001All right. Well, good afternoon everybody. My name is A. I'm the proud ISD. And I want to first uh thank you for joining our community meeting to talk about the budget. Um and so before we start, I would like also we have a couple of other folks with us here in the room. I would like to uh give an opportunity to uh also um introduce themselves. Eddie. >> Yeah. Hi, I'm Eddie Curran. I'm the chief human resources officer. Thank you all for being here today. >> Hi, I'm Dennis Cuminson. I'm the chief finance officer. Thank you for joining us. >> Hi, I'm Andy. I'm the chief of communication public affairs. And then again, thank you for joining us and we're really here to um um so we can explain or go through um our budget
002as how things works as far as school finances but also more importantly know more about uh how the budget is working in Ron Rockd. >> All right. So Dennis, if you want to start with the first initial slides and talk talk to our community members. Um >> when we start the budget process, we always want to be focused on certain areas that we maintain throughout the whole process as we develop the budget. Uh these are called our goals and objectives. And so as you see on the screen, we minimize try to minimize all reduction in the classroom. We try not to affect our poor business and our core business is the classroom. We want to provide competitive compensation for our teachers and our staff. We always try to reduce our expenditures to make the district
003more efficient, but our main goal is to try to balance the budget as we move forward. Sort of a budget 101 is how the district funded. uh our funding basically comes from propert tax revenue as as as you all pay according to the tax rate and the value of your property. Then we also get a basic a lotment from the state which is per student funding of $6,215 based on the 88 not based on enrollment it's based on the average daily attendance. >> Can I can I add that? So what Dennis is saying is because we get we get often times um some of our community members asking where well um we pay in taxes right and so what do you mean that uh you need more money and so I I think I think
004sometimes it's important for us to explain that we are we are very thankful for our uh our uh taxpayers right for pay their property taxes school district don't necessarily get to keep every dollar that collecting property taxes. It's because the state has a for formula that we use to determine how much money you get to keep. And so that formula um is simple. Uh so it's the basic a lotment that's 6,215. By the way, that that number only went up $50 since 2019. So, and you probably know inflation is probably went up by 22 23% but the only therators only increased that amount of that number by $50. So, that's in their mind or their um I guess calculation that's what it takes to educate a student. Now, we do get some extra uh money
005if the students for example is part of the immersion bilingual uh program or if the students receives master education services. So, we can get a little bit extra on top of that 6,215. But um in average that's what we get um for uh for the basic a lotment and that's multiply that by the number of students and also the daily average attendance which is when the students are not present in our district we do not get funds for them. By the way for every students uh that misses a day of school we lose roughly $30 more or less. So, uh, if you have a,000 students who out in any given day who are not present, that's, uh, that's roughly $30,000 that this district wouldn't have access to this funds. All those students are still enroll
006with our district. In fact, the state of Texas, one out of seven states in the entire country that does use that formula of average daily attendance when when when it comes to calculate funding from public education. So, we are funded differently. Uh I know for example when like a city uh or uh or county uh wanted let's say to add more uh police officers or maybe they want to pay increase for their staff. When they increase that their tax rate anything that's generated by that increase in tax rate get they get to keep and use that say hiring new police officers. school district do not have that same privilege because again we have that set formula that the state only allow us to keep a certain amount of money. the other money that is extra
007goes back to the state in form of recapture or Robin Hood. Um and so um that that recapture money it goes back to the state um and sometimes gets sent to to other school district or maybe uh needing some extra state support or assistance and some cases end up staying in uh in the state um with the state at the state level and maybe used for any other um anything that uh I guess the the state official see um use So, as you know, um you know, we have we we have the best and the most amazing teachers and staff. Uh they care and love and and dedicate their their every day to help our students be successful and and achieve their big dreams. And so, it's important for us always to make sure that
008our our we keeping them, we're retaining them. And whenever there are uh some vacancies um maybe retirement or people maybe move to another city or state that we we are very competitive when it comes to compensation because that's how we can retain or in some cases recruit high quality uh teacher staff and and also we are um you know staff and teachers have options. They can uh go and work in other school districts through a school district. they can uh go and work in other uh industries. So we we want to make sure that we are taking care of them first and foremost but also u you know keeping them with us as long as we can keep them. >> So just wanted to add to what Dr. Aiz is saying. So um I know
009all of you on our call probably remember last year the state did pass house bill two which was the uh an omnibus compensation and and u funding bill. So that was passed last year, but I wanted to be very clear with everybody. There are no additional funds being provided by the state on top of what was passed last year. So last year they gave us certain amount of money to pay teachers with certain years of experience. Um but there will be no additional funding from the state on top of what was passed last year. Uh that would allow us to give district-wide pay increases. So, just to to touch on that and to talk about general pay increases. So, we have about 6,400 employees in Round Rock ISD and um a 1% general pay increase
010for all of those employees um costs about $4 million. And that's a combination of providing them the pay increase and also making any sort of pay adjustments that we have to due to what we account for uh as compression. Um, but it also allows us to stay competitive with markets. So, as Dr. Aznes mentioned, when we're hiring and trying to recruit teachers, we really look at other districts, not just in the local area, but we look across the state to see how much does a starting teacher salary make in each of those districts. We try to get as close as possible to that, particularly locally. We do that for all of our positions in the system. um $4 million would give a 1% general pay increase, but what it does not account for are any
011pay adjustments that we have to make or should make to fix pay compression issues. So, as I mentioned earlier, the state gave us some money last year, but they said you have to use it for to give teachers with a certain year level of experience this amount of money. and it was very specific and so it didn't allow us a lot of flexibility to do what we normally do which is we try to move everybody in the system ahead in compensation terms. So it's it's because they the state's approach last year because of the approach that they took it meant that what we've got is we've got teachers being paid uh a certain amount of money and the positions uh that are generally paid higher than teachers like a counselor or an assistant principal. those
012positions didn't benefit from the same compensation increases last year. So that's resulted in what we call pay compression where it means that the the number between the amount of money sorry between the teacher pay schedule and the counselor pay schedule has gotten smaller and the same for teacher and assistant principles. So in order to be able to fix those and be able to provide additional compensation to fix those that estimates about another $2.3 million. So with 4 million plus 2.3 to fix those pay compression issues, um we we estimate about $6.3 million to do both. So then a 2% general pay increase for all employees. That would cost again just the general pay increase component that would cost approximately $8 million. And to address the pay compression issues on scenario, we'd be looking at about
013another $2 million to do that. Pay compression is really the amount that you have to adjust the pay schedule above the general pay increase amount. So if you can do more on a general pay increase, it means your adjustments are less. So just to talk about pay compression in a nutshell, this is something that we we've really been honing in on and talking about a lot since house two pass. Pay compression happens when pay caps pay caps narrow between new employees and employees with more experience. So if we bring a lot more new teachers into the system, I'm there earning a higher rate um compared to a teacher with 10 years of experience. That could that could be a result of pay compression. It can also happen when our starting salaries are increasing new hires.
014As I mentioned earlier, we try to stay competitive for our starting salary for teachers, but we want to also make sure that we can address teachers with five and 10 and 15 years of experience so we can ensure that we're competitive for more experienced teachers as well. Um, given that we we we really try to balance those demographics of our teachers to ensure we've got really highly qualified teachers in all of our classrooms. And then the last piece which is what I talked about earlier compression could also happen in this case because of state legislation for policy changes locally. We often get asked what if you pass the bonds why can't you use those money to pay for raises? Well bond funds are cover in what we're call what we call our interest and syncing
015budget INS. And those dollars could only be used to pay the debt service payment for the bond that we issued and we have to pay the principal and the interest. It cannot be used to pay for any operating uh expenditures for the district or like utilities, salaries, uh transportation, maintenance. It can only be used to pay the principal and interest on those bonds that we sold. No, but but also we can you the use of the bond is used to purchase uh buses or it could be used to fix uh make me major roof replacement at a campus, right? So those are what's called capital project but it cannot be used toward hiring more more counelors or more teachers or hiring or paying for pay raises across the board. It's actually not legal to do
016these kind of things. As of June 30th, we had a fund balance of our financial statements of $68 million. That equates to about 60 days of operating expenses. And what this these dollars are used for it is it's not a rainy day fund. It's for cash management as you all know or we get our revenue to operate the district mainly from the state and from your tax revenue. But there's a period between September and October where we take in very little revenue. So we have to have enough money in the bank in the fund balance to cover the expenditures for those three months so that we can continue to pay all our bills. So that's what the fund balance is used for. And so right now we have about $68 million. We will get small
017amount of funding in that time period but we try to maintain it at least 90 days. So we are below the uh the threshold of the 90 days and that'll be very important when we talk about where we are now for this year and what we are projecting for next year's budget. So for this year the 2526 school year where we are now you look at the column that's on the far right where you see in red 5.165 million deficit. This was as of u April 16th. If you look over two columns to the left, when we we done this presentation on February 19th, we was protecting a $2.8 million surplus. But a couple things changed that caused us to move from the 2.8 surplus to the $5 million deficit. First change was our enrollment
018declined by about 800 students. But when we done the projection in February, we had accounted for this decline for about 800 students and we have put things in place that helped us to overcome this decline in students to where we was projecting a positive surplus. But then right before spring break, the state controller changed a formula for our frozen levy calculations. A frozen levy is for taxpayers that has uh reached a certain age or have certain disabilities where their property tax does not increase based on increases in tax rates. It's frozen. They pay the same amount every year. But so they went back and looked at a calculation that we they have been doing for the past few years and they discovered a flaw. So they fixed they said a flaw and it cost the
019district $6 million of allocation of funding. And so our our positive number for surplus is now negative mainly due to the state controllers change in the frozen levy calculation. So how are we trying to uh overcome the $5 million? There are some other potential challenges that may increase that number. Uh the unpredictability of our health insurance. As you all know, we are self-funded. And so that means we pay all our health bills ourselves based on uh uh payments that you all make when you sign up for our health insurance and the contribution that we make. And so when those bills come in, we have to pay those bills. And so right now we are monitoring our health insurance, but I can tell you over the past few years we've had to make a contribution to
020the health insurance fund to keep it solid from the general fund. So that may add to the $5 million. This is an extra contribution top of the contribution that the district is contributing toward staff health insurance. Correct. Probably tax protest. If you live in Williamson County, last year there was an organization that that pulled in residential property owners to file formal protests about the the value of their property in Wilson County. And so last year, we had to end up paying back to Williamson County about5 to$6 million after they had given us the money. We had to send it back because they uh settled those property tax protests. uh this year we've had a meeting with them and right now they think that the property tax based on what they've done last year sort of
021rectifies itself. So we're hoping that we don't have property tax protest to that level this year. And the last one is inflation uh especially for gas and utilities and you all are experiencing this in your in your home I'm sure. And so same thing here at the school district. We have to buy gas to run our buses out uh our maintenance vehicles, delivery vehicles, and it costs more to heat and cool our buildings. And so inflation will probably add to the $5 million deficit. But here are the things we're trying to do to lower the $5 million. Uh we put in a hiring freeze process for non-campus positions. We started this back in December and this process also helped us overcome the loss of the 800 students. So we we take positions that become vacant
022and we bring those positions to our executive leadership team to determine if the position should be filled, should be delayed or should be eliminated. And so those are the things that we have to justify to make sure that uh the position is real mission essential to carry on either uh safety education for our students. We eliminated some non-campus positions. Um back in the budget adoption back last uh summer, we reduced the guest educator coverage. Uh we have seen a decline in in those costs. uh the department budget reductions. I met with all of our department heads and we in February we ran their budget status reports to see what their remaining balances were and we looked at each individual budget to determine with those dollars that were left. What what is the purpose of those
023as to is it mission critical? Is it for a contract that we have to renew every year? Is does it support one of our strategic plan goals? And any of those answers was no, we reduced the budget. That saved us about $3 million. And I let you cover the health clinic. >> Sure. So, you may be aware uh we we launched our uh for you health clinic in February. And you may be asking um this was specifically to try to combat some of the increases in health insurance. And you may be asking, why is the district spending extra money on a health clinic at a time when we're we need to save money on health insurance? Well, look, the the the purpose of the clinic is to try to bring some of those outside services
024inside the clinic, right? Because it means that we can provide those services at a higher quality oftentimes at a at a fraction of the cost that you would see or experience in an urgent care or a freestanding emergency room or an emergency room. So, the clinic has allowed employees to be able to make same day appointments. So, they are also able to take care of a a really maybe a condition that they have before it becomes more serious. And we all know our teachers and staff work incredibly hard and sometimes they put the needs of others, particularly our students, in front of their own health um because they just can't get to the clinic during regular work hours and they don't want to miss class time. So all of those things were the reasons to
025bring the clinic online. So we anticipate that um once that's very well established, it will actually result in a combating some of those health incre health insurance increases that we're seeing due to inflation. So it's it's uh and we've seen some very positive results so far. And just to add to what uh Eddie was saying, we actually our staff also because of inflation and everything else, right? Um you know in most if with most plans with most health plans, insurance health plan that our teachers and staff have their their visit will be at zero cost. So, it's actually also providing some extra help to to our teachers on staff um because they don't have to pay I don't know 50 or $75 whatever is that that co-ay or deductible I guess if you had to
026go to another let's say um urgent care uh with us with their most of their plans probably would be zero I think the highest will be $25 uh co-ay I think they have to pay but but again it's just it's a win-win situation where our staff have to pay less but also the district um would be trying to can also save uh some money uh from or I guess reduce the increasing cost when it comes to the healthcare. >> And then the last uh bullet talking about collapsing campus positions when campus enrollment declines. So Dennis mentioned earlier we had an unexpected decline in enrollment. So what that means is uh a lot of our positions at the campus level you receive a certain number of a certain type of position based on the number of
027students that that position will serve. So as enrollment declines, we need less uh positions to be able to support that student enrollment. And so as we collapse those campus positions, we're able to realize savings towards the budget as well. So let's take a look at where we are now for building next year's budget. Again, if you look to the far right column, as of April 16th, we're projecting a $3.9 million deficit. Um, we are using a enrollment of 45,000 when we built built this projection. uh we are going to go back and readjust this number to 455 and see what that does because we are seeing some positive indicators that our enrollment will be higher than the $45,000 flat. But using the $45,000 students, we had a deficit of about $3.9 million, but like I
028said, that was as of April 16th. Uh if I was to do this chart today, that number will be less. So we are still trying to finalize those numbers. What are some challenges that we're having to face? Our property values uh increases and decrease. We we have the preliminary property values and if you live in Western County, you would saw that your property value if you're a residential owner went down. So uh we will have to wait until July to get our certified property value so we can analyze the numbers based on our tax rate. Student enrollment. Uh as I mentioned, we're seeing some positive indicators that our student enrollment will be higher than the 45 plat. So we are going to make an a an adjustment to our projection based on the student enrollment.
029Our average state of attendance. We have some extraordinary u attendance off uh specialists in our district that's trying to keep all our kids in. As Dr. Oz said, for every day that a child is out, it's about $30 that the district lose. But if every day that we can get our ADA to increase, let's say from 94 to 95, the district earns about $3 million. But average daily attendance is very important. The 89 Texas legislation say there's two things that are still affecting the school district. uh the school vouchers impact. Um we still have not seen the total impact of what those vouchers would do as far as our students decided to leave the district and and take advantage of those uh vouchers. But the biggest one is our special education funding formula changes. We
030get approximately $40 million from the state for special education. We're required to spend 55% of that directly on students. We spend $60 million directly on the students. So, not only do we spend more than the 55%, we spend more than the total a lotment. And so, there was a a funding put set aside by the state to increase the special education aotment and they put aside $275 million for the whole state. They have yet to determine how that will be distributed. uh it's going to be changed to intensive base funding but until they get the data in October before they decide on how that will impact the funding of each school district but as you all know we have to approve our budget in June. So we would not be guesstimating that impact right now.
031Other challenges, charter school growth, uh new charters or expansion of charters that will affect your your student enrollment. Insurance premiums, um that's for our property insurance. Um the average is about 13 to 15% premium increase, but we have some amazing carriers that are working very hard with us to try to lower that increase. Uh the last projection we had it may be two to 3% versus the 13%. Inflationary prices again uh and until the economy sort of settles and uh you all know what's going on with with the world uh we are paying more for federal and utilities. The last thing, we talked about this a little last year, our school health related services, our special education reimbursement. And these funds are what's given back to the district for services that they provided to our
032special education students two years prior. So in 2023 that amount that amounted to about $9 million that the state gave us back for the services that we provide. For 2324 that got reduced due to some changes at state level from 9 million to 1.5 million. This year we're approximately uh scheduled to get about half a million to due to those changes. So, we have lost about $9 million in revenue based on the changes to that reimbursement for our U special education kids. Now, this does not mean that we're not providing the services. We continue to provide the required services for all our special education students. The change is what the state will reimburse for. So, how here are things that we're considering to help reduce that $3 million deficit. Uh reduce department non-staffing budgets. I
033met with all our department heads during that same meeting where we were looking at the 25 26 budget. We talked about the 26 27. We've done approximately 10% reduction for all non-staffing budgets in our department. We have reduced non-campus based positions uh throughout the district in certain departments. Another major initiative we have is increase our prek enrollment. We will be expanding to an additional nine classrooms. Uh the cost of the prek program and the tuition that it brings in that was a positive about a million dollars to the district. We steadly tried to increase our K12 enrollment. Um we are uh let's see gradually recruiting out of district students. >> We we remain we're an open transfer district and we accept transfers all year and so we're definitely because of the programs that um we've
034been able to put in place. We're seeing some dividends there in terms of the number of students who are transferring in and choosing Round Rock ISD uh from outside the district. >> Yeah. So we are we are seeing obviously we are a destination district district for a reason and we seen other surrounding families from surrounding school districts are um applying or u submitting open transfer um so that students can enroll with ISD. The next one is virtual academy and that's really a new um a new thing that we are launching for next year. So we this is a virtual academy more like a high school virtual high school 9 through 12 and what we notice is is post uh pandemic post um I guess what happened u 2020 2021 we seen more and more students
035are actually wanting to uh stay virtual um sometimes because of maybe it's a convenience because maybe they're an athletes and they travel a lot and so the virtual option is something that allow them to remain in school and and continue learning while competing and traveling and and practicing. Sometimes is maybe a decision that has to do maybe with the health situation. So there are multiple reasons why a students um wanted family wanted to have their students attending virtual but what you notice is we have more than almost 300 of our students who are currently enrolling in some type of virtual school outside of Round Rockd. So we are as a district we felt the obligation also that we needed also to have that option available for our students and their families uh as another way
036another option uh for them. Uh and we are talking about possibly having a hybrid option where or full remote in CA in some cases if they need it for remote. Um so where uh they can uh continue u interacting and learning uh with our u great teachers and staff and and students. >> Yes. uh our amazing again tenants officers are doing uh phenomenal work and and trying to increase our attendance ratio. We build the budget on a 94% K12 uh attendance with a blended rate of 92% when we add in our prek students and but if we can get that up to a blended of 93 for every percentage is about $3 million. So we are working hard to increase our attendance and the last one on the list is uh having our trustees call
037for a later and explain that. >> Yeah. So that's that's also another option. I know our trustees are we having conversation with them next month also. These are just consideration. Uh there is not per say one thing. think it's going to fix everything. But at least these are a variety of things that as a district we're considering as we continue looking at how can we keep our keep our district um um the budget balance providing the best compensation possible right for uh for our teachers and staff and retaining our high qual quality teachers and staff. >> I'm sorry. All right. >> Well, first of all, I hope that this this was um like you gained some information or some good information about the the way the budget works and the also current situation in our
038district. I just want to say that um also I I I we always as as Ronok we always our goal to be the best school district in the state of Texas and uh we don't necessarily um like want to compare ourselves right to because we want to be the best right but like when it comes to this uh funding situation is is something that is really um there are outside factors really like the core sub the core of the the problem is u is really the way uh the state is funding public education. Again, our our our taxpayers are are doing an excellent job paying their taxes and providing everything um that they're within their power. The problem oftent times is the way we funded or allowed what kind amount of money we allowed to
039keep with within our district, right? Um and then that boils down to that basic a lotment. Um that number that for for a long time for years I know many of us been asking our elected official and the state level folks to really adjust that number to to again infl to the to the um inflation. Right? So if you adjust it to a 20 to 22% infeious since 2019, we should have that number should be 7,200 instead of $6,215. So that's really that's at the core of the problem. And I hope my our hope is that our traders the next session will look at this again and and hopefully adjust it um differently because that's really how we can have um funds really to um to again to um to pay for all the great
040services and programs and choices we have in our district, but also provide the best compensation possible for our district staff and continue really being a destination district. You heard horror story from other uh school district including some of our own um surrounding neighbor neighboring districts, right? Like um Austin is facing $180 million or so a deficit. I don't know if you know Austin IZ sends almost $800 million as a form of recapture back to the state. So they're $180 million in a deficit, yet they're sending almost what $800 million from their own taxpayers money back to the state. So it's just it's just the way uh public education the funding formula and the way it's supposed to work. I don't think it's really working anymore. It's time for for our elected official administrators really take
041a a deep dive and really look at how they can adjust it. Well, again, I hope I hope that this presentation u you know kind of was helpful and in explaining how things are um working. I don't know if we don't see any questions here, but feel free to put your questions in the chat. Uh, and if you have any questions, we we'll try to really answer any questions. >> Okay. >> Hey, so the chat is disabled. >> Oh, sorry about that. Okay, >> that's okay. >> All right, so Okay. Hi. Yes, the chat is disabled and we were um also unable to unmute. Um first of all, thank you so much for putting this um presentation on. My name is Ma Lubenus. I'm a parent at Ridge View in Forest Creek. Um I was
042wondering if in the allocations and the the budget reductions that you're thinking about um how it impacts um allocations for a TAG teacher. So, I I heard in your presentation that you have received less funding for special education, for example, with shards, but you're still offering those services, I'm assuming, because they're federally mandated. However, we know that there are um campus cuts happening at the elementary level that will impact the amount of services that our students are receiving um down to the minimum required by the state. So, how is that being considered when it directly impacts instructional services? >> Sure. I'm going to let um um Eddie answer the allocation because there's truly an allocation uh question. Uh I can tell you when it comes to TA and we didn't really specifically talk about tax
043services. So when it comes to tax services, our school district uh we receives about n roughly $900,000 in um uh funds uh toward tax services. Right. Our district on the other hand is it spends anywhere a little bit over $5 million I think if I remember correctly five and a half million dollars uh on tax services. So um um so the the state even when it comes to tax the state is not even keeping up with what what we supposed to be providing. Um so for special education we receive about $40 million. We spend about 60. So it's 100 one and a half times what we get. for tax services. We're actually our district has spent almost five more than five times what we get from tax services. So that's another area when we have
044to really like um when we talk to our elected official illustrators is also to highlight some more like the importance of having robust tax services for uh and how can you provide uh robust tax services if you don't have the funding to do so. So that's another thing we need to advocate what I'm saying. I'm trying to say all of us uh to make sure that the state administrators are also keeping that in mind as they plan for the next session. But I'm going to let Eddie know or talk I'm sorry about how the allocation um for tax if it's okay with you. >> Sure. So um and thank you for the question and and I know there there are a lot of questions anytime that that things are changed or there's an adjustment to
045staffing guidelines. I certainly can understand the uncertainty that that raises and the sense of disruption. Um I I can assure you and I don't want to speak for our teaching and learning department but they have uh gone through the tag schedules the schedules for the teachers and the um the instructional setting for every student uh that is served under that tag umbrella at every campus to ensure that there is no disruption to services. um what they've been able to do is to identify some areas where we might be able to tighten up a little bit um which is resulting in those reductions but the reductions themselves I I believe it's nine FTEEs nine total teachers across the system so for 35 campuses but there is from from what I understand there is no disruption to
046any services per se for a student it's just a matter of us being more efficient with the allocations that we provide. So we notice we notice just to follow up we notice that um when it comes to tag identification at least for the lower grades not that every campus is exactly the same but in most cases for the lower grades we're not noticing we're not seeing the same number that we had in the past um so I don't know if it's maybe the new um identification system or that uh our district is using now but we're not seeing so there's a there's a fewer if you will in most cases numbers um of students who are uh lower grades who have been identified. >> Go ahead, Kristen. >> Hi. Um thank you so much for
047taking the time today to go over all this with us. I had a question about the virtual academy. What is the initial cost for next school year of this academy? And then do you all know an estimate of the number of students that will be enrolled in it next school year? >> Yeah, thank you. That's a great question. So, uh the so so the virtual academy is is it's going to it's going at least for year one. The plan is to be just for 9 through 12 high schools and uh we are building it or putting it together um to serve about 300 students. Um and so we are the way we are structuring right now and we're still building the details obviously it's we we most likely we will need roughly 12 staff members
048uh to run the program that's including a counselor counselor um obviously teachers and things like that right a program um ma coordinator or director runs to run the program herself so there are about 12 staff members um And we are building it for 300 students. And to I know I know it shouldn't look seem this way but to break even we are need 140 to 150 students in this in the program so we can um pay for those 12 position and that doesn't look like adding more um like more cost I guess to the district and we we think we will have more than 140 150 as of earlier this morning we have 320 uh students families who express interest in joining um the academy. It doesn't necessarily be all of them end up on
049rolling but we um we just start talking about it like literally what a month ago or so and so um or we hoping to have even more gaining more interest getting more interest and but we will have somehow somewhere around 300 students but as I said with 12 FTEES with only 12 positions we will break even at 140 150 students um for that program. I can tell you Kristen too I don't know if you know this you probably know we already have almost 300 students who are who are zone to run ISD who are attending virtual school and other uh public education uh school systems in here in Texas um who offered ver who offer virtual some of them started offering virtual pre- pandemic uh and so uh many of our families and and students
050actually are actually taking advantage of that and so they I guess withdraw from our district and enroll in their virtual schools. So we have almost 200 plus almost 300 of them that we can see that they are attending these campuses. >> Okay, thank you so much. >> No, more go ahead Dr. questions ideas that you guys have about helping to reduce the budget. Two things, hold on. We can't hear you. Can you talk a little louder? >> Sure thing. Have you looked at possibly reszoning or redoing the boundaries of the schools to see if there are areas where um like schools or utilities that could be restructured? So maybe help your budget there. And then also have you looked at different some of the programs that you use like I Ready and the amount of
051money that you're putting towards this program that's mandatory for K through8 to see if by reducing this or removing this program that you're able to save budget there. >> So as far as far as the campuses um the only way the only way maybe generate some saving is by closing down schools and yes to your point we would have to redraw boundaries right. So if we decide to uh close that particular campus the students who are attending that particular campus will have to be reszoned somehat elsewhere right and in average in average when you close a campus let's say an elementary campus it will generate typically a million to a million and a half in saving by shutting down that campus. However you have to come up with a plan for that campus. So you
052can there are different options. Um you can uh sell the property, try to fund someone or some organization to buy the property. You can repurpose it for maybe other things um that you can use within the school district. Um right you can lease it and sometimes it's hard to lease I can tell you but in order in order to maximize the saving you have to pretty much get rid of the building right. So because if you keep the building in any capacity within your district, you still have to make sure the building is not abandoned and and f you know with you you got to you got to maintain it. So that's how you end up not saving a lot of money. So school district end up saving a million to a million and a
053half really end up like get rid of the building. Um, one other caveat also I think our community needs to understand when it comes when school district decide to shut down a campus and they decide to sell the the campus they have to first offer to charter schools actually written it's it's the law and you have to kind of offer it first to um idea uh harmony whatever other charter schools Meridian so typ typically ally I mean I've seen it happen where when you do that often times charter school jump on the opportunity because now they have a school that within a school district and then they start really pulling more students. So you think you're saving a million and a half if they pull two 300 or whatever it is that number from from
054that school district now because now they are right there in the middle of a community you end up actually hurting more the district from at least the finance standpoint. Um and so so it's it's it's a very tricky it's not a an easy maneuver if you will. Doesn't mean that we should not consider it but I'm just saying it's not that simple as many people think it's it could be easily done. So that's as far as like we are looking at that but that's usually when you do stuff like that it's not an immediate thing you have to go a whole process of having conversation with the community as you know about it right getting some folks group and discuss it. So if we want to do something like that for let's say the 27
055I'm sorry 272 28 school year we'll have to start that conversation now or in the summer so that way we can have a plan but also can have opportunity for our community and and parents and staff really to provide feedback and input and ideas to better uh get it done. So that's as far as the campus. As far as I Ready or any program, we've been tried to trim different option. I Ready is is is just a tool, right? So if it's not ready, we have to have some other programs that can help provide some other resources to um it's not supposed to take over or replace what our great teachers are doing. It's just supposed to be to complement the work that our teachers are doing in the classrooms. Right? So if it's not
056already, we always have some kind of programs here in Round Rock and most school district will have some type of um again um other programs that complement the work that our teachers are doing. In some cases maybe a tool for help students who maybe have some gaps and they need to fill those gaps in some cases also to accelerate their learning. I'm not I'm not necessarily say I'm not necessarily saying I already is it's it's the that thing but um if it's not I already we would have to come up with other options for our students. >> Well, I guess that my follow-up question would be then why not rely on these amazing teachers that RoundRock ISD has? I mean, we see at the local basis that we are losing some of these teachers. So,
057you're losing this education, which I guess in the long run would help the budget, but would it be better to not have those costs of those programs and rely more on these amazing teachers that Roundrock ISD has attracted? Would that not help the bottom line? >> Well, would we nothing replaces our amazing teacher? I want to make sure Dr. Sander, you know, we're not I'm not saying this is to replace anybody. This is, as I said, is to complement the work they do, right? I mean our teachers are doing amazing work but often times students may need some extra whether it's extra support or to help accelerate their learning right so that's why we use other pro uh programs it's it's not it's not to say that our teachers are not amazing or should not
058be doing it this is to complement the work or in some cases it's an expansion or of the work they're doing in the classroom right um and so I know I know and and and you know even Even if even if as I said I don't have I'm not married to I already if I already is not working for our kids we're going to reassess that and and change it right but at some point we have to give them other tools they also they can use to as I said expansion of their learn their uh learning from the students and the teaching for our teachers and also help with a variety of things again with accelerating the learning in some kids filling the gaps in others just to help with the work that our teachers
059are doing every Okay. >> Thank you so much for your time. Of >> course. >> Hello. I have a question regarding um the insurance premium increase that you were speaking about. Is that for the health insurance for employees or is that insurance premiums overall? >> So that was property insurance. >> That's property insurance. >> I'm gonna I'm gonna just speak to one thing though as well in addition to that. So, it's it's something that the health insurance is something that we really have to keep an eye on as a district, right? And being a self-insured district, it's uh the fund itself is, you know, it's 70% the district and then 30% employee contributions is what makes that work. And so, the higher the inflationary pressure on that, it means that that does put pressure on
060the rest of the budget because um one of two things has to happen. either we ask the employees to contribute more to the health insurance plan or the district offers more contribution to that plan as well and Dr. Azy mentioned earlier or we contribute more through that deficit piece where we're actually spending more than the revenue we get in. So it's something that we're going to have to continue to monitor and we've really tried to not push cost through to employees as much as we can given tight economy but it is certainly a pressure point for us right now. So my question then is why do we continue as selfunded? We have many districts around us that we could partner with and be non-selffunded. For the last two years my support um example, my support
0611% has not uncovered my insurance premiums on my end. So I am actually not making I am making less than I was two years ago because of those increases. Has the district ever thought of that partnering with other districts in the area to come up together and approach an insurance company and do it together with them? >> So that's not something we've explored at this point. We work with a with a insurance consultant and that's that's a really good idea to kind of explore that and see if it's even an option for us. There's very tight rules around funding for for school districts. Obviously, the fact that we're independent school districts with independent budgets would be something we have to navigate, but that's a really good suggestion that we can certainly take back and explore.
062>> I mean, >> I was just going to say thank you for at least trying to consider that. It's it's when the costs are pushed on to us, it's really hard. >> No, absolutely. Absolutely, Miss Marcus. And I want you to know like this is this is the kind of stuff that keep at least keeps me up at night, right? Thinking about how can we make things work for for you and for our additional staff, right? With you know tight budgets and stuff like that. So, um I know you probably know this like a lot of school district actually opt in into what's called TRS active care and that's the stuff that um that the state actually help fund our district launch I mean and and they were they were like windows where uh they
063have like windows when school district can opt in and windows when they can opt out and sometimes when you get in it's hard to get out but I can tell you we had mixed um review I guess the school districts And some of them, I mean, the go sometimes because they they also don't give you the choices, right? They don't give school district choices because they're they're handling for other school districts. So the their plans are this is it. You you get you you want this or not, right? Pretty much. >> Um and I can tell you they typically have high deductibles. Um um but the only good news about that is that the state funds more like the state like last legis session I think they uh put in like maybe has a couple
064hundred million dollars Eddie or something like that. >> The state the state funded 5.8 million >> I don't know how much you get >> 5.8 I think million dollars to support TRS but what that did was it was it basically capped inflation at 10%. So even with that contribution, their rates were still going to be higher than than what we have. So >> right, our deductibles are still increasing. Dr. A, it doesn't it doesn't matter. I mean, even with the increase in the premiums, we're still seeing increases in deductibles. So I get that it's all over. But I also and I understand that there are regulations that we have to abide by as an independent school district. But I think there's other options out there that maybe we just haven't taken the time to explore.
065>> I I think just to just to follow up on that, I think part of the reason that we we launched the clinic and we are looking for se several other options is there's to your point Trisha, there's not one way to solve for it, right? there's got to be multiple different approaches and the health the the clinic was a way for us to provide you know lower cost health care which is really high quality um healthcare honestly I I've been a patient I'm not violating it but it's my own case right so um but it's really high quality and it costs nothing or $25 if it's high deductible health plan so um that's that's us being strategic and trying to figure out ways to combat something that really we have very limited control over
066ourselves So, but I appreciate your suggestion and that's something we can expand for. Sure. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> Hi, I I do have a question in regards to the um to the I Ready and I know I brought up I brought I've brought this up before. Um, example, there is the accelerating reading program that we're able to go in ahead and implement, but from my understanding is that the AR program is way more expensive than the I Ready. >> I don't I I don't have the exact number, but that's something Mr. Ramirez, we can definitely follow up on. Can you tell me again the name of the program you mentioned? >> Accelerating reading program. >> Okay. I'm not familiar with it. So, we can we can definitely look into it and um
067and then if you give us we cannot chat it. How can we contact you? I guess we can get the information and and then and then provided to you because I already I'm not familiar with the program you mentioned and how much it cost. >> Okay. Now, um my other question or I wanted to go ahead and raise my concern is um it's mind-blowing how there's a lot of money or um bud or the budgets if they're being um shortage or there's being a lot of cuts when there's a lot of money or a lot of um budget money going towards um South Texas. So probably I don't know what they're doing to get more money than central Texas is not or just the Run Rock ISD. >> Are you talking about are you talking
068about you said South Texas? >> Yes. >> Yeah. So I I mean I used to work I don't know if you know I used to work in the valley. I worked there. I was a super there. >> Yeah. So I I I can tell you the biggest difference is is access to more federal money. So what so I give you a good example and this is the true example right so I don't know if you remember when we were going through covid there was some federal money called esester money was allocated to school districts right to help with with the different things um during covid and at that time I was a superintendent in the the valley that district at that time had like 14 15,000 kids students and so I was there I in
069the spring of 2021 That's when we get extra 3 ponds. At that time the that district got 70 I'm sorry $75 million right of Astra 3 pawns. So I then um uh uh forward pushed forward and I moved to uh to Round Rock in July of 2021 and and I was like we're looking at the budget that was the budget for the year was already adopted in June of 2021. And so I was like just trying to be asking question curious and figure out what we need to do with this and that and I asked how much money our district got here. Round Rock and our district got we are almost three times the size of Donna and we got only $25 million. Uh and and that the the really difference is because although we
070have more students, the percentage of students who are qualified in what's called a a free use lunch is the percentage is way smaller in Round Rock versus let's say the Valley school districts including the district where I used to. And so they receive a lot more federal money because of all this stuff. And so that allows them to do more things uh and can afford more things obviously that we don't have access to that those same level of federal funds. >> Okay. And now about the reduced lunch, it's not like you were It's not like if our kids or my kids, they have a great lunch cuz a peanut butter jelly sandwich, that's not no lunch for me. That's a snack. >> Yeah. Well, they should not be getting that for lunch. >> You should
071go ahead and walk over to Cowell Heights Elementary and take a look what they're getting for lunch. >> I will I will go ahead and do it. Yes, I would I'll do that, Mr. because that's that's not that's not supposed to be that much. >> Okay, we have time for one more question from Katie. Go ahead, Katie. >> Hi there. Um I'm uh active in the PTA lunch, right? >> Um I'm active at the in the PTA at um Great Oaks Elementary and Cedar Valley Middle School. Um and I'm just wondering like this is all like this sounds very stressful. Um, so I'm wondering realistically, um, from our standpoint, what can we do, um, as a community, um, or as a PTA organization, um, to help this situation? Like, what would be the most helpful
072thing that we legally are allowed to do? >> Well, Katie, first of all, thank you for your question, but more importantly, thank you for your your your service and and what you do to our uh to our students and district. I mean we couldn't we couldn't do much without PTA. You guys are doing amazing work and we we're really really very thankful for all all the contribution that our PTA members do every day. Um so I think I think from and I know it's a stressful but I want you to know we we have to kind of share this information with our community with our staff because you know they're hearing stories obviously from other school districts and they're hearing you know the news and things like that. So we want to keeping them updated
073also hearing some feedback and input from them and including including our uh PTA. And so um we are we are looking at working uh very diligently with with our our our district folks but also with our uh board members to figure out ways how we can solve for this. Um but I think the number one thing is really making sure your voice is heard by our elected official. make sure that our because we've been we've been I know I've been and I know many of our board members have been like several times um down um and and and talk to a lot of folks there um meetings, phone calls, emails. So um they need to hear from more more people. They need to hear more from our PDA parents um their constituents, right? That that
074funding public education is so crucial. so important that um school district are struggling to make things work and keep out great teachers and providing the best services and opportunities to our students, you know, without really cutting here and cutting their that they need to adjust their their their formula when it comes to uh funding and they really need to make public education a priority and then last next I'm sorry next legislative session, right? And so the more we can make noise, the more we can we can make our voice heard, the hopefully the better they will act and the better they will will take this very seriously. And so that's really to me that's really the most important thing. Also, I tell people this all the time, you know, you if you all vote, we
075go out and vote. We do our homework. do your homework and look at who who supports public ad and and make sure if you can if you love public ad you want to support public ad then vote for people who support and love public ad not just say they say it but people who actually act like that right so the more you can do to really again make your voice heard talk to your neighbors talk to your your family members and and do your homework study and and and and take care and make sure that you elect the people who actually care about home and So that's really the big thing that will really make a huge difference. >> Okay, thank you everybody for joining us today. Have a great rest of your Tuesday.