001Good evening. I, Dr. Lasagna Flowers, president of the Duncanville ISD Board of Trustees, call this meeting of the Duncanville Independent School District to order. Let the record show that a quorum of the board of trustees is present, that the meeting has been duly called, and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. We will move to opening ceremonies. Please stand for our I'm sorry, never mind. We'll pray first. Please bow your heads for a word of prayer. God, we thank you for today. Help us to remember the awesome privilege it is to just serve. Help us to remember um students best interest and to think about tomorrow in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Please stand for the pledge. I aliance to the flag
002of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Our mission at Duncanville ISD is to engage, equip, and empower all scholars to achieve their unique potential. We will now move to action agenda item A 89th legislative priorities. There's no presentation needed. We went over that uh last board meeting. Do I have a motion to approve 2025 legislative priorities for the 89th Texas legislative session as presented? So moved. Second. It's been moved and second. Please uh vote electronically. Motion carries 40. Thank you. We are now moving to our budget workshop. I will turn the meeting over to Dr. Gorie. Thank you very much,
003President Flowers, and good evening, President Flowers, and all other trustees. I would like to invite to the podium our chief financial officer, Miss Mayo, and we will present our budget presentation for tonight. First off, thank you board members for allowing us to present uh this budget work session. This is of course the first in a series of bud budget meetings that we will have as we prepare uh to adopt a budget in June that will be implemented as we go into next school year. I'd like to start off by speaking a little bit before Miss Mayo comes with her presentation about the priorities that govern the work as we've gone through this budget process. As you know, I've been in this seat for nine months and certainly uh if we look at this first bullet
004point, fiscal stewardship and operational excellence uh was certainly the main goal as I've came into this into this seat. This is so important that we as a board and certainly we as staff members present you a a budget that is showing that we are good stewards to the many great gifts that our community provides us with that. Because of that, you will see as we go through the budget process, there have been several operational reductions. There have been things done as far as shifting resources from an operational perspective. And these are things that I do believe will be very muchly com will be appreciated by our community. Now too though, as I've gone through the last month and I've had an opportunity to visit with v various stakeholders and certainly including the board, it's very
005important too that as we look at our budget that we make sure that it's aligned with the district's strategic priorities with a focus on student achievement. One thing that has been very enlightening as we've looked at this budget and we looked at what's the best way for us to achieve our goals by being good stewards, we have focused on student achievement and making sure that we are shifting resources. so that we do see increases in increase in the supports that will lead to better outcomes for children and certainly in implementing a competitive and market aligned salary structure is critical. If you look at where we are from a staffing perspective, not just in our district but across the teaching fields, uh there are some challenges, but one thing for sure is that if you're not
006competitive with pay, you're going to certainly increase your challenges. And this is going to create a unique uh situation for us as a as as a as a for you as a board and certainly us as a system because there are some things that we have to do in regards to increasing pay. Uh and we it will be incumbent on us to figure those things out as we go through this through this budget process and certainly the last thing is to maintain our healthy fund balance. We are fortunate that we do have a healthy fund balance. uh that fund balance has allowed us uh to operate and it has allowed us to continue to be able to evaluate things and be be systematic about those things that we cut and we reduce. But we do
007want this board to know that we are committed to keeping and maintaining a healthy fund balance. Now before I turn it over to Miss Mayo, a couple of topics that she will cover tonight and these will be our goals for tonight. We'll begin of course with a legislative update. There are so many things that are happening in the legislature uh that will be um pending upon what we do from a budgetary perspective. She'll also speak to some budget assumptions and budget unknowns and this will be a very informative session around where we are. We'll speak to cost containment. As you know, we've spent the last year looking at cost containment and looking at what are those things that we want to move forward to. And this is where I'll remind the board that over the
008next 24 months uh we will move forward with some of those containments this year. But certainly note that there will be more containments as we go into uh next year. And you know and an example I'll give you of that is that when you look at our high school schedule because of things such as you know that we're adding on to the building uh the things like the 35 plus classes that will be outside. Uh several things prevented us from being able to really look at the high school this year. But that is certainly something that we will do as we move forward. And of course, the last thing I've already spoken to, how do we make sure that our pay is competitive so that we can attract and maintain uh highquality employees in our
009district. But at this time, I'll turn the m the mic over I will turn the microphone over to Miss Mayo. Board members, on each page, you should have a number. If I could ask you to write your questions on the page and at the end after the presentation if you can reference that page number it will help us to go back so that we can answer all of your questions. Thank you Miss. All right good evening Dr. Flowers the board of trustees and Dr. Gory. Um I am happy tonight to present uh information on our first budget workshop. So uh as Dr. Gory mentioned, we're going to start off with legislative updates and we learned a lot today from our legislature. So, I'm going to take a little time to share that with you because
010it was a bit more positive than we had seen in the past. Uh, we'll talk about our budget assumptions, kind of the assumptions and the um information that I use to build the budget for next year so that everyone is on the same page with what our forecasts are and what our expectations are. We'll talk uh further into cost containment and then we'll discuss some competitive compensation ideas for you so that we'll know how to guide our next budget workshop. So we are going to talk a little bit about 89th legislative session and beyond. We've had a lot of things happening since January this year. Um I want to specifically focus on um House Bill Two. So a lot of information came out uh today regarding uh house bill 2. So it is going to
011be discussed tomorrow in school finance committee but there was an increase to the basic aotment that was had been discussed before. So now the increase being discussed is $6,555. So that's about a $395 over the current basic aotment. So that is uh more than they were discussing in the last rendition of this bill. There's also several um items that we would want to consider. One thing to remember is in the current law, if there's an increase to the basic allotment, it triggers a raise. Uh right now the raise is whatever you have increased year-over-year, you must take 30% of that and apply it to raises. And of that 30, 75% must be focused to teachers, librarians, nurses, and counselors. The updated law that we're hearing is being discussed today um is that 40% will go
012to salaries and then the focus will be on teachers only with an emphasis on teachers with 10 plus years of experience and then a tiered 2 level with teachers of five plus years of experience. So, it's a little different from the current law and as you know, we're still very early in the session, so there could be many changes, but I am uh smiling today because I think this is moving in a better direction. Um, one other a couple of other things I think that are very important for us is it raises the compensatory education aotment weights, the bilingual aotment weights, and then there's also some uh fine arts allotments there. So those are all increases that would favorably affect us. They're discussing a lot of uh conversations also around special education in this bill
013and there is as well a separate bill out there that's discussing uh special education. Um one kind of change that's in this bill that's a little different too is an automatic increase to the basic aotment. I'm not sure what that schedule looks like, but that's going to be different than what we've seen in other changes through the legislative session. Um there is some offsets that due to the um amount we get for golden penny. So I won't know how that affects Duncanville ISD because as you know we uh we do have all of our golden pennies here and so once we get more details we can do a full analysis to see how this will affect us. Um, we did get information from the, uh, Texas Association of School Business Officials that they were already
014working on analysis on how this would affect districts. Uh, the legislators did ask them to hold that back until they have more discussions tomorrow. So, we'll just continue to learn and update you all as we know, but um, I think that's a very favorable um, outcome for our district. Um and you can see some other things that we are talking about also. There's a Senate bill and a House bill for education savings accounts. Um vouchers. Uh there is one of those is up for Senate bill 2 is up for discussion tomorrow. Um House Public Education Committee begins at 8:00 a.m. if you all are interested in looking at that. Um there'll be several uh bills being discussed in that and but those are the two we'll be watching specifically. Um and so that is our
015legislative update. Um there's also many other things. Um school safety aotment increases. There's two bills um in the House and the Senate for school safety, but they both support us in a positive way. Um we'll be discussing additional tax compression, property tax exemptions. Um, in the past we did a lot of property tax exemptions for homeowners. They're talking about doing some property tax exemptions um for uh income producing properties and so that'll kind of be a new thing. Uh but there is a lot of discussion of hold harmless in some of these bills and so uh hopefully the impacts to our ISD will be minimal but um as we learn those we'll be getting those figures out to the board. So here's our budget assumption. So every year when we're reviewing the budget, we have
016several variables that go into how we forecast the revenue for the budget. So the fiscal year in Duckenville ISD starts on July 1st and ends on June 30th. We are using a taxable assessed value growth of 3%. I'll talk a little bit more in detail about that in the next slide. Um tax rates proposed for next fiscal year are 1.1027. It's a very slight decrease from last year and that's a trigger from tax compression that is currently in law. Um we are looking at the demographer has predicted enrollment to be about 11,232 and so projected losses for average daily attendance would be about 38 students. Um, I do want to talk about a few things when I get to the end of this slide on how we're kind of working on uh improving that. We
017do expect to outperform that uh analysis, but we are using those figures as data and backup for now. Um, this budget is based on current legislation. So, it's based on current law. We have not implemented any of the new things we just talked about into this budget yet because we don't know what they're going to be and they're probably going to change a lot before we get to the end. Um, and then our tax collection rate, we're using a budget of 98%. Um, just if I could circle back to average daily attendance, um, across the state, uh, this is a been a challenge for many districts. Um, and so there's been a lot of ideas and we've seen a lot of information and so we've been working internally with our district and we haven't hammered
018anything out, but we are working on building a proposal for some ADA attendance incentives that could possibly positively affect campuses that were able to improve their ADA percentages. And so we're looking at possible increasing their operational budgets and some other areas that may be some positive incentive for these campuses. Um and so we're working through that model and we hope to be sharing that with the board. Um we do believe and we have seen success um in other districts that have been utilizing that and we have some great members on our team here at Duncanville ISD who have done this work in other places and are bringing their insight and expertise. So we're really grateful for that. So we are focusing on average daily attendance. Um in addition to looking at ADA and uh supporting
019campuses for bringing students in, we are also educating our uh staff. We're just letting everyone know what does it mean when you take attendance in a classroom? What does it mean for the overall district? And so we're hoping having a global understanding of the detail work that you do every day will have positive impacts for the district. So we are getting out in the field. we have a lot of positive support to do that and so we've done two really great presentations and we're going to be continuing to work on that focus as well. So these are kind of the unknowns. So you guys know that as we move through our budget as a June 30th district um we build our revenue budget on information we don't quite know yet. Um so we'll be working
020on finalized tax rates once we receive our certified values in July. We send our MCR information to the state. So that's our maximum compressed tax rate information to the state. They review our data and then they give us an approval on what our M um maximum uh compressed rate will be. We'll use that, add our pennies to it and come up with our tax rate. So right now we're uh proposing the uh 1.1027, but once we get down to that those details, we'll know if we're going to stick with that or not. Uh I met with DCAD uh this last week and DAD is estimating in our area to have very moderate market value growth in the low single digits and then maybe mid uh single digits for taxable growth. So the 3% number that
021I've been using to build the revenue budget is very is conservative. It appears to be in line with what DECAT is suggesting. We do have a meeting coming up with them in April where we will get our preliminary certified values and then as you know every month we get closer to July we learn more and more. Um we're currently working through staffing for budget impact. So right now HR is down in the trenches working on staffing. This is a in normal according to the budget calendar to the HR staffing. So they're working through all the staffing for next year. They're working through all of the information needed for our temporary campus closures due to renovation and working with our staff. And they are working diligently through that. And so the we we do expect some
022changes from that to be reflected in the April presentation. And we can talk more about that line item when we get there. Um any required teacher raises approved by the legislature are not considered. They're unknown at this time. Um any changes to the basic aotment just like we've discussed. Uh we're working through property insurance. We saw an increase in property insurance last year. So we're working through the details to see if we're going to be impacted by that in this fiscal year. Um any rate scenarios. We do have some ideas and some things to show you later on this presentation, but we'll need some guidance on how to move forward so we can bring the race scenarios to you in April. And then any further cost containment strategies are not included in this presentation. So
023you've seen this slide before. So we've been working really hard on um strategies to implement control and reduce expenses within our organization. We want to make sure that as we make reductions to the budget, as we review every program and every item in the district for fiscal responsibility, that we want to make sure that we're providing every child a quality educational experience. That is our number one priority. So, these are the items that you've already seen. We've explored these cost containment items with you in the past. These arose out of a survey that came from cost containment. Um and so we've been working through these changes. Some of these program changes have been presented and approved by the board um already and some of these program changes uh reductions were approved by the board in
024last fiscal year and as they were being reduced through attrition. So, we do still have some of that going on. And as those uh positions become vacant and they become closed, we'll be updating that figure to further show the board. But we do have more room for cost containment there that has already been reviewed and discussed by the board. So, we're working on those uh reductions. Now, uh a lot of that will be discovered through staffing and as we go into next fiscal year, we'll have a better hold on what that's going to be. Uh certainly come April. So, as we talk about getting prepared for our budget and we're starting to think about where is our budget going to be, what uh what are some things that we need to be thinking about in
025planning for the future, we do want to consider, as Dr. Gorey mentioned earlier today, our competitive salary for our teaching staff. So, we wanted to give you as you begin thinking um about planning for this budget season, we wanted to give you an idea of where Duncanville ISD sits with our local ISDs with teacher pay comparisons. So, if you see the Duncanville ISD bar right there kind of to the left of center, Duncanville ISD starting teacher pay is 58,500. All of the districts to the left are slightly under or the same as Duncanville ISD and the districts to the right are higher. So you can see that some of our immediate school districts in our immediate air area are a bit higher to us than us in providing some additional competition for our teaching staff.
026So this is some compensation scenarios. So I wanted to kind of bring your attention to this is a financial forecast only. So as I mentioned before, HR is still in the trenches working through every single position in the district. So with that said, we have not been able to build a ve a teacher or staff raise based on the actual positions that we predict for next fiscal year. So, I took PE's uh counts of staff and did an increased teacher salary for 2,000 uh per teacher, which you can see brings us up to 60,500 and is in line with some of the districts to the right of us. And so, that's an estimated cost based on the PE's data, 2,000 per FTE. Other staff uh would be approximately 498,000 out of 1%. Now this is
027a 1% this has not been applied to midpoint because we have not applied it to the specific staffing models but this is an estimate based on current payroll and it is an alignment with uh historical raise projections that you have seen in the past. So the figures all make sense there um other staff around 2%. So, the goal of this is so the board can see an idea of maybe what the expectations would be as you begin to plan your race scenarios and suggestions for what we'll bring to you in April. We wanted to make sure you had a financial forecast um so that you can see what the actual race scenarios would be. So, I do not expect them to be exactly the same, but I do expect them to be similar to these
028figures. Now, please keep in mind this is based on our current budget. It has nothing to do with legislative agenda. These were just simple some ideas and some models that we thought we could share with the board. Uh just as we begin thinking through this budget year because there is so many things to consider. Um I wanted to make sure we were able to use this meeting as a good planning opportunity. One thing I do want to share with you that I learned today, and this was something I experienced um in the 2019 legislative session, is considerations when we regard salary increases for next year. So until the governor signs a bill, it is not law. And so any salary decisions that we make or any adjustments to our compensation manual that we make before
029the law goes into effect, depending on the language of the law, we may have to give both. So I just want to make sure that the board has all the information when you're considering your choices. Um, there were districts in 2019 because of the language of the law that had to come back and add on top of the races because it was unclear of how that was going to lay out. Now, we can work through this and we can amend the budget in July and there are some strategies that we can do and we'll be working very closely with TASBY. The language in this um documentation is all comes from TASBY legal and they are working close at hand with ISDS to make sure that we're making very clear and informed decisions. But I just
030wanted to make sure that you were all aware that decisions we make today could impact the future. So this is the preliminary 2526 general fund estimates. And so this is a small picture that says a lot of stuff. So the 2425 original budget is there and as you know we haven't done a lot of amendments to that budget. Um right now I'm working through a revenue expectations and I do believe the amended budget is in line with our current revenue expectations. Um, we have had a a disappointing uh letter very recently about some further reductions to our SHARS federal reimbursements. Um, as you know, there was a 2017 uh lawsuit that came out with the way that we were receiving students. Now, districts were doing what the state asked us to do. However, the federal
031government came back and said that was not the right way. So, as you know, we uh lost some revenue there to SHRES. Well, now they're taking the opportunity to go before 2017. So, now we received a letter for a reduction all the way from 2011. Um, this reduction is $539,758 to be paid immediately. We contacted the Texas Medicaid and Healthc Care Partnership to get a little more information because it's quite a big payment just to pay on a very small paragraph and they said we had to send a letter on paper into the mail for our questions. So, we did that. So, we'll wait to hear how that's going to go, but I expect that we are going to be further reduced by $539,000. And so, that will affect um this fiscal year. And so
032I just want you to know that that's gonna that's going to hit us. Um we had discussed before uh estimated current year saves. You'll see that reduction of 8.4. So that's going to be some of our vacancy saves, our historical non-payroll saves, and some money we were able to move over to ESSER, which puts us at an estimated net impact to fund balance for the end of this fiscal year at about 10.5 million, which is more favorable than 18. Um, and we are continuing to work through the budget and making sure we're capturing everything. And every time we meet, I will bring you a more updated, more clear financial picture of where we are. Um, 2526, you'll see total revenue does have a reduction. Um, that's due to an enrollment decline. I also modified the
033budget for a charge reduction. I continued there. And then there's a small modification uh just due to thinking that we might receive less than favorable investment income. We have had a stellar last, you know, four years with investment income and that's beginning to slow a little bit. And so we always have the opportunity to come back and amend the budget, but I want to make sure that we have clear and realistic um budgeted items there. Um we did reduce some payroll expenses um year-over-year into 2526 and we do expect to continue to work on those payroll expenses uh through attrition through items that are already been planned and reviewed by the board and items that we will be talking further about. Um that does reduce the total expenditures budget. um it still leaves us with
034a net impact of negative19 million and then as we enter those cost containment items that we discussed on a prior slide it brings us down to7 million. Now keep in mind we will have historical vacancy saves. We will likely have some nonpayroll saves and so that's going to bring us even further down from there and that's where we are today. We're still working on all the HR payroll changes. We're still reviewing how all of the temporary campus closures are going to play out. We're looking at um all of our staffing guidelines and analysis to see. So when we come in April, we're going to have that better picture there. I do believe it's going to be more favorable than that. But I wanted to show you what I have as I have it today. So,
035this kind of just gives you a visual representation of how we've been hit on our federal revenue due to SHs. Um, one thing to note that I didn't say earlier is in that House Bill Two, there was a mention of some uh additional revenue to offset districts who have been hit so hard with SHRs. So, if that goes through, that will be helpful uh to offset some of these losses because not only are we not receiving the reimbursements we experienced in the past, but now we're paying back for reimbursements that were prior to the lawsuit and I'm not sure when the letters are going to end. So, I do have some pleasant news after all of that. I mean, we've been working so hard and and I, you know, I think we're continuing to do
036the great work and cost containment and I feel so happy about the um vision of the district and the leadership and the board. Um and then the fiscal integrity and the responsibility of the board and the leadership up until this day has built this wonderful fund balance that is giving us the opportunity to strategize, review our our budget uh needs, maintaining a focus on our students and not having to make rich and harsh decisions. We have time now. The work is still there. We still have the work to do. uh we're going to be chipping away and and moving forward, but we have a the precious gift of time. And so it won't last forever, but we have it today. And so estimated average monthly expenses right now are about $12 million. So even with
037that $10 million um $10.5 million if if we do have that and that does reduce our fund balance, we will still be at five months. Okay? So that sets us up very good for next year. So every bit we can whittle away from the deficit. Every bit we can become more fiscally responsible and efficient through our operating budget. Any money we receive from the state further improves this. And so then we can begin to move forward with a long-term strategic plan on how we want to what our future of our district is going to be uh operationally. So we are very pleased about that. Um the board is required to approve three budgets. So the general fund budget, the student the nutrition services fund budget and the debt service fund. So this is just a
038um preliminary update of the student nutrition budget. This does include analysis and preparation for next fiscal year based on current operations. and it does include um the staff uh pauses for the temporary closures of the campuses that will be affected. So there is a reduction in payroll there that they will see for that one fiscal year. Um the $1.8 uh million dollars there at the bottom is I would not view that as a negative thing. Um in the past nutrition services fund was required by law that if they had more than three months of fund balance they were required to spend that down. Um, as you probably have heard through uh budget uh presentations in the past, sometimes those decisions felt a bit rushed because you would find out a little later in the year.
039Well, they changed the rule and it's now six months. This spin down is still part of the old rule, but going once we spin this down and there is a plan approved by TDA and uh nutrition services fund is working with purchasing now to get these needed items uh in the right place and then going forward we will have six months of fund balance. That way we can take time to make sure that we have you know the time it takes to buy these this equipment because often this is capital equipment. It is a lot of planning, a lot of work with architects and construction and so we want to make sure we have adequate time to do that. And so this is once the spend down plan is done, then we'll be able to
040move forward under the new law. And then this is our debt services fund uh budget. So this is proposed right now based on the 3% growth uh taxable values. If we do experience higher than 3% growth in our taxable values, it will directly affect the INS budget. It doesn't offset like the general fund. All the increased dollars do go here. And so, um, this is based on our current, uh, debt service schedule for next fiscal year. And so, we're proposing it to be a zero impact of fund balance. But, um, as our values are more realized, we'll be bringing that information to you. So this is our next step. So this is just pulled directly from my budget uh timeline calendar. So we'll be moving into April with another board budget workshop where we be
041bringing you um raise scenarios um more detailed level of where we are in our operational budget. any other of the board requests that you would like to see. I imagine we'll likely be bringing you scenarios on how any of these bills are going to affect us. Um because by the time we get to April 28th, we're going to know more. And so there'll probably be some analysis to share with you then on how we'll be affected. Um we go into May, we'll have another budget workshop to kind of finalize all the questions, get everything together. hopefully um so that we can build our notice of public meeting that we have to put in the Dallas Morning News according to law. And then on June 16th is the regularly scheduled board of trustees meeting where we
042hope that you'll adopt the 2526 budget and proposed tax rate. And then upcoming budget workshop agenda so far it certainly can change. Uh we expect to bring raise scenarios, budget updates based on revenue with preliminary property value estimates, expenses with updated staffing analysis, additional fund balance estimates based on the information we have at a time, and then any analysis on legislative updates that may be affecting Duncanville ISD at that time as we know it. And that's it. I'm ready for questions. Do we have any questions or comments? Yes, Miss F. I'm sorry. I was going to reiterate a couple things before, but you before our questions, Dr. Gur, thank you. I do want to just reiterate a couple things and thank you very much, Miss Mayor, for your presentation. Uh, one thing I would like
043to reiterate though is uh when when we talk about pay for teachers and if you look at the chart there, you'll see that we are we're recommending at least $2,000 per teacher. Now, this would be in addition to anything that the state does because we have to remember that anything that the state does for us, they're going to do for all those districts. So, if we just solely rely on that, we will find ourselves still behind. So, we're looking to do 2,000 on top of whatever the state does as a minimum to bring us up to at least the par with our com neighboring districts. The next thing I will just quickly point out is that if you look at our budget, we have uh last year the we have historically outperformed the budget historically.
044In fact, if you'll remember, it was a deficit budget last year. We ended up making a deposit into fund balance. Uh if you look at this year, we went into this conversation with an $18 million deficit and we're looking at 10 and still working diligently every day to outperform that. So even though we are showing a deficit budget for next year, we are working to minimize that and looking and hoping that the state will come through with some of those additional revenues to help us in that space. But uh please know that uh and and certainly publicly thank uh Miss Mayo for really focusing the time and attention of staff around student achievement and really making sure that we are respectful and good stewards of our very healthy fund balance. And we do thank the
045board and any citizens that may be looking or anyone that's working in that space because uh this uh community has provided us with a healthy fund balance so that we can operate uh in best interest of children. Thank you. Thank you Dr. And um you me thank you so much for mentioning that that's 2000 in addition to what the state brings because the slide page nine those were my thoughts exactly well they're going to do the same thing we've been here before and so as we move then we're right back in the same spot. So, it does help that it's an additional 2,000 in addition to whatever the state does so that we can really try to move the needle for real in a in a way that makes us competitive. And then you also
046stole something else I was going to say is I wanted to uh applaud our our board and the financial stewardship. We have done a great job in making sure that we've placed the district in a good position financially. Um, so board, please give yourselves a hand because that takes a lot of work and a lot of uh sensitivity. Doesn't mean we've gotten everything right, but in that in that department, we've done a good job and the district is in a good position uh financially. And Miss Fehee, you had a question. Yes, ma'am. On page 11 where you have utility saves 90,000, is that electricity only or does that include water and gas? the utility right now. Those are the utilities, the electricity directly related to the installation of the new HVAC systems that are being
047installed AC with the bond. And so we did begin uh adding some of those systems this year and we'll be continuing to add those systems. And so I'm hopeful as I get to review the data after they've been installed, we'd be able to see some further positive changes. But that's simply based on some statewide estimates per unit in square foot that I I got from the state and just applied to our district. Thank you and thank you for your presentation. Yes. Thank you, Trusty Bar Cruz. Thank you again for your reports and um I'm very pleased on how you presented all of this. Very understandable. I had a question on page five regarding the ADA. You mentioned you caught you caught my attention by saying that you were going or there was a um all
048all out teaching or getting the teachers to understand about the ADA. Can you speak a little bit more about that and how important it is? Yes. And so um with some support of some district staff, we have been working with attendance clerks and registars and administration on the importance of ADA and really um what it means for the entire district. Uh we also taught um some of our future leaders in a class uh on this same thing. I think and we're going to continue this message, but the the primary message is just to share um how important taking that attendance on a day-to-day basis is, how important it is to encourage our students to come to school every day because it isn't just about money. It's about accountability and student growth. And so by marrying
049those two conversations together, I firmly believe um that if we understand the global impact, it makes a difference on what we do on a day-to-day basis. And so that's the me message that we're getting out. And it also helps me get in front of people and understand what our departments are doing. And so it's been an overall positive impact. Thank you so much, Trusty Coloulton. Thank you for your presentation, Mrs. Mayo. Um, I have several questions. On um on slide six, I was just wondering if a detailed staffing analysis has been performed in light of the school closures. What does that mean for us, if anything? So the at this that part of the work is being done right now with HR. So through their work um they've been taking uh information from those campuses
050and prioritizing where that the staff wants to be. They're looking at estimated enrollment from the demographer and the pe so that they can get the staff adequately placed. Um that analysis is happening right now. um they're just in the details of it. And so that's the work that we want to come and show you the impact of the budget in in April. Um we just don't have, you know, the devil's in the details. We just don't have the details right now, but we do expect it to be favorable when we come in April. We did capture estimates of that um in this slide. the renovations and closures we estimated. Now that includes some salary, some payroll and non-payroll estimates. We tried to add some estimates there so we could get an idea, but we won't
051know the exact detail till we come back in April. Okay. And then also on this slide, can we get breakdowns on these numbers like you know what's in the renovation closures uh the program changes um the central office budget reductions is um due to um I guess yeah if you can provide that information. I can I have it right now if you if you want. Um Okay. Are you ready? Okay. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, the the program changes is a combination of a few. Oh, yes. Yeah, that will be Yeah, that fine. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. If you whenever you know you uh supp um give the next presentation. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. And then also And on the um compensation scenarios, the 1% other staff 1% with benefits, would you provide further explanation regarding
052exactly what that is? Yes. So again, this is a financial forecast. So I took some actual raise scenarios that were presented to the board and I did a financial forecast and I kind of compared the two to make sure I was on the right track. So what this is is uh other staff would mean everyone except a teacher. So a function 11 professional teacher on a campus. So that would be 1% applied to the current salaries as they are today to all other staff with benefits added to give you an idea of what the impact might be to the general fund budget. So that's 1% of their salary, 1% increase or it is 1% increase. Yes, ma'am. But it's not on midpoint. I know we traditionally and as many districts do uh 1% to midpoint.
053This is just an estimate on overall salary. Okay. It's just simply for financial forecast purposes. And and if I may add something to that too is that we will probably we will not be in a financial situation where other staff will receive an equal raise to what teachers receive. But we know that uh historically the board has done something for other staffs at least. But uh unfortunately it probably will not be a recommendation that it is um equal to at all what a teacher will get. Okay. If I might add, um, in the current law and in the proposed law, if there is an increase to the basic aotment, there is a trigger for a raise. While there is a large percent of it that goes to teachers, the other 25% of that gain goes
054to other staff, nonadministrative other staff. So, but this proposal does not take into consideration any future appropriations by the legislature. That's correct. any if this were approved in the future, anything additional would would ride on top of that. And then so we have 747 teachers. I was thinking that it was maybe more. How many teachers do we have? We have roughly around 830. Oh, okay. I pulled this from the PE snapshot data. So it might I Okay. Okay. So, uh, Miss Brown mentioned there maybe some loss vacancies in that figure. Oh, okay. Okay. And then on slide 11, the um I guess the current expected adjustments under um 2526 I guess if you could align those with the other reductions if they can all just um be consistent so we'll know I guess if we
055get more details we'll be able to understand kind of how these fit compared to the others right um so if you would like to see more of a description instead of it all lumped together yes or maybe like detailed like a supplemental detail cuz I know you you know it's good to see it like this but just so we have details on on that. Yes. Abs like just a second slide that kind of highlights the ads and the tapes. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. Okay. And so the historical shs in 2019 we I guess can you explain this slide to me? I know that there have been, you know, we continue to get requests for payback, but um I would like to have an explanation of this one. Yes. And so um historically um school district so
056historic this is our school and health related services. So based on certain services that the district provides, we have been reimbursed for those services. So we go through every year we work very closely with special education in our finance department and we make a submission um based on it's called our cost report and it's based on the services that we have given to students all throughout the year. It's very detailed. It's very time consuming and it's a lot of detailed work. And so as a result of that reporting in the students that we served in Duncanville ISD, for example, we received a reimbursement from the federal government of the $1.6 million for the services that we gave to students that met the requirements of the law in 20. So in 2017 there was a court
057case that was brought that went all these years back in deliberation and so it was finally settled in 2022 when that happened districts everybody I know suffered a loss in their chars percentage because it was determined that the services weren't being appropriately ely submitted for reimbursement. They didn't actually meet the qualifications. Now the caveat there is that we were following the requirements of the state. It was just a court between. So we were receiving those reimbursements based on those student services. Um, now that 2019 one, my I don't have the details, but I know in 2019 with the district I worked in, and I knew several other it might be a little higher than those other years because they there was some changes made in 2019 that would allow you to go back in other
058years and get some reimbursement. So, we probably were able to increase. I don't expect 19, 20, and 21 to have been a real decline. I think it was based on historical um reimbursements they were receiving. But in 2022 when the court case hit, we basically went from expecting to receive around$ 1.5 to $1.3 million to getting under $500,000 and it was unexpected. We we did not know that was going to happen. And so when that court case was settled and so then it's further impacted us. So then that 22 23 number is a result of lower reimbursement percentages as well as paybacks. And so that's what that is. And so Chars is a year behind. So we're working on 2024 now. It's due tomorrow. And then we'll get the letter from them to know what
059we'll really could make our budget for next year. Right now, I'm just basing it on a very low like I think I put it at 500,000, but it's going to we'll know once we get our report and letter what it's really going to be for next year because they do tell you early. So, is this one of the things where the state picks up the slack? No. No, it's not. And yeah, um there in house or what are we what have we been talking about? Sorry. In Houseville 2, how could I forget? Uh there is language that does offer some reim some funding to districts to offset some of this. I I doubt it's going to be 1.5 million, but I don't I don't know the details. So, are we owed money from the state
060for anything? I know that, you know, previously there have been conversations about the state um not uh giving us, you know, money's sold and I'm just wondering is that still the case? I think there might be some um the state in 2019, the state updated the school funding finance formula and they since then they have been paying based on our tax rate and our student enrollment and all of our special populations according to 2019 funding formula. Um, I think where the kind of conversation is going to the state, they're not necessarily withholding the payments they said they were going to make. They weren't compensating districts basic allotment for the 22% increase in inflation that we felt. I think if is that maybe clarify your conversation? Clarifies. And so there's nothing in the statute that requires
061them to adjust it periodically. There has not been no ma'am. Okay. If I may add one thing to it, I think that's an excellent point. There is So, technically, they would say we paid you based on what the law says. Uh, however, there was no adjustments made to meet the the rising cost of educating children. One other thing I do want to point out about the SHA situation too is that this is a national problem. Uh, this is something that superintendent all across the country were hit because it was a federal issue. So, uh, and it is a huge hit because, uh, again, the services are still being provided, but yet we're not being reimbursed for them. Federal, it's federal. Thank you, Trustee Colton. So, can I go to uh slide 10? For the teacher
062salary increase, we usually include our counselors with the teachers or counselors in this as well. Or is this literally teachers only? Literal teacher FTS according to PE. So if we include that the FAV 4 will bring that information in April if you'd like to see that. Okay. Yes. Generally they've just been combined. So, I just wanted to make sure that this is just teachers that we're talking about. You're right. This is just teachers. Okay. Thank you. Who what's the other staff like principal? Principal. All other staff other than teaching to then teachers everybody ex I'm sorry. Will you turn your mic on coach so that they can uh get you? Yeah. Yes sir. It includes uh pair professionals, auxiliary principles, um aids on a campus. Yes. So we're not Okay. This $2,000 that's in addition
063to what the state will give. Yes, sir. Are we going to look at any scenarios that's more than 2,000? We certainly can. Let's do that. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. Is it just like you said earlier, they're going to if they do the same thing we're doing, we're still I won't say that, but we're still behind. So, we will have some competitive uh suggestions and options. Oh, somebody still has their trusty fee. This is going to be one of my weird questions. The 3% growth that is predicted or maybe we have does the city of Duncanville use that same predictor? I or do you know? I am don't now I I don't know. they they do their tax rate a little different than we do. So unfortunately I don't know but this is the percentage for
064market value growth and taxable value growth in the whole in our ISD. So we include part of Dallas County. And that's from our demographers. That is from DAD, the appraisal district because you know we have students and actually our board members, we live in Dallas and Dninnesota and anyway um back when the dinosaurs roamed and I was on the school board many years ago, we had joint city and school board meetings and we could discuss things like this such as, you know, if somebody says, "Well, taxes went up again." Well, well, not ours. Not you. I mean it was it might be a difference. Um I suggest that we might want to meet have a a a joint meeting. One more meeting Phil. I know you love me but I was just curious if they
065use the same. Okay. One one thing that is similar with cities is when in 2019 when they came out with the tax compression for ISDs um and we have to report our M tax rate to the state. They do. The state determines what our M tax rate is going to be outside of the pennies that we have approved. We don't really have any flexibility on how we determine our M tax rate. And cities are under that same limitation. It's not exactly like us, but they also experience tax compression in that way as well. So, we I think used to have more flexibility on how we uh chose our tax rate and had it adopted and that's been changed since 2019. in legislative session, though that could be one reason why those conversations changed. I'm I'm
066not sure. They're on TV. I'll sit with you. Any other questions or comments? Miss Mayo, my last question is, did we get the $2,000 increase from Will you go to slide nine? Did we just choose that just to give us an example to get us over onto the left hand side of the I that I believe that is a yes. Okay. So, okay. All right. It was just to make us competitive with some of our neighboring districts. Okay. And if I could add, we appreciate the board too saying that we do because we agree we do need to look beyond that because again we've seen this exact scenario before if you look at because I've gone back and look at the historic of how we got here and you would have like some of the
067districts that that touch us that would then jump ahead a thousand on top of whatever the state does. I do think we do need to to be aggressive in what we do so that we can uh at least be competitive in in our area. Trusty fee. Well, again, when the dinosaurs roam the earth, um, we Well, never mind because that was a long time ago and it doesn't it's probably not relevant. I'll be quiet. Well, thank you for answering that. And you know what? I'm I'm going to say it. We Dunavville wanted to be the first to put out our salary schedule because we were trying to get new teachers just sign sign and let's and get that salary out first. And then we later found that well okay the next district raised theirs maybe
068$500. So I don't know what's best. I mean what's our what's our plan early or late? I I think it's going to be in in your scenario later. Uh because that's exactly what has happened in a couple of situations. Uh but I you know I do think that as we go into June, it does help us for recruitment. Uh I do think that because I I really do believe the state is going to loosen uh the purse scraps this year. So I do think all of us are going to be in better positions there. But I do think leaning more toward the late, especially considering we are in a deficit situation is going to be the safest thing to do for the board. Thank you. But the other side of late is we have current
069employees that see our competitive districts um with the raise. And I'm not I'm not favoring one or the other. I'm just saying that there there are two sides to that. if if we if our employees don't understand that we're working on that too and then the next district, you know, post theirs, then we had we run the risk of, you know, people moving. So, I'm not sure which one. I just wanted to say there's two sides to that. Mhm. I just want to know what I'm If I could add one more thing when we're thinking about these is when we have vacancies in our district oftentimes they're offset with some contract services to cover the vacancies and those are always much more expensive than the cost of the position. So when we're considering this teacher
070increase, please know that there will be some contract service offsets that will in reduce the impact of that and we can share that with you in April as well. We are asking for that. Um we want to know the full picture um and so that we can make informed decisions and making that happen. um the raises that is perfect. Thank you, Trusty Phillips. Miss Mayo, I'm a visual person. So on this on the um slide 10, other staff other staff, would you break those down and provide a breakdown of who's included in the 1% and the 2%, please? Yes, of course. Thank you. Anybody else? Question, comment, discussion being that there are no further items to discuss. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So move second. It's been motioned and second. Please cast your
071votes. I don't think we have to vote on that. Do we have to vote on that? No, we don't. We're adjourned. Oh, it's a motion. Okay. Okay, please cast your votes electronically to adjurnn. I don't remember. I don't remember. Motion carries. 6. Thank you. Good night.