School Board Workshop - Mar 31, 2026

001[Music] Welcome to today's school board workshop. This workshop of the school board of Broward County, Florida is now called to order to ensure a safe and productive environment. Please note the clearly marked emergency exits do not block exit doors and all attendees must be seated except for media. Once the room reaches capacity, attendees will be directed to the overflow area. If the fire alarm sounds, exit the room. Calmly continue outside the building and remain there until authorities give clearance to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board Member Thompson will now introduce her school to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Thank you. Chair. I'm excited to introduce the Silver Palm Dolphins under the leadership of MR. And MISS Rydell and their choir teacher, MISS Lanaro, for the pledge. It is now

002time to honor the American flag. Please place your right hand over your heart. 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. Please be seated. Board member Bulman has requested a moment of silence. MISS Bulman. Thank you. Thank you. Chair. I requested a moment of silence for Leslie Infante. Garcia, who attended, was a freshman at MacArthur High School. Natalie brought a warm, positive energy to the classroom and had a smile that could light up the room. She was kind and made her friends feel valued. She showed strength, resilience and carried herself with respect and determination. She will be missed by her MacArthur community. Thank you. Board member Thompson has requested a moment of

003silence. MISS Thompson. Thank you, chair. It is with deep and profound sadness that I share the unexpected passing of Doctor Howard Jones, principal of Whispering Pines. Doctor Jones dedicated 24 years to bhc, leaving an enduring legacy that touched the lives of students, staff and families throughout our entire district during this difficult time. Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences go out to his wife, Denise, as well as his two young kids, Jackson and Journey. As we begin, we reaffirm our vision 100 100% proficiency for all students. As an a-rated district, we remain committed to sustaining this achievement and supporting every student to reach their highest potential. Our theme this year is believe, empower, Achieve One Broward. We will now proceed with the agenda. Today's workshop will operate in accordance with School Board Policy 1020 and the board

004will review items as advertised and presented by the superintendent. Our first item is 2025 2026 Office of Safe Schools Report Quarter two. I now turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. Good morning, MADAM Chair, school board and public. I'll now turn it over to MR. La Rosa, MISS Nicole, to go over to current workshop presentation. Good morning. Good morning. It's on. I just keep talking. I think. I'll go ahead and project. There we go. Good morning. Morgan. Nicole. I am our compliance coordinator in safety, security and emergency preparedness. Thank you very much for your time this morning. If we can go ahead and bring up the presentation for our Office of Safe Schools Quarterly report for quarter two. Thank you very much. If you can go ahead and move on in advance to

005the next slide, please. Some background in informational materials for you for the purpose of our presentation, to share this information with our school board and reporting out. Next slide. Here on this slide, we have the actual data from the Office of Safe Schools for our quarterly report. And that includes the number of schools that were inspected or reinspected during the second quarter of the fiscal year. And we had 32 schools inspected, which is approximately 11% of our total school facilities. Of those schools, 22 did not present any deficiencies from the compliance visit, giving us a 75.86% percentage rate. And this is all schools public and charter. Next slide. This provides you with a comparison to last year's data of the overall information. I have actually added a column here as well for your awareness based

006upon how they calculate this information. As the table shows, it's the schools inspected or reinspected were 32, but of that only 29 figured into the calculation for deficiencies. Those inspections do not calculate in. I have provided feedback to the Office of Safe Schools that would be helpful if those were broken out for that transparency, for presenting to our board and our public. And the comparison has us at 75.86% of quarter two this year, versus 39.13% last year. Next slide. To break this down, as the board has requested in the past, we continue to separate out our traditional district public schools from our district charter schools for our district operated schools. Of those complianceisits, 24 benged tohe distrtrict pubcc scscolols, wit 2nonoavaving any deficiencies, giving us a percentage compliance overall of 83.3%. Further, I've broken that

007down to to show based upon the number of items that are inspected, which did decrease from 18 last year to 11. This year, we have a 98% compliance. And you can see the history there as we have moved up in that number. Next slide for charter schools. In second quarter, they only had five compliance visits from the state, three of which were found to have no deficiencies, which of course calculates to a 60% of those visits. And they also have increased in their overall compliance. Of the total items inspected up to 95% from the end of the year last year. Next slide. For some conclusions drawn from these inspections and information, the areas that we continue to face improvement are safer. Space markings are secured, and instructional doors, whether that be a classroom or a

008space that's being used for instruction, like a large gathering space of a cafeteria or gymnasium. And then our id cards containing crisis hotline information on the back. The requirement there is not to issue id cards, but those that are issued does require that the crisis hotline information is on the back of that id card. Some of the ways that we have addressed these areas are to continue our compliance visits. Those area security managers that have been assigned with conducting these compliance visits are now on their fourth cycle of visits in supplement to those visits being done by the states. That means all schools have been visited three times. With the review of this information and doing checks, we've provided hot topics, communications through our public school for our public school awareness, as well as more

009targeted communications such as presentations at our principal meetings for our charters. Again, most recently addressed there on FEBRUARY 18th. I do attend quarterly for those meetings to always address with them our highest level needs and priorities. And then we are also partnering in Sep with hr and providing information regarding deficiencies, as well as if we ever see any or if we in the future see any repeat instances of deficiencies or violations of compliance. And the final slide there in conclusion for sharing our information. Thank you very much. Public comment. No registered speakers, ma'am. All right, MRS. Alhadeff, thank you. I'm going to go to page seven. The areas of focus. So some of these areas of focus for continuous improvement. I'm I'm a little perplexed on them in regards to why this is not 100%

010compliant. I mean this is low hanging fruit in the sense that it it should be 100% guaranteed. I it's perplexing to me that like a safer space marking is not proper or the id card is not having the crisis hotline information. So if you could speak to that. Would you like to. Go ahead, MR. La Rosa. Good morning, Jim La Rosa Director of safety and Security. So in our experience, what we're seeing is a lot of these are. They're in flux. And what I mean by that is, for example, we just had an issue with a safer space that was that was painted over. Right. Some have come off the wall id cards, kids lose their id cards. Sometimes they're reprinted and reprinted incorrectly. So not that that is all of the deficiencies that are

011being found, but those are those have been caught in recent inspections. So we're working hard. We're working closely with with facilities to ensure that none of these spaces are painted over any that are come down. I mean, our our compliance team and emergency management is doing a great job as the as the slide said, they're on their fourth cycle of doing these inspections. So as they're catching these deficiencies, we're fixing them. But it's, it's, it's a lot. And there are some unfortunately, they're going to fall through the cracks, but we are improving pretty steadily. Okay. I'm. And then as far as the secured instructional doors, I don't know if this is a larger conversation in whether we have to do it in closed door or there's funding needed to help with that deficiency. Yeah. So

012go ahead, MISS Nicole. Thank you very much. I appreciate that, superintendent. I wanted to also share with you when it comes to those secured instructional doors where it could be that it is possibly something that is propped open. Of course, an egregious situation. However, there's also instances where there could be a mechanical malfunction, or perhaps the door just hasn't completely closed all the way. And those are also cited as a deficiency. We do, of course, try to push out that message that it is everyone's responsibility to be checking those doors behind you. But those are also cited as a unsecured instructional door. In addition, also, I think Doctor Lozano and his team were actually addressing some of those with discipline. When we find that, you know, it's a purposeful propping opening or not locking the

013door too, because I know the schools send the message pretty readily. But you do have some folks that may forget and they get some warnings, and you have some folks that MAY be doing something on purpose. And, you know, we try to deal with those with progressive discipline. Okay. Thank you. And just infuriates me. If someone's intentionally propping open a door with a pencil or a rock, you know, locking doors, we need to lock our doors. We there's been school shootings in our country because a door was unlocked and propped open. And so we can put as much money into security. But if we have human error with just propping open door, then there's there's going to be issues and problems. And then just a, just a side note with our betas and the, the

014safety plans, they're just there needs to be more of no backpacks being allowed within that, that those safety plans, whether it's, you know, in all of our schools, because it's just a very simple way to prevent weapons from getting into our schools. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. And very first, thank you for the presentation. Glad to see that we're obviously trending in the right direction and that our compliance is higher. It's interesting that the numbers are so low, but I guess you can't check that many schools in that period of time. But I sort of along the lines, same lines as MRS. Alhadeff. You know, I go into six schools a week. We, we travel around and I very seldom see those safe space signs anywhere. And I look I mean, especially

015in the classrooms. So I guess to the superintendent is that is how do we roll that out to the principals? How does that. Do they have to like let you know it's there? Do we have someone that goes in? Because I will tell you more often than not, I don't see them. No, that's a great question. I actually look when I visit schools too, as well as some other safety protocol issues. And sometimes for me, it's an oversight on my part because I look for so much stuff. But I have MR. LaRosa kind of go over the rigors of how they work with schools, and we do a lot during the summer before school starts to make sure those spaces are identified and work with the principals to provide support on that identification. Yes, ma'am.

016That's what the superintendent said is absolutely correct. We work in conjunction with the school administrators, with security staff, with our sister department, emergency management and their compliance managers to ensure that if any of these classrooms exist without safer spaces, they are identified because every every instructional space needs to have one. So if we identify any without it, it goes up immediately. So I would ask, you know, everyone's responsible for safety and security. So anytime that's identified, I would ask that, that you let us know anyone let us know and we will remediate that immediately. So we, we work hard at multiple levels across the chain of command and also with our instructional partners to make sure that those exist. But yes, they need to be in every instructional space in the district classrooms, anywhere where

017instruction takes place. And who, who, who puts the, who paints them on the wall, or I guess they're not stickers some most of the time I. See they are there. Okay, so they're stickers because I saw one. I saw it was painted last. I've seen some stenciled painted ones also, and I've seen stickers. I've seen both strategies. I think it's I don't know who's painting them on the wall. I think that was done years ago. Now we have we have decals. So originally some were painted on. Now we have decals that go up. Okay, pretty, pretty easily pretty quickly. So all right, well we'll add it to our list of of check ins. Thank you. Thank you DR. Zeman. Thanks. I think this issue about safer space markings is worth some kind of follow up.

018MR. Superintendent, I. Agree with the presentation. Right. Five things were found at a 264 things checked 98% in traditional public schools managed by the district. That is by itself a good number. It's better than previous things. And things like safer stickers. Just it seems like that's the kind of thing that the board might like to get a follow up on, of looking at our 239 campuses and getting back to us in a month or so. MR. Superintendent, would that be a reasonable amount of time just to do a check for these things? This is this is like too easy, right? Yeah. And could you report back in a month on, on whether our campuses have these in every instructional space? MR. LaRosa, if you can provide some info, I don't know the cadence of the

019the compliance team and how many schools they get to in a certain amount of time. Yeah. The, the compliance team, as was briefed is in their fourth round of checks. They've been to every school. I'll communicate with the director in that department to ensure that they're specifically checking these, these rooms for safer space deficiencies. And, and as I said before, they will they are corrected on the spot. We have, we maintain a stock of, of stickers. We have some they have some. But we'll surely report back to the board on how many have been corrected between now and then. And what I'm asking for is a little different. I'd like to know that every instructional space in Broward County has a sign on it by next month. Yes, sir. Are your I'm sorry, doctor, I

020just want to make sure his team is capable. Did you say, Your Honor? Your fourth round and then his fourth round? They're going to go through all the schools again. They're on the fourth round of visiting every school. So that means they have visited every school for compliance checks at least three times. Now they're in the fourth round of visits. Now, does that mean every classroom? Not necessarily, but I will communicate to the emergency management director that that is the direction of the board at this point. And they can accomplish that in one month. Honest question. I, I just don't want to stretch you beyond your capabilities for this follow up. Probably probably not, but I could leverage my department to assist with that. We have security staff in every school, so we'll we'll make

021we'll make it happen. All right. Thank you, MR. Superintendent. And I want to be clear. Broward County is an amazingly safe set of schools. We have thousands of cameras. We have fenced and single entry and badged, and we've done so many wonderful things, including detectors at every high school. And and our district, I believe, with great confidence that we have an incredibly safe and incredibly secure system. And the community is going to be upset that we don't have something that's as simple as decals everywhere. And that's why I just want to reinforce to them that if we have them and we can report back that within the month, I think it'll reinforce this idea that we do have incredibly safe and secure schools as we should. It's a it's a must have, and I'm glad

022that we can get that information back and just make the community feel better, that we've reacted to these things in a great way. As a data geek, though, five things out of 264 is still a huge number. It's it's, you know, you have new staff, you have new teachers, you have paintings that happen and things like that. I doubt that any district in the world will ever be at 100%. I hope if there ever is one. It's us though, because that's how serious the community is about security within our schools. Thank you very much, chair. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Thanks, chair. Thank you for the presentation. I actually pulled the audience at my house about the safe space markings and where everyone goes when there's a drill, and all three of my kids that go

023to three different schools said that they have safe space markers, they know where they are. They know where they go. We actually had quite a conversation about it. So at least in that area, everyone was covered and every the training and everything is going very well. So I was actually really impressed with how prepared they were individually at different ages. So thank you. Obviously we can make sure that they're everywhere, but I, I at least feel confident that we're headed in the right direction with this. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you guys for that presentation. The last item is referendum funding framework and allocation discussion. I now turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Turn it over to MR. Sullivan for to start the

024presentation. Good morning. John Sullivan Chief of Staff and Communications. We're going to briefly go over the superintendents recommendation for the intended allocation. If. There you go. All right. Just to remind the board of the current permitted use of the referendum. So it's three buckets compensation, safety and security and mental health. Next slide. This is the current percentage of each bucket. So we got 75% towards supplements 17% and safety and security and 8% in mental health. These are some of the positions that are currently funded within the referendum. So you have about 215 positions in mental health, 168 positions in safety and security. And it also funds 216 SROs. And then the majority of the bucket employee supplements the impact to our taxpayers in Broward County would remain relatively unchanged if property values remain the same,

025because this is a continuation of the mill. So unless property taxes increase greatly, the the impact to the voters will be minimal because they're currently paying for the referendum within their property taxes. So the superintendent's recommendation is mostly aligned with the current one, with the difference that safety would go up to 18% and mental health would go to 7%. Compensation will remain at 75%. And now next slide, I'll describe what the dollar amount for each of those percentages break out to be. I do want to point out that the superintendent's recommendation is currently more restrictive than what the board has in place in terms of who can get this within Esmep. So the recommendation would also exclude pay band d, which are directors, and continue with what the board did in terms of s and

026t pay bands within the Esmep. This is if you go towards the bottom of the of this slide in the highlighted yellow and the red, that's what the percentages would be, the 75 to 18 and seven. So as it relates to compensation, that would be an additional 31 million versus what we have now annually for supplements. The main driver behind that increase is we would no longer have to pay the charter school settlement that we're currently paying from that referendum. Currently, we would go up to 50 million, which is 9 million more than we currently have. Currently, Broward Schools spends about 98 million in safety, which we get 20 million in state allocation for safety. And the referendum provides another 40 million currently, for a total of 60 million that we receive. So we're we're

027spending another 38 million in general funds as it relates to school safety. Also, 24 million of that is in sro contracts. We're currently in sro contract negotiations. So that has the potential to to increase. So we wanted to point that out to the board as well. So what we need from the board discussion today is to see if there an agreement with the superintendents percentages as it relates to the breakout. Also forgot to point out bless you as it relates to these bucket of funds. So for the 75%. So what the board is deciding today is what the percentages of the allocation is. We're not discussing or the the purpose is not to discuss what the breakout for employees of that 75% is, because that would be what we would collectively bargain once the referendum

028were to pass. So I just wanted to point that out. And with that, MADAM. Oh, and also, we've already sent the ballot language to the the county and supervisor of election based on the board's vote as it relates to the, the ballot language. And with that, I'll turn it back over. Thank you. Public comment. I have Doctor Natalie Lynch. Walsh. Goodd morningng, d dtor Natalie nchh Wshsh p plaatation, Fridada. Apparently I should never go out of town because while I was out of town, imagine my surprise when I realized it wasn't just a resolution you were passing, but the actual ballot language, and now you're trying to back into the ballot language with today's discussion. So I have totally marked up what you guys have as ballot language, which is not my job, but we'll

029go over that. So you started with an audit that had some recommendations after people who the public and I, as one voting member of the public, never imagined people in pay bands actually never imagined esmeb, much less pay bands s t and thereabouts getting referendum dollars because 5.5% on 200 plus is a lot bigger than 5.5% on, say, 60,000. So the first recommendation was to set clear eligibility rules that specify which positions qualify for referendum funded supplements, what salary thresholds apply in which roles are not eligible unless the board explicitly approves their inclusion. Why this wasn't done before the ballot language was rushed off to the county is beyond my comprehension, but your superintendent is kind of making an argument for why you need standards, frameworks and rules of engagement in place before staff rushes

030off to do things. But there's good news, because guess what? You don't have to have the ballot language. It's not due until, I believe, JUNE 8th at 5 P.M. So you could totally fix the ballot language. You have time again, don't know why it was rushed off. So starting and understand this is very serious ladies. If this does not pass, you don't just start next year with a $90 million deficit. It's 90 million plus whatever. This is supposed to bring in a third of that. That is where you start. The public does not trust you. The public does not trust this district. So you should be willing to do whatever it takes. That's legal and ethical and in best practices and stuff you've never done before, to ensure that this passes, because we do not

031want to know what this place will look like if it doesn't pass. This is the most probably serious thing that you've been you will consider. So the ballot language is your first opportunity to fix. But the biggest thing since I'm down to 19 seconds and I can only do so much with three minutes. The last line in the ballot question and school based and support staff, there's an salmab. Nobody's thinking. So get straight who you mean because you've opened the door once again to the same thing happening. Thank you. Board member. Discussion. DR. Zeman. Oh, thank you so much, chair. I agree with the sentiment about how important this is. When we calculated the share of operating dollars that we have as a school district, it was 17% of the district's operating funds come from

032this. It's a both a tremendous risk to get it right and a tremendous opportunity to do things. I want to compliment the superintendent on the recommendation. I appreciate that I also continue to have this mantra about getting options from the staff, rather than just single point solutions. I think as a board, we deserve to have, you know, more than just one option staffed and ready to go so that we can see other ways to do things in particular with these funds. There are a lot of things at stake right now. We have made some negotiations with our collective bargaining units, and even with our meet and confer groups, about pretty seismic changes that are going on between teacher assignments, in particular in high school, between healthcare plans, the structure of health care plans, the lack

033of funding from the state and the federal government to provide any kind of compensation adjustments to our employees. And on top of that, this board has made it clear that there's a minimum of 1000 positions that need to be undone and taken off the books for next year, followed by up to a thousand the following two years. So this amount of funds, these referendum funds are a real opportunity to think about what we do and how we do it, and make sure that we're doing it well. Today is a workshop, so we're just here to talk about these things and kind of throw out ideas. I have one that's different than the superintendent's that I'd like us to consider. And if we think it's worth learning more about, I hope that the staff can bring

034back some detailed estimates of what that might include. I want to present this in response, though, to my countywide colleague, MISS Hixon, and her constant reminder that we have yet to figure out a way to pay people in Broward County for the kinds of jobs that school based educators do, both in terms of fairness and like literally just in terms of fairness. I think that's a good issue. But I also think, you know, this is an issue of affordability. You know, we continue to attract new teachers here at $51,000. And then we watch the rent and the utilities expenses and things like that and wonder how could they possibly survive. And the fact of the matter is they don't. They take second jobs, often third jobs. They work summers, they do things with roommates and

035things like that. They don't exactly get to start their careers thinking that they're respected. And the last dimension of that, MISS Hixon that I find really persuasive, is that they don't feel respected by the community. You know, they're continued to be funded at levels that are just not consistent with the contributions that they make. Education builds the community, and I like the idea of thinking through this particular issue. With that in mind, one of the options that might be considered if we got full staffing on this next week, is to think a little bit about whether or not we want the referendum funds. Again, this is really nerdy stuff, but we have state, local and federal funds. The federal funds are pretty much tied up into restricted categories for title one, two, and others. They

036tell us very clearly how to spend that money. State money is a lot more flexible except for t s I a, which is required to go to teachers. We have some categorical, but a lot of it is really up to us, as we have said, as a board, and I think virtually heard everybody on this board say. So the state doesn't provide us enough money to do what's constitutionally required in Florida, which is to provide high quality public education. We try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. So I believe this is an opportunity to really follow MISS Hickson's guidance and pay school based educators, principals, assistant principals, guidance counselors, those that provide mental health, those that provide safety and security on campus. All of these funds, it's not the 7518 seven

037option. It's the 100% option because our general fund before 2022 paid for safety and security. It paid for mental health. Do we need more money? Absolutely. But if we can settle things like teachers in high schools teaching three classes instead of two and a half. MR. Superintendent, can I ask you what roughly what savings that would make if the if part of the 100% plan were high school teachers going from two and a half average academic classes to three, how much would we save as a district? Roughly, probably about 35 to 50 mil. Terrific. And it conveniently happens to be the amount of money that we want to spend out of the referendum funds on safety and security. So there are funds in the general funds that we paid for before 2022. Remember, we didn't

038just invent safety and security and mental health with the 2022 referendum, but that was the first time we actually put money from the local government towards safety, security and mental health. If we put all of those funds toward education educators on campus, we'd have an opportunity to sit down with, meet and confer groups and with our collective bargaining groups and see if we could come up with, for the first time in Broward County's history, a long term plan that takes the need for perpetual annual increases in educator salaries off the table for five years. So we have one year that we have not settled with on that yet. We have four more years starting in 2027, which is also when the structure changes for any changes that happen in the health care system kick in.

039It's an opportunity in my mind to kind of put a lot of things on the table now, see if our unions and our and our meet and confer groups, what they think about this. There's room in the budget to go from 5.5% to principals and assistant principals, which we've given for the last four years to 10%. And there's room in the budget to make substantial increases in educator pays on the magnitude of 17,000 the first year going to 21,000 in the fourth year. And so I just present that as an alternative. I'm asking today that we talk about that, and then we just ask the staff to meet with the unions and meet and confer groups, see what they think about this. If they come back with an agreement in principle on this, I think

040it would be a useful alternative to think about besides this 7518 seven plan. Again, it's not taking any money from safety and security or mental health. It's just sourcing that with state and federal money and asking for the local money to be spent on school based educators. So that's what I just see as a different as a board, we deserve to have alternatives. This is our job to set the what the staffing would say about this idea, make sure it includes all the fringes and all the other things that we need to have in the in the calculations, these calculations that I've made are, are good estimates, but they're just estimates. And I'd be curious next week whether the superintendent feels that this alternative is either better or as good, so that the board can

041make an informed decision going forward. Thank you very much, chair. MISS Thompson. Thank you. Chair. First, I want to just address our ballot language. Our ballot language is actually incredibly similar to Miami-dade's referendum that they're approving, minus the mental health component, which I think for our community is, is valid and really important. I would agree with DR. Zeman a little bit that we need to increase the percentage of going to compensation. I would like to propose 80%, at least 80% for compensation than up to 10% for safety and security and up to mental, 10% for mental health. And I believe this is important because our mental health, this is something we have continually heard from our students that we are lacking in in mental health support. Whether we agree with that as a district, that

042is the student's valid experience. And I want to kind of go, and I know we're not talking about like percentages today, I guess, but I would like to see proposals from staff covering a flat rate instead. So 10% are not 10% more as direct funding. So 5% or 5000, 10,000, etc. But going back to the mental health initiative, I think out of that 10%, if we are able to get creative with how we're spending on mental health staffing. We could use our funding better. And so what do i mean by this? I believe that we should look into using referendum funds for mental health to help attract more school counselors. One of the reasons we're having a lack of school counselor positions is because there's not enough people that have the training. So is there

043a way we can use the referendum to cover a portion of that education, or giving us a supplement or reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, something like that. I think if we are more creative with our mental health allocation and actually invest it into real people and real positions, we can have a thriving and healthier district. I would also like to know what, out of the mental health allocation are. Dollars are being spent on software. It's spent on personnel only. So rethink, edit. Those are for. The general fund. And if we have opportunities to spend anything around probably equipment, it would come out of capital. But for referendum it's all personnel. Okay, great. I would like to keep it as that. Are you okay? Do you need ice? Can you please have decorum in the audience? So did

044you get to this item tonight? It wasn't strong. So that would be my ideas for the mental health initiatives is trying to not decrease that percentage. Because I just think there's better ways we could use that funding to improve our our district and if anything, increase the number of positions that we are paying out of that mental health allocation. And then for safety and security, would vape detectors be considered under safety and security budget? No, again, it's all personnel. It's only personnel. We use capital dollars for our metal detection systems. And a lot of the actual sro and security equipment is bought out of capital and grants. Thank you. And then there was a comment made by staff that our sro budget MAY need to increase due to these conversations. Can you give the board

045an update on that? Yes. So we're in the middle of negotiations. Of course, the municipalities costs for SROs has gone up. So naturally, as they would pass on those costs to us too. So there are some increasing costs as and that reflects in the increased amount they're asking for per sro. In addition to possibly asking them for supervisors for SROs within their units, which is, you know, based on normal municipality or police ratios for supervisors to police officers. So that's what we're in negotiations with right now. So that's the, the, the, the latest without going through all the minutia. So I would be against paying for supervisors. I know you didn't ask for that comment, but there that is, is there. So currently we have 216 contract SROs being paid for out of the referendum,

046and 168 are being paid for. The safety and security positions. Is that including our school police officers, like our bcc ones? No, that doesn't include bcc. It MAY supplement if we've increased, but not not baseline. Okay. And then also in safety, there's all these initiatives and programs being listed under. But then you made mention that it's only for personnel. Can you expand on that? Yes. That is incorrect. I think the team actually uploaded a revised presentation to take that out. That part is totally incorrect. It's all personnel, no safety initiative and programs, any equipment or or software that MAY be associated with that. So thanks for pointing that out. And thank you for doing that, because I do think if we can go to the voters and explain that it's only, again, for real, real

047human beings, I think they will be supportive of that as they have in the past. We just need to make sure that all of our materials are are correct when we are sharing that. So that's my comments for now. I would like to hear my my colleagues opinions on the 80 1010 split and then also about using mental health to help attract school counselors and more mental health professionals to the district. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. Before I get started, I know we got to this item a little early, and there might be some speakers that were expecting it to be at 10:00. I saw a couple come in late. So is it possible to allow public speakers? I'm not late. You came in after we started. So I was going to

048afford that goodwill. When the board members were done speaking. I would appreciate that goodwill from the audience as well. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. So I have a couple of questions. The super if the superintendent could weigh in first before I ask questions about Doctor Zeman's suggestion, like is the is it possible? Obviously, safety and security and mental health are also very important. Safety and security especially. So I would like your thoughts on if we were to do 100% of the referendum to supplements for school based educators or staff, what would we be able to compensate in our general funds? Because what that sounds like to me is we're saying to the teachers, we're not going to look for any money in our own general fund budget. This is what we're going

049to promise you moving forward, which is good, because they'll get that. But I have some concerns around that because often they tell us, you didn't give us a raise. It was referendum money. And so I don't know how to balance all that out, but that's a separate issue just on this. If we were to do 100% referendum, how would that impact our safety and security? It would have an impact. But there's a lot of moving parts that we would have to sit down with the person who just walked in the room, because there have to be some specific commitments from the union about not leveraging raises for the next few years as well, to give such a large supplement and then a raise on, on, on top of that, that puts the system in a

050bind of, of things that we're not capable of doing. Okay. So it would be all things being equal and moving the way the expectation goes there, it would work if we did 100% on supplements and we would not lose out in any way, shape or form in our safety and security. Because our safety security is a robust part of our budget. We would have to sit down and take a look. But sitting down with the union leaders, looking at everything, seeing what the possibilities are, commitments about co compensation from our general fund as far as raises are concerned in the future. So it would have to be a conversation to really explore all of that. Okay, so. I just very anxious about losing that piece of personnel for safety and security. I was in a

051school yesterday and they went from 13 security people down to six. And t tt's without evenn changing funundingnere. So I. Its s a highururnover position. Yes. Well, that was because they said the allocation model had changed. And that's a whole different conversation conversation. And also with the SROs I know we talk about, and I obviously don't have a problem with the Guardian program. It's named after my husband, but our community does, and they want SROs. And I, I know we're having this discussion about putting in Broward County public schools, police, but I think our community still wants their own SROs. So I have a lot of concerns. So I would maybe compromise and do 90% on compensation and 10% for safety and security, and move mental health to the general funds, since it's not as

052big of a piece. Not that mental health is not important. It is. But I think you're you're saying we would find money to not be less in mental health and safety and security if we want 100%. So I'm thinking if we did 90 and still 10% in those increased costs for SROs and things of that nature. Yeah. So if I can be specific in that strategy session, working with the unions and bringing back stuff to the board, there will there will have to be a change in allocation model, right? Especially safety and security. Because one of the, one of the things the team and I have talked about is using third party researchers to really assist to see what's the the best safety and security framework because there's so much data out there now with

053everybody's heart in their schools. Everybody's using, you know, top notch technology. You know, what, what is the best ratio of, of security specialists on the campus with armed security guards, armed security personnel such as SROs. So there's a lot of information that we would leverage from third party assurance, not from us, just to make sure is, is is pure and accurate. But there would be there would have to be some changes in allocation models to make it to make it work, but it would be changing the allocation models to enhance what we are doing, not to decrease the level of service. Okay. Yeah, because the I mean, again, it's a different conversation, but there are some schools that just have too many buildings and they need the security monitors. Maybe not the specialists, but I,

054we again, conversation for a different time. But so I'm, I'm okay with moving the conversation to more compensation and balancing out safety and security and mental health so that they're not affected negatively. But again, I have, as I mentioned, huge concerns that will up the, the referendum money and then we'll still be getting concerns from teachers that the board isn't giving them a raise. So really marketing it and, and how it comes across because right now they don't look at referendum as anything the board gives them. It's from taxpayers, which technically everything we do is from taxpayers. So but you know, it's, it's all about how it's presented. So I, I'm happy to, to hear more if you bring us back different models, what that looks like, but I agree with MISS Thompson and I

055think doing percentages of things is very misleading to the public because they don't know how much anyone makes. So if you say 5% of someone's salary, you're just kind of making as the public making the assumption, everybody kind of falls along the same lines. So I know it's not this discussion, but moving forward, we have one of the typical public speakers sent us an email yesterday, and we have a range, an actual flat rate for teachers that we agreed upon. I think we should have that for every group that gets, because then it's transparent. Everybody knows exactly who's getting what and what, how you know exactly what that. And again, I will say, as I always do, no one should be making more than an educator out of the referendum money. So thank you. DR.

056Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. So board member Hixon and Tom, board Member Thompson, I appreciate your feedback. And also board Member Zeman. The concern that I have, and then I'll ask a few questions. Doctor Hepburn, is that whatever we decide here, it has to be approved by voters. And, you know, when we look at what we had before, where we went out and we indicated that our concern as far as funding would be mental health, safety and compensation for teachers and staff, I think that was quite appealing to voters. If you remove the elements of mental health and safety and you go out for teacher compensation, it MAY resonate with many voters, but I think that having mental health and safety included will actually ensure that many more voters will be on board to be

057supportive of this referendum. So I understand what we're trying to do. But at the same time, we're not the only decision makers. We are actually the voters are. And I'm not sure if we remove mental health and safety, how that will impact support for this, you know, so I want to make sure that what we put out there, we are going to get the necessary support to move forward. And so, Doctor Hepburn, the question I have for you, and I know that each board member is recommending different percentages, but if we were to make adjustment to your recommendation here, and I'm sure you've done some sort of needs assessment to determine what percentage funding is needed in each category. But if we were to make adjustment here with mental health, safety and compensation, and it

058appears that most of us want to increase the compensation category as far as percentages, what would be your next best recommendation? If we were to adjust mental health percentage as well as safety to increase compensation percentage? That's a good question. And the reason why we slightly increased security is because our security costs are skyrocketed tremendously. Over the past five plus years, where we're spending probably, I would say almost, MR. Sullivan mentioned it almost $38 million plus over state allocated allocation and also referendum allocation for security. And this is just personnel. If you were to make a shift, the obvious shift would probably be decreasing security. But as I just mentioned to MISS Hixon, we would have to do a different staffing allocation for security and how we secure our schools with personnel. You know, we've

059advanced or enhanced security with technology over the past couple of years, especially the past two years. So it would be looking at the number of personnel that we dedicate to schools and ensuring that we have a good comparable system to make sure our schools are safe and secure with a little bit less people, because it's the it's the people that are that this referendum is going to it's totally personnel. So there was to be a shift, as mentioned earlier, to have to be a change in staffing allocation. Okay. And. So if you were, if you were to based on your comments, if you were to make adjustments in safety as far as staffing allocation, with the percentage of the referendum, you would have to find creative ways in which to ensure the safety of our

060schools. Not, I wouldn't say creative. It is looking at the the current environment and benchmarking ourselves against other school districts, especially in the state of Florida. State of Florida, I think is the best when it comes to safety. We have a great response, great systems, and the nation looks to Florida and also Broward County of how we actually secure our schools. It's looking at how do we. If you decrease the number of personnel at the school to ensure that it's actually exceeding the needs when it comes to safety and security. So we have to sit down and really analyze that. Looking at our current structure, benchmarking ourselves at other school districts that have hardened their schools, that have the same level of technology that we have. So there's a lot of variables that we have

061to examine to make sure we're doing what's right for our schools and our students and staff in those buildings. Okay, so except for a 1% adjustment on the mental health safety categories, it seems pretty much similar as as the prior referendum is this was this based upon some sort of a needs assessment that you've done? Yes. To have the same percentages. Well, if you look at the the. So we're not only just paying attention to the percent, we're paying attention to the dollar amount. So as a result, like MR. Sullivan mentioned before, since we don't have to pay out the settlement payments anymore, there's an increase in referendum revenue and also taxable value of, of, of homes have slightly increased, which have increased the dollar amount for, for all the categories actually. So safety and

062security, even though we increased it by just a percent, the dollar amount increase is roughly about 9 million. Actually just it's 9.9. So it's $10 million increase in the dollar amount just with that 1% swing. Okay. So in the category of mental health, and I noticed that was you reduced that. Do you feel that in terms of mental health, that we have adequate resources to meet the needs as far as mental health? Because I know the student advisor mentioned concerns about it. We've heard concerns from parents. Kids have many different stressors. Staff does too. So how how would you say we are positioned as far as mental health and funding? I say it's an area that is continuous improvement. We spend total almost about $32 million on mental health. When you look at state allocation,

063referendum allocation and plus positions out of the general fund. So it's an area of continuous improvement. I don't think anybody's really gotten this portion right. So we're always leveraging third parties. We're always listening to our students and staff to figure out how we can get this right, and also embracing technology so we can use targeted approaches to identify students, you know, that have a severe need. The last thing we want to hear is about a student, you know, having a situation where they're not here anymore. So it's an area of continuous improvement. But MISS Thompson did talk about something that just resonates with me. And I think she was talking about decreasing the school counselor to student ratio, which is another, you know, mental health support on the front lines, if I understood that correctly.

064Right? So, you know, for me, mental health is just as concerning as safety, right? And so I am, I am you mentioned $32 million on mental health. Is it are we considering not just how much we spend but how we spend it? Are we looking at, for example, what other districts are doing in terms of mental health? And, you know, adopting those best practices or we really targeting where we're supposed to target? Or are we just not spending. I would say all of the above, right? We're, we're spending because there is a need. We're not spending based on wants. We we're spending based on needs. We also talked to our colleagues around the state to see how they're implementing their mental health strategies. And everybody is in the process of continuous improvement. It's a, it's,

065it's an area where we're proactive, but sometimes very reactive at the same time. But we also hired, you know, last summer, we hired a third party vendor to kind of go in and give us a diagnosis of, you know, how we're doing with mental health and what areas of concern that we need to improve on, and giving us an outlook over the next couple of years of some things that we can really focus on. So it's an area of continuous improvement. Okay, because I don't want us as a district doctor Hepburn. And the reason I'm mentioning this because I, I am aware of issues with kids with, with mental issues and, and also different stresses among our students. So I want us to be intentional in how we deal with mental health and not just

066dot our I's and cross our t's to say we've spent this money on mental health. How are we really spending it? Are we looking at other districts to see the best practices they have so we can meet the needs of our students? I mean, I don't think we need to take it lightly. And I'm not saying we are, but, you know, I, I don't just want to hear numbers throw out that we spend this amount of money, but how, what kind of really in-depth process do we have to first determine the, the needs of our students in terms of mental health? And are we implementing the right programs and practices to help them? You know, so when the reason I'm questioning this, because when we lower the percentage for mental health, it's either saying to

067me that we don't need as much money to address it. As far as, you know, or we're not sure how to address it in terms of what to use additional funds for. And I, you know, which which do you think it is? No. So like I said, we, we spend based on the need. And it is an area of continuous improvement for, for all the school districts that nobody's mastered this yet, right? We're all having the same issues when it comes to mental health info. Health over the summer did a very good deep dive with us with a lot of good recommendations that the staff is actually working on to improve processes, to be more proactive, to really address our situations better since they have a more national footprint and working with other large school

068districts as well, and seeing the same issues. Understand it's it's not unique to us. A lot of large school districts are having the same issues. This is, you know, mental health has only been an issue that's probably been addressed less than ten years. Right. And so we we we certainly haven't mastered it, but we're getting better every year as well as the other large school districts, because we bounce ideas off of each other. We're thought partners in this work, and we use the same kind of third party vendors to provide support so that we're, you know, implementing the strategies that we need to understand. So I'm going to ask you a very straightforward question. If we remove the mental health percentage, are you comfortable with that from this referendum to zero? No. Okay. No not

069zero. And I'm sorry. Not zero. What is it? What would you recommend? So I, I, I will refrain from giving a specific recommendation on the dais. This is something I would have to sit down with our union leaders really sit down, see how compensation looks like, sit down with our principals, seeing there's a lot of moving parts that we need to sit down and come back with. All right, so I have a couple more questions and I'm done. MADAM Chair, are there anyone in band d that you're recommending to not include band d? Are there anyone in band d that would directly impact students? As far as how we categorize the 75%? And correct me if I'm wrong, MR. Sullivan, band d that we're recommending is mostly esmeb, right? Correct. It's o s.Alma directors, correct.

070Directors and the the indirectly impact schools. The people who are directing directly impact in our schools are at our schools, our principals or assistant principals. And going down the line are our teachers and, and, and other staff. Got it. So my final comments, MADAM Chair, is I would be very concerned if we remove safety and mental health percentages. I'm not sure what the numbers should be. I don't think I have enough response from our superintendent as yet to determine if we should adjust mental health percentage. I think it's even in question for the superintendent. And as far as even safety and the second concern with that, which I think is a bigger concern if we go out, if we exclude safety and mental health and we go out to the voters, I'm not sure if

071teacher compensation and staff compensation alone is going to be substantive. And and this is not taken away from the importance of teacher compensation because this is 75% of what we're doing. But if we remove the mental health piece and the safety piece, that MAY impact the support that we will get for this referendum with voters. So that's my concern. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Thank you, chair, and thank you for all my colleague's comments so far. I have to agree with DR. Holness, and I think in general, there's a lot of questions here that are unanswered, and I'm definitely not prepared to give a my opinion based on the information that we have right now. One thing that I do think is very important, particularly in the time that we're in right

072now where we're not offering our teachers a raise, is that we need to make sure that we're maximizing the amount that's going to the the teachers, the school based and support staff. I have some questions about what that definition encompasses. And if that kind of goes into other like what, what, what is the definition of those particular positions? Because, you know, we have a lot of, I think, employees that would fall into mental health and safety and security that could also arguably be school based and support staff. So how, how are we breaking that down? And if all the, if all of the funds and all the percentages are going to personnel, then what's the distinguishing characteristic between the three? So correct me if I'm wrong, MR. Sullivan. That's the discussion for after the vote

073to really determine. Go ahead. Yes, but I thinknk, MISS BoBowm, what t u u were referriring ..Oo5%5%s ththe supplements for all the employees that the board considers the bucket of mental health and safety. Those are funding actual positions and people. So those are so we are 100% relying on referendum funds to to fund positions. We don't have those positions available if we don't provide for them in the referendum. So not 100%. We're supplementing baseline positions. So we do have positions. We are supplementing with additional positions to address additional needs in all of those categories, especially safety and security and and mental health. So there is a baseline. No the money that's going. So if we're doing mental health, the the mental health bucket, that's going to be solely used to fund positions that are considered

074mental health. Correct? Correct. And the safety and security is going solely. We also have general fund positions for all. Correct. Okay. I, I just I think we need I would have liked to have seen a, a breakdown of what we're spending on safety and security per position and the staffing allocation. And the same with the mental health, so that we can make a better determination of how we want to, to move this around. And then the other. The other part would be if we're funding x, y, and z out of the referendum, what that's going to look like on the general fund. So what money we're freeing up, like DR. Zeman was saying, if we're if we're changing the scheduling so that we're saving money, I think there's so many moving parts here that I

075think it's really difficult based on the information we have today to really make an educated decision. But I do. But, you know, the overarching and I agree with Doctor Wholeness, MISS Thompson, you know, we're not to the there's importance in all three of the categories that are being funded with the referendum. But. I really want to see and make a commitment that we're funding the teachers and the school based employees, because I think that that's the reason why we passed the referendum originally. And, you know, we've heard the stories of the teachers knocking doors. And I think that that's that we need to make a commitment that we're making, giving them the vast majority of that money. So I, I personally can't make a decision until we have more numbers and can really see the

076breakdown. But that's, that's what my recommendation is. I, I, I don't want to have another year where we come and say we don't have any money for the teachers. And we didn't do right by them when we had the opportunity to do it here. Because this seems like the way to do it, where we can guarantee that they're at least getting something. And I agree with MISS Thompson too. I think that the like a schedule of guarantee. Was that what you said too? Yeah. The flat rate bonus is something that we should be looking at because then everyone knows how much money they're getting and it. Yeah. I, I know that you agree with. That too. I don't disagree with you on that portion. And I know we'll get there once the voters approve it.

077And we can start talking about the the specifics, because I know that's collective bargaining. Go ahead, MISS Sullivan. Yeah. I should have mentioned in my presentation that the superintendent's recommendation does offer some flexibility. So the 75%, that's the floor. That's what we must spend on compensation. The other two buckets are up to. So in a in a situation where we get more funding out of the state, federal government, different staffing allocations and either safety and or mental health, then whatever's left over of those percentages, since it's up to you can put it towards the compensation. There's flexibility within the recommendation to do that. That's a lot of variables, and we'd have to all come back to the table and agree to that later. So that's just something to take into consideration. We can either decide

078now or we can. And then I think the other thing that the board needs to consider if the if we decide that the percentage for safety and or mental health is now zero, I believe that will be in conflict with the ballot language as currently written. Yeah. I don't think anyone's suggesting that it's zero. It's just change the percentage. Oh I didn't okay. Right. And just correct me if I'm wrong, MR. Sullivan. The board can also make suggestions of how to adjust the. Within the 75% the staff to receive it. Right now it's exclude d and above. And within that 75%. So that's can be part of the conversation too. Right. And I mean, and I think for another follow up, I know that there was an attachment that gave a whole bunch of rates

079that was, you know, kind of confusing to read, quite frankly, in terms of, but I'd also like to see what some of these other employee groups are looking at in terms of pay cuts. If we and how that would have to be, you know, addressed in the general fund. What we're looking at then for that. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Spellberg. Thank you, and good morning, everybody. I wanted to just address I think there's a little bit of, you know, maybe the the right intent, the wrong narrative for, for the mental health piece. And we'll dive deeper into this on APRIL 14th when we bring more data to the board. I wanted to address that. The feedback we're hearing from students this school year, which is very different from what we heard last school year,

080in large part due to the improvements that have been made in the centralization of resources for student services. We're at 85% district wide for students responding that when they needed to see their school counselor, they received the support that they needed. That average district wide is consistent across regions. It's actually 85% in two regions, 84% in one other, where we're seeing some of the lower scores are in the larger schools. Right. And that's what was addressed by MISS Thompson about the allocation. You know, so we're seeing scores in more of the mid 70s, which still, you know, isn't a horrible percentage. Right. But we're seeing, you know, a range of 76 to 79 in our larger schools when it comes to that that school counselor piece. So i just wanted to provide some context to

081that. The feedback that we heard last school year in the first round of the joint student and school board discussion does have some nuance to it, because we did do some follow up with MISS Hollingsworth's team, where we kind of double clicked on that feedback and actually were able to understand that it's not that the students weren't receiving the services, it's that they didn't know who to go to for what. So we've created some really good crosswalk of resources for students to know. You know, it's a school counselor that does this. It's a school psychologist that does this. It's a family counselor that does this. So, you know, we have been able to alleviate some of that. You know, in no way am I saying there's not an issue when it comes to access. But

082I did just want to make sure it's clear. You know, there is not this overall epidemic of not being able to access resources. That's not what the data showing us from, you know, 80% of our students that responded to our student survey. So I just wanted to provide some data context to that. Thank you. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you. So I agree with the superintendent's recommendation. I absolutely believe that you need to have the mental health and safety and compensation. The three buckets there. My question is in regards to school safety funding. So yesterday I was at the Florida's National Summit on School Safety and the Florida Department of Education. They had a slide on the 2526 school safety funding, reoccurring allocation. So out of the one bucket of mental health awareness training, the

083state allocates $5.5 million. How much does Broward schools receive from that? I'm sorry, MISS Alhadeff, you can repeat that. The mental health awareness training of the 5.5 million reoccurring funding, how much does Bcbs receive? So does. So does go. Oh, go ahead, MR. Sullivan. So if they do it per student, usually the rule is we would get about 10% of that. If they're doing it by student. Okay. So we don't have an exact we don't know when. We can do a follow up to get you the exact amount, but I'm guessing it's that it's that five, that 5 million is probably a little over half a million. Okay. And then the mental health assistance allocation, they allocate $180 million reoccurring statewide. How much does Bcbs receive? So our cut from that is 14 million. So

084it's probably 10%. But the charter schools get the difference. So our cut of that is 14 million. And then we spent an additional 18 million out of referendum. Yeah. So to be exact for Bcbs not charter 12.4 mil. The other portion is given to charters for their proportional share. Okay. So then out of the referendum we're spending an additional 18 million. Correct. Okay. I think that's important to speak to because it's a larger number, but we are from the referendum. We're asking for an additional 18 million to be allocated for mental health, which is great. Obviously, we can always use more, but to getting rid of it, we can't get rid of it to zero. It's absolutely needed. The other thing in regards to the safety percentage, isn't the money also being going to dsok,

085threat management, emergency management, safety technology. So it's more comprehensive than. That's correct. People. Yes. Okay. Or the actions that the people do every day. Yep. Yes. Okay. So I think that's also important to recognize. And then as far as you know, DR. Holness talked about being creative. I think what he was speaking to more is having possibly using ai technology in the cameras to help us. I know we're piloting, we're one of the schools or districts that is piloting the drone pilots. So these are the up and coming technologies to layer in as a layered approach for our safety and security. But I support Doctor Hepburn, your item that you brought here today. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Thank you. Chair, before I give my comments, I see MISS Maxwell and MISS Fusco in

086the audience today. Since we're at a workshop, I'd like to get their perspective since a large chunk of this referendum, dollar 75% as it stands now, would affect their constituents. So I'd ask that they be allowed to to comment before I give my comments. Thank you. I'd like to include Federation representative. Apologies. Didn't see you back there, but I really would like to hear what you have to say to. Go ahead. Go ahead. MR. Bruno, could you speak to this before we begin public comment. So MADAM Chair has decided to allow individuals to speak who were not present. So at this time, we'd ask those individuals to line up, and this will be the only other time that public comment will be afforded for this particular item. So I will read the names of the

087individuals who have signed up. Kanae Minshu, Liliana, Edo, Terry Preusse, Denise Sufrin. We're all going to stand together, take turns speaking. Lisa, Maxwell, Sharon and Anna Fusco. Come on, just in case you got to stand. All right. Anna Fusco, Broward Teachers union PRESIDENT. I appreciate you allowing us the time to speak. Even though you started 30 minutes earlier and considered we were late. We have been talking this through with several board members individually. I see how some people have come back and changed their minds. Once you get up there in front of your colleagues, I don't think you're grasping what we're asking and what is needed. We are not in any shape or form saying stop safety and security. We're not any way. Stop saying mental health. What we're saying is we're going to force

088the superintendent to force the people in the budget to budget properly, shut down the office of academics, take that $80 million. Work your magic. What's happening in this kcw building? Get people back in schools so you can decrease the Kelly services. That's another group that siphons $80 million. We're talking about projects, and we're talking about people that you outsource to that suck the money from you, budget better, budget properly. What we're saying is, if you want to continue to have the strongest working people to continue to do their jobs without having to work two, three, four jobs that work with the student is to pay them better, get them here and keep them here. 100% allocated for compensation will relieve multiple, multiple millions and millions of the budget to put back. I'm glad we heard

089from our student. Do not disrespect that our mental health is not pristine. Stop saying go to other districts. We are the district that have set the tone with great mental health and great safety and security. Lori, you have a company out there put back into Broward County. Hold off, bring it out to the other states and make sure Broward continues to be pristine. There's a thought. We're not saying stop. We're saying put the 100% in the schools of the educators, principal, aps, teachers, everyone that puts hands on students and then open the budget for everyone else. We're saying you could pay your safety and security, your bus, your cafeteria, your clerical, everyone else in your budget, if you stop wasting money, you put up top heavy 40%. You say enrollment's down, but you increase top

090heavy employment on your people sitting here and everyone else that walks around and is doing what. But you've got your educators in your classroom that are educating. And by the way, your mental health team is in the b2u. Every social worker, psychologist, family counselor, guidance counselor are paid by betas, contract of compensation and referendum. So you're not losing that component of paying them. You have to actually budget better. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you. Lisa Maxwell representing the principals and assistant principals. First of all, I think and MRS. Hixon and I are going to disagree about percentages, but respectfully, I think percentages are very important for a number of reasons. First of all, the employees benefit because if you have a flat rate, it tends to stay that way for four years. If you have

091a percentage, it increases year over year. And we know every year more money comes in to the referendum pool. So the employees actually benefit more from that. But also, I want to remind everybody that there are % different calendars. I absolutely agree that teachers should make a lot of money. I absolutely agree with that. But teachers are on a ten month calendar. Others are on a 12 month calendar. Ttsps we have people that are on different calendars and so their salaries, yes, they're higher because they're working more days. So it's very important also to consider the fact, and I totally agree with what Anna just said. We can't risk things like our SROs on a referendum that MAY or MAY not pass. And then what are you going to do? It's going to be a

092mad scramble. 168 security people, 216 sro positions. You're going to have to figure that out in an awful hurry under a tremendous amount of pressure, with very little you can do. If this doesn't pass, this should be on your main budget always. It should not be on a four year at a time issue. Same with mental health. Frankly, mental health has been a black box. Principals don't know what services are available. We know we need psychologists. We know we need behavioral therapists. We know that desperately. But there's a whole lot of other stuff that nobody really knows what's happening or who's in charge of it. We got to get our hands around that. I totally agree with MISS Bulman and MISS Thompson's comments. Totally. We don't know. And we need you as the board need

093the details. So I would ask that you do more deep digging into this presentation. And as Anna also said, look to other places in the budget. These are critical. Other places are not. That's where you're going to find your money. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Hello, board. My name is Lisa and I'm with the Federation of Public Employees today, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to say something on behalf of the Non-instructional employees. I'm going to echo a lot of what Lisa said. One thing is, I've become accustomed to derstanding anand rognizing when a pigig's g got lipicick on I it, and this document is a pretty piece of paper, but it's a pig with some lipstick on it. And in my opinion, for whatever it's worth, the board doesn't have enough

094information of substance to make an informed decision. That is foremost. You got this nice, pretty PowerPoint and a lot of questions you don't have answers to yet. You're being asked to workshop this with insufficient information that's faulty, and that's going to be problematic. And I can't stress enough, I don't know, maybe these folks in the middle here, I'm very visual. Maybe they'd like to be put on the referendum money as positions. I suggest you take our security personnel that we represent, move them off the referendum. As far as being paid their positions through the referendum, make them permanently in the budget. Take these folks here, throw their rear ends out there on the referendum to be voted on every, every so many years. Let's do that. Let's try that one. How would that be? I

095don't think that would be such a great idea for the folks in the middle here, but that's the position that you're putting our employees in, our members, in our families in. You're asking them to pay more for their insurance, to do more on the job, with less people being there. We're going to see significant cuts because of poor planning. Now, I don't know about you, but I know Lisa Maxwell and I were up there in Tallahassee working for the Florida Legislature when they passed the lottery. We said back then, it's going to replace, replace, replace a plant. Oh, no, no, no it's not. Well, sure the hell did. Now this referendum money is doing the same thing. And you're out there trying to sell this situation. If you're really serious about security and mental health,

096don't be putting it out there on a referendum. Make it a permanent piece of the furniture. But you're not. And we're hearing a lot of wraparounds. I'm really good at catching double talk wrap around saying nothing. What I'm hearing is a lot of nothing being said. I want the facts. I want the information. I want the statistics. I want the data. I want to know the positions. I want to know all the information. And I'm sure as board members, you do too. Some of you have brought up some excellent points about needing more information. Every single one of you, I would hope, would say the same thing. Don't put lipstick on this pig, please, for GOD's sake. Thank you. I'm Terry Lopez, vice PRESIDENT Of the Broward Teachers Union, businesswoman here in Hollywood for over

09730 years. I'd like to thank you for all you do. It is absolutely not okay that we are depending on the referendum. And Lisa said what I was going to say because I went to the lottery night when we passed the lottery and it was four hours of fireworks. And I remember how great that felt. And then I remember thinking, well, where did all the money go? And this is what's happening here. And she's absolutely right. You keep depending on the referendum money, we should be in your budget, not only security and mental health and, and all of that. Teachers should be in your budget too. This was a stop gap measure when we came up with this idea and we pounded on doors, it was going to be a stop gap measure, not a

098forever measure that you were going to then count on. And oh yeah, the referendum money. How are we going to spend it? No, you should have the money from wherever it is that it comes from the governor, which isn't enough. I know we're one of the underpaid states I know shouldn't be that way because it's more expensive to live here than it is in San Francisco right now. I know, but you can't keep depending on the referendum to meet your budget, you need to meet your budget. And the referendum is extra. And when it's extra, you can pay people more. And when people are paid more, they're more dedicated, they're happier. And believe me, they need to be happier. Because I have said this for more than 7 or 8 years. We are not nice

099to our people when they go to date or Palm Beach, they feel a difference. They don't have 10 or 20 people coming in their classroom telling them how they're teaching, looking over their shoulder, standing outside their door, talking about what they did, then have to go in at the end of the day to have your principal tell you what you did right, what you did wrong. Nobody likes that. We're mean. I've called you guys mops. Not you necessarily, but the county in general mean on purpose. It's not nice what you do to teachers. It's not nice how you treat them and supervise them and expect them to not be the professionals. We're the professionals. We're the ones who studied. Ones who know how to teach our class, not these programs you keep buying. The vendors

100have found out that this is a soft target. You go to Broward, you pitch them a good story. You're going to get money out of Broward because they're going to depend on the referendum for other stuff. Well, I say no. I say, you need to stop that. You cannot be a soft target. You cannot just get rid of pinnacle because, oh, I don't know. Let's just do focus. You cannot keep doing that stuff and not even telling us and not even involving us. We used to be involved in those decisions. Watch your money. Better do better. Referendum should be gravy. Should be a cherry on top of the on top of the ice cream. Thank you. Anyone else? Sharon? Pa? I don't come out a lot and I've been around a lot of the seats

101on this side of the room. And I also was here in oh eight when we furloughed and they were tough times and tough decisions. You have to watch your budget. You have to budget carefully, and you have to know what's in your budget. Essential positions belong in your budget, not on referendum dollars or dollars that flow through it. Will you really have to be careful? No raises. Our group hasn't had raises yet. They come in principles. Apps. Teachers are in their schools killing themselves right now. Make this district an a again for the students in this district. They're covering classes. They're doing things they've never been asked to do because of what I'll say the mismanagement. You have to do better. This money should help make the quality of life for them, should help give

102them raises, should help sustain what is missing. The district really needs to take a hard look at what those services are that help and support and what don't, and the ones that don't, I mean, I'm sorry, a lot of good people, but they they need to transition. They need to do something or you're bringing people in, help them move on. But there's a lot of things that really need to be looked at that haven't do what's fair, do what's right. But I haven't heard a lot about the kids. You've got to take care of the kids in this district and the adults that support them in the schools. That's why we're here. That's what's made you an a for the couple years that you've been and you want to keep it, the mental health. You're

103the. Everybody looks at us for our safety and security. Don't go out. Enhance what you have. What Anna Fusco said is correct. We set the bar on that. You set the bar in a lot of areas, but you have to reward the people because I'll tell you, you're starting to lose them. And when that happens, you won't be able to recover from that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Hi. Good morning. My name is Doctor Denise Sufrin and I am a resident of Broward County and I am also a retired teacher. I worked for this district for 38 years and this is I'll be retired two years in AUGUST. I am deeply concerned about a lot of the things that people have mentioned before me, that the referendum

104money has now replaced what was in our budget, the budget for salaries for teachers, like a bait and switch that they did with us with the lottery. This money has to go towards the people that are working directly with students. I was a classroom teacher starting with, well, not starting, but I taught vpk up through being a media specialist in high school. So I've worked with all the different students in our district, the person, the people that work directly with our students on the front lines are the ones that need the compensation. When we say we directly work with the students, we are not just teaching them, but we are also providing the mental health for our students as well, because those children come in in the morning, sometimes without having any breakfast, and we

105keep little bars of granola or little packages of cereal in our desk because a cafeteria won't serve them after a certain amount of time. So we are taking care of their needs when they come in because they had nightmares at night. We're taking care of their mental health. And just to talk about something that, with the guidance counselors, we have guidance counselors in our schools, in elementary schools. I've worked in elementary and I've worked in high school. Our elementary guidance counselors are still doing cafeteria duty and testing and not providing the services they could, because you do not have it in your budget that we have testing coordinators in elementary school. My guidance counselor in my last school is there sometimes, and not just during testing season until 7:00 at night. I'm getting off task

106here. I think that if you are serious about providing students with the best outcomes that they can have, that you will a lot. All of the referendum money to the people that work directly with the students, the teachers, the paraprofessionals who do things that you could not even imagine, and the principals and assistant principals. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Liliana. Broward Teachers union. And also, I want to bring up this comment that we always hear. We cannot use the money from the general funding to give teacher salary rates. Okay, now we have the referendum, which, by the way, we have this referendum because we knock on every door asking the community to support the teachers. And out there, the community was super receptive to support the teachers. So here we are for the referendum

107money. And if you're trying to debate in certain areas, and I'm going to ask you next, we should get 100% of the referendum money. Referendum money should be used towards the people who are in the school, the teachers who are in front, the teachers who put up with so much, with the things that you throw to the tables every single day to use and apply in the classrooms. So you buy so many programs, you know that they need to be implemented in the classroom. So they barely finish implementing the program. When you end up going and purchasing the second one. And, and that's why we are in the situation that we are right now. In reality, the, the referendum money should be an extra, you know, money for the teachers beside the salary raise that

108you should be responsible for. But obviously, like I mentioned before, it's hard for you probably to know how to manage certain areas. Everything else that you want to cover that has nothing to do with teachers compensation, assistant principals, compensation, ESPs who are also in the front, and everybody who works inside of the school and work with the students one on one should be the ones who should be receiving this award. Or I will say the money from the referendum. That will be one part. The other part I will say we visit schools every single day and obviously our schools are super secure. It's I mean, super secure. If you want to invest more in certain areas, I think you should go in your budget. Like you told me, you're not allowed to use the budget

109for teacher salary rates. So then use it for other areas that you need to cover other areas. But in this case, I'm going to tell you this, teachers out there and everybody's watching what you are doing today and every day, and they're not very happy. And I'm going to ask you, you want to bring hope back to the teachers in the classroom, to the paraprofessionals and teachers who work three, four jobs to survive. I'm going to tell you this. Do it right by them. Thank you. Anyone else? Good morning, Kenny Minshew. You pretty much know what I'm going to say. You've had Anna Fusco. You had MISS Maxwell, MISS Gerkin up here and the rest of the ladies, they've set it off, so I don't need to keep rehashing. You know what needs to be

110done. Just so you know, b to you prefers a long term deal and can resolve all differences if and only if 100% of the referendum funds are paid to school based educators. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? You. Thank you, chair, and thank you for all those who came up and spoke. I want to make my position very clear on this matter. We need to explore all options on how we can give 100% of these referendum dollars to our teachers and school based employees. I heard some thoughts from DR. Zeman earlier on this. I think that's a good start. I guess as far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out on whether or not I'm supportive of that, but I like the fact that we're at least thinking outside the box. We had a

111situation last year with these referendum dollars, and I'm the type of guy who calls it like he sees it, and I'm just going to be very frank with us. We screwed the teachers out of a lot of money and gave it to people in this building who it was not intended for. Now, I know this board has taken some steps to correct that, but the reality is the public is still upset about it. We have major trust issues with the public because what this district did with the last referendum apportionment and how we gave it out to people, I think that giving all of these referendum dollars to our teachers and school based staff is a good first step in restoring that public trust. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, if you

112were to take a poll from everyone who was coming out of that ballot box when they voted on this referendum last time, 100% of them would have thought that that money was going to the teachers and the school based employees. Nobody ever would have imagined that it would go to district level staff members, not in a million years. And I bring this up because as we know, this is coming back. This is coming back to the ballot in NOVEMBER. And if we don't start taking some very, very aggressive and corrective action, there's a real risk that this doesn't pass. And who's going to get screwed if that happens? It's not going to be me. It's not going to be anybody up there. It's going to be the teachers, which would then effectively make it two

113times in a row that they got screwed out of these referendum dollars. So we need to take the proper steps to make sure we right these wrongs of the past, and we restore public trust. That's one of the reasons, chair, that I called for a full investigation into this when this broke. Unfortunately, my colleagues did not support that idea, and that's okay. But the reality is we are where we are now. And when you talk to people and we've heard it from the speakers this morning, there's not a lot of trust that people in this county place in this district, especially when it comes to money. We need to find the money's in the budget to support safety and mental health. And I want to be crystal clear. I am very pro safety and I

114am very pro mental health. I think those are important facets, but I also think we have the greatest opportunity to find funding for those buckets within our budget, and we need to do a better job as a district and as a board of budgeting and find it. Because I'm going to be honest, we kind of suck at budgeting. So why not take this opportunity to put this ship on the right path, do right by our great teachers, do right by our great school based employees, and let's start directing funds where they actually need to go. And it's not to folks in this building, it's to the folks at our schools. Now, MR. Superintendent, I heard from one of the early speak earlier speakers an issue about the ballot language. Can you confirm when the actual

115deadline is to submit that to the county to make sure that it appears on the NOVEMBER ballot? Sure. I have MR. Sullivan do that. But before we move on to that, MR. Cervera, I do have to chime in on the comments you said about our budget and sucks. Our budget does not suck. We ar c correctganyy w wross of system pas practices that have gotten us to the point of the tough decisions that myself and this and this board has to make. So it's not the results of many of the people that are sitting in front of you today. There's a lot of issues that we've inherited, and we've done our due diligence in bringing those tough decisions to this board that we have to make, such as rightsizing our staff, going through and cutting

116unnecessary contracts, finding efficiencies, leveraging technologies to implement those efficiencies. So, you know, I just want to correct, not correct, but push in on that statement. And then I have MR. Sullivan. Before MR. Sullivan. You answer. I also need to correct the record on something. MR. Magli, did we direct the Office of Chief Auditor to conduct an investigation into the referendum supplement issue? We were asked to investigate that. Did that investigation occur? It did. And did we ask the Office of Chief Auditor to refer this matter to the oig? Yes, you did, ma'am. Did that take place? Yes, ma'am. Thank you, MR. Sullivan. I believe this is due to the supervisory election on JUNE 8th. But I also believe the county needs to have it on their agenda. And then we also knew that the board

117would want to have a discussion on the intended allocation. So that's why we back tracked those dates and presented it to the board last month. Thank you. If I can reclaim some of my time because I'm going to push back. MR. Superintendent, I don't like the way we budget. I do think it sucks. And if we need further proof of that, I can point back to the fact that we have a 5.5. $4 billion budget in this district, and we're operating at $100 million deficit. I think that's very telling. Now, I'm not here to point fingers as to certain individuals and how we got to this place, but I'm not a fan of the way we budget, and I've never been a fan of the way we budget. And until I start to see some

118dramatic changes in the district, my attitude on that is not going to change. Now, I realize I MAY not speak for all of my colleagues or all of my cabinet members, but as far as the district six board members are concerned, I think we've got to do a hell of a lot better in the way we budget now. i also want to address the chair's comments regarding the investigation, to be clear. And for those who remember, I called for an outside independent investigation by an outside law firm. And the reason I did that is because I wanted a swift investigation with a report brought back to this board asap. I'm glad that this is going to the office of Inspector General, I am. I have nothing against the Office of Inspector General. But let's be

119honest, MR. Magli, we know well we're not getting a copy of that report between now and NOVEMBER. It's not going to happen. Which is why I wanted the independent investigation so we can figure out what happened, how we got to this point. We can go back to our districts and we can tell the people we screwed up. Here's what's happened and here's what we can do to correct this. So as much as I'm very much looking forward to the investigative findings that will probably, if we're lucky, come out sometime next year, I don't think that's going to help us in NOVEMBER when this is back on the ballot. Now, back to the. The deadline. MR. Sullivan, you said JUNE 18th. Correct. I believe I said JUNE 8th, and I believe that's the date it's due.

120The information is due to the supervisor of election. JUNE 8th. So, MR. Superintendent, we do have an opportunity as a board to revisit that language, tighten it up if we need to, and resubmit it to the county before the JUNE 8th deadline. Correct. MISS Sullivan. I don't know what the mechanism would be to to do that. We've never recalled a resolution to the county and the county before. It can't be done, which. MR. Sullivan, congratulations. You got some homework? I want to know how that process is done and whether it's possible to bring it back to this board to tighten this up. So there's absolutely 100% no confusion as to where this money is going to number one. And number two, I want to make sure that there's no language that can be interpreted in

121any type of loosey goosey manner that will allow either this board or future boards to prospectively give it to those who it was not intended for, as far as the referendum dollars are concerned. Thank you. MISS Rupert. Thank you. I want to thank everyone for speaking today. I know it's tough to get here on the right time with our ever changing schedule here, and I want to appreciate my colleagues and and staff for putting this together. And the superintendent. I welcome the conversation from my colleagues for different ideas. It is our job to to set budgets. Et cetera, et cetera. And I take that very seriously. The referendum should not ever supplant our mental health, safety and security, nor our school based salaries. Those three categories should always have top pay continuity and confidence that

122they'll have their jobs, that the end of the day, the end of the year, regardless of what is going up or down. And that kind of unrest. Seems to eat away at morale and confidence of the public. We can't have that if our own employees are worried that they're not going to have a job come next year. We cannot maintain an a district, nor can we be a very solid, foundational business of getting the education of our students done. Extremely important. I'm not comfortable taking out who gets what percentage, but if I was and I had the opportunity. 100% of the money should go to those professionals who every day help our children grow in this county. I don't care if it's 90%, five, five, I would prefer 100%. I wholeheartedly believe. That the system

123of giving bonuses, because we didn't have the right money all these years, is not something I'd stay around for if I was a teacher. That's why our teachers and our employees that are school based are leaving in record numbers. Mental health and safety. Hugely important for our teachers, our staff, our students, and quite honestly, the business people around us. They don't know what's going on. We have to take a hard line on this. I don't care if we've never done it before. I don't care if there's not a mechanism to bring it back. This conversation should have started before now to give us more opportunity and more time. I get extremely upset when things are left to the last minute, or we get a delivery on a Friday night with a huge item added to

124our special school board meeting today. It was this big. The packet to go over. I think sometimes we do it on purpose and I know that this board does not like that practice. Neither does the public. I don't want to be verbose with this. I've said what I needed to say. Essential employees should always be in our budget. The referendum should not supplant our mental health, safety, security, nor our school based salaries. We can do better and we need to listen to our employees. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to make a few. I have a few questions and then we can get around to. Doctor Hepburn. Did this district have anything to do with passing the lottery? Not that I'm aware of. Do we manage or distribute lottery funds? No, we do not.

125What is the plan if this referendum does not pass. We will revert back to what we pay for base out of general, which everything would look a little different. We pay a certain amount of services out of general and then the referendum supplant, not supplant, but supplements. What we are used to for the past four years. So, for instance, the SROs, we would have those services, but we would have to significantly decrease the number of security specialists in schools, mental health, you would have those services, but we would we would have to certainly reduce the amount of people that we provide and do services differently, because the referendum supplements in that area. And of course, the compensation portion would not be available. So we would go back to more of what people are used to.

126Probably after 2018, 2019, 2020. So everyone who's, who's, there's no plan to, you know, if they're so if the referendum does not pass the, the supplements for employees would just go away. That's correct. Okay. I think everyone who is invested in this referendum passing needs to be aware of the consequences of it not passing. And I hope that moving forward, we can all row this boat in the same direction. Doesn't feel like that right now, unfortunately. But, you know, I, I want our employees to get paid. I want them to get those supplements. I want those services to be there for students in terms of safety and mental health. And I, I hope that we can get on the same page on this. MISS Hixon. Thank you. I have a couple of questions and thank

127you to everyone who spoke. I also want to speak directly to some of the suggestions you had, but I think MR. Sullivan can answer this. MISS Thompson earlier talked about tuition reimbursement for mental health. Didn't the state. I believe Representative Chomsky had a bill and that the state actually has a mechanism in place to do tuition reimbursement for mental health. Do you remember that from last session? I'm pretty sure it passed. I'd have to take a look. Yeah, I think it did. It was Representative Chomsky who put that forward. So just so. Oh, for social workers. Okay. Well, part of mental health. So it was some of it. Yeah. So that was one of them. I also agree somewhat with what Chair Leonardi just said. The words we use, the things that we have to

128be together we MAY not agree on on a lot of things right now, but to be able to get the referendum to pass in this district, we have to be sure our message is the same going forward. The more board members say we're mismanaging money, the of course, no one's going to trust us. And to to say there was something that happened. It was addressed immediately. And we did ask for an investigation on it, And we did make sure that we we fixed it immediately. That wouldn't have happened. A school, a couple of school boards ago. So I just I think it's important that we do. We are transparent and we share some of the issues. But if I'm not mistaken, early the union PRESIDENT Said you took care of it. Let's move on. We

129don't need to continue talking about that, because the more you harp on that, that's all people are going to hear. They're not going to hear. We're doing it different again. So I'm not saying that something wrong didn't happen, but we did move forward from it. And we're trying to make sure that we don't do it again. So I think it's really important how we speak to each other, how we speak in moving forward with the public, because we need them to believe that we are going to do the right thing. And that means moving forward, not keep harping on what went backwards, because it does sound like we're arguing among ourselves up here. And I, I don't think that's helpful for any of us. I also have some concerns with the budget and it won't

130be anything new. I haven't said. I always say, why don't we do a zero start off with a zero budget and build it out? And I've asked since the day I got here to include a 4% raise for all of the employees and to build a budget around that. That's not new information. I didn't just make that up. I have said that. I mean, I'm sure everyone up here can attest to the fact that I've said it over and over again. So I do appreciate the some of the things that some of the public speakers said. And I do agree, I do think that we should have in our budget. Safety and security, mental health, those positions that we know we need shouldn't be on a referendum. So I 100% agree with that. I didn't

131really look at it that way until you mentioned it in the way that you did. So I appreciate you speaking up about it. I think it because there's a good chance just based on conversations we keep having, that the public won't trust us and that unfortunately. I hope that's not true. But I do think if we don't change the way we speak to each other, there's a good chance that this might not pass and we're really going to be in some serious trouble. So I would ask the superintendent moving forward to do a budget. It makes sense not to have these positions as supplemental on a referendum, but baked into the budget. And if we need less of them, then you bake in less positions in there. But I 100% agree that those are things

132we we need. We need them all the time. We don't want someone that's an sro or a security monitor to think, well, if the referendum doesn't pass, I'm not going to have a job. So I do agree with that. Same thing with social workers and counselors and all of those things. I do also agree that we have too much software in the district, and that's also not a new conversation that I've had. So budgeting issues and how we do that moving forward. This isn't the place for that. But I do agree that not based on anything people in front of us have done. I've been here five years and have seen things that have happened. I think we landed where we are, and it's not going to be politically correct to say this, but we

133had a board who was here to implode us and they did their best. And you know what? We are dealing with the outfall of that right now. And I think an investigation into the into the referendum issue will show that that's exactly what happened. But they're not here anymore. So we are trying to pull ourselves back out of where we landed because of some of the decisions that those boards made. And so I will again agree though, I think we don't keep doing a budget we had in trying to make pieces fit. I say we start from scratch. We figure out what it is that we need, how much do we have to. What's our biggest thing, which is compensation for employees and then give everybody a budget? You know, a huge issue from why

134we're in an issue in a deficit right now is because there was a lot of overspending, which we didn't figure out until all the bills came in at the end of the year. We have now put into place something that doesn't allow that to happen. Other municipalities don't allow that to happen. It's baked into what they do. You have a budget. You spend your budget. If you need more money, you have to come somewhere to the board to see is there any extra money to be had? But that's not how budgets were set up, not because of who sitting in front of you today, but who was in these seats years prior. So we are trying to change that, but I think we do have to hit fast forward on that so that we cannot

135continue to find out. At the end of the year, we spent $20 million more than was budgeted in there because there was no way to catch it. There are things in place now to stop that. So our budgeting used to suck, but I think it's getting better. Does it? We do. We need to continue. I think all of us have said that we need to continue, but I think it's important for the public to know that every time an issue has come up, this board sitting here in front of you, has addressed it publicly, has taken the heat for it, has said, how do we make this better? And what can we put in place to make sure it doesn't happen again? So I know that money went to places where it shouldn't have. But

136I think you also need to put that in context. It was $300,000 out of 300 and something million. Was it a mistake? 100%. But was it this big, huge where all this money didn't go to to teachers or staff because of it? That is not accurate. So I think we need to own up to our mistakes, but to not blow them out of proportion because we're causing the issue right now. People don't trust us because we keep blowing things in a way that really isn't accurate for what happened. So my other question to the superintendent on page eight, again, towards transparency, where it says emoyees withinn the esmeb, d d, s and salaryy bds, inudining ctrtracted empyeyees who are compensated, comparable to those same bands pursuant to contractual agreement. So those are not eligible. Nobody

137knows what as mad bands d and e and s or a and b and c are. I think what we really need, which was also mentioned from a public speaker and MISS Bulman is a list of, you know, what position, not people's names, but positions. What are who would possibly be covered under what your recommendation is and what would those values be there? Because I don't even know what the different esmeb bands are and who falls under them. So I agree that we need a lot more information moving forward. But I do think that mental health and security that we know we need every single year should be baked into the budget. And if there needs to be a small percentage in here for that supplemental part, which are the not wants but not needs,

138but wants, we could still keep that. So I'd still would say the 9010, ten, maybe percentage. For 100. I mean, I'm sorry, 90. Yeah. Sorry I wasn't a math teacher. I'm sorry. 90 and in ten. However that shakes shakes out is what I meant. I'm sorry, but I do think that before we even settle on that, we need to have another workshop and have the information that's been asked because we need to be very transparent and know what what is in asthma, because even esmeb t I don't know who that is. So I don't know whether I think that's important or not important. So I think we should come back with a lot more data and then also scenarios, you know, what would it look like if it was 100%. And where would we be

139able to fix that in our budget? The 80 1010, the 95 5 or 10, wherever, however you think it needs to be split out? I don't know if it has to always be equal, but I, I think we're lacking some of the information unknowing, especially about who would be eligible because we just don't know which employees fall into those esmeb groups that you have. I mean, I said school when we were talking school based or people who directly impact students, and then it was brought up that an attorney could actually directly impact a student, especially if you're talking about IEPs. So I think the wording is really important. And we did have a discussion. How do we get the all that stuff onto a 75 word ballot? So I don't know if the ballot will

140actually say exactly what we want. We spent a long time trying to get the ballot language that we had on there. But again, I think we need to do a better job of, of speaking in a way that lets the public know we are owning up to the issues that we had. We are working to make them better, and we have to stop bashing ourselves because then the the public is never going to trust us. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. So board member Hixon, I couldn't agree more. I think once you are elected or otherwise sitting in this seat, that you own the issues and you own the concerns and it's important collectively and collaboratively that we work together, understanding that we are in this together as a unit that

141owns the issues. And so I would be careful, as board member Hixon mentioned, whether or not we are providing misinformation or disinformation to the public in any form or way. Whatever our rationale is for doing so. But, you know, I understand that as a school board member, we have three important roles. We hired a superintendent, we set policies, and we reviewed, discussed and approved the budget. So we are responsible for reviewing, discussing and approving the budget. Now, I would hate to think that we are saying to the public that we think the budget sucks because I, I don't think those are appropriate ways in which we can communicate our concerns with the public. Now, the manner in which we prioritize items on the budget is evolving, and we're working as a board through those issues.

142So Doctor Hepburn, for the sake of the public, because we're not only listening to ourselves and those who are here, but the public is listening to us. Can you just for information purpose? Because I've seen it on Facebook. I've seen elected officials on Facebook saying the district has a 5 billion plus budget, and they are $100 million in the red, and so on and so forth. And I think unless individuals understand how the budget works for the school district in terms of capital outlay, in terms of general funds, and I, and I just want this to be out there for everyone to understand because it sounds like, how can you have $5 billion and you don't have any money? And I think the public doesn't understand that. So it gets under my skin, actually, when

143I see that coming in social media from even elected officials. And I think it's important that they understand because it sounds like this board is not doing its job. And I know we are. So we are owners of the issues that come to us. We review and approve the budget. We direct the superintendent how to proceed. But then we are also trying to say, some of us, we didn't create the issue. We are collectively a part of this. And so, Doctor Hepburn, can you explain once and for all to the public how Broward County school budget works? So these kind of misinformation and disinformation, whatever it is for, if it's for any kind of brownie points or whatever the issues are, I want it to be clear. So the public understands. Yes, absolutely. And I'm

144MISS Johnson to kind of help out with this too. So pretty much in a nutshell, our our revenue is based on student enrollment as student enrollment declines, which we've been experiencing for the past two years in a tremendous amount of numbers. And gradually over the past ten years, we've lost about 350 million usd from revenue. But we do have different categories of funding. That equates to a total of 5 billion plus dollars. Number one, capital, which is a large chunk of our funding and that's for capital outlay projects, construction facilities, any work that has to do with even purchasing some major equipment to deal with those issues, then we have also federal grants and other various grants that we receive. Most people know the federal grants as far as our title grants, title one, title

145two, title three, title, title four. And then we have our our general funding, which mostly comes from our local effort, which comes from our local tax base of people paying their taxes. And that actually gets dropped into a large bucket. So we don't get the whole amount of money that we actually raised here in Broward County that's dropped into a big bucket with the state. And then the state redistributes that based on cost differential, meaning the cost of living in certain areas. So we actually get a little bit less than our neighbors to the north and to the south. And then. MISS Johnson, if you could tell us what's the what's the exact amount or approximate amount that we have for general versus all the other buckets? Well, excluding charter school, we have $2.3 billion

146in general fund. And essentially when we lose students and we lost students, over 100 million were for student, right? That equates to a reduction. And we must reduce that general fund according to the loss of students. Okay, so MISS Johnson, from the five plus billion dollars, what portion of that budget goes to capital programs? Capital is around $1.7 billion that come in each year. Okay. So approximately 2 billion out of that five goes to capital, which means we cannot pay staff teachers out of those funds. Correct. That's a different budget. That's correct. And out of the general funds, what percentage of it do we use to pay teachers and staff and everybody else? 82%. So 82% of the money we have available in general funds, paid teachers and staff, and the other 18% goes where.

147To non personnel. I'm sorry. For non personnel expenditures for purchases, services, supplies. Supplies, software all of that. So correct. So only 18% goes to software programs Non-personnel and 82% of all the money we receive for general funds go to staff. Correct? Correct. That is correct. Okay. So, you know, I just want the public to understand it's a $5 billion budget, but a good portion of that budget goes to capital that we can't touch for teachers or staff. And 82% of what we can touch for teachers and staff goes out to teachers and staff. The other 18% is for materials, software, all of that. So I just want to make that clear. And I think the concern here is not that the budget sucks and I would never use those terms, but the concern here is

148that the manner at which we prioritize items in the budget is evolving, and that's what we're directing the superintendent to do, like board member Hixon said, let's prioritize the teachers when we do the budget. But does the budget suck to the public? No, it does not. We are working together collectively to make sure that we are a good steward of the purse. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Thank you. Chair, I just want to reiterate some points because I know we're kind of going a lot of different places with this. I first want to talk about the having to go out for a referendum, because I think in theory, we should be building our budget with these positions baked in. And in reality, the state is not giving us enough funding to do that. And

149the majority, or at least a high 5%, if MR. Sullivan can correct our give specifics, actually goes out for referendum specifically to give employee compensation. Is that correct? I believe if you take the millage and some districts do, penny tax is probably about at least half of the school districts in the state because to your point, they don't receive enough funding and those allocation buckets from the state. So districts rely on those funds. And it's also not unique for the referendums in districts in general to fund positions within those referendums. Based on our limited budget from the state. And I think that's an important part to kind of add to this conversation, because, yes, in a perfect world, we would build a budget around teachers. In a perfect world, we would have these budgets, these

150positions built into the budget. But that is not the reality that we are living in, in the state of Florida. And so that is an important part that I need everyone to kind of absorb and discuss. I also want to discuss the trust issue. A lot of people have been throwing out that we need to gain people's trust. The people of Broward County do trust us and the majority they trust us based on where they're going to school for. To one, people go to Broward County schools in this county. If you go to a parent in a school and say, do you trust your teachers? Do you trust the principal? Is your kid safe there? Yes, 100% or at least a very high percentage would say yes. What happens in this boardroom gets conflated and

151gets misconstrued. But people do trust us. People trust our superintendent. And you can tell that by polling, not based on people's feelings, based on actual polling. So I just wanted to emphasize that. I also wanted to just clarify something. My colleague asked about the safety referendum, because MISS Alhadeff, MRS. Alhadeff brought up that the safety safety referendum goes to different initiatives. And then Doctor Hepburn confirmed that. But when I asked if the referendum is going to just personnel, that was also confirmed. So can you just clarify if that was the past referendum went to safety initiatives in this current referendum will only go to people because we both can't be right from. Go ahead, MISS Doctor Lozano. I believe MISS Alhadeff was referencing the employees that are in those departments, the Threat management department, the

152Dsok, so the employee safety technology. So it's still I think both of you said the same thing. It is funded by four positions that also are not just school based, but district based safety positions as well. So it is 100% positions. Okay, perfect. I just wanted to be clear on that. I also wanted to mention there's been talks on the dais about the public not understanding our budget and the importance of that. And we actually the superintendent is having a meeting tonight about that. And we have talked as a board and with staff about going out and doing more community based education around the budget. I think that's more important than ever, especially when we are going to get this referendum passed. It also has strong polling not only in Broward County, but in Miami-Dade

153and Palm Beach that people want to support referendums. But it is important, the way we talk about it, the way we parse these conversations out and make sure that they're going the funds are going to where the voters believe they're going to. And then I will just make one final push for the 80 1010 split. And that's because our student advisor brought up that this year, our mental health is actually getting better, that students feel supported. So I want everyone to take a moment and reflect on what that means. If we no longer have the referendum to support that position. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Zeman. Thank you to MISS Thompson a little earlier, and we're just in a workshop here. So I just want to ask you a question. You mentioned increased counselor positions

154in school. Our report from last year specifically called out licensed clinical therapists. Is that pretty much what you're talking about or did you see a different need? So in particular, school counselors, school counseling is a big gap that we have. And finding a way to use this mental health allocation to maybe support that, whether that's partnering with the college and doing tuition reimbursements, doing some kind of supplemental or incentive that way. But I would always be open to staff's suggestion of any other mental health holes. But I know school counselors in general are is where we're missing. Absolutely. And our staff has come back as part of the two presentations, we have workshops talking about the ratio of, of clinical therapists to students. And we're out of out of national norms. We're out of Florida

155norms even, which is remarkable. Again, Florida, the 50th state in the nation for funding at the state level, public education. And I wanted to bring that up because I don't want our discussion here to get conflated between sources of funds and allocations of budgets. What we have to decide today, according to the superintendent's presentation, is what are we going to use these funds for? And what I originally proposed well over an hour ago was that these funds, these temporary funds, these referendum funds go to 100% school based educators. Does that include social workers and speech language pathologists? I say yes, they are educators working on school campuses. And and they fit. But a couple other points. I just want to kind of roll through that, that our conversation isn't about reducing funding for safety and

156security or mental health. It's about which dollars you use. And the most persuasive thing I've heard from my colleagues today is that those are permanent, everlasting requirements. And I would argue to anybody listening that that's where you want to spend permanent, everlasting dollars. If you think mental health and safety and security is stuff you're going to pay for first, you just absolutely have to have that. I would prefer to fund that out of general fund, not out of referendums money, because eventually, as DR. Holness pointed out, we have to have a plan b. I'm sorry. I think it was you, sir, but somebody asked about what happens if we lose the referendum to the superintendent. You know, it's catastrophic. It's a 17% reduction in operating funds. And there is there might be a plan b,

157but it's going to be it's going to be very, very difficult to to live without these funds. But proper budgeting would put temporary funds against temporary uses in the same way we were counseled with Covid funds and Esser funds to, to use those for things because those funds can. And they did go away. Doctor Hepburn again is something in a workshop. Can we provide uniform law enforcement officers more efficiently than we're doing right now? Yes we can. We're in the middle of negotiations. But one of the strategies is to also replace the some of the municipal officers with our own school police officers. And. Terrific. And I note that Palm Beach County had spent some time putting it together. And it's always an issue with our talent acquisition people on, you know, can we recruit.

158Can we have Broward County police officers rather than city SROs in some places where it makes sense? What was the Palm Beach County experience in terms of trying to hire Palm Beach County police officers when they made that same transformation? Yeah. So Palm Beach County has had their own school police department for over two decades. And so when the requirement was to have an armed officer in every school, they ramped up hiring. I think the same strategy in most districts, even when you had contracted SROs, is that you didn't have an sro dedicated to every elementary school. It was kind of a rover system. One sro MAY cover two or 3 or 4 elementary schools. So Palm Beach County ramped up their hiring, and they hired a couple of hununed officersn matterr o o aear

159and year r and a hal to rp up their their school police officers so they can cover all of their schools with at least one officer in elementary and middle and two in high schools. And to my knowledge, those officers are less expensive than correct. You have more control. And you have more control. Exactly. You have more control. You have common policies that governs your officers. You don't have to worry about increasing expenses that are out of your control and that are being handed back to you within a contract. Thank you sir. I'm also curious to whomever would like to answer this, but as part of our decision making on the referendum, can we predicate that on part of this, saying that we intend to keep the same number of positions in safety and security

160and mental health, even if we go 100% of the money towards school educators. Okay, let me let me let me say it back to you just to make sure I heard the right question. You're asking. If we go 100% of the referendum to teachers, can we maintain the same amount of personnel or staffing for safety and security? No, we cannot, and that's what I said. We would have to look at the staffing allocation. We would have to look at the research to see what is the best framework to provide a level of services that we're providing today, or even enhance them with less people. Let me play a scenario and see if this works. I've spent a little time budgeting in my life with budgets significantly bigger than Broward County, so I've been around the

161block a few times. If in fact, as part of our allocation of these temporary funds that we put it toward temporary needs, things that at the end of the day, we could do without, even though it would be catastrophic. And part of that involved realizing other savings that came. For example, if we got the teachers in high schools to teach three classes a day as part of their core contract instead of two and a half, and that saves 35 to $50 million by our current estimates. Couldn't that set of funds be used to pay for the $50 million that we say that we need to spend out of some source of money to supplement? So I think it's a balance of decisions by the board. There are certain things we're trying to accomplish. Number one,

162reoccurring annual compensation for our employees in the midst of continuing to lose enrollment, we've lost 10,000 issues. We're going to lose 10,000 in the upcoming school year. That's equates to almost $200 million, right? So the board has to balance. Do I want the cost savings to go to compensation for employees, or do I want the cost savings to go to maintaining the same level of personnel that we currently pay for to supplement with the referendum? That's some of the decisions that have to be made, right. But if in fact, the decision we make about the referendum creates savings in other places, couldn't those savings be applied to safety and security or mental health? In theory, yes. But I think it's a. This is budgeting. There's no theories in budgeting. I'm asking you a very serious

163budgeting question. If we can save. Money, the answer is yes. But other things such as compensation will succumb to that decision. I mean, all of it goes into a general fund and we have to allocate it. But if in fact and then I want to get back to your point at the end of my talk here about about revenue, because nine of us have talked about this as a cost issue. How do we spend and how do we expense things? I want to talk a little about revenue at the end, because I'm going to come back to your point, Doctor Hepburn. I also chair wonder if you want to pull us about. Maybe without objection. I've heard several people talk about wanting to see percentages and dollars. When we get numbers back. And I've also

164heard several times that we'd like job series when pay bands are discussed, so that it's very clear to the public about who we're talking. Is that something we can do with a recommendation, or do we need to go without objection? Or how can we get those two changes made in our staffing work? At the end of everyone's comments, we can gather consensus on a few suggestions by everyone. I didn't hear the last sentence. I'm sorry. I said at the end of board discussion. We can go around and gather consensus on the different suggestions from everyone. Terrific. I've just heard that several times, and it seems like it would certainly communicate better. If I MAY DR. Zeman don't know if this helps. I can go over what I'm taking back and what staff I'm going to

165direct my own staff to do, and maybe that helps alleviate some everybody remembering what they asked me. Thank you for your attempt to get us back on schedule, Doctor Hepburn, I appreciate that. I'm also curious about the big issue here, that again, I'm going to come back to revenue. But one of the big issues is can we put all the things I discussed together in one item chair, this is a workshop. Can I ask our guests here today about their ability to come and meet with the superintendent staff over the next week to keep us on schedule? Would that be all right? Sure. To our guests that participate, either as a meet and confer or a collective bargaining agreement, are you available this week? Should this board decide to staff some other options besides 1718

166seven? Are you available? Could you just come up to the mic and let us know? Are you available to come up? Come and meet with staff this week and let us know kind of any issues, concerns or positive reactions you have to the other proposals. Are you available between now and next Tuesday? We're available. Btw is available. Oh yes. Federation also. bp is available. I would appreciate a Zoom link just because I'm in physical therapy right now, but I definitely would love to participate. Awesome. Thank you. DR. Zeman can you hold on for a second, MR. Bruno? I just want to make sure that it's clear that it's my understanding that we are in bargaining right now. So we need to be very, very careful with regards to conversations that can impact the current bargaining

167that we have. I also know that there is an impasse. So yes, we're going to make sure that we follow the law. That's all good. And so and the other thing that I want to make sure to is it's not. MR. Bruno, we need decorum in the audience. We need decorum in the audience. Please. The school board of Broward County will always be in compliance with the law. Okay. So the second thing that I wanted to also state, it's not necessarily a concern if they want to just give some thoughts with regards to this particular specific topic, with the understanding that at some point there's going to be some bargaining, but I want to make sure that it's very, very narrow in terms of what is discussed. And to our general counsel, I think you're

168talking about during meetings, subsequent not today's meetings. Today's a public meeting. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I just want to be clear. And nothing that we've done so far violated any laws. No. Okay. I'm always worried. So I appreciate getting that. We've talked a lot about ballot risk, I think. I think we're giving it an appropriate weight. It is important. It's absolutely essential that this pass I really appreciate MISS Thompson, your points about what people are looking for while the polling is good on these things, why Broward has always been generous to public schools. It's something we never want to take for granted, and we just want to make sure that we keep that. So let me just talk about revenue for a minute, because, you know, all of this budgeting work is imagining

169that we have a fixed pot of money and we're just going to spread it out. There's some safety and security, there's mental health, there's educator compensation, there's sources of funds, federal, state and local. The thing that tipped me toward the 100% for school educators, though, is actually the revenue side, not the division of the current revenue, but the expansion of revenue. And I believe that we can win students back to Broward County Public Schools. I believe we can encourage people to move here. I believe we can encourage residents of Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County to send their kids to Broward County schools. And when I'm thinking about this referendum money, I'm wondering, how do we do that? And my belief is that parents, we can win the hearts and minds of students and teachers

170if we continue to offer outstanding education and what's going to move education forward further than paying our school educators and paying them in a way that we don't have to compete with Miami-Dade or Palm Beach County for staff. What I've proposed with, again, rough estimates would put initial teachers pay 40% higher in 2020, excuse me, in 2031 compared to what it is today. That is a tectonic shift. That is a shift that very few school boards get the opportunity to take advantage of. But I believe that's the thing that's going to generate more FTEs coming in the door. If MISS Johnson points out very clearly that we lose, 10,000 is $90 million, what if we gain 5000 back? Because what we do every day on schools is so great that people even who live in

171Boca and who live in Miami Lakes or who haven't moved here yet, or are going to homeschooling or going to charters or any other school, at least take a tour of our schools and see the amazing things that we're doing. So that's what pushes me over the edge. It is my belief that we should fund permanent long term needs, like mental health and safety and security out of our permanent long term budget, and that we ought to use referendum funds for the things that make great sense to the community and allow us to win back students to Broward County schools. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else, MISS Bulman? Thank you. DR. Zeman, I have a question with your proposal. In terms of if in terms of increasing teacher compensation by 40% by 2031,

172is that based on referendum fund usage, or is that by are we buying time with the referendum funds to reconfigure the budget so that that's also baked into the budget going forward. So that that is only using referendum funds. When you look at the estimators that MISS Johnson has put together about revenue that we're going to get in year four and just use that 100% to allocate it to teachers and educators, you know, evenly. It includes a 10% share for principals and assistant principals, but it basically takes the money we get starting at am I right, MISS Johnson? It's 270 million, I think in the first year. The money, the revenue we get from the referendum. Two 7268 thank you. But it grows because property values go up for the four years. And so by

173the time we're in the fourth year, it's $21,000 for new teachers on a $51,000 base. And so that's a 40%, just over 40% increase. I love that idea of Broward, a district that has a long decades and decades and decades of histories of providing outstanding public education takes a leap like that. On the compensation side, seasoned teachers, those over 20 years would have a base pay of, of, excuse me, $80,000 base pay and $20,000 for the referendum for a total of pay at $100,000 in 2031. So to me, this, this amazing opportunity before us is interesting. And all I'm suggesting is we keep funding safety, security and mental health through the general fund. And so we know Doctor Hepburn thinks we can do safety and security more efficiently by creating a Broward County public School

174police department, staffing it bigger. We already have one. And on the mental health side, we've just got to do a better job. But I believe that that would compete very, very well with the general fund. And it's all one big pocket of money. The 2.3 billion that MISS Johnson talked about in operating money is going to be augmented by 300 million, roughly over the four years, growing a little bit every year. And how we spend the supplemental money, I believe, should be on supplemental things. And what we spend in the core operating fund should include things that we want to pay forever, which is mental health and things. So yes, it does. Thank you. Thank. I mean, I like the idea and you know, we've been tossing this around. I don't know exactly where I

175land on a percentage, but I do think and I think in terms of providing the best education for our kids and getting back, and I really appreciate the comment from the audience about talking about the kids. That's our business. And that's, that's our focus. And so, you know, nothing makes me feel worse than when I go to one of my kids school or going to a school and or have someone call me and a teacher is upset and I feel like we're at risk of losing that teacher, because the reason that I'm sending my kids to Broward Public Schools is because of the teachers. And so whatever. And, you know, and obviously just the people that are working in the schools with the kids, that's our base. That's who we have to keep happy first

176and make sure that they're flourishing, because otherwise we don't really have a great business and we have to get back. We have to get back to that. And I think, you know, obviously there's different grievances and what have you, but the the overall education that our kids are receiving is excellent. Obviously, we can always be improving, but I hate hearing the negative narrative all the time and taking one little piece of information and kind of twisting it without putting it into the correct context, because there's a lot of moving parts in terms of, you know, federal and state funding and how and how we're the 50th and funding. And, you know, maybe we've made a mistake here and there, but the big picture is much more complicated than what people like to dilute it down

177to. And so I, I appreciate the idea that we that we do something in this manner. I think it's very important that we're retaining teachers, attracting new teachers, because right now we're in a situation where people aren't even incentivized or really attracted to the profession necessarily because they're not being treated properly, they're not being compensated properly, and they don't really feel like they have a future to the same. I mean, to the same point, the, you know, all of the service providers at the schools, we need to make sure that we're having we're attracting and retaining the best possible people to be servicing our kids. So how do we get to that? If that is baking into the budget? Some of these other items, and then making all of the referendum funds go to the

178school based employees, which I would argue to, a lot of that has to do with guidance counselors. We have mental health counselors there. I'm confused about exactly what that looks like, and I would like to see a better chart of how we would fund that. But I think that that's where we need to really be focusing on our schools to make sure that people want to go to their schools, that we're making the best product for the school, for our students. And so this is a good starting point. I also was wondering, we haven't talked at all about bus drivers, and I was wondering if they fall into this, because when we're talking about who's interacting with our kids, I personally find that to be a very difficult job. That's, you know, not really highly

179paid and very difficult and something that we need to be looking at attracting and retaining as well. So is that part is this is that something that's contemplated in these funds as a. Yes. I'll have MR. Sullivan expound a little bit more, but yes, yes. So that's part of the reason why we put and support staff, because bus drivers and other frontline workers aren't tied to school budgets. So that's why we had to separate it out. But they're definitely they would definitely. They would under the current referendum language, they would qualify. Okay. Are we going to do like so you're just. There's more people who would like to speak. So when everyone's done speaking, I planned on going around and gathering consensus on some issues. Thank you. MRS. Alhadeff. So the last two times that

180this referendum came before the public, it passed. It passed on teacher salary, mental health and school safety. So I absolutely do not agree with changing this, taking out school safety and mental health. Part of it, I think you actually look to put the compensation in the raises, find it in the budget, but to keep the referendum the way it is, parents want to know with 100% certainty that school safety, mental health and giving teachers and staff money is going to be paid. That's what they're going to be voting on when they vote for this referendum. If this referendum fails, it will be tragic for this district. And so I think we have to go with what worked in the past and put our best foot forward and then find the money within the budget, find

181the money for raises in the budget. And and so I support Doctor Hepburn's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to give comments before we gather consensus on some of the proposals? DR. Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. So my my feedback remains the same, and I concur with Board Member Alhadeff. The language that we use in the past, I believe was very important in the budget in the referendum passing. If we take mental health out of it, and if we take safety out of it, it MAY create consequences to the referendum passing. That's what I fear. And sometimes we go for all of it in terms of a 100%. Teacher compensation and staff on the referendum. And we MAY lose some voters. I don't want that to happen, and I believe that's what

182board member Alhadeff is also saying. I would much rather than I hear DR. Zeman, I would much rather we find additional money, just like we were for for DR. Zeman, just like you were thinking of finding more money in the budget for safety and mental health, we could do the same for compensation, but I think if we remove it from the referendum, it's going to be a it's going to be problematic. We're going to lose some voters. We're going to lose some voters who vote for it because of safety. We're going to lose voters who vote for it because of mental health. So I am not in favor. I think we're going to put it at risk if we take it out. I don't mind looking at the allocation percentages. That's fine with me. I

183would actually sort of agree with board member Thompson. I would love to see a little bit more for mental health. And, you know, that would be my concern. And maybe if we want to look at slightly more for compensation, but certainly I am not in agagement t th removingg safafety an mentatalealth frfromhehe refendnd.. I I understand what our speakers are saying, but I personally believe this will put the referendum at risk, and I would hate for this not to pass as a result of excluding those areas, and then we lose it all. So I am going to proceed as to what I believe is the wise decision and support, having all three areas in the referendum. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you. Anyone else? Doctor Hepburn, can you share what you've captured, please? All right.

184This is what I captured so far. As far as information to bring back funding for safety and security. And that staff broken out by role that is funded in both general referendum and state allocation, funding for mental health staff, and also broken out by role funded in general referendum. State allocation list of positions for each pay ban being very detailed about what those positions are per pay ban, ensuring that we're highlighting those that won't be covered under the under the current recommendation, baseline funding for positions and safety and security. Mental health. This is without supplemented by referendum, also providing info of what positions are currently considered school based. That's what I have thus far. So there's addition. So if there were additional follow up requests or requests for additional information that Doctor Hepburn did not

185just call out, let me know. MISS Hixon. I. I believe we also asked for like a chart that you have on page nine showing the different percentages that we just had. So the 100% is easy, easy, but 80, ten. Ten, and 90 I think I heard 95 five. I don't. I wouldn't say five five though for me, I think it's more important that you look at it and see where you would need to spend that ten maybe you need more for, but ten would go to both safety and mental health. I don't I don't know that needs to be even number, but what that, you know, would look like. Okay. So the different scenarios in which. Everybody's mentioned here today. Yeah. MISS Thompson, did you have DR. Zeman? I'm just trying to make sure we're

186going to look at the 100% school educators. MR. Superintendent, that. Was one of. Your things. And I think at the end you said, what positions are school based? I think what I'm most curious about is what defines school based educators, because that's where the 100% was proposed to go to. Thank you. Anyone else? MISS Bulman along? And just to follow up, because I don't. Just to clarify, along with the school based employees that would be eligible for this, can you expand that to the rest of the definition? The support is that supports school based and support. Yeah. So we have an idea of what we're really looking at for that. Thank you. I forgot one chair with General Council's concurrence. There have been some comments made by speakers today about the general reaction of our

187labor groups, both collective bargaining agreement and meet and confer on the various proposals. I would like the superintendent to collect those general thoughts. To the extent that you find that that's legal. Is that captured? Yep. Thank you sir. I would also be interested in seeing what it would look like if we removed Esmeb altogether. Anyone else with a request for information? Got. MR. Sullivan. Just want to make sure that my instructions. MR. Sullivan is also captured on the potentially bringing back the language for this board to consider in light of the JUNE 8th deadline. Yeah, I have that captured. If I MAY add to that. So. I think it depends on is there consensus from the board to 100% for compensation? And the only reason why I'm asking is because the mechanics, if you're going

188to adjust the ballot language, I would suggest APRIL 7th to do that only because the county is voting on this on the 14th. After that vote. I don't know if there is there would be any mechanism for us to to stop that from going to the to the ballot. And also with all the different scenarios and more information, I think would end to meet with the union groups. I think that would be hard to do before next Tuesday. So I would suggest we bring it to a special on APRIL 21st. But I think the big the biggest question right now for the board. Realizing the calendar of events with that APRIL 14th, is there a consensus to potentially zero out safety and mental health? Because if there is, then I think we need to adjust

189the ballot language. Okay, we'll come back to that in a second, MISS Dupuy. Bruno. Okay. MR. Cervera, are you done? So I think the ballot language question is twofold, right. We heard from one of the earlier speakers about potential confusion, which the way it's worded currently as to what qualifies as, as, as quote unquote staff. Right. So I would like the opportunity, if possible, whether it has to be on the seventh or 14th, although it seems kind of soon considering the JUNE 8th deadline, just to make sure that that's tightened up. So there's no wiggle room for future boards or for this board at a future time to play with the language of, of, of school staff or staff or, or any of the current situations that we dealt with before, not necessarily excluding completely

190mental health or security from the language, but just the concerns that one of the earlier speakers raised about the staff definition in the current language. If I MAY add to that. So I appreciate and respect that there MAY be some confusion on the ballot language, but the ballot language was voted by the entirety of the board. And the reason why we did support staff is because we did not. The board's intent is to exclude administrators at the district level, but it's not to my belief to exclude the bus drivers, the facility workers. So that's why you had to have a catchall to ensure you're not restricting it so much that it excludes those individuals. Yeah. I don't know any other way of capturing it. So I guess why don't we start with this? Let's, let's

191build a house on this. Step one, if this were to hypothetically come back to the board, MR. Sullivan, is it your opinion that the only way this could come back, would it be if it came back on the seventh? There's a legal ease there. So that's why I'm looking up there. I don't have any knowledge of our ability to adjust the ballot language. Once the county votes on it. There could be. I just I'm not aware. Okay. Well can we get an answer to that? So we're not speculating because I just I guess I'm struggling with the JUNE 8th deadline or maybe it's the situation. Once you make a submission, that's it. You're bound by the submission. And if that's how it is, I mean, it is what it is. But if the if the

192actual deadline is JUNE 8th and we're still sitting in MARCH, well, granted, just for a couple hours, I just want clarification if it's even a possibility for us to withdraw and potentially resubmit. If the answer is no, then I think we're you know, we're answering the questions ourselves. If we don't have the ability to do that based on timing. MR. Bruno. Thank you, MADAM Chair. I think for clarification, the first thing that we would need some instruction from the BoardSource and directive is if the board collectively wants to have the ballot language come back, if the board decides to do that, then we would have to do that at a special meeting or a regular meeting, because a motion will have to be made to basically modify the resolution that was previously adopted. And there's

193a parliamentary procedure that we will have to do that. And then there is consideration in terms of where are they right now with regards to the language, because and correct me if I'm wrong, MR. Sullivan, but my understanding is there's a couple of steps. It goes to the county so that the county can then direct the supervisor of election to be able to move forward with with the ballot. So we don't know where it is. I believe that JUNE 8th deadline is that for the supervisor of election. That's for the supervisory election. So that's why the timeline gave room for the county to consider it prior to the JUNE 8th, because the county has to receive the resolution and then vote on it to direct the supervisor. So there's lots of ministerial steps that have

194to take place. And then if the board is inclined, we would have to move very, very quickly because ballots will have to be printed. I mean, there's just a lot of administrative steps that have to take place. Let me see if I can shortcut this, because what I'm hearing is it sounds like we really can't do much at a workshop, right? But as luck would have it, we happen to have a school board meeting in two minutes, right? Assuming we don't go over with this. Hypothetically speaking, if myself or one of my colleagues brings a motion at that special school board meeting that's going to take place at 12 to bring it back, are we physically able, I guess, with these county restrictions to do so? If the answer is no, then certainly I don't

195want to waste time, but I just want to know if that's a possibility. MR. Bruno. So this comes back to the dilemma question that the board has had with regards to being able to add things to the agenda. Definitely. We would have to ask MADAM Chair if she thinks it's a good cause, but there could be some indication from the board today if they wish to add that to the special meeting. If the board wants to do that, I think we can move forward with that. If the board does not want to do it and there's one or 2 or 3, not the majority, then of course, then we would have to ask, MADAM Chair, if there's good cause. And then this brings the other issue that you guys have had some discussion with in

196terms of following your policy and not following your policy as it relates to agenda items brought forward with the board. Can I I think there's an easier way to do this. So I, I captured two board members who would like to move the allocation of 100% to educator compensation compensation for in supplements, I heard DR. Zeman and MR. Cervera indicate that. Did I MISS MISS Rupert as well? Anyone else? So that is three board members who are interested in that. So six board members are not. With that in mind. Now, I heard at least one board member, MR. Cervera, advocating to bring back the ballot language, whether it's today or in a future special school board meeting. Are there other board members who would like to bring back that ballot language? MISS Rupert. I was

197hoping. And DR. Zeman. I have a question as. Hixon I have a question because the the ballot. Says what it says. If we were to decide at a at another meeting that we weren't going to use it towards mental health and safety, would that then make us non-compliant with the ballot language? MISS Debree or MR. Sullivan? I think she said you wanted me go first. Do you want to go first? If you could address that first and then I'll. If there's anything legal, I'll address it. So I think it would be complicated to to do so, but I guess it depends on how you you look at it because supplements would go to the majority of the workforce, which would include safety and mental health. But I think I think that's a stretch. I think

198since we've been doing it since 2018, we've been using very similar language of the three buckets and we've been funding positions. So I, I think voters could be confused by that. Okay. Would be my. So if and I'm sorry I stepped out. So if we are voting to. Are we voting to say if we wanted to change the language at the next meeting, that it would be in the queue in case or we're definitely changing the language? Because I don't know if we're ready to change the language. Like I get what you're saying, have it ready so that if we make a decision later on, we have it ready to go. We don't have to have another meeting. But so I don't mind doing that. But I don't know that I'm ready to say I

199want to change the ballot at this point. I think we need another workshop to get all the information. MADAM Chair, I have a clarifying comment. Okay, so the first question that was asked is regarding consensus on whether or not we wanted to include mental health and safety in the referendum, as well as compensation. We had a63 on that issue. And then so I think if we are saying if we have consensus that we want to include those, then the second concern would be a mute point. That was kind of my. Because then the, the, the language on the ballot is about having mental health, safety and compensation. And we just gained consensus that we want to move forward with that. So I don't think there would be any discussion on changing the ballot. I mean,

200I'm unless I'm confused. I think I might be hearing MISS Hixon kind of changing her mind, or she would like more information before she can commit. Yeah, I, I said 9010 anyway, so I still had a piece of mental health and, and safety in it. I guess my thought was in whatever comes to us, if it, if I don't want to necessarily shut the door to 100% because i don't know that I'm ready to do that. But if you if I had to vote today, I would vote for 9010. Okay. So, MADAM Chair, I just have another clarifying question. So if board member Hixon is unsure and she doesn't want to close the door, as she mentioned on 100%, wouldn't we still have five four majority? That's correct. Yeah. Okay. So I think even the

201concern about the changing of the ballot is still a moot point. Regardless of whether board member Hixon stands. MR. Cervera. If I can share very briefly, I think it's very telling. Just to remind my colleagues, DR. Zeman proposed the language that is currently been submitted to the county. DR. Zeman just raised his hand to bring it up. So the board member who proposed this and we accepted is now asking for it to be potentially relooked at at our next school board meeting, which should have been five minutes ago. I thought that was an interesting point. Just like to bring that up. If I'm remembering correctly. I think there were multiple board members who contributed to that ballot language, but DR. Zeman. Thank you so much, chair. I also don't feel like we settled on the

202allocation. If there are five. We did not. Okay. So I think if I'm hearing you correctly. Three people found 100% somewhat persuasive enough. And again, all I asked for is it to come back as a staffed item. I didn't say this is the be all end all. I wanted that to go through without objection, because I think we would benefit from knowing the details of what that does. As a board member, I don't have, you know, capability to do the same kind of work that the superintendent gets to do with all of his staff. So that's what I was proposing. I think that there was a lot of discussion today about the allocation. But if nobody if we don't have a majority wanting to fund school safety and mental health out of general fund, does

203that imply then that the language we have on the ballot is appropriate? That is my understanding, yes. So if the board then in with further information decides to do that option, they would have to both propose the 100% and propose a change in the ballot language. Is that correct? Correct. Terrific. Thank you. MISS Bulman. With Doctor Hepburn, what his understanding was of the follow up items that we would like to ultimately decide on what our percentage are, that we want to give to the various. Divisions. And and so we have we're not making that decision today, and we're waiting until we get that back. I, you know, personally, for me, I think that some of my colleagues have made some really compelling arguments about keeping the other two items on the referendum because they have

204passed the last two times. And I think that you have to look at the entire county and who's voting and different. There's going to be different things that are important to different people, and I don't think we can underestimate either safety and security or mental health. It's just going to be. So removing that from the ballot language could potentially be detrimental to passing the referendum in general. And I so DR. Holness made an excellent point with that. I think that that's and MISS Alhadeff as well. I think that that's very important for us to take under consideration. We can decide how we want to split it up, but I am not in a position where I want to jeopardize our ability to pass the referendum. And so I think we should leave the ballot language

205the way it is. Okay. So unless I anyone else wants to speak up, I am hearing a consensus, a majority of board members saying that they are not interested in eliminating mental health and safety and security from the referendum, and therefore I'm hearing a majority of the board not wanting to revisit the ballot language. Am I incorrect in that? Okay, Doctor Hepburn, do you need to? Well, I guess I also heard then that the board is asking for additional information before we can make a decision on whether it's 8010, 10 or 9010 or what Doctor Hepburn proposed. Is that correct? Okay. When MR. Sullivan. Yeah. Just wanted to add, is the board in agreement to bring this on thehe spepealal f for a Ail st that will all uss to come up with th adddditional

206infoatation, the different scenarios, and to meet with the union leaders. What is what else is on the agenda for the 21st? It's a special. So right now it's just pending agreements to get us through the year as needed, but there's nothing scheduled. So we would be voting on the allocation in a special on the 21st. So like we can anticipate then people like making motions and it'll be sussed out in that special school board meeting. So everyone has that understanding. Yeah. And is there any any objection to doing it that way? MISS Hixon. Is there's no possible way to put it on a workshop. I believe the workshop agenda is for the next. The the workshops are are pretty extensive, and I think it's important for the board to be able to take motions and

207and votes. Just hearing that discussion today, I think it's better to do it in that way, in that mechanism. I agree. Sure. I have no objection. If can invert the workshop and the school board meeting. So we can encourage people to come to an afternoon session when they can have more flexibility to be here. Is that possible? Yeah, we could advertise the workshop. Do we have workshop that day, MR. Hill? Yeah, yeah. So we'll. So right now we have the special. And after the workshop. But we can revert. I believe DR. Zeman suggestion was to do the special after the workshop with. Just give me one second to confirm, please. Yes. So right now we have the special and then we have the the workshop. So we would have to flip it, put the workshop

208at one I'm sorry, at nine and the special at one. Thank you. And you have the time to do that, correct? Yes. Okay. MADAM Chair, I. Just have DR. Holness. Okay. There's no objection. I just have an additional comment if that's okay. Okay. So I know that we have three constants here that we're looking at with variables in terms of its percentage allocation. We have mental health safety and, and compensation. And I know that different board members provided different suggestions on specific percentage numbers. But MADAM Chair, are we able to and and this is just a suggestion, get consensus on the three different areas as to who wants to see an increase or decrease in the percentage in those areas. For example, I and let the superintendent sort of bring back what that looks like.

209For example, I would love to see an increase in mental health in the percentage allocation as well as compensation. And I believe each of us has a different idea of what it should look like. But I think if the superintendent gets a generalized sort of direction to increase this area or decrease this area in terms of the allocation, maybe that would satisfy a majority of us. Instead of coming back with multiple scenarios, he could come back with, with, with a more, you know, giving him more latitude to decide how he will proceed with just the general direction of increase or decrease in any of the three constants. Does anyone want to weigh in on that? Thank you. Chair, I think we have some scenarios laid out that are going to paint that number, and anyone

210can interpolate within those options that the superintendent is already going to bring back to us growth. And they all it's a spreadsheet. And so if you want it to be 10% and it's 5%, you're just going to double the number. So I think we'll have all that information by the 21st, and we'll be able to move through it pretty quickly already. Just I just wanted to say under advisement of the General Council, I do want to announce that the special school board meeting is delayed. So just wanted for the public sake. Thank you. I'll always point out chairs. I think we're going to get a lot of data for the 21st already. Doing directional things would be duplicative of kind of the three options that the superintendent is going to bring back to us on

211the 21st as well. MRS. Alhadeff. Yes, thank you. So a couple things. One is we as a board unanimously, nine zero, unless I'm wrong, Doctor Hepburn already approved the language for the referendum at one of the school board meetings. Yes. Correct. Correct for the ballot. Yes. For the ballot. So this discussion today, I don't even know why it's happening, because on page ten, it's questions we're supposed to be giving the superintendent direction as far as this percentage allocation for each of the categories. All right. So on that point, my suggestion would be to put mental health at 10%, safety at 15% and comp at 75%. And my thought process is that I look at mental health as part of school safety, and I want to keep that buckets at 25%. Does anyone want to weigh

212in on MRS. Alhadeff proposal? MADAM Chair, I second that DR. Holness. This is a workshop. Workshop, I agree. Does anyone else want to weigh in? Okay, so I, I also support that MRS. Alhadeff. DR. Zeman. Yeah, I really like going a little bit slower and getting the staff work that we've already asked for and come back and make a final decision on, on, on how the allocation is done, consistent with the ballot language. Okay, so I'm hearing three of us support MRS. Alhadi's proposal, not a majority. MR. Bruno just asked me if we have another workshop between now and the 21st. We do on APRIL 14th. Yeah. Any other? Information or thoughts, Mr. Sullivan? I'm sorry to do this. So I believe we have a different scenarios between the percentage breakout. But to maximize staff's

213time, I just want to be clear. Are we still it sounds like since the ballot language is stained and there's no need to do the 100% cost out. That's not true. The 100% includes mental health and safety and security positions, so it's consistent with the ballot language. That I don't believe. That was the guidance that we got from General Council or staff. So I just maybe we need to revisit that. General Council, is it your understanding that if we do the 100% allocation to employee compensation, that it would be conflicting with the ballot language, and then we would have to need to revisit that. It it really depends on whether or not there will be any mental health or school safety employees in that 100%, because your ballot language is very clear. It doesn't specifically

214say programs or anything like that. It just says to enhance school safety and mental health services. I guess I would also say DR. Zeman, the majority of the board said that they are not interested in the 100% allocation. So. Okay, so we have this structural problem that we keep running into, which is board members. Ought not to be expected to bring entire staffing packages to these meetings. And so when ideas come up that board members have that have not been run through the cfo, run through safety and security, run through mental health, run through academics. I don't believe they're fully vetted. And so all I was asking is that the option that I favor and several of my at least two more of my school board members support get staffed so that we understand what's

215really there. I don't know how much money there is per teacher or per educator. I don't know kind of how the total headcount of educators would count in school based educators. I have ideas and definitions of those, but I'm not capable of bringing the same level of detail that the superintendent staff has, although that's my authority to make that decision. So I keep saying in multiple items that I have this idea, and I'd like to bring it back to the board if it has no objection. All we're doing is educating ourselves about something, and I don't think that school board members have the resources to do the kind of work that the staff does. So I'm just a little confused about the authorities of a school board member. If we can't propose to get answers

216to questions that are brought back at subsequent meetings. Okay, under advisement of the General Counsel, we do need to start our special school board meeting. So I will recess this workshop and we will start the special school board meeting. And then we will come back to the workshop. So this workshop is recessed and we will go into the special school board meeting. We'll need five minutes for