001Good evening. I would like to call this meeting to order. Miss Richards, may I have roll call, please? Yes. President Wade, let the record show that four members are here in person and Vice President Schultz is joining us by phone. Miss Schultz, are you there? I am here. Okay, great. We They told me I just hadn't heard your voice. So, it's not that I didn't trust him and all that jazz. Uh, please join me in a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. I motion to approve the agenda. That would be Miss German seconding. If I could write all those in favor I I I Miss Schultz. That was an I. Yes. Correct. Thank you. Uh motion carries 5. Miss Richards. Yes. President Wade. Upcoming events. Next Thursday, June 19th is Junth and
002our offices are closed. Tuesday, June 24th is our next governing board meeting. And Friday, of course, we will observe July 4th as Independence Day. That completes upcoming events. Thank you, Miss Richards. This brings us to uh a public hearing presentation of fiscal year 2026 uh proposed budget. We will now move to a public hearing to discuss the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. Mr. Moore, thank you. President Wade, members of the board, uh tonight we'll be presenting the fiscal 2026 proposed budget. As you stated, this budget uh was being uh presented to the board starting in January of this fiscal year. Um, if you recall, we had three meetings in which we we reviewed a tenative 26 budget. And uh, as we work through this budget tonight, you'll notice not a lot of changes um, due
003to several factors, but as a my staple slide, the budget calendar. Um, we are starting this process over again. And so we are all the way back to the left uh, with tonight uh, doing the proposed budget. Again, I'll be back uh June 24th for the adoption of this proposed budget. Um with the legislature not convened yet and there's no state budget, there is a potential that we come back in September and do a early revision pending any sort of financial implications um directly related to the K12 um which is our budget. Um, I would say it's optimi it's not really optimistic that we'll we'll be back for a revision. Um, noting that there's there's not really a lot out there for for new money in terms of uh K12. We will uh then move
004to December and then that will be our traditional timeline for our first revision where we reconcile our ADM and a lot of our budget balance carry forward items. So there's my little arrow. So like I just stated uh currently there's no uh 2026 state K12 budget or even state budget at this point. The aggregate expension limit which is an ongoing um thing that we have notated within our financials because that has a big implication if it does not get exempted. Um it has been exempted for the last two years and we anticipate that being exempted again in this legislator cycle for 26. Again, another one-time exemption. One thing with no state approved budget right now, there is um AD has given us notice that there is uh no state aid payment for June. Essentially, state
005aid payments um reconcile what the district could not um bring in in terms of property taxes. Um that's a whole another complicated formula, but in layman's terms, what that means is we will potentially miss that June state aid payment, which is cash for our district. Uh thankfully though, uh that would not affect our district in this point in time. We have prudent reserves uh to have sufficient cash balances to make our payroll um going into June and July uh to cover that non-state a payment that is currently being implemented from AD. So known budget implications. We are assuming in this proposed budget like I stated back in the tenative of a budget that a 2% inflation adjustment um that 2% inflation adjustment statutoily um in in statute and it's based on the GDP price uh
006deflator. Uh the board's well aware the election in November failed and so we this is now uh you'll see this on the budget forms on page seven specifically but this is the reduction of the override and this is our first phase of that reduction. So, and then the Arizona State Retirement System, I alluded to this in March, but those rates are decreasing. So, that benefits both the employer and the employee, and they'll see a small um a little bit more money in their paycheck in terms of not paying as much deductions for 26 and the district will also see a savings with regards to uh our contribution that we have to make a matching contribution. So on the HUSD budget implications right now uh we are maintaining our transfer uh from M to capital to
007pay our middle school lease payments that's 3.55 million uh that's a principal and interest payment for fiscal year 26. Uh through this process uh working through and I have later slides we are proposing a $2 million adjacent wise levy. This is a onetime tax implication for fiscal 26 of 19 cents per $100,000 of assessed value. I'll cover that in a little more detail right now. So within the budget process, the board has statutory authority to levy um an adjacent ways attacks without voter approval. Um, this proposed $2 million levy, uh, you can see would again cause an estimated 19 cents per $100,000 of assessed value for a one-time tax for again fiscal 26. Just a little history, um, HUSD has uh, levied over the coaster of the last uh, was this almost 10 years now.
008From 2016, HSD levered $3 million. More recently in 24, HSC leveraged another 1.5 million uh for several projects that we've been working on, one including the Higgley High traffic flow improvements. And then again in the fiscal 25 um our current balance year to date is about 1.9 million and this fund is used for making sidewalk, roadway, and public rideway improvements including buses and fire lane. Um the reason we are proposing a $2 million levy is this William Sealed traffic flow modification improvement. So I've been working with the town of Gilbert for approximately um a year now on addressing or trying to address the traffic flow that backs up on Higgley Road with regards to student drop off um as well as students parking in the Williamsfield parking lot that's on the north side of the
009campus. Um this proposed uh schematic is uh currently has verbal approval from the town of Gilbert. We met with them yesterday and I did add a slide another slide um following this. But let me talk about this for a second. So the proposed uh traffic flow improvements include adding uh two lanes so or behind the pool that would come in um at that pool parking lot. Currently there's no light there, but we'd be adding a traffic light. um and directing all student uh and parent drop off to that traffic light to now enter by that uh north entrance which is again by by the pool parking lot. That traffic flow would then come two lanes behind the pool and route um to the west towards the football field and then two lanes again in front
010of the school to drop off. Currently traffic flow goes both directions. So you have traffic coming in and out. We have students crossing both lines of traffic when they park. Um it it it's a little bit of a chaotic mess right now, but it's the it's what we have. Um so this improvement or this proposed improvement would greatly improve um what they call queuing space. So it'd be queuing um cars on our property and off of Higgley Road, which improves traffic flow. Um, by by double laning it, we can improve our queuing space. They call it they use metrics of storage. I'm not exactly sure what that metric means, but it's uh 30 3,360 uh queueing additional queuing spaces of storage. Um, I'll go into a little bit on the improvements. Again, I added this
011slide late because I had our meeting with the town of government just yesterday, but this is the majority of the cost and what adjacent waste funds will be used for. So, Higgley Road and the and the improvements on Higgley Road would all be eligible uh for adjacent waste funding. Um the improvements that the town has asked us to make are are drastic to um add that light and then accommodate for the additional traffic flow to that light. So, um, looking on the bottom of this schematic and going up. So, as you would travel, this is Higgley Road. As you would travel, uh, north towards the new proposed light on Harrison, we would be asked to do a double left. Currently, there is a small left well up that median. We'd be removing the whole median.
012Um, and again, um, adding some additional queuing as people are making a left and allowing traffic to flow. uh north for people not turning into our campus coming from uh Ivanho and working south. If you're coming in that direction, we would be adding a solid an whole another lane basically additional right lane um all the way from Harrison to Ivanho. And so traffic, if people are entering from Higgley High from the north, traveling south on Higgley Road, they would then be queuing in that right-hand lane. again, not impeding traffic on Hingley Road for people trying to continue south past Williamsfield High School. Um there would also be some minor improvement on the other side of Harrison to allow for a double entrance into um that new pool entrance. So um again, we had the meeting
013yesterday, Tommy Gilbert has given us verbal approval. We are proceeding with civil uh drawings and getting uh permitting in place. We anticipate this project with regards to Higgley Road taking place in 2026, summer 2026. But a lot of the phased improvements with regards to uh this schematic uh for example behind the pool, those uh could be taken place during while while campus is occupied because that's currently not being occupied or used. And so there's several improvements that we can do throughout the year um that we'll pick on. And this major improvement on Higgley Road would be planned for 26, the summer of 26 as soon as students get out. So again, this uh we have estimates from our civil engineer, this is going to be several million dollars of improvements as we're taking out whole
014medians, adding entire lanes to the extent of 510 ft. Um the town of Gilbert has um acknowledged uh this is an issue um and they are researching also coming to the table with some money to help support this project. Um, so it is it'll definitely be a joint project with the with regards to funding uh this initiative and ultimately this is going to bring a lot more safety on this campus with regards to student safety and you can't really put a price on a student's life. So jumping to the maintenance operations budget um largely this is the same uh budget that the board tenatively approved in March. We've reconciled a few numbers. Um so there's some slight modifications, but again uh back in May 13th, um looking at our our last revision for this current
015fiscal year, uh we've revised our EMO budget to $126,358,77. What we are proposing uh currently tonight is $17,90,00083 $90,813. That includes everything again that we talked about in March, the 300 ADM decrease. Um that is in line with what we kind of lost this year. It's about a 3% uh reduction largely because of our kinder enrollment um versus our our kinder enrollment versus our graduating class. Another large factor in the reduction is our M phase down. So we uh reconciled that number that ended up to be four $4.8 million in what we're phasing down for 26. Um, this does include the 2% inflation increase, so that did help a little bit. Um, includes our transfer from MO to capital, so that's a reduction. And then we anticipate ending fiscal 26 with $17 million in budget
016balance carry for. That is not what we're carrying into 26, but that's what we anticipate ending um next school year with. And a large part of that reduction is because of the deficit between the 25 revised budget and the 26 proposed budget of $9.2 million. A part of the proposed budget process is to update our average teacher salary. So um with regards to this formula, this is posted on our website. Um the large uh 4% increase from fiscal 26 to 25 is largely related to our years of service. So our years of service is measured u by the state. Our uh HUSD average years of experience for teachers is 9.7819 and the state average is 9.5323 which means Higgley employs more experienced teachers than the state average and that trend has continued to grow um
017over the course of my employment here as well as looking at the last decade of Higgley. uh Higgley has continued to retain highly qualified teachers and that metric has continued to grow higher which would um generally mean that you have more high highly paid teachers. So um but we did with regards to increases the only increases going into 26 was the classroom site fund increase uh and that did contribute to the increase in average teacher compensation for 26. And just looking at our other budgeted fund which is capital uh some minor changes with regards to the comparison of fiscal 25 to 26. Um the revision that we did in May was 18.9 million and our proposed budget is 16.3 million. Um the large changes are just in spending down um and reducing our budget balance
018carry forward um as we continue to try to prioritize uh projects, capital projects um without uh greatly, you know, putting some of our facilities at risk for a failure or um any sort of potential to close the school with regards to not upkeeping um HVAC units, etc. So, um, we are running it tight and, uh, you can reference the the full capital budget that I presented in April where I went through all those details. With that, uh, again, this is the budget timeline. Um we'll anticipate again unless the state approves a budget that has any sort of additional funding or changes for K12 uh you'll see the same budget uh on June 24th and that will be the adoption of this proposed budget. And then again if again if there's any changes after that we
019can come back in September 16 and do an early revision to capture those. But again like I stated I don't anticipate much uh new money for K12 going into fiscal 26. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. President Wade, Mr. Moore, when was the last levy that we passed? Was it 23 or 24? Fiscal year 24. So it was two years ago. And what was that for? I thought that was also for Williamsfield. No, that was largely for Higgley High's traffic flow improvements. Okay. Thank you. President Wade, Mr. Moore. Yes. Oh, okay. Um, I just want to thank you for continuing um with Williams Field and the safety for the students. As you know, then I was vocal and reached out to the town myself because I saw the safety issues. So,
020I really appreciate you keeping on top of that and pushing it through. Um, from what I saw, um, I was I was concerned for the safety of our kids as well. So, thank you very much. Yeah, I'm I'm kind of new here, but I just want to touch base that we're kind of doing like comparative analysises of other districts and how we're kind of meeting up to that standard. And then staffing balance, like the classroom versus the administration growth that we're being very mindful and kind of reigning things in here and there. Um, and then substitutes and overtime. Just being very mindful of that, of those costs, keeping them down as much as we can. Does any member of the public have any comments or questions regarding the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget? As you
021all are staying in your seats, I am going to assume that we can move on if nobody else has comments up here. All right. We will now reconvene in open session. I motion to approve consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.26. That would be Miss German who is seconding. All those in favor I I Miss Schultz I I and that was an I. Miss Van Hook. The motion passes 50. Um President Wade, I do have a comment I'd like to make about a Sure. an item. Um, for the 5.3 personnel action items, um, while I'm while I'm willing to approve this item at this time, I would like to make the following statement regarding liquidated damages. I understand that waving liquidated damages for employees who resign amid allegations of misconduct may be seen as cost-saving measure,
022avoiding the time and expense of formal termination process. But I do have a serious ethical concern about this practice practice which we see across the education field. Allowing individuals to quietly resign without proper accountability enables them to seek employment in other districts without often without any record of misconduct that led to their departure. This not only puts students and staff in other districts at potential risk, but also undermines our collective responsibility as educators to uphold safety and integrity across the profession. As a public school district, we have a moral obligation to prioritize the well-being of all students both within our community and beyond. When we allow someone to leave without documenting or addressing their conduct, we contribute to a system that protects adults over children and shields behavior that should be called out and corrected.
023This is not just a financial decision. It's a question of public trust, student safety, and ethical leadership. We must consider whether short-term legal or budgetary conveniences justifies the long-term harm this practice can cause to students, staff, and the broader educational community. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Clever. Oh, no. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say I don't think liquidated damages is is does the same thing that was just stated there. I don't that's not my belief. That's not my understanding. That's not what I expect out of out of our superintendency either. Okay. Um, couple of things that we just passed with consent agenda items. So, I want to make sure I I I do these things appropriately. First, I'd like to thank uh Gilbert Centennial PTO, uh, Chase Building Team, and the ECDC
024PTO for their generous donations to the district. Um, Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, that's fair. Yes, indeed. Um I also uh I recognize that we will have another uh meeting with your face, good sir, Mr. Moore. Um but as it was part of the consent agenda items, uh I wish to express on behalf of of Higgley and and myself, uh immense gratitude. I I think it is important to express that we are aware of where Higgley has come from or the things that Higgley has done. And I think uh it is safe to say that you are a large part of the reason that the people and the community of Higgley can have faith and trust in that what we are doing is always with students in mind. Um I I personally feel that a lot
025of times when you deal with people who are solely concerned with money or the finance of things often times the students get left behind or what is ultimately best for you know the the young individuals that we are entrusted to. At no point in my relationship with you, which is now going on two and a half years, uh have I ever felt that your heart was in anything other than what is best for our students and ways that we can stretch a dollar to maximize every little bit of what our students get in terms of their education. And so we are uh with heavy hearts angry uh and sad that we have such a great loss. We're grateful to have known you and had the opportunity for you to be here. Uh, and you know,
026congrats and all that jazz. [Applause] This will also bring me to Mr. Lenheiser. You are up for introduction as well. That consent agenda pass. President Wade, members of the board, it is with great pleasure that I would like to introduce the new principal of Higgley High School, Mr. Brian Fanick. Brian, if you'll stand, please. I said your name correctly, even though it looks like Banich, it is Banick. And uh Brian has been the assistant principal of curriculum and instruction at uh Higgley High for the past two years. And in that time, he's done an exceptional job. And uh with Mr. Fields moving to the district office, I created an opening that Brian was able to fill. And at next meeting, we will be bringing back the person who will be filling his spot on the
027administrative team. But we're very excited uh about Brian jumping into this additional leadership role. What was really nice is we surveyed the faculty and staff about what they wanted and without u much things being said a lot of them indicated that they really admired and respected Brian's leadership and so we uh hope for big things Mr. Banick and thank you for uh continuing your growth as a leader here within the Higgley Unified School District and welcome aboard [Applause] President Wade. Uh yes, go ahead, Mr. Gman. Um, in regards to consent, um, I item 516, I just want to applaud how the district I reached out about the food and the lunches. I'm very passionate about that topic and I just want to make sure that we follow what has been passed. So, specifically, I'm grateful
028that the district is ensuring that dyes and additives and etc. and processed foods, they're touching base on that. And so I'm very proud of the district for being mindful of what we give our children in order to really encourage that academic focus and their ability to do a good job at school. So I'm grateful for that. All right, this brings us to 6.1 uh action items. Approval of fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. Do we have any questions or comments from the board before I motion? Is that a no? One concern that I do have is we're being asked to approve the budget with the levy in it before we've even approved the levy as a board. I I would venture at the very least that your vote on whether or not you approve it right
029now would be to include that levy. Um yeah, President Member Van Hook, the process of approving the levy is done through the proposed budget and so your vote yay or nay would be approving the levy or not approving the levy. The levy process is done through the proposed budget. I thought it required a separate vote and due to like truth and taxation and notifying the community does that none of that that's all done through the proposed budget. If you look at reference um there's a form that's called truth and taxation form that's in the proposed budget. Um that again that process is all done through this approval. So a yay would would give us authority to pro proceed with that tax levby. A nay would then give us or indicate um that we need to
030exclude that from the proposed budget and then that would not be included in the adopted budget. Okay. Um let's see. Sorry, I've got several notes I just have to run through here. Um, and obviously we've had discussions about um enrollment uh continuing to drop and I want to ensure that the district um is taking concrete steps to uh see what we can do to turn that around. uh and I'm not just discuss, you know, I don't mean marketing uh tactics, but real uh changes to ensure that we rebuild trust with the community. Um and then also ensuring that we're prioritizing core instruction and services and how we can assure um to the community that the money is going to the classroom. I've also asked before, but we need to also consider looking into uh consolidation
031considering um the drop in enrollment. I also want to point out that our uh proposed budget M reflects a 19.2% 2% uh reduction from last year and we're still carrying forward it looks like 15 million which is roughly about 12.8% 8% of our total M budget and that's uh a pretty good substantial reserve. Um, and I hope that we can provide the voters proper information as to how we plan to uh use funds when it comes to M. In addition, the district's proposed budget uh shows a big drop in the secondary property tax rate and the M rate is going down by 37% and that's probably due to the override ending the current override and then the class B bond rate is dropping by about 18%. And that's likely due to the debt being paid
032down. And together with these changes um to the secondary tax rate will be about 28% and for homeowners that's about 11% savings on their property taxes. But I just want to um note that the primary prop uh tax rate has gone up and if this override does pass that property taxes will go up and then although min you know not a lot but with the levy uh that'll add to that property tax increase as well. Uh that's all I have Mr. Mr. Moore for clarification just to make sure I'm understanding correctly and then the community does as well. The levy for the adjacent ways to again help make it so it's a little less uh you know what is that MadMax kind of deal getting into Williamsfield High School. Uh and the adjacent ways levy
033tax is a one-time tax. So should we get our community behind us for the uh ML this November and while that is an accurate statement in terms of that does increase where we are at the levy is a one time so it wouldn't be in perpetuity it wouldn't be for a certain number of years it's a one time for the levy is that correct yeah president um if it can go to the first page I can scroll the so the zoom in maybe on the tax rate which is the second um half of this page. Yeah, that area. So the the primary tax rate me mentioned by member Van Hook. Um the increase includes the 19 cent adjacent ways levy that's being proposed tonight. Um so that tax rate is also continuing to go down
034as assessed valuation increases. um the county assessor can only assess a 5% increase and so um that 5% increase is typically um related or the equation comes down to a decrease in primary tax rate. So to circle back to your answer the assessed the uh truth and taxation which is the adjacent ways levy is a onetime tax of 19 cents which would come off that primary tax rate. Um so you can reduce that by 19 cents for year 27 and then you can assume a continued reduction as property values continue to rise um and continue to lack behind the actual value of the house. So um those two areas will with regards to the primary tax rate will continue to go down. Thank you. Excuse me. President Wade, Mr. Moore, how how many years is
035will the impact be though? It's not just one year impact. Correct. For the adjacent ways levy, correct? It is a one-year impact on property res. Yeah. And with the levy of $2 million, we anticipate that satisfying the district's needs for several years. Um the anticipated cost of this Williamsville project was much higher uh than we anticipated, which is the only reason we're asking the board for this additional funds at this point in time. Okay. Thank you. Again, I would like to reiterate what Miss Schultz said. Uh, I am grateful for the changes for Williamsfield. Having driven through Higgley and been in this area, I think the improvements that were made for Higgley were definitely It makes it safer. It makes the traffic go a little bit better, especially considering we've had some pretty bad accidents
036uh in front of Higgley High. Uh it is it is comforting to know that we are at least trying to make some of these decisions. And so I'm grateful for that as always. Uh, I motion that the governing board approve the proposed expenditure budget for fiscal year 2025 2026 as presented. Second. That'd be Mr. Glover seconding. All those in favor? I I I. Miss Schultz I I Motion carries 50. This brings us to action item 6.2, approval of Higgley governing board override argument. Uh, there is a draft version of the statement with each board member. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions? I actually do. Um, I'll just go first if that's okay. Um, two of them I think are just like grammatical. They don't really change the impact of the uh statement so much.
037So, where is it that we have in here? Um it listed like it it gives a yes vote on the budget override support and it shows the things that it supports. It just looks like it is a a formatting issue for the teacher salaries like cuz when you and I went through it you know early because being we do that together it was bulleted and somehow it didn't get to on the board docs. Um President W that's correct. Is that this one that we're on? Cuz it looks different. The bullet should be indented. Is that what you're Yeah, basically cuz the teacher salaries is floating there. Yeah. No, it should be bulleted. Um, so that was the first one that I had. Um, I don't know for that. I don't really Does that I mean
038I would assume everybody's in favor of formatting it so it's in the same list. it just looks like it is a grammatical issue. Um, the other thing is that we have yes in quotes everywhere except for at the very bottom. The very last sentence doesn't have quotes. Um, I also think we should put that yes in quotation as well. President Le, that's easy fix. Okay. Um, as I realize, I think the thing they're showing online is different than what we're discussing right now. So, for those of you who are following along and you're like, where are we? Yes. The last thing I I have I I don't think either of those things require a vote. Should we want a vote to change that, I'm more than willing. The next thing I I think we should
039I'm asking for a vote before we do it. And I can motion that. I just want to explain what my statement is first. Um in the second paragraph we have a yes vote will ensure phase two cuts do not continue. Uh I am I am proposing that we change it to say a yes vote will prevent phase 2 cuts from occurring. Um because that in my opinion is more clearly expressing what is happening. If we don't pass the M override the budget, the phase 2 cuts will have to happen as we progress. Um, and so my recommendation is switching that to a yes vote will prevent phase two cuts. Um, yeah, prevent it from occurring is the the statement that I am proposing. If somebody has something different they would like to share with that,
040that's fine. Otherwise, I can motion for that specific statement. Nobody else has. Okay. So, I I motion that we switch that sentence, that's the uh last sentence in the second paragraph, from saying a yes vote will ensure phase two cuts do not continue to a yes vote will prevent phase 2 cuts from occurring. I'll second that. All right. Thanks, Mr. Glover. We have a second on my motion. All those in favor I I I. Miss Dar. Okay. Uh motion carries 5-0. Those were the only things that I had. Uh if anybody else has any questions or comments. Is that a no? Okay, that's fine. I just didn't want to cut I didn't know what you were writing down. And I don't want to cut you off before. Okay, everybody good? All right, great. I motion
041to consider, discuss, amend if desired, and if deemed advisable to adopt a resolution approving the governing board's argument in support of the special maintenance and operation budget override election. Second. Thank you again, Mr. Glover. All those in favor? I I I. All those opposed. Motion carries. 32. Future agenda items. Does anyone have any requests for future agenda items? We haven't neither. All right. Look at that. Look at us. I motion to adjourn this meeting. Second. Look at you. I'm going to give it to Miss Van Hook cuz she's right next to me. Oh, look at that. All those in favor? I Mich. Excellent. I meeting ajourned. Thank you all. Enjoy your summer. It's hot. Stay hydrated.