001Good evening. This is the January 20th meeting of the Board of Education of the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. As president, the meeting is now called in order. It is 5 p.m. This is the January 20th meeting of the Board of Education of the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. Our meetings are broadcast over Zoom to provide the opportunity for our community to observe in real time. So 2.0 is Pledge of Allegiance. Trustee Van Hooval, will you lead us in the pledge? 3.0 is Deletions or Corrections to the Agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Not that I'm aware of. Item 4.0 is Discussion Action Items, Approval of the Attached Legal Services Agreement with Danis, Wolver, and Kelly. I don't have any blue cards on this. So as president of this body, I
002have the ability to... How do I say it? The board has the ability to have independent outside legal consults. And in the fall, our connection with Danis, Wolver, and Kelly ceased. And so tonight I'm bringing before the board an agreement to reestablish our connection with Danis, Wolver, and Kelly. Are there any questions from the board? I have a question. I actually have three questions. Sure. What is the reason for obtaining this new attorney? Say it again. What is the reason for obtaining a new attorney? So the board has the power to have independent legal consults. And in our closed session at our last board meeting, there were several questions that came up and several members of the board expressed interest in obtaining re-obtaining independent legal consults. And so that's what I've done. What is the
003cost? The cost for the is part of the legal contract. So if you see the attachment, it gives the hourly rates for the services. Which is? Okay, I see it. How about... How is this going to be paid out of what fund? It's paid out of general fund. The board has the power to have independent legal consult. And in the past, we've had at least two lawyers that we've obtained. If we have questions, if we want to have... Because the district has legal consultation, but the board also has the power to have independent legal consultation. I understand. I just wanted to have clarification on what's the funding source. So it is the general fund. I believe so. Yep. Any other questions? Then I would entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the attached
004legal services agreement with Dennis Wolverly Kelly. I'll second that. I have a motion from Trustee Vanden Heuvel, a second from Trustee Bueno. Any question on the motion? Clerk, if you can take roll. Myself, aye. Trustee Prusso? Aye. Trustee Bueno? Aye. Trustee Caplanes? Aye. President Druhan? Aye. That motion carries 5.0. 5.0 is public comments on closed session. If you'd like to address a topic that is on closed session, on a closed session item now is the time to do so. We ask that you limit your comments to three minutes and that each speaker may speak once. Thank you. And I don't have any cards at this point. So then the board will adjourn to closed session at 5.05 p.m. Reconvene to open session, report on closed session. The Board of Education of the Livermore Valley Joint
005Unified School District is now reconvening to open session and it is 6.48. All actions approved in closed session must be reported out in open session and the board has no actions to report out. We're going to take a brief recess and then come back. Probably ten minutes. Thank you. We're reconvening at 6.53 p.m. There's a portion I wanted to read before we move forward. So at special board meetings, comments may be taken only for those items appearing on the posted agenda. No action or discussion shall be undertaken except that members of a legislative body or staff may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by persons exercising their public testimony under government code 54953.3 in addition on their own initiative or in response to questions posed by, thank you, posed by a public, a
006member of a legislative body or staff may ask a question for clarification, make a brief announcement, or make a brief report on their own activities. Further, a member of a legislative body or staff by itself subject to rules or procedures, the legislative body may provide a reference to staff or other resources for factual information request staff to report back to the body at a subsequent meeting concerning any matter or take action to direct staff to place a matter of business on a future agenda. And a reminder, this is a meeting of the board in public, not a public meeting. And so we'll move on to discussion action items. So 9.0 is our discussion action item process and direction on, process and direction on budget reductions is what that's supposed to say. And so I do
007have a card. So I'll invite Ms. Janelle Harris up to speak. Yes, please. If you push it, it'll turn red. Hello, I'm Janelle Harris. I'm a parent in the district and also a taxpayer. First off, I just want to thank the board at the last meeting for finding your voices. That's something that the community is looking for is to hear from you. And also for stopping a process that felt like a steamroller. I have expressed some specific concerns about what I feel like is the lack of a rigorous methodology and transparency around the budget discussion to date in written correspondence. So I'm not going to repeat all of that. But what I'd like to ask you is, you know, how do we know that we're not going to be in the same position a year
008from now? At the last comment I made, I mentioned that I was a part of a strategic planning process a year ago where basically none of this came up. And, you know, when I look at the work product that has been given to the community so far, and have done some research on kind of how one approaches a budget cut process, it feels like basic best practices have not been followed. And instead, you know, I know our superintendent is fond of talking about grandma's ham and how we don't have to keep eating grandma's ham like last year, but it feels like the approach to budget cuts has been shave the ham here, shave the ham there, shave here, with a lack of really thoughtful process and a lack of strategic thinking. And I would really
009like to not be in the same position next year and the year after that. And so I would just urge the board and administration to try to do better and really come up with a values-driven but methodologically rigorous process. And unfortunately, despite, like I said, a strategic planning process last year and months of negotiations with LEA, which should have, I think, given foresight that this discussion was going to happen, we're now facing making cuts during a three-week period. And I think that in and of itself just simply does not allow for the type of process that conforms to best practices. And so that no matter what the outcome is, the process is going to be quite flawed. And so again, what I would ask is, how are we going to not be in this position
010in years going forward where we're not making really great cuts, talking about school closures in a period of three weeks? Thank you very much. So this is the last blue card. So I think what I'd like to do, I'll read this, a primary function of leadership is helping to frame the problem that is before groups of people. And my role as board president, I would like to do that. In the fall, the board heard from students, staff, and community members about the dire situation that teachers were facing. We heard that teachers were ranked ninth out of 11 for compensation compared to their neighboring districts. We heard about the rising cost of healthcare and steep decline in morale. Speaking personally, I heard that the community wanted us to prioritize the compensation of teachers and those closest
011to students. The board gave direction and authority to Superintendent Gibson to negotiate with the Livermore Valley Education Association to resolve the note negotiation impasse. LEA represents teachers, counselors, nurses, psychologists, teachers on special assignments, social workers, and speech pathologists within the Livermore School District. Did I get them all? Okay. The result of those negotiations require the district to rethink how and what it prioritizes. After negotiation, the superintendent was directed by the board in three ways. Use this moment as an opportunity to repair relationships with key stakeholders, meaningfully collaborate with stakeholders, and use this as an opportunity to reimagine the Livermore Valley Unified School District. Part of that direction included the creation of a reduction list to allow for consideration. However, the board as an entity did not give much input on the process and direction. I
012am hoping that we can do so this evening. The two primary questions that I'm hoping us as a board can grapple with are these. What is the process by which budget reduction should take place? And what direction do we want to give to the superintendent as that's one of our primary functions? Before I open to discussion, I'd like to provide some constraining factors. First, time. There are two main options I believe regarding timeline moving forward. Option one is an approved reduction list likely by February 24th. This is so that a legally defensible list can be approved by March. This gives us effectively one month-ish and two currently scheduled board meetings. Option two, and I'm thinking out of the box here, would require monumental trust between us and organized labor. In such a moon landing situation,
013we reach out to our bargaining units and explain our process and direction and notify employees and lists and perhaps more with potential layoff notices. This scenario has the potential to drastically heighten tension and fear in the community, but it also buys us two more months to make sure that we're doing this process to the best that we can. Regarding the county, we need to confirm to the county office of education our intent. The superintendent attempted to do so by means of a resolution. In speaking with county superintendent Castro, I was told that a letter would go a long way to help the county trust that we as a board have our fiscal house in order. So I've provided some context for our discussion and I'll reiterate that I believe the two questions that we have
014before us are number one, what is the process by which budget reduction should take place? And then secondly, what are the directions that we want to give to the superintendent? So I'll open the floor. Trustee Purso. And I think what I'll do is there's probably going to be a lot of dialogue. And so if you have a lot of comments, maybe give a couple and then we'll throw the ball to someone else and let them kind of, and we'll go from there. Sure. Thank you. I did want to ask if we could start off by explicitly as a board taking off the list school closures, just to ease the mind of our community. I don't know how you guys feel about that. Trustee Bueno. I don't know why they were put on. So I would
015certainly have no comprehension about taking them off. I know it's caused a visceral reaction. It's very polarizing. It's very, it's a lot of fear in people, the community and our people who work here. So I have no reservation about that. But again, I don't know to what a degree having it on there was part of the solution that the district came up with. You know, I don't know. I don't know why it's on there. Yeah. I think I understand why it's on there. I think we asked for all options. It was really helpful for me to see it on the list because it showed me how, honestly, how little money, how, you know, the impact of something like that when you offset that to the impact of the community. So it helped inform that for
016myself to know, you know, what could we save if we were to close the school? What is, you know, what if somebody throws that out? But I'm with you, Trustee Perusso, that I have no appetite for supporting that at all. And there's so many dominoes that go along with that. And in talking with members of the communities this last week and the week before, that it just ballooned. All the ramifications and unintended consequences of closing or consolidating schools to, yeah, I don't think it would help. It would hurt more than it would help. I'm not opposed. I think that may come as flippant. I think that part of, so that would fall under direction. And I think part of talking about process, and I don't want to, you know, tell you what to do, but
017we can go back and forth between those types of things. So I'm not opposed to removing school closure from the list. Trustee Caplanes? I think it would bring killing to the community and to the families that were startled when they saw that on the reduction list. I'm okay with the removal as well. Okay. Okay. So with that, I will just, I do have a lot of notes, but per your instructions, I'll just go through a few. One of the things that I would like to see and could be helpful, and this is after spending, as many of you did as well, a couple of weeks meeting with people at sites and other places, also we've received emails from directors with ideas, is that asking that each department work with their assistant superintendent to review their
018budgets carefully, to identify cost-saving measures, to explore creative or structural efficiencies, and be able to collaborate internally. That's just some of my thoughts. I have more, but I'll start with that. Trustee Bueno? And I'm just going to throw out just some bullet points. There's things that I would normally be familiar with in terms of a time like this when you have budget issues. So I'll just throw out bullet points of consideration. I'm just going to run through them real quick. These would be norms for me. Immediately freeze all hiring, scrutinize any mandated hires, take full account of all open positions, freeze all remaining encumbrances and unspent monies with a personal sign-off on each and every expenditure to prevent autopilot spending, conduct department-by-department reviews, asking directors and cabinet members to identify potential savings, freeze all director
019level and above me twos, perhaps even with the step in column, until we can get our financial situation under wraps and within the rails we want, and to schedule any additional meetings before any notifications are made. And if needed, we could bring in any additional resources, fiduciary oversight from the county if we needed to have extra resources. Can you clarify the schedule of the meetings? You mean? Well, I know that it's been in the public like February 10th or something, but I'm saying if we needed meetings between now and any time that decisions need to be made, that we get them on the books because there's five of us in the cabinet. There's a lot of people, but to get whatever meetings need to be on there, we can always cancel a meeting, but getting
020a meeting is difficult. So I have written down February 24th, that trustee mentioned earlier. Does that give us? But even if it was one in between, I'm saying in a time like this, when you're having to make a lot of decisions and take in a lot of community input and turn over a lot of things and asking people for products, if you had a meeting, you could take it in pieces. You know, we can be twice a week, whatever that is, but to get the meetings on the books so that we're not up against an artificially set timeline, but that we're controlling time to the extent we can. Yeah, totally. I totally understand. Trustee Capuanis? I have a suggestion along with that too. I think for communication transparency, I'd suggest maybe we have some type
021of web page that gives the updates as we're processing this with an email to the community and to the parents to let everyone know where we are as the updates continue to unfold with this plan. Trustee Vanderhoof? I agree with all that as well, especially getting all the input from everybody. I think when I wrote my note in my notes app this week, I just started with our mission and what do we do? How do we make these reductions to protect our core instructional quality, student learning, safety, of course, and I would just hope that we make reductions that do not undermine what we do as a district. And of course, that takes all sorts of, you know, that's a little too easy to, it's very difficult to quantify that. But, you know, I thought
022about long-term versus short-term, for instance, and avoiding moves that save money this year, but then it costs us money, it costs us enrollment, or it costs us trust or capacity next year. And I think constantly asking, does this create downstream cost or limit our ability to rebuild? And I think some community members have talked about that, you know, not cutting things all the way so that it becomes impossible to get back from it, even though we recognize that we may be a different district after all this than we have been. And then when it comes to the multi-year projections, I'm frustrated about the fact that there's argument or questioning about how much money is actually needed. And I want us to come around at least the numbers that we have and to say these are
023the numbers we trust. For me, Ms. Wasley is the only tool I have to know what is true, or what is true that sounds so weird. You know what I mean? We would just want to get there, because I feel that these reductions should be grounded in data, in enrollment data, in these multi-year projections, in position control, trust you Bueno, in staffing ratios, the mandated services that we have. And then I think that data will help us avoid and maybe override these anecdotal-based decision makings that help the community kind of follow our reasoning in this hall. Trustee Capuanes? Other thoughts? Okay. My thoughts, I agree with getting input, as much input from the community, from everybody. I put a little list together of like prioritization, too. I think we should reach out to as much
024parent engagement as well to ensure that we have a free and appropriate public education. I believe we need to be careful not to eliminate things that would set us up for potential lawsuits and mediations, which would end up costing more. Student achievement and safety should always be the priority, and parents are the best advocate for their children. Number two, the taxpayers. We have an obligation to our local taxpayers for measure A, our parcel tax, ensuring small class sizes, updated curriculum, science programs, et cetera. Number three, all employees. To all our employees, we have to treat them equally while providing the best service. I would like to see a collaboration list with input from parents, including those of special education population, our taxpayers, which is outlined in measure A, and employees. We have a list. Let's
025get more input to add or take away as we move forward to meet a rapidly approaching deadline. And I just feel that we have to get this done promptly in order to fulfill our fiduciary duty and our trustee responsibilities. Thank you. Yeah, trustee. I mean, I'll email this whole list to help with this. But I think the thing that we have to, we as a body have to give direction, right? That what we can't do is I don't think at this point is give each of us give 15 kind of disparate items. We have to try to come to a, you know, what happens next week? What do we want to see happen next week? What do we want to see happen the week after that? I think in my mind, perhaps approaching it that
026way, what are the, what are the directions that we want to give for the next week and the week after? I think that kind of getting to the, what my trust trustee Vanden Heuvel and trustee Kaplanis had said is in my mind, I think the board needs to curate. I want curated input from the board. I would like each of us to articulate three to five priorities and have a reduction list built around those constraints. But I think that that comes later. That's first, I feel that there's, I feel part of the process is more inputs. So I've heard communication. I've heard from stakeholder groups that need to be consulted. So perhaps we can, let's talk about stakeholder groups that we would like to give direction related to, to get inputs. We've heard from directors
027and assistant superintendents. Trustee Kaplanis has said from the community, how do we get input from the community? What is the, you know, what is the direction that we want to give? I know that Pleasanton held multiple town halls. A possible way for input from the community is having a town hall in the morning and a town hall in the evening. We could have direct the superintendent to provide, to explain the situation and then listen to the community as part of that. But it could also be, there could be lots of, lots of other ways. So if we were talking about input from the community, what is the direction that we want to give about how that happens in the next week or two? Well, I always want the community to feel that they could email
028us directly, which a lot of people have been doing. I do take the chance to read every single email that comes through. I also think having some type of webpage to inform everybody. And then also if there's an option to leave comments or questions, just so people have an additional format that can't make it in person, whether they're working multiple jobs or have other obligations. But the more access and opportunity people have to engage with us, I would like to see a process like that. Yeah, I also think that including more of our assistant soups, especially when I think about a lot of the emails are about students that may fall through the cracks from, you know, from tier one to tier two to tier three, like we have a pretty good wrap around way
029of taking care of students. So removing some of these programs, how do we still assure that we can it's going to fall on somebody to take care of these students? And so together with LEA, together with other bargaining units to go, how do we still give every student a really good shot at a great education or also to grow up in our district? When I think of some of the some of the stories that I heard, I recognize myself in that and recognizing that, man, I would have graduated in high school in four years and not five if there was more of this program here or that, you know, because it would have been so much there would be so much more hand holding for me that I just needed. And so I feel really
030concerned that we that we at least whiteboard it out and go, where do we where are these gaps and are they all do they all fall with the same group of kids or do they fall specifically with with English learners or with with, you know, people really on the margin? Where does that work so that we can be much more educated about that? Yeah, I think that there are several committees that the school district has. We have, I believe, an LPAC committee, two budget advisory committees and PCIC. And I recognize that there's not a lot of time and some of those committees have also met. But I think input from them, even if it is not as robust as we would like, would be helpful. So I think part of my my direction would be
031to consult LPAC, budget advisory committees and PCIC, unless there are other committees that you can think of, if there's rationale for why not connecting with those committees. Just point of clarification. Sure. LPAC, LCAP. LCAP. OK, no, just wanted to make sure. Yeah, am I wrong? It's it's all good. Yeah, local control. Sorry, just I also wrote down that, you know, what are the possibilities that reductions are phased or sequenced so that we can kind of adapt to changing enrollment or changing revenue? I know that that's really difficult because we're up against that deadline for March 15th. But when we look at other reductions that are not maybe not staff, what can we do there? I just think that these really sharp cuts create so much shock that we lose a lot just in our community
032from that. And I want to. Yeah. Yes, trust you, Bono. For the board, just in our consideration, I think that it is imperative that the ideas that come before us, what's difficult when we take input and I enjoy and promote to take input from the public that's important, but it's how you weight that input. What I think we could be susceptible to and sometimes public groups are is that it's the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He who brings the most, the loudest voice. I think that one of the most imperative voices to listen to when you look at critical decisions within an organization is the people that actually run the organization. So people who actually have their hands on sped, people who actually are running MOF, directors, curriculum, listening to them. And then when we
033get the public input, we can balance the impact against the public input, but it allows for the experts to justify it. And we're simply questioning things, but people made a life's work of saying this has this impact. They understand the cause and effect. And so I think it's imperative that we have the director's input, assistant soups input to superintendent, and that we balance that against the public. And then we take that all into consideration because we can see how it's going to hit the public and press from there. But I just don't see myself as an expert when it comes to if we got rid of two backhoes and I don't understand how that's going to work. So yeah, I think I likened it last time to needing x-ray vision, not knowing which one of
034these line items are load-bearing walls. I'm not a contractor, but I'm just thinking, you can walk through a thing and go, Hey, knock that out. We'll have an open concept house. It'd be so nice not realizing that. Oh, no, no, that's a load-bearing wall. And I think we've identified some. I talked to Dr. Gibson last week and these line items are load-bearing, so to speak. And so I don't have that x-ray vision, but our experts do. And I think we should listen to all of them, to every one of these directors and help us to see what we can't see on the surface. So just to kind of recap some of what we've discussed. So as far as process, we've talked about scheduling meetings that need to be scheduling meetings, get them on there so
035that if we need to use them. We've talked about communication, creating a webpage to communicate with the public. I would also entertain that an email from the superintendent, um, what, you know, where are we? How did we get here? And what are the, what are the next steps that we're taking from the direction that we're giving? I have town halls on there. The third is stakeholder inputs. We have consulting assistant superintendents. We have consulting all directors. And then we have committees. I guess part of me wants to be, you know, those have to happen. Consultation with those groups have to happen. What is the direction that we want to give regarding committees? How do we, because some of them aren't going to meet. So how do we be clear in the level of engagement or
036consultation with these committees that we would like? I don't know, like email or maybe Google form. I don't know. Like you said, they're, we're not, they're not all going to have the opportunity to meet. And like trustee Capone has said, some people don't have the ability to meet at this, this quickly. So I think I'm looking at other ways to get that input. I also just want to add to our stakeholders, um, our bargaining units and then, um, which I think maybe you already said that and our school sites. But I also think that as far as the school sites go, I think the directors and the assistant soups can be working with them, you know, as well. So I don't know, that could be part of their process. I would see value in a
037comprehensive list made up by department or area that's made by the directors or the assistant soups in court. I'm not sure. Like I should say, it matters not to me how it's comprised, other than that the experts are the ones who come up with it. We got something, um, uh, something like that from MOF maintenance operations facilities, I don't know, maybe a week ago or something unsolicited, but something akin to that that would say, these are some tier one, tier two cuts that have associated cause and effect. This is how much I think we can save. We could get by with this. Uh, these would kill this program. And then you put those type of things in front of the community groups, whether it's the budget committee so they can see it quickly, or it's
038the community and they bring, they send their proxies to a meeting like this, if it's a time constraint, but that we're considering experts opinion of the budgetary, you know, uh, how do we address the budgetary concerns and also meet any constraints and then also understand what impacts they have, because you'll have the expert there to tell you, yes, if we do this, this is what you can expect. We are going to pull back on program. This is where it would impact. Okay. We can listen to that. We can hear the community's concerns simultaneous and then give it our, our call on that, but we're not spitting in the wind. And it's to me, it's a more succinct approach and it's driven by expert opinion. All right. Articulate that in a bullet point for me. Can
039you, I actually like that. I would say direct or give direction to have the district through the assistant soups or directors and or directors comprise tier one, tier two, tier three, a multi-tiered, however they see fit approach to budget reductions along with the associated impacts. Second tier, the second bullet point would be to take those considerations and put them before the public. I'll be that the budget committee and or the public, and then we could consider the input and the back and forth between the public and what the experts opinions are. I think it would give us a good picture of where these impacts would be, what they would be and where they would be and what the public's opinion of those impacts would be. In addition to that, I think there's some immediate steps
040that I mentioned previously. Prepare to put all that in a bullet point. It might be long. That's fine. Yeah. So I have direct the district to comprise multi-tiered approach to budget reductions and associated impact, put this before the public so that we can weigh their inputs. Is that correct? And I wonder if there's also room for in a spreadsheet like that or whatever to also have information about how reductions impact specific schools or learner groups or programs, just so we know which of the students here are being affected the most. Trustee Pruso, anything? I know you've got more. I actually do like that approach, having sort of the expert stakeholders sort of begin the process and then reaching out to our community once that process has began. We also, as Trustee Campana says, we have
041already heard a lot from our community and I think that's been really great. It's really helped us to understand where they're at and I think that's helpful. And I just want just sort of as a just a thought forward is that I think that the process matters. I think this is important that we're doing this, not just for the outcomes, but also for the trust with our staff and our families and our community. So I appreciate the opportunity to do this. And then one more thing, the timeline. I think, I don't know if we need a really specific timeline or just sort of a defined window for the departments and that may be something that someone else determines. I don't know what your vision is, Stephen, for that. I mean we need, if we kind
042of work backwards from February 20, potentially by February 24th or a meeting after that, we have to have something before us. So I don't know if that answers your question. So I'll kind of reiterate and then we can add more if we wish. So regarding process, we're going to schedule meetings so that we have time to act. We're going to direct the district to comprise a multi-tiered approach to budget reductions and associated impacts. Broadly speaking process, we're going to have them put this before the public so that we can weigh their inputs. Regarding communication, we're going to direct the superintendent to email the community to explain where we are and what our steps are, what our timeline is, what the budget is. We'll include a web page on the districts to include the information that
043we have and what updates we have. Should we have town halls? Is that a direction that we want to give? I like that idea. I mean any opportunity for the public to explain, you would hope for a non-anecdotal, non-emotional way, but just to really get the information about how these reductions affect the district from their specific perspective is really, really helpful because we can only see what we can see. And then also I'm wondering if we cannot at least send out an email to each of these budget committees and say is there opportunity for us to gather either in person or virtually, whatever, just at least to get everybody on the same. There's been so much work done already with these budget committees that Dr. Gibson led that I think there's a good amount of
044data and information that we can use from there. I think if we had a longer run-up holding town halls would fall into like a chronology leading up, but if we utilized our meetings to take the input, but I think that putting things out in front of the public that are not real that might just be a layman's perspective have proven, and we looked tonight by a head nod, we said let's take school closures off. I mean just by a head nod, but putting things out before we understand them completely can cause a reaction. Now we're fighting the reaction versus looking for the solution. And when you say school closures, little kids, everyone's worried about that, neighborhoods, and so I would like to put the expert opinion in front of the question so that it gives
045the experts the opportunity, the people that run this organization, the opportunity to calculate what would a tier one cut yield from my department? It would give us 5%. This is what we would do. A tier two would be 10%, but the implications would be much more impactful, and this is what it would do. And you take those opinions with those experts and you put that before the public in scheduled meetings and people can actually come to draw a conclusion versus an emotional response to a hypothetical. While that might be a nice exercise, I just don't see it bearing fruit in the short order. Just one thing that I think could be helpful, and I mentioned it earlier, but I'm going to reiterate it. A hiring freeze, not to say we can't hire anyone, but you
046implement a hiring freeze that's scrutinized. There might be some things that we absolutely have to hire, but those are individually justified, that we're not doing new employee orientation at a time when employment might be precarious, and that we freeze encumbered money and unspent money, and that that money is scrutinized, that we take things off autopilot, and that there's literally hands. I'm not to say that things just happened, someone has to sign for things now, but if we were to direct, if we were to direct to do those two things, you can account for maybe 50% or greater of the budget that remains unspent. With the exception of mandated jobs or... But they'd be brought to us. If there's just this position that's nice to be filled versus we need to have an aid by court
047order. Again, I'm a layman in this regard, but I know that when the boat appears to be sinking, you don't load more weight on it. You stop immediately and take account of your resources and see if your resources that remain can be part of the solution going forward versus expending them. We're in an uncertain situation, so you have to define how big the problem is. What is our actual number that we need to hit? We work with Ms. Wosley to get that. We work with our experts to say, these are potential savings within each department. This is how much I think we could save. And then you let the public look at that while we look at the public. I think that part of the challenge is curating a tiered list and saying a list
048of what. Because the direction of keep cuts away from students while maintaining a functioning system is paradoxical in some instances because all of the cuts relate to students. I think I'm envisioning is we have a week or two of input and building, and then we have to give direction about, because how do you create a tiered list without direction from us? What I mean, how do we articulate that? I don't know if the again create a high quality education system for all students that keeps cuts away from students while maintaining a functioning system and balancing the budget. I don't know that that's clear enough. I think I might just as we've done in the past as a more as a compiled more finalized list with some flexibility, not like an open-ended menu, but some flexibility
049into the list. I don't know, like you said, as far as priorities go, I think we've stated those. So I would like to leave that to the experts to decide what that is. But I think leaving us with a little bit of flexibility when the final list comes, or at least a version of the list comes. I don't know if that was helpful. Say it one more time. Do you want me to read it on for my notes? Sure. So it's more, it's a bullet point. A compiled more finalized list coming to the board with some flexibility, but not an open-ended menu. Say the last part one more time. A more finalized list with some flexibility, but not an open-ended menu. I think I envision the spreadsheet just having a lot more information or more
050columns or like who is consulted? Who's willing? I don't know. I question the, there's a spectrum of direction from at the one end, keep cuts away from kids, to the other end of the spectrum, child welfare associates, right? Leading into the last board meeting, that end of the spectrum was the direction that we were going. And if that's not it, then what is in the middle? The direction with curation by the expert in the room or the experts in the room to give? Your comments earlier that talked about, you know, we can say keep it away from the classroom, but that's very difficult to define. But an expert, when they tell you, and I'll just go back to that, we have one list that the list we got from MOF. And it says we could
051do this. And this would be the impacts of that. And this would be the cost savings of that. We could go deeper and go to this, but the impacts would be more significant. So to me, we're trying to hit a dollar amount, but we don't know what the, if we took it all from one area, we'd shut something down. If we took some disproportionately from one area, because it's maybe perhaps less impactful than another area. But the experts know that when I say experts, I'm talking about the professionals that actually run their independent budgets. No one knows curriculum like the people who run curriculum. No one knows MOF like the people who run that. And if you give them a target and say, listen, no one has their own little kingdom. We're all here together.
052We have one goal and that is children, the education of those kids here in Livermore, come up with 5%, come up with 7.5, whatever the tiers that take us to get to the number we're looking for. And they give us an example of what it would look like. And it might be, it might look really bad, or it might look, okay, well, this is kind of acceptable. And based on public input, we think we can exercise that and that would get us over the hump. That's how I see it. But trying to understand cause and effect from a layman's perspective, I don't know, for me, it puts me in a position of trying to run something that I'm not an expert at, but we have the expert right there. So we can make a decision.
053I have no issue making the decision, but I'd like to get the input. I'd like to have, I'm not going to call it data. I just want the real input that says, this is how much it costs. I can save you $800,000 if we did this. I can save you 1.5 million if we did this. Boy, that seems a little deep. We'll stay with the 800 with you guys. How about the next department? And we go to the next department and then we try to get to the number and we, you know, that's how I see it, but it's not throwing darts. And when I see the school closures and I don't know, I agree. I mean, I, I, I guess, you know, when I saw the list before and I looked at that and
054I don't know, I already mentioned this in the last board meeting. I don't know how many CWAs we need here or what a health tech, right? I mean, I'm learning these things, but I think in going out into the community, I mean, the community, as far as like our directors and people at the sites, they have some ideas that I think are good ideas and things that, because they know they're there at the experts in their field. So I would like to put my trust in them. And I kind of agree with what Craig is saying and have them come to us with a more, with a more finalized list with some flexibility. I mean, obviously anything on the list that we see that we can't do, we can't, we get to make that decision,
055but I want to clear away. I don't, I'm not the expert, so you can, you can have more columns. That's not going to help me. You know what I mean? I just want to know that when my help is needed with prioritizing certain things, because I kind of think that just giving everybody a haircut is not going to get us where we want to be or will hinder us too much for the years to come. If we cut off certain programs too, you know, we just cut just enough off of them that the whole thing just doesn't work anymore. Then I don't necessarily, I'd rather just, then we don't have that program. We just say we can't afford this. But what I would like to do is when I get to the part where we
056have to sit here and prioritize things that our values are super, we know what we value. And right now, I don't think that's clear enough. So that's where maybe a little bit more help from other parties to go, this, you know, this is what you could do. This is what you can do. How long do we want to give? Or, I mean, part of this is, you know, reality is part of this. But if we were to give direction, how long for inputs and creation is feasible? Or do we not clarify that? And we say, we're going to schedule more board meetings so that we can be active. We want to seek input from various stakeholders, which we, assistant superintendents, directors, bargaining units, compromise a tiered approach to budget reductions and associated impact, more finalize
057the list with some flexibility, but not an open-ended menu. We want this put before the public so that we can weigh their input before making a decision regarding communication. We want an email to the community, how we arrived here, what the reductions, what reductions need to be made and how we know this, the immediate actions being taken and a description of a week by week description of the plan to arrive at a February 24th decision and have some of that information on a district webpage. For stakeholder input, we have assistant superintendents, directors, bargaining units, but we also have reach out for input from committees such as LCAP budget advisory committees and perhaps PCIC. We also had directions of removing school closer from the list, freezing all non-essential hiring and freezing all non-essential encumbrances. So what
058am I missing? The only thing is, as I'm looking at my calendar, I believe we have a board meeting scheduled for February 10th and February 24th. Is that correct? Correct. So maybe at the February 10th, we could have sort of an initial draft. Then we have the option of scheduling an additional meeting if necessary, perhaps the 17th. We could also schedule more if necessary, but as I'm looking at my calendar, I think the initial draft is going to be the most work. So that gives stakeholders a few weeks to do that work. I would recommend that rather than us theorizing about time in terms of what it takes, that we simply ask the superintendent how long that would take because they're going to have a feel of the workload. Maybe it's a tiered approach. Maybe
059on the first one, they can do some because some might be more difficult. On the revenue side, I don't know if we booked the governor's increases yet, if we even know what those are. So there's the revenue, there's the potential savings, but again, deferring to the people that are experts and asking them. That's just my recommendation that we ask them. So we're not imposing a timeline that's not attainable. Real quick, I have one more thing. It was brought up too for the school sites to give their input, whether it's the principals at the school sites. I would like to see that in that list as well, since each school is unique in how they operate. And so if we have at least the principal to give some input as well on how they could still
060function from that list. Yep. I don't know if there's much difference between what the superintendent will need time wise and just our reality in the calendar that we have. Are you hoping that the superintendent perhaps would meet only a week and we can meet right after that? Or what is your... No, I mean, the superintendent's right here. They're not around, they're right here. So if we ask what would be reasonable to get a department... Like if we could get a department by department reduction schedule, a tier one, tier two, what is a reasonable expectation for attaining that? Would it be reasonable that we could have that by the February 10th meeting? Or should we schedule one in advance so we could do half... That's all I'm saying is just rather than try to imagine it,
061we could just ask the question. The CBO is right here. Yes. Good question. So I think the question... Well, ask your question. Can you ask? What would be a reasonable expectation for what we're talking about in terms of if we were to do a department by department, possible reduction schedule, like a multi-tiered, what would be reasonable in terms of having them... You directing it, having them prepare it, have them prepared to present it, and then we could take some community input? Technically, we could do that by Thursday or Friday because everything that's on the list that we provided last Tuesday went through the process that you have all been talking about for the last half an hour or longer. The plan for last Tuesday's meeting before that item was tabled was to do exactly what
062you were all discussing right now, was to sit down and go line by line and say, if this, then that. I'm going to use MOF as the perfect example. If you go and look at the MOF list, there are multiple things on there. It's very complex. The number we have to get to is going to be deep. We will not be able to keep it away from kids, unfortunately. That's how deep we have to go. I went through Wednesday after our board meeting and I thought, okay, I'm going to do this exercise. So I did. Let me see what number I can get to because I have a good sense of what people do and the impacts and all the things. School closure was put on there and I'm just going to put it all
063out there at this point because why not? School closure was put on there because at least one if not two board members asked me to put it on there. So those of you who did probably should own that because I was asked, period. Things that are on the list, I was asked by stakeholders to put on. I was asked by board members to put on. I was asked by union leadership to put it on. We had a community budget committee meeting on, I don't even know what today is. What is today? Tuesday? Tuesday. Where I have a whole list of priorities from that community group. But since last Tuesday, no one has spoken to me from this board. So I can provide you a list and walk you through line by line every item at
064any moment this board would like. It sounds like the timeline would be readily available. Yep. So then I think we'll achieve for the February 10th meeting. I will go seek additional input. Absolutely. And we can revamp somewhat of the formatting on that. I just want to make it very clear for the record that I am being asked to remove school closure, correct? Yeah. Okay. I would agree with that. 100%. I think there are a couple other very controversial things on there that I would like some direction on. IB being one of them. It does come at a cost. I need direction from the board right now. If you want me to leave it on there, we can come up with an additional cost. We know that there are additional cost savings. That does touch students
065intimately though. If you want me to leave it, I think it's important that the community knows that whatever comes out on the list. I almost said President Peruso. Like Trustee Peruso said earlier that there are just options on the list. We have to look. The cuts are going to be so deep. Our goal, and as I was directed, was to give every possible option, every possible option. And so the things that I see in board correspondence, we had 260 board correspondence. It's a lot. And I've read every one of them. And I went through between the community budget advisory committee and what I saw in board correspondence, or just in regular email too. When I did my list of the rankings, I took those things into consideration. And I understand, as Trustee Bueno said, the
066squeaky wheel gets the grease. But I also think people were very genuine and kind, mostly, in their emails, truly. And they're very passionate. And I do understand that some of the things on there, and I won't give any of those examples just yet, but there are some things that I would caution us on. But IB is one that I need to know. If the board wants me to keep it there, we can get more information. We'd have to look at staffing. It would impact some staffing pieces, but we don't know exactly what that would look like. Now we can work with the principal there. He's very willing to work with that, in the sense of work with us to figure out we could look at master scheduling and some other things, I'm sure, with Assistant
067Superintendent Pichette, to see if we can come up with a better number. But right out of the gate, it's the 60,000. But it would probably come with a slightly higher cost. It's a matter of things like that that we heard that people are very passionate about. I would like some direction on what we leave. Do we leave it all on there? And then we have another discussion. I think we need to meet prior to February 10th, for sure. Otherwise, we're just sitting when we could be doing work. So I would say our best bet would be to schedule a meeting prior to that. Maybe I have to look at the calendar, but maybe the first week, maybe early in the first week, just so that we can do a pulse check-in. Because the problem for
068me is this. There are five of you. I cannot pull the board. I cannot call each of you and say, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? It's illegal. It's a Brown Act violation, number one, which I will not do. The only time I get to sit with all five of you is when we're at a public meeting with the board in public. So two options. You five decide on two people that meet with me regularly that help provide that direction, and the other three have to be okay with it. Or we schedule consistent meetings so that the board can be in the loop. Because otherwise, people get left out, and then there's tension, and why I wasn't aware of that, and all the things that are going to happen.
069This is not going to be easy. So I want to help the board create alignment in whatever form or fashion that is, and we can do it either way where we don't have to have continual meetings. Maybe you do two as kind of an advisory role, and then the hard part is those two are going to have to own it, whatever is on that list, or whatever we talk about, right? I mean, that's just going to have to happen as leaders. We have to do that. Or we just schedule another meeting that first week of February before the 10th, and hold on, let me just look at the calendar real quick. It's the third. The third, or I would even do it maybe, let's see. Yeah, either the second or the third would be fine.
070Either of those days to give us a little bit more time. So either of those days would work well. That would be my suggestion, to move us forward in a timely fashion. All right. What is the board's pleasure? So I think that two options that were proposed was having two people meet intimately, or scheduling more consistent meetings, or a combination of both. Given the board's willingness to add additional meetings, I would see value in having the additional meetings. Even if you look at the last week, a week from now is January the 27th, you could do something there. If we could have something ready by the end of the week, reports from all directors or something, the show cuts, something we could consider. I think there's value in having the five people at this point
071having, I think, an ad hoc type committee might not serve the board currently as well as it may have. Just given that this is already kind of blown out into the public, and that there's already backlash on hypotheticals and things like that. I unfortunately cannot be on the 27th. Sorry, but I can go later in the week, that week. We have an enrollment fair on Thursday, but that's okay. But Thursday at five would work. Or the second is really the best choice, to be honest. I think perhaps what we need to do is just make a decision of ad hoc committee or meetings. Because if we do meetings, then we'll have to coordinate that. My preference is a full meeting. Keep things out in front of everybody. I think everybody needs to see the process
072so they can understand decisions and can understand better the conundrum that we're in or the difficulties that we, all the deep, the depth of the cuts and things like that. Yeah, I think that would be most helpful. I've spoken on it. Yeah, I'm fine with the meetings. I know we've talked about having evening meetings, but that's fine. I see your face. Justy Capuanas? I just feel like whatever we have to do necessary to continue to keep the public's trust, to provide transparency and to get this job done. So we will, do we want to meet the last week of January or try to meet the last week of January? Or do we want to, I mean, the superintendent said that, you know, she could have it by Thursday, but I think that given the direction
073regarding some of the stakeholder groups, I think I'd prefer to wait until the first week of February and give time for the curation of that. But thoughts? Yeah, the availability of parties is going to be serious, especially the superintendent. So if it was the 29th, which was the enrollment day, if we did something there on Thursday, if that worked, that could work. Or the first week of February, based on everyone's opinion. I think we've gotten to your question in terms of ad hoc or board, it's board. Board. And then perhaps you could just do a, you know, like a Google doodle meet or whatever, and we just. Yep. Okay. The other, I don't mean to throw another wrinkle, but just, let's say, let's talk about the timeline a little bit. So yes, we have the
074February 24th board meeting and yes, that is an option to do the final resolution. I just want to caution us on waiting till that very lots of, that is the drop dead date I'm needing to make cuts. So, or the board needing to approve the final paperwork. The other piece with that is that Ms. Wasley needs to build second interim, as well as Dr. Ronduras needs to be able to do all the paperwork necessary that comes with what we need to do the unfortunate things from HR. So if we meet a couple of times prior to the 11th or 10th, whatever it is, the 10th, I think February 10th, February 10th, February 10th. Because of the work we've already done in the last two or three weeks, we may be able to get there by
075the February 10th meeting in all honesty, if we're willing to meet a couple of times before then we may be able to even do it then the longer the runway we give our team to do the next step of work the better off we're going to be. The other thing I've already, I forgot to say this earlier, the other thing I already asked the county to provide us and they will be providing this in the next couple of days for us is they will run the numbers to validate that what we have put out for the cost is the cost. I've already asked for that. Thank you. And that was coming your way anyways, so you know I was ahead of that. So we will have that probably by the end of this week. I
076can send that to the board just so you can see it. I can send that to the community, whatever anyone would like to do. Also, we already have a webpage built that's just waiting for us to launch it. So we can do that tomorrow or tonight, Ms. Dawson, wherever she is back there. So we can definitely make that happen. I think it's just a matter of if we could do it by the February, I don't want to rush it either. If we get to February 11th, then we're not quite ready. We know we have the 24th. Is the 24th only related to layoffs or is it, you know, because there's also cuts that are not necessarily personnel related? No, whenever we do, that's a great question. So whenever we do the resolution for these cuts,
077we will also add in the other things that we have to do because of they're funded out of certain things or whatever the case may be. I know there's been questions about the school-based mental health grant. We won't know until, but I think, I mean, for right now we're funded on that one. So we're just, we're waiting until we hear from the paperwork or the lawsuit. The magnet grant, we did receive that information. I forwarded that to the board, I think sometime last week, late last week. So those pieces are very different than some other things. We have some other departmental things that will come into play that we've already, that we're already aware, but those are not fund 01. These are all fund 01 pieces, if that makes sense. Okay. Other thoughts or input
078before I... So I think we either do the 29th of February, sorry, 29th of January. If everyone's okay with that, I just need to make sure that staff is available on January 29th. Let me, let me reach out to, wow. Oh no, because you have, do you teach 30 nights now? Yeah. Okay. That's okay. But we can do... A lot of us are working in the evening. I mean, we can wait till the February, it's just our runways short. No, I don't want to wait. I want, I'm going to take on the responsibility of finding two meetings between now and February 10th. Okay. So we will, we will find that. We don't need to do that tonight. Okay. I don't think... We can always cancel them because they're special. So we can put them out
079to the public and then if we get there sooner, we... Yeah. So just to kind of encapsulate, to reiterate, so I'm going to schedule two meetings between now and February 10th. Regarding process, we're directing to seek input from stakeholder groups, assistant superintendents, directors, bargaining units, principals, and reach out to the extent that you can from the committee groups to comprise a multi-tiered approach to budget reductions and associated impact, a more finalized list with some flexibility, but not an open menu. You'd address the communication of creating websites and then also emailing the community along the points that were described previously, how we arrived here, what reductions need to be made, how we know this, connecting with the information from the county would be helpful. And the immediate actions that are being taken by the school district
080or have been taken and then a week-by-week description until the February 24th deadline. And then remove school closures. We haven't given direction on IB. Freeze all non-essential hiring and freeze all non-essential encumbrances. So I would entertain discussion of IB. Really quickly, sorry. We already froze hiring. We actually created Dr. Bondoris and Ms. Wasley created, I don't know which one of them actually, I think Dr. Bondoris created it, created a form that we have not used in the past that actually goes through multiple channels for approval of hiring. It's part of our HR cleanup that we needed to do so that it goes from HR staff, it goes to Dr. Bondoris, she checks it, she checks the PCN, whatever she does on her end, she signs off on it electronically. It then goes into Ms. Wasley's
081inbox. She checks PCNs against budget. Is it budgeted? Is it required? Do we need it? If it's a pair at a site, we check with the principal. Is this necessary? We check with Ms. Manke, whatever the case, depending on what it is. If it's a cafeteria staff member, they're fund 13, so yes, we approve that. Different function. That's already happening. It just started about two months ago. So that's already in place and the freezing has already taken place. We've already denied posting positions. We've pulled positions down, but there are some things that we have to have like yard duty and some of those things that we can't say no to, but other all essential things or non-essential things have already been frozen and those were frozen back at least in the last few weeks, if
082not sooner. I didn't mean to interrupt you, President Joe. I'm sorry. I would love to know from the three of you who were here when IB was in the discussion and why your decision was reversed or there was no decision made or what was some of the things that stuck with you and why IB was such an important piece to hang on to? Yeah, I don't want to get in the way in one program or something. At this point, the school closure thing seemed to be relatively arbitrary and it seemed like even in the superintendent's opinion across the board, it looked like it was more exploratory and maybe the unintended consequence of having the public look at that is this could be a reality, offset any curiosity. With IB, I don't know that that's satisfied
083yet. I've lent you just from last time, it's a remarkable program. It's not AP, it's different. There was a very robust community based conversation around that and it wasn't a board's action that caused it to look at cutting and so it was put out there floated and the board had to, I don't want to call nullified because there was no action taken. At this point, I think that IB speaks for itself and I'd like to hear it speak for itself going forward. I just don't see myself, I don't see myself tonight. It's kind of contrary to my message tonight in that let's pick and choose tonight. Let's take this off. Let's not take this off. It seems a little more arbitrary as where I think it was more deliberate to take school closures off because
084I don't know that it ever should have been on there. It seemed more curiosity. I think the two, again, in my mind, the primary directives that relate are keeping cuts away from students while maintaining a functioning school system and the amount of reductions that are necessary are going to impact students in order for us to maintain a functioning school system and I think that I recognize, I've heard from lots of IB parents, but in my mind, the difference between something like a child welfare, what do I think, child welfare specialist and IB, like if I had to pick between those two, I would pick the child welfare in my mind because one of those is giving somebody the floor access to, you know, that's the primary directive, creating a high quality education for all students.
085So, but given all the mix of items in there, I don't like keeping things on the list, but I want as many options in the bag of the superintendent to distinguish between those two. I agree. Trustee Caplanes? I just want to know the statistics real quick of how many students are in the IB program and how many students have graduated. Do we have that? I can anecdotally say that IB is not one thing. There's kind of two programs. There's students that take IB classes and we have some students from Junction feeding into IB that are taking IB Spanish. They're getting college credit for that, so there's that dimension of the program. There's also the diploma program where there's students that take a rigorous, and that's not the correct word to, you know, it's all IB.
086They have multiple testing. So, I think part of this is who constitutes an IB student because if you're just looking at the diploma students, it's less than 20, I believe. Don't quote me. It's less than- Between 10 and 15 a year receive an IB diploma. But hundreds of students take IB classes. Around 300-ish, depending on the year. But I think that, you know, I taught IB. I love IB, but if we have to make reductions and it's between kids getting to school, then yeah. I just- Only one high school has it, actually. Right. Just Granada. I have one more question, too. So, if we had to remove the IB right now just for the budgetary constraints, would it be possible when times are better that we could bring it back? It's a pretty strenuous process
087to implement IB, I will tell you, and it does cost an initiative. Go ahead. I'm just articulating myself to remember something. To say after. Go ahead. Yes, that's the end of my thought. I was going to say, and I don't remember if I've articulated this, but I think part of creating the tiered list, and I think maybe that's built into that, is we've heard from- We've heard about the governor's budget, which comes out May 14th, which is very inconvenient for planning, but I think part of that is if the governor's budget comes back favorably, having a tier of these are the things that will immediately go back so that it's not trading, like if we have a tiered list, these are the things that have to go back immediately. At least that's my thought, but
088I'm open to input from the board. Just to follow up too from Trustee Vanden Heuvel's question about when IB was once proposed to be removed, and then it got brought back, so how long was that time frame? It never left. Oh, it was only proposed to be removed. There was a schedule, there was a proposal, it seemed to be more district-based, it wasn't board-based, and then there was a schedule change, not the schedule change that we all talk about, but there was a schedule where the kids who had IB, and then that had to be kind of rescinded, and it was basically the community came together and said, this is not what we want. The board heard that. There was really no action because it was just input, and then the district's decision that it
089had made was, I guess you'd call it rescinded or changed, and so it carried on. There was no break in IB in the program. But I will also distinguish between IB at the elementary level and IB at the secondary level. They're two separate but interconnected programs, and I think on the reduction list was just IB at the high school level. Okay, thank you for that. Thank you. And when that proposal was made prior, that wasn't this administration, that was prior when additional cuts were just on the horizon, I believe, but that wasn't something that has been discussed since I got here. Can I ask for one other thing? This one's much easier because we do need some direction on this so we can start moving because it's something that otherwise ties our hands. On the
090initial list, we had the retirement incentives, which is positive yet not positive to see some of our great long-standing staff retire. However, in talking to union leadership, they were definitely interested in that, and we have some proposed ideas, but I want to make sure we can't move forward without the board giving us direction on that because it requires board direction, unfortunately, before we can even move forward on that. We'll go along the way. If the unions are in favor of it, then I would support that. They would know better than I would. Trustee Vanden Heuvel? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thank you for exploring that, Trustee Pueno. On that, do you have parameters in terms of the fiscal impact? Yes. What is your high number? Well, according to the document, let me scroll down. I want to
091say it was $500,000 for LEA with what our proposal would be. It is, hold on, I'm going to find it. I can't let you know what line item that is. Sorry, is it at the top? We redid this, hold on. Potential savings? Oh, yes, that's the savings. The $500,000 was the potential savings? Yes. How about the potential costs? That way, I would have to pull out and provide to you. Nets of savings? Yes, nets of savings. So there's no initial cost? Correct. It's an immediate savings. Okay. Trustee Pueno. Hold on just a second. Go ahead while I'm looking for this. Go ahead. I appreciate you giving us these numbers. That's okay. I'm not talking to you. I just want to let you know that I'm going to keep digging through it. It's in here. I
092know it's here. I'm going to find it. But a net savings initially with no initial cost. I'm fine with that, so I support it. Yeah, just to clarify that. Yes, thank you. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, okay. I too support the I found it. Somebody gave me the numbers because I found it. Estimation for LEA is $550,000. Estimated for CSCA would be $50,000. Estimated for SEIU could be $35,000. And possible estimation of savings for LMA slash district office slash CMC is $15,000. And those numbers could also be conservative. But we will come up with parameters and work with the leadership of those representative groups to come up with a plan for that. But like I said, we need the direction first so we can get going on that. I have another question about the items on
093the list that really are connected to contracts. We can decide all we want, but we have really no impact. Should that stay on there? Is that something that you just because how does that work? Can you clarify? Are you talking about the assistant superintendent, superintendent contracts or LEA and SEIU? I'm talking about the items on the list that would affect, what's that? Yeah, they need to be negotiated in the contract. How does that? Right. So what we do is we negotiate the impact of layoffs. And so once we identify, you identify what the reductions will be, then we work with the unions to negotiate the impact. And so there's different work that, you know, can't go to other bargaining units. And so things might be eliminated, they might be reduced, they might be redistributed, but
094there's a lot of work that goes into renegotiating those items. And things like the Me Too and extra furlough days and things like that. I think those also have to be negotiated, right? The Me Too exists in CSEA and SEIU contracts. What would be negotiated is where that Me Too amount would land if it should go on salary or benefits or something like that. But if we're talking about reduction in days, that would need to be negotiated. One other question about something that came up at the last meeting that I didn't quite understand. If the team of three turns into a team of two, that team of two cannot now be reasonably expected to carry the load of all the work. Does that also work the other way around? If we say we have a
095team of two, we have a lot of work, now we have a team of, you know, we hire somebody, now we have a team of three, do we have to create a whole new list of tasks and responsibilities for that third person? Because I can't just take things off of the two existing ones, off of them, because all of a sudden they've got a whole different job. Now they do a lot less work because we hired a third person. So I don't understand how that's one way, but maybe not the other way? Well, each position comes with a job description. And so the tasks exist within that job description. And so if you have two people and then you hire another person of that same classification, the work would be similar, but it would be
096distributed around among three people. And it could look slightly different on everyone's desk is slightly different, but the nature of the tasks and such are in the job descriptions. So how do you prevent those two people now having to carry a whole bunch of extra things? Do you just decide together what is not going to get done? Yeah, that's the harder part. And so that's part of negotiating the impact. And so it looks like things slowing down, things taking longer potentially, and things being off the desk and maybe indefinitely or other. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion from the board? Okay, then 10.0 next meeting. The next regular board meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 10th, 2026. Open session will begin at 6 p.m. But I am going to ask the board members
097to come see me, see if we can get some dates and times for some special meetings. With that, this meeting is now adjourned at 8 22 p.m.