001e e e welcome everybody call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin 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 okay we have roll call please M Dr Pensky uh Matthew psky Karen wner Amy Carney Mike shy and Donna Lewis all right we're going to uh move to approve the agenda but I would like to note that I know we have a couple of items to pull we'll be pulling 7 L and I think Miss Carney did you have one that you wanted to pull 7 L was the one I had asked or said that I was going to pull thank you 7 o 7 L
002was the one oh you wanted to pull 7 now okay is there any are there any other consent agenda items we want to pull okay I would also ask before we approve the agenda I'm going to move for the sake of a few people in our audience that we move the consent agenda item except for 7l to go before uh discussion items so that'll honor people's time and then after discussion items we'll uh address the uh item we pulled 7 L all those in and a second on the motion second okay all those in favor I I okay thank you okay Dr Manzel student staff recognitions do we need a medium to cor yes we do citizens attending Andor participating in Scottdale unified school district meetings either in person virtually or telephonically are required to
003observe the same rules in order and decorum applicable to members of the governing board and staff unauthorized remarks or demonstrations from members of the audience yells outbursts and other disruptions are not permitted thank you Dr Manel well good evening president Lewis vice president shy and members of the governing board and a warm welcome to our staff and community members who are here with us this evening as we head into the second to last month of the 2425 school year we're finding out nearly daily about different Awards and recognitions coming our students way as a result of the hard work they've been putting in since back in August so to start things off tonight I want to tell you about three recent events in which our students were celebrated one you know about the other two
004you may not the first is the annual her Museum American Indian youth art show in sale that is part of the prestigious Phoenix Museum's annual Indian fair and Market the event was held the first week weekend of March and I'm proud to report that two Native American students from Coronado High School Maya yellow eyes and Juliana Sanchez submitted entries to the competition if you look at the screen that's Maya on the left with her painting Orange Day Juliana is on the right with her sculpture cold alone but a companion brings you home I'm not sure you can make it out but it depicts Footprints of a wolf or a large dog and I'm just guessing based on the title about it being cold that the white medium represents snow Juliana's piece received third place recognition
005at the art show and both pieces were sold we want to congratulate both students on their success sticking with the the art theme the shemmer art center located near Phoenix Scottsdale border on Camelback Road host an annual Art EX exhibition of high school art called New Horizons with the guidance encouragement of art teachers and please forgive me if I mispronounce any of the names s richio and Eric Johan at Arcadia High School Carson builder at chapparel high school Elena wittenstein at Coronado High School and Marie mccardy at Saro High School Arcadia students Freda tripy Hughes and Nick Adams chapparel student Mia Holly and Emily Meyer cornado student Harvin o and Saro students Brian Stevenson and Jesse cram produced these wonderful pieces and won awards and some money in the 2025 New Horizons competition so we're
006very proud of the demonstration of talent of our art students and then the third one which I believe people know about was the susd family Arts Fest the third annual that was celebrated two weeks ago at ASU Sky song Innovation Center it was a fabulous two days of onstage performances by SD choirs orchestras and bands as well as visually overwhelming display of student art that you will ever see in one place I always enjoy the opportunity to get it used to be superintendent's Choice Award and it still is but um it's one of those things where I'm the last judge and so it's fun to be able to identify different art pieces at every school to recognize and I hope that uh in the future more people will take advantage of the opportunity to see
007our student on display and our student Talent on display in particular when you look at the progression from elementary to Middle to high school and and how sophisticated they become in displaying their artistic abilities it's pretty fantastic and it's certainly something that I can't do uh we also want to acknowledge that it doesn't happen alone it's a partnership with Scottdale Arts we're truly grateful for them Arizona State University the city of Scottsdale Scottsdale Community Partners and its Ali Ortega empty Bulls program entertainment Solutions and the Copa Cheney group of lean Associates that make this such an amazing celebration of ssd's fine and Performing Arts programs as you well know susd offers students plenty of other opportunities to develop their skills and talents in academic areas other than the Arts our director of teaching and learning
008Dr Kim dods Karen is here to introduce you to some Saro high school students whose SaberCat experience will once again take them to the global robotics stage in Houston Texas in a few weeks Dr dods Karen there we go we'll try that again good evening thank you Dr Mensel good evening president uh Lewis vice president shy governing board members and those of you present this evening as a cognia stem certified school and home of the Scottsdale Math and Science Academy I would like to introduce you to members of Saro SaberCat robotics team so if Fiona Riley Gian raboy Corbin gusberg Noah rotham and Marco belletti would join me thank you um governing board members Dr menel and audience please meet team 4146 they will represent susd in the first robotics are you ready for this
009world championship in Houston Texas on April [Applause] 16th they will be in Texas uh April 16th through the 19th this International Event closes out the competitive High School robotics season and draws hundreds of student teams from around the globe in an annual celebration of science technology engineering and math known as stem the SaberCat robotics team um it's a longtime staple of Saro high school and the amazing stem curriculum this year the team has qualified for the world championship by bringing home the engineering inspiration award from the Arizona North Regional competition in Flagstaff that took place during spring break UC robotics tournaments are not just about the robots um who shoots the most baskets or deposits the most cubes it's also about the team and the sportsmanship the advancing respect and appreciation for engineering not only
010within a school but within a community inspiring others to pursue learning in science and technology you will see members of our SaberCat robotics team all over their learning community at our elementary schools in our middle schools and even hosting the regional qualifying tournament for the first Lego League robotic competition in every December team 4146 followed up its Flagstaff performance the following week by winning the creativity award at the Ariz East Regional competition held at cronel Soul High School in temp the creativity award celebrates it the creativity that enhances the strategy of play and was intentionally designed and not discovered the judges were impressed with the unique shape of the robot and of the tall sideboard which we are told offered functional a functional advantage on the field of play is that true mhm so as
011these students prepare for the big trip to Texas in a few weeks we want to wish them the best of luck and wishes for an amazing performance um before I give them their challenge coins we want to invite Fiona to the podium you've met her before through student Advisory board but she's here to share a few words with you good evening members of the board Dr menel um so this year the saber cats were able to accomplish something pretty impressive we were able to continue all of our uh stem initiative so that's sisters and stem Melody makers Go baby go and LL while also designing this robot which with a much smaller team than last year at North we were lucky enough to win engineering Inspirations and uh the week after we won the creativity
012award and this was all because of the help of our teachers uh Miss Lindberg and Mr Brandt and because of all of our amazing mentors and the support of the sosd foundation and the people in the district so we thank you and we're very excited to [Applause] go um we have a bag of loot for you of challenge coins but I do want to give them out individually to you but also for your teachers Mrs Lindberg and uh Mr brand thank you governing board congratulations and we wish you well as you go to Houston just a brief bit of History it's because of the lobbying um by Saro high school students several years ago that the robotics is a credit bearing course in susd so thank you and your predecessors for uh seeing the importance
013of this work and for carrying on the tradition so we wish you well in your competitive Endeavors that concludes the celebrations this evening thank you so much congratulations all right let's have uh superintendent comments uh just a few items to point out today marks the first day of our annual testing season uh we know this is something that is necessary but not necessarily something that students look forward to so students grades three through eight are taking the AA essay assessment we also are giving the a science and act for high school students we' got a modified schedule at the high school in order to accommodate that we want our students to do their very best in demonstrating what they've learned and in order to do that we Ur we encourage getting good rest eating healthy
014staying hydrated and I would suggest maybe not overstressing uh testing is important uh but if you're too stressed you might not remember the things that are important so we wish our students well as they work to demonstrate the things they've been learning this school year on April 4th we'll be hosting a legislative visit to Tavon Elementary and Arcadia High School with the four new Representatives uh and one Senator or three new Representatives the senator all three from ld8 are new and then one from ld4 so we invited them to come and tour those two schools it's a great opportunity for us to Showcase amazing teaching and learning that is happening on those campuses as well as to help our elected officials see the impact of the funding decisions they make at the capital on Saturday
015the Math and Science Academy at Saro will be holding its annual steam showcase that will be from 12: to 2: uh if your schedule permits I would absolutely encourage you to stop by uh the student displays are truly impressive and you've seen some of the students that were here tonight they'll be there on Saturday as well and I would encourage that uh finally like every month there are different celebrations that take place and because uh this is the first meeting of the month uh we want to first start by saying that tomorrow is par professional uh appreciation day do we have any par Professionals in the room with us uh I want to say thank you on behalf of the The District administration and board our PA professionals do truly amazing things in support of
016our students and their learning and so tomorrow you have an opportunity if you didn't know that it was PA professional day tomorrow you have an opportunity to make sure that they feel truly appreciated in your buildings and at our various sites uh this week also happens to be National assistant principl week and we do value our assistant principles any assistant principles in the room all right well they're probably getting a good night's rest so they can be prepared for tested Administration tomorrow but we appreciate our principles National Library week is April 7th through 13th National Occupational Therapy month and school library month are all monthl long so we have an opportunity to be able to thank uh our people who work as occupational therapists or work in our school libraries National volunteer week is April
01720th through 26th and public school volunteer week is April 21st through 25th administrated Professionals Day like glattus and so many others is April 23rd so of you who have Administrative Professionals don't forget to honor and recognize them for all that they contribute and then finally national student leadership week is the final week in April April 24th through 30th so many opportunities to celebrate all of the people who make susd special with that we conclude my report thank you Dr Manzel all right we'll move into public comment in compliance with open meeting law the governing board may not discuss or take action tonight on any matters raised during public comments that are not on the agenda however the governing board members May respond to direct criticism ask staff uh to review a matter or that that
018matter be placed on a future agenda public comments will be conducted in accordance with board policy bedh as a reminder each speaker will have two minutes the screen will indicate the time please be prepared to close your comments and relinquish the floor at the conclusion of your time the board ask that each speaker please introduce yourself by stating your name and whether you live within our school district for Clarity on the record we thank you for your time and attendance here this evening and your cooperation in following the meeting decorum and protocols we will read the names or I will read the names of each of of the speakers who have signed up we have 10 tonight uh when you hear your name could you please come up to the podium and I will read
019the name of the next speaker to be ready on Deck once you start speaking your time will begin and our first Speaker tonight is uh Jeff rate and that'll be followed by Patrina uh pin I was a substitute teacher in the Scottsdale schools for 13 years a teacher at Arcadia High School filed a formal complaint with the district she alleged that i' had refused to call Girls by boys names per her instructions the students are transgender Dr Manzel's office solicited the students without their parents knowledge to write letters indicating how traumatized they were by my actions these letters were secretly placed in my personnel file and used to fire me as a teacher and Coach despite the governing board's personel policy procedures maner which says the following material which concerns an an employees's conduct service
020character or personality will not be placed in a teacher's file unless he or she has had an opportunity to read such material teacher will acknowledge that he or she has read such material by fixing his or her signature to the actual copy to be filed the appropriate District administrator will also initial and a copy will be issued to the teacher the teacher will have the right Etc you get the idea here more importantly a federal judge issued the following order to every superintendent in the country a school district cannot force a teacher to call Girls by male names doing so would violate that teacher's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and there can be no free speech retaliation in addition the president of the United States issued an executive order protecting teachers from this
021alleged harassment of transgender students part of the problem is this clown Law Firm Gus Rosenfeld who have recommended the school board ignore federal judges and besides Mr R missed the statute limitations to sue of public entity Dr Manzel retaliated further when he published a newsletter that listed District separations from the past year all said retired and resigned with one exception my name said terminated he had maliciously destroyed my reputation despite 13 years as Subs teacher coach and volunteer veteran presenter with Joe Foss Institute I am again requesting to be placed on next month's agenda or let me speak to the board in executive session all right thank you Petrina is next and followed by uh Melanie Simons hello I'm Patrina pensan I live in Fountain Hills my children attend Anastasia Elementary School I'm here tonight
022to implore the board to create an action item to vote to adjust the budget to include full-time assistant principles at all School sites APS are the bridge between students teachers and administration they help create a safe structured and positive learning environment whether handling student discipline school safety initiatives supporting teachers or handling crisis emergency and dangerous situations it is imperative that the aps have a full-time administrator role on every campus susd is because kids well prove it Beyond Logistics assistant principles are mentors and they're problem solvers they connect with families and students guiding them through challenges and helping them reach their full potential they facilitate testing they coordinate 504 plans they execute safety protocols they support teachers by providing professional development and ensuring classrooms are places of growth and inspiration simply put an assistant principal impact
023extends far beyond their title they shape the future one day one decision and one student at a time by implementing full-time assistant principles at all School sites we strengthen leadership improve student outcomes and Foster more effective learning environments I urge you to vote in favor of adjusting the budget to make this critical investment in our schools Dr Manzel you mentioned that this week is assistant principal week I hope that you all really look within and see how important these people are they're not here for a paycheck much like every other educator right they are here because they love our children I'm here because kids and I hope you're all here truly because kids thank you thank you Melanie Simons followed by Mike Binger good evening I am here today to discuss the volunteer uh policy
024with the Scottsdale Unified School District uh my name is Melanie Simmons I'm a parent of a child and I do live within the boundaries of the district um I'm here basically because we have a child sex offender who has been volunteering at our schools and the problem with that is the Pol excuse me the policy we have parents and legal Guardians who according to the policy May at times be out of sight of a certified staff member that are not required to undergo background checks to volunteer and I'm asking that the board please look at that and change that policy thank you thank you Mike finger followed by Jennifer Lee babber Pro components of school-based mental health programs assert that social emotional theories of learning posit that by removing a student psychological blockage as academic
025achievement will follow that's the theory in a nutshell but does it work independent researchers particularly outside US educational research Circle say no but you don't need another study to show this look at the student proficiency scores according to the auditor General's annual School District spending analysis report SD's FY 24 instructional spending was 54.4% compared to our peer group spending of 55.2% over the 5 years ending in FY 24 instruction and instruction support spending is down 1.7% while student support spending is up 2.6% per student Administration spending is 15% higher than our peer group during this period enrollment has decreased by 88.4% this 5-year period coincides with Dr Menzel's tenure as superintendent in the 2024 annual financial report susd cut 59 instructional positions added 71 student support positions and added 44 support and administrative positions so
026enrollment is down instructional spending is down student support services are up and administrative spending per student is up how is implementing the social emotional theories works for susd in FY 24 55% of students pass a state assessment for math 61% pass Ela and 41% pass science this represents a 12% average drop from 2019 as the data shows it's not working in susd academic performance does not improve with more spending on support services and less spending on academic instruction the FY 2526 budget proposal continues this fail trend of cutting instructional positions and ignoring decreases in academic performance wake up parents Dr Menzel needs to go thank you Mike Jennifer leaber followed by Mark feifer good morning govern afternoon evening it's been a long day first thing uh my name is Jennifer Lee hobber I am a
027proud teacher at Kaa Elementary a proud parent of a child who went to seoa is at cocoon now and will go to chap Ral next year as a freshman I am also a proud member of the scell Education Association I am here to read a story from one of my colleagues who was not comfortable sharing this story of her own I am leaving teaching at the end of the year and one of the reasons is that I can no longer afford to be a teacher with a young child I use my husband's health insurance because if I used my own my take-home pay would be lower than the cost of child care and not worth me working I have a master's degree and have been in this District since 2014 and some newer teachers only
028make a few thousand less than me I cannot afford having a child paying back my student loans and maintaining my household hold I also find it really insulting that on top of being paid only slightly more than newer teachers with a bachelor's degree the district's solution to Rising insurance premiums was to reduce the general raise to our base salary which would have impacted me more positively because I cannot afford the school's insurance I also find it really irritating that I cannot make use of the mobile um mamography visits or flu shots because I don't have the district's Insurance the district claims to care about our well-being but I am not seeing that reflect did since certified staff and programs always seem to get cut first those are her words they're not mine I um wanted
029to share them with you but I would also like to mention that I encourage you to work um continue working to fund public education not just in our local community but Statewide nationalwide I know one of your your uh agenda items today has to do with lobbyists and lobbying I think it's really important that we um attack um the the problem of funding at all levels thank you so much thank you Jennifer Mark feifer followed by Mark Ginsburg good evening I'm Mark feifer science teacher and athletic director of Mojave Middle School I'm also the Secretary of uh the scottsvale Education Association as the deadline for contract acceptances draws near I find myself reflecting on the significance of elevating excellence consider all the achievements we've made as a district this year meeting after meeting this room
030is flooded with accomplishments celebrations and reports multiple A+ Schools of Excellence various student award recipients and uh state champions superintendent of the year or maybe you prefer to be reminded about the safety and security measures being used as the template by other districts or about the two meals a day that are prepared each day for tens of thousands of students some of whom don't know if they will have a third meal that evening regardless of the metrics you use to measure the success of a district I am bold enough to claim that we just might be the premier District in the state these accolades are easy to accomplish when you're surrounded by incredible leaders and colleagues but we don't do the things we do for other reasons uh uh for reasons other than because it's
031the right thing to do for the kids but a 1% increase to our salaries and a now broken verbal agreement to not increase our insurance premiums doesn't feel like the right thing it's not the right way to reward the staff for our contributions to these accomplishments the reality is public education has been wly respected in Arizona and remains improperly funded forcing even amazing districts to make difficult decisions board member Warner I want to extend my gratitude for openly meeting with leaders and advocates for public education within your role as a state senator and vice chair of the committee on education I hope all of you uh continue to be the leaders this district and the state must have for continued successes and necessary improvements to the lives of the children and the lives of the
032staff responsible for their growth and development thank you thank you Mark and now Mark Ginsburg followed by TJ Buckley good evening board uh my name is Mark Ginsburg I'm a math teacher at Soro high school and uh been in the district now for years um just a few things just real short and sweet here um Scott's tagline is to U if I get this right here let's see is to inspire Inspire learn and lead the concern here is how are we going to lead when we we're talking about a 1% raise which we know is much less than inflation uh with Med with medical costs going up every year you know sometimes close to double digits uh how are we going to continue to do this uh our real wages in a 10-year period went
033down 6% and this is according to the economic policy Institute so you know how are we going to continue to lead how we going to continue to retain and attract talent in this District that's that's my concern thank you thank you Mark TJ Buckley followed by Kurt Robinson good evening TJ Buckley sea president the combined impact of soaring health care costs and the lack of Education funding in the state of Arizona threatens the financial well-being of our members in the future of susd for next year Rising Healthcare premiums are forcing some members to pay as much as $28,988 or 41% of the average annual certified salary of 71,2 60 so those are next year's numbers in premiums before even seeking Medical Care this is an unsustainable burden um and it's outpacing salary increases there will
034be no family plans under 12,000 in yearly premiums the consequences of an action are dire susd leadership should prioritize addressing employee health care costs and uh and increasing funding for public education by continuing to collaborate uh continuing collaborative efforts actively involve in all levels of budget and Healthcare discussions and continue to leave no stone unturned in order to lower the employee cost of health insurance write a governing board resolution publicly advocate for increased funding for public education to ensure the district's ability to provide affordable benefits and um and adequate cost of living adjustments for employees supporting sea advocacy efforts actively support sea in our efforts at both the local and the State levels uh to secure adequate funding for public schools to control health care costs health care costs um increases and the lack of
035salary um you know of a cost of living adjustment that's not just an susd problem that's an everywhere problem uh but as your susd employees who are working every day for you uh for the children of Scottsdale it's very important for us that uh your voices are heard on these matters thank you thank you TJ Kurt Robinson followed by Patricia pellet hi my name is Kurt Robinson I've been a teacher in susd for 27 years uh my wife has also we met here at our school and our children went through susd as well and I'm here to talk about insurance um our daughter has several challenges and Dr Manel thank you um and getting the care she needs has been painful and difficult for us insurance is added to our pain on top of our
036premiums to date my wife and I have spent over $25,000 out of pocket to cover her expenses we're both national board teachers we've won Char Awards this year I had to ask my dad for a handout so I could cover my bills this isn't working and we all know why it is like this it's the lack of funding and support from our state government I'm calling on everyone in here I'm calling on leadership I'm calling on admin I'm calling on classified and certified I'm calling on guests we all need to step up and we need to demand and tell them this is enough we need more funding teachers children employees are not making it thank you for your time thank you Kurt and uh Patricia pellet good evening governing board I am a proud mom
037of a boy special needs at cocaa and I will give out some um congrats to the SD District it actually is one of the best for special needs anyways on to the rest so why is enrollment at anaz zazi shrinking as a former anaz zazi parent here is a recap for a few new school members in first grade parents received an email that Mother's Day will not be celebrated this year as not all students have mothers it wasn't referring to those who have lost their mothers in second grade we had furries bathroom Choice social emotional tag and PE in third grade we had Pebble go lesson on citizenship which means activism protesting with an example of black lives matter parade and walking out of class the Spanish teacher at the end of the year was
038caught never teaching Spanish but just telling stories and had a dual lingo contest at the end of the year just the cap um some hours uh a third grade teacher at anaz zazi trolling and attacking parents online not only at night sometimes while drunk but also during school hours meanwhile some good principles and teachers have been pushed out but she's still here on to Archway my boy started there in fourth grade my one boy said mom we don't play volleyball with balloons we get real balls um tests are on pen and paper uh tests are on paper they don't get multiple chances and multiple choices my boy's fourth grade teacher said your boy can't even write a complete sentence I was shocked because that anaz zazi everything was rubber stamped as a go um remember
039Manzel said years ago that we will lose enrollment in the name of equity you need to focus on academics and fund the teachers because teachers here and parents have all had enough thank you thank you Patricia okay uh we're going to uh ask for any comments or responses board okay um Miss Warner yes I'd like to um have Jeff R put on an agenda so we can finally put this to bed and so he can do other things on Tuesday evenings and let's settle that uh thank you to Patrina I appreciate your comments and actually to all of you so um you're all very right like pick up the recommendation that the board consider uh a public statement on public school funding in Arizona [Applause] okay all right any others okay thank you so much
040all right that brings us to consent agenda items I'll make the motion that we approve the consent agenda items a through Q minus L which will be pulled and has been pulled and we'll we will resume that discussion after our information discussion items I need a second I second the motion thank you all those in favor I I okay any opposed no all right motion carries 5 to zero and I think we have uh is it Janie Fitzpatrick where are you please stand as our new director of CT CTE thank you so very much congratulations thank you very much all right that brings us to information uh discussion items uh we have uh five tonight uh the first one is the presentation of the audit and compliance questionnaire for fiscal year 2324 good evening board
041president Lewis vice president shy members of the board Dr menel and guests tonight we have a presentation on our annual audit this is looking at the audit of our fiscal year 24 so last school year and our auditor Jennifer Shields is here to present that is great yeah I think so good evening um Madame President members of the board Dr Mensel thank you for allowing me a few minutes of your time this evening to um talk about last year's audit as Miss kroer um mentioned this is for last FIS school year so the year ended June 30th 2024 and um I'll run through a few slides and well maybe there we go um there are certain um certain items that the auditor is require requ ired to communicate to those charged with governance so we'll
042go through some of those um items here those some of those items include the timeline so you can see that up on the screen there the audit is actually a very long process we started it last May with the issuance of the engagement letter and then we perform procedures from that period of time through the ultimate issuance of all of the audit reports the um Financial audit report was dated in December of 2024 and that was was when the um actual financial statements were issued um in terms of the scope of services that heinfeld meech provides to the district we perform an audit in accordance with um us generally accepted auditing standards government auditing standards and the uniform guidance so there's a lot of standards that we follow and then also we um complete What's
043called the uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire and that is um a a state document that goes through required compliance items um that gets reported to the state auditor General's office in terms of um responsibilities there are a number of different responsibilities that get outlined in the engagement letter each year um those that are Management's responsibility and then those are that that are the Auditors responsibility so in terms of fraud Communications um our um our responsibility is to design our audit to um be able to provide reasonable but not abs absolute assurance that there are no misstatements in the financial statements and we um just remind you that you all in addition to management have the ultimate responsibility for implementing programs and putting things in place to make sure that you um are able
044to prevent and or detect any um fraud that may occur um if if something were to occur you guys would find that um through the um process of your own internal controls excuse me there are um new accounting standards that come into play every year and so this year is no exception this year the district was required to implement what's called gby statement number 100 and it has to do with um changes in financial presentation and or Corrections of Errors so the district implemented a new accounting standard any audit that is done is um it there are estimates that are contained within the financial statements so that's no different here at Scottdale versus any other school district or any other agency to be honest um in terms of the district the most important significant um
045estimates in the financial statement are listed on the screen and they involve things like um there's a lot of discussion about um insurance and the district um goes through a process to determine what the estimates are for um unpaid claims so that's a large estimate here at the district as well as um depreciable assets and the useful lives therein and um similar similar types of estimates um in terms of audit adjustments there was one audit adjustment that was um above a threshold that would require communication to you all and it was um related to some beginning balances and later on in another slide we'll talk about that there was a deficiency in internal control and it was related to this audit adjustment that was required in terms of we perform audit Services we also perform
046non-audit services that management um oversees our services for so we do assist with the preparation of the actual financial statements themselves and the required foot um footnotes to those um including preparing journal entries and things like that so that the financial statements are properly um presented we also assist with um what's called the data collection form so that's a form that Recaps all of the information related to the federal audit um there's a lot I'm trying to go fast um other required Communications there were no disagreements with management over Financial um accounting reporting and audit matters so I'm pleased to report that to you um management did provide us all of the required Communications at the conclusion of the audit that we request and then because we are your um external Auditors we are required
047to maintain our own independence and I am happy to report that our firm had no violations of um any ethical or Independence concerns there are different reports that we issue um the three that are on the screen and I'll talk a little bit about it um I don't know if you all were Pro provided paper copies or PDF copies or both but there's some highlights um that I'm going to talk about on each one of the um pages so in the annual um comprehensive financial report that's the actual financial statements for the district I'll point out page 20 um this is the this is my P page um I'm I'm responsible for Pages 20 through 23 um and that's your audit report and I'm pleased to report that the district had an unmodified opinion so
048that's the best um audit opinion that you can get and then those other pages are listed in case um you or the public wanted to look at particular information um it just provides um like say the statistical section provides a nice overview of some historical financial data um and Management's discussion and Analysis talks about reasons for some of the changes in the financial statements so I put those out there for your reference um with a single audit so the single audit is what's required um when the district spends more than $750,000 in any given year of federal assistance you're required to have what's called a single audit in the case of Scottdale you spent over 25.7 million during this last fiscal year of Federal Aid so you're well over that threshold for need meing to
049have um a single audit we look at this is where we look at both Federal programs we look at programmatic compliance requirements as well as the controls that are in place to make sure that you spend your money properly and we looked at three Federal programs we audited the Child Nutrition cluster so that's your um free and reduced um lunch breakfast programs we looked at your child and adult care food program which is um an additional type of um Federal program that's run out of the food service department or Child Nutrition department rather and then also we audited the Esser program so Esser was of course the largest Federal program that you had um and that is on its way um ceasing you know and so we may see a little bit more money spent
050in the next audit but the bulk of it has been expended by now and then I mentioned that there was one deficiency in internal controls that was um noted during the audit and what that had to do with was the timing of a payment of an invoice was processed in the wrong fiscal year so that was the audit adjustment that was required and that was corrected by Management in terms of the usfr compliance questionnaire there are quite a number of pages a lot of different compliance requirements there's over 18 different like functional areas if you will that touch on things like governing board procedures making sure that you all um you know post your agendas um as required um Pro provide for minutes things like that we look at those types of things we also
051look at things like procurement practices student attendance requirements and then a whole host of other things that happen like Student Activities or um you know just even like cash receeding and things like that so the um the compliance if there was any non-compliance issues those would be reported in that usfr compliance questionnaire that document is the one that the state uses to determine whether or not the district is in substantial comp clients and then just um final comments I just want to thank management Shannon and her team do a great job they um are very responsive it's um as you can tell it's a very long process to go from May till now um to work with your Auditors and uh we ask for a lot of information that they um are very gracious to
052pull and um gather for us so that we can perform our procedures in a timely fashion and then just looking forward to next year there is another big accounting scene standard there's always a new accounting standard that has to be implemented and this year um coming up it will be related to compensated absences and what those are is that's essentially your um vested vacation and sick leave that you um you know owe your employees upon separation so there's um some it'll be a big lift for the district to implement this um next to Counting standard and so with that that concludes my presentation but I'm happy to stand for questions board any questions Dr Pensky uh thank you for your presentation and as part of your compliance work do you um look at our whistleblower
053uh mechanisms and do you aine on the status of our whistleblower policies and mechanisms Madam president thank you that's um whistleblowing is not currently a compliance requirement item that the auditor general puts out there um in terms of audit standards we do look at things such as um you know if any um complaints are raised or as part of our fraud discussions and fraud interviews with various people throughout the district including a board member we would ask if anybody is aware of anything that we should know about that would then alter our procedures that we planned for um but there is definitely no opinion given on those um and it's not a compliance requirement thank you any other questions or comments thank you so very much and thank you and congratulations to the team thank
054you okay this brings us to budget process discussion you want to start so uh Shannon comes to the podium uh for a rather lengthy PowerPoint presentation the purpose of the discussion tonight is to really kind of outline the budget process the annual cycle that school districts go through U because we are Midway through this fiscal year but the budget planning for the next fiscal year started last fall so Shannon's going to walk us through the process that we undergo to prepare for the following school year uh budget analysis and we'll take time at the end of these slides to be able to each one to have uh dialogue about questions or things that you might need to clarify but Shannon we're going to turn it over to you yeah I would ask it not at
055the end yes it's after each slide during throughout the presentation so that we don't have to go back and say what was that yeah we'll do it each one thank you sir there it is stand closer oh okay um I'll start over again um good evening Dr Le president Lewis um vice president shy members of the board Dr menel and guest um as mentioned we are going into a lengthy discussion about the budget and timelines so with that this first I just really starts looking at the budget year um we start as early as August looking at what um possibilities are there for the budget we start with an IBN or interest based negotiations kickoff start talking about the budget overflow or budget overview um in mid to late October um we hit the 40th
056Day Mark for the district which is important in that it helps us to start forming ideas of what enrollment could look like for the following year it's also used by Human Resources as they start planning for Staffing for the following year uh November HR starts that um in estimating enrollment for the following year looking at what that Staffing could look like and prepping for that and then in December we start with um IBN updates again human resource staff goes actually out to the sites and starts working with the sites on that Staffing then in January we're here with the board talking about um what those projections look like for the early projections we have the 100th day hits towards the end of January which is a big deal for us because the 100th day is
057um how the the average daily membership is based off of the first 100 days of enrollment um so that's a big M marker for US additionally we start going out to our department saying you need to start thinking about your budget for next year compiling what those requests are going to look like sending those over so we can start reviewing them um and then continuing to meet with um the IBN teams uh we get into February that's we now have our 100th day which we use to do school um department so we start sending that out to the school so they have an idea of their M and capital allocations for next year presenting that information to the governing board HR HR is from like November on meeting with schools on Staffing and what that
058looks like um and planning for that by the time we get to uh the end of February we're making an estimate of what the funding is available for salary increases which means we've got to have a pretty good idea on um what the budget looks like what we think the budget's going to look like but also a pretty good idea of where they're going to be budget savings for us um because by the time we get to February and start saying this is how much we have for salary increases um that stuff has got to be start to get pretty solid in March we do the um uh recommendation for salary increases so that they can put out the certified contracts by March 15th um and those go out April um well today we're doing
059our budget discussion still having those discussions but administrative contracts and um classified employee work agreements start going out in April uh by May we're doing we're trying to also close out the the fiscal year that we're in so by May 15th we have to do a budget revision of the current budget that we're in and wrap that up even though the year doesn't actually end until June 30th and we still pay things throughout August um and then by the time we get to June uh we have the proposed and adopted budget really to have those things completed and ready to go to the board for the first board meeting we have everything wrapped up in in our system ready to go by miday um because we have to have time to double check make things
060we make sure we've got things entered in correctly and then get those things into form hopefully we have the form um from the um AG's office to actually put those things in and we haven't and budgets have been decided by the state at that point um so by the time we get to June we do the proposed and adopted and start the new school year and start the new process all over again um so that really takes a look at what is our budget timeline when we're looking at Future GE Dr Pensky so thank you for putting this together it's very clear and as a new board member this idea that I've sort of been dropped into the middle of a budget cycle at first was confusing to me but I kind of understand the
061context better what I don't see here is in Prior discussions there was reference to the board at the beginning of the budget cycle weighing in and that's what then set the context for IBN and what followed and I don't see a board item explicitly listed here can you or Dr Benzel can you speak to kind of where in this cycle does the board first say as we look out you know unfortunately assuming we're declining in enrollments we think it's really important to do this or Safeguard this or it's time to look at this so that happens in in two ways and in this past year uh it it didn't happen uh the year before it did so in part it happens when the board approves the agreements with the employee groups so the sea agreement
062the sspa and the SAA agreement identify parameters working conditions they identify ratios they identify the the components that get to the the core of when Shannon was talking about the Staffing allocations for the buildings those ratios are identified in the agreements that the governing board approves which is every June so part of it is is codified in the agreements that are approved uh two years ago not this last year and I can explain my reason why I think that it it didn't happen we had um a contentious uh relationship at the board table uh during some of those conversations but two years ago we did have an executive session where the governing board talked about its priorities for bargaining uh and and that was something that was put on the table that one happened later
063than I would normally recommend I think that was probably a January conversation I think that conversation needs to happen no later than August so that it's it's at front end of the conversation so there there are two ways one is when the board adopts the agreements it's creating the parameters for us to begin the conversation and then when you think about budget targets for the following year even when we don't know all of the specifics because the State Legislative process doesn't conclude until doesn't they target April but the last few years it's been the end of June we don't know what we're going to get from the state so everything we're doing is based on assumptions but the board in terms of identifying the priorities we think about the big uh picture the value proposition
064that's important for the board that should happen in in August before IBN gets fully underway so that we as an entire team are operating with those parameters thank you so as we look ahead to the next budget cycle assuming we all get along with each other that would happen in August of yes that that would be the plan that would be the the optimal situation thank you Mr shy um on the IBN process uh I see in March the IBN salary recommendation is there other decisions that come out of IBN so as the board we're not and I don't and I believe we should not be involved in IBN but um there were comments uh during the public comments of a broken agreement on costs not litigating that at all but if there were agreements
065such as that when do those happen and when do we know about those kinds of agreements so so there are there are two parts right the the final agreement is brought forward for board approval in June we have to do some of the elements ahead of time in order to be able to issue contracts the health insurance piece kind of Falls in between as we're building the budget people want to know and and we have to to make those decisions in order for the renewal period we have to be able to populate the information so people can make inform decisions when we're renewing because our health insurance year is July to to June not a calendar year and so we have to have that information done sooner so agreements aren't part of the reference there
066is our aspirational goal going into bargaining was not to have additional increases what happened with respect to the reality of health insurance cost increases not only based on our experience because as self-insured we cover all of those costs kyos recommended based on the industry Trends a N9 and a half% increase actually I don't want to litigate that that's way that the process because what I don't want the relationship between us as a decision-making body and the IBN process I want to make at least for me I feel like that's you know there's a separation there but we want to know we want to know if things come out of that that we should be aware of like oh during IBN we said X is going to happen we promise X so I want to make
067sure that we get wind of that so that there's no sort of crossed lines right a commitment in the IBN table uh because we operate by consensus uh should be documented by the participants and then codified in the agreement that comes forward in June okay but when they get agreed upon let's say it's February would we get Fe feedb and say oh as an interim this agreement so on the on the compensation front we did that we the the groups agreed not only individually but collectively on the recommendation that was brought forward to the board we wouldn't bring that recommendation forward if it hadn't been the product of the IBN process thank you we see I I'm just going to make a comment that it's it's more on a grand scale because I'm very very
068familiar with the operational cycle of the job of the staff and and what we go through annually pretty much across the state waiting on State allocations and what's going to happen with the feds and all the moving pieces including insurance rates uh that being said if we were to have a creative strategic conversation about and there you don't have to answer this it's not a question for now it's a thought for later if we were to have a a four-year guess on declining enrollment and anticipated loss or gains in the budget and what we could prior prioritize over a 4-year period of time I would like to introduce that at some point for a strategic way of thinking no need to comment at this juncture and I will say this wasn't in there but we
069um we don't get the amount for the increase in medical insurance we we got it as soon as possible but it was the last day of February when we received that number um so that is another part that factors in is that we're making decisions on salary have to be decided upon before March um but the insurance portion of it we never know what that increase is going to be until um unfortunately later you know basically it was basically March 1st um when we got get that information okay all right uh this next slide we talk primarily about M and capital um those are the two more flexible funds within our budget but this looks at what are all of the different funds that we do have within our budget um again M although is
070only 44% it is the one that most things are most salaries District Operations are paid from um some of these funds are very restricted so for instance Debt Service um is 7% $30 million that can only go to pay for our debt principal and interest on our bonds um Insurance trust again 9% that can only be used for um paying uh medical insurance property Casualty Insurance and workers compensation we cannot move money back out of that we can't pay people um out of it the only thing we can do on that is not fully fund it which we've done for several years in some of those cases like property casualty um but they're they're restricted on what we do um cash accounts again is another big one we do pay quite a few salaries out
071of cash accounts however most cash accounts are restricted on what you can do so we're limited to a handful of cash accounts that we can you utiliz like indirect costs uh uh and some rental Monies to be able to move expenses out of M pay them out of cash and free up some of our M expenses seeing nothing I'm going to move on to the next one um average daily membership we talk about average daily membership a lot because that is the main component of the budget that is what drives how much we receive from the state other than the base level which is the amount per student um average daily membership is different than enrollment enrollment is how many kids do we have at any given time average daily membership is how many students
072did we have within the first 100 days of school and if they come in later then that's a Le that's not a full what um 1.0 um average daily membership in the case of Soul it looks at the amount of minutes that a student logs so um enrollment those things are all very important they play into it but the average daily membership is really based off of how many students are rolled from day one through uh day 100 as you can see preco it was a little bit all over the board as to how much it was changing um since Co we flattened out our 10year average is 2% um the last few years our decline has been 2% um and so that because it drives how much we receive from the state is really
073a driving force when we talk about budget issues um one thing with that um that I didn't include in here is the total student weight account um that gets confused sometimes too average daily membership we get weights uh depending on if you're a kindergartener if you're a high school if you're special needs students um K3 reading program free and reduced lunch gifted those types of things so it takes that average daily membership then we get weights for students based on what grade level they're in based on if they have a special additional uh they call them group weight for special special ad gifted those types of things and that's how we get to our total studed weighted count number so when we talk about the next couple of slides what is the reduction in that
074that's looking at what is our ADM with a 2% reduction and then placing those on those weights I think for the community's benefit it is noteworthy that we've been declining for over 10 years when you have the ups and downs of covid and um it's a separate conversation of what's driving that how much of it is demographics how much of that is market share or the growth in alternative options um but from a budgeting perspective the reality is for the past 10 years uh we've been declining and 2% on average um so as we deal with difficult decisions like assistant principles wherever we end up with that like health insurance wherever we end up with that like salaries wherever we end up with that I do think a context is the state but a context
075is also just we are a declining uh we are a declining enrollment um District um and I want to remind the community as well that when you forecasted this Cycle's um I forget the technical term ADM uh we did the student weight count you came within handful I mean it was two students or three students surprisingly close which given you did that 18 months in advance is really uh remarkable and gives me confidence in terms of using this as the basis of our budgeting I I accept that and thank you for that um I I will say that I was probably more luck involved in that one when it comes to I'm less confident but sorry I should stop um but thank you yeah it is we really have seen those differences and quite honestly
076it's not just Scottdale that's I mean you see across uh you know seems like every couple of days on the news more districts are talking about the decline in enrollment and how it's impacting and you know jobs being reduced and schools being closed and um really difficult situations happening in schools um so this takes a look at our IMO estimated Revenue sovy so as we talked about student weighted count we project that going down by 463 that's a to put that in terms of numbers that's 2.3 million reduction um so we start off with that we anticipated two % increase to the base level U increases it by about $100 per student so that increases our Revenue by 2.6 so between the two we're kind of evening out we're ahead just a little bit um
077we get additional money for Teacher experience index and what that means is um the state takes a look at all of the teachers experience within school districts develops a state average ours happens to be a little bit above the state average so we get additional dollars for that so because of that um and this is we get more than 154,000 but the increase for next year to our revenue is about 154,000 for that um you just saw the audit presentation we do get to claim that back on our budget and so um the audit has gone up each year as everything seems to and so that allowance is about 27,000 more so we start off there with just a little bit more in our revenue from the prior year 427,000 um we do we have
078amazing community that has been so generous and passed our overrides over the last few years they passed our Mino override just a couple years ago to place this current year um so that provides additional dollars for us roughly 22 million however because budgets are decreasing um we anticipate that going down about 300,000 from what we received this year we have what's called energy project savings and so what that is is um we over the course of several years years ago did different so and energy saving projects we did a lighting project um we leased those and so the money to pay the principal and interest back to our banking Financial system to that least us that money for that um comes from moving money from M over to this Energy savings um because we're getting
079closer to the end on some of those payments we have a savings there of about $290,000 uh the difficult part is that we do have a budget reduction in our carry forward of about 3.1 million that stems from a couple things um one we last year the governing board um improved another 1% raise for employees that was coming off of the carry forward um So that obviously impacts that um but we know that we're hiring more people which is good positions are filled but that means there's less position vacancy savings we also know that schools and departments are just spending more of their budgets they're not overspending the district is not in any way overspending but are spending more of the budget that they're allocated when that happens that means that we have less to
080carry forward so that is projected to be at about 3.1 million um the prop 123 the state allocated $75 million in additional funds for prop 123 that um ends in this fiscal year what I have been told is that right now that is in the proposed budget to fill that $75 million until the budget is approved we don't know for sure what that'll be there but we have we do know that that is something that's being talked about down at the state um so that could change um what that reduction is and we've been sharing I don't have it on here but in the previous ones we've shared that we knew that it was going to be somewhere between like 2.8 and 4.1 depending on what happened with the um prop one 2 three so
081that's just looking at the revenue and the the year-over change from last year any questions just want to say thanks this and upcoming slide 13 do a really good job of just showing piece by piece of where the the deficits are from and where the savings are coming from so it's really nice to break it down to those pieces so we can get a better feel as opposed to this kind of nebulous ah we're down a few million dollars we can really see the pieces so thank you for explaining this absolutely okay um next as we look at the M budget this is breaking it down by category um this is based off of what is in our budget right now please keep in mind we will be doing a a budget Revision in may
082we load budget and what we call Budget control groups um which can have a variety of codes on it and then when we do our revision we move the budget around to align up with where the actual expenses are however that being said um we know year after year after year after year salary and benefits is always at least 80 if not a little bit more than 80% of our budget um so when we do talk about you know that we we have a reduction in Revenue which generally means a reduction in expenses that we need to look at um the rough part is that because of the nature of what we do here in education 80% of our budget the bulk of our budget is people um and benefits 5% of that is utilities
083those are pretty fixed as much as we want to try to save water and electricity and do those things it seems like we try to save save those things and then you know the this yeah it still goes up um because the utility costs go up in what they're charging um so those are pretty much fixed and then uh supplies and services makes up another 15% or $29 million um I had a question on what that is and I will in the future break that down a little bit more um so it breaks it up a little bit more but just to name a few of the really high cost things that are sitting in there um we had 5.4 million that was onetime monies in the FY 24 budget we didn't spend them They
084carried over to this year um we use that to do $2 million to help off with insurance this year medical insurance this year and we did a stip into folks um so that's one of the biggest ones in there um we did um 2.6 million is set aside for custodial and facility needs 3.8 million for contracted Services contracted custodial Services um so that's just the the folks that come in and clean our buildings 3.8 million for contracted services for sped so that includes the services that we're paying for individuals coming in but we also have private day um placement we also have um a contract Service with um it's a grant with it's transition from school to work that goes through there just because we have a lot to cover do you mind if unless
085we have questions I'll go right I'll pass it that okay yep um I'm going to assume there's no other questions on that and move on to the next one uh this one looks at expense area and I broke it down in the the way that the auditor general does their AG report so that really comes down to um they call them function codes um so a classroom support would be uh 1,000 that's going to be teachers and Par Educators uh maintenance and security is a 2600 School support actually ends up with instructional support and 21s and 2200s but I split them out between schools and uh district office to really kind of show where are the dollars within the M budget um going to the good thing is 55% of that over 55% of that
086is budgeted directly into the classroom directly with teachers and Par Educators um the next biggest area you can see is maintenance and security I know that um security has been um a major concern for folks in our district and so there's been a lot of money that's gone into that of late as well as keeping our facilities open is just expensive to do um I won't read all of those excuse me but you can see um really I think the we're trying to make sure that the budget within the M hits the areas that are closest to the schools um exception there being maintenance and security but those guys are on the schools taking care of the schools as well um are there questions on that slide so I just want to make sure I
087understand what you're doing here okay I think the intent is to say the way we're used to looking at how the budget is categorized sometimes can lead people to misinterpret so you have a big thing called Administration and then we assume it's a whole bunch of folks at the annex but in reality assistant principles are part of administration principles are part of administration so what you're trying to do is give us a view that allows us to look kind of pro fora through that and better come up with the percentages that are spent on site versus you know in a district office absolutely and this is just looking at M when they do the AG's report that encompasses like almost every single fund within the district this is just within M but absolutely when we
088talk about administrative cost in that report it includes um District Personnel But it includes principales assistant principles but it also includes their admin assistants as well which are classified hourly folks so when we say the administrative cost within the district it really encompasses more it's not the same thinking as well that's an administrator that's what they're talking about it really breaks it down by what is their for lack of better word what is their function code which comes down to principles um assistant principles but also it doesn't come I mean General Administration is is part of that as well thank you yep um this next slide looks at things the exact same way only it's looking at the FTE I when I tried to combine FTE with the budget itself it got pretty clunky and
089hard to read um so again this really looks at it within FTE same type of thing showing that 59% of the almost 60% of the FTE is directly in the classroom followed by social um uh School supports and then um maintenance and security and then School administration so again really trying to make sure that the Staffing is going into the schools or supporting the schools so about 7% is in central Administration the last three columns MH okay and then just breaking down the district a little bit more um I know it gets when we start talking about supplies and services or what are we spending on other areas um this just takes a little bit deeper into between those areas and I know Finance hit and Communications are all lumped together that's just because of
090how they're coded um um but looking at where is the money really at as you can see within those areas the bulk of it is in in most cases supplies and um Sur uh supplies I'm sorry salaries and benefits um I'm happy to see that at a district level I you would want to see that the higher numbers are in instructional support which means those folks that are supporting the schools even though they're at a district level um and then of course maintenance and uh security big one in there utilities as a big amount um as well as contracted custodial and resource officers are pretty hefty so same information just trying to break it down even further at a district level and not to put you on the spot um but I'll put you on
091the spot if you think about it on a year-over-year trending basis which of these five categories is responsible for the greatest amount of increase in District level spend district office spending um right now maintenance and security I would say makes sense yeah sorry sorry Josh that's not a bad thing though um at here we know we've taken a look at the um District level supports this just broke down and some of this ends up also coming in our AFR when we do our school by school report um that's of actual expenses this is based off of budget um but looks at within this first slide is the elementary schools within this looking at our enrollment looking at and I broke it down two ways all funds which is literally every single fund um and just
092emino to look at what does it cost what is what is the budget for a school um and how much of that is essentially what is the cost per student at those schools um I think that comes into play for a couple of things um obviously the the higher the enrollment is at a school the more efficiently we can use those dollars the more efficiently we can um staff um but those I mean when you start to look at it those are those are the ratios that we have at those schools and what it's costing to run the schools um and definitely something to keep in mind as we start thinking about the future and knowing that um enrollment is continuing to go down and um tough decisions are having to be made all over
093the state board questions comments okay I'm going to move on this one is just the middle school k8s and um high school and soul broken down the same way okay yep um this one looks at the department level position history of um with all funds that's happen at the the district level um I have in here Transportation I also can tell you with numbers pulled out with transportation and nutritional Services I mean we made a big cut in reducing bus driver positions because we were doing contracted Services um for that even pulling the both nutritional services and transportation out that change um has is at the 3% Mark for district level positions um I think it's important to note we we have we've heard the board talk about that we cuts need to come at
094a district level they need to not impact schools they need to be as far away from schools as possible um so in listening to that we do have 13 budget uh 13 positions within the department level uh that we are proposing to reduce for next year um the prior year there was osel reduction that was about 13 almost 14 uh almost 14 going into this year um but as you can see there's you know some departments have gone up a little bit some of them look like big percentage changes but it's because they don't have that many staff within that area um but we are definitely trying to make those reductions at the district level and I will say this is looking strictly at people who are not at the school so um District level
095staff um teacher on assignment are the are these folks it does not include the people who are out on the school campuses doing work Harney thank you I just had a question under uh superintendent the the one position what is that so um Michelle Jen we have a position as that sits at the front of the MDA that has been split between um security and Community ad or I'm sorry Communications we aren't able to divide that out within our system the right way it ends up showing us one person in Communications or one person in in security in addition her job is really like the front the same as Lily um that sits in the front of the other side and so we are moving that position out of the out of trying to split
096it between Community or I'm sorry Communications and um and security and it'll be under the superintendent um area even though they'll still she'll still be doing support for security and um and and Communications the responsibility will be under the superintendent and and where she sits it's so if you come in uh building a you're going to see Lily when you come into to um the other part of building a that's closer to Building B that's where Michelle Jennings sits similar function in terms of not only I mean they have some different roles and responsibilities but greeting the public and others that come in and so that responsibility will fall under how glattus supervises that support for the public facing aspect of our welcoming of of the constituents we serve so it's not really a reduction
097it's just moving it from where it was into a different area yeah okay did I just hear that Gladis is her supervisor yeah GL Gladis supervises Lily now and will'll supervise Michelle okay is so will the or chart be changing it reflect that okay sorry that's the first time I've heard that thank you uh please don't read into this question okay we cut 13 out of the district office last year we're proposing to cut another 13 this cycle that is that an absolute reduction of 13 or were any of those individuals reclassified or reassigned or just moved around so to speak some of them are so some are straight reductions um some like one of them is that we have in here is a change um we have a position in finance that we're going
098to combine with uh assuming well I think it was just approved um combines our grant writer position with a fiscal position in that was a grant fiscal position in finance so we're combining that we're still eliminating that one job though um so one person might be taking over more responsibilities I mean anytime we eliminate positions we're shifting around job duties to but we're not other folks we're not reducing by three by just reclassifying them as site based or something like that no um and any of the 13 proposed are are they all vacant currently or are there individuals who will be uh losing their employment there is one that was not vacant yeah thank you do you mind clarify that one that was not vacant the rests were vacant yes the well we're vacant or
099that somebody's retiring or we're not we be yeah we not be yes nobody lost their jobs I'm sorry nobody Lo there was nobody lost no nobody was Rift okay thank you yeah okay all right this next one kind of just shows where the E and flow is with revenue and and and savings so um if we start out with a $4.1 million reduction um we allocated 1.5 million for salary increases a million dollars to go towards insur medical insurance um $500,000 towards budget changes which I'll be honest I worried is a little bit low um with some of the budget requests that I've seen um and knowing some things with property insurance um we are anticipating moving 4.2 million from capital or dah over to M to um deal with the bulk of the the
100revenue loss there um and then recommended um savings uh which will come up in a couple slides later is almost 3 million just shy of 3 million which puts us pretty flush with um where we would need to be shanon yeah um this is good for showing like the district savings or the cuts we made to kind of make up the difference um in the future something to think about the increased premiums on employees can be seen as a way for us to kind of push it under someone else's rug not that in that way but it might be good to get a clear picture at some point and say hey here's you know what we have to make up here's the the savings that we the cuts we made and also here's the impact
101to staff through insurance PR premiums cuz that's non-trivial and at least it shows like we can say hey we saved money but also don't forget this impacted the folks too because we have raises on here which impacts them so just maybe a way of when we consider the impact to the to the school we also include that so that we don't kind of forget about it absolutely okay so then this gets into the uh budget reduction recommendations um the part the gray highlighted ones are things that were brought um at a previous board meeting um sped private placement was actually brought um earlier but we had estimated that at 1.5 million um we are doing we're working with sped and the idea Grant um so we've changed that to a million dollars coming out of
102M for private placement however there are positions within idea that need to be moved to M so that has an $800,000 impact to the budget um we've been working with a lot of different ratios at some ratios for Paras and still trying to really honor making sure that we have good supports for our our classrooms and our and our students and staff um but there's a reduction there of about $125,000 for some savings there um one of the items that was approved earlier this evening looks at uh is moving the soul principle and combining that with Community Ed um that was a function we had be in the past with Community Ed um that saves the soul position additionally Community Ed isn't paid through or I'm sorry the that position isn't paid through M it's
103paid through Community Ed as well um but that's $1,000 savings um we eliminated there was a vacancy within the senior one of the senior Executive Admin assistant positions so we will not be filling that um as mentioned before um combining the fiscal Grant support position with our grant writer so that's a savings within the finance department for that um we had been budgeting $100,000 for the city of Scottsdale audits we have never used $100,000 the most we've done is like 65,000 so the recommendation was to still keep at at 67 but that would be a budget reduction of about $33,000 knowing that if something came up that there was an issue we could always re-evaluate that and and obviously do a special audit if needed above what was budgeted there um and then Desert Canyon
104looking at ratios there we had a librarian retiring and the ratio is higher than what we see at other schools as well as an office position person is retiring or leaving and so not filling those positions for a savings of 133,000 so all of that together puts us at the 2.9 Million savings Mrs Carney thank you uh a few questions on this as far as the paah change could you better explain how we're able to cut 125,000 for for Paris um so looking at um one we had some one toone ratio and I might have to pull um Amy Amy gol to talk about part of this too we um had some onetoone Paras that we are no longer going to need like students have are no longer you know enrolled with us so we
105don't need to have that one toone ratio for those students and then looking at do we need Paras in some of the classes that you would not typically see a Pera um in and so with those ratio adjustments it saves N9 FTE and that equated to about 843 th000 I'm sorry $848,000 with Benefits okay um and with that par change I should say it actually was higher but we're um also proposing to raise the salary on those those PA of positions um because they are very hard to fill but shanon how does that address the $125,000 reduction in pair of cost so the net with raising so with the what we're reducing um and then also raising that the net is still a savings of $125,000 Mr shy sorry I wasn't finished I'm Sorry Miss
106Carney that's okay thank you um I just like to so what is happening with the the current Soul principle then that we're dissolving that position do you want to so that is so will it issue a contract uh there are a number of open administrative positions and so there'll be a place for that individual to land it's yet to be determined where that is but we expect that he'll be a part of our team going into next year okay then lastly uh for the Desert Canyon Office ratio update are we saying they're not going to they no longer have a librarian they already had um a librarian they had more yeah it was like two FTE within their and an assistant and so we're just leveling that out a little bit okay so they'll have
107one they'll still have the same like every other Middle School elementary has oh okay yeah okay thank you they just had more than everybody else did Mr shy um on the AP ratio change so that's the six FTE down to half correct so you there's been a lot of community feedback on that so you know if there was a desire to change that we've got to make up 307k from somewhere else to fill that hole correct that would be correct okay Mrs Warner thank you president I asked for this agenda item and I appreciate the presentation that you put together it's been it's um it's very good so and I asked the question where are you guys looking to make Cuts so that we can keep the APS and I understand that people have gone
108through the process of ratios and all that but our community wants full-time APS at all of the schools and frankly they deserve it um our students doents s to our fam so I'm going to ask you again where have you guys worked to make that happen um I would say with part of the additional positions that we looked at in saying okay where where else can we make changes where else are there vacancies that we can can reduce that that definitely played a part I mean as you can see there's quite a few that were added on I mean is is it enough to cover the whole 3,000 or 300,000 um no I I know we've been talking quite a bit about what changes can still can can still happen in there um it's it's
109just getting more and more difficult to find yeah so what services or products of you know um discretionary spending that the district spends money on can be cut back that we could build that up you know pull money together to make up for that because you know the the site staff are service providers for our customers so without them we we don't really have a business so it is important that we take care of our our sites our principles or system principles and the the people that are Hands-On with our students every day and I would say we went through every Department's budget requests and schools well actually the schools get an allocation we cut almost all of those by 3% so most departments are seeing in some cases that's not possible I mean I
110can't cut how much we pay towards property casualty for an audit um facilities and transportation are struggling with the amount of repairs that are having to happen and and dealing with those but we did go through every single budget and like I said I think all but those couple of of budgets were told your budget has to go down by 3% um even with all that we're still I'm still looking at it going I got to find more places to cut within the department budgets because the $500,000 we have set aside here isn't going to meet all of those needs so I think we still keep we still keep looking I just I don't at this point I don't know where to find another 300, so have you looked at our travel budget conferences Consultants
111those are all all those are part of the department budgets that were all reduced we didn't red the schools they get $1,600 each school gets an allocation we didn't cut that part but within Department budgets everybody's budget was was told you need to you need to cut that by okay so what do we what did we do at the district office related to those at with professional development and and just with travel conferences Consultants memberships and so on so you know we're in a position where we have to you know just make things tighter so that we can provide for our most important staff so I'm just curious what has been cut from those areas we had some discussion around it last at our last meeting I mean I don't have a dollar figure that
112I could say we've cut x amount from those areas that's definitely something I can pull in research for you um I can't tell you like I said when we went through Department budgets which encompasses if they want to pay for professional development or those types of things all of them we went through and said and some of them cut more than 3% but we went through and said unless it's something like you have to do you have to you know you have to pay the insurance bill um we really need to cut those you need to figure out how to cut those by 3% so not to put words in your mouth but to put words in your mouth is it fair to say you are still working on it I mean we work on
113this until the very end um we don't have budgets loaded yet so we keep working on it it's fair to say that yes we're we're working on where can we save and where do things land all the way until we have those Bud we have things into the budget forms yeah I mean I know it's it's a lot to add ask and anything you take from one place is going to affect another place that has its own constituencies I also am someone that would appreciate at least having the option to understand what those trade-offs are given the importance of assistant principles um and then toward maybe a related question prop 123 $1.4 million a little less how do we think about that then is your recommendation perhaps that the board kind of create a list
114of if this comes through then we reverse X decision and Y decision and that's how we ultimately reflect our priorities so um and yes um if that when the state budget comes out and we know definitive this is where this is what we have um there are decisions I mean we are moving money from da over so we don't have to move as much um we did learn today that right now our projected um Grant Federal grant budget were reduced by one over $1.7 million um so that is concerning um they always reduce it a little bit and then we find out later we get a little bit more but without knowing exactly what that's going to be we know right now that what's been allocated to us is a million 7 less than what
115we had received last year so there's a definite concern that um obviously contracts have gone out we have people in positions um there is a concern that if that is really reduced by $1.7 million I'm not saying that every single penny of that couldn't be cut at levels but a significant portion of that would more than likely be pushed to emo at this point and I want to just add add to that so the the answer is the plan move from Capital to m&o was carry forward funds in capital we're careful not to dip into the ongoing appropriation in capital but the carry forward so so in fact what you said in terms of you could look at that is if we have the offsetting revenue that reduces uh there is a possibility to have
116that conversation it doesn't answer some of the longer term questions but it might be able to allow us to land the budget for this coming year while we put in place the things to say what do we need to do long term over three or four years to be able to get there so I I think it's a both end I think there's a a path to to land the plane to address those priorities of the board uh it's still going to be a concern with respect to the long-term Financial Health but I think we can get there for this year and I understand your point don't get excited about potential upside because there also could be potential downside and that's just part of the Dynamics over the next month or two absolutely Mr shy
117um on the AP ratios this for Shannon and Dr menel um sorry sorry I just didn't see a green light okay you're good I don't know why green light um back to my comment IBN and apologize if this was addressed uh in last month's meeting um I didn't necess see it but the ratio was determined through IBN and SAA I believe as part of that discussion um going back to that line between the board not wanting to usurp What's Done in agreements um I would fully love to fund those would want to keep those as full positions but also want to respect has there been any decision that yes it's you know even though the ratios were set at when it goes when it goes below the threshold they go to half fde are we
118saying that it's okay to try to fill that or is there still any discussion over whether we that was an agreement I just want to know where that is since we're not involved so I appreciate the question I think there are a couple of components that are important to understand one oftentimes and it's true in the SAA case when we think about that kind of ratio change we push it out a year before we Implement so people can prepare for it and so we had had the conversation two years ago uh We've adopted the language and said that we would look to implement in the 25 26 school year so that was contemplated in the agreement now the truth is we've had ratios for student teachers for a very long time in fact our M
119overrides have said we're going to maintain those ratios so that doesn't change in some instances you can walk into a classroom and you'll have teachers that have fewer students we don't insist on a rigid adherence to that if we don't have to but with budget constraints we've been working closer to make sure that we're aligning with those ratios because we don't have the extra money to be that have the smaller class sizes so that's part of the the give and take of the budget so if if we didn't honor what's in the agreement there would be one concern that all of the hard work leading to that we're going to right size so that we can properly deploy our resources and other places that kind of gets set aside there's an argument you heard it
120from the public you've seen it in the emails with respect to the value of having two administrators on a campus that lends itself to then the board is going to have to tackle the even bigger question do we we keep buildings open because when you have 220 250 students on a campus you have two full-time administrators and you have another campus with 700 students and two fi full-time administrators that imbalance becomes unsustainable over time so yes the board could move in this direction but recognize that it pushes down the road by one year more difficult decisions uh it and it would not honor what was agreed to in IBN but it is something the board could do so don't know if it's hearsay but don't want to speak for the SAA but did did they
121say yes we agreed to those ratios but we really want to keep them too and if you could find a way to keep the budget we okay with it or is that conversation not happen so to be honest SAA I think we have Representatives still in the room uh they didn't never want to cut assistant principles I mean that wasn't where we started what we talked about is what makes sense financially what's sustainable when you look at the disproportionality because we were hearing it on both ends we had larger middle School saying we have a principal and assistant principal but we have more discipline issues we have three times as many students as some of the buildings how does that make sense so we we tackled the question from a how do we have ratios
122that are justifiable where we're providing equivalent kinds of support and and I think there were 13 different options at one point that were considered and we we took into account is it a title building do they have more than three special education programs which might require more administrative support so we we did look at those other variables to have a context specific decision that was made uh before the final agreement was brought forward to the governing board so if we scratch and Claw and get 305k to keep the ratios where they are is everybody okay with that all down the line or is that have any negative impact on future negotiations or trust or anything well concerns were expressed by uh the the uh vice president I think or incoming president of SAA with respect
123to the ripple effect if if we deviated from the agreement what that the the impact on future budget decisions so I I think there would be some impact and it would raise the question of of if an agreement is made and the board uh pivots on that for any group at any time then what's the point of of doing the the bargaining and I and I do think that's an opportunity for us uh to the earlier point of starting the board's prioritization and values in August and not waiting till later in the game it helps avoid that concern sure so thanks I just want to make sure I mean I would love if we could fund that I'm trying to I just want to make sure there are no unintended consequence if we do that
124so thank you for sharing Miss Warner thank you and I appreciate your comments uh Mr shy when we were presented with the ibin documents I believe it was actually on consent agenda you know being presented and then giving some feedback and it's not that we're turning away what they said in some offensive way it's just you know we hear different things from the community and we want to honor that we want to do what is best for our students and our staff so I I think I think it is important that we keep them and as we heard tonight there's also um issues with the pay and the insurance and so there is it's problematic with what's happening with the funding so we have to look at where the money is being spent and be
125able to pull back in areas where it's it's not in need where it's more of a a luxury than um a need and our our staff are a need and we have to put them first all right I would like to thank are we good excuse me go ahead one more so one of the things that came up in the last discussion and it was what in related to the stiens and the special ed so what was not discussed was that there's these significant stiens going out a undetermined amount of number but the teachers are being reduced by one and students are being increased by three in the lower schools and five in the high schools is that correct I'm sorry I don't know the I is that okay I'm being told that's accurate okay
126and so that just was not told to us and so you're you're actually putting a higher workload on the staff and it's my understanding that some of them said they would rather foro the stipend and have less students I'm gonna yeah I'm happy to speak to that thank you so much for the opportunity um so when we wrote a proposal to all of the special Educators it was really around uh the elimination and eradication of contracted Services which we know is a large cost and also eroding some of the service quality at the teams for our students and families um and so when we put it out in a survey to all of the um staff we definitely heard a larger majority saying yes please the stiens but you are right there were certain individuals
127there was a handful of people who said nope we we want uh lower amounts of students on our case load than the stiens but it was a large a much larger majority that asked for the stiens and I'd be happy to share that um survey feedback with you as well I think it's linked in that b memo um but I'll I can put at the top of your inbox and so you are right there were definitely teachers saying like I would forgo the stiens if it meant I could have fewer kids thank you all right first of all Shannon thank you for your extraordinary work to take us through a budget 101 review as well as an orientation to where we are live and over time you can hear the shared Desire by the board
128to um look at another series of options possibly I'm so sorry I was closing go ahead no I'm closing you go ahead well no all I'm gonna say is I want to go on record as well as um you know how frustrating it is to maybe regroup and and look at keeping our assistant principles but I stand uh with that that standing with the communities that are asking us to keep their assistant principles I want to be on record as well any other comments before I close well you know there's one more slide oh no I'm sorry but it'll be really fast it's a good slide it's a good thing2 more things I know I know we have a really long meeting this just really I wanted to end on a positive note and talk
129about just the Investments that we are really trying to make in our students um so this just kind of gave a look at some of the great program opportunities and I talked a lot about security cost um so so just putting in there that we really are trying to make sure that we're investing these programs I know are things that bring kids into our schools so they're important to us but they're also you know things to keep in mind um as as great things we do but also great things that um have costs associated with them so I'll stop at that thank you we'll go to our next agenda item now I had a really lovely closing but I want to sorry that's all right uh and I just thank the board so much for
130the maturity in our conversation our willingness to be Learners sharing our priorities and values and asking good questions as we Orient ourselves to this year-long process that hopefully can turn into a foury yearlong process for us as we become creatively forward on the ways we want to um you know strategize our our expenditures so thank you very much to everyone all right we're on first read for board policy jli regard regarding sex offender notification for president Lewis members of the board Dr menel and Miss Wagner vice president shy um I'm going to be brief on this this is a first read by board policy anytime you're going to adopt an an amendment to a policy we have a first read and then we bring it back for a second read um this is a first
131read this is a compliance uh read it is adding the underlying language there which is directly from ars3 3825 uh the current policy requires that the school district take steps to display sex offender information when they are uh at these current risk levels of two which is a mid risk or level three which is high risk state law that statute I just state now requires that the notice to schools be at level one for specific offenders and those are level one Defenders which are low risk but that have been convicted of a dangerous crime against children which is a statutory term that has a whole uh Litany of criminal offenses under that statute definition so um our policy will just change that uh we we still receive the notice um based on it it comes
132from law enforcement what it does is affects uh our our requirement is uh in our regulation JL IFR um States what we do once we receive that notice and um and just to note jlf IFR the regulation states that an adult registered sex offender this is any adult registered sex offender not just those that I I just mentioned may not be present on school property except under certain circumstances and even if they are present the offender must notify the principal and must at all times remain under direct supervision so that's already part of our regulation and that's what we will enforce if uh if the issue comes up at on campus are there any questions at this time seeing none thank you for the introduction of it and we'll look forward to any comments coming
133forward if we need to make any adjustments or ask any other questions thank thank you so much thank you moving on to 6D discussion of governing board email regarding governing board susd.org this was at the request of Miss Carney uh with respect to the gov board.org email general counsel has done some research in terms of what other districts do um and and uh I don't know Nick if you want to share kind of your review of of this the uh status and why we this is a practice that was in place before I got to Scottdale and uh Council has reviewed that from a legal perspective thank you Dr Manzel governing board uh first the request I believe from Miss Carney was that certain members that were emailing the go Board address may not know
134who is actually receiving the email so the first thing we did was go to the website and if you're going to click on that it now States uh who that email goes to so anybody seeing that um would see that it's going to superintendent Mrs Wagner and myself general counsel um we're actually going to update that after something we learned today um the kirne elementary school district has a notice describing a little in a little more detail um sort of the open meeting law uh potentiality of sending a governing board group an email and what you can expect uh to receive and return um regarding the way that the governing board email address is is stated um the address that this District utilizes assists in the efficient processing of important District work to remove the
135superintendent the executive assistant and legal counsel would needlessly slow down processing the benefits outweigh the consequences first board members by Statute are not employees members have no individual respons responsibility for responding to issues in a timely manner employees on contract however do if a board member receives an email and responds that they will look into it board members are urged to notify a staff member which is often what happens that's pretty much the process what does the public do if the board member fails to resolve an issue or doesn't respond does the district sustain a loss if a complaint is not investigated can the public hold them accountable uh only once every four years school districts need accountability today not in four years this is why you have the superintendent counsel and executive assistant on
136the email chain so that the employees that are responsible for handling the day-to-day fulfill their contractual duties and review the items that are emailed to the board the board oversees that work and holds the superintendent and legal counsel accountable for the day-to-day second every email provided to the board is a public record the community must know that when they communicate with the board by email they are creating a public record the board President should forward all emails of District concern to the superintendent so that this public business can be investigated the idea that the board should limit who sees their emails is antithetical to transparency it is a bad idea for efficiency and it needlessly puts the district at risk many other districts do not have a governing board email address for the exact reason
137that it puts the district at risk of liability opening meeting law or otherwise my advice as your attorney is to keep it with the superintendent as and his assistant at a minimum as a mitigating function to do otherwise creates risk for the district thank you Miss Carney thank you so my my problem with this was that there's been transparency about this I mean I've been on the board over two years and never knew that anyone outside of the five elected board members were uh attached to that email address and I think that's the issue is that we were never told and um and like I said the community has never been told and I think it's it's just a lack of transparency I'm a little confused on what the issue is with us not being
138employees is that what you I've been on the governing board email address since I started in September of 23 to your first point if you scroll over the governing board U uh susd address it shows who's on that address so I will point out that certain email systems may not have that functionality but for many that is very transparent when you click and hover over that uh address list to your point or to to your question the governing board this governing board is very intense ENT on being responsive to the community I'm not here insulting the governing board but the point is is that having Dr Manzel who is attached to his phone and his watch and his uh well multiple phones and his computer 247 look after respond to respond to all board members
139and respond to the community and set agenda items is what an employee a superintendent is supposed to do there is no individual responsibility of a board member you don't have to wake up tomorrow and respond to any emails you can take the day off if I do that I have to take a vacation day by contract that's my point okay so um my my ask was that the the governing board email just have no employees attached so if we need to remove that email address and just use our individual then maybe we need to go that rout sorry can you clarify your suggestion is just ask people to select the individual names they want well that's what most districts do they don't have a have the combined otherwise uh just keep the five elected board
140members that are meant to be on that email like I said my problem is that no one ever voiced that no one ever said it um I didn't know I was to hover over it and look at who was on there um I never knew that glattus was added to it I just think it's more work that they don't need all those all those things that we receive they don't need to be getting uh in their inbox as well as us so I'll just say from my standpoint I disagree I think the openness is fine it's all public record like general counsel said I don't think there's a problem if someone doesn't know I love that we put notification on the site saying this goes to these people so I think that's a great solution
141for it I think we've already spent enough time talking that it's worth because I just don't think it's problematic so I'm glad you brought it up but I would rather we just go with the changes that were made okay what one last thing I'd like to know is is anyone monitoring our individual district emails is okay Dr Pensky I would just add I was also surprised and the way I learned is I forwarded you something and you said I already got it um so I would Echo the call for transparency like in go going through orientation for example we have this mechanism the community reaches out you don't need to also forward it to me because I'm also getting it that said I think all of the reasons for it make sense to me and
142I Pro I feel more protected knowing that council is involved and that district is involved than the alternative and my concern about getting rid of it is then people do start selectively emailing board members and then we start to fra fracture the feedback that we're getting from the community and I don't think that's a good outcome either any other comments thank you all right discussion of adjustment to susd proportionate share plan uh Leah Mitchell and Dr Williams are prepared to provide a quick a very quick overview of proportionate share and kind of where we are with respect to concerns that were raised during public comment at our last meeting yes and so by very quick I'll just turn over to Dr Dr Williams but Express gratitude to the families who are working with us directly
143I'm expressing uh concerns around new changes they'd like to see and so I'm going to turn it over to Dr Williams to recount how uh we're tackling that this year and plans for the future good evening so I'm here to talk a little bit about proportionate share so proportionate share is a proportion of our idea funds um that are given to the district to help support students that are placed uh parentally placed in a private school system that is a uh nonprofit school that is within our district boundaries there are some different rules for schools that are for-profit versus nonprofit it's the nonprofit schools that are within our boundaries that we're responsible for so we're responsible for both child find as well as providing Equitable Services to those students that res are that parents have
144placed in a private school system um child find where um It's Our obligation to provide um a psychologist to be able to uh respond to parent requests for evaluation School requests for evaluation mind you none of those uh costs are covered under proportionate shares those are covered from District funds um the other thing that we are obligated to provide is individual service plans so those individual service plans uh provide special education services to students in special in private schools uh currently our plan has um students and families coming to the school district to receive those services at the school that is closest to their private school um so that they can receive any Services occupational therapy speech therapy Reading Writing math from our qualified Professionals in Scottdale um there was some families that were unhappy
145with that um offer of service and so we've been working with that family to look at other services um other districts that provide proportionate share um plans so we've been doing that we've looked at uh a couple different uh districts around the valley um and seeing what they are doing and we are currently working with that specific family to kind of pilot a program so that we can provide vendor services to that family um so we are working with vendors we have to open up we have to work with the vendors to get all of their paperwork we have to work with Finance to open up um codes so that we can pay those vendors uh we have to amend the grant to move money over vendor money comes out of a different part of
146the grant than paying our teachers um so we've been working on all of those pieces and we'll be ready to put that into place for this particular family um early next week we're already working with that vendor um so we're doing that as a pilot to kind of see what we need to do the next step step is that we have to have a consultation meeting so those consultation meetings happen twice a year um we will meet with our families that are in homeschools and private schools we will talk about what our plan looks like now some of the proposals for moving forward and whether or not families feel comfortable moving forward with changing that plan we have heard from a few families that they enjoy the plan that we have and they don't want
147us to change it so at that consultation meeting we'll kind of work through what that looks like for families and so we're happy to answer any additional questions but really pursuing just the most optionality for families who are pursuing private education but still have students uh with special needs Mr shy um looking at the um Arizona Department of Ed it said that families who go to private not for profit are eligible for portion share but if they send their child to a private for profit they're not is that true and do we have a separation that's not true so families that go for a uh to a non profit School within our boundaries they are Our obligation parents that go to a for-profit school in our boundaries um it's the obligation of where the parent
148lives so if the parent lives in the Paradise Valley School District but their for-profit is in um in Scottsdale then PB would take care of it okay I just from looking at the department V said if it's a for-profit they're not eligible for proportionate sh so that's not the case typically for child find we still have obligation for child find so we still have to evaluate those students but they're not sorry they are not they were not obligated to pay for proportionate share funding sorry we do have a child find obligation just not a uh we don't have to provide a service plan do do of the number of students we serve is there how many are at not for profit versus for-profit about is there I don't know I would have to do the
149math on that with our proportionate share psychologist um because we only have to do plans for the students that are at the nonprofits and we do have a very low number of students that we typically provide plans for we have three this year thank you any other questions from the board thank you so very much sorry Amy can you see me or no I okay all right thank you so much um just a couple questions um thank you for the board member that you board member you did send to us with some of the facts on there and I got a question question on that wondering if you submitted waivers uh to ad when the proportionate share funds uh were unspent uh year after year yep so I can only speak to the last few
150years that I've been in the position so for the last two years we have um requested a waiver from ad so we're allowed to request a portion of those funds back we don't get all of them and AD chooses whether or not to wave them um we have to prove that we've done our proportionate share meetings we have to prove that we've reached out to our families we have to prove that we've offered plans that parents have refused so we document all of that we turn it into the ad and they determine whether or not to wave that money which then goes back into our Ida funds that help us to pay for the psychologist for child find that we're not able to pay for out of proportionate share funds um and other things like
151that okay I just asked if you could maybe update the B memo with that information um and that would be great to further that information thank you any other comments thank you so much that brings us to consent agenda item uh 7 L and what what what I've been asked is just to Simply remove it but I know not the whole thing just that one just the say it out loud so so uh the 2025 26 extra Duty and additional hour supplementals is not complete and so we want to remove that from the salary schedules the other things are accurate and complete the supplemental is not and so we want to remove that before it's approved so we want to approve L minus the extra Duty and additional hour supplement 42526 okay and Miss Carney
152also had a concern about maybe pulling this was that the same concern you had I have a lot of concerns but no no that I have additional okay um on that so how are we going we're not making a motion yet so let's just hear what your thoughts are yeah okay um I wanted to to talk about the 2025 26 the certified teacher social worker and the nurse schedule sorry there's a a lot of them on here um I Heard social worker nurse and certified teacher right so let me find where that's at on here but um I just want to state that before our last board meeting I had requested data on the special ed stiens that were given over the past three years the amounts and then inquired if the employee was still
153working in that position in the district I also asked how many stiens of each amount would be offered and what was the budget impact and I asked for why we believe stiens are working for us for retaining employees and I still have not received this information um but that those uh stiens are listed on the 25 26 certified teacher social worker and nurse schedule because it was approved by the board last meeting um I did not approve that so I'm not going to be able to approve this but there's another issue I have with this and it's that we're continuing to use the language of consecutive years of experience instead of total years of service for an susd certified employee and I brought this up uh last year because we have teachers that have had
154to take a leave for various circumstances and they're penalized when they have to start over when they come back to work in the district and so I want to exp I would like uh someone to explain why if our goal is to retain and attract dedicated teachers why do we continue to do it this way sorry member uh governing board uh president Lewis member car this this has been uh an operating procedure in the district for many many years and I believe it has gone through the IBN process but it is certainly something we can take a look at if the governing board so desires okay if you could um have you not heard that feedback from teachers because we have as board members we have heard that but there is a fiscal impact to
155making that change right so so that that is one of the reasons why it has not been brought forward okay well I would just encourage us to look at that if we are one of our goals is to attract and retain our dedicated employees I think this is a way to show them uh that and I had a question on when does a teacher's consecutive years begin when they when they enter the district on the higher date yes on the higher date okay that's all I have on that item but I did um we we did receive an it um item or an email on the guidance counselor schedule and I uh forwarded that on saying we received an email from one of our high school counselors saying that nscs should say ncsc for National
156Certified school counselor certificate and I I did email that to to some of you to Dr menel and I think to Dr Cruz and so I'm not sure is that a typo um yes we can we can make that correction so that it properly reflects that properly noted thank you so much for bringing it to our attention okay well thank you to the counselor for bringing yes to our attention so when we um are approving that tonight it will be with a corrected correct the the right four letters in the right order yes okay thank you thank you all right so I'll make a mo I'm sorry the comment was also that it's a credential that should be valued in the salary schedule so I don't know I mean obviously we shouldn't just be reacting
157to um a decontextualized email but I think it wasn't just the typo part of the typo was also making sure that that credential was kind of valued and recognized in the schedule and that was the intent from the the language I just think we had the wrong letters yes okay thank you all right I will I will make the motion to approve consent agenda item L with the removal of the extra Duty and additional hours supplement otherwise as presented with the for 2526 with the uh correction to the councelor certification uh acronym second the motion okay let's do a roll call if you don't mind please Mr Dr Pensky i m Miss Warner I okay uh Miss Carney no Mr shy I and I'm an I so it's a 4-1 pass and thank you for
158bringing it up because it's still a worthy conversation all right and then that that last part will be brought to us okay I am of the mind that we might need a five minute standup break does anybody else need it no you want to keep moving okay let's keep moving um we're on motiv I love it let's keep going all right uh item eight action items board action required we have uh almost uh 10 items I think here so we'll start with the acceptance of the audit and compliance questionnaire for fiscal year that was presented earlier uh do we need to accept the rest of the consent agenda no we already we did that already before yeah yeah thank you uh so I I need a I typically take a motion and then discussion so
159forgive me when I start that way what discussion do you have okay I need a motion I'll move to accept the audience compliance questionnaire as presented correct okay we need a second second all those in favor I I'm G to stop you we have to do a roll call on this one oh thank you y roll call sorry I I I I I 5 thank you second read and approval the secondary science curriculum adoption for 2526 there's not an updated presentation but if board members have any questions we have staff here to answer those questions otherwise we recommend approval I move that we approve as presented I'll second it all those in favor I I I all right employee insurance update and authorization for employee Insurance RFP scope development and review or trust review so
160while there are a lot of slides that were presented to the governing board in advance I've asked Shannon not to go through all those in detail she has one she wants to talk about and then anything that you have questions about uh before we talk about uh next steps but as you know this is a very important issue for our employees it's a very important issue for administration it's a very challenging issue and so uh we do want to give it the time that it deserves but want to focus on the questions that matter most to you Shannon and the community has access to the SS yes it's on board dos yeah okay I'm going to roll through these ones that just show what's happened um I think this is really important we reached out
161or contacted other districts to figure out what are they contributing towards the insurance plans for their their staff and how do we compare on that and the reason I think that's really important to think about is as we have heard and we know the cost to employees for insurance and the premiums that they're having to pay are pretty high um part of that comes down to how are we contrib as a district to medical cost insur or medical insurance as compared to other districts and I think this tells a compelling um story of when we started looking at our competit our peer districts or districts that are in our close to vicinity um we realize that we are and I I know we are putting a million dollars towards that this next year so that
162helps some but we are really on an average woefully below what a lot of our other districts are so I think I know it's a really hard thing of you know do you put money into salaries do you put money into medical we'd like to do in a perfect world both um but the financial constraints that we're in don't always allow for that to happen so I I think that's an important thing to keep in mind is when we are looking at you know the medical insurance yes there's the claims issue yes there's an issue of it's just expensive um but there's also I think an issue that we have to address of we're just not contributing what other districts are when it comes to insurance and to even get up to that middle average
163we'd really have to be contributing two to3 million more um on top of the million we just put into that um so I think that's why I wanted to touch on the slide to really show is when you look at an average we're just not doing as much as other districts are and that plays a big role in those premiums for for our staff members questions from the board comments Miss Warner thank you so just for the community where does this money come from that that this District puts towards this m well primarily memo I mean if you are paid out of like food services or a grant the grant is responsible for paying for the medical for that person okay so um my first insight to this was in in in how challenging the
164insurance for our district is and how it really hurts our staff um it was my first meeting agenda setting meeting with Dr Manzel and Julie sinowski at the time and he had just had a meeting related to insurance and when I walked in there were three things on the table one of them being Blue Cross BL Shield which I had under an education system at the time and I share that this is a good plan it's reasonable and Dr Mel said well we would have to hire a ad administrator and I will say in back in 23 you know we might have looked a little different today if we had hired an administrator at that point because as you stated in the audit committee we pay chyra a half a million dollars $500,000 in administrative
165costs every year for insurance so I brought this forward because it what we're doing just isn't sustainable and I do know that other districts are doing a better job than us um and which is why I asked for the RFP to either go out to to direct like a Signa like a Blue Cross and even Valley Schools is doing better right now than than we are for our staff and they're leaving and so that's that totally goes against everything that we have for our strategic plan absolutely um I will share um we did do which is in here we did do a a uh RFP two years ago um blue crossbow show did not respond we're happy we have reached out to um we to do an RFP for for medical is so beyond the
166scope it's they're very detailed in in what that scope looks like and then even evaluating all the materials that come in um so we did reach out to a number of indiv um companies that help with this process we were hoping to have quotes in time to be able to make a recommendation tonight what we found is when we said hey can you give us this within like a week's time they all said we can't really respond to that um in addition I did start meeting with with Valley Schools um November time frame November December of this year um we're still talking one of the things is I'm I I do want us I think for me to come to the board and to go to our employees and say we're going to change insurance
167companies I want to have assurances that it is actually um going to save money for the district um so we're still working through that process with Valley Schools um as well as we did reach out and ask um for for quotes um I was on a presentation the other day from the state um Department of administration on what the state plan looks like there's pros and cons to that um one concern is that you have to contribute the same amount that the state does Which is less than what our employees are playing which is great for our employees but you have to pay all the claims too that come in so there could be costs associated at the back end so we are continuing to look at all of those options and we know that
168some districts are on Direct contract and we know some are on on trusts and in your your RFP on the web on the um on the agenda item it shows a cost between 0 to $200,000 and it's a uh you have a direct or another trust and so when you put that RFP out one are you you updating the one you did before so it's a little less work and B are you going out for both so it's not going to just turn into one more more trust which clearly is not working for our district so the last time we did it for both we would I my expectation is we would do both again okay um I would like it was a it's a really long process it took us 10 months last time
169um I would like to have a little bit more detail in there on some things um like the administrative cost like if we were to what you know what does it look like if we were to do this would we need to hire an administrator TPA to be able to to cover that for us and what does that look like so I think um we can do where it covers both um like we did before but I think we can also I would I'm hopeful that we could do a better a little bit better scope and a little bit more help with reviewing it it's there's a lot to review Dr Pensky you mentioned the state option assuming the state doesn't respond to an RFP does the firm that we work with include them so
170they are also lined up with the other options um they would never respond it's a just a decision we would have to make is if we want to go with them or not um a lot of it well the firm that we were I think you said we're going to use a firm we could we can either manage the RFP process would we ask of them to include in their comparison the state option they yes we could ask them to analyze the costs that are submitted through an RFP and and how that would compare with what the state option would be for us so that we can see if there's a benefit to the State option yes yes thank you thank you yep M waren anybody else have questions all right I need a motion
171I motion we move forward I know I'm not saying exactly as I'm supposed to you move forward with with with issuing an RFP correct issuing an RFP yeah is what I meant to say you want me to issue it I issue the motion okay uh I move that the uh uh we authorize uh the employment employee Insurance are ofp scope and development as presented second do I have a second second thank you Dr Pensky all those in favor I I I yeah we do it differently in different places okay approval of transition of listed positions to non-exempt status there's not a formal present well there maybe a formal presentation is a opportunity to ask questions that you have with respect to the reclassification required as a result of identified challenges with the um city of
172Scottdale HR audit number two what questions does the board have could you explain to the community what it means to be exempt and non-exempt um absolutely I will give you a very high level thank thank you member Warner um so to be exempt means that you are a salaried employee and that you do not basically punch a Time Clock you are exempt from um the time and hour and the wage laws with regards to Fair Labor standers Act to be non-exempt means that you are on a Time clock and we we try to hold you to your hourly um your weekly hours that are allocated through FTE and if they go above their 40 then they are due over time and what are the benefits of being exempt versus not exempt well you can look
173at positives and negatives on both sides correct so um if you're an exempt employee you're not punching a Time Clock you're not looking at that however I mean I mean if you look at just myself I I'm working all the time so I'm not punching a Time clock but um you know you you work whenever the work is um needed to be done as for an employee that is non-exempt then they they answer more to a Time Clock obviously we can be a little bit flexible with that but we do things such as we try to flex their time Etc um but we also want to honor their time because if they go above their 40 hours we will we do owe them overtime and we want to make sure that they they get that
174overtime okay thank you and just one more question uh when it came to the senior executive assistant uh and did our fabulous secretary also get moved to a non-exempt um no she she actually uh meets the test for a fair labor standards act just recently yes okay when was that changed uh it will be changed in this coming year okay thank you Dr Pensky the individuals who are moving from exempt to nonexempt they know this right they do know this I've had personal conversations with both them and their supervisors I understand this is technical have any of them expressed concern that under uh flsa they're not that that's not the proper judgment some of them have most definitely and so how does that get does that get adjudicated or basically we make our best interpretation
175and and that's what sticks thank you Dr Pinsky I'm going to defer to our Council thank you Madame President Dr Pinsky there is no appeal process for this um so once the decision is made by the board the employees would move to the uh non-exempt status if the board moves in that direction but I have reviewed all of the communications for any employee who has um voiced a concern or if their supervisor voiced a concern and um have evaluated the concerns that were raised and would still stand by the recommendation that you move these 17 positions into the non-exempt and so if they continue to not agree then their remedy is to file a complaint with um what do they have any remedies they don't have any internal remedies sir under the scottd Unified School
176District they could have an external remedy okay thank you okay I move that we approve the trans Madam pres sorry there is a decision point for the governing board within this item um uh Dr Cruz answered the question that Miss Warner presented which is is there any differ is between non-exempt and exempt under your classification system the non-exempt employees are considered to be or the exempt employees are considered to be administrators and therefore they're entitled to different benefits when you pay out for vacation and pay out for General leave um so it's the District administration's recommendation and mine that you authorize what's listed as option one in your agenda which is a fixed cost to make those employees employees whole so that moving into the 2425 school year they would um adhere to the benefits
177of the non-exempt position um rather than option two which would leave that uh carryover forward grandfather them in so to speak and require the HR System to manage those 17 employees differently Miss carne and and we also couldn't control for costs at that point okay thank you I have uh two things on the board memo that we we received on March 27th I just um saw in there that it's linked to a copy of a letter that each affected employee will receive and it said this letter will come to the governing board for approval at the at the meeting yet I don't see that on the agenda item Madam president miss Carney that there would that letter was drafted by me just for a support for your District it wouldn't need to necessarily be approved
178by the board what you would need to approve tonight is the revisions to the job descriptions that are within your agenda item and how you would like to treat uh the allocation of benefits under either option one payout now the differentials option to uh allow them to grandfather forward okay perfect um and then just for the public could you talk uh talk about there is one um one employee on here correct that are not moving to non-exempt the social workers are not moving to non-exempt even though this agenda item says approval of transition of listed positions to non-exempt status we do have one that is not moving to non-exempt that's listed here uh Madam president miss Carney um you're correct that the social worker is not the district administration's recommendation at this time that the
179social workers move to a non-exempt status and um you have received legal advice on that topic as well and Dr Cruz has some additional information she'd like to share member Carney thank you for the question and clarification the reason uh social workers are on there and their job descriptions are attached as a part of this review um we had to do a a deep dive to to make this work so therefore we need to update their job description to reflect um the correct pieces so a master's degree required with social work preferred yes thank you I know you've given us a lot of information but the public doesn't doesn't have that and it doesn't read that way on the agenda item so yeah I think that the motion should be more precise to account for
180that I think it's a good point Amy thank you Mr shy um on option one option two what's the financial impact if any between them and how material is it and I realized that a lot of it is future dated because has to do with paying them vacation when they terminated a future date so I understand it's not an easy number but is there any sort of Mr shy our our calculation as of today now people will continue to acre leave through the end of this fiscal year option one to pay out will be a total of let me find the correct one I apologize War yeah back to the new the supervisory Ro role of the administrative assistant that is now remaining exempt is it accurate that we just approved her salary to go
181up from 77,000 to 103,000 whose salary no they're no okay Mr U clinical I'm sorry clinical Technical Systems coordinator who POS what position is that coordinator Technical Systems Clinical Services coordinator that is in our Support Services okay thank you m anything else I see your light on okay that's right Mr shy just this is clear as mud to me right now so so I'm trying to weave out what are we actually going to make a recommendation thank you Mr shy for your patience our our total for option one for the payout would be $169,500 as of when we calculated this and got it into our board documents the total liability for option two is just unknown at this time as we're not sure when employees will leave thect right and I see that memo here
182thank you for pointing that out thank you so as I understand the tradeoff we we take the cost now but we can manage everyone consistently on one system going forward yes so which one is being advised so we're recommending option one because it's it's fixed and it's clean and so then you're you're treating all of the employees under a classified designation with the same benefit uh structure and package and so the accounting of that is clean it becomes very difficult when you have grandfathering provisions over time then you have changes in HR and somebody doesn't remember who got grandfathered For What and it just opens up a lot of uh concerns that's why I recommend option one I think the motion needs to approve the reclassification with the exception of social workers the revised job
183descriptions and then identify option one or option two I make a motion that we approve the transition of listed positions to non-exempt with the exception of social workers under the fair labor standards act and we approve the job descriptions as presented in option one I second that motion all those in favor I I thank you thank you [Laughter] I that was good that was tough and thanks for giving us the detail of options okay let me get back to my original page here okay we are on 8e approval of updates to kids club for 2526 school year so Dr Bono I think is still here to answer any questions you may have the recommendation and the supporting documentations were included in the board packet seeing none I I recommend we approve updates to kids club
184for 2526 as presented a second all those in favor I I okay passes unanimously thank you all right as we look at 8f consideration of State 48 public affairs lobbying Services agreement so for the past um year and a half almost uh two years we've been working with State 48 public affairs for lobbying services for scota Unified School District there was a three-year period of time where the district did not pay for that support but in an email that Shannon sent to the governing board uh from the fiscal year 0809 through 1819 the district had paid for lobbying support at the capital many other districts do this especially larger school districts to ensure their voice is heard with respect to public education policy and funding at the capital in Phoenix the uh rate that we're
185being charged compared to what the district used to pay is much less in many instances and it's definitely less than what many of our sister districts are paying across the valley for that same level of support you heard earlier tonight from the sea Representatives the importance of advocacy so my recommendation is that the board continue authorizing expenditure of this uh in order to ensure that our voice and the needs of our staff are represented at the capital board comments board questions Miss Warner Carney Miss Carney thank you president Lewis um yeah I brought this forward because instead of always talking about us cutting positions um last meeting I had given a few ideas of where we might find some budget savings and this is one of the things I mentioned and um I didn't necessarily
186see this becoming an an action item I hoped it was something that the superintendent could just look into into doing um but nevertheless it's here as an action item so I just want to state that since 2010 we've lost uh six huh oh sorry we've lost 600 uh 6,300 students uh so the chart that the board received from Dr menel and U Miss croser showing how we've had used lobbyists in the past I think is ton deaf to the reality that we're now having to make budget cuts of things that are not necessary and vital to Student Learning spending taxpayer dollars on U multiple lobbyist contracts while cutting assistant principles to halftime along with other positions in our schools is unacceptable and what might it might have been fine to have a lobbyist when we're
187in better Financial shape and but enrollment is down to 19874 right now so we have to tighten the and M and this is one easy way that I see uh to do that and I would like to state that policy DB says that the superintendent is directed to formulate the annual budget considering at all times that resources must be used to produce the most positive effect on the students opportunity to gain an education so I make a motion to uh cancel this contract with State 48 public affairs to free up uh this m funding so that we can use toward our school site budgets I'm going to second that motion and I have some comments go ahead M Warner so this is one of those items that would fall under um a luxury during these
188times that we need to re things in so we can redirect those funds to our teachers and the people that are Hands-On with our students we also belong to Arizona Schoolboard Association Arizona administrator Association which has three lobbyists one inside One internal and uh Dr Mill communication with them regularly we have Arizona Schoolboard Association which we also pay for membership they have a lobbyist and then we have the guppy ma which is next so how many lobbyists does one District have to have and considering that you have relationships with people at the capital that you can utilize and um I think this is an absolute un necessity at this point due to the financial situation that this district is in and we need to redirect these um funds to our student and stuff Mr shy
189um I was going to bring up asba as well I mean I'm new to this and I get emails from asba and I see the lobbying angle um and I appreciate you bringing it up Miss Warner from your side superintendent is it somewhat Equitable that the impact we get again I don't know what impact direct or indirect we get from State 48 but are we getting some of that through the Asma relationship so here's here's the challenge I think it's a really good question asba represents all the school boards that are members of asba across the state so their needs and interests may be different we have very small Rural and remote schools we have uh schools on reservations we have large and urban schools so they when they take a position on a policy
190it's representing the the uh common denominator amongst all of those which means there might be things that would not benefit Scottdale but would benefit some other schools and so often times they don't take a position because they don't want to get crosswise with with what an impact might be for a district like Scottsdale compared to some small rural uh District when when you look at some of the other organizations that we participate with that's part of the challenge so the advantage to having someone that's dedicated to Scottsdale is that they're representing our interest at the capital uh State 48 in particular was very instrumental in getting the $250,000 appropriation for the Actuarial study on the potential for school districts to participate in the Healthcare System system at the state level we would not have been
191in a position to advocate for that if we didn't have a dedicated person to do so there are a number of other uh areas where she has been lobbying on our behalf for legislation that would benefit our district arguably would benefit others but what you lose when you uh solely rely on the aggregate lobbyist is the district specific concerns being expressed by someone who's representing our interest at the capital so I appreciate that understand there is some benefits of not saying um but you know given the you know how much blood is everybody giving like I don't want to sit here and make a decision because I'm not the one that has to live with the impact directly um how painful would it be if we said no and didn't have the resources of a
192lobbyist firm so so I I think the the bottom line is that our our voice in terms of policy would be weakened but not eliminated okay um and M Warner don't want to put you in the spot but we're in a wonderful position of having you on the board feel free to abstain but is there any benefit in your position in being part of this that we could take advantage of feel free to call me anytime I'm happy to give input on any Bill if you can give me your number that'd be great yeah absolutely anytime but you know you can even come visit uh but is that something that we have going on so you that does make up for some of the loss again not a straight Apples to Apples but I do
193want to recognize that we're fortunate to have that absolutely thank you so I first of I very much even though I'm about to disagree I respect uh the logic behind uh putting this motion forward so I want to explain why why I would disagree and it's for two reasons one is a little bit more of a process question I would guess that there are thousands of $36,000 contracts that are in the district and so I'm concerned about us engaging in a budgeting process where we select you know out a context different items and then weigh in on them I just to me that's a concerning precedent and I could find again 10 15 20 $336,000 expenses that I would also argue are probably not as important out of context to paying teachers more or any
194of the other things that we care about but budgets are ultimately more holistic than that they're more trade-offs they're more comprehensive so there's a little bit of a precedent concern that I have and then the second I I wish we didn't have to do this just as I wish our principles didn't have to act as like salespeople but we are in a competitive market and the schools that we compete against they have lobbyists and those lobbyists are pursuing policies that you know which I respect create a playing field that work to their advantage so I do feel like Scottdale I don't view this as an expense I view it as an investment and I view it as an investment because it has the potential to ensure a more even competitive playing field if not unlocking
195additional resources to the district I would actually disagree with you at this point um Mr or Dr Pinsky um we're in a time where we need all the resources we can go to our staff and uh Dr Manzel is in regular communication with Rebecca baby who does the same thing that um State 48 does and um they actually I do believe they share on that and there's an additional lobbyist with that and uh who's actually a parent in our district so you have access to have lobbying from these individuals on the same things that are important to the district and I know that for a fact because I talked to them so um being that we belong to these other organizations that you have access to their lobbyist directly I think that that's what we
196should go with and for this year we eliminate one and we put that money towards our students and staff and then we can revisit this again next year that is what's fiscally prudent and is what's responsible and it's also showing good faith to our staff that we are doing everything we can to take care of them so thank you any other comments questions all right the motion on the table is to not renew the lobbying Services of or or continue the lobbying Services of State 48 there was a motion and a second uh we'll do a roll call vote on this one uh Dr Pensky nay Miss Warner I I nay and nay okay so we're at a 32 on not passing um I would like to follow up with a perhaps future report from
197our state 48 public affairs office to talk about the various impacts she's had in this last session we can get that on an agenda thank thank you and then maybe revisit all right back to uh G 8G consideration of greater Phoenix educational management Council and Ed an Arizona education management Council it's also known as guppy MAAC did I miss miss something okay sorry uh guppy MAAC also known as guppy MAAC intergovernmental agreement for the 2328 school year this is an agreement that the governing board an intergovernmental agreement the governing board approved last year with a 5-year agreement span but with a 90-day notice if the board wanted to exit I do want to make a technical point of clarification in the governing board packet it indicates the uh membership is 10,944 that was true for
1982223 but for last year uh and this year it's 9,579 because our enrollment has declined and so we fall into a different band for the membership amount so it's a little less than what's reflected in the governing board packet but guppy Mech has 63 member districts from all over the state uh we have a superintendent division a curriculum Division and a business officials Division and it's an opportunity for us to come together as public Educators to learn from one another share best practices and identify um ways that we can Elevate excellence and and promote public education and so we recently had a subcommittee that developed a recommendation with respect to School Safety and Security that's been presented to elected officials we had another subcommittee that's worked on the narrative around public education and we've got
199a an event and a convening planned in August of next year and so the benefit to the district AC crws in many different ways and at $99,500 it's a pretty small expenditure to continue participating in that group do you want to have a discussion first all right Miss Carney um yes while it might seem like a small expenditure I was a no on this vote uh last year for this exact reason because we have to be fiscally responsible and you know these numbers do add up the the two con these two contracts that I brought are almost $50,000 a year and when we're talking about oh where can we find 300,000 I think we can very easily find 300,000 if we would actually get serious though um and and look at so many of these
200contracts that we have and I just brought these forward as a couple examples of uh not necessary spending like I said policy DB says that superintend is directed to formulate the annual budget considering at all times that resources must be used to produce the most positive effect on the students opportunity to gain an education which uh the these things have really very little to do with and I just think it's an we've got to look for ways to tighten uh the reins on the m m spending if we're serious as a board about uh trying to keep you know our assistant principles which is what our community wants so I would appreciate others that have other ideas too of how they could cut spending but for now I will make a motion to uh cancel
201the contract with guppy Mac um as as stated in the contract that we are allowed to do if we are in a fiscal reduction 90 days in advance and so I make a motion that we cancel this contract and put this money toward our School site spending and I suck in that motion I also was a no vote on this because I I do believe that it's all these extra expenditures do add up to a lot that can go back to our sites and this really is a luxury and I understand you're heavily involved with the organization but we need you heavily involved here at our school sites and um uh it's just what's important so I'm not going to support it again this year and with that I've second this motion thank you Dr
202Pensky so I respectfully disagree for the same reasons as the last one I I think of myself as someone who's very serious about um kind of resetting our cost structure I feel bad that we're always talking about we're almost always talking in a negative context we have a vibrant wonderful District we have 19,000 students amazing teachers compared to a whole lot of districts if all they ever knew is what we are today um we are you know so much to be excited and proud of at the same time we once were a different size and so we're kind of chasing ourselves to a new normal and hopefully we are getting to a point demographically and competitively where we hit that new normal I think it's clear we need to do a major restructuring of our
203expenses and reset to that new normal my concern here is the board selecting specific expenses and because we could have an agenda that has 30 things and I just don't see that as the role of the board um I think it is the role of the board to make very clear that we need to push harder to find savings and you may come back to us with these kinds of decisions but I I don't see it as the role of the board to start selectively you know what about this what about this what about this because I just think it's a bad precedent I don't know where it ends Miss I would actually dis I can disagree with you respectfully it is the role of the because we are the ones who decide on the
204budget we vote on the budget and as Dr Manel said earlier we voted for this and you will hear all the time you voted for this the V board decided and for any when you look at Isaac that board also decided and they ended up in a pretty bad shape and so it is the role of the board to do this and I also add the conflict is that the same Lobby is for State 48 is the same one for guppy Mac and so it's it's like a double dip and um it just it makes no sense and when we are in a if we were flourishing and we were you know the the district was growing our staff was happy and enrollment was growing absolutely but we're not and our staff is suffering and
205we hear from them every single day and it is time to redirect our funds to take care of our staff who ultimately take care of our students Miss uh Carney thank you um just to to your your point um board member Pinsky you know I did ask from the Das last last meeting and uh by email as well for uh Dr Manzel to provide us a report with where he could cut and where he has cut and where he can cut and we have not received that so therefore I'm left with no choice but to try and come up with options for us to save money that we can put toward assistant principles because I believe that is a priority we have and so I'm left with no option when you're asking for something and
206not receiving it any other board comments or questions I would just say I I feel like we got some of that answer in the presentation when it comes to the positions for example the 16 positions that were eliminated at the district office I would agree it didn't go deep enough in order to address the priority that you've articulated which I happen to share around the assistant principes so I agree with that but I think what what I heard in that presentation was a series I mean there was a slide that listed the different cuts that are being made correct and that was positions and that was not directly from Dr Manzo not was was asked to be provided to the board but it's fine I'm just saying I would rather not be doing this as
207well um but I've been on the board longer I've got more experience with you know where money's going and so it's my attempt to try and and help find that money and that's all that my intention is so thank you Mr shy and I appreciate that effort um seconding what Mr Pinsky said you know I would rather go back and say give us an option of offsetting the 305,000 give us the deep deep cut and put which sounds like what you asked for and didn't get and you know appreciate that um rather than us being very prescriptive about what those are just because from my standpoint you have more experience but we don't work in the district today and so it's hard for us to understand the impact of cutting this and cutting this because
208we don't feel the pain of it um and people are going to feel pain I would rather have them understand hey you know of these bad options here's the least bad one that I'll take because I can't see us making that because we don't feel it so I would rather go back that and say here's what we would like give us a you know a cut to the Bone option and then have it come back as opposed to us saying we want you to cut a b c and d perfect then you ask for it maybe we'll get it thank you all right we have a motion on the table to uh give 90-day notice and stop the greater Phoenix uh guppy MAAC inter intergovernmental agreement for 2328 and we had a second are there
209any other comments all right I'm going to call for a roll call vote Dr Pensky nay Karen I Amy I Mike nay and nay thank you all right we are now at at approval of memorandum of understanding with Grand Canyon education and Grand Canyon University regarding pathway programs so this is a really small pilot project but because it's in agreement with Grand Canyon University and they are proposing to provide scholarships for students selected to participate uh they had requested uh a memorandum of understanding to memorialize what they're going to bring to the table and what we're going to try to do long story short is this is an intent to identify spiring teachers that are current high school students provide dual enrollment opportunities for them while they're in school seamless transition into Grand Canyon go
210through the teacher prep program with the ultimate objective to being hired back in the school district where they got their high school diploma so it's it's uh there's very small potential costs for the district uh there might be some paid internship opportunities uh when they're um going through their pre-service teaching program at Grand Canyon University but the university itself is going to look at the scholar shipping for the the uh credits that they earn and we'd recommend that the board approve this pilot project we're one of three in the valley that uh are taking this plunge and we'll learn from it we'll see if it works or doesn't work but uh we do have a commitment to try to trct and retain talent and we have many many of our employees already you might remember
211on our opening day rallies the number of people who were educated in our system who've come back to teach in our system who have kids in our system it is a strength of Scottsdale and we'd like to continue that questions comments all right I make a motion to approve theou with Grand Canyon education and Grand Canyon University regarding the pathways program as presented I'll second thank you Dr Pensky all those in favor I I I passes 5 all right we are at I 8i approval of the 2526 governing board meetings calendar what questions if any Dr Pensky so what I would ask I think there's two distinct questions one is um how many meetings do we want to have do we want to have two or one then there's the separate question of this very
212specific dates I have a few conflicts on those dates so if it's uh reasonable to ask I might ask for us to decide more on the structure and then give us a little bit of an opport maybe others want to do this too weigh in on the specific dates just in case other people have conflicts so can we decide on option A or B in terms of the frequency of meetings but not the very very specific meeting dates if if we did that uh what we would do is go back and and um revise the proposed calendar and test um whether or not there were other known conflicts to make sure that when we finalize the dates for next year that we at least at that time have confidence that we'll have the majority of
213the board present we recognize that life happens and sometimes there might be a conflict that surfaces later but we could make a good faith effort I do think it's fair to identify the Cadence of meeting whether it's option A or B and then we can re revise further and adopt it at our May 13th meeting thank you are we proposing to table this until another time I'm sorry okay Miss Mrs Carney thank you so I'd like to make a motion to approve option A which is keeping a similar schedule to what we've had the past two years as I voiced last year I feel this schedule works better for our staff and gives more time for everyone to prepare between meetings second any other comments Dr Pensky well I guess can we approve option A
214but leaving open the very specific date choices to give ourselves an opportunity to weigh in didn't you say no no I think said we could no we can't do that so if if you if you say 11 regular and five special we'll take the the draft that we have now see if there are any other known conflicts and then we'll see you know how in terms of the Cadence what might work for all five got it yeah and if it's an impossible thing to solve I understand but sorry we've just not done that before so I wasn't I thought we would approve it and then change like we yeah we we have time to to do this on the front end so that when we approve it we can hopefully have confidence that those dates
215will work but I also support option A I should said there's a motion on the table to pass the calendar option a option A and there's a second and there's a second all those in favor I I it passes 5 are you clear are you okay with that okay good all right thank you uh I want to thank everybody for being here this evening we're going to uh seek a vote and uh I'll making a motion to go into executive session we will come back after we adjourn executive session pursuant to AR ARS 384 3103 A3 and A4 for the purpose of obtaining legal advice and providing direction to the attorney for the public body regarding resolution of litigation against total energies distributed generation USA LLC uh I move to adjourn to Executive session second
216the motion all those in favor I I any opposed no so uh Miss Warner were you a yet I so it passes 4 to one all right we will move into executive session and we will be back shortly thank you e e e um but I did want to ask that we uh ideally cover some amount of enrollment within the study session all right thank you Mr shy okay I have two items I'm going to potentially bring up in the next four or five months it's not coming up fast I would like to talk about our music program and just get an understanding of where we are in our music program uh specifically prek through 12 and in terms of band and strings what our history has been um what our our um instrumental access
217is for our students um and maybe what music scholarships our students earn and this is not anything that has to happen immediately I'd like to talk about it over the next four or five months uh and then I'd like to add Financial um uh preparation for our students and ask about any financial math programs that we have relative to economics or business through the DECA programs or what we offer kids besides learning Nickel Dime coin in in their younger years so just begin to think about financial mathematics uh time management learning about interests T paying taxes that kind of things so I'd like to learn a little more about that and consider proposing some of that for our students so it's relevant oh shoot dates of upcoming meetings uh next meeting is April 21st at
2185 governing board retreat yay Innovation Center at Soro high school and then April 29th we have our special governing board meeting which as Mr patens Dr pensy has said he hopes is a real study session all right I move to adjourn do we do that second second all in favor I I all right good night everybody thank you all