McAllen ISD Regular Board Meeting (January 13, 2026)

001Good afternoon everybody. Thank you all for being here and welcome back. Happy New Year to those of you that are with us here today and everybody watching online. It's good to be back. It's good to see so many faces here today. Uh before we begin, I want to ask those of you that are here with us today and maybe online, you can see all around the room, we have some new artwork. It's a beautiful addition to our boardroom. Um the art work that you see today was actually created uh by many of our talented students and campuses across our district. It's a small glimpse of the talent that we have across Macallen ISD and it's a beautiful reminder of who we are here for as your board at the end of the day. So on

002behalf of your board, thank you for your thoughtfulness, creativity, and support. It truly means so much to us. Thank you guys. Let's give him a round of applause. [Applause] With that said, we will go ahead and call this meeting to order at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday, January 13, 2026. We're here for a regular board meeting of the board of trustees, the Macau Independent School District. Um item number one, call the meeting to order. I have done so. 531. Item number two, moment of silence. Please join us in a moment of silence. >> Thank you all. Item number three, pledge of allegiance. Please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >>

003I pledge. All right. And item number four, public comments. I believe we have one uh person signed up today for public comments. We are going to play a short video and then we will call you forward. Thank you. >> Here are the public comment procedures. Number one, individuals who wish to participate during the portion of the meeting designated for public comment shall sign up at mckelenisd.org at least one hour prior to the start of the scheduled meeting. Number two, an individual's comments to the board shall not exceed two minutes per meeting. Number three, the board shall not tolerate disruption of the meeting by members of the audience. Thank you. ISD. All right. And our speaker tonight will be Miss Martina Reichwald. Miss Reichwald here. All right. Okay. Well, then we will move forward to item

004number five, consent agenda items. And I will ask the board of trustees if they would like to discuss in any one individually or if I can entertain a motion to approve items 5A to 5e. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve consent agenda items uh 5A through 5. >> Second. I have a motion by trustee de la Garcela Lopez, a second by trustee Dr. KDman. All in favor? I >> opposed. Motion passes 6. All right. And item number six, instructional services, instructional leadership, human resources, business and operations, and board of trustee items. Uh item A1 report regarding elementary multi-tered systems of support. Dr. Gibs. >> Yes. Uh Mr. President, the board of trustees administration will report on the elementary multi-tered systems of support MTSS behavior framework. Uh Mrs. Janet Nino, associate superintendent for instructional leadership

005will present on this item. Go ahead, Miss Nino. >> Thank you, Dr. Gutierrez. Uh good evening. Um, first of all, I'd like to begin our presentation with a team approach um from several of our district directors. And if they're present in the room, I would like to recognize Miss Christian Kintania. Um, our director for accountability, RTI504 dyslexia, our executive director, Miss Mari Bella Lizando for special education, um, our former director for guidance and counseling, Dr. Norma Cabera, and our director for state and federal programs, Dr. Cynthia Levarez. And about a year ago, we went on a venture of just wanting to ensure that we do a lot for our students and we always want to be proactive in our approach and not just supporting them with their academics but also in just teaching them um

006aside from reading, aside from skills um how to help uh interact with others, individuals. And with that we introduced the multi-tered systems of support framework which um really is a marriage between a response to intervention which we already have taking place for our academic component and then the positive behavioral intervention supports the PBIS. So this overall um framework is something that we've put into place in elementary schools at all 18 across the district. And in October, we um started this conversation with our principles to say we're ready and we want to make sure that we have a consistent language across all teen all 18 elementaryaries. And the big why is just to ensure that we identify our students that are struggling to help provide interventions um at the start. So the MTSS framework is a

007tier one support of supporting highquality classroomwide instruction and for our students. And with that, we know it takes um a lot of training and professional development to our staff, not just across the district to ensure how do we help uh develop materials and communication for this to happen, but also for our campus staff so that they're supported within classrooms and libraries um to also have these convers conversations, common conversations with students and families. So we definitely have this all-in mentality amongst our elementary uh campus and district team. And so again this comprehensive framework is just um again having that academic component um really again married together with the social emotional and it's a whole child approach that we're taking to ensure our students are thriving in good academic um environments and classrooms. And so I

008do want there's a lot of slides here, but what we want to do is just kind of share the timeline of what this has looked like since October to today. And just as there is an MTSS district team in um rolling this out, each of our 18 elementary schools have an MTSS campus team. our principles leading those efforts alongside our assistant principles, our counselors, and three additional members to just say, okay, we have this common language across 18 elementaryaries, but how do we also um add the language for our school community to get them involved? And the three uh B's so to say or B expectations that we have agreed to across all 18 schools um is be responsible, be safe, and be respectful. And again, it just develops a common language on what does

009this look like and how do I help um help with students and behaviors as far as um you know, how do we talk that how do we what does that look like in the library? What does that look like in the classroom? What does that look like when I go to the grocery store? And so um that is the approach we've taken. So every campus has created a behavior matrix in conversation and collaboration with their committee. In addition um you'll see posters around the campuses. These are some examples from our Raven Rockets and just um having that be visible, right? So the more visibility we have um they're reminders just the way as adults we can find things to help remind us of of expectations. This helps our students as well. We've also have um

010establishing a recognition and reward system. And what that is more is to just let them know you're doing a great job. These are the um expectations that you're moving towards. And overall, the fourth part is supporting each one of our classrooms across all 18 schools with developing calming corners. And with that, that takes a lot of resources. And I want to thank Dr. Olivarees, uh, Miss Kintania, Miss Alzando with collaborating alongside me to say, what is it that we're going to identify to have in these bins? And every single classroom at all 18 schools, including our libraries, have these ready to go, labeled. Um, so that way we can then teach our students if you have are having a moment or you're needing to just step away, they know where to go. And again, if

011we're able to teach math, we're able to teach reading, we're able to teach language arts, we can definitely teach students expectations on how to help uh interact with others and as well as what our classrooms and schools will look like. So with that being said, um this has been our timeline up till up to now. So October 10th, we started that principal training. We've gone through um turning around that training at our campuses even through as early as January 5th at our schools. Uh we had an elementary parent partner hour where um we had a great session around this conversation and we had make and takes for parents to take and um have this model, this framework implemented at home with homework um something that they can also help carry the conversation but is more

012meaningful at home. And then today definitely just um including our our school community overall, our board members just to know the the road that we've been traveling on and um throughout the year. This is something that we need to continue supporting each other with in conversation in training and resources and supports. And I would just like to offer the last two minutes to one of our campus principles, uh Miss Gladisa Partida. and we have um all 18 principles, but uh Miss Partida serves on our um instructional leadership team for representing elementary principles. So, I just want her to give a little perspective just to say what that road has looked like from a campus side. Thank you, Miss Parta. Thank you. Good evening, school board. Um we have had a lot of talk around our

013MTSS protocols. we turned around this training um and we got to be trained by Miss Christian Kintania who has been highly involved um in this process and making sure we understand all the different aspects. So, uh having these conversations with our staff as a whole was very um insightful, right, to make sure that everybody had common language as we worked through all the different areas. So, we worked through our behavior matrix. So, we we went through every um area that students would be in. We even added to to some of these areas. So, you know, music wanted hers in there and then, you know, uh, dyslexia lab wanted theirs in there. So, we could all be aligned and we were all using the same language for students as they walked uh throughout their day. So,

014it's been uh very uh helpful to have all the same language. As we've talked with students, we're always reminding them of these the three Bs, right? So, um, as they come into elementary, some of them are coming in um, with no schooling. They've never been in daycare. they're coming straight from home and so they need to learn a lot of the the expectations, right? So, we want to approach it uh in a positive way, give them the tools and the expectations that they need to be successful and then when we encounter times where they're veering, they're getting off course, we bring them back to why, you know, it's important that they are following these expectations that they're they're safe with each other and for themselves, that they are respectful to one another, and that they're

015responsible. Um, so every area is going to be covered with these 3D Bs and how it follows them throughout the day. So, it's been very helpful. Um, it was great with the staff to be able to um, have simple language that is easy to understand for our little ones. And then the simp we tried to keep each descriptor under the 3Bs very simple also, so that way our prek students could understand it. And the fifth grade also um, we have been having some morning video announcements. So now we have some of our fifth graders going through the different posters, the different areas, and they're acting them out and under and um trying to help their peers understand um what it means to be safe somewhere when they're out, you know, at recess and so forth,

016how to be respectful and responsible. So it's been it's been a great process. It's great to be have that alignment. So as kids move throughout the district, which they do move throughout the district, you know, quite often we're all speaking the same language. >> Thank you, Miss Partida. And just to close up, um I think she summed that up well. We have high mobility uh within our families within this district. So again, whether they're at Rayburn one day and um Sam Houston the next, um there's a common language that they're familiar with and they can just um transition easily. But more importantly, we want um families to be reassured that they're in conducive classrooms, safe classrooms, and um we're we're here all in to make sure that we take on the social emotional aspect, the

017whole child approach to our students, including their academics. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Owen. Thank you everybody that's part of the team that's helped create this and implement it and for all the hard work you're doing for our students every day. >> Um >> this was an this was a it's an information purposes only item. Okay, >> thanks to the whole team. I know this is a big switch, but I love the universal behavior. Like I think that was something I heard when I first joined the board that some schools were a little different in some ways, but I think the behavior just kind of the same expectations is such a positive thing for students and just for consistency and for parents as well. So, thanks Miss Partida for presenting and Miss Kintania and

018Miss Nino for all your work on this. Um, and as long as we can just keep continuing to offer um, support for some schools that need additional support like with region one or whatever, so it's a smooth, you know, transition from what we've done in the past. But thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, moving on, we are on item 62. I believe that has been pulled for tonight's meeting. >> Yes, sir. It will be at the next meeting. Thank you. Um 683 report regarding the 2026 27 school calendar. Dr. Lucio >> administration will report on the 2627 school calendar. Dr. Deoyos, associate superintendent for instructional services as well as Miss Nino, associate superintendent for instructional leadership will have more information on this item and this is for information purposes only.

019So I'm going to go ahead and turn over turn it over to Dr. Deos and Miss Nino. >> Thank you. And um definitely this has been a a collaborative effort between elementary and secondary. But uh before we begin with our presentation, we would like to um first begin with this was a brand new committee of individuals that were representative from all of our campuses um including principles, teachers, librarians, um other staff from within our campuses. And if they are present in the audience, I would just like them to stand so they can be recognized for the work they've done. [Applause] And it was a it was a pleasure to work with them um this this uh semester, this last semester um in making sure that we um fulfilled the committee objective. And what that task

020was um to create some different options for next school year. Um and what they did was we had four subcommittees, so four completely different calendar options and also working within the parameters that we're required to work with such as state calendar requirements, uh statutes, uh local university and college calendars, um since a lot of our students are supported in higher educational courses, state, national, and IB assessment calendars, and any other data they felt would be valuable to help them uh create um an option to be brought fought for for a vote as well as other ongoing conversations that they've had. So, we had uh again four subcommittees. We had Miss Aaron Tovar from Macallen High School lead uh subcommittee A, Mr. Eric Morin from the instructional and guidance center uh lead subcommittee B. Deborah Rubio,

021our librarian Kathy Middle School lead subcommittee C. And Melissa Lada, principal at Alvarez Elementary, lead subcommittee D. And with that, this has been the timeline. Uh we established this early on just so that they would also know um how do how how will we help meet in working um targeted towards three meetings. So the work began Friday, October 3rd and between October 3rd and December 17th um they worked really really hard and intentional with um all the information provided to be where we're at here today. And with that they have um some additional data that they requested and just helped communicate that we always wanted to make sure we noted correctly was they considered you know what do we know about attendance across our district especially this past year and what contributes to low attendance

022days. So those were some considerations they looked at. They also looked at our our community partners, right? Um our partners of higher education and they studied um South Texas Colleg's breaks, University of Texas um of Utrgv their breaks and then just some other required holidays that were um were expected to take such as Memorial Day and then some holidays in between. They also wanted to study the five-year enrollment across our district to use that as data in creating their calendars. So, uh Dr. the OOS and I provided um that information to them just to have them um again make a better informed decision in creating those calendar options. And then here are those four uh drafts and their considerations on what makes their uh calendar option kind of stand apart. So, calendar option A, um

023this is going to be the draft that will be shared out with our um our staffing community. And the three considerations highlighted for calendar option A is um they wanted to communicate that that the current school year that we're in 2526 um did have half-day planning, but they said that on those days we had the lowest attendance from students. And in that um they studied that data off of attendance data. So they did remove those but they implemented full day planning um so that way they can have those twice in the year and so students aren't present that day and if they're not going to be present on a half day just give the full day to teachers to plan on those days. So that was one consideration that our our subcommittee a um had

024as far as a big impact in making their option. Um the second one is considerations of beginning on August 10th to allow for an earlier registration process. A lot of our um committee members did express that this year felt very rushed at the start of the year. Um they got here had training a work day and then it was the first day of school. So um that was something in common conversation with them as well. And they definitely want that on that onboarding of students and families just to kind of slow down a little bit and have them feel more welcomed and get um get um acclimated before the first day of school. And also um the third consideration was not to start school on a Thursday. They said, you know, let's begin the year

025on a Wednesday and um help best meet the needs for students for staff and families there. So you'll see those three are kind of their largest highlights um when uh people review the calendar option A, our calendar option B draft that the subcommittee created. Um therefore considerations in developing this this option was just to include more days for teachers to plan um schedule August 5th to be a professional learning day and host technivate on that day so that all staff u may attend that opportunity and then um to offer three weeks for a winter break. So that would extend from December uh the last two weeks of December 2026 into the first week of January 2027. and then um also providing three extra days at the start of the year to support again students and

026families with beginning of year preparations. During that time we also have uh meet the teacher in elementary uh prek and kinder camp and then at the secondary schedule pickup. So those were their four main considerations on how they developed calendar option B. For calendar option C, their three highlights in developing their calendar was having a combination of professional development days and work days at the start of the year. So they said we kind of want to break the monotony of you know having a lot of professional development then just two work days kind of making it a mix in there and as well as having enough days to get everything ready. So again they said this year it felt a little rushed um and we had to get ready fast and it was a start

027first day of school. So they had that in mind as well. Um the second consideration was this option provides five additional days as weather days if needed. So staff does not make up the time should there be uh more than two occasions throughout the year that is a um due to inclement weather. And their third consideration was to continue supporting this year's district wellness initiative. So, they embedded, you'll see that highlighted in a a very very light pink, um some wellness days sprinkled throughout their calendar option, and those would be no school days, no students, and no staff. and the uh calendar option D. Their two main considerations for creating the option that they did was um to start the year again earlier um support students involved in also athletics and other um opportunities and

028getting them started sooner and then as well as incorporating full day teacher planning days in addition to currently designated half-day teacher planning days. So, in this um option, you'll see a mix of both uh full day teacher planning days in addition to the current half-day planning with early release for students. And that would um summarize option D. And um Dr. Deoyos and I um on the timeline after today's meeting, we'll continue uh moving forward to then have um voting um tenatively start this Friday, go open for a two-eek window, and we will lay out all the instructions that way. Um that voting opportunity is open to all and communicated um in a in a memo release this Wednesday. Thank you, sir. Um, did we ensure that it's only one vote per person this time? I

029know we had some issues with that prior years where there was people voting for their favorite calendar multiple not hundreds of times. So >> that is a great question. Um, yes ma'am and actually the committees the committee overall asked the same. So when we open that on a digital side, we'll definitely make that an option to have one one voted submitted if from they're they're from the outside. Internally, we have to use our district email. >> So it guarantees one submission, but from the outside that was something that they they did ask as well. >> Perfect. >> Yes. M. And also all four um options just to uh reassure us meet the instructional minutes, meet all all the requirements and human resources also took a last look just to ensure that it helps meet the

030187 days for staff contracts and then we can work beyond that as well. Um, is there any way we can avoid going into June >> because we just have like one June 1st and then a half day June 2nd and I know it's after >> um a holiday on Monday. >> Yeah. >> So, I just know I mean I get I hear I'm sure the board hears that a lot from families like why do we come back? >> We do too. Um, the reason that we have to go into at least one instructional day in June is because we are not a district of innovation. And therefore, if we're not a district of innovation, we cannot start earlier than the fourth Monday in August. >> And we have to go into we have to go

031into an 11 month year round uh they call it a year- round calendar, but it's 11 months. So, we just have to go one day into June. >> Okay. >> It's either that or we become a district Okay. >> And on the are parents represented sorry I guess two questions from my can parents vote on the calendar or is it only staff? It's the whole MSD community. >> We we can but it's up to you all if you want to change that. >> Well no I guess what have we traditionally done is my question. >> Parents okay thank you. That's all I had. >> Yeah just a clarification. So, state law says a school district cannot start until the fourth Monday of August. Correct. >> Unless it is a year-round school system or a district

032of innovation. >> That is correct. >> Right. So, if we didn't go into June, we'd have to revert to starting no sooner than the fourth Monday of August or go through a DUI process, which >> is a long and lengthy process that >> has been discussed but not moved forward. >> That's correct. >> That is correct. And uh one more kind of related to the calendar, but I've heard when students do go back for those few days in June that there's still testing. I don't know if that's um something they >> Well, they are I mean I can speak like for high school and secondary they do take their finals at that time. So we do u make it part of the final schedule, the final exam schedule so that we do bring them back.

033Yeah. And we don't have a bad attendance date. >> Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. >> All right. >> Well, thank you to everybody. Uh, thank you for the report and thank you for everyone serving on the committees. I know how hard it must be. I can barely plan my week and to plan an entire school year. Thank you guys for all your hard work. >> They did a great job, Dr. Leis and I. It was a pleasure working alongside them. >> Thank you. >> I encourage everybody to vote once. And remind me, is there going to be something sent out to staff? There's usually a survey that goes out, right? >> It's a memo. >> Memo with links and that's how the guidance will be on how to vote and then also prepare. >> Okay.

034>> And also, Dr. Kman, after today's meeting, we will meet with marketing. >> Okay. >> Um we have that on our calendar already for um tomorrow, if not Thursday, where we'll have a website so forth to be communicated with the with our parents and community. Okay, cool. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, we move on to >> Mr. Chair, I'd like to rearrange the agenda and move up item 6C2. I think we have um several of our wonderful transportation department here. >> All right, >> 60. >> I have a motion by Trust Lopez. >> Second, >> and a second by trustee. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes 6. So we will take 6C2 at this time. >> 6C2 >> on the page. >> 6C2. >> All right. >> Sorry to jump

035ahead. >> No, no worries. Uh I'm just finding my bearings. Um All right. Report regarding Senate Bill >> 54689th legislation. Dr. Utier. >> Senate Bill 546 requires that all school buses transporting children be equipped with a threepoint seat belts for every passenger. The law allows for full compliance by September 1st of 2029. Mr. Eduardo Barnhard, our director for transportation department, would uh pro uh pro provide a brief overview of this new requirement that we have to comply within the next three years and this is for information purposes only. Mr. Barhart. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon, Dr. Gutierz, board president and board members. Um I'll be providing an overview of Senate Bill 546 as it relates to seat belts on school buses as well as some other operational considerations. like to first thank our

036amazing just a few of our amazing bus drivers that are here in attendance with us. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you do every day. So this uh this Senate bill along with our plan that I'm going to present for equips us or provides us an opportunity to equip our staff as well our as well as our students with uh the latest in technology and safety updates including three-point seat belts on our school bus fleet. Um, some of the other topics that I'll be going over are TEA reporting requirements regarding Senate Bill 546, uh, our overview of our SE school bus fleet, uh, some of our policies for seat belt enforcement on the school bus, uh, as well as operational uh, activities uh, and services that we provide. Um so Senate Bill 546

037was passed in the 89th legislation which strengthens the standards uh for school buses transporting students in Texas. The bill amended the previous mandate which required all new bus purchases be equipped with threepoint uh harnesses to now all buses transporting students must be equipped with three-point harnesses. Uh if the school board determines that the district's budget does not allow for the purchase of buses equipped with threepoint seat belts, the district must present a report in a public board meeting that includes the number of buses operated or contracted by the district that are equipped with seat belts and that are not equipped with seat belts. This same information will be reported in TEA through the Sentinel Pro uh system. Um this is an overview of the reporting requirements. We are currently up to date with those requirements.

038We are a district that provides transportation services and we are a district that currently has buses without seat belts. The next step in this is uh reviewing uh these operational considerations with the board. The final deadline is May of 2026 to for all submissions. So our current fleet and operational considerations, our fleet consists of route buses that provide services for students to and from home and school, support buses that uh stand at our standby buses, and decommission buses ready for auction or disposal. Um our support our route buses are used to transport students to and from school each day and are also used for vocational shuttles. Those are our midday shuttles for CTE and other instructional services as well as well as field trips and other student activities. U support buses are held in reserve

039and are used when a route bus is in shop for service or maintenance or when there's an extreme high volume number of activity. Um, in an overview of our services, we provide roughly transportation to 5,000 students per day, as well as 200 plus vocational shuttles and 40 field trips per day on peak days. Um, our fleet consists of 93 yellow school buses. Um, and uh, on a daily basis, we use around 12 standby buses uh, to support that our route buses. In add in addition to having seat belts on all of our route buses, our standby buses would need to be equipped with seat belts as well to meet the mandate. Um the projected cost of a new school bus is around 191,000 each. Um the current cost to retrofit existing buses without seat belts

040with seat three-point harnesses is around $45,000 per bus. Um the transportation fleet replacement aotment. So, our current fleet aotment of $500,000 allows us to purchase two new school buses per year. At that current rate, it would take 28 years to upgrade our entire fleet to be in compliance. >> Um, we roughly cover around 1 million miles per year. In our latest uh mileage report, it was around 975,000 miles. Um, and the current odometer reading of our buses, the average is 150,000 miles with the average uh service life of 11 years in service. Um, so our ultimate goal is to have all an entire fleet equipped with three-point harnesses. That includes all of our regular route buses, our special special education routes routes, and our specialty routes. Um so here are a few scenarios that uh

041that we went over as an administration on a way to accomplish uh this mandate. Uh scenario option A would be to accelerate the purchase of new buses by increasing our financial aotment from our general fund from $500,000 to $1.8 million per year. Uh this would be this would include this fiscal year over the next four years for a total of 36 buses in a four-year span. Option A, phase two, would still require us to retrofit a select number of buses with uh seat belts. It would be 20 uh buses, models 2015 through 18 that we would retrofit or install seat belts on these buses. These 20 buses would uh be a total of $900,000 needed to retrofit these buses. Option B is instead of going over four years, we would move it to a three-year

042uh plan starting with the next fiscal year uh increasing our fi our a lotment from 500,000 to 2,292,000. Again, this would be through our general fund. In this option, we would also need to retrofit 20 buses so that our entire fleet is in compliance with seat belts. Option C is the utilization of a maintenance tax note. Uh the recommendation is to uh utilize a maintenance tax note of $5 million over a 10-year plan. Uh this would allow us to purchase 25 brand new school buses. With this option, we would still need to retrofit uh our fleet. We would retrofit 32 school buses with seat belts. uh that would require a financial investment of $1,440,000 to retrofit these 32 buses. And the other option we also discussed was a maintenance tax note of $10.5 million, which

043would allow for the purchase of 55 new school buses. Uh option D, uh phase two would not be required. Uh no retrofitting of school buses. Um, I'm going to touch a little bit about our current seat belt policy. Um, at the beginning of the year, our entire department, all of our staff members were trained on the uh, use and enforcement of seat belts on school buses. Currently, about a third of our fleet has seat belts. So, many of our drivers here today have seat belts on their buses. And so, we went over training on how to educate the students and how to enforce it and also how to evacuate a school bus safely with the use of seat belts. Um our next phase was uh also providing them a driver quick card uh because it's

044a lot of information. So every driver has a binder uh in their school bus that they keep with them every day. And this is just a quick easy reminder on how to enforce this policy for them. Um the next phase was rolling this out to the campus level. Um at at this time today we have completed all 18 elementary campuses. We went to each campus and uh provided them evacuation training along with seat belt training. Every student and staff member was uh provided this opportunity to come on board board a bus and practice this practice. Um here are a few pictures from some of the 18 campuses that we visited this year where uh every student uh from uh all grade levels were uh able to come on the bus and practice this with our

045drivers and trainers. Uh also uh provided uh was this uh seat belt reminder. Uh this was developed uh in house uh and it's a friendly reminder to our students to buckle up on the school bus. Uh all of our buses equipped with seat belts right now have these uh inside the interior of the buses. Um provided here is an investigation report on an accident that happened in around October of 2025 uh near the Leander uh school district where a bus rolled over several times on a windy road. Um and so this uh accident report was concluded and to the state of Texas and all school uh districts providing transportation were provided this memo to ensure that uh we are making sure our staff are doing their mandatory pre-trip inspections for seat belts, making sure the

046seat belts are in good condition, making sure students are wearing their seat belts. Uh periodic review of our onboard camera system to make sure that it's being enforced. And then lastly, continuing education of our staff and students of of these policies. Overview of our transportation services. Uh we provide 38 regular education routes on a daily basis. Nine specialty routes which those are going to include our McKini Vento population, our dual language program, our um our ING program, Achieve Lamar as well as 16 special needs routes. Um on a yearly basis we receive 15,000 field trip requests to the tune of around 232,000 gallons of fuel. Um 150 plus daily vocational shuttles. We provide free afterchool tutoring to all programs. Every campus has uh the opportunity to have a tutoring bus that come circles back around

047after school to take students home after tutoring. And this also is extended to fine arts to athletics. So, if you're in the band or in a extracurricular sport, you can take a bus home and not worry about how how to get home. Um, as far as our maintenance department within uh transportation, our mechanics uh provide service to our yellow fleet, which are our school bus, and we have expanded that two years ago to our white fleet. So, every district vehicle uh gets maintenance through our department. That includes FMO, athletics, and everybody else that has a vehicle. Um, and then just additionally, we just started servicing uh small engines, which are our weed eaters and and lawnmowers and such. Um, and as I mentioned earlier, we log 1 million miles per year on our school buses.

048And at this time, I'll hand it over to Miss Garcia or if there are any other questions. >> Uh, yes. Um, we have with us tonight our financial advisor, Dr. Miguel de Ros Santos. He is going to present on the scenarios of the maintenance tax note. Should this be a route, a financial uh source option that the district would like to pursue? >> Good evening, members of the board. Dr. Gutierrez, based on Mr. Barnhart's report, uh Dr. Gutierrez asked us to run $5 million and $10.5 million in maintenance tax notes. Maintain tax notes is the most popular way of borrowing from school districts other than uh going through a capital uh bond financing which board is looking into for larger period larger amount in the future. But anyway, he asked us to run the $5

049million for one maintenance tax note and also a 10.5. Uh the first page we have here at the very top there's a chart and it just shows the current maintenance tax note debt that you currently have. You have three notes outstanding. A series 2020, a series 2012, and a series 2011. The 2011, the 2012 are being paid off totally this year. So your debt will go down considerably starting in 2027. In effect, the timing is good if you're going to uh to borrow any kind of money through maintenance tax notes because there will be some some uh money freed up for you. Uh if you look at the at the graph in at the bottom, you'll notice a drop there from 26 to 27. It's a considerable drop of about I think it's around 1.2

0501.3 million. Those two will be off into books at the end of this year. The second page is just uh your historical tax rates and tax assess values. Uh we use that kind of information to do the assessments that we do, but I'm not going to go over that with you. It's just historical analysis. Now, the third page is the 5 point the 5.0. No, the third page is what we call the pre. If you don't do any any borrowing next year, this is what your bond uh bond schedules would look like based on the current debt that you have. The second column there is your current debt service. That's what your payments are for the maintenance tax notes that are outstanding in 26. And then starting in 27, you'll notice that they go from

0513,76,000 to 1,982. and then 1.8 million down down down the line. The blank in the middle, the part in the middle that is blank is blank because you're not uh in this particular case, you're not uh acquiring any debt. And then the the last the next to the last column is uh you know, you add your current debt payment for the following 10 years at least. The next column is the five uh the $5 million uh $5 million and and we do them for 10 years. As you heard Mr. Burnhard said, the life of a bond is 11 years approximately, at least according to the state. So they they will not it'll be difficult to get the attorney general's office to uh approve anything above that. In other words, you're still paying on debt and

052you're the what you bought with it is no longer in service. So, the maintenance tax notes for $5 million for 10 years. Again, on the second line, you have your current debt service. That's what it's going to look like without any new debt. You notice that the middle box is filled up, and that's filled up with what's going to happen with $5 million worth of maintenance tax notes. um at the very top little square there, you would be borrowing $5.1 million instead of 5 million. The $100,000 we put in there as a masome more or less uh as you as your costs for borrowing money. The project fund, what actually you would get is the $5 million. Uh we really don't anticipate you uh spending $100,000. Whatever is not spent is refunded to the school

053district. We we projected a 4% interest rate and we projected a delivery date of 429. Uh and those are just projections just for the purpose of discussion here this evening. This the chart below that the three columns is your principal payment, your interest payment and your total payment for those bonds for the next 10 years. You notice that we backended uh the structure backends the the debt where you will have a little bit higher payments towards the end. And the reason we did that was to uh allow for for the district to to have a little bit more operating uh instead of making bigger payments up front to start making them a little bit in the back. your total debt service is the the next to the last column that that even if you borrowed

054uh even if you borrowed $5 million uh you would be at the end of the year you would have $5 million for buses and you would be really under the 20 2026 payment which you had this year about $675,000. So, um, you would be paying, uh, that, let's say the average is more or less $2.8 million. So, uh, $2.8 million subtracted from the 3.1 approximately 66 $600,000. Now, any questions on that one? Okay. The next one is your $10 million $10.5 million which is the number identified by by transportation and it's the same concept except that the same numbers except for the middle the middle figure there you would be borrowing 10.6 six, which would be the $100,000 for uh for closing costs added to a 10.5 project fund, which is actually the money that

055you have in your pockets. Your interest rate mus or less the same 4%. Delivery date the same. Now this particular one uh if you add the principal and the interest your payments on the right hand side the shaded column would be approximately $1.5 million a year after the first two years. Uh we we make those light and uh $1.5 million a year. And then in the next to the last column, you will see the total of the currently existing debt service that you have and the new debt service that you have, which is the second column, the shaded column in the box. And that would give you payments of approximately, if you look past the first two years, approximately 3.4 million for all of the debt service that you would have in maintenance tax notes.

056The average over the 2026 payment that you that you payment paying this year would be approximately $265,000 more for new debt of $10,500. But basically the next one is just a draft timeline that that we had the next page. But basically those are the two the two uh options that we were asked to run. There could be options in between there depending on what the needs of the school district determines that you would like to do. Are there any questions? >> I have some questions. >> Yes, sir. >> Excuse me. >> So, what is the because the way I see it, options A and B, is that assuming that we're taking out of the fund balance or is that the additional funds we're going to put into the a lotment out of operations? uh options

057A and B is would be assuming taking that money out of the general fund fund balance >> and then but options C either the five or 10 that's also that's coming out of not the fund balance but our operation operating expenses right >> the it would be uh taking out a loan a maintenance tax note loan uh the payment would be paid out of the general fund fund balance but it would be smaller in spreading that in initial purchase over time. One of the things that we are uh speculating is that although the deadline is 2029, uh what we've been hearding from the supply chain providers is that uh they're going to be bombarded with an overwhelming amount of orders and such. So, we anticipate that extensions may come in the future. So that's why

058we were uh we uh would like to take our time in terms of the replacement and we were recommending the maintenance tax note for the $5 million rather than the 10 >> and then that would save us that would only be an additional $800,000 annually >> actually >> in expenses >> towards the end towards the end of the payment. Uh the beginning is starts with 200,000 >> additional >> and would would taking on either five or 10.5 affect our M tax rate. >> It would not affect our tax rate. It would however affect our operating um expenditures. It would increase our uh operating expenditures. We while while we were expecting a dip uh because 20 2011 and 2012 maintenance tax notes uh were coming to an end. Instead of recouping those funds and repurposing them

059for other purposes, we would use a portion of that to take care of the new maintenance tax note payment. >> Okay. But it would still be at the 5 million at 800,000 is currently less than the 3 something. >> It's 1.18 1.18 is what we currently pay on those two notes. >> Okay. And that's your recommendation, Miss Garcia. The five million. >> Yes, that is what administration is recommending. And I apologize. Is this to vote tonight or just for >> No, it's information for now. >> Gotcha. >> It's just one of those that, you know, it's a mandate, but they don't fund it. >> So, we have to figure it out. >> One of many. >> Yes. >> Uh, I have a clarification. So, if we're focusing on option C, which seems to be the

060recommendation, that maintenance tax notes of 5 million allows for the purchase of 25 buses total. Um so how do we then get to the target number of 88 beyond that? >> Well um at that point we would uh revert back to our general fund fund balance at uh at the time in the future. Uh we could also uh seek another maintenance tax note in the future. Uh there is talk of grants uh that tea is looking to provide some uh additional funding. However, we don't know the extent of what that's going to be. Probably mostly for retrofits. Yeah. >> Is what I'm I'm hearing, right, Mr. Bar? >> Correct. At the close of the reporting period, there will be an opportunity for grants uh for reimbursement of the uh retrofitting of seat belts, not the

061purchase of new school buses. >> There's also another option. Uh we can use bond funds in order to pay uh for buses as long as it's part of a resolution. uh throughout the process of the bond we do earn interest on uh some of the that money that is uh not utilized while it's not being utilized the district is able to earn interest earnings. So another option would be to use the interest earnings to purchase the buses so long as that is part of the bond referendum order >> and we did put it in the we have a draft >> yes we do have that for discussion tonight. Yeah, we're going to talk about it, but we're going to go ahead and include it in there, the language for buses, >> but that way we

062can look at that as well as I mean it's technoe. So, we're looking at different options and that's why we're bringing it up to the board uh how we're planning and and to comply with the mandate by 2029, but we have options and they're good options that we can look into and and uh get this done. >> I have one question just for clarification. Um early on before the graph came out with the 88 buses you mentioned that we had like 91 or 94 buses plus 12 service buses. So how many buses is it total that we would need? >> Yes. So to clarify we have right now we have a total of 93 buses including our support buses >> including the >> including our support buses. But with uh >> but you said a

063third of those already have se >> correct and by upgrading our current fleet by infusing new buses I could in turn reduce our total number of buses by to 88 from 93. >> Okay. >> Because certain year model of our buses are not as reliable as others and and really I don't get as much service life out of those. So I can reduce that number be more efficient. >> So of the 88 none have seat belts. So, uh, no. So, currently of our 93 school buses, 33 have seat belts. >> Okay. And so, then we would then purchase roughly around 25 with option C and retrofit the remaining, which would leave us without any school buses with seat belts. And there's a select number of buses that I'm going to phase out for disposal that

064we do not. So, the manufacturers are stating that any bus model year 2009 and older cannot be retrofitted. So that your model would be phased out. >> Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. >> What what can we do with those? Can we sell them? >> Yes, they would be disposed through the auction process. >> Okay. >> Tiny homes. >> Road trips. >> Grateful Dead concerts in. >> All right. Um, any further discussion from the board? >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you, Mr. Ver. >> Thank you, Dr. C1 here. >> Which one? >> Mr. President, I make a motion to um change the order of the agenda to bring up >> item C1. >> C1, excuse me. >> C1. Okay. >> All right. I have a motion by Trusty Hadad. >> Second. >> And second

065by Trustee Dr. Kdman. All in favor? >> I posted. >> Motion passes. 6 and we are on C >> one discussion and possible action on the annual comprehensive financial report for the year ended June 30th 2025. Dr. >> the Texas Education Agency and board policy CFC requires that an annual audit report be prepared and approved by the board. The annual comprehensive financial uh report for the year ended June 30th, 2025 shall indicate whether the statements are presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Miss Lorena Garcia, our deputy superintendent for business and operations, will introduce our independent auditors. Administration is recommending action on this item. Miss Garcia, >> thank you. Uh Mr. Ricky Longoria, a partner, as well as Mr. Luis Lopez, partner from Burton, Mccumber and Loria LLP, are here tonight to present the

066annual comprehensive financial report for the year ended June 30th, 2025. >> Very good. Thank you, Miss Garcia. Again, my name is Ricky Longoria. I'm the managing partner of BML, Burton McDerman Longoria. I'm here today with Mr. Luis Lopez, who's also a partner within the firm uh to present the annual auto report, which should be probably the most exciting part of the year, I hope, for the as it relates to this year. Uh before I get started uh or should I say before I get Mr. Lopez uh started I just want to acknowledge a couple things up front. One, given that it is board appreciation month, I want to thank you all for you all's uh commitment uh to the kids within your community. I know you all are here as volunteers and certainly just know

067that you all are certainly appreciated. Also too, just just recognize just recognizing the audit process. uh folks sometimes don't understand how long and how long and the lift it takes to actually knock out an audit report especially for an audit audit or district of your all size. So I certainly want to thank you know the finance department and putting all this together and getting us information that we need in order to ensure that you all submit a timely audit report. Uh we did have the opportunity to have an exit conference uh with your finance team. Dr. Dr. Gutierrez was uh was present at that time and we know we went over some things whether we go over as much detail in today's presentation. Uh we'll just kind of play it by ear but most likely

068not uh to the extent that that you all would like to meet separately. I know we not we we had hoped to schedule a meeting with a with your internal audit committee uh that unfortunately did not make but that does not mean that we are not available for y'all in the future if y'all choose to just want to kind of circle back and get with us at that time. Okay. So, with that said, here's Mr. Lopez. Good evening. So, before I get started into the bound copy of the report, uh there is a three-page letter that should be included uh in in your packet. This is what we call the governance letter. just required uh communication that professional auditing standards requires us to communicate to you. I won't go over the the entire letter. I'll

069give you the bullet point uh version of it. So, um the letter confirms to you that we did audit the financial statements of Macallen ISD uh for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. Our audit was conducted in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards. uh government uh auditing standards and as an entity who spent uh over $48 million in federal funds, it was subject to a single audit. So, it was subject to the uniform guidance as well. Uh the letter emphasizes to you uh the accounting policies of the district are summarized in note two to the financial statements. This year there was a new accounting standard that was implemented related to compensated absences. Uh you will see an emphasis of a matter paragraph on the in the audit report letter which I'll go over here

070in a second but other not for any other reason just to emphasize the fact that there was a new accounting standard. These financial statements as any other financial statements do include estimates. uh the preparation of the financial statement. Sometimes we think an invoice is X and that's that's the amount that needs to be recorded. But there are areas that do require estimates. Things like determining what do we estimate an allowance for uncollectible receivables or property taxes, what those might be. Uh what the useful life of an asset might be that affects depreciation. And then related to compensated absences as well. Uh how much do we anticipate uh employees will use their comp time or we expect to pay them? We encountered no significant difficulties in completing uh our audit. I do want to uh acknowledge

071though that we are here in January. I know the board is accustomed to receiving the audit report in November. This year was a little bit different uh for two reasons. the the office of management and budget uh provides what they call the compliance supplement. The compliance supplement is basically a guide to auditors that outlines the audit requirements that we're required to to audit and the audit procedures that we're required to perform this year. The final uh compliance supplement for 2025 uh was not issued until the very end of of November. You may uh remember there was a government shutdown as well. Priority priorities of the administration were changing. So it took them a little bit longer to to release that document. Uh in addition to that, the TEA uh TEA is uh coming up with

072a new uh portal for uploading the the audit. And so TA acknowledged these two uh things that really affected all districts across the state and they they extended the deadline. So while we're here in January, uh the audit is timely and it it will be submitted to TA timely. There were adjustments uh posted during the course of the audit. Uh management has corrected all all all uh misstatements identified. There were no disagreements with management regarding uh financial accounting reporting or auditing matters. Uh and then just we did receive a management representation letter at the conclusion of our audit. Any questions on the governance letter before we move into the report? So before I get into the numbers, I do want to turn your attention to page 10. Uh I'd like to recognize achievements, celebrate achievements.

073Uh and I do want to acknowledge and recognize that uh the district received a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting that is awarded by the government finance officers association. Uh this award is awarded to entities that uh provide an annual comprehensive financial report that meets the transparency standards that they require. And so I went back to look at least 10 years uh for at at least for the past 10 years the district has received this award. And so that just shows the commitment of of staff uh your business office to to maintain transparency and to provide an an quality audit u not audit financial statements uh that meet those requirements. So congratulations to you all. Turning over to page 20 which is the independent auditor's uh report. We are rendering an unmodified opinion

074which is a clean opinion. What that means is in our opinion uh the financial statements as are presented are fairly stated in all material respects. As I mentioned I won't go into it again. There is an emphasis of the matter paragraph for no re other reason. just to uh emphasize that there was a new accounting standard that was implemented. Okay, now getting into the numbers. Um, so it is a 200page report. I'm just going to highlight a few a few numbers that I think are are the most important. Uh, we always say if there's one number that you should always keep your eye on, that's your unassigned fund balance in your general fund. probably the most important number uh within this entire report. And so on page 41, which is your balance sheet, we'll go

075straight to that number. Uh in the general fund uh column, the third number from the bottom, you'll notice unassigned fund balance. At June 30th, 2025, uh your unassigned fund balance in your general fund was 105,745,927. And so from just looking at a number, right, that doesn't really give you any perspective whether that that's a good good number, that's whether that's a bad number. And so as a point of reference, uh we always like to turn to the what TA requires in their financial accountability rating and they typically require well they do require a 75 days in fund balance. So they require the unassigned fund balance to be able to cover 75 days of expenditures. Uh in this particular case uh with this 105.7 million uh the district has slightly over 150 days. So from that

076perspective uh we're financially healthy. The district's financially healthy. Just turning over turning over the page to page 43. Uh again just looking at focusing on the general fund. Uh and I do just want to recognize h we always want to see how did the general fund do did we increase did we decrease how do we do right and so uh if we look at the fourth line from the bottom uh you'll see net change in fund balance and so the general fund increased uh in comparison to the prior year by six $6,351,780. Sorry, what page is this? >> 43. >> Oh, 43. >> Any questions here on the general fund before continuing? Okay. And then uh as as Mr. Longoria mentioned, we did have an exit conference with Dr. Gutierrez and members of the business

077office. We did uh touch on the the health insurance fund. I know that that's a an area that that you all keep keep a close eye on. Uh our only comment here was uh and we've made it before just this is a a fund that you should monitor uh and continue to monitor going forward just given the it always seems like costs continue to increase year-over-year, right? And so uh in this particular year uh the health insurance fund was supported by the general fund. There was a transfer in of about $3.8 million. Ideally, right, you want the the the fund to be self self- sustain sustaining. Realistically, it's a real challenge to to to tweak all these moving parts to to make it work, right? So the good news is uh we did talk about

078fund balance. you do have a healthy fund balance. Uh but I encourage you to continue to monitor this fund uh going forward. >> This is one that all districts are struggling with the healthc care and be able to sustain the those that are self-funded like us. And so I know we're working on this and we made some changes uh to our health plan. Hopefully those changes can um help. it should help, but uh we will continue to monitor that area of the health care because uh the prices are just skyrocketing and and um we're just going to have to continue looking at it and making the adjustments as necessary. >> I think it affected normally every a lot of the districts, a lot of cities that have, but every individual with health insurance this year,

079I think you get that email from whoever your carriers, hey, everything's going up, just FYI. So >> yeah, they never they never send one that it's going down to. >> No, I haven't gotten one yet. >> Um sir, do you mind briefly summarizing the total net change um with the governmental funds? It's about 20 million. It's on page 44. >> Okay. So yeah. So uh on page 44 and you are asking about page 44. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So page 40 44. So there are two type there's two types of statements. You have your fund level statements which focuses in the near term. So uh page 43 for example you will not see things like uh things things like capital assets uh when you buy a capital asset it's an expenditure rather than an asset

080that is capitalized. When you make a payment on debt it's an expenditure rather than a reduction of the liability. And and I don't want to over complicate it uh other than to say that that schedule on page 44 is basically just converting from the fund level to the governmentwide. We're adding in things like the liability, the long-term debt, >> your pension liabilities, things of that nature. >> Okay. Thank you. And then lastly, I do want to just touch I mentioned previously that the district was subject to a single audit. Uh this year on page 215 uh provides a summary of that. This year we we did audit the title one grants to local education agencies. We did audit the special education cluster and we did audit the supporting effective and instruction grants. Uh this uh

081we did not have any uh we did not identify any instances of of non-compliance. Uh we did not identify any instances of significant deficiencies or material weaknesses. And and that concludes my uh presentation. Just in in summary, uh unmodified opinion check. Uh a healthy fund balance check. Uh no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, check. And so that that basically concludes my presentation. >> Thank you. I'm going to open it up to the board of trustees for any questions. >> I don't have any questions. I just want to give kudos to Miss Garcia, our CFO, and Dr. you that is um you know in addition to the state recognition this report shows that you all are doing a really good job. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. This requires a motion. >> Yes. Uh we

082this is an action item board. So I will entertain a motion. Um move to approve the annual comprehensive financial report for the year ending June 30th 2025. >> Second. >> We have a motion by trusty devarope. Second by trusty Hadad. All in favor? >> All opposed. Motion passes 6. Thank you guys. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. And >> now we move on to item B, human resource items B1, report regarding agreement number 2026, consulting agreement related to strategic planning services with Mo KC LLC and MISD. Dr. Administration approved agreement number 2026-182 consulting agreement related to strategic planning services with Mo Casey on December 11th, 2025. Dr. Vidowi will present the next steps related to the update of the Mckllen Independent School District's strategic plan. Dr. Albert Canales, our chief human

083resources officer, is available to answer any questions if needed. This is for information purposes only. Dr. Gonales, would you like to introduce you introduce Dr. communication. Um, I want to thank her for for her leadership and for being here today and today she'll present on the strategic plan and the next steps we'll we'll take uh as a district. >> Dr. Thank you, Albert. Uh, Dr. Gutieres, uh, Mr. President, members of the board. Thank you so much for having us. It's really an honor and a privilege to work with Macallen ISD on this. Um, and like uh, Mr. Mr. Longi, I'd also like to tell you on board recognition month, thank you for all you do for your service, for the staff, for the community, and especially for the students of Macallen ISD. Uh, moving right

084along, I want to just give you a quick overview of what this process would look like. We like to call this our strategic thought, our design, and our continuous improvement plan. So, when we look at this, um, you're running might be open. >> Yay. Thank you. So when we think about thought, we think about including all our stakeholders, right? In the process, we all think together. When we think about design, what is strategic design? It's that approach to the planning. It's going to be targeted. It's going to be precise and concise, right? We'll pull that together. And the final project is going to end up being a balanced scorecard. And I'll show you an example of that in a minute. We like to think of our process as being continuous improvement that we're constantly looking

085at, verifying it, making sure that we're on point, right? Uh we talked a lot about alignment in some of the presentations y'all had here today, but in that it's also that cadence of accountability that regularly informs the community and the board of what we're doing. And at the end, it becomes customized. And I've been meeting with Dr. Albert and the excellent uh senior leadership team about what would this look like for Macallen. And so what we like to say is that we're going to make sure that we make this customizable to meet the needs of this district. So when we think about the organic group, right, we think about what normally happens, it's our community, right? So they become that uh group, that stakeholder group that we need to go out and talk to and

086find out what they think about Macallen ISD. So they're a very in intricate part of this whole process. We like to think about a strategic group, the strategic role. Who is part of that? That would be your superintendent and the board of trustees. We like to think of this as uh having a tactile group. Who are the tactile group? That would be our superintendent and our senior leadership team. So your superintendent actually becomes part of two groups in this process. And then we think about the operational group. Those are the boots on the ground. Those are our teachers, our staff, bus drivers, everybody that actually is going to execute this plan. So this is a copy of what we like to say is called our balance scorecard and this is based on a lot of

087research. On this you'll find the vision, the mission and the beliefs. What do we believe about our students at Mallen ISD? So when you have new hieres coming in, we like to explain to them these are our beliefs at Mallen ISD. So if you want to be part of this group, here's what we recommend that you read and look at and internalize. But then after that we look at what would be the four priorities that we need to look at for strategic planning. Typically those end up being student ends up being staff ends up being community stakeholders and financial integrity. So when we look at this we go back and we'll get gather feedback from again all groups look at what they think to be strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. will do that analysis with

088everybody and then those big rocks will continue to rise to the surface. From there, the senior leadership team puts that all together. So, as we go through these sessions, and I'll talk to you a little bit more about what those all look like, we will capitalize on all of that. Then, this becomes the actual working plan. So, I know we sometimes see strategic plans that are 30, 40 pages. I know I've been part of systems with 30, 40, 50 page strategic plans. uh sometimes they end up becoming checklists. What we like to think of in our plan is that it is something that is at the forefront that it drives conversations, it drives reports to the board and it just creates that transparency with the community. >> So when we think of the other way,

089>> there you go. >> So when we think of that cadence of accountability, so once that balance scorecard is created, right, and we'll work through that, it is featured at every board meeting. So, uh where there's a natural fit to report out, we will report out and the board will ask how are we doing on those strategic objectives. So, at the end, the board ends up approving the priorities, the strategic objectives and the strategic outcomes. And so, then we will create at cadence of accountability that it keeps coming to the board. So, it's not something that we create and then put on a shelf, right? It's something that we're going to actually be using. the board takes its responsibility to monitor that and to its commitment to the objectives. The next one is um each

090month right when we talk about the strategic conversation once a month we'll show the progress toward those objectives. So we said this, they were important. We put them on our balance scorecard. How are we doing as far as reaching our outcomes? And then the last one is oop sorry is to provide that uh community and staff with that clear understanding of this is what we're doing at Macallen ISD. So the process is a total of six meetings. The seventh meeting being the one in which you would adopt division, mission, beliefs and the strategic priorities in the strategic objectives and the strategic outcomes. But we start off with three meetings. One would be with the board of trustees in which we go into depth. You get team of eight training but we go into depth with

091strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So we'll talk through that. You'll have uh we'll go through a trust inventory and get again team of eight training. We'll meet with the senior leadership team and begin that process. And then we have a big community meeting in which we start seeking input from the community. Then there's a little time in there about four to six weeks in which we actually get to work with the senior leadership team. Uh after we've seen everything, we've looked at all the input, then we start seeing, okay, what's what is really aligning up here? What is really the community telling us the board of trustees expectations? And we start putting that together in that balance scorecard. We schedule out the next set of meetings in which now we work with the board of

092trustees which becomes more of like of a governance and we also like to call our system a performance management tool really is what this ends up being. But we start meeting with you and talking through that showing you uh exactly what the balance scorecard looks like and then we start talking about what are some wonderings that the board might have. Right? And so then that kind of ends up taking us back to the balance scorecard to refine that before we bring it to the board. At that point we have another community meeting and we bring them back and we show them the balance scorecard based on your feedback based on feedback from uh senior leadership and based on the expectations of the board of trustees at Macallen ISD. Here's what we feel are our priorities

093and our strategic objectives. Then we asked them now I know you all have done a lot of work on a leadership model and Dr. with has charged us with keeping that and including that in this proc excuse me in this process. So we would like to go back and rebrand the vision and mission for Macallen ISD. So sorry. So we'd like to go back and then rebrand it and that will happen at that next community meeting, but it also lets the community know this is what we said at the first meeting and here's where we're at right uh in round two. And then we finalize that with the senior leadership team and then bring that back to the board for approval. So again at the end we talk about this being a systems approach. It's

094a systems approach to good governance. We talk it about being a plan right a collaborative development uh for a three to five year strategic plan. It is aligned to the superintendent can be aligned to the superintendent's evaluation. We've talked with the senior leadership team about their district improvement plans and campus improvement plans. All of that comes together, right? Uh board trainings, those are the things that you will receive from that. And then at the end, the accountability and I think that's the most important piece. Meetings that we have with teams with their senior leadership teams with their departments are all going to go back and focus to towards that balance scorecard. And basically that's it. I tried to do it in five minutes. So I know y'all are are super busy, but those are just

095options. We'll run this however Dr. Guthus and his team feels. Uh we're we're flexible and so whatever works for Macallen ISD. >> Are there any questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> Sorry, one particular question. Thank you for coming, Dr. Vid. Will you be the guide for us through this process? >> Thank you. >> I'm so excited. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Then we are on to item number two. Discussion of the MISD district policy CSA. Dr. Peters >> Mallen ISD policy CSA regulation is proposing the designation and use of private spaces. Texas Association of School Boards is recommending this resolution be brought to the board for review. Dr. Canales, our chief human resources officer, will have more information on this item and we are recommending

096action on this item. as a first. It's a first reading. >> It's Yes, it's the first reading. >> Any questions for Dr. Canalis >> motion? Oh, no. We're just discussing, right? >> No, this is for action. >> Oh, then motion to no action. We do, >> right? It's his first reading. Yeah, that's true. >> Then item number three, discussion on TASBY localized policy manual update 126. This is also a first reading. >> The Texas Association of School Boards has provided update 126, which includes revisions to legal and local reference policies adopted by the state. Staff has reviewed the update and administration is presenting this item as a first reading with final approval scheduled for the next board meeting and uh Dr. Canales, chief human resources officer. We have any information additional information and this is

097for information purposes only >> and it's a first reading. >> I guess in reading the policy a lot of it they just changed it to align the built and meeting act and the changes that they made there right >> there. a lot of changes like practices were already doing best practices anyways so they just added it into the policy but there's a lot of other >> voting one of the things that I noticed was the voting by now it's >> right so that's like a best practice that most districts do right codified now in in board policy >> right >> yes >> any questions board >> thank you >> and we are on to C3 which is discussion of no C4. Oh, C3. Yeah. Report regarding 2026 27 budget calendar. Dr. >> Uh, no. C3.

098>> C3. I'm still on winter break. Excuse me, guys. Uh, report regarding fund balance and additional needs project. >> Yes. Uh, Miss Lorena Garcia, deputy superintendent for business and operations will present uh more details on the fund balance and additional uh needs projects that we have and this is for information purposes only. Go ahead, Miss Garcia. >> Yes, thank you. Uh, thank you. Uh, you just heard the report from our external auditors and they did touch on our fund balance. Here we have a chart that provides a history of the past several years where you can see the unassigned fund balance and this is the 199 the one that we uh normally report on more often because this one can be used for any purpose that the board intends. Um fiscal year 2024 we had

099uh the year ended at 93 million and then now for fiscal year 2025 the year has ended in 105 million. However, as the year progressed, we did have some budget amendments. So that so that we have spent some of that that surplus. It was an increase of uh 13.6% which amounts to 12,672,256. I will say that in the past 10 years, this is the highest the district has had the unassigned fund balance. It went anywhere from 40 49 million 10 years ago to 105. And as the auditors did mention, we are in compliance with the TEA requirement of the 75 days. Not only that, but it's actually at 156 days. And when you look at our district and compare it to our neighboring school districts and unassigned fund balance, when you measure it to the

100operating expenses, we are the ones that have it at the highest level. So, uh, it's an an accolade for our board of trustees with great fiscal management. >> Can I clarify that? That's, um, even larger than districts with many more students than us. >> That is correct because we have to use some kind of ratio, uh, because districts are varying sizes and so forth. Um, uh, by using that ratio, we we actually have the highest. >> Thank you. And just to remind you that just recently the board did use some of that fund balance for the retention stipen and this was uh from the 199 account. Uh the the chart that shows uh the 199 account we did use other funds as well but from 199 we only use 1.5 million to to pay for

101the retention site. Um, we now have some requests that uh have come to us and some of them we've kind of been holding back on uh until we knew what the surplus was. Um, and some are emergency items. There's others that are needed to finish out the year. Um, the first one is from facilities maintenance and operations. And we have some air handlers, two air handlers actually at Wilson Elementary that are 30 years old and those are about to give out. We would like to wait for the bond to be able to fund these, but we don't think that they'll make it and it does take some time to manufacture. They are readily available for us to purchase so that we are able to uh install them in spring break. We would use $217,000 for

102the purchase of the equipment only right now. We would keep them in storage and then install them in spring break using uh we have some leftover money from uh the previous maintenance uh tax note um and the construction uh tax note um and um then that's when we would uh take care of them. Mr. Trevinho is here in the audience if you have any questions on that. Transportation has been given a very conservative benchmark. Actually all of these departments we give them a conservative benchmark over the years and this year we want to really look at those benchmarks that they're given because uh they keep coming back we for additional needs uh that their budgets are not um aligning to the benchmarks because the needs are growing. Some for example in transportation uh some of

103the things that have happened is activities have expanded and we've asked them to just cover with their existing budget rather than giving them an additional amount an increase. Uh so consequently they're having to come back uh at the middle of the year and ask for additional funds. Uh some of those examples is uh of course when we opened up Utrgv we had to create new routes that were not part of the budget. So we asked them okay can you cover it with your existing budget. Um in addition to that there has been an increase in in sports uh and activities at the middle school level and that's another area where we asked them to to cover. So uh inflation is another another item and so forth. Uh we do have a program software on there

104for $40,000. Uh that one um is the uh recommended that for security purposes our our technology department is recommending that we transfer that to the cloud. So it would take $40,000 to do that. So the total for his request is $775,000. >> And um >> on the mayor I >> Mr. Barnhard is here as well >> on the support staff for duty overtime at 375,000. I I understand your explanation. Mr. Mr. Bar, can you is there a need at this point to if we're spending this much on overtime and this is for only half the year right from >> so will that amount cover the remaining of the >> well I guess yeah is this going to cover the next half of the year and should we look at maybe would it be cheaper to

105create new positions rather than paying overtime? >> So uh that's a great question. uh if we were to create new positions, I think we would have the issue with uh being able to manage the peak periods. So the peak periods come in certain phases and if we're overstaffed uh that that would create a problem in itself as well too and filling those positions would be extremely difficult and keeping maintaining those positions. So uh our activity comes in peaks depending on the different seasons. Uh we're I think we're rightly staffed right now. U in different reports, it shows that uh we're staffed at the appropriate levels, not under and not over. Um the the aotment, if you look at transportation from yesterday, and I mean 10 years ago, uh the funding was to transport students to

106and from home to school. That's what the aotment was for. But since then, transportation activities have increased uh to other activities such as our vocational shuttles that takes up a large amount of our activities. Uh that's CTE programs, that's instructional programs where we're transporting students from one campus to another covering the Lamar Achieve UTRGV routes. uh sending them to um uh places like uh nursing programs at hospitals to STC so they can get their CTE credits. Um really we work around the clock 247. Uh we've expanded that to uh free tutoring which I'm sure you've seen has resulted in in uh amazing success for our students. Uh so tutoring through buses are provided to every campus as well as our athletics and fine arts. So we've absorbed all of those with our budget from from

107last from previous years. >> Well, you know, Mosia, I look forward to we're going to start having budget >> benchmarks >> discussions about how to address this. >> Thank you. >> For the department of technology, they are having to uh provide uh a renewal of software on um the firewall. Uh cyber security is a priority. This uh firewall software is -ate uh refundable. So we will apply for a rebate that we estimate approximately $138,000 savings with that. So they do have that request. We initially have to upfront the 360 and then we will get the reimbursement. >> And why wasn't this why wasn't this known when we set this budget? Good evening everyone. Uh board members, superintendent. Um the reason we missed this particular um requirement is we were trying to extend the life of

108the firewall and not have to uh kind of upgrade the particular software. And once we got into negotiations with the particular provider or you know the manufacturer, we weren't able to come to a an agreement to extend it. So we fell into a situation where we're hoping to actually leverage it for next fiscal year, but we were not able to take advantage of that. So what we did is we went ahead and requested this ahead of time and still leveraged the -ate program to at least get some funds back from this u situation. >> Yeah, >> thank you. >> Okay, thank you. >> And then moving on to athletics. Um they are needing 150,000 uh for their travel. Um again this is uh an amendment that they brought to us uh last year as well.

10950,000. Um, and this includes student meals, uh, buses, uh, transportation costs have increased. Uh, we had, uh, a a cost of 20 $20 per trip in town, um, previously and now it's $100. And the reason for that is because $20 doesn't pay for not even the bus driver. So, transportation had to increase their rates, but that affected fine arts and that affected uh, athletics and CTE and so forth. Uh so hence the reason for that uh they also uh utilize some of their funding early on in the year for facilities like for example they did re uh re uh repair and uh get the the gym at a chief early college ready for uh wrestling that they want to use that. So they invested some of the funds in that and consequently they were not

110able to pay for uh now their middle school high school uh middle school helmet re replacing and reconditioning and that's a safety issue that we absolutely have to do. We did ask them we did increase if you recall this budget year the coaching stipens however we did not increase their benchmark. uh we asked him to absorb it with what he uh had and uh he is telling us he's not able to do that and that's what that 70,000 is for and coach Mlenny is here as well in case you have any questions. Uh in the area fine arts similarly uh they do have quite a bit of travel costs. They have 36,000 for middle school travel. Um they also had an advancement and um it's a larger than usual than prior years in TMEA area

111and that uh they're needing 12,000 there. Uh for transportation cost they're asking for uh $20,000. So all of that is travel uh in addition to that uh $10,000 for uh substitute costs. And uh that is the last of the requests that we have. Uh we this is not an action item. This is just for information purposes only. Um we're bringing it to the board for feedback and we will uh based on your feedback we will bring it back at the next uh actually at the February board meeting with the budget amendment. >> Thank you. >> Um I have a wondering here uh and it's an observation that I want to test. Um, I am observing that there are no additional funding requests for instructional purposes here. And I wonder why that is. >> Because those

112we approve immediately. We we just bring them to you as they come in. And actually, I have a list with me of the previous budget amendments that the board has approved. >> Yep. >> And I'm sorry I'm away from the microphone. >> It's all right. >> But, uh, we Prior in the year uh we provided um let me see the region one dropout prevention program and recovery services. We also provided uh the instructional technology student Chromebooks and then UTRGB requested furniture and supplies. Um and so those those came from unassigned and we brought them individually to the board. >> Great. Thank you. Even when I'm hearing about those investments, they strike me as important but not actually instruction. >> Okay. >> Um and for example, um we're an A-rated district. Absolutely. Um there is a

113not insignificant number of our students at the third grade level, for example, that are not meeting grade level standards. um if you don't read by the time you're in third grade or by the end of it, chances of you actually getting there are decreasing every single year afterwards. And so my wondering is if we are making additional investments, would we be better off making those investments for something like a tutoring intervention for that percentage of students that did not meet grade level standards on third grade reading last year? Similarly, there's a not insignificant number of students last year who didn't meet grade level standards on eighth grade math. They are now in high school. Eighth grade math is highly correlated with likelihood of going to college, long-term earning potential, and the overall health and wellness

114of a given community. And I know our staff is doing a lot, but when I see these sorts of requests, I'm sure they are well justified. But for me, I wonder if we may also consider the students who are the furthest from meeting the bar that delivers on the promise that we make to them if we should be thinking in ways that are inside or outside of the box for how to invest in those kids. >> Uh I believe the campuses have access to more funding resources than this departments. uh they get plenty of uh federal funds, title one funds, state funds, so local funds. So with the campuses, we have a variety of funding that we can provide them with. Uh these departments have to depend only on the 199. >> Yep. >> And

115special education, for example, we don't even get enough from the state. We we subsidize special ed millions of dollars um maybe three to five million just to keep special education and provide all the services to our students. But when it comes to tutorials, resources, staff development, we have title one, title two, state comp, uh grants, we have pl uh so with campuses, you may not see a lot of their requests because we have different funding sources that we can get money from to be able to continue with uh the instruction uh versus these departments that depend on the the local funds. But they all know that our my number one priority our number one priority is always a curriculum and instructional component first first and foremost >> and so there is no lack of money

116for services to our students uh when it comes to the instructional process because we know that that's number one priority but campuses have different funding sources that they can tap into versus our departments that they can do that. >> Great. Um I appreciate that. I would love if not tonight because it's not on the agenda an understanding of how we have shifted instructional resources and funding via those avenues that you've identified to address the again not insignificant number of students that did not meet grade level standards last year because right now I'm kind of in the dark about that. >> Sure. >> Well, you bring up a really good point and I think as we have our upcoming budget workshops we can discuss this. Um, I know through some of the ESSER funding, we were

117able to fund a lot of positions like instructional coaches who were primarily focused on reading, math, and the campuses, as far as I know, loved that because they were closing gaps, you know, like crazy. And that was wonderful. Since then, we've had to, you know, talk about attrition and and some other things, but I know there's still some campuses who would love to have some extra support in those areas, too. So, I think it's something we can definitely look at and discuss. Um, but it's a great great thing to bring up. So, >> we will be um talking in fact we're going to talk one of the items is to talk about the budget calendar but uh we will be having some very serious conversations with the budget because uh we anticipate deficits and we're

118going to have to balance all of that at the end. We're going to have several months to work on that. But, uh we'll see how personnel is going to impact versus programs and things like that. Uh but um we're going to have those conversations coming very soon and we'll have plenty of meetings to talk about u the state of our budget for the 2627 school year. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hy Garcia, our CFO, I've been asking them to look into the the templates already for uh for next year so that that way we can have an idea how much money we're going to get from the state and and versus the needs that we have as a district. but willing to think that we our needs are greater than what the state is

119going to give us. And so we we're working on that and we'll have those conversations in the next coming months. >> Thank you. >> All right then. Uh thank you for the report. Moving on to the budget calendar. Dr. >> Yes. This moves us into the discussion we're having. Uh administration uh manages a budget development implementation and monitoring process that reflects sound business and fiscal practices that support district goals. Miss Lorena Garcia, deputy superintendent for business and operations will report on the 26 27 budget calendar and uh just so that we all know our the some of the workshops that we have been planning and this is for information purposes only. Miss Garcia. >> Yes. Um what we want to do is we want to be able to provide a transparent process. We want to

120provide information early um and on multiple topics uh so that the board has sufficient information to provide feedback, ask questions before the the budget adoption. Um so the budget is developed over a series of several months. We do provide these board workshops and some of the topics that we look at is anticipated revenues, expenditures, staffing is a big big topic, compensation, uh benefits of course we look at enrollment uh and attendance trends um and fund balance and long-term stability. Uh the very first uh workshop will be scheduled February 17, 2026. And then we have one on March 3rd, 2026. April 7th, 2026, and May 5th, 2026, and May 16, June 16th is the last one before the adoption. We do also sometimes have to add special ones, so the schedule may change. All of this

121uh has been already added to your calendar by Mr. Ramirez. Um the very first one uh will uh look at uh past, present, and future. We look at last year. We look at the current year and we uh look at the projections. We'll also take a look at enrollment and attendance op optional flexible school day program how that's going, give you an update, additional day school year considerations. Uh we also look at the fund balance and then uh our tax rate. Uh on March uh 3, we will do uh a focus on staffing. We look at the guidelines uh the comparison from prior years. uh the compensation plan uh overview uh history of raises and then we also uh provide some preliminary cost scenarios. Uh in April 7th we will focus on employee benefits and

122their fixed costs and um provide a plan and and options for the board to consider. Uh in May we will go back to uh human resources with our compensation and market review. We do hire Tazby to provide a salary study and they will provide a report at that time. In June is when we provide near final numbers um with the uh 2526 budget updates, 2627 budget projections and then uh property values. We also provide that information and um uh confirmation that we are able to provide a balanced and compliant budget. On June 23rd is when we are uh projecting to bring you the final budget uh for board adoption and that would be the last workshop. Any questions? >> Looking forward to it. Um you know here for the state looking forward to it and

123seeing what uh what fun we're going to get into this year. Since I've been on the board, it's been increasingly fun every year. So, looking forward to >> Thank you. Getting creative, right? Uh all right, moving forward to the pre-bond planning. >> Administration will provide an update on the district's pre-bond planning process. Miss Lorena Garcia, deputy superintendent for business and operations will share more preliminary findings and next steps in the development of a comprehensive bond strategy. This is for information purposes only. Miss Garcia, >> uh yes, uh last week on uh Wednesday, we did have our final facilities forecast advisory committee meeting and uh I know some of the the members of the FFAC are currently in the audience. So, we want to extend a very heartwfelt thank you for their participation. if they could

124please rise and so that they may be acknowledged. Those of you that have attended the FFAC meetings >> and thank you to the people online too that watch our meetings that are online that watch online. >> Absolutely. It was quite a commitment and we really appreciate them. Uh with us tonight is Dr. Robbie McGawan from Fluger Architects and he is going to kick off our report. Thank you, Miss Garcia. Good evening, uh, uh, President Rivera and Dr. Gutias and board members. Uh, I also want to say, uh, a big thank you to our trustees for your service during board appreciation month as well. Um, and, uh, it's good to be back in front of you this evening. I want to uh quickly introduce uh some of my colleagues who are uh some of the many

125people at Fluger who are working uh in support of the district as we uh plan the bond. We have Sean Connor who's a principal in our firm. Uh Connie Retta who's managing principal. Uh we have Josh Sawyer who's principal and educational planning director. And Dr. David Young who's principal and director of communications and community engagement. Um so uh as uh Miss Garcia said at and and some of you uh saw last week at the FFAC meeting, we did share an update uh with the group and um the first thing we wanted to do is kind of uh remind people as a a grounding uh about this is that uh uh our project framework and we discussed this last time I was here with you. This helps us put um our the the projects that you're

126planning into a a context of the why the why we do it. I know you also have uh more detailed information that you've received from the district in terms of campus list and things like that, but this project framework helps uh to to put kind of the why behind why these uh projects are needed. uh the the examples that are listed underneath each of these project framework categories uh are not an extensive list. These are almost subcategories in and of themselves. So uh just as a reminder of that uh the first category uh is uh modernization and alignment that includes projects like the CTE expansions at the three uh comprehensive high schools and cafeteria modernizations. Uh the the category of wellness, safety and security would be those things like the front entries and security uh

127access and also elementary uh gymnasiums having those uh climate controlled and enclosed there. learning beyond the classroom. Uh learning beyond the traditional classroom. Um uh maybe uh as as people oftentimes think of that just that traditional classroom, but examples would be the fine arts modernizations at your three comprehensive high schools. Uh district equity and growth, classroom additions at those campuses that are that far exceed uh current capacity. uh as well as a campus refresh at all three of our high schools, including lots of uh different uh needed uh improvements uh and updates there both academically and athletics and extracurricular. Um and then that last category, capital and deferred maintenance. uh those things, those items, uh some of those you've discussed even tonight in your meeting, but like HVAC repairs and replacements and controls and uh

128paving and roofs, uh LED lighting and camera and access control. So, at this time, what I'd like to do is turn it over to Josh Sawyer, and he's going to go through with you uh in a little bit more detail about the projects and and the process for coming up with the cost estimates. Thank you, Robbie, and thank you board for uh the time tonight uh to share with you guys the projects uh and the cost estimates that we've worked together uh with the FC uh as part of this process. Uh as Robbie said, we're going to run through each one of those categories and kind of talk a little bit of detail of what each one of these are. Uh the first one in the academic alignment modernizations uh category was the CT expansion

129at the high schools. This would include uh work at Macallen High School, Memorial High School, and Row High School. uh this was looking at adding additional CTE space to support uh certifications and high level courses particularly in the highintensity areas of CTE. So you're talking about uh more of the hands-on high equipment styled uh CTE programs as well as low inensity uh programs and labs that are associated with each one of those high schools providing modern uh facilities conditions and equipment uh for the students to reach uh their educational goals within those programs. Uh this value was at 39.49 49 million uh to complete that project. Uh the next one uh was cafeteria modernizations. Uh this was included at Milm Elementary, Alvarez, Sigin, and Morris Middle School. Uh this was looking at uh current cafeterias

130at those existing uh campuses uh that are undersized to serve the student population. This is both in the cafeteria and the dining services portion uh so the kitchen uh portion of the campus. uh these were looking at expansions uh and reconfigurations of those facilities uh to support uh modern dining facilities. This was a price tag of 33.05 million. Moving on to the wellness, safety and security uh category. This was looking at furniture, security and access. Uh this is everything from security vestibules, equipment uh technology to help support secure access of those entries uh as well as support the flow of public through those entries and into the campuses. Uh this was included for Macallen High School, Memorial High School, Row High School, Deleó Middle School, and Morris Middle School. And this was a price tag

131of 13.47 million. Additionally, in that category was elementary gyms and enclosures. Uh this was for Perez Elementary, Custoa Elementary, Sanchez Elementary, Hendricks Elementary, and Houston Elementary. This is both looking at campuses that currently do not have uh gymnasium gymnasiums as a part of their campus but also those that have pavilions that are not fully enclosed. Uh this is for not only instruction but also safety and security providing secure facilities for the students uh to be enclosed for those uh educational activities. This was a price tag of 26.19 million. Moving on to learning beyond the classroom. Uh this was looking at fine arts modernizations at the high schools. Uh this was at Macallen High School, Memorial High School, and Row High School. Uh this was looking at additional fine arts space to support uh theater in

132the blackbox uh type of arena. uh space that would allow uh theatrical performance, small theatrical performance as well as educational space uh for theater uh in addition to mariachi spaces that are currently either in spaces that are not appropriate for the types of spaces that they're using but also uh in portables at some of these campuses. Uh this had a price tag of $35 million. Moving on to uh district equity and alignment. This is going to be looking at classroom additions. Uh this was three uh campuses, Gonzalez, Milm, and Morris Middle School. Adding additional classroom space to support programs uh in classrooms for those campuses. There's a variety of of programs that either don't have current space or additional uh classroom spaces that were needed uh to support the overall student population. Those campuses, this

133had a price tag of 38.73 million. The next item is a campus refresh at the high schools. Uh this is at Macallum Memorial and Row High School. Uh this was looking at an overall campus refresh, which means looking at the overall conditions of all the finishes, uh lighting, flooring, walls, things like that within those campuses. There's a variety of ages, life cycle analysis within those particular uh systems that are looking to and needing to be replaced. Uh this would look at not only the general areas of the campus uh public areas but also additional spaces like fine arts, athletics and support facilities throughout the campus. This was essentially looking at those major systems throughout all three of those campuses. Uh this was a $45.15 million price tag. And then lastly, looking at districtwide uh campus

134um capital projects and deferred maintenance. Uh this was a list of priority one projects that were identified uh as a part of the major portions of those um refreshes. Uh this is going to be looking at HBAC upgrades, uh site paving repairs, roofing repairs, LED lighting, security and access control and HBAC control. These were again identified as the major uh systems that needed replacement within these campuses. The campuses are there listed on the right uh as well as the three at the bottom lighting, security, access controls, and HBA controls for districtwide uh upgrade. A lot of these uh conditions are both uh life cycle uh necessities as far as uh needing to be replaced. Uh some of them are looking at energy efficiency uh again safety and security upgrades for the district uh as a

135part of those and providing u more ability for the district to to better uh service those buildings moving forward. Uh these were the initial highle priorities uh that were looked at across the district. There's an additional list uh Miss Garcia will go over here in just a little bit for additional uh priority one items that are listed by campus. All of that uh here is the framework that Robbie just presented to you guys. Those initial projects as he stated uh looking at the entire district as a whole, looking at all the individual campuses wrapped up in these individual pieces. Each one of those listed underneath with their price tag. uh to come to the total value of $335 million. And with that, I will turn it back over to uh Dr. David Young uh to

136go through the >> May I ask something before we move on just because I've had a lot of community members reach out to me asking how did you come to this number? Say the campus refresh at high schools 45 million. Can you talk us through the steps that you guys took to get to this number? >> Yeah, so each one of these projects go through a series of uh workshops. We we conducted a workshop with the district personnel to identify the initial needs of the projects that were identified here. Uh we also have uh conversations around what that means programmatically meaning what is the scope and scale of the work that we're talking about doing within those uh and then take that along with the analysis of the campuses particularly square footage >> um and

137and looking at construction costs to conduct those pieces. So for the campus refreshes, it's looking at the particular needs like lighting, flooring, walls, uh ceilings, those kinds of things. Adding that together over the square footage of the building to arrive to those total costs. >> Okay. Do we have this posted anywhere for like do we have a site? >> This was on the it's on the facilities forecast. Okay. >> web page u this presentation here. But I'm glad you asked that question because I get it asked a lot >> and maybe we can write that somewhere just to be fully transparent about how we came up with these numbers. Um, and I know some of these projects are general broad overviews, but there's also a few more things maybe for fine arts and some of

138the campuses that we want to make sure we're really transparent about for what we're doing with schools. So how can we ensure I guess that's just something that we can make sure we do on our end or >> um in terms of that uh communications and transparency that's another uh uh thing that we'll be that we are currently doing already doing working with the district in uh communicating uh these projects. So rather than just a list like what when we talk about fine arts editions what does that look like? Uh and and then to your earlier question Dr. Coleman it would also be um there will be some explanation as to just how were these how were these estimates arrived at? And so uh that's a part of and that's certainly something that not only

139the district can do that the district should do in your role to educate the public. Obviously, the district cannot campaign, but the district can and should educate. And we'll we're already working on putting that together to add a little bit more of that explanation. Okay. >> For you. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. >> All right. Good evening, board. It's great to be with you tonight. Just want to bring to your attention kind of what's in the queue as we move forward in this process. As you are well aware that there has been a great deal of work that's been done to this point. The FFAC has put in a lot of time and effort. The district staff has done a mountain of work to get to this point. I I want to commend the district

140staff. We have the opportunity to work with lots of school districts and the amount of thought organization and and work that was done initially uh in this process by the Macallen staff is truly outstanding. And so we're in a good place. Uh and as you all now begin uh your phase of work as the board members, you've got uh obviously this meeting tonight, you've got another opportunity this month on the 29th and then on February the 10th, you will have the opportunity to actually consider this as an action item. Uh what happens in this process, the work's not over at that point. It just kind of shifts. Uh as Robbie alluded to just a second ago, uh the district will be working uh to educate the community to provide information and that is certainly it's

141our honor to have the opportunity to come come alongside the district and support in that effort. We're actively working with the communications team. We don't have another meeting with them until until tomorrow morning. uh and and so we're meeting with them regularly to talk about uh how information is posted to be transparent be that in the website be that in social media providing opportunities uh for the public to come in and and see and hear and so we are excited about that work as you see on this timeline you see the month of March uh labeled with community engagement that's exactly what that is is the opportunity to share here. Dr. Gutierrez will be uh going on a speaking tour of the district and sharing uh information about the bond package uh and answering questions

142in the community as well as the things that I just mentioned we're doing with the the communications team. And then in April, that certainly continues. There are a couple other markers in April. April 2nd is all is the last day to vote, always 30 days prior to election day. And so voter registration campaigns are also a part of that community ed engagement process. It's hard to believe. Uh early voting starts on April the 20th. It seems like a long way away. I think it was Ruben told us earlier we're 107 days. Is that what you said? From election day. Uh and so if you think about that, uh April 20th is even even approaching more quickly. And so, uh, we're excited about the opportunity to work with the district in this process, but we also

143know that time flies during these these months. And then certainly, uh, May the 2nd is election day and we'll have the opportunity to get the feedback from the community about the awesome opportunities that are in store for the students of Macallen ISD. So, with that, just wanted to share a little bit with you about the next steps. I think I'm turning it over to Miss Garcia. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Young. Um, we do have another list. Um, uh, I know that, uh, we had previously provided a list from MGT by campus for each of the projects and we want to be able to correlate how that looks in comparison to to the Fluger uh, uh, descriptions uh, based on the buckets. Uh, so we have made this available on our board book

144website to the public for them to see. And uh the way that we structured it is we provided uh a box for each one of the campuses and then on there the highlighted in yellow are projects that are covered or proposed to be covered by the bond and as uh there's if there are any savings then uh if you recall at uh the FFAC meeting it was mentioned that if there are any savings out of that 103 million for those uh deferred maintenance type projects uh then we would go back to the priority priority list which would be this list. Um and look at the remaining priority ones and fund those projects. So uh you see two descriptions here. The ones highlighted in yellow are the ones that we are anticipating that they would be

145covered by the bond and then the ones below that as funding permits. And there's one uh block for each one of the campuses. And this you've seen this list before. The only difference is now we've sorted it in in terms of funding levels for commitments for these campuses. And we would like your feedback. We would like your feedback on the projects because as Dr. Young mentioned on February 10th is when we bring back the the uh order for the board resolution. And once we uh bring that on the 10th, we cannot make any changes on that night of the board meeting. whatever is is presented to the board is what needs to be voted on. So you will have an opportunity on the 29th again to look at that and we are looking at it

146tonight. We with us tonight we have um Mr. Matt Lee. He is with our um bond council and he is going to talk about that what that language looks like and what what considerations the board will have to uh look at and make decisions on. I did attach the entire order uh so that the public can take a look at that as well. It is posted on our board book page and this is what it looks like. Uh however, one of the things that we want to focus on is what the ballot language is going to uh read and we have to stick to that. Whatever we put on there is what we have to honor. >> Miss Garcia, before we turn it over to um Mr. ly on that list that you presented by

147campus. I know we had requested or it was sent to the board back in December the principles um I guess recommendation or their priority list are those priorities that our principles the experts on those campuses >> are those priorities integrated into that? uh I did not uh go back and compare um based on the buckets because what I did is I went based on the what was presented at FFAC and based on those categories like for example every single project has network and cabling if it affects that like for example the HVAC control systems and uh we have safety and security which is our intercoms we identified certain campuses for parking lot HVAC improvements and we have the cafeteria upgrades. So, I checked I highlighted those. I can go back and then compare to the

148principal list. However, the principal list was a little bit more uh broad in some perspectives. In some campuses, they were very specific to the priority ones and others they they added um stuff that was not on the prior that was not in the priority ones. But I can compare to >> and I I completely understand that. uh what we hire an outside firm to come and tell us what our priority one is versus a principal that's on that campus every day, rain or shine or hot or cold and they're telling us the gym floods, we don't have covered walk walkways and parking. I I think that it is important that we take all of that into consideration and because that is these items, whether it's three items or 10 items that some of these principles

149put, >> these are their priority ones and I think that we need to honor that. um because they they this is you know they live and die on those campuses and and we need to ensure that what they're telling us they need versus someone who comes for a walk through you know four or five times versus someone that's there 20 times a week or more. Um so I just um I would love to see this list and that list integrated and where we're short and where we're >> Yes, I will do that ma'am. I I agree with Trusty Deagar Lopez too and I think we had requested it back in December too. So if we could just see >> it was in an email. I just went back to pull it up but I was

150trying to go back and forth on my screens. Um I just not that techsavvy to figure it out but I would love to see these two integrated. >> Yeah, we can we can combine it >> for a different highlight for the principal's priorities versus >> uh our firm's priority ones and then the additional wish list. Yeah, it just also ties into getting community support with this bond, making sure, hey, that we're responding exactly to what our staff needs. They're talking to community members. It's getting back to the board. It will all go really smoothly. >> Yeah, I I think trustee Excuse me. I don't know what's going on with my voice today. I think Trusty Degardo brought up a good point, so thank you. Um, I do want to bring up just a couple items

151and they're going to be school specific. um Roosevelt. Um I know I spoke to Mr. Chvinho earlier. One of the number one priorities there is the drainage when it rains. Um they cannot use the gym because they can't get to it. >> Uh but I know Mr. Vinho said you're looking at doing that in-house, not necessarily part of the bond. So I appreciate that. Another thing that I've heard from community members from Roosevelt is the playground. >> And I know we did do a C uh CDBG request and it was denied. Uh but if there's any way to fit that, it's a very in in the scheme of things, it's a very small cost, very important to that community. >> Okay. >> Um and then I do have some questions. um Morris Middle School the

152the classroom addition I assume will have restrooms because um from the principle she's mentioned several times that FFAC and others that you know we have um restrooms for 800 students but we have an extra 300 students well I can't remember the numbers so I apologization as um if funding permits, but that seems to me a fundamental >> would be campuswide. The the bottom one would would refer to campuswide, but yes, we'll make sure that that >> that we have sufficient restrooms and >> that they're in the addition as well. >> And then finally, Early Achieve High School. Um as funding permits, I see gym and locker room renovations. If I recall correctly, when we visited Early Achieve, they divided I don't remember if it was the boys or the girls locker room into two. So,

153I believe the girls locker room has no sinks and the boys locker room has no toilets. Um, so I would ask just check with Mr. Carmon on that. Um, make because that seems to be a fundamental problem if we don't have either sinks in one bathroom or toilets in the other. Um, just check on that. And then I would like clarification. I apologize for the 100 questions. No problem. on the fine arts um the 35 million you know we're talking about multi-purpose room and mariachi room what about you know dance uh storage office space uh practice rooms is that all being contemplated what what exactly are we talking about when we're talking about investing in the three high schools and the fine arts space >> I'll have Mr. Mr. the radio handle that. >> Thank

154you. >> Questions. >> Good evening, board superintendent. Uh at this point, the square footage that is being being utilized for the budgeting uh formula that they use. Uh we're looking at around 15,000 square feet. It does include the uh ensemble areas. It does include the practice areas. It does include restrooms, offices, stoages uh along with the uh big uh to perform. >> Thank you. I think that's going to I've I've heard from several people in the community that are in the final either parents or community members that have been asking um if is it just one multi-purpose room or so. Thank you, Ruben. That helps answer that question. >> May I also make sure or ask what's been done? And I mean, I know we've had our FAC meetings, but to really ensure like what

155you're doing now, you're talking through um all of the specifics for each of these items. Is that being done at each campus or with each department head? Like, hey, this is kind of what we're thinking, what we're doing because I'm getting the sense that maybe there's a lot of general and broad ideas, but nothing really >> right now specific as a as a present. As I mentioned on the presentation, we're looking at the different buckets and the scope of work is to come in and and and and determine the needs which we have. And then our next step is once once a bond passes and we have the professional services engaged and we put a let's say an RFQ out for professional services architectural firms to come in that at that point that's when the

156design development begins and that is when the stakeholders and the end users are asked to ask for their input in the initial design of the actual uh square footage allotted for. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. That helps clarify a lot. Maybe in the meantime, just a suggestion at a principal's meeting or some something soon like kind of talk through that just to clear up any misconceptions or just so um staff feels like oh okay this is the direction we're going in. >> Yes, >> definitely. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. I'm going to go ahead and uh share the the order information. Mr. Mr. Lee, if you could please uh guide us in this process. Would you like for me to focus on section five? >> Yes, ma'am. Can you all hear

157me? >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Good evening, board, superintendent, staff, record, Matt Lee with Orton Rose Fulbright. Our firm serves as the district's bond council. Um, not going to restate everything that your staff and and flu already stated. A lot of work's been done at this point to present, you know, the long list of projects. And so our role at this point is as soon as the board decides on the projects and the amount that's going to that you're going to go out for on the bond, we'll put that into the order uh that you you guys will u you know formally and officially consider for approval. I believe we're currently looking at the February 10th board meeting date. Just a caveat, I'm sure you guys know February 13th is the call deadline. And

158so, Miss Garcia mentioned earlier that, you know, it's our recommendation that we get a couple bites of this apple up until that point. You know, we're looking at the projects today. Y'all looked at them in a prior workshop. We'll have another opportunity on the 29th so that when we get to the 10th, you know, especially with the new 3-day agenda deadline from the most recent legislative session. Um you know as they said there are change at the meeting on the 10th we really don't have time to come back before the call deadline of February 13th. So ideally with these you know several workshops and board meetings we can you know take a look at all these projects have some good discussions and by you know when you guys come up with the project list that

159you want uh and the amount that you want uh my role as a district bond council is to put that into the order calling the election uh to provide flexibility uh to ensure that you guys have all these projects covered. There was mention of you know to the extent there are uh savings on certain projects you know costs come in underestimate um what can you use those other bond funds so we want to ensure that you guys have flexibility in this order calling the election so that you can use those excess funds for these other general type projects and so we've been involved with the with the district staff and with fluger on looking over these projects and so the order that is attached as backup that you you guys have uh is an example

160of what this could look like today based on the projects that we have reviewed and the projects that you guys looked at this evening. We don't have the amount in there yet. Um but this is what the ballot could look like. So if you have the order pulled up in front of you on page four that's under section five. This is the ballot language. So this is what the voters are going to see at the ballot box. And so we've got all these verbs to describe what we're doing. So design designing, constructing, renovating, and then you get to school facilities under the statute. School facilities as the statuto minimum that you would need to provide it here. Um, you know, it's boards differ across the state how they want to present the item. Some stop

161at school facilities, others provide additional detail. So, here's an example of what it would look like if you wanted that additional detail. So that's where we do comma including the districtwide renovations, additions, safety and security improvements. We specifically mention HVAC. That's a big item. We specifically identify the roof for placements because that's a big item. Um obviously the the CTE facilities and the fine arts facilities are big ticket items. So we want to make sure we cover all the material, you know, larger items, but all the projects that you guys have looked at, the way this prop this ballot language is written would cover all the projects that that you guys uh are looking at today. And then also uh as mentioned earlier during the maintenance tax note component and the new Senate bill component

162about retrofitting existing buses with safety equipment, we've also included in here the purchase of buses and vehicles and the retrofitting of buses with you know the seat belts equipment to give you guys the flexibility that if you decide that you want to use bond funds in order to fund those projects, you would be authorized to do so assume the voters approve the election on Saturday, May 2nd. So that's I know I kind of talked a lot there, but happy to answer any questions on that. And you know, I know you guys are still considering projects. I will be there on the 29th for that meeting to to go in further detail as we continue to fine-tune the projects that you guys are considering. >> Mr. Lee, can you help me come up with an explanation

163um to our community? Um, even though we are proposing this 30 $335 million bond at no tax increase, I know that the verbiage on the ballot has to say this is a property tax increase. How can we explain that to the taxpayers that we are not increasing uh their taxes? >> You're correct. uh as of September one of 2021 [Music] 2019 sorry that's when the legislature during the 87th legislature they added the requirement that school district ballots only has to have that this is a property tax disclosure in there back then it was at the end of the ballot in the most current legislative session the legislature added the same requirement to any local government conducting the bond elections that would include cities, counties, etc. And now that statement has to be at the very

164top of the ballot. So you can see if you still have section five pulled up, page four, right under Proposition A, this is a property tax increase that's at the top of the ballot. That has to be there no matter what. So if you're anticipating needing to raise your tax rate in order to support the debt service on the bonds, if you're anticipating no tax rate increase, or even if you're anticipating a decrease, you're you're issuing will below your capacity, that statement is required no matter what. And so the way we've communicated and Fluger mentioned this earlier about helping you guys with coming up with information uh to submit to the voters, you know, to educate them because that's the district's responsibility. We can help with that as well. Uh school districts across the state

165have been facing this for the last eight or so election cycles since this new law took effect. And so the communications that we have worked on is you know kind of showing the historical debt debt capacity the tax rate needed to service the debt and just showing that you know the school districts you get the board uh sets the the tax rate itself. So the INS tax rate to support the debt um it's the local appraisal districts that set the value. So you can have a scenario where you know we we saw it uh in oil rich counties of the state where you know oil prices went through the floor. So we saw taxable values you know drop significantly and that required school districts to raise their INS tax rate to be able to support

166the debt they have out that they had outstanding. Similarly, if the if the appraisal district did the opposite and the taxable values went through the through the roof, it would require a lower tax rate for school districts in order to uh generate sufficient revenues to cover their debts. So, we explain it in terms of uh the school district the 335 is up to their bonding capacity to stay within the current INS tax rate. um and they do not anticipate needing to raise that ins tax rate in order to generate sufficient revenues to cover the debt service on the bonds that the voters are authorizing. But that it's the it's the appraisal district that's working on the the taxable assess values. Um and that's that variable u is it's a component of what the taxpayers are

167going to end up seeing and paying on the property tax bills. And so that's all information that we're used to. uh preparing for voter information materials to educate voters um on how you know that how their property tax is calculated and how the district's tax rate and bonds factor into that. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Mr. Lee, um I had a question about you know you said we have the option of just putting for purpose of designing and constructing etc school facilities. Is there and then maybe Dr. Los Santos, you have an opinion on this. Um, is it better to just put school facilities or list the different types of projects? Is there a recommendation? >> Um, I've seen I've seen school districts across the state do it differently. Um, either way is is

168perfectly legal and acceptable. Um, you know, a lot of it depends on what the district's pulse of the of the community may be. If the community desires to see the project specificity, especially if a certain project is important to your voters, then calling it out in the actual ballot, uh, you know, could be beneficial. Um, of course, we will be and this the district will be preparing those voter information materials as we've discussed as mentioned. And so, you know, the district will be educating voters throughout this entire process. But there will be voters that show up to the ballot box that may not know anything about the box. Maybe they haven't seen any of the voter materials. And so for those voters, to the extent you can't get to them, you know, in advance of

169the time they show up to the polls, would that extra detail on the ballot help that voter in understanding what they're voting on? And so I I see it go go, you know, both ways, both ways of fine. Um so whatever whatever the board's guidance is, uh that's what we'll follow. >> Feels a little bit more transparent to me to list the different projects. Um I do have one question. Since this is proposition A, it's just one proposition. Y'all are proposing that um we have a single proposition that covers everything. So voters would be presented with one option. Is that correct? Am I reading that correctly? >> Yes. That currently the way that it's drafted is correct. You you still the board still has the discretion to separate out the ballot even though these are

170all general items. Recall that in that same legislative session back in 2019 that led to the addition of this the property tax increase language was on the ballot at in that same legislative session they added a requirement that school districts have to separately vote stadium projects projects teacher housing iPads one devices recreational facilities performing arts facilities. Um we don't have any of those projects here on the current list that you guys are looking at. So all the projects that have been identified qualify for the general category. The board still does have discretion that is separated out even general category item. So if there was something specific on here, let's say you were going to build a fifth high school um and you thought maybe that item uh you know give the voters an opportunity to

171vote on that separately. That would you even though it's a general facility, it could be uh combined into the full bond. You guys you know, have discretion to separate out that new high school into its own proposition B as a standalone. That way, you know, voters could have the opportunity to vote on both. But here, the way that it's been drafted, um, all this could be submitted in one general proposition. Um, and that's the example that we've provided for this evening's consider not for consideration. You're going to approve it at the consider approve at the meeting on February 10th, but just for discussion purposes this evening. >> Okay. And then I'll one final observation uh since you are our council um maybe have a look at some of this language. I'm looking at specifically expansion

172of the district's CTE facilities and fine art facility additions at each high school campus. Uh from my understanding we're not look we're looking at fine art facilities at three of the high school campuses. We have four uh early achieve is unless I'm missing something. Um, and then expansion of CTE facilities. Um, I don't know what exactly what that looks like, but um, I know when you look at legal language sometimes it's very specific. We may be adding new CT facilities rather than expanding existing. So, as council, I just ask you to look at those little tidbits to make sure that the final language we pass uh, gives us the language we need. >> Trusty. >> Yeah. Um, thank you, Mr. Lee. What is the use case for exhibit C, the voter information document? >> Again,

173in that fantastic 2019 legislative session, that's when that additional requirement was added. So, under 1251 of the government code, which actually applies to every entity that conducts a bond election, this document must be submitted or must be posted at every polling location. Uh and it provides if you have it pulled up the so you have the ballot proposition on the top the the first three rows pertain to information about the bonds to be authorized. So here if you guys decide the 335 million >> that first box is going to say 335. The second box is going to be the interest on that which the folks at Estrada Dr. those helpless in the room will be providing us and then and u number three is going to be the combined of those two items. The next

174three boxes pertain to the existing debt which approaching a little bit of tax debt that that amount is is approaching zero in the next year too. And in the very last row that's the tax rate impact. So right now we're anticipating a uh you know 335 being the district's bonding capacity and you guys are not anticipating raising the IMS tax rate uh to be able to support these bonds. Uh that box would show zero. >> Thank you. Um is it legal andor advisable um for a school district going out for a bond to take a voter information document like this and distribute it wide and far above and beyond posting at a polling site? Yeah, I mean the the intent of the voter information document is to ensure that voters have the information. Um it

175is standard practice across the state for the order order for cities and others ordinances to include the voter information document in there. And so going beyond just the polling location, I think you've achieved your goal of informing and educating your voters uh especially on the tax rate impact uh that the bonds that the voting on would have on on you know their individual tax bills. >> Yeah. I just wonder, this is the first time I'm seeing this document, if if when all of these numbers are filled in and that bottom box, the estimated maximum annual increasing the amount of taxes on a resident is zero, to me, we should do some highlighting of that and put it on as many mailboxes as we can if that is indeed legal as the evidence that this is

176truly a no tax rate increase. like the numbers might be the most clearest explanation possible. >> Maybe we can highlight it. >> Correct. And uh and one of the earlier comments was or the first question that was asked was how do we educate the voters on on the tax rate impact and on the ballot? You know, what they're going to see on the ballot. Um and those voter information materials that we can pull together will provide a lot of detail on how that's calculated. the historical picture and then going forward when the bonds are issued in installments over time uh as the district manages that tax rate impact you know over the various installments you you're not going to go issue all 335 at once I believe the assuming the voters approve it I think

177the plan would be issuing tranches over time if you issued all 335 at once that would have a a tax impact but being able and having the flexibility to issue it in installments over time that allows the taxable assessed values to increase over time so that you can keep your tax rate the same and not have to raise the INS tax rate. >> Okay. Uh one additional question. I'm not sure if this is for you, Mr. Lee, or someone else that's been on this item. um with this long list of um including uh projects um as it's phrased in the language. Um once we uh successfully pass this bond, assuming we do so, to what extent does the district um have the flexibility to reallocate funds via what is currently projected so long as they

178stay within the overarching 335? For the record, I am not advocating that we do, but I think it is important that we have some degree of control in an effort towards community transparency and trust that we deliver on the articulated projects that we have worked so hard to deliver um and that there aren't changes. Obviously, there will be some changes, but there aren't substantive changes post election during the actual construction process. So I can answer uh part of that and if anybody else has any additions uh you know feel free the when you add the extra language in there after school facilities the comma including you the district will have uh to you know address those items before you know we mentioned earlier what what if one of these projects comes under budget we have

179some excess construction fun proceeds you know what what could we use those on? Well, you can use them on other school facilities. You couldn't go use it at the stadium or nitorium or whatever else like it has to be a general school facility. But before we can get to that point, when you include this extra language, the comma including and you enumerate these specific projects, these would have to be addressed first. But the common including language is broad. It covers all the projects that are on your list. And so the district has uh control. You know, you have supply chain issues, you have contractor issues, you've got your academic calendar where maybe the roofs and HVACs are likely to be done over the summer when nobody is in the campus. And so the district would

180have the discretion and control on when to deploy those funds and projects. And it's likely going to depend on contractor availability, supply chain, timing of the academic calendar. Um, but there's the way it's written, there are no limitations that would prevent the district from being able to deploy those funds um to address those problems. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Further discussion. >> All right, we will Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you, sir. >> Yes, sir. We'll move forward to discussion and possible action of the Macau ISD December budget amendment. Dr. Guutier. >> Yes. Administration is recommending the approval of the December 2025 budget amendment for the 2526 fiscal year. Miss Lorena Garcia, deputy superintendent for business and operations will present details. We are recommending action on this item. >> Go

181ahead. >> Uh this is a very small budget amendment. We are uh uh what we're have on here is some safe and secure that the campuses are wanting to use. In addition to that, we also have um the uh payment for the uh strategic planning as well as the uh the pre-bond planning services. Um and we are uh also have a subscription for Huddle that expired for athletics that well was fixing to expire that we needed to take care of immediately and so that is in there. >> Okay. >> Right. Um I'll entertain a motion from the board. Move to approve the MISD December budget amendment for the general fund for fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> I have a

182motion and a second. All in favor? >> I post. Motion passes 60. Item number seven, discussion and possible action on interlocal cooperation contract with the University of Texas Rio Grand Valley relating to the use of the University of Texas Rio Grand Valley Regional Security Operations Center services. Dr. >> The interlocal cooperation uh contract will provide network security monitoring services to mitigate the impact of network security incidents. Miss Judith Esami our executive director for technology is available to answer any questions. administration is recommending action on this item. >> Okay. Any questions from the board? >> Can we get a brief description of what this entails? >> Mrs. Come here. >> This particular solution that we're looking at uh and requesting for for it to be passed and awarded is a solution that will allow the district

183to uh have a trigger kind of using Raptor or one of the devices that we put in the campuses to actually create uh an alert system. But it won't just alert your phone, your mobile devices, but also the laptops, marquees, um our any displays that we have in the district. So, we're able to create a more systemic alerting system that is not just tied to a mobile device. So, the solution will allow us to um enhance our capability of emergency uh alert at each campus. And uh we're hoping to leverage every single technology that we have in the district and actually integrate it with a solution that will allow us to do that. >> Excuse me. >> I I think that's for the spat. >> Oh, which one is >> uh this is a regional

184co-op contract with >> Sorry. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, this particular one is a um so we have an inter we're hoping to get an interlocal with the University of um Utrgv and what this is is actually services that they allow they allow us to have for free that they provide um a security response center for the district. So, it's at zero cost. We're able to have a direct communication with them and they allow us to they provide a service where they're able to see our main core devices while we're on vacation or at night or when we're not uh in our in our actual day-to-day uh task. They're able to alert us and let us know that there's there's something going on in our environment and that we need to address it. So, these are

185free services. They also can provide us vulnerability studies if we request it. They also will help us with writing our documentation needed for compliance for any of our cyber security needs for the district. >> Okay. And no cost but it can be provided for each campus. >> It'll be provided for the whole district. Correct. >> Yes. >> All right. Any questions from the board? >> Can I get a motion? >> I move to approve the interlocal cooperation contract 2026-177. the University of Texas Rio Grand Valley. >> Wait, wait. Do I need to read the whole thing? >> No. >> I'll second. >> I have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I. >> All right. All those. Motion passes 60. >> Mr. President, I move to authorize the superintendent to execute related statement

186of work for the duration of the contract. >> Second. >> I have a motion by trustee and a second by trustee KDman. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion passes 60. Okay. Uh moving on to item number eight. U Dr. Gutier's discussion and possible action on RFQ number 2026144. >> Administration solicited requests for qualifications for architectural and engineering services. Mr. Ruben Trevino, executive director for facilities and maintenance and operations, is available to answer questions. administration is recommending action on this item. >> Okay. >> Mr. President, I'd like to move that we approve as our architectural firm, BTOZ engineering as our civil engineer, Chanin as our structural engineer, he associate for MEP and Millennium, and Rob Kissner as our environmental engineers. Not based off of the rankings. >> Okay. I have a motion and I'm

187going to have to write that down. >> Yeah. >> Where'd you get that? >> Uh she she made a motion. >> Oh, >> can you say it again? >> Er as the architectural firm, B to Z as the civil engineer, Chanin as the structural engineer, he associates as the MEP and Millennium Engineers, and Robert Kissner Engineers for the environmental Okay. >> I've expressed my concerns about the rubrics that our purchasing department uses. um concerns about our local firms that are committed to our students and our booster clubs and our Macallen education foundations and day-to-day are in and out of our facilities. Um, I've mentioned my concern about the rankings and the points added for prior relationship with the district and the use of uh reference letters and the points added for those. Um, I've asked

188our legal for recommendations on different rubrics that other large districts use for large projects as well and and hope that before we get into this um bond season that we are all in agreement on the use of rubrics whether recommended by TASBY or other reputable districts to ensure that we have the right um vendors ers and experts for these projects. >> All right. So I have a motion uh by trustee Lopez. >> Question I think u before we go forward. So the item is to um have the approved firms essentially on file as our go-tos or are these for particular projects? >> Then they're on call. >> It's on call. call >> for emergency needs. >> Second. >> Okay, I have a motion and a second by trustee. >> All in favor? >> I. >>

189All opposed. Motion passes 6. And um we need clarification on the exact one. I'll get with you. >> You got it. Thank you. >> I think we got to go to B. Is it a Do we have to >> Is it a three part? >> It's three parts. >> Okay. Can we I think the A was >> uh >> Yeah. >> So now it's negotiated. >> It would be I move to authorize the superintendent to execute contracts. >> I have a motion and a second >> um for the authorization of the superintendent to authorize or execute those contracts um with those firms as listed. So second. All in favor? I >> I all oppose. Motion passes 6. So it's two two part. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Discussion and possible action on competitive

190sealed proposal number 2026 1026 silent panic alert system rebid number two. >> And I this is the one that we got started on a little bit. >> Yeah. >> All right. Is there any discussion here from the board? Would you like a summary? >> It's a three-part. >> It is a three-part motion. Yes. >> Okay. >> This was the other presentation that she was >> Yeah, we got started on it. >> We got started on again. >> Sure. >> Yes. This is a grant funded um with the safety fund aotment that we received from the state. The safe grant cycle one funds for the most part. >> Apologize for getting ahead of >> this, but um so uh we're hoping to move forward with this project. the district uh would be able to have one

191uh trigger mechanism that would help us with the emergency alerting at each campus or districtwide. And uh we're hoping to leverage most of the technologies in the district, meaning mobile devices, uh laptops, um anything that we're casting to Prometheian boards, interactive boards, uh hopefully some of our newer mares, anything that we're able to integrate and uh into these solutions, we're hoping to leverage and provide better communication for alerting for the district. Okay. >> Say you board Okay. I >> I move that the board approve the ranking for the selection of general contractor for competitive seal proposal number 2026 1026 silent panic alarm system rebid number two. >> Second. I have a motion by trustee and a second by trustee. In favor >> I oppose. Motion passes 6. >> Mr. President, I move that the administration

192begin with begins with negotiation with the highest ranked contractor. The district is unable to negotiate satisfactory contract with the selected contractor. The district shall formally and in writing end negotiations with the contractor and proceed to the next contractor in the order of the selection ranking until a contractor's reach for all purposes for all proposals or excuse me or all proposals are rejected. Second. I have a motion by trusty Hadad and a second by Trusty Rivera. All in favor? I. >> All oppose. Motion passes 6. >> I move to authorize the superintendent to execute a contract in accordance with the procedures set out in the Texas government code section 2269.254 once the contractor negotiations have been successfully achieved. >> Second. >> I have a motion by trustee Lopez and a tr uh second by trustee. All

193in favor? I I all oppose. Motion passes 60. Thank you all. All right. Item number 10, discussion and possible action on rejection on rejection of proposals per four competitive sealed proposal number 2026 1019 silent panic alert system rebid >> administration is recommending rejection of all proposals for this project. Miss Esamia Judith Esamia executive director for technology is available to answer questions. We're recommending action on this item. >> Mrs. Kame, you may want to explain just on >> Yeah. this item. >> The reason we had to uh go through this mechanism of rebidding and having to um take this action is due to some confusion when we bid it out and the pricing we were getting was not conducive to our budget. So, we decided that we take it back out, make sure that it was

194more clear for our vendors and uh and it did it was successful. We were able to get something that will work for the district. >> Thank you. >> Is that what we just voted on the 69? Correct. >> Okay. >> Move to approve the rejection of all the proposals for competitive sealed proposal number 2026-1019 silent panic alert system rebid. >> Second. I have a motion by trustee Lara Lopez and a second by Trust Val. All in favor? >> I. All oppose. Motion passes. 6. All right, moving on. Board of trustee items. Um, can a get an approval for the meeting minutes? >> May I make a correction to our uh last board meeting just for the Slack nomination? >> Uh, absolutely. I think it was written as Andy Ununice, but it should be Andrea Munos.

195>> Yes. >> Okay. >> Just for that correction. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Uh and for the record, I have another correction for the board workshop on the 16th. Uh unfortunately, I was not able to attend. Um so I should be marked as absent. >> Okay. You know, I apologize. I have another question. I thought we did this via email, but um on the minutes it shows um that I nominated Drew Lintz. It's actually Drew Lintz. That's D R E W L E N TZ. And Natalia Vidal, although that is whatever Billy said, her name is Natalie Vidal. >> Okay. In that regard, I also have a Uh correction on the minutes. Uh my nomination was for uh Renee 2 E uh Clark. And thank you. >> Anybody else? All right. >> With those corrections,

196I move to approve. >> I have a motion. I'll second that. Um all in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes 6. All right. We are now going to head into close session. Board of Trustees may go into close session pursuant to bunch of different sections of the Texas Government Code. Uh it is 8:21 and we are going into executive session. Thank you. Okay, everybody, welcome back. We are out of executive session. It's 9:10 and we are back into open session. This time we will take action on items in close session. Item number 9A, discussion and possible action of HR recommendations. Dr. Rutz, >> human resources submitted a list of recommendations for the 2526 school year under a separate cover for discussion dur during close session. Administration is recommending action on this item. >> Move to

197approve. >> I have a motion second >> and a second. >> All in favor? >> I. All opposed. Motion passes 6. >> Item B, discussion of HR employee resignations and retirees. Dr. The human resources department submitted a list of resignations and retirees for the 2526 school year under separate cover for discussion during close session. The administration is recommending action on this item. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I. All oppose. Motion passes 60. Okay. We move on to item number C where there is nothing there. >> No action. D. No action. E, no action. And looking towards our future meetings, we have a safety and security meeting on January 29th at 12:00 p.m. Um, regular board meeting also on the 29th at

1985:30, followed by another regular board meeting on February 10th at 5:30, followed by a meeting on February 24th at 5:30 p.m. All of those meetings will be right here at the Dr. Odicado Chapa board. I will now entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So move a >> motion and I will second. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes 6. Good night everybody. It's 9:12.