001Good afternoon everyone. The board of the trustees of the Harris County Department of Education is now convened in a regular board meeting on Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 in room 401 at 6300 Irvington Boulevard, te Houston, Texas at 1:04 p.m. We wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present at this meeting of the board of trustees. As trustees, we are here to set goals, listen to reports from the superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, personnel appointments, and set policy for the district. It is not the role of the board to make day-to-day operational decisions. The management and day-to-day operations of the department are the responsibility of the superintendent. We have policies and procedures in place to resolve concerns and issues. This is a meeting of the public. This is a public meeting of the board of trustees,
002not a meeting of the public. Prior to this meeting, board members received information related to items on today's agenda. Agenda items will not necessarily be handled in the order listed on the notice. The meeting is open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed. During the course of this meeting, the board may determine that a closed session is necessary. In that event, the board will meet in a closed session to consider matters duly posted for this meeting as permitted by section 551.074 to 551.084 inclusive of the Texas government code. I respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are turned off or in silent mode. Thank you for taking time today to join us and for your interest in the Harris County Department of
003Education. Hello everyone. We will open today with invocation as usual. Dr. Sylvester. in the best interest of children and those that are in the best interest of our communities that we serve on today. Allow your spirit to be with us to guide us and to keep us that we may do all that which you have called and designed us to do. It's in your son Christ Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. And for the pledge of allegiance for the US flag and the Texas flag, we have Ashley Ford. >> Oh, so I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One
004state under God, one and indivisible. Okay. Uh we do not have any public participation today. So we'll move on to reports and presentations. And we'll begin with employee of the month. >> President Henosa, board of trustees, Mr. Colbert. Today is my pleasure to introduce to you Miss Denise Bologanos, our April 2026 employee of the month. Miss Bologanos is a program manager with our adult education program, working with students striving for their high school equivalency diploma. Helping others is second natur second nature to Miss Bologanos who grew up interpreting English for her parents and neighbors. This skill has served her well in her career, transforming into an ability to relate to others and help them achieve their goals. Under her leadership in the last two years, the number of GED students graduates has almost doubled. She
005has also expanded partnerships with local businesses to support students, including getting additional graduation gowns donated so more students could walk in the ceremony. Denise provides strong leadership while fostering a collaborative, accountable, and student- centered team culture. The nomination reads, "She consistently demonstrates what it means to be varsity, showing up prepared, thinking strategically, and holding herself and her team to a high standard of excellence." Miss Bologano's nomination for the recognition came from an unlikely source. Trina Civil, director of of education foundation of Harris County, knew Miss Bologanos from their time at Sam Houston State University. Over the years, they grew apart but met back up at ACD shortly after they both started working here. Since then, Miss Silva says she has been she has seen Miss Bolognos go the extra mile to support her students and
006make their journey toward a high school diploma memorable. This exemplify the spirit of the employee of the month award and Sil knew she had the perfect candidate. Denise exemplifies ACD's mission through her dedication to students, her ability to lead and support staff, and her unwavering focus on ex expanding access, dignity, and opportunity for adult learners. Miss Civil said her results speak for themselves and her impact will be felt for years to come. Our comm's division has made a short video about Miss about Miss Milano and her contributions to adult ed and HCDE. My name is Denise Bologanos and I am a program manager for the adult education department. What I love about the fact that I am overseeing the GED program here is that I can just go downstairs to the third floor and see
007the students to go walk through these hallways. Whenever you have one of those days where maybe it could be a little bit stressful, uh, walking on the third floor really helps put things into perspective. Again, >> she is willing to go above and beyond for everything that she does, but she's so passionate about what she does. She really cares about students. She really cares about her colleagues, and she cares about the mission of HCDE and education in general. The graduation to me is one of those uh events that help me remember my why uh why we do what we do. We don't um see numbers as just data or just students but we really see the stories behind these students. Uh we know their struggles, we see their obstacles, we see the the effort that
008they put in, the hours that they put in. When we get to see how proud their family um are of them, uh it's such a wonderful feeling. I see such growth in her, especially like that shy person that I knew in college. She's grown to be this professional. She's very strong in everything that she does and she's just super amazing. So, when I first started in this role, which was now going to be about 2 years ago, we typically would reach between 125 to close to 150 graduates per year. And uh since then we have went to last year reaching 274. It was something that I felt the most proud of. My vision for our future here at Harris County Department of Ed is to expand our graduate numbers. Uh we finished with 275 and
009we hope to finish this year with 300 plus. We definitely want to expand that uh to 350 to 400 and it would mean that we're impacting more lives here at Harris County. Please join me in recognizing Mr. Denise Bologanos, our April 2026 employee of the month. Okay, we will move on move on to the superintendent monthly report. >> Thank you. Uh not many things to update the board on this month. Uh just want to follow up. Yesterday Dr. Honor and I had an opportunity to go out to HCC with two of our trustees, both you and Dr. uh McGee, Trusty McGee, and we met with the College of Health Science to look at some collaborative efforts that we might be doing moving forward with our adult ed program. The only other thing I want to
010update everyone on is that we have our annual picnic in the parking lot. Now, it's important that you know, you know that because we got plenty of food going around and lots of games and some door prizes. Dr. Mr. McGee, you know, you're usually out there dancing with the staff and but you can only have one entree. It's either barbecue or or a fish. You can't have both, Parker. Everybody laughs cuz they know what I'm talking about. Sometime somehow he ends up with two tickets every year. Uh, so it'll be this Friday, um, starting at 11. He hit start will actually come out 11:45, so we don't have a congested line. Next week it'll be on Thursday at 11:30. So we invite all the board members to participate in that. It's an opportunity to fellowship.
011It's only taken an hour or two out of the day for us to come together as a family and just kind of let our head hair down and just fellowship with one another and enjoy being an employee at HCD. With that, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. We have two uh division updates, one with human resources and another with head start. We will start with human resources. Right. Good afternoon. It's our pleasure to be able to share with you about uh our human resources team on today. And so I would ask if our team would please stand. Our HR team uh we HAVE we have our new HR director, Miss Stacy Gibson. She got here as fast as she could. Uh Miss Ashley Barker is our compensation analyst. Miss Chris Duke, Miss Nora
012Lauren Nyl, Miss Elena Lopez are our HR coordinators. Miss Eric Ibata, our benefits coordinator, Miss Jakha Haynes, risk management specialist, Miss Candy Salsa, benefits specialist, Miss Mon Whitney, administrative assistant, and Miss Nancy Agetta Cruz, recruitment specialist. We couldn't do it without this fabulous team. So, let's celebrate them on today, please. Thank you. So, a little bit a little data about our HR team. So this is our ACDE workforce. Uh in that first number of A34 uh those are your those are your schools divisions your therapy case a head start ed and so that's the number of employees we have in those in those different areas. The operational support services are your CES, uh, CS3, your REI, and your grant teams. Uh, systemwide or your HR, communications, uh, your business services, IT, and some of those
013groups are in there. And then your enterprise, of course, those your choice partners and your records teams that are in those numbers. So, we have a total of 1,65 employees. We still have more females than males. We're working on that. You know, we only made it up to the kneecap. All right. So, this this shows uh our level uh of of certifications and and degrees. And I want to point out, you know, uh we all know that the market is pretty difficult right now to find certified and high highly qualified teachers. Uh but not in Harris County. we have full staff of of certified individuals even in this market where it's pretty difficult uh with your support and with your backing with superintendent Cobra support uh and the competition that we offer and and the
014culture that we offer we're able to be very competitive uh in the market and so the result of that is that uh we have fully certified individuals working with our students and every school organization cannot say that but we can so we take a lot of pride in that. This shows uh staff years for HCDE years. So it shows that 63% of our current staff members uh have been at HCDE for uh 0 to 5 years. Now behind that data is to understand that of those people that are new to HCDE uh the average years of experience for those individuals is nine years. So we're hiring experienced talent people that come with skill sets with knowledge and so we're hiring high level individuals to come into our organization. Uh the 6 to 10 year uh
015the 16% those individuals come with 16 years of experience on the average. So again this this shows us that that we have new people coming in but they're very experienced. We're uh our plans are working, our strategy is working. We're getting uh soldiers. We're getting people who understand what it is to work with with with colleagues and work work with students. And so we're getting the right people into the organization. We're getting strong talent within the organization. Again, uh we couldn't do that without the support of you all who are here today. So, thank you for that. As you can see here, we're trending uh to where we're probably going to uh double and surpass uh our current data from last year. So, a lot of application. There's a lot of interest in Harris County
016Department of Education. I could tell you personally, I get phone calls. I get emails. I get messenger from Facebook. You know, what do y'all have open? What do you all have open? The word is out there that Harris County is a great place to come and work, have work life balance, work with kids, work with great individuals. And so, the work the word is out there and people are interested in being here. Even so much on Saturday, uh, we hosted our third job fair at our separate locations. Uh last year we had a total of 40 candidates that that met us last year. This year we had 63. 63. 41 of those 63 were looking for teacher jobs. So they want to teach at Harris County Department of Education. Again, because of what you all
017have done to support us in in making this organization competitive, you know, when our with our compensation structure, our benefits, and the culture that we have, we we're able to say 41 out of 60 that are looking to teach teach in this organization. And uh that's that's that's that's pretty big. Same holds true here. We see that we are that we're on track to uh to double uh our full-time new hires, but we also see that we're on track to decrease in our separations. So, people are coming in and we're seeing a trend where people are staying and that's that's what we want because every time somebody walks out the door, that's talent. Those are resources that we placed into those individuals. So, we're seeing the trends that we want to see and we have
018something that we can build upon and so we'll continue to build upon that. Miss Gibson, >> thank you Dr. Sylvester. Uh, good afternoon board and um, Superintendent Colbert. Um, I am honored to speak with you very briefly about um, things that are going on in human resources. So, we are be with with regards to our benefit enrollment, we are being very intentional. I would like to thank the board for the support that you've given into our employee assistance programs because we are noticing that employees are taking advantage of those programs. But we are being more intentional in order to raise the number of employees that are taking um advantage of those programs. Programs like Foundation 99 which we are offering free to um to our staff for financial literacy support. Um in addition to a
019very robust EAP EAP program that is supporting um our employees, our EAP is exceptional as we have the opportunity to meet face toface, virtually um and via telephone with our our supporters. Um our risk management risk management data we are trending to be comparable to um last year with regards to um our workers compensation numbers from our uh records received to our actual workers compensation records that were processed. We are on in line to be in compliance again. So here we have um a description of the various leaves that are offered to employees here at HCDE. Um the human resources department remains available to support employees through any um leave workers compensation situation that they may be in. And then just some key highlights for you. Again, we are being intentional in our efforts to
020um to build that that EAP program that we are looking for. So this year we're introducing wellness ambassadors to the department which are um that it's that to bridge that connection excuse me between human resources and our our varied sites. So we will use those individuals to push information onto the campuses into the departments to ensure that there is um knowledge of what we have. In addition we are u migrating into a new um employee open enrollment benefit system. We are moving to FF enroll which is a system that is going to be extremely employeefriendly much more so than the system that we have in place right now. >> One more thing. So uh one of the great things that we were able to do this year is that we were able to add Qualrix
021to our survey process. And so what Qualrix does is it allows us to get information today, current information. We're not waiting to the end to get feedback from our employees. This allows us to get feedback throughout the year. And so the the process that we have in place is that uh each employee on their birthday, they receive a survey on their birthday to give us feedback as to their employee experience. So that if we see that there's a a concern or there's a pattern of concerns in October, we're not waiting till May to address those concerns. We want to address those concerns as soon as they become a pattern so that we can address them in a timely manner. It's kind of like driving a car. You know, you don't want your car to tell
022you you're on empty, you know, 15 miles later. You want to know as you go, you know, where am I? How when do I need to stop? What do I need to do to make sure that we're full? And it gives us that current information, timely information so that we can make those decisions. So, this is what Qualrix is doing for us. And we want to thank our REI team uh for their assistance and their leadership in helping us build this and bring this to fruition. On another note also on the the success of the job fair I also want to thank our comm's partners uh come communications they have done a great job of helping us getting the word out and so part of that success is our comm's team getting the word out
023and making sure people know that that we have these job fairs available and that and we have we're looking for people that are talented. So so thank our comm's team for their assistance. So one of the the focal points of this year when we started uh in our uh we got together and we had our uh our meetings with HR we talked about the coffee bean and so in our retreat I did a presentation on the coffee bean many of you have heard about the coffee bean uh the book it's a great book to have and the whole premise is that we transform our environment as the coffee bean transforms the water we transform our environment and that's so important in HR because we're we're the face of the organization we're the first people that
024people meet when they come be a part of this organization. And we have the ability to set the stage. We have the ability to set the water and to to change the environment that that we work in. And so we get we get the opportunity to do that and we choose to do that every single day. That's been a focal point of ours because a lot of times in HR, you know, you you have different types of situations that come your way, but we get to choose how we respond to it. Are we going to respond or are we going to react? and we choose to respond as a HR team and we realize that every day we get to make a choice in how we serve our community and how we serve this organization.
025And so with that, we thank you for the privilege of being able to serve and be a part of your HR team. What questions do you have? >> Uh well, I'd just like to say that you know the people who work with Harris County Department of Ed, it's it's our secret sauce. I mean, it's the thing that makes any organization great. It's not the facilities. It's not the t-shirts. It's not any of that. It's the quality of the individuals that work for the entity. Our HR department takes it personal. And you know, when you showed that chart of longevity and how many years, half that's in HR. They've been here for 15, 20 years. We have some seasoned individuals who know this organization inside and out. They know every division. They know what the schools
026look like. They know what the students look like. They're very engaged and hyper professional, on point. And so I I'm feel so blessed to work for an organization that has an HR department with the type of chemistry that they have. They work well together and they work as a team and they're a small group, but a powerful one. Um, and so I just appreciate your leadership, but most of all, I appreciate all the people who reside in your division and how much they care about the organization that they represent and ensure that we get the right people in this organization to take us where we want to go. And the final thing that I'll say is, you know, Dr. Sylvester is good at pushing the envelope. I mean, he's he's advocating for all the employees
027at HCD. We were on a phone call, a Zoom for an hour today just going through every single position, making sure we're competitive with the entire area with what we pay our staff and also looking at benefits. And it's a lot to take in. This this county is massive. It's the third largest county in the United States. There's 980,000 students in this county. It's huge and hyper competitive. We got large school districts and we're competing against some of the largest in the state if not the country. And trying to stay competitive with them, not just salary, but benefits to try to, you know, fight over the most quality staff is not easy to do. And we're finally on I think we're on the upper edge of that, you know, where people and I've talked to
028superintendents. They're like, man, I can't keep up with y'all because I'm they're losing good people to us. And I tell them, don't hate the player, hate the game, man. It's not my fault you can't keep them. So, um, I appreciate your leadership, sir, and keep doing what you're doing and certainly keep your staff doing what they're doing, and I appreciate y'all. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, the next update is from Head Start. Good afternoon. Um, I'm Venita Peacock. I have the pleasure of serving as the senior director of Head Start under the leadership of Jonathan Parker. I'd like to introduce you to our leadership team if they would stand. And then we have some other support staff standing behind them. If I'd ask all the histo staff to stand. Um
029I'd like to take I'm not going to call out the names. You see their names there. This is the leadership team on the first two rows. I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about what an exemplary team they are and how committed they are to the mission of HCDE and to Head Start. And I just want to they don't I don't often get to the chance to recognize them in public. They are the heartbeat of this program. Head Start is hard work sometime, but mostly it's hard work because we're always working with people and this is the group that keeps the heart moving and they sustain the beats. So, thank you. So, let's talk about our program model. We haven't changed much. We're 12 campuses, four childcare partners. We have 302
030staff and 4 and 41 um partnership staff. Our budget is 19.5 million between the two grants that we have for Head Start. We are extremely proud of the fact that we have been able to achieve and maintain enrollment and as you can see our enrollment has um this is our cumulative roman for the year and it has been uh steadily moving forward. So I want to share a little bit about what's happening in Head Start. It's been a really busy year for us. Uh we started off in October celebrating the um head start awareness month where we had over 65 partners come in. Uh I'm sorry, 45 partners come in. Um we are required to get a 20% match. These people make it possible by working with us, donating to us and providing services to
031our children and families. Uh we went on to have our healthy mind healthy family conference which is a partnership with the hog foundation. Our keynote speaker was Dr. Nicole Willis from Texas Southern University where we talked about the impact of self-care on the educator's ability to be uh effective. Then we had an opportunity to do something different. We had um our rising star academy this year and the whole point of this program was to build leadership capacity. We were funded through a special uh funding um through ACDE to be able to create leadership to to build up leadership. So it was a six session session um leadership group. Uh as you see our superintendent led us off um in the leadership uh sessions during the training with the staff. We had a group of five
032potential uh potential employees who desire to be leaders in the Hear program. Along with that we also doing a book study with John Maxwell's um leadership book. Here you will see the topics that we discussed last night. We had our final session with the privilege of Dr. Sylvester giving us um a leadership on accountability. And then in January, we had a surprise visit from the federal reviewers. They just showed up and said, "Hey, we're doing an unannounced visit." Um but thank God we run on systems and our systems were in place. Uh and we were able to invite uh the reviewers in. They did interviews of policy council, our board members, staff, and parents. Um and they looked at 145 of our eligibility records. Um we did get our report back and we have two
033areas that we need to work on. Our childare partnerships had stopped brushing the having the children brush their teeth. Um so we have already got on top of that and we are required to have 10% of our enrollment of children uh with a disability. It is midway through the school year. We have to the end of the school year to meet that. If not, we will do what's appropriate and apply for a waiver. We also had strong practice where they identified practices that we do that are different from other places that they see. So, our integrity of our application and eligibility process was held up as a strong practice. Here you see uh another partnership that we have this year that's new to us. It's our Sanjack early childhood work study students. Through a grant
034um that Sanjack received, they were able to pay students who are in early childhood classes to work at sites and they chose us to be a pilot site to do that. So we have a work study students on our campus. We also have a new partnership with the nursing department and we had 23 Sanjag nursing students rotate through our campus to work in the classroom with the children and teachers uh where they uh did heights and weights um did lessons on handwashing and then just uh supported the teacher in the classroom with the students then rolls around February the month of love. is an opportunity for the staff in the Head Start program to show their love and their appreciation for their uh colleagues. And so we do this uh and communication helps us and
035works out works with us so that we can recognize the folks who carry the values and um exemplify great work in the Head Start program. And then was National Nutrition Month. It's when we invite our parents out um to one eat with the children, but to also talk to them about the importance of dining and family style meal service. The opportunity for them to get to eat the food that the children, but also an opportunity for us us to educate them about the importance of nutrition, which lead us right into our Little Chefs Big Flavors Food Science Fair finale. Um this is a first this year. Normally every year we have the food science fair. Each campus has a contest that the children pick a fruit or a vegetable. They go home, they work out
036a recipe with their parents and they come and compete. When they compete at the center, then they wind up um they win. And here are all the finalists from the campuses. Aren't they cute? >> Um and then they >> Well, we got a couple in there. And uh then them and their family, they come up and they set up their booths and they show their food off. And then we have our lovely I I keep want to call her cucumber, but she's a she's a corn. Um and the education team and the nutrition team did activities with the parents and the children. It was it was a beautiful event. Um and then we have our winners here. And then we have our lovely judges who had an opportunity to um sample all of the dishes.
037>> You know, it's so ironic that Mr. Mr. Parker is in the photo following the food stuff. >> Uh also, I would like to highlight one of our uh parents and our center at Channel View. Channel View uh campus managers uh campus campus managers the team uh decided that they really needed to have more male involvement. So one of our fathers Mr. Omar Contrarus worked with the team to put on a training and so he was able to have about 65 fathers come out. almost every child was represented by a male figure and the and the ones that were there helped out with the kids who weren't able to have one and they had a lovely event and a lovely training and I just think that's awesome and we work to do more of that.
038Um, this week is the week of the young child. So, we invite you to come out and join us. You don't need an appointment. You don't have to make a call. Just show up. The kids are going to be doing some awesome things. The community is invited in. Um, and we'd love to see you there. What is on the horizon for Head Start? Um, the expansion of our Lawson Academy partnership at Compton. We have five classrooms there with teachers in it. They are going to give us five teachers, which will allow us to um do more with our funds because that's four teaching assistants that we won't need to pay for. Uh but those teachers will be placed in other positions in the Head Start program. We'll also be expanding um three classrooms of early
039Head Start students at the Compton location and uh our Rising Star Academy and some of our education staff will be traveling uh to Minnesota for the National Head Start Conference the first week of May. >> Questions? Superintendent? I just, you know, I love Head Start. You know, I think I think we really underestimate the impact that we have on little ones. You know, all the photos you just showed, you know, those provide cultural excursions for those kids. And, you know, I think we talk about working with the students and working with the parents, but also I think what we're doing with the little ones is showing them that the planet's not flat. you know, for them to have an opportunity to see beyond their neighborhood, to get exposed to things that they wouldn't get exposed
040to so they can create new benchmarks, you know, and they're so excited when they see people who genuinely care about them. And we don't know what they're going through at home. >> We have no idea, you know, but we know what we have when they come in the classroom. And so there's no better situation that you know you impact a person's life than to impact them as a five or six-year-old. You know, try doing it to a 17-year-old. Way harder. >> You won't know if you've done anything with that person. So, I just want y'all to know how special that you are and how powerful it is what you do. And you could do many other things, but for whatever reason, you choose to work with the little ones. and they may never be able
041to tell you. So, I'm telling you for them that you make an incredible impact on every single one of their lives. And so, for that, I appreciate you. >> All right. Any reports from board members about attendance or participation in any events? Seeing none. Oh, trusty GU. >> Thank you, President Hinosa. Um, just wanted to bring up um an event that happened last month here. Uh the HCDE hosted and sponsored uh workforce um workforce careers and and college day for lack of better word sponsored by the REI Foundation and I think the uh North Side Chamber of Commerce was involved and they also connected with uh State Rep. Christina Morales who usually does a uh college and career day and they joined forces and and held it here. I had uh I was approached by
042the organizers to see how we could um participate and and sponsor. And so I communicated to the to the department uh asking for us to do so. And I've just I'm I'm happy to find out just now that we did step up and we did sponsor the event. And um specifically the request I got was to uh help with transportation from all the area high schools uh and that that was one of the missing links. Um, and I know there was some issues about whether we could do that directly with HISD or if we had to uh, you know, be creative in our in our sponsorship, but uh, I was just a little concerned that I never heard back from anybody u in the department about whether that had gotten done or not. And so
043I was uh a little bit embarrassed um not knowing if we had sponsored or not and um decided not to show up because um again I wasn't sure that we had that we had sponsored it or not. So I was just I'm glad that we did and proud that we stepped up. Uh I'm just a little concerned about the communication. I think there's some room for improvement. Um just wanted to bring that up. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Canto. And then any report from uh report of board committees? I don't think we've had any. Okay, we'll move on to monthly financial reports with our CFO, Ann Westbrooks, >> Miss Miss Westbrooks. I'm sorry. personally. >> This is a ritual. It has nothing to do with you. >> Let it go. >> It's symbolic. >> It's
044my microphone on. Good afternoon, President Henosa, members of the board, and Mr. Colbert. This afternoon, I have two reports for you. Starting with the monthly financial report for the month ended March 31st, 2026. So for the month of March, we are just a little bit beyond the halfway mark for the 2526 fiscal year at about 58% of the year that uh is behind us. And so for the year-to- date March 31st, 2026, our year-to- date revenues in the general fund were $56 million, of which 3.8 or just below $3.8 million was received during the month of March. So, thus far, we've received about 72% of our total budgeted revenues. And as you can see on the second line there, we've received 95% of our budgeted property tax revenue. And so, property tax heavy collections December
045and January. So, we get all those funds during those months and then it trickles in throughout the rest of the fiscal year. So, it looks as though we're well above our projected budget target for revenues, but then that'll smooth out as we continue through the fiscal year. This is a look at our tax collections. Just a comparison between where we budgeted our property values to be compared to where we are now. Throughout the entire tax season, there's always protests, there's hearings, and so property values are changing across the county. We budgeted originally with the property values being at 688 billion. Currently, as of the end of March, we're at 683 billion. And we we monitor that because it has an impact on how much we're set to receive with our property tax levy. So right
046now that difference that delta between the 688 and 683 billion is about a $210,000 impact on what we budgeted versus what we would receive with those resulting values. So with that information coupled with of course our collection rate, we just continue to monitor that throughout the fiscal year. This is a look at our revenues with all of our funding sources. General fund, special revenue funds, debt service, and all all funding sources. And so, of course, we just spoke about general funds. Debt service funds is one that we have revenue or only have um revenue coming in. It's transferred out of the general fund and goes over to debt service to make those payments. We only make those in February and August. So, year to date, you can see that we've had our February payment that's
047come out. We have the August one yet to come. All the other funding sources are for the most part the revenues are relatively in line with the month or they're tracking ahead. On general fund expenditures, we have total expenditures year-to- date of $40.3 million of which 4.8 million was expensed in the month of March. And of course, largely that is our payroll cost that is on pace. And so overall our total expenditures year to date is at about 53% which is a little bit behind the time of the year which is 58%. So that means we're materializing some savings with our budget compared to our actual expenditures. This will look at all funds general funds special revenue all funding sources. And so total year-to- date expenditures for all funds just under 75 million of which
0489.8 8 million just shy of 10 million was in the month of March. Here's a look at the education foundation and where we stand so far. So as of March, we had $467,000 in the education foundation of which 339,000 had been allocated to special programs which you can see listed there. And we have about 128,000 that is unallocated. With our small business report, we had one just under 1.9 million in expenditures that were to small businesses compared with the total business of 9.3. Our ratio is just over about 20% of small business expenditures compared to total. And here's a list of each one of the vendors that make up that total amount of 1.9. So that is our monthly financial report as of March 31st, 2026. And of course, the full report was provided to
049you all for your review and is also posted on our website. Okay. >> Okay. If there are no questions then I would move to our investment report. Okay. So prior to now we were doing a monthly investment report and so the last report that you all saw was in the month of December which covered through uh the month of November for investments. We're moving towards a quarterly investment report. So this is a report for the quarter ended February 28, 2026, which is the second quarter for fiscal year 2526. This is all of the statutes that we're required to follow as we're developing our investment report. And so you can see here at the end of February, we're just looking at a comparison of what's happening with interest rates in this fiscal year compared to last
050fiscal year. And so we know interest rates were cut in the last quarter last year. There were three rate cuts that ended up being about 75 basis points total in the decrease in interest rates. And so as you look at fiscal year 26, you can see they're of course trending down compared to the year before. And as we go through the investment report, we'll look at interest revenue and what our balances are. But our approach which is based on policy public funds investment act is our approach is is that our first is to make sure that our principal is safe ensure that our funds are available they're liquid when we need to pay our expenditures pay our bills and then lastly we attempt to increase our investment income and and take advantage of the yield
051available in the market. So, here's our portfolio that includes both the Harris County Department of Ed and our public facilities corporation um portfolio, total portfolio together. Book value for all intents and purposes equals market value. So, you'll only see us reporting market value, but just know the two are one and the same. And so, our market value for all our total portfolio for HCDE is 65.4 million. We've earned just shy of a million dollars at 918,000 in interest revenue. With our PFC, the market value is $15,000 with just under $3,700 in investment income. This is another look at the same numbers for the ATD portfolio, but you can see where we began at the end of November with a beginning balance of 47.3 million. We had an increase of 18.1 million with that ending balance
052at 65.4 million. And as I mentioned, heavy tax collections were happening in that quarter and particularly in December and January. So that's where that change in our position comes from. And the average yield throughout the quarter was about 3.7%. Another look so you can see where our funds are actually invested within our portfolio and 94% of our funds are invested in pools which are created specifically for organizations educational organizations such as Harris County Department of Ed keeps the fund safe liquid and so 94% are in those pools and the other 6% are within our depository bank at uh JP Morgan case. You can see now exactly where each by each one of those pools, how much funds we have in each one. And then we work our way back to that total portfolio amount of
05365.4 for HCDE plus the small amount we have left in the public facility corporation, that 105,000 for a total of uh just over 65.5 million. And this is the portfolio for the PFC by itself. You can see we started with 104.6,000 increase of $853 with that ending amount of 105.4. And that's our quarterly investment report for the second quarter of 2026. >> Thank you, Miss Westbrook. uh just uh I didn't catch it in there. I'm sure it's on one of the slides. Can you tell us what the uh fund balance is or the surplus? I think >> which so I didn't intentionally say the fund balance surplus at this point in the year because it would be misleading because we've received so much of our tax revenue. So if we look at our revenue received
054year to date compared to our expenditures, it would look like, oh, we have all this money left over. But as I mentioned, the revenues will continue to smooth out throughout the year and then at the end of the year, we'll see revenues compared to expenditures. So right now, I still feel as though we're trekking towards a small increase in fund balance, but it's just not as clear right now because we've received so much of our tax revenue at this point in the year. >> Okay. Well, um I guess let me restate it. Based on our budget, what is our fund balance >> based on the budget itself? the the budget was actually close to balanced, so that would be no increase. But when we're looking at actual revenues and actual expenditures and how I believe
055they're going to end the year, I feel as though we'll have a small increase to fund balance. >> Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always heard that we were somewhere around 30 million. >> Oh, you just want the balance? Oh, the balance is 37 million. Yes. >> Mhm. >> All right. Thank you. Yes. For the consensus action items. Um I don't actually have to pull it. I just need make a note. Right. Okay. So making a note on the consensus action items for 5F. That date is through 6:30 2031. There is a typo there. >> Well, >> so that's F5. >> Yeah. >> Does it go that long? >> Correct. >> That would be a long time. >> Be a long time. >> Yes. >> And so with that, um, does anyone have
056any action items to pull? Recall if you have discussion, we can pull for discussion without pulling the action items. I have discuss discussion questions but I do not need to. >> Okay. And with that, do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Um motion for uh consensus items moved by trustee Duhan and seconded by Trusty McGee. And any discussion? So I have questions on E2 and then F5 and six. As far as E2, um I'm just curious about this contract. What bus fleet are we looking to utilize this contract for? >> So for E2, this is consider approval of the following items for the HCD Choice Partners Cooperative. >> So this contract um last legislative session there were some changes um requiring school districts to uh make modifications to their buses, including seat belts.
057So, we did a contract with Choice Partners for any and all school districts to be able to use to uh improve the safety of their buses and meet the new regulations. >> Okay. So, just all ISDs with transportation could be able to utilize our >> It applies to any and all governmental entities and nonprofits. >> Okay. Just wanted some clarification. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> Um and then F5 and six, I just want some explanation. -ate services for categories one and two for lightwave PS lightwave and datab box. Yes, these are for uh as category one is our data connections uh throughout all the campuses. Um and it covers our fiber, our internet, our WAN connections and um everything related to that. >> So this is just a renewal. >> It is
058a renewal. Yes. >> Okay. I just wanted a clarification. >> Do we usually have renewal on there whenever it is? >> Okay. >> This will be a new multi-year contract. Do we see? >> Okay. >> Um, so ready for a vote. >> Trust me, >> I'm sorry. I just had a quick question. Oh, no problem. >> I don't see any amounts. You said a renewal. Is it a continuation of what we're currently paying or is there is there an increase? >> In this case, there is uh no increase uh to the rate to the base rates. Uh there have been some uh improvements and upgrades to the service levels and I can get that information to you if you if you need the exact amount in the backup. >> No, I'm fine. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate
059you, sir. >> Should Is it not in the backup of the agenda item? >> Excuse me. >> Is it in the backup for the agenda? The post the agenda item >> the amount >> uh the amount will be I will have to see. This was uh posted by the procurement division. >> I'm seeing I'm seeing Dr. Johnson saying >> it's in the backup. >> Okay. >> So, we're good. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All in favor? All right. Motion motion passes 50. All right. For action items for non-consens consensus items. The first item, consider approval of fiscal year 2025 through 2026 investment resolution for the annual review of HCDE investment policy. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Motion. Trusty Duhan. Seconded by Trusty Gandu. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes 5-0.
060Consider approval of the 2026 2027 HCDE work holiday calendar. >> Mo moved by Trustee Duhan, >> seconded by Trusty Gthu. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes. 5-0. Consider approval of job order contract with dependable comfort air conditioning and heating. You have a motion. So >> um Trusty GU >> seconded by Trustee McGee. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes 5-0. Consider ratification of amendment number three to service agreement between HCDE and childcare centers to increase amount from 120,000 to 300,000 for the period of 982025 through 12312026 to provide substitute teachers and teachers assistance for the head start program. >> Moved by trustee Gantu seconded by trusty Duhan. Any discussion? >> Yes. Get a explanation. >> Explanation please. Yes, sir. We need to um we have extinguished the amount that we had available to get
061the substitutes that are filling in for slots that we're still hiring for. So, we need additional funds in order to be able to cover the substitutes, >> but it reads as if we normally budget 120 and we're increasing it to 300. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, is there a is there an issue like are we having trouble filling our positions or are are kids the number of kids increasing? What's going on? We are having a hard time finding um qualified staff for some of the teaching positions because we have our health and human ser our office of head start requirements and then we're also expanding and we need additional early Head Start teachers and we need to open up at Compton in June. So we need to be able to have subs until we can
062get the hiring process taken care of. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Any other questions? All in favor? Motion passes. 50-0. Consider ratification of amendment to contract between adult education and Burlington English to increase amount from 91,800 to 102,600 for the period of 712025 through 630 2026. >> Moved by Trusty Ku, seconded by Trusty Duhan. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes 5-0. Consider second reading and final approval of the revised and new board local policies. So >> motion by trusty duhan, seconded by trusty GU. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes 5. And we will not move to executive session today. So, um, is there any discussion and possible action regarding future agenda items? >> I'd like to request, um, I don't know if it needs to be an agenda item, but request an
063update on, uh, our surplus property >> for that. >> Okay. Anything else? Okay. And if that um is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Moved by Trusty Duhan, seconded by Trusty Gantu. And with that we adjourn. >> We do have to vote. All in favor? >> Okay. All in favor to adjourn. Uh that's it passes 5-0 and we adjourn at 2:04 p.m.