001capabilities. Once again, I extend to each of you a sincere welcome from the entire Edgewood School Board. Roll call. Martha Garcia. >> Here. >> Richard Santoyo. Rudy Lopez. >> Here. >> Michael Valdez. >> Present. >> Sergio Delgado. >> Here. >> Dr. James Hernandez will not be attending. And Frank Espinosa is present. Let the record show that the quorum of the Edgewood Independent School District School Board is present, that this meeting has been duly called, and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. Are there communications from citizens? >> No, sir, we do not. >> Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you, everyone. Our next agenda item is the presentation from Myrna Martinez, Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations. >> Mr. Secretary. >> Yes. >> Uh do we first have
002to motion to open up the public hearing? >> Good evening, Mr. >> [clears throat] >> Board Secretary, Mr. Espinosa, board members, Dr. Hernandez, community, and team members. This evening, we are here to discuss um the tax rate and the budget and every um all the work that went into that process, the challenges we've had, and what we're trying to address moving into next year. We will review through board superintendent goals, the priorities and responsibilities that the board members and the superintendent hold, the budget challenges, assumptions, and recommendations that we're making to this board for approval tonight. We will review the true cost of an empty desk because that we feel that something that we have uh challenges with throughout the year and it's impacting both academics and finances. We will review the 2026 proposed tax
003rate that the board will vote on this evening and the 26-27 proposed budgets and then what happens after that. So, the board of trustees um operate under five norms and I will read those to you that every board member when we have meetings um makes efforts to understand. We seek to understand. We um give and receive feedback. That's part of the process that drives the budget. As we go through our workshops that start early October, that's part of the process that the board follows. The direct responsibilities that the board holds are to work with the superintendent so that we can get to this evening. You set the tax rate for the district. You approve budgets and you set policy. The superintendent manages the educational programs, stakeholder engagement through various community meetings, operational management of the
004district, and advocacy and problem solving mainly at the capital and through legislative sessions. Some of the work looks like this, the work that the board and the superintendent do together. We start early October and this is a timeline we follow. We start early early October when the board approves our budget calendar. It has been a long road and we are now in June where we set the tax rate. So, the the work is year-round pretty much. So, some of the budget challenges, [clears throat] assumptions, and recommendations that we're working under, under revenues and expense projections, we've considered a reduction in federal funding that includes CHARS and Medicaid that continues to impact us today. We have challenges um on the student side with enrollment declines. We plan for about 152 less students this coming year. And
005an attendance rate of 89%. We've also managed legislative mandates that are still um continuing to come based on the last legislative session. And of course everybody knows that we're battling inflation even at the district level. We continue with the initiatives that are firm. Student success is non-negotiable. We have established two ACE and one resource campus moving into this year. The board has approved a partnership with Third Future at Baldwin Middle School. We struggle and continue to to work towards employee retention, teacher and principal pipelines, mental wellness collaboratives, building maintenance, and technology replacement plans. So tonight is a little out of the the ordinary, but I want to highlight one of the biggest challenges we're having at the school district level. Right, the cost of an empty desk. I believe it is our duty to inform
006the community how that impacts the decisions that this board makes and the decisions that administrators have to make based on what we know. Um the board did review this presentation on June the 2nd, but I thought that we needed to to discuss that again for the public this evening. So after COVID and during COVID, we had issues with attendance. The district we covered a little bit over 93.4%, but this last year, immediately year the year that we just finished, we saw a decline again in our attendance. So if you look at that just for a moment, 18+ days is considered um chronically absent for students. At our high schools, we have over 50% of our students at any at any given point missed an average of 18 days. At the middle schools, we have 38.3%
007and at the elementary, we have almost 30% of our students that are considered chronically absent under the state's um guidance of 10%. So, what does that do to the budget and what's the impact in what we ask the board to approve? Every percentage point that we miss out on on attendance is about $806,000 that the district does not have access to. That total for the the 89 to at least a 93% attendance impacts the district by about $3.2 million. And And we'll go over that a little bit what that actually means. Every attendance issue or every absent student impacts us two different ways. We have lost instructional opportunity and we have a loss of district funds. So, we get a double negative impact because remember, we are funded based on attendance and not the actual
008enrollment that we serve. So, we have a ripple effect. We have an effect on the student, the teacher, and then the district finance. So, it impacts instruction and it impacts finances. If we think about how our students learn, if think about it sequential learning. So, if a student is out, they miss critical steps that are fundamental to learning. Build Our math builds on concepts, so does reading. And that is an issue that we have when students are absent. So, it becomes a cycle of remediation. Right? It's the kids are missing class. We have gaps in learning. We have to have intervention. What does that mean? Afterschool tutorials, Saturday schools, all the things that the board approves for us, remediation softwares. And it becomes an operational strain. Again, we have to spend more money, but we're
009getting less money from the state. This is what the teacher lens might look like. I'm delivering new content, trying to maintain pace with the class so that we can accelerate our students, but I can't forget about the student that wasn't or students that weren't here the day before. So, on any given day, depending on what a student misses, this is what our classroom challenges look like. A breakdown of that $3.2 million when you add the other investments we have to make to catch up students, looks more like $7 million. Right? We have the um learning loss. So, we have to have remediation. Right? Extra duty pay, etc. We have substitute costs with teacher burnout. We also have to spend money about $1.8 million in remediation softwares. And of course, the $3.2 million that we don't
010get because of attendance. So, it is a compounding ecosystem. Um we bring that up because there are a lot of things that we've done um including adding um parent liaisons at the campus so that we can engage the community more. Board members, we know that you're out there also with in parent meetings, but this is um a place where we need to figure out how we can get our kids to school. At the end of the day, attendance is probably the biggest catalyst and the biggest um the best thing that we can do so that students can achieve and so that we can fill that learning gap and bring in money that we need to balance the budget. So, with that in mind, we bring to that tonight we're asking for action. Item 5D on
011the consent agenda, we are proposing a 97.93 tax rate. We posted the public meeting in accordance with law. We have new property value of 28.6 million. But, I want to remind the board that as our property values grow, the district gets a little bit more money from local as opposed to from the state. We're still playing with um less money because of the formulas that we still have in place. For the taxpayer, what taxpayers will see based on the new uh tax deduction, we have a higher um tax deduction on the local taxes. They will actually the av- average homeowner will actually see about a $13 less in their tax bill for the year. It's not a lot, but they will see a slight reduction. Last year's rate was at 98 .6. This year's rate,
012we're proposing a slight reduction. I want to remind the board though that we don't get the final uh tax numbers until July, and then the Texas Education Agency validates our actual tax rate in August. So, we will either stay at the same rate or have a slight reduction. We do not anticipate an increase. Part of item 5D is going to be the budget. This is what we did this year with all the work and all the presentations. We infused $2.8 million into our focus on student success, and you can see where we reduced the other areas. Although important, the transfer was was made to support the focus on the students this year. You will also have agenda five agenda item 5S, the compensation plan recommendations. The recommendation for this evening will include a 2% raise
013that will impact the general fund by about $1.1 million and it will affect other funds that the board does not approve by about $420,000. The adjustments consist of the 2% raise. We had staff reductions that equal or are about $750,000. We had some other non-staff adjustments that we can infuse again money into the student support by about a million dollars and that is with the $96.8 million um um that you are approving this evening. consist of We are moving in and proposing a $3.7 million deficit budget. We have a very healthy fund balance. Um as a reminder, we have about 19.9 or we need about 19.9 to meet the two and a half month um best practices. Right? But we're starting we're anticipating that we're going to start the year with a $61.7 million carryover
014from a prior year. The board will also approve the child nutrition budget. It is also a deficit budget of about 928,000. The um child nutrition program has its own fund balance is and this will not impact the general fund. We will also ask you to approve the uh um debt service fund. This is a budget neutral fund. We can only use these monies to pay down debt. So, here's what's coming next. We still as mentioned, we still have to come back to the board in August or September. It will more likely be September to approve the final tax rate. We do not anticipate an increase. It will likely be a decrease or stay as presented this evening. That concludes my presentation. There is a glossary of terms for um community members and or the board
015to refer to. But that is the end of the presentation this year. >> Thank you, Ms. Martinez. Any questions from the board? >> Uh I just want to ask um thank you for like the the visuals, but I did want to ask for the for the the school debt, um how much like debt do we have from like previous bonds and um that are only for that debt portion of the tax rate? >> I'll I'll make sure you put that in the next board update. >> Hello, ma'am. I I just [snorts] had a quick question. Um just so that I I get some better understanding of it, what's going um going to be used for that 2.8 increase on the focus on student success? What is that going to be towards? >> So, we've added
016several things here academically. Uh we're transitioning to Blue Bonnet math. We've added parent liaisons, so we put some of those expenses on federal grants like Lift, etc., and moved other items into local. So, what that might look like is supporting curriculum. We also um the raises for our teachers. So, all of that is in support of the students directly. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Ms. Martinez. >> Yes, sir. >> Um this past legislative session, were there any other exemptions that were created that could affect what we're collecting in taxes? >> Yes, so the homestead exemption was increased by the state. So, even though our property values are going up, you see our tax collections going down. Um the idea is that the state makes up the difference in the revenues that we collect,
017but as you can see, we we're really only relieving about $13 from our taxpayers because our taxes keep going up sorry, our values keep going up. And so, the taxpayers, even though we're getting a higher they're paying about the same amount of taxes every year. So that that is that was an impact this year. >> Any more questions board? >> Um board, I also want to take a moment to thank Ms. Martinez and her team. Um this work started back in October as she mentioned in her timeline. There's a lot of work that goes into preparing for this evening. So I'd like to thank her and her team. I know some of them are sitting here in the back. Uh but I'd also like to thank the seven-member board as well. Um when you're coming
018to workshops, when you're coming to campuses, when we go to uh performance planning meetings, that is part of the actual development of the budget because we want you to see it firsthand. What does it look like in our schools? The items that you approve like for example, the different software, the different listening and tools that students are using. I know most of you commented when we went to Stafford, when we went to HPG, to JFK, uh and asking the kids about what are these things. So we want you to see in real time uh what this what the what the approvals approved. Uh but again, thank you to Ms. Martinez and her team, to the overall cabinet for preparation for tonight, and of course to our seven-member board for your time. >> Thank you, Ms.
019Martinez. The time is now 5:35. Do I have a motion to adjourn this public hearing of the Aldine Independent School District? >> Mr. Secretary. >> Yes. >> I motion to adjourn this public hearing. >> Okay. My go on this motions. Have a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Sekula-Delgado seconds. All those in favor All those in [clears throat] favor, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> All those opposed, raise your hand and say nay. All those abstained, raise your hand and say abstained. Motion carries. This meeting is adjourned. >> So, we'll open back up for our second