it's not the gender that the student identifies as. It is their biological sex. Um, second to that, um, we're no longer allowed to have students participate in sports based on their gender identification and we cannot deliberately conceal their identity for pronouns from the parent. If a student is choosing to identify with the pronoun and their parents us, we we have to disclose that information. Um we also cannot um teach topics specifically related to gender identification, diversity, equity inclusion. Um the order does not specifically address trans transgender staff. However, they are expected to comply with the space usely described for students, meaning um they need to use their
114Bible restroom or single use restroom which we do have available. We have several students in the district who identify with a different and um primarily those students Mr. already started meeting with those students so that we can identify space for them so that we're not discreping tonight with regard to title N. Um the second um I don't know if you want to approve that one or if you want me to discuss the second. I think I think we can I think we can approve them all at the same time. All at the same time if that's okay. Yeah. All right. the second policy. Um, Miss Brown already described that. Um, if you have specific questions, it's related to the leave buyback. Um, I believe Miss um could answer them. And then the procedures are just
115for information, but those go into specifics what I just described with the title. If anyone has any any questions, Mr. Answers questions. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Guerrero. No question. Mr. Ramirez, I have none. Mr. Beach, I have no Okay. So then the recommendation is um possible motion to update and approve policies 1-203 equal opportunity prohibited sex discrimination title 9 and policy 4-302 levels and level buyback as presented. Leave buyback. Leave. Leave and leave buyback. leave and buy back as presented. So move second. Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Nay. I have it. Uh motion passes. Very much. The next one is D. Uh propos prioritize topics and possible dates and times for future board meetings. Mr. Rubo. I think just a wonderful couple things. this Saturday first things first community event which
116will be held at Calabasas. So Miss will be there on Saturday on Saturday and it's it's a great event where a lot of our local early childhood uh vendors and so forth will be their programs will be there and uh activities and this is going to be the first time it's going to be an outdoor event. So, we know we're best. So, may I ask, excuse me, what time it starts? Does anybody know what time? Early. Okay. Should know since her husband's running. Oh, I had to go help set up. So, from 10 to 1. Okay. Thank you. Because it's not here. I just wanted to No worries. No worries. Thank you. And then also April 24th is the steam night at high school which is see students at 5. Yeah at five. Yeah. That
117we have a we have our little flyers that they gave us. Yeah. Okay. For the things that are coming. So hopefully a lot of people will join us that any additional items, Miss Fobin. No, thank you. That took care of my uh title n Mr. Guerrero. Nothing you Mr. No, Mr. Beat and I don't have anything. So okay, consent agenda. Moving on. Uh subject the approval of the consent agenda. Um does anybody want anything to be removed? It says any member on the any matter on the consent agenda will be removed from the uh from the consent agenda and discussed as a regular agenda item or items upon the request of any board member. Does anybody have any? No. Mr. Guerrero? No. Mr. Ramirez? Yes. Item three. Item number three, our meeting. How about Mr.
118Est? The Eur would be the last one. Right. Okay. Down here. All right. Anybody else? I have nothing. Okay. So then we will go with our recommendation motion to approve and accept and ratify the con the consent agenda as presented with number three and our pars removed. Move. Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. I. I. All those opposed? Nay. Eyes have it. Approved. Uh, number three, Mr. I was wondering what that's about. We went through the process of our restrooms and restaurants. vanity toilet. Yeah. To restore some of some of them. It's been answering questions about the some of the stall the bathroom sinks and all those things pictures were have not been repaired or repable. So, uh, we felt it was the time to to renovate the bathrooms. At what cost
119is this? You were going to ask I don't have to the items. You can also just give us an later. Yeah, we can give you, but you're approving it tonight. So, make sure that we give you the thought about this. [Music] the look for that information. Can we uh we don't approve this one? We just continue back to it. Okay. All right. Mr. Beach, the Epars. Yes. On our resignations. I see Richard Orman, you're you're here in the audience tonight. Uh just want to thank you for uh stepping up and coming on down and working at Calabasas. Uh the teachers really like liked you, enjoyed you over there. you're constantly walking around uh being very visible. I want to thank you for uh you know being part of our community and our culture down here
120and um you know maybe in the future you might consider moving down here. It's a great experience probably two 30 years probably my top five. Definitely just a great experience. Thank you. Yeah. Well, same here. Yeah. Mobian, you have anything to say? No. Mr. Gro, Mr. I just thank you very much for everything that you've done, all of your, you know, your hard work and it's sorry to see you go, but thank you. Okay, approve the pars. We approve the pars instead of waiting. Okay, we can come back to the We can come back to that. Motion to pass the motion. Motion to approve the Okay. Motion to approve and Oh, and accept and ratify the consent agenda number just number three. Just the just the not the pars. The pars pars go ahead the
121e- pars. Motion to approve e pars moved and second. So all those in favor say I. I oppose. Okay. Eyes have it. Motion passes. We're just going to wait for I'm sorry guys. I I think Mr. Ramita said that uh we could do an F FYI on that. Yeah, we can because it has actually have the the actual number of what the cost was. Yes, you're approving it tonight. So, dismiss everybody though. Unless we take it to a vote and it passes and Dave No, no, no, no. So if we don't approve the contract, then we can't get on it and we have to have it done by July by June 30th. You want to keep them? I want I want new bathrooms because we got to Yeah. No, I'm in the principal want to
122leave. Yeah. Yeah. The principal if you guys want to We don't know how long this will take. So yeah, I'm sorry. She'll be she'll have it right. Here she comes. Here she comes. Not a problem. It is a capital expense. 117,27 districtwide restrooms that are in need as part of the replacement cycle and it's in response to an assessment that was performed by department and it comes out of capital expend. It's a capital expense. Yeah. And and again this is for the whole district. So you're talking about all the school even schools all the restrooms and uh and the department and the departments. Yeah. And the department central kitchen include plumbing and all that too everything. Sorry I didn't mean to it's a great question because it's a good amount. So it's a good question.
123I can run in heels. Motion to approve. Okay. So, motion to approve um number three. Okay. Uh for the uh restroom renovations in the amount of $417,27 capital. Second. Okay. All those in favor? I I. All those oppose? Nay. Eyes have it. Motion passes. And now we've now our meeting is officially adjourned at uh 6:55. Thank you very much.