Gilbert Public Schools Board Meeting 06/06/2023

001thank you everybody and thank you for your patience as we will adjourn our executive session and now resume with our work study and brief board business meeting Tuesday June 6 2023 it's 609 pm I will call to order our work study and begin with presentation and discussion topics 3.01 FY 2024 proposed budget presentation Dr McCourt thank you madam president governing board members tonight we have the fiscal year 2024 proposed budget given to us by our associate soup Bonnie Betts I think you've gotten a little taste of this over the past three months but here it is and later on in the um action items will have an action item for advertisement for the public hearing related to the proposed budget so good evening governing board members president wood Dr McCord so very happy to be

002sharing with you the proposed budget on June 6th that has already been approved by the state legislature here in Arizona so it's very exciting we have some true um true solid information for you this evening um I don't want to be remiss I really wanted to thank the efforts of Jackie Matton and the Director of Finance as well as Ashley Miranda our budget manager this will be her final budget she is leaving to go to Levine at the end of the month so we're very sorry to see her go but she's we we've actually made her stay until this budget was adopted didn't have a choice did you twist her arm Ashley so um to begin I think okay now my button is not working now why is that yeah I will start all over

003again okay there we go thank you very much oh all right here we go standards not to laugh at me thank you I was be I was prepared honestly so today's presentation there'll just be some general uh introductory comments that we've always shared at this time of year regarding our proposed budget getting into the details of our proposed budget the two main budgets of course that we're proposing is the maintenance and operations budget as well as the unrestricted capital budget the other budgets that we are going to share some other budgets with you they are what we would call projected because there's still some information we don't know what is the end of your spend and in many cases we don't know what the allocation is for sure going into next year so those will

004be projected other fund budgets we want to share with you our average teacher salary this average teacher salary is reflective of the actions that you've already taken this spring some proposed budget risks and opportunities as you know we're funded on current year student counts now so the budget changes every month as we go through each fiscal year and then finally the 2024 estimated tax rate we have not received the final assessed value from the county we generally set the tax rate mid-july at that point in time in the first meeting in July we'll be presenting you the final tax rate we believe that the tax rate we're sharing with you is conservative in other words it's probably going to be lower than what we're what we're estimating so to begin okay I'm still struggling with

005why is that I don't know why I'm having trouble cycling through do you know why yep it's gonna disconnect me again um she's got one we'll use hers yeah we'll use hers she has all the money I'm Frugal that's right I'm Frugal thank you I'll let you set up in the meantime I'll go as far as I can go okay okay introduction introductory comments so this is the timeline that we have shared with you every budget presentation note that we are in June where we are proposing and adapting the fiscal year 2024 budget um and very happy note that the legislative session is has not ended yet the legislative legislative session has not ended however the governor has signed the 2024 budget so the proposed budget alignment to the Strategic operating plan as well as

006the override commitments the budget alignment to the Strategic plan we've shared this with you over and over again as well knowing that these are the five main goals of our strategic operating plan and this proposed budget aligns fully with all of those priorities specifically we wanted to share the Strategic priority of employee Excellence you all have approved pay increases for all employees to date which is very consistent with these strategic priorities where all functions of Gilbert Public Schools contribute to the achievement of inspiring excellence in every learner all employees regardless of their role contribute to the achievement of this vision the Strategic operating plan employee goal is to retain and attract high quality employees in all positions and as we are making recommendations to compensation increases in general we try to make them comparable across

007all employee groups so I just have one question is there any chance we could get some more money from in the current year uh there there is not anything expected at this point except for if we do receive more students than we expected from the legislature nothing additional from the legislature correct the 2024 proposed budget uh consistently meets the ebino override commitments to date so maintain salary competitiveness maintain Safety and Security personnel and also maintains the two million dollar allocation for class size reduction so now we're going to go through some of the details of the data that has gone into our proposed budget as I shared the reference point is always the current year and so these some of these numbers have changed a bit since we presented the preliminary budget to you because

008our student accounts have changed every month since we presented the preliminary budget to you so the 2019 to the 2024 projection we really wanted to share back to 2019 as 2019 represents the year the the final normal year we received before we um were hit with the pandemic and also to note that between 2019 and 2020 we actually increased for the first time in many years our ADM and then of course in 2021 due to the pandemic our student counts went down but we have recovered much of that back in 2022 however we have still been conservative in our projections and the 2024 proposed budget still includes projected 400 student loss so and that's where that's reflected is in that in-person student count note and you'll see this later but note the changes that have

009occurred between revised number two in our Arizona online versus our proposed so there's going to be slight changes there as well so when you see this following graph this is all of the student accounts to include aoi you can see that our projection is not quite 400 less than what is reflected in 2023 due to that aoi contribution and aoi again for all of you is that Arizona online designation okay any questions before I move any further okay so the budget parameters these are the budget parameters that are reflective of the state's budget so this is not dependent upon Gilbert Public Schools data so um except for the average daily membership projection which is 400 student decline 300K 8 and 10912. again the aoi full-time and part-time is set equal to the most recent data

010we have in the current year the total add-on weighted student count is also reflected of our awaited student counts for other disability categories English language Learners Etc and then and it's based upon the revised budget number two we don't have any other information and so we always default to the data that was in existence in the current year so this is the approved State K-12 education budget the 2023 base level amount which is the base number that's put into the calculation for our total funding note that it has increased by 2.92 percent we've already shared with you that the 0.92 is reflective of the elimination of the results-based funding allocation uh and that's now in our base level amount across the state so additional State K-12 budget parameters so the free and reduced weight There

011Was An approved weight increase year over year reflective here reflected here and then classroom site fund we had shared this earlier the fifty dollars per student increase in classroom site fund and then the district additional assistance that represents a 9.4 percent increase to the district additional assistance the largest that has been seen since 2000 and eight or nine for a long time and then the other notable thing is to look at that additional one-time funding so this was provided by the legislature eight almost eight point eight million dollars that is one time in nature we have um proposed a budget that places that 8.8 million dollars into unrestricted Capital reflective of that one-time monies sorry could you just tell me what the uh K-8 District additional assistance was in 2023 it's blocked out on my

012thing and I just would like to know for personal there it is okay you bet 50233 okay thank you and do we think that that's ongoing the 9.4 percent increase yes yes now whether it increases again is not known but we expect that we will receive that that will be the full amount that will be the full amount now yes thank you on the additional one-time funding was there a statute that made us so that we had to put it in the was there parameters on where that money could go no parameters we were absolutely able to either put it into maintenance and operations as a one-time funding level or unrestricted Capital so the recommendation from the leadership team to you was to put it into unrestrict the capital at least at this point in

013time okay and that's an additional one-time funding so we don't think that will happen again next year is it possible it's hard it's hard to know first of all it is a good question um so the state has been building up their fund balance year over year um in fact that was one of the reasons why they allocated out the additional one-time money because they didn't want to necessarily build their Reserve funds any higher than they are now but it's hard to know what will happen in the future so the proposed budget mno this is the maintenance operations budget capacity now so these are this is all of the data that we've already shared with you put on one grid the notable couple of notable items here the teacher experience index that is a parameter

014that is applicable to Gilbert Public Schools you can see that over time we are that that amount is decreasing the calculation is a Statewide calculation so we are being compared to all the other school districts in the state of Arizona and then the average teacher experience would would represent 1.0 so in Gilbert we're slightly higher than the state average reflecting that 1.0126 amount in addition the other important item to share here is the transportation Revenue control limit as is true every year whenever the base amount is increased by the lesser of inflation or two percent it's also applicable to the transportation support level the TSL so because of that increase the value of our transportation support level which is fully funded by the school Finance act formula that TSL becomes closer and closer to the

015transportation Revenue control limit which means there's less money that we are living against the local taxpayer so this occurrence absolutely directly positively impacts the tax rate of our taxpayer here in Gilbert Public Schools and you can note that the it resulted in over a million dollars in savings that we will not have to Levy this year that we levied in Prior years so comparison of mno budget capacity with budget balance carry forward the last few years we have shared with you these grids without considering the budget balance carry forward in this particular grid we are including the budget balance carry forward because that's going to match the figure for maintenance and operations on the budget forms that are included on the agenda item however note that due to the budget balance carry forward it actually

016is reflecting almost a 16 million dollar reduction in but in budget year over year we wanted to remove the impact of the budget balance carry forward to to show the true increase in ongoing funds to ongoing funds year over year and so we are sharing the next grid that excludes the budget balance carry forward to remove that impact and you can see that the new money year over year is just under 5.5 million dollars and that's important so now that we know what our what our budget capacity is for um for Gilbert Public Schools we are also going to share what our proposed mno spend changes are and you have all seen this and also reflected here is the pay increases that you have already approved so first the premium holiday credit crediting back to

017maintenance operations as well as the decrease of personnel due to that 400 student reduction so that totals a savings of about 3.1 million dollars these are non-discretionary budget budgetary increases so we have limited or very little control over these cost increases and so we try to estimate them as best as possible so the medical insurance premium increase of two percent which again you all have already approved it does if you remember include that that out-of-state multi-plan Network cost which is an improvement in our offerings in addition we do not know what the inflationary figure is going to be for January of 2024 we are anticipating that it will be higher than the dollar per hour that was already approved and so we're holding back about a half a million dollars for that possibility General inflationary

018increases we've shared this over and over with you primarily in the fuel cost going from two dollars and 20 cents a gallon up to over four dollars and eighty cents a gallon and at one point over five dollars a gallon for diesel fuel along with other Supply increases custodial supplies all those things have all seen inflationary increases and then special education increases always have budgeted some increase in special education costs and then finally The increased Arizona State Retirement due to the environment as well so all those are accounted for and that's about 3.56 million did you have a question can you just explain the special education increases what would that entail so generally speaking um we we are not necessarily seeing more special education students but generally more complex and so as the complex more

019students with disabilities with more complex disabilities which do impact the cost associated with meeting their individual education plan needs so it's primarily in those types of changes so the discretionary budgetary increases that have been recommended to you some of the details in that first line about a 300 000 increase in costs set aside for hard to hires and years of experience we have struggled feeling hard to hire positions over the last two years given the pandemic and so many of our high Quality Personnel retiring and so we we held back a two million dollar budget to to be able to have the flexibility to attract some of these hard-to-hire employees and then addition of 12 art teachers which you all have already approved and then finally a 15 per student Supply increase which does include

020the additional art allocation so just to note that this is in addition to that one and a half million dollars of inflationary increases any questions on any of that so I know we talked about this before just remind me what kinds of supplies does this cover then if it's it's beyond just the art allocation it's yeah the art allocation is about two dollars and fifty cents of that fifteen dollars instructional supplies have all increased um can you give me custodial supplies Warehouse paper yeah all of those items oh okay okay per student it's not necessarily student supplies correct it's the additional allocation that's the discretion allocation out to each of our schools okay thank you it would also it would also offset the cost of overtime our schools bear the cost of having any overtime

021attributed to any of their personnel and of course with the increases in salary their overtime costs are increasing as well to trying to provide additional resources for all of our schools to offset some of those cost increases yeah cool question so on any of these discretionary budgetary increases do we get any reimbursement from the state going even back to special ed if we have more complex students coming into our district disparity type of grant money or funding from the state that they reimburse us for those class so in terms of Supply the answer is no because we have the new budget so it's included in the new budget and that inflationary increase to the base level amount that 2.92 percent however if we have more complex students with with a disability that's a higher need

022disability it is possible that in that weighted student count when I shared with you that we're keeping the weighted student count the same because we don't know the students at this point in time with those special education needs so it is possible that some of those weighted students would come back with additional funding so that is possibility yeah and just when you mentioned about 250 for art supplies that's per student per year per student per year yes I just I just want everyone to hear that two dollars and fifty cents for all those art supply per student per year yes well that's the increase right that's the increase associated with the extra day right okay that's true that's right it's not that's not the only okay all right allocation yeah okay yeah that's the increase

023and these are the approved pay increases so the hourly staff increased wages by a dollar per hour just a reminder that represents somewhere between three percent and seven percent of a pay increase depending upon the hourly wage of each individual hourly worker and then exempt staff it was awarded a three percent uh ongoing pay increase for all exempt staff from teachers all the way up to administrators and other exempt support personnel I have one question on this so the five hundred thousand dollars that may be in addition um will this also deal with uh we have to increase the minimum wage those those who are making minimum wage that's the requirement will this also help to increase others who are hourly workers who are maybe supervisors or I just don't want us to have that

024compaction that we had before and yes the half a million dollars is intended to do that it's just a guess but Our intention is that we will not allow that compaction to occur and so if let's just say the minimum wage requires us to go up another 15 cents an hour we would do that across the entire base of our hourly workers and that just the minimum wage earners all right thank you any other questions on that okay great so this is our total budgetary increase need so available budget this was from the mno budget capacity that was shown to you on Slide 19. um the other thing which I failed to mention to you and I'm going to go back to slide 19. so note on this grid that there is a district additional

025assistance to mno reclass of revenues of 1.2 million dollars so this is important if you remember a year ago the governing board approved the movement of about 20 million dollars that was out of mno into unrestricted Capital to hold it in reserve plus unrestricted capital is able to earn interest on those monies so the intent is to draw down that 20 million dollars with that 1.2 million but according to state law we are not allowed to transfer budget balance carry forward from unrestricted Capital back into mno so we have to re-class new District additional assistance revenues to mno in order to achieve that it's a little of an odd thing so generally just think of it as a transfer but it looks a little bit funny because it looks like we're reallocating unrestricted Capital to

026mno when we're actually using up the fund balance that we had in mno to meet our ongoing mno needs over time so going back a question I don't know if you'll get to this but are we going to discuss tonight what you're comfortable spending down to is there a limit um and I'm I am going to share that with you there are some other details that are reflective of decisions as this body has made in the past just a reminder especially for for the two of you as new board members so that we can share some of the decisions we've made in the past regarding that so so the available budget to include that 1.2 million dollars is about 5.5 million dollars we had proposed budgetary savings associated with the premium holiday as well as

027the expected decrease in number of teacher FTE and again please please know that that's natural retirements we are not making any reductions in force here in Gilbert Public Schools we generally have seen over a hundred teachers retire annually so that's so that 20 is it 78 this year yeah 78 so um but but easily absorbed I guess is my point without impacting people and then the total non-discretionary increases are 3.56 million and then the total discretionary increases which includes those pay increases is a total of 13.59 so that leaves us with a budgetary deficit of uh about 8.6 million dollars so how are we planning to close that gap on the budget going into 2024. so as you know our hourly workers are paid for many of them are paid out of nutrition services funds

028and out of Community Schools funds and jted as well as out of um title funds so all of those funding sources will bear their own pay increases that contributes about 760 thousand dollars to this budget deficit classroom site fund contribution primarily due to the change in legislation we are able to move five million dollars of mno expense out of mno into classroom site fund to achieve this budget also a reminder that the classroom site fund dollar amount per student went from uh 708 dollars per student and increased by fifty dollars per student up to 758 so we're utilizing that money to help offset the pay increases and then finally the Medicaid fund contribution we did match up the Medicaid fund contribution ongoing revenues to ongoing expense so we are estimating that our ongoing revenues would

029be about two million dollars giving us ongoing money to meet most of this ongoing increase in expense also over on the one-time money chart so remember that the we already showed the 1.2 million dollars of a transfer from District additional assistance that's already included but in addition to that we will need another eight hundred thousand dollars to balance the budget to giving us that 8.6 million dollars so we are presenting to you a proposed budget that's fully balanced any questions on that so arguably you can make a case that the 1.2 plus the 800 000 is the one-time money so we are utilizing two million dollars so knowing that we held in reserved that 20 million dollars we would be able to sustain this if everything stayed the same for the next 10 years all

030right to move on so I wanted to share this too because there are many possibilities and we've already achieved many of them to date so when we presented the preliminary budget to you we estimated that our one-time need was 4.5 million dollars due to the fact that the legislature ended in such a positive way we have now reduced that 4.5 million dollar draw down down to only about two million dollars so a very positive result okay you guys are following along really well thank you very much okay um so this is the proposed understated capital budget capacity so the district additional assistance you can see going across the 2023 revised number two showed a 17.4 million dollar allocation with the nine point nine point four percent increase to the district additional assistance we are estimating

03117.72 million dollars in allocation that does already consider the reduction of the 1.2 million dollars wanted to make sure that that was clear to all of you so the 17.72 is is real um the one-time state aid supplement as I shared earlier we are recommending that at least for now we put that into unrestricted Capital one-time money going into a one-time need funding source and then the budget balance carry forward of about 26 million dollars reflective of that 20 million dollar transfer out of mno that we made over a year ago now um and then the interest earned I wanted to point out that so our intent was to move the money out of mno into unrestricted Capital to earn greater interest so you can see that we have we have already achieved over to

032um 200 and 80 000 in interest earnings to date so we expect that we will easily achieve that 350 000 in the New Year Of Interest earnings which will increase our budget capacity next year by that three hundred fifty thousand dollars we've only achieved about twenty thousand dollars in the past in the capital in interest earnings so a pretty significant uh increase so the total budget limit for unrestricted Capital with a budget balance carrying forward is 52.8 million dollars again as we did with maintenance and operations though we wanted to strip out the impact of the budget balance carry forward and just share the the new money in the current year in comparison to the money we we've received in the past so without the budget balance carry forward we still included the one-time state

033aid supplement still the interest earned and you can see that the budget limit for unrestricted Capital without the budget balance carry forward so this would be what we would consider normal of about 26.8 million dollars so generally about 18 million dollars of allocation we have collected or achieved Savings in the past of roughly another eight million dollars that's normal and so that leaves us with that 26.8 million dollars of available budget capacity to spend in during fiscal 2024. so that was one question I had about that that one-time state aid supplement tell me what to do so that's one question I had when you first mentioned the one-time state aid supplement the 8.7 million million dollars was if we could move that into unrestricted capital and start collecting interest on it um so that's that's

034that's great um does this interest that we're earning can that go against the eight hundred thousand dollars not the 1.2 but the 800 000 from a few slides ago um to help balance the budget it actually can so we would have to in a future budget revision we would have to increase that District additional assistance allocation to mno by that 800 000 so instead of reallocating 1.2 million we would be reallocating 2 million we did not choose to do that in the proposed budget because we're so early we don't even know really how many students we're going to have and we actually have been more successful with the number of students so we could actually easily close that eight hundred thousand dollar Gap without having to do what you just described so that that's interesting

035that so if we go you don't have to go back to the slide but we looked at our numbers our student numbers thirty two thirty two thousand thirty thousand and then we're anticipating I think just over thirty one thousand for twenty twenty four and we're actually financially doing better as a district with the with with the lower number the whatever the number was this year is that did I hear that right because the yes because our um if I exclude the 1.2 million dollars where we made that decision to move District additional assistance back into mnl if I exclude that we gained about four million dollars more in the current year than we had last year totally due to the base level amount increase of that 2.92 percent so we've more than compensated for the

036loss of our projected 400 students so we obviously don't want to see big decreases in the number of students correct but theoretically if we did have additional decrease would that just put us in a better financial position or at some point there's got to be there's got to be a Tipping Point where because of the the student loss we start losing funds that would overtake uh you know the I don't say a benefit of you know the fund increase from losing students but am I making sense right so based upon this budget that we're proposing if we lost more than 400 students our budget capacity would go down and we would be revising down before December 15th in we'd be obligated to do that so we're doing we're making our best estimate I mean I've

037been here for five years and the 400 student loss has been a pretty good number where we've we've been conservative estimating it we've actually done better than that so in my mind it's always better to do better and hope that our that our budget would actually increase and that decrease but you're right it's one of the risks of this proposed budget that we actually lose more students another reason though why we have been very conservative on our spend and holding money in reserves because with current year funding we do not know what our student counts are going to be for sure can I just clarify so we are not benefiting by losing students right if if we kept those students we would because the state increased the base level per student if we kept those

038students we would have even more budget capacity or if we gained is that what you were I'm saying are we saying the same thing then I think so okay so there's no great benefit to us in losing students right we're just we aren't seeing a decrease in funding because the state legislature and Governor had given us a positive increase which we're grateful for for the base level okay well and I I would think um I think for me the additional funds first in the pay 20 by 2020 and then restoring District additional assistance it's really um it's given us some Breathing Room instead of having to be so careful I mean we're careful careful but um I just remember those years when we did have to make Cuts if we lost students that that we

039had to make some cuts and they were very difficult um so I'm really appreciative that we have that state aid but I also appreciate our finance team for all their hard work to make sure it's used very wisely and carefully well and as a leadership team we have been pretty careful in our recommendations to you um to make sure that we are making a recommendation that's conservative with the hope that we would do better than that but there's a still a lot of a lot of assumptions in here and it's so we won't know really until we see the whites of the eyes of those students coming on July 24th July 25th something like that somewhere around there they're going to show up they're going to show up yeah and if we if we don't

040if we lose more than 400 students I would guarantee you that coming back next year at this time our projection would be at a higher loss than where we are yeah that's correct that's correct so right now the 400 student projection seems to be working for us but if we see a loss of 500 or 600 then we will adjust those projections moving forward okay I had a couple questions since money sorry that's okay on the 350 million that we're earning on interest 350 000 just to be clear if we could earn 350 million I'd be real I just see the m and so I'm saying 000. is that with leaving that 25 or so million in the account for an entire year is that where we're here yes okay so as we're going through

041I'm curious because if we're going to pay down some of that monies and we're going to get less interest earned what are the pros and cons of keeping a higher balance in our account to earn more interest or paying down in earning less interest so as we're going through if that if you can answer that I would have I would appreciate that so I think that the leadership team here at Gilbert as well as the governing board um has the desire generally and and we have a policy policy DB the diet desire generally that's stated in that policy is that we use the money that we have in any current year for the students that are here in that year so that's a given so with the occurrence of the pandemic we have been a

042little bit more careful and have have made some other decisions so as an example a year and a half ago we had a policy meeting in the governing board agreed to Target our maintenance and operations fund balance every year to about four percent so given the current Year's total budget four percent represents about 12 million dollars so if you look at our most recent monthly Financial you'll see that our m o budget capacity and actually here the budget balance carry forward for maintenance and operations is expected to be right around 12 million dollars so we are we are targeting that and being successful at targeting it right now um but I think there's so many unknowns that having a little bit of money available to us is a good thing right now but um we

043have an ability to make different decisions all along as we present our financials to you and and if new needs arise and we want to make a recommendation to you we will absolutely do that okay thank you I appreciate the the carefulness um yeah there is unknown so I was just curious as to if that was a district-wide kind of unspoken policy to leave that amount of money um it's actually not governing board policy even um but it's turned out that way just due to the situation with the pandemic but trying to make sure that you're aware of all the available funds um one thing in in neither the two of you were on the board at this point in time but going into the fiscal 2020-2021 school year we saw a significant decrease in

044our student count over 2500 students and there had been a commitment made by the governor at that time that he would hold us harmless up to 95 percent of the prior year funding that did not occur and so where we needed about 30 million dollars we only received 15 million dollars and this was prior to the eser monies coming down the pike so at that point in time that 20 million dollars we have in reserve we yeah I mean if you could see how quickly that could be drawn down one I think is um as a declining school district and and that's a negative term to say but it's it's fact and so I think we have to be uh a little conservative when it comes to that because there are so many unknowns and

045when you're hitting uh sometimes a wall and unexpected things happen just in a school district unexpected things happen sometimes maybe when it comes to what our funding sources will look like and so we've been down this road before in years past and so I think we've learned from some of the things over time and so I'm very happy with where we're at with that it's it's because I guarantee you at some point in time it's gonna it's gonna come home to roost so I've actually said too I think we always talk about the funding our priorities and if we have a lump of lump sum of money somewhere we're going to definitely draw down on that to make sure that the priorities that we talked about with the Strategic operating plan and making sure that

046our employees have competitive wages we're not going to just leave that there and say yeah sorry we have I can't our yearly budget and ongoing budget doesn't allow for that be you know we're because we're going to keep this aside no we're saying you know what we're drawing that down in the best way that we can but we're going to definitely fund the priorities that we have set out with with those funds until we have to make a different change I guess since yeah that's what I that's my thought too so yeah and that's what we talked about earning interest isn't a priority right correct earning money is not a priority right that's good but but yeah it was but yet having somebody sitting somewhere else when we could have it there earning interest that

047was a fiscally responsible way to to have and that that is a new experience under Mrs betz we didn't really do a lot of that prior to her arrival so I appreciate her um creative not creativity but innovation in you know using our friends wisely and helping us to have that little bit more well frankly it's just bothers me that we can't earn interest on maintenance and operation so I'm trying all the time to figure out a way to do that but that body along those same lines you did the same thing with our insurance trust that's right so we're actually making money um with the money there as opposed to what was it 8 000 or something a year so it's not just happening in the overall but in other places too but giving

048us an opportunity to give the premium holidays that you all approved this past spring as well so being responsible but giving it back as well when the opportunities arise so that's what we've been trying to do so when we do have the money that we you know in interest like that we are able to utilize it in a way to benefit the employees which is really nice so the other thing is um so to your question again to Rhonda remember on the last slide we were talking about maintenance operations you all actually made a decision when when you approved the pay increases to draw down fund balance by four and a half million dollars because it was most important to make sure that we were offering competitive salaries to all of our employees so I

049think that's a really good indicator of what you were talking about Mrs wood [Music] you bet so now as we've shared the budget capacity for industry Capital we need to share our plan spend so these are items that are pretty much regularly ongoing um so adopted curriculum readygen is a big player in the current year there has been a recommendation to prepay the readygen curriculum and then also we are planning I I believe to do a K-12 math adoption during 2024 again planning on utilizing our last learning loss set aside in sr3 to help fund that so that's six million dollars we expect to be spent again another indication of our priorities the school's request a zero-based budgeting process we did decrease that per School the soft cap of that by 50 but still we

050have sent those out I believe to date and are requesting that our schools make their priority decisions and that's about 2.7 million dollars being allocated out Chromebook and computer refresh at the last two years three years we've been uh two years the last two years we have used unrestricted capital for the Chromebook refresh that prior to that had been funded by the bond so as soon as we were fully funded in the district additional assistance we moved those ongoing costs into industry Capital other allocations athletic equipment in uniforms library books the reading allocation and then district-wide technology and operations these are the for technology in particular particular all of our software subscriptions to Visions which is our enterprise resource planning our payroll HR and finance software as well as our student accounting software Infinite Campus

051so those are the big hitters on that budget and the other thing I wanted to to remind you is that we had a really rough operations year for unexpected HVAC equipment going out this year and so this three and a half million dollars includes about a million and a half of anticipated those types of issues to occur again in the current year um next year but in the current year it was closer to 3 million so that gives you an idea of why it's important to hold monies into Reserve so that if something does go out we were able to respond quickly to take care of that so miss betz I do have one question on the school requests um you just mentioned that this is about 50 percent less than they've had in the

052last couple of years we had major needs there is that why it's we're now able to reduce it because they hadn't had this money for a long time so there were a lot of things that had not been addressed Are we more able to address those so they don't need as much I think it was more of a budgetary recommendation not knowing for sure knowing that our Broner last Bond dollars Etc okay so we're starting to to think ahead and plan for the worst and hope for the best okay okay I know that we were gonna they get the one time we didn't eight million we didn't we thought it would be or the increase to the district additional assistance right we didn't anticipate having any increase that's correct and actually our first recommendation to

053you was not to have to hold off on any allocation until we have more information at the beginning of the school year but because of that eight million dollars of new new one-time money we thought it was actually prudent of us to allocate out that at least some of the prior allocation to our schools so they can address their highest needs that doesn't mean that if a school comes forward and says I desperately need this we have a process within cabinet to address additional requests and we make those decisions almost on a weekly basis as individuals come forward requesting those is the reading Elementary line item is that the I don't remember the name of the curriculum but the the tier two support that we approved as a board a little while ago oh I

054know this is the AR this is the air they are okay The Accelerated Reader or other programs right so there's there are roughly half of our elementaries have engaged in the accelerated reading program and so the other half are using it for other reading materials uh yeah so that that curriculum where did that come from we already spent it we already it was part of this year's spend for that supplemental reading that we approved it's within the curriculum ongoing unrestricted Capital requests it's in there okay I'm excited that we are supporting those those AR programs because there was a time when we had to allow the ptos to do that so this shows that we are receiving monies and a better able to to fund our needs without relying on fundraising well the same thing

055with the athletic equipment and uniforms so largely um Mr McDowell has had to fund all those ongoing needs through rental monies through Civic funds so um we are arguably responsible for providing those materials and the kids kids love the AR program I know in my house my son's always excited to tell me what color he is um do we have an account of how many books or words or something like that that was read District wide and involved with the CR program not off the top of my head or that I know your pocket no but that's interesting because I know each school they probably have some sort of how they tout you know oh our students have read you know you know three and a half million words or whatever it is I was

056just wondering if there was somebody new what district wide what that I don't know your last no I'm just kidding no I don't know but we'll ask around to see if we can come up with a number yeah so I just wanted to note the total here um of monies being allocated out is 18.8 million dollars um which leaves in our minds about eight million dollars in what we would consider normal reserves over time but that 18.84 million does draw down our allocation because it was only 17.7 million again to your point trying to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our organization in an appropriate way can we just take a second and point out you guys notice the little yellow stickies that pop up we just wanted to we got a

057real kick out of that everybody laughed actually people jumped back so you guys didn't have the same reaction but we're thoroughly impressed Jackie did all those if you want to go back we can reenact it oh let me do that that would be awesome thank you Rhonda I mean it was particularly good to get Sean's attention Mr mcintosh's attention and he was real excited about that okay so other fund budgets we are sharing classroom site fund classroom site fund is a large contributor to our budget balancing this year but note that our allocation has gone up two million dollars year over year but it's almost 30 million dollars so the contribution from classroom site plan is increasing annually and then the interest earnings again because we have been sitting on about 20 million dollars we

058are able to earn interest and spend the interest in classroom site funds so Medicaid again shared with you the fact that we intend to use about two million dollars of Medicaid so moving maintenance and operations expense into the Medicaid fund they're thereby saving maintenance operations expense you can see our estimated revenue is two million dollars matching ongoing Revenue with ongoing expense a total of about 13.4 million dollars in that fund Community Education we have spent a fair amount of time over the last few years talking about our Enterprise funds where we've gone up and down and up and down and up and down they are in a positive situation right now with a five million dollar fund balance and are expecting to get back to their normal Revenue we are very conservative with the estimated

059revenue of 10.34 million dollars but keep in mind that the estimated Revenue in revised number two includes the workforce Grant as well as the stabilization grant for Community Schools which has a value of about five million dollars so we are close to that ongoing Revenue though we do expect them to beat the 10.3 million but we're being conservative again nutrition services note the beginning fund balance on the 2024 proposed drawing that down to about 4.4 million dollars largely due to all of the improvements nutrition services has been making to many of our serving lines mostly in our Junior highs and high schools along with a couple of boilers that have gone out some unexpected freezer issues at Desert Ridge High School all those have been replaced also required by the state department we're only allowed

060to keep three months of operating in our nutrition services fund so this is appropriate so we're watching this closely we are anticipating a significant reduction in Revenue this year as the pandemic and cares act funding wanes however we will know more July 1st when we receive the new USDA reimbursement amounts we don't know whether they're going to be the same or they're going go up a little bit we don't expect them to drop but we will report that to you out as soon as we know it as well and then the learning loss set aside as this was shared with you on our plans for our curriculum adoption for math we included just that budget on the federal funds here as well and then of course we have another 50 different funds out there we

061don't know what the final spend is going to be we don't necessarily know what the allocations are going to be and we don't know what our budget balance carry forward is so all those are estimated at this time okay any other questions all right back to the Esther 3 learning loss yes just the sr3 in general are are we about will this be the end of that this will be the end of it we have will be done with all user funds we have a few hundred thousand I think left in the Esser yeah regular sr3 um but we we plan on spending that okay thank you is there a deadline a date that we have to have this spent it needs to be spent by September 30th of 2024 so we have another year

062okay so as an example we had allocated about three million dollars to the to the curriculum adoption in math that leaves us about 750 000 that can be allocated to the fall and spring break intercessions as well as summer school for um summer of 2024 as well so planning ahead on all those expenses also okay anything else on that okay so average teacher salary this is now required on our budget form so it's on the front page and this is something you already know we took the average salary from last year and increased it by three percent to reflect that 68 094 and you can see the increase in average salary of the dollar amount of about 1918 per teacher resulting in a three percent salary increase note that the sixty six thousand one seventy

063six will not reflect the revised number two average teacher salaries because that included the fifteen hundred dollar one-time stipend but for purposes of this treatment we eliminated the fifteen hundred dollar one time because it's not ongoing so it hasn't it has a an odd effect on this calculation that's not real okay and then risks and opportunities we always share this again the conversation of remember that we're funded on current your student counts we don't we don't even know what our current year student counts is and we're well past the 100th day they're changing every month and we won't know the final until the Statewide recalculation which is cursed generally in early to mid July so we will be sharing those finals with you probably in August also um so um could have a greater loss

064of students than expected also we don't anticipate this but the budget balance carry forward in our funds could be less generally speaking at this point in time though those are pretty solid in fact it's probable that they will increase when we share with you the AFR in October we expect that the budget balance carry forward will slightly increase based upon our end of year efforts and then use of one-time monies District additional assistance even though it's only 1.2 million dollars that we realized and maybe as much as two million dollars any amount of the use of one-time money for an ongoing expense always presents somewhat of a risk however due to our very favorable fund balances we feel like this is a very good risk for us to to take on and then opportunities however

065this the opposite can occur so note that we could re we could lose only a hundred students or only 200 students as an example in the current year we projected a 400 student loss we only lost 260 students had an economic game to our budget capacity of over a million of nearly a million dollars during the school year a budget balance carry forward may increase probably will increase and then turnover savings so as as Dr McCord shared about 78 us teachers have opted to retire June 30. so depending upon the teachers that are hired to replace them we could realize additional turnover savings meaning that all those incremental cost increases that we're expecting would be less than we expected and so we would have some additional budget flexibility so the other thing I wanted to

066share the legislature did already approve that in fiscal 2024 the aggregate expenditure limit is already been waived so that means we will not have our standard Springtime deliberations over the potential 50 million dollar reduction in the current year so that's very good news on that front and then in 2023 I wanted to remind you of this again it's an example of opportunities that we have in us in our school system so when we adopted the budget in 2023 again to Mrs Wood's comment we wanted to make sure that we were putting as many as much money as possible into those areas that we are prioritizing and those areas have included pay increases so back a year ago we adopted a budget that included pay increases with an expectation that could draw down just under five

067million dollars of fund balance because of the Improvement in the student counts because of the Improvement in the budget balance carry forward because of other decisions that we've made along the way during fiscal 2023 we have closed that five million dollar Gap without having to draw down fund balance so we're making a conservative budget with probably arguably as many opportunities as risks associated with the budget so we feel like this is a good proposed budget and it represents an appropriate allocation of resources for Gilbert public schools for next year so finally what is our estimated tax rate based upon the information we have today we are estimating a decrease in our tax rate of about six cents again we will be updating you all once we set the tax rate in July we will update

068you in that first meeting at the end of July and that's all we have today no no are there any questions any other so this was this is the proposed budget and tonight what we'll vote on later in the meeting is the advertisement of this proposed budget summary and public hearing notice which we have to do by law which then we'll have we'll actually vote on this proposed budget June 20th after we've noticed it and done all these things and we'll have a budget hearing that night as well so I just wanted you guys to know we will see this again and can continue to discuss or have if we have thoughts or questions that that's a possibility as well so is there anything further I just like to think Bonnie and her yes thank

069you so much thank you Ashley one more thank you before you go appreciate it uh we're making her come on the 20th too by the way are you making her present you should no no we weren't gonna do that though it probably would be good practice for her thank you guys should we get to hear about the opportunity is that sure so she is the new Executive Director of Finance for Levine Elementary School District they're lucky to get you we're still kind of mad about it actually I know thank you all very great thank you very much that will take us to 3.02 review and discussion of governing board Pro statement for the 15 mno override budget continuation ballot question on November 7th 2023 election Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members we

070have a rough draft before you for a pro statement related to the budget override and just what's has agenda details on our onboard docs the very last sentence talked about an increase from 10 to 15 percent that's incorrect this is a continuation of a 15 so I just want to make sure you guys know that I think you've all had an opportunity to take a look at this Pro statement this the purpose of this is to give some feedback and let us know what if you like it if you want to add delete you can only have up to 200 words in this and so and what we'll do based on discussion tonight we'll bring it back to you on the 20th for approval okay okay I just wanted to start by saying that we

071are required by law to submit as a board a pro statement when we go out for an overhead so that that's kind of what uh yeah I kind of prompted this so this is with overwrite only for the override for them we're not allowed to for the bond yes and this is just something that will go to the community it's not any any ballot language yeah we'll go in the pamphlet that is sent out to the community yes yep thank you can we see that on the screen because I did read it but um that was yesterday clarify and Sheila's comment that's coming in the pamphlet with before the ballot it will not be in a pamphlet with the ballot is that correct correct yes and if I remember from the last one I might

072I might not have it will be in the it will be in there it's definitely published in the pamphlet but at the end it's published in the section okay yeah it also can it also can go out to the community prior if I remember correctly the last time we had a little pamphlet I think so that went out prior to the mailer right yeah that's but that's that it was pretty much this yeah Barney's mentioned okay if it comes up before so it's before yes okay please do so Sheila it's before right not not with no it is with or as a part of the pro statement but there is one that goes out before and that would that's not that's just if maybe I'm not remembering it correctly but it seemed like we had

073something that went out before so there there's a bit well it comes out before and um but it would be similar to this or no this would be in the pamphlet right um along with other community members who want to submit Pro or current statements and then the ballot language will be different right ballot will come by itself with just the ballot language but usually I think it depends sometimes about language can be shortened to say you know the the meaning of this is if you vote Yes it's this and if you don't know it's this there are some some explanations and stuff that's within the pamphlet that we're allowed to add but the pro statement that you all would be deliberating over is is definitely part of the pamphlet it's not part of the

074ballot it's part of the pamphlet it's an information pamphlet that goes out mid-august so that I think that's the question like when are those go out in this yeah right because I think sometimes with the melon ballot we also get a pamphlet in there like a small sheet or something I can't remember but I can't either I I appreciate you because I thought this was ballot language no it's it's definitely something that's in the pamphlet a little black and white I'm sorry but this is the raw measure this is the one for 2019. right um Gabby do you have the one that was that I sent to the board on Friday maybe that would be the one that if we can put that up the um we we put last year's um Pros I mean

0752019's Pro statement on the agenda because you all haven't deliberated over the new one and so um so um but it's very similar the new one is very similar to this one but um is it possible that we can put it up Gabby or should I I can probably put it up too if you want give her a second let's see okay so I spent today about an hour kind of going over this and kind of rewarding it um and I don't I I don't know what we can what we want to talk about tonight but I thought we could concise it in some areas take out a few words here and there condense a couple of sentences to when that comes up Gabby you having any luck finding it okay you're good [Music] well

076she's doing that just to clarify that the override continuation can be more generic where the bond has to be specific correct well I think they both have to have parameters right I think the Bond feels a little more right but it has to I mean you can't you have to put exactly what you're going to spend the money on for the bond correct um not by project but by high level categories whereas the override can be a little bit more General by by law am I right on that um it's it's true though we've been pretty specific yeah well I think it's better to be specific but you don't have any um laws that are whatever rules right right we just have to give an idea of what we plan on spending the override dollars

077well and the other thing is is the budget can fluctuate that's correct priorities and the budget can fluctuate but we also don't want to be so specific that we pigeonhole ourselves into projects that we have to fund if we something else comes up like campus security we don't want to get too specific like with that I think say campus security and that's yeah that's not I mean that but not like hiring 12 new security guards because then you end up pigeon holding we want to keep it Broad and that's correct at the same time well one of the things that we've said all along was that we we wanted to use the extra five percent for competitive salaries and that was worth about 10 million dollars but over the last three years we've put over

07830 million dollars in salary increases so um an indicator of how things change so how do you want to start DR mcard what's your thought well I think I think we I'll read this to you guys first and then and then we can go from there uh draft Pro statement uh discussion for tonight June 6 2023 Gilbert Public Schools governing board is asking the community to support the continuation of the 15 maintenance and operations budget override as the existing 15 budget override approaches is expiration we express our gratitude for your trust and ask for your continued support the existing 15 contributes about 35.8 million dollars to the GPS maintenance and operation budget each year and allows the district to maintain salary competitiveness in comparison to our East Valley Piers please know that GPS continues to

079prioritize these resources for the direct benefit of our students as affirmed each year by the Arizona auditor general GP I think if we could just add the auditor general report is that let me finish and then we'll go back to that okay okay sorry you're good the GPS continues to rank among the most efficient districts for dollars spent in the classroom and is graded amongst the districts with the lowest administrative expense the budget override continuation will directly benefit our students and families by retaining and attracting high quality teachers and employees by maintaining salary competitives and maintaining campus security Personnel inclusive of Mental Health Counselors and Social Work social workers and maintaining the allocation to class size reduction please preserve the excellent education our students receive and our community expects please vote Yes for the budget

080override continuation governing board Gilbert public schools number 41. so you go ahead and back to you Jill well or should we just start let's start with the first paragraph sure sure and then no I was going to say keep yours highlighted notice so I great no I appreciate that so in the first paragraph is there any uh discussion that we would like to to talk about any changes or or something that you would like to suggest I think we should move that second sentence just for continuity down to like I think we should take that out on mine I put it down at the end I put an entire paragraph at the beginning I'd like to at the beginning because right away we're expressing our support and appreciation for to our community for what they've

081already done for us okay I really liked it right there because that way they um okay we're giving that affirmation that hey you know I understand you voted for this in the past and we really appreciated it to change up some language because gratitude for your trust trust in what what are we asking them to give what's this page do you mind telling us exactly what you what you wanted to do that's what you can you just you know what I brought I brought extras I'm just saying I'm throwing this out I'm my way is not the right way just um I edit it just a little bit but I do understand what you're saying up there I um but maybe we could even reward it just a little bit to make it sound thank

082you we thank you for your past support and again ask for your trust in funding the excellent education provided by Gilbert public schools because that sentence leaves out what your trust in what and I know I'm being really picky I do used to edit papers at a college level so I know I'm being really picky about this so I don't mind leaving it up there I just think that we need to you know maybe reward it just a tad so could you again Express what you think that sentence should say so she moved it down I just moved it down for continuity purposes I combined the two and as I said Jill this is not what I'm I'm just giving my suggestions um I do understand why it's up there maybe we can just reword

083it just a task I think if we reword it just a tad also I um just looking at the flow just the on your page um one thing that I like about what Bonnie has done there is that we keep it at smaller amounts smaller paragraphs because I feel like all of a sudden this seems a lot to read and kind of overwhelming okay yes so I I would really suggest keeping it smaller and even maybe breaking up that paragraph that's a little longer in the middle but definitely keeping it so it's easily read and I did appreciate the way the consultant advised us that especially our older voters are going to read through the entire pamphlet I understand but even making an attractive videos let's leave it so um so there might be a

084different way to say that though in fewer words yes so Gilbert Public Schools So currently it says Gilbert Public Schools governing board is asking the community to support the continuation of the 15 percent um we could shorten it up a little by saying Gilbert Public Schools governing board requests the community's continued support I think that's one or two fewer I like it better or asks for the community's continued support I like is asking the community I think it's just more gentle I mean respectful maybe I don't want to be too you know I I actually thought this was pretty well written and was very happy with it but um It is Well written I it is and we can leave it the way it is there's a couple places where we have pleased three times

085that might need to come out okay so it I I really like that first sentence we're we're we're the board we're asking the community to support the continuation of the 15 maintenance and operations budget override I think that really States what we're doing and I think it's um I I kind of want it to be softer as more than requests or um I I just I think it's a little softer and I'd like it that way well then so let me ask you this is our goal to save words in certain places so we can add words in other places to make it exact exactly oh you're good no obviously exactly 200 words no I our goal is just to stay under 200 words okay just at or below that's it so how we get

086there is up to you guys the goal is to convince them to vote for this yes that that is yeah so maybe we could save a couple words here by saying is asking Gilbert Public Schools governing board is asking I let me I had this in my in my mind I have to I have to remember that um when they had the override and bond election in 2007. this is how much I did not know okay and I I have to understand that people are in that same place where I was and I was like why do we need this why do the school should have enough money and my son came to me says mom if this passes they'll put air conditioning in the buses and we need air conditioning and so I voted

087for it I look at it that we have to be aware that a lot of people that read this are not going to be well informed about what it is we're asking for and why we're asking for it and we have to be clear that it's our community that's why I like that part about we're asking the community to support the continuation that we've had this in the past and we're continuing it so but I do think there's some room in the second sentence if you want to clarify that a little bit more so let me let me just pass this by you Gilbert Public Schools governing board is asking for the Contin for the communities continued support of the 15 Main and let me let me let me tell you why I think that

088may be better is because it the way it's written here it almost seems like continuation is part of what we're asking for part of the part of the the 15 15 maintenance and operations budget override but if we say if we say is asking for the community's continued support I think it more um I think it will engage readers emotionally that they're that they've been doing this and they're going to keep doing this so if we say if we if we attach the continuation to the community to the support the communities continued support I think that reads a little more like but what this this is one thing is the ballot language what is the ballot language going to be is it going to be continuation of the 15 maintenance and operations budget and then

089they Mark yes for continuation or no for not continuing what what is the ballot language going to be that's that's where I think if it's saying if the about language is going to say continuation of the 15 maintenance and override budget then I want the same language that's going to be on the ballot in our letter the ballot language actually says budget override continuation yes or no do we have any control over that we do not okay [Music] but it does say budget override continuation that's what we've been told right it's in the resolution that you all approved last time so that's why when when we're talking about our 15 maintenance and operations budget override I want to put that continuation in there somewhere whether we change it to to support the 15 maintenance and

090operations budget override continuation we could do that because that's more like the ballot language or leave it this way but that's where I think that we want to it has to mirror the battle language well yeah so I mean it doesn't have to but it no it's smarter too maybe you could say is asking the community to support the 15 maintenance and override budget over to support the 15 maintenance and operations budget override continuation yes I think let's change it that way because that's what the ballot language is so this is this is sentence one right yes okay oh yeah we're just getting started no no I just want to make sure that tomorrow I'm celebrating my 40th wedding anniversary so I don't want to go until nine or ten o'clock tonight please congratulations the

091balls in your court my friend um Gilbert Public Schools governing board what's next is asking is asking for is asking for the com no just the best community is asking the community to support yeah the 15 maintenance and operations budget override continuation okay hold on and then and then hold on let me just because I'm I'm slow Gilbert Public Schools governing board is asking the community to support the maintenance and operation budget budget override continuation okay there you go okay good second sentence that's on the second sentence [Music] I I actually have a thought on that one um if we took out as existing 15 budget override approaches it's the expiration just start with we express our gratitude for your trust and ask for your continued support if you want to throw something in about

092trust there and it's just trust in what you're reading it and for me I'm reading it going trust in what trust what what it what your gratitude for trust in that we spent the dollars fiscally responsibly you're Creston Gilbert Public Schools I like your thing down here and funding the excellent education yeah we just need to describe what trust in what huh I like the part where you said trust in funding I think that's important yeah because what we're saying we have gratitude for your trust but what it what do we have trustee I agree with you yeah I mean we know what it but we know what it means but you we're having to write this to an audience that doesn't know what we're talking about so you're being specific we're being very specific

093you have to we read it and we know what we're talking about but we're not the audience the audience is the voter but I think that in funding the excellent education yes is really trust in funding that's what we're saying is that we have we're grateful that they have trusted Us in funding the education in our community yeah yeah forget that the quality and the quality the Excellence these things that we're so if we say this next sentence it just reads this based on what you guys were saying we express our gratitude for your trust in funding the excellent education we provide and ask for your continued support yeah yeah did you start with as the existing I was hoping to put that somewhere else like um what what part show well I don't know

094I don't want to make the sentence too complicated but um I was hoping to find so if maybe we put it the existing 15 override which it comma which is approach approaching its expiration comma contributes about 35.8 million to the GPS and maintenance operations budget each year and allows the district to maintain I that's getting to be kind of a long sentence so I might end after year and say this allows the district or the district is able to maintain salary competitive in comparison to our East Valley peers just to make it not so the sentence doesn't get too long complicated make it two sentences and could we go back to what Mrs page gave us and look at that just where she said okay so her second sentence is the existing you think it's

095important to put the trust and thank you at the top or what do you think could we put that at the bottom I think it's important and I'm okay with putting up there just as long as we defined what the treasure is yeah okay so then what if so Dr McCord youth just said basically express our gratitude for your trust in funding the excellent education will provide and ask for your continued support and then just move to the next thing the existing 15 override contributes about 35.8 million so what if we just keep it like that yeah I don't even yeah yeah well you I mean my only concern is that do do we want at some point to let them know that if they don't vote Yes this 15 is going to expire it

096doesn't have to be that's implied basically if if it's not continued I mean this is what we use it for if it's not continued it's well maybe maybe um maybe we put it in after that comparison to its East Valley piers if the 15 budget override um is not continued it will expire do we want to ask for their continued support two sentences in a row I think that the part where you're there we're being specific tells us that this is what we're going to continue doing I don't know that we yeah what if we just got rid of the second sentence altogether what if we did we express your gratitude our gratitude for your trust in funding the excellent education provided by Gilbert public schools and ended the sentence there and then move those

097the the expiration if we wanted in or the support to other people it's almost like we need to switch those two sentences then we need to thank them and then say now we're asking for something yeah I'm back to Mrs pages I like this if I know that yours um miss temporary's you had a concern about the well I just think the spacing well then I thought yeah my concern was just um but if we just return after one of the sentences as an editor you can you can make two paragraphs out of something fairly easy I'm not a professional editor you're obviously for continuity and lack of repeating ourselves over and over again we need to be a little bit more professional and concise this this has got this is what Bonnie's done is

098amazing she set up a great bones here I don't own this this is yours this is this is a retread from 2019. it actually is changed so so what if we just have that first sentence that would kind of make a a statement look on Mrs Pages Gilbert Public Schools governing board is asking the community to support the 15 maintenance and operations budget overhead continuance continuation then return have a new paragraph the existing 15 overhead contributes about 35.8 million the GPS maintenance and operations budget each year thus allowing the district to maintain competitive salaries and reduce class sizes to enable GPS to remain competitive within the East Valley GPS yeah new paragraph GPS continues to prioritize these resources for the direct benefit of our students as affirmed each year by the Arizona auditor general which

099what did you want to add report report because then they could go look there for that as the Arizona auditor General's report yeah okay that's a good call Jill yeah as a result GPS let's see as a result is that what's up there no no okay no I am okay okay so okay so as a firm teacher by the Arizona otter Generals Report I think I don't even know if we need to put as a result but just say GPS continues to rank among the most efficient districts for dollars spent in the classroom and as great amongst the districts with the lowest administrative expense um and then and then basically this is the same same stuff which I think is really good to just again get bullet points of exactly how we are committing to

100spend it how we have spent it and how we're committing to and then um and then I like when we end with we thank you for your past support and I ask again for your trust in funding the excellent education provided by Gilbert Public Schools please vote Yes for the budget override continuation I I like this a lot I think it's it gives enough details but then kind of gets it a little more concise if you guys if you're if you think it's okay sorry let me let me make sure I understand yeah okay so the first sentence we is we changed how we originally changed it right to to support the and then we put continuation at the end which is what we have up there right now and then a new paragraph yep

101the ex existing 15 override blah blah blah um and then even a new paragraph to that so just one sentence basically GPS continue the next paragraph is GPS continues to prioritize these resources for the direct benefit of our students as affirmed each year by the Arizona auditor General's report and then GPS continues to rank on my most efficient districts for dollars that in the classroom is greater amongst the district with the lowest administrative expense than that second pair paragraph does not change I mean now it's like the fourth paragraph exactly exactly so I'll stop you there Jill the only thing I did take out and this is where we probably need to add maintaining is on two bullet points maintaining then maintaining okay the allocation to class size reduction maintaining to allocate was kind of

102confusing to me so I took it out um but we probably need to add something in um I don't know I think maybe not I think what you have is fine it explains just okay again that's we have a right that's what part of it will go toward is the specific way that we yeah so we talked earlier about making sure we don't pigeonhole ourselves into something and I think the second bullet point does that to some extent What If instead of Mental Health Counselors and social workers what if we say we could even say improving campus security comma student student support for academic achievement because I notice we don't have we do say you know excellent education provided but none of our bullet points focus on academics and I think that would be important

103for people to know that that's one of our main focuses is that is this academic academic success of our students definitely the what happens is we specifically we going out in the 2019 override to increase to the 15 we did specifically include social workers and Mental Health Counselors so I think that's why we've continued that just saying that will continue to fund that and we are I think that's kind of what we're still allotting that for but I guess we could discuss if if that's something different what if we uh how about student student Port student mental health or student wellness student oh there you go because that really is what we're that's what it is about is us you know support and support for student wellness which includes improving campus security and student wellness

104yeah that's really which is the focus it is and that's so if I could just um just make a comment um very sensitive to words such as improving implying that we're not already doing it and we have the resources to actually make it better which I don't want to misrepresent so that's right that was why we purposely used the maintaining yeah I mean not improving further Improvement further improving well but but that would imply we're adding more resources to that I'm always afraid I'm just you can do whatever you want but I'm just I don't want to really is dollar for dollar we're turning it forward it's not like we're saying we're not committing that we can add more to it necessarily we're saying to pass this allows us to how about just using an

105allocation to reduce class size yeah something something it's not maintaining sorry I can't get thesaurus up on my own and we can use maintaining the allocation I didn't quite understand what that meant but I also like what Mr Thompson said we probably need to add somewhere in on that class size reduction something about academics um if you want if we all decide we wanted to add that language in there too that would be probably the line to go on there and Jill yeah I don't have a thesaurus either I I have it on my phone I keep it open but it's not doing maintaining and we can use maintaining I don't know how many people are really gonna well you can say continuing or continue we have a lot yeah continuation up here but that's

106okay yeah absolutely yeah we're thinking instead of second or third bullet third continuing class size yeah allocation to class size to class size reduction we could just say continue smaller class sizes I don't know no I I wouldn't say that either because sometimes people would say well that's not small especially if they've come from an Eastern State where they only have 18 kids per class sorry so the second bullet are we going to keep keep it as maintaining campus security and student wellness that's what I kind of got out of there okay no I think that's good I'm just thinking sorry what are you thinking I'm just thinking I'm just listening I'm just thinking in my head just like just throwing this out and and I don't really have an opinion on it is it

107important to say something about mental Mental Health because that is a huge topic right now and that was on our survey it was really reminded me of that that it was at the top of our service is there a reason someone doesn't want to say Mental Health Counselors and social workers the only reason I would say we might want to avoid it is because it's one of those hot button issues well I think well it did people well but would it be possible or can somebody just tell me what what meeting was it where we got the results from that survey because I think I recall that mental health yes it was up there but it was it wasn't at the top and it was below their threshold of what was most important [Music] Mr

108Thompson I want to represent what we are using this for though too right so again it's it's you know it might be a hot button issue but I think it's it's out there everywhere right now in particular that there's so much need for it well I think it depends on how you use it specifically how this came to be was that we had a group of students from Gilbert High School who organized and came to the board meeting with a resolution and spoke during public comment and said you know and this was in about 2018. and they said we need more resources on our campus we our students are dealing with a lot of challenges and I as a student can't help my friends I'm not a professional I can't help my friends so we

109Mr Carr was the board president he accepted the resolution we voted on it and then we incorporated it in when we went out for our override because we had already made that promise to provide more resources and while I think it was a maybe more of an issue back then in 2018 or 2017 I think that people are more aware of how teens and students are struggling with this issue right now and I I really don't think that most people I'm sure there are some because there are always some but most people would be grateful to have those resources available should their child need them let me tell you how these ranked I'm pulling it up right now this is from top to bottom student and staff safety maintaining competitive teacher salaries and benefits campus

110security suicide safety and prevention maintaining smaller class sizes and highest needs classrooms Mental Health Counselors maintaining instructional coach support dedicated to academic achievement and then social workers yeah so Mental Health Counselors and social workers are at the bottom of that list which I which is why I think saying something more generic like student wellness we could even say I mean we could throw I'd say mental Wellness or I just I do you know I think Wellness again Wellness is too broad I think it's all encompassing so it's any whatever your idea of Wellness is it's included in there that's why I think it might be because the other part is I feel like having those resources on our campus is a really important part of campus safety it's really an important part of campus safety

111to to know that there are resources there to help students when they need it maintaining campus Safety and Security and student supports how about maintaining campus security and resources for student wellness I could I could go with that does did anybody did you have something I I just I feel like maybe mental needs to be put in there somewhere because I mean if you put Wellness does that mean we're gonna have a physician I mean I don't know like I'm afraid that might be what if we just say supports for students resources for student support supports what about mental health supports right yeah that's not where I was gonna go okay because I think when when you say just Wellness that could be you could interpret that could be somebody could interpret yeah being physical

112too it could be you know the basketball game the basketball team that's I mean it all that we do is for student wellness but I think this is more specific so maybe if we put maintaining campus Safety and Security and resources for overall mental health support student mental health support would you say I'm sorry I said overall student wellness or overall student I just really liked what I heard earlier somebody said earlier today that we have to get the students right before they're going to learn and I think that that could be there's a whole spectrum of what students need to get right before they can learn and by just saying mental I think we're we're not we're not encompassing enough of that Spectrum and so that's why I and I'm not I'm not in

113love with the word Wellness but that's why a word like Wellness is is can be can be anything to anyone on that spectrum of what a student needs to get to get ready to learn can we ask the cabinet sitting back there what their opinion is or not well we can we're gonna come back with this remember we're not gonna this is the first year yeah so we have an opportunity to reword yeah because I would like to see the well I guess we're not voting on it tonight that's for sure so I would like to see the whole thing so let me let me see if I can kind of Wordsmith with the suggestions or just yeah and and so I think we've got the first paragraph which is split into two I think

114we got that so now we're just working on the bullet points and I think we got the first bullet point we're good it's the second and third but primarily we've been talking about the second so we can work on that a little bit and then let's go down to the last part where it says we thank you for your past support and ask again for your trust in funding the excellent education provided by Gilbert public schools are we good with that I'm good with that if if we put a new paragraph at the top you mean add a new okay split it into two where we where we already have yeah right because I think it's just so and I was going to start that second paragraph where it says GPS continues to prioritize now

115that's a third paragraph So the there's just one sentence at the top we've seen one sentence at a time oh and then do another paragraph where it says the existing 15 okay I didn't catch that good and then the third paragraph is GPS continues to prioritize gotcha then the bullet points then this last sentence and then please vote Yes for the budget override continuation okay yes I will get this to you by Thursday and and um with some suggestions you guys so are we done proposing changes tonight uh no no no so one thing and is the sentence beginning we thank you we thank you for your existing support or your current support yeah oh yeah or just support yeah if the intent is to say oh but it's saying thank you for your I've

116been supporting yeah your past support and past can be changed it's just yeah because we we're trying to say that we already have this in place yeah yes I've already supported us in the past please continue to support us in the future do you want to say previous support because it was a vote yeah we thank you for your previous support and ask again for your trust in funding the excellent education what do you think about that Mr Johnson do you like previous um um I think I like current better but I don't previous doesn't give me any heartburn yeah thank you so I was wondering on the class size reduction I've been playing around with that a little bit what about ongoing class size reduction allocation that I like I love that what about

117that ongoing class size reduction allocation sorry Dr McCord you could never be the administrative assistant oh goodness it doesn't work it doesn't it's not the right language so you're talking about for the third bullet point yeah for the Third Edition I just wrote all this down you said no sorry well because the budget overhead continuation will directly benefit our students and families by ongoing no no you can have it a couple times no it doesn't fit the sentence in terms of what the next word yeah yeah well we can work on it okay I think we continued what's good on that one continue continuing the allocation yet yes or continuing the class size reduction allocation yeah continued resource allocation to class size reduction it works it has to be parallel right retaining maintaining continuing so

118we have to but we can change all of those too but okay right not till the 20th um and it's not officially due till after that yeah we could potentially have another stab at it at the end of July though it would be better yeah I think we'll be ready this was a good I think this was a good discussion and I think again that was great we want to be clear in helping our voters understand why we're asking for it the our priorities that we'll use and how we will spend this money and how it you know relates to our students and staff basically and again I think that the more clear we can be I think that's that's good so so after Dr McCord sends out this written revised version how do we

119submit further revisions before the 20th do we send them just to you or just to help us to me and then so I want to make sure we're not I know yeah we can't that's helping me a lot but send them to me okay and then I'll either add a kind of add your versions or because I won't make the final decision on that and I don't imagine there'll be a lot of revisions but um we'll bring it to the the board meeting and then we can we'll talk about it one more time but with a vote at the End discussion with about pretty sure you count the words please yes yes yes I just wonder if if there is some place to add in that the existing 15 override will go away because that

120is something that they may not realize so I would love to see on this the 20th board meeting if we're making changes can we can you print them out and highlight them so I can read it like yeah we did tonight because it's hard to follow when we're all just throwing sentences out there so yeah if you make up a a sentence yeah bring it let's yeah everybody's suggestion I'll okay yeah you can either print it out and add it in or you know if we have five separate things we can at least look at it because trying to write something else without um something in front of you I'm a visual learner it's really hard for me to follow that that's why I brought this tonight so I appreciate that I appreciate that just

121while my brain is in this mode [Music] if we want to include the that it expires soon we could do it in this last sentence we thank you for your support of the override that expires soon or some version of that oh I'll look at it yep um and then maybe make a next sentence if it's an if it's an agenda item on the 20th can we post all these things on board docs so we can each look at it prior to the meeting because that way we could if we need to so so you would have to have those into me if you really wanted to give it an Earnest look probably next week beginning and next week so like next Monday or Tuesday okay I can do that I'm taking a vacation from

122now on but Monday or Tuesday I can do that I will be out of town the 15th through the 18th so so you know but I will have internet access so Dr McCord um I was wondering if it would be helpful to share an electronic copy of the 2019 full pamphlet so that all of you can see how the pro con statements are included within that would that be helpful yeah just send them a piece everybody yeah that'd be great that way you can see the other information that's why there's only 200 words because there's a lot of information that describes the override and so well that would be helpful to know what the description is maybe we don't need to add that language because it's already in the description so let me do that

123tomorrow perfect thank you great thank you I think we are at a point where we can conclude this discussion and we will now adjourn my friend's okay with it we will adjourn the work study um I'd like to move forward unless we need a quick break okay okay let's move forward then so we have now adjourned the work study and we'll now move to number five on the agenda the brief board business meeting um I will call this meeting to order and then I would ask Miss Wilson to please call roll Chad Thompson here Miss Laurie wood here Michigan here miss Jill Humphries here Miss Rhonda page here Madam president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you very much that will take us to the consent agenda items 6.01 the approval

124of consent agenda items board members is there a motion so moved thank you Mrs Humphries it's been moved that we approve the consent agenda items is written is our second second thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved and seconded all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with Nate thank you that passes five zero that will now take us to our action items for tonight uh we'll begin with 7.01 superintendent's performance performance-based pay for FY 2022 2023 I'm just going to ask for a motion okay I move that we approve the superintendent's performance-based pay for FY 2022-23 as discussed in executive session thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is there a second thank you Miss Mr Jetty it's been moved and seconded is there

125any discussion um I would like to just say that based on you know our discussions and what Dr McCord presented to us that we are very fortunate in Gilbert to have a superintendent of the quality of Dr McCord and when I say this I it's not just his leadership but it's his ability to bring a team together that he has his leadership team he draws very highly qualified people and he listens to them and he is out there and getting to know the community all of the time and I just want to say that I'm very very pleased that we have Gilbert has Dr McCord as our superintendent thank you Mr Jetty is there anything further that was all-encompassing yes he didn't leave much um I I want to add my appreciation um but it's

126been six is this the sixth year sixth year and I I do feel like um our district has really moved forward in the last six years part of that is the help that we've received more funding so we have more opportunities to do things but I think good leadership is critical and the leadership creates the culture and I know we have a very warm collaborative District where people feel welcomed into our schools and I um I think that comes from the top down and thank Mr McCord for sorry Dr McCord for his hard work and all that he's done too and and the people that he leads with to do that for us so thank you thank you Mr Freeze anything further so since my time on the board I've gotten a a much better

127understanding of the role GPS has in our community and I think that GPS really is the heart of our community it's it's the one thing that all of us everybody has in common or could have in common and we're seeing and I think that's the same in a lot of communities but we're seeing around the country and even here locally um some of those things some of that Community feeling um breaking down and uh for any any number of reasons that's this is happening um and so I I want to thank Dr McCord for his ability to make sure that our students have what they need uh and and as importantly um making sure that things that don't belong in schools stay out of GPS you've got a good understanding of what uh of what

128this school district and this community needs to stay successful and that shows in your uh in the way you cultivate an attitude of success not only with our students but also our staff from your from your Administration to our school administrators it trickles down all the way to our classrooms and I think our everybody knows what we're trying to accomplish and I think that's because of the of the the path that you have had a tremendous hand in defining and so I thank you for for all you've done and and all you continue to do I don't even know how to top the three of you so I knew Dr McCord when he was coach McCord Little League many many years ago um but I've always been a huge fan of you always been so

129grateful for the service that you've contributed to GPS I agree with what everybody said here top down we can see it one of the first things you said to me when I pulled my papers and I was able to meet with you was when trust is you give us so much when trust is earned you turn around and allow us to have access to your Administration there are superintendents that don't allow that with their boards and so I appreciate the fact that we can have access to them call them with any questions being able to have conversations with them um GPS is very lucky to have you here very very lucky I've known you before that you were the same then you're the same now and I'm so grateful and appreciative of your dedication to

130the students here and wanting Gilbert Public Schools to run very excellently and you've surrounded yourself with an amazing team really impressed with that and created a culture where people feel welcome and I think it also affects this board the way that you've approached us it's always been your doors always open you're we always have access to you and your and your Administration so I appreciate that thank you all I I'll just add as well just wanted to thank you is it's good to pause and reflect as we end another year here with on your contract we're appreciative I'm so appreciative of you as well with your leadership your time and dedication your belief in teachers and staff and your passion for students and their education and your respect and partnership with our families and all

131you do for our community and it the way that you lead out in the outstanding educational opportunities that we have here at Gilbert public schools and I I appreciate that and we are grateful so thank you for your work with that being said it's been moved and seconded that we approved the superintendent's performance-based pay for FY 2022 2023 seeing no further discussion I will call for the vote all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with Nate thank you that passed five zero can I say something please you guys said such wonderful things and I appreciate it um these folks that you talked about and alluded to the team not just the folks in cabinet but everybody out there in departments as well as at schools teachers support staff Transportation operations

132custodial staff everybody this this is a team and it isn't top down it is it is about relationships and we've had some very very blessed uh relationships and this place has been through some great times and it's been through some hard times and so I appreciate everybody sticking in there and and and being tough but more importantly and I've said this in other venues but it is clear that the success of a board of a school district is is about how the board interacts with each other as well as with the superintendent and you guys are setting the standard for that and I appreciate that that is something that should speak volumes not just in this community but around the state and around this country because not everybody agrees and has the same philosophy but

133it's about respect and kindness and how we treat each other not just privately but publicly as well and so I appreciate you guys making the effort to do that so thank you for that thank you Dr McCord and thank you all for your thoughts that will take us to 7.02 the advertisement for FY 2024 proposed budget summary and public hearing notice Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members as uh you were presented tonight in just 46 slides but done extremely well we always have fun with Bonnie and the number of slides uh this is as required by Statute to give notice and for public hearing for the proposed 2024 budget thank you board members is there a motion I move that we approve the advertisement for the 20 fiscal year 2024 proposed budget

134summary and public hearing notice did I do that right yep thank you Miss CJ it's been moved as our second and second thank you Mrs page it's been moved and seconded that we approve the advertisement for FY 2024 proposed budget summary and public hearing notice is there any discussion so not not I don't have anything to discuss regarding the notice but I did think of something the question that I probably should have asked earlier it was alluded to during our work our works our work study that this budget can be tweaked as we go as we as as things come from the state as Things become more final or we we learned things that we didn't know before uh what's the process for for that making sure that we continue an approved budget and is

135there some threshold that once we reach it does have to come to the board for approval to enact that change what will happen is we'll we always have revised budgets coming forward and when's the next one probably or the first one will be October September just depends our student s more than we expected we may be required by Statute to revise down by the 15th and but generally if something goes to the positive or not so positive we come back uh right after school starts and we we continually crunch those numbers and if we see danger coming you'll be alerted and then we'll come back with another revision for the budget uh sometime before December 15th thank you yep I appreciate that question so is there any further discussion hearing none I will call for

136the vote all those in favor of approving the advertisement for FY 2024 proposed budget summary and public hearing notice please vote by saying aye aye and any opposed with nay thank you that passes five zero that will take us to the adjournment of our brief board business meeting board members is there a motion so moved thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is there a second second thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with Nate thank you very much