001[Music] Hello everyone. Welcome. The board of trustees of the Harris County Department of Education is now convened in a regular board meeting on Wednesday, April 16th, 2025 in room 401 at 6300 Irvington Boulevard, Houston, Texas at 10:02 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 board are the responsibility of the superintendent. We have policies and procedure in place to resolve concerns and issues. This is a public meeting of the board of trustees, not a meeting of the public. Prior to
002this 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 close session to consider matters duly posted for this meeting as permitted by section 551.071 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 Education. Hello everyone. All right, we will begin with
003invocation. Armando Rodriguez. Let us bow our our heads in prayer. Dear Lord, as we gather to guide the education of our students and families we serve, we ask for your wisdom and guidance. May our deci may our decisions be rooted in compassion, fairness, and a deep commitment to the potential within each student. Grant us the clarity to discern the best path forward and the courage to act with integrity. Amen. Thank you very much. And the pledge of allegiance for the US flag and the Texas flag will be led by Candy Sosa. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under
004God and one indivisible. All right, we don't have anyone for open forum, so we will move on to reports and presentations with employee of the month, Dr. Sylvester. Madame President, board of trustees, Mr. Colbert, today we honor Miss Jasmine Castleberry as our April employee of the month. Jasmine is the manager of federal programs and compliance for case for kids. And while she supports afterchool programming in seven local school districts and charter schools as part of her job, Jasmine's co-workers say she is the division's greatest cheerleader. Jasmine is allin for after school. She is allin for kids. She is allin for HCDE, said Lisa Kurthers, senior director of case. Jasmine is known around the division and ACDE for the smile and bright energy. Bright energy keeping the case office infused with joy. But it is her
005attention to detail and support for others that shines through her daily work. Miss Castleberry has consistently demonstrated a high level of meticulousness ensuring that every task is completed with precision. The nomination reads, "Her ability to break down complex instructions into clear and understandable steps has been invaluable to our team's success." Jasmine also serves in the community, often an afterchool realm beyond her position with case. She was recently elected to the National After School Association board, helping to connect Case's local efforts to the national afterchool movement. But it is her desire to celebrate her co-workers and the work of case that shows who she is personally and professionally. This year, Jasmine come to the division's holiday party planning because she believed that the team deserved the best celebration ever. Miss Kurthers and site coordinator Al Wers
006wrote in the nomination. She pushed herself out of her comfort zone to host an event that made everyone feel appreciated. She said she knew she could do anything if it was in support of the team that makes so many great things happen for kids. That's Jasmine. Our com team has prepared a short video highlighting Jasmine's work with case and her dedication to afterchool programs. [Music] partnerships. So, so I manage a portfolio of afterchool programs across Harris County. So, I work with site coordinators to deliver quality programming to students and families. There's not a single day that I wake up and I'm like, uh, I got to go to work. It is an honor and a pleasure to be able to come to work because I know that everybody here is working hard and I get
007to work with these people every single day. I mean, yay me. Jasmine's all in. She is all in for after school. She is all in for case for kids. She is all in for HCDE. You will see her visiting her programs, getting involved in the activities, not just doing a site visit, but actually participating too all the way up to meeting principles and building her relationships. I would say Jasmine is the greatest person you can meet. Whatever you can possibly need, go to Jasmine. Jasmine is the person who who will guide you if you need guidance and Jasmine is the one that you can trust. She will give you her hand and take you to wherever you need to [Music] go. Really after school is about access. It's our time to give back to these
008kids cuz that's our responsibility. This holiday season, she went all out. She didn't even ask if she could be the one that coordinated our holiday party. She hijacked our holiday party. I have the opportunity to celebrate my people for all of the hard work that they're doing and all of the impact that we're making. Then that's not about me. This is about them. U case to me is it's a place of friendship. It's a place of support. It's a place of joy, innovation. I couldn't ask for a better division. I couldn't ask for a better place to work and I couldn't ask for a better group of people to go on this journey with. So that's what case is to me. She has given us the opportunity to embrace the program and make it our
009own. I love working for HCDE. It feels like you can just be yourself and everybody wants to work together to get the work done. And I'm just I love working here. I'm not going to leave. [Music] I am pleased to introduce to you Miss Jasmine Castleberry, our April 2025 employee of the month. is also [Music] Awesome. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. All right. Oh, we have gifts. No, they're real. Oh my goodness. Okay, so we're going to move on to superintendent monthly reports. That's you. Thank you, Madam President. I'll just tell you if you ever are lacking some energy. If you're ever feeling down and tired, you know, you wonder how you're going to make it through the day, head over to case. We got a We got a whole floor of that. They're a
010big ball of energy. They take over any party when we bring the picnic in the parking lot over there. They're going to take that over, too. So, um I just have a few things to up update the board on. As uh many of you know, we've been working on uh finalizing the construction to our facilities. Uh this building is really the last in the loop. And the first floor is finally almost done. Um and so we're going to do an unveiling of the first floor on tomorrow at uh what time is it? At 1:00. So I would invite our trustees if you'd like to attend to come down. We have the business office, the HR office. We also renovated the um the conference rooms downstairs. So take a look at that. Uh next uh we
011have picnic in the parking lot which will be on April 24th over at NO. We just had picnic in the parking lot for this building along with our head start division. So we had like 450 people involved in that and it was great. And so now we're going to take it over to NO and we'll have a line of food trucks and plenty of celebration and door prizes, many things that you can win. So I'd love for to see our trustees take part in that. Um, and finally, uh, we have our celebration of excellence. You have several cards with you to give you these important dates. Celebration of excellence is something we started two years ago where we like to recognize all the employees of the month. So, we'll have all of those people there.
012We'll also have our teachers of the year, our TAs of the year, and it's an opportunity to just bring closure to another school year and recognize some of the really special individuals that we have associated with this um, organization. The big thing that I enjoy about that program is we get the opportunity to bring their families and so they can see our employees being recognized. Also with that, that's all I have. Thank you. Next is our annual division update. This one is for human resources. It's our pleasure to share with you all today on our UM resources update. I want to ask our HR team if they would please stand. What a pleasure. [Music] [Applause] What a pleasure it is to work with these fine HR professionals every single day and I get to do
013that every day and I'm I'm blessed and a better person for the opportunity. Um we have Miss Patricia Manard. She's our assistant director. We have Miss Ashley Barker our compensation analyst. Miss Chris Duke, Miss Laura Nin, Miss Elena Lopez, coordinators. Miss Erikica, benefits coordinator. Miss Chakisha Haynes, risk management specialist. Miss Candy Solst is our benefit specialist, Miss Monte Whitney, administrative assistant, and Miss Nancy Agata Cruz is our recruitment specialist. And so again, what a pleasure to have these ladies as a part of our HR team. And they do a wonderful job. I have the pleasure of sharing uh the stage with me on today uh is Miss Chris Duke and Miss Patricia Manard, who's going to walk us through today's presentation. Good afternoon. Let's talk a little bit about our employees here at HCDE. So,
014you'll see we have um 78% of our staff is full-time and you'll have 22% is part-time. The majority of our staff, as you'll see, is um instructional in capacity. And so, that would include Head Start, your special schools, adult education, and therapy services. Gender breakdown. Here we are. We're 76% female and 24% male. I had a comment about that but u but I will say that in relation to education and um the studies that that's the national average. So we coincide with national average which is actually um I think it's like 70 we're 78 or 75 um and 25. So we're we're real close right there. looking at our staff qualifications and um years of service. Um you'll see that um majority of we'll look at um our staff. So we'll look at uh degree
015professionals. Majority of our staff are degreed professionals. And so this would include as well as our certified teachers. Um you'll see there 213 and then our other licensed professionals which would include our counselors, our therapists, our nurses, and we also have some CPAs on staff as well. a little bit on our um employment data so that you can see we're comparing just so you can see we're comparing one full year to the half a year. So how far we are along in this present school year. So it looks like um there's we're kind of right on track. Nothing really concerning there. Um we're kind of along the same lines there. All right, let's talk a little bit about our recruiting and some information regarding our recruiting efforts. So, of course, um we do like to
016boast when we're recruiting that we are one of the best workplaces, not only nationally, but locally. So, uh we're excited when we go out, we get to tell people that. So, that's one of our big big recruiting points. And we also like to talk about our work life balances. We think our salaries are great. um our school calendar, flex schedule, um and our dual retirement. So, that's a big push, which we do use when we're recruiting. So, we'll look at um just briefly look at kind of our websites and our job boards, what we do with that. So, we do um get on all of our um like a LinkedIn, we do LinkedIn, we do um school boards, career centers, professional organizations. So, that would all be included um with the job boards there. And
017of course, for our executive level positions, we'll advertise with TASBO and um the organizations for school business officials. When our job fairs, you'll see that our job fairs here. And again, notice that we're comparing one year to um half a year here. And so, uh we attend the four-year universities, we attend community colleges, um your local community job fairs, and also we have specialty job fairs where Head Start will do Head Start job fairs here. And we just recently and we have done in the past do one for recruiting for special schools. And we have about five to seven more left to end out the school year. This school year about 80% of benefits eligible staff participated in the medical plans. We appreciate the superintendent and the board for continually working to offer levels of
018medical insurance that are at no cost to our staff and as well as raising the life insurance levels. By the way, insurance and benefits are critical because of the importance. So, we meet in small groups, even in one-on-one scenarios to onboard. We include introducing HCD programs, highlighting benefit plan features, policies, procedures, compliance topics so that our staff can be empowered to be successful. The employee assistance program is always available to staff who seek um counseling or other personal assistance. It can be found in the employee handbook, in all of our benefits materials, in our work site postings, and annually. We remind staff that it's available through our returning staff orientations. As reimburseing employers, our unemployment claims filings and hearings are lower than prior years. So, we're saving um actual claim costs. Exit interviews. We conduct
019those mostly via teams to make it convenient for everyone so they do not have to come in face tof face. Uh it helps to transition those leaving HCDE to carry forward a positive and lasting feel proactively because safety is important. We keep check of our facilities to help reduce work related illnesses and injuries. and we've paid out slightly more salt leaf claims from the previous year and we're working with campus leaders toward the trend to help reduce those numbers. Finally, this is a snapshot of leave numbers. This year, we're just slightly over the number of FMLA claims filed last year. So comp to highlight our compensation, we're extremely competitive. Uh especially in the schools market. Um the work that the board has done with Mr. Culbert and the approvals that you all have made in
020the past have really uh positioned us to be uh an employee of choice when it comes to our special ed teacher pool. And so so we appreciate you all for your support in that effort. And again uh and with the 100% employee pay medical premium that is absolutely big. That is absolutely big to have a plan to where you don't have to pay anything uh for that plan. I think that's a great tool that we have that is just not seen in other organizations. And so we thank the board for that continued support uh because that is a big selling tool for our organization. So what what are we working on? We're enhancing our digital footprint. Um, we want to make sure in HR that people know who we are, what we do, and how
021to get to us. I was had ladies laughing. I was telling them that when I when I was getting employed here, and I was a candidate to come here, I said I couldn't find anybody. I was trying to find out who's what and what they do, and I couldn't find anyone. So, we're working on getting that to know who they are, what they do, and how can you get us if you need us because again, we are a service function of this organization. We want to make sure that people can get to us when when they need us. uh building strong uh partnerships. We're doing something we call site visits. We're partnering with our schools uh colleagues and we're doing these site visits uh to kind of meet our colleagues on their territory to see
022how we can support them in what they do because one of the things I believe about HR is that we need to know what they do and how they do it so we know how to support their efforts. And so that helps us to get out there to see and to see what they're doing and see how they're working with children and see all the things that they need so that we can determine on our end how do we support that as a service function. And the last thing is that uh professional development which is comes to the book that we gave you all on today uh it's called how full is your bucket and so we've done a series of trainings on that book and it's talk about building workplace culture climate it's talk
023talks about building relationships it's it's really all about you know connecting with people in a way that they value that that you value them you you're letting them know that you value them by the actions that you take often times in organizations we talk about in terms of making people feel valued Right? But I take a little step further. If you value someone, you don't have to make them feel that way. They're going to feel that way because of the actions that you take. And so that that's that's the angle that we take with that. We want to to uh give our uh leaders tools so that they can value our employees so that they feel valued as a part of this organization. So our goal is is to is to provide exception ex exceptional
024service u by refining our HR tools. We want to make sure that our HR tools are always always sharp. HR is one of those one of those uh functions in the organization where you need to have expertise because uh you you protect the organization through your expertise. And so we're continuously sharpening our saws, our tools so that we on the cutting edge of what's happening in HR so that we can always give great guidance as it relates to employment law and practices moving moving forward. And um our utmost thing is that we want to make sure that when people that when we're addressing HR issues within our organization that we're doing it from a place of concern and care. Uh we never want anybody to feel that they they'll bother or that we don't want
025them there because that's what we do. provide a service and everyone who comes to us they have a need and we want to make sure we have we meet that need in a very caring way and then ensure that all employees are absolutely valued. I want to share this with you. It says human resources is the heartbeat of the organization dedicated to nurturing talent and fostering a positive work environment by offering comprehensive support and innovative solutions. HR professionals empower employees to reach their full potential and contribute meaningfully to the organization's success. Their unwavering commitment to excellence ensures that every team member is valued, supported, and inspired to achieve greatness. What questions do you have? I just like to say that, you know, I've worked many places um and I've always had to directly deal with
026our HR department. And you know, in the 30 years that I've been in the profession, this is the best HR department I've ever worked with in my entire career. Um, you have a strong team that is the chemistry with your team is visible. Uh, when you go down there, the culture of it is positive. You know, I can go down to HR and be stuck in there for about 45 minutes and not make my way out. Um, but it's also important because they're the first contact that most employees have with this organization. And so it's symbolic to the level of service and professionalism that this organization is when they embody the spirit of Harris County Department of Ed. But HR also gets called to task. I mean, some of our programs are not easy to
027staff. They're just not. And it's hard to seek out people who care about kids the way we care about them. And they're typically kids that, you know, not everybody wants to line up and work with. And so I put a lot of pressure on HR to seek out the very best in Houston to try to find them, sometimes lure them to come and figure out what we're all about. And so I just kudos to you, especially to your department. Uh, I appreciate y'all so much and great job. Great presentation by the way, too. So, thank you. [Applause] Here we go with the heart again. Now, we have another annual division update, this time with Head Start. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to present um information on our Head Start program started. Okay.
028My name is Vanita Peacock and I am the senior director of the Head Start program and I'd like to ask my team who are in the audience if they please stand. [Applause] We have a I'm not going to introduce everybody, but this is everybody here. And the people that are are not here are critical part of our success as a Head Start program. And you'll see listed on the screen, we have our um our leadership team. Um and as I call the leadership team, if you would please wave your hands. Um not able to be with us today is Miss Scotian Ramen. We have our assistant director of education, Mr. Me Stanill. Oh, she's so short. I didn't see your waiver. Armando Armando Rodriguez, our community partnership manager. Mr. Gino Kamaya, our compliance manager. U
029Miss Courtney um Johnson, our education and special services manager. um our health and family services manager, Miss Jasmine, and our wonderful duo operations manager, Miss Taiwan Williams and Miss Suzanne Kates. Thank you very much. We educate to change the world. We have the youngest minds and it's our job to nurture and grow them. And so our tagline is we educate to change the world. Um we are located in 12 facilities currently across the northeast portion of Harris County. Uh we have four childcare partnership campuses where we go in under a grant to help improve the quality of their early childhood uh zero to3 programs. Um and then the rest of the centers are either early head start and head start or just a full Head Start center. before you today, you'll have a copy of
030our uh statistics for the last school year. Um, usually these reports come um a little after we have to finish the year to do them, but I would um draw your attention to our assessment outcomes for our students. Um and one of our anchor uh projects which is the super mentor program and um the satisfaction that we have from both the parents and from um from our super mentors for participating in that program um where parents report being happy about children wanting uh requesting to read more um requesting to go to the library. And that's what we're trying to do to make sure that we engage children in the love of literacy because we know that literacy is one of the greatest indicator of a child's academic success. Our uh service model, I think I
031already talked a little bit about that one, but we have about 300, we have 302 staff and 44 partnership staffs in our childcare partnership um uh programs. This is an overview of our budget for this year. Um, you have a copy in front of us, so of course I won't read it. Um, we are also kicking off now, we're in the process of beginning our recruitment enrollment for school year 2526. Um, so with the help of communications, we're kicking off a new campaign um for both staff and for students, but we have already started enrolling for the new school year. uh reenrolling the students who will come back and then we'll start taking applications in the next month or at the end of this month. Um we are fully enrolled. Um Headstart did struggle a
032bit uh coming out of the pandemic um but we have met all of our requirements and we are actually overenrolled in our program. So, we are pleased to uh report that staff recruitment is a key concern and issue that we consistently work on in partnership with human resources. And so, we have some upcoming job fairs that we have planned and um we're getting our energy behind that and excited about uh what is to come. One of the things we did this year was do uh this is our second year actually on our headstart love campaign um in um effort to connect to what human resources uh was talking about and to make sure our employees understand that we value them um during the national head start love campaign we uh target um staff who are
033doing a really great job and we call it our head start love campaign during the month of February um we had our Healthy Minds Healthy Family Conference was which was is always in the fall and it is focused very much on mental health and it is connecting our teachers with their mental health or all of our staff not just our teachers but also how to care for children with challenging behaviors. Um we also received some generous toy donations from um Houston charity um and we participated with uh down at the George R. around. Not only did our students, but all of their siblings was were able to receive gifts this past December. Boosting literacy. Um, everything we do is around boosting literacy. And as I mentioned, our results from last year. Uh, we've already received
034additional money to help us to continue to support um our uh super mentors. We have several super mentors in the room. We appreciate each and every one of you and the kids love you as they say Mr. Colbert. Um so that's huge for us and so we've also got an $8,000 grant from Dollar General and we are always trying to um increase the children's library at home. We celebrated 25 years of impact this year. Head Start turned 60 years old this year, but we have been a part of Harris County Department of Education for 25 years. And here are just a few pictures. It was a grand celebration. We had partners who came out. Um took pictures. Um Mr. Cobbert spoke and and Dr. McGee spoke and um we just had a lovely time. So
035um there's a few pictures. We in Head Start, we're always um talking about good nutrition. And it's one of the things we work with and teach the students. And so we celebrated National School Breakfast Week. We had some fun home to school activities for the students to do all focusing them on eating eating properly so they can grow well. Coolwood. You just saw a picture of it on the HR presentation. And here's a few pictures just if you weren't able to make it um for you to see how our grand opening went. The biggest joy for me was to see the babies come in because the parents got nervous just before we supposed to open and they started talking about, well, no, I don't know if I'm going to come. So, the teachers got on
036the phone and and on class dojo with them and was saying, "No, come out, come out." And then you see the little kids in the you see them in the uh center playing with the toys and looking at the books and and the parents got all excited. So, we're happy to say that Kwood is fully enrolled. Okay. We also ex um we also launched a new partnership. We started off with a soft start this year with the Lawson Academy. We have two teachers there who are working side by side with our Head Start students. Um next year we'll have four classrooms. Uh and they will be duly enrolled in the Lawson Academy and in Head Start. Of course, our Christmas um uh responsible parenting award. If you didn't get an opportunity to see it or
037be there, these are our two parents who were awarded this past December. Um, this represents car number 47 and 48. We just celebrated the week of the young child and it was awesome. Um, the children did a beautiful job created uh different galleries. I thought I I would run out of time to show you pictures, but if you'd love to see some pictures, I'd love to show you. They did an awesome job and it culminated on Friday with the art gallery show. Um, what do we have coming up? It's the end of the year, so we'll be celebrating, the students will be celebrating with their super mentors. We will have our end of the year policy council celebration. Our students who are transitioning whether it's to four-year-old classrooms or out to um to the prek
038through four uh school districts, then we'll be celebrating them. And then um our team will be going out to Barrett Station to c do our end of year celebration to celebrate all the accomplishments we've had this year. What is on the horizon? Um as I stated before, we'll be celebrating 60 years of Head Start this year. Uh we're looking forward to uh our partnership with Arizona College of Nursing um and two Sanjac partnerships, one with their early college students and another with their nursing program. Okay, any questions? Yes, thank you for the update on Head Start. I'm familiar with um several of your community partnerships, debates. I've been out several times. That's a it's an awesome partnership we have um awarding those cars to those deserving parents and families. Uh can you talk a little
039bit about some of the partnerships we have or how we work with the local school districts and maybe even charter schools? Okay. Um so we have a a partnership with HISD at both Funwood Elementary which is a early education campus and at Dogen Elementary where we provide we work partner with their teacher to do uh their three-year-olds and four-year-olds at Dogen Elementary. Um the Lawson Academy is a charter uh that we're working with at Kwood. Um beyond that with the younger children it's our childcare partnerships which are uh Pasadena learning um community services um John G. Jones and Barrett Station and we have one campus on the north side which I can't call the name right now. Um at UMLE we currently do not have a partnership at the Umble Head Start Center. Yeah, I
040was um recently u had a conversation with someone representing a charter school and they mentioned we partner with all of your Head Start centers and um I was you know it's kind of news to me and I just wanted to make sure we partner with school districts which are our primary clients first before you know a I won't mention the name but a particular uh private charter that you know uh is not you know necessarily in the interest public education. So, thank you. I just like to um you know, I love our Head Start program. You know, folks, last week I got to read a book. Um some books are better than others. We're not going to blame the reader. We're just going to blame the content of the book. I do the best I
041can. But at the end of the book, one of my kids, they called me Mr. Cobut. Mr. Kobut. He said, "Mr. Colbert, you got no hair." I said, "What? Where'd my hair go?" And they just bust out laughing. I'm like, "Did you take my hair? I had hair when I came in here." They're like, "No, your hair is gone, Mr. Koba." I just love it. I go out to Dogen Elementary and um you know, I'm always like, "Golly, I got to sit in this traffic on 610. I got to drive through all of this. I got a meetings. I got nine meetings to go to. And as soon as I walk into that room, one of those kids run up and grab my thigh and just wants a hug. And I just melt. I'm like,
042"Okay, let's read a book." Um, but I just want to remind people what Head Head Start really does. You know, Head Start is there to prop up and to accelerate kids who might be doing nothing. Like when they go into kindergarten, they know their colors. They can count to a hundred. They can rhyme. They can write their name. They have a head start. That the how much of a multiplier that is. You know, that's a force multiplier to helping a child of poverty actually be able to conceptualize when they get to 11th and 12th grade going to college. And without it there would be nothing. It helps parents, young parents, some extremely young parents, helps to teach them and guide them and enforce to them how to be a good parent and a responsible parent.
043And so the attendy is the student attendance is not a student problem. That's a parent problem cuz every 5-year-old wants to go to school. And infants don't get a choice. It's your mama or your daddy was out late last night. They didn't want to bring you to school today. And so it's to hold them accountable. And so I just I I just want to stress how important it is for our society to have programs like that to give kids a chance. And then there may be people who even sitting on this board who are byproduct of programs like that who've gone on to get PhDs that otherwise may not have. And so um kudos to you. Your staff is excellent. You know, once again, let's give them a [Applause] hand. But I also want to
044give props to this board. you know, Harris County Department of Ed steps up to the plate and and rings the bell when it comes to Head Start. When I first got here, you know, we were having trouble paying our Head Start staff more than Waterburger. We were literally losing staff and cooks to Waterburger because they could make more money. Um, because of the trustees that you see sitting here with me today, that's no longer the case. And several years ago, I mean, they directed me. They didn't ask me. They directed me and said, you know, we're going to do a $15 minimum and we're going to do this, that, and the other, and our people deserve blah, blah, blah. Which I had kind of given up on that. I'd been saying that when I first
045got here, and it didn't happen. So, I didn't even think to ask again, and then I had to get told, and I'm like, "Oh, okay, sure. We can do that." Um, but it shows the value system of the governance of this organization with they're in line with one another because that's the mission of this organization is to help kids like that. And then we have a a group of trustees who believe in the same and they act on it and we've we have demonstrated this by, you know, paying them as much as that we've paid them. So, thank you for your leadership. I appreciate you, Miss Peacock. and I want to thank your staff and y'all do a fantastic job and let's have a great year. Maybe I'll find my hair next month. One one
046last thing. Um the policy council members and their children um did a um wanted to present to you have present to you a kind of a thank you gift for your support. Thank you. So, thank you for this. So, so I was I was I was telling I was telling Trusty McGee, he doesn't have to pretend anymore. He's actually got he's got a real one now. He doesn't have to do the hand thing anymore. You just keep that up there. There you go. You're on. McGee wanted to say something. Thank you, Madam President. I certainly there's no pretending when it comes to HCD. I really do love the departments and especially Head Start. So, thank you all so much. Is that cool? I got orange in it. Dr. Rogers, Dr. Rogers, can you let me
047know what that dance was you were doing in that picture? these two here. We're going to copy this. Look like y'all were having fun. All right. Any other reports from board members concerning attendance or participation in a board or HTD related conference, event, activity, or committee? Seeing none, we can move on to report of board committee chairs. Anybody? All right. Seeing none, we will go on with monthly financial reports. Dr. Musqua. So, these are the financial highlights as of March 31st, 2025. Uh all our information is posted on our website. Um and uh first I will go over a quick summary of the the report and then I'll go into the detail. Here are the 12 uh uh 12 13 highlights for for the for the month. And is this the most correct one? Yeah,
048I just didn't change the top. 17.6 million in revenue. Our next payment is on August. Uh total revenues are at uh 60% uh year to date. Expenditures are at 51 uh year to date which we are at 58% in a linear um uh estimate. Our fund balance uh in equity as of March again given that our our tax receipts are coming in is at 52.7 million. Our March donations were 13,654 and our values are holding at 661 billion out of 6665 billion projected. Our choice benefit and you will see later on that it's uh uh 6 million in benefit variance. Uh foundation has equity at this point in time at 335,000. and our small business uh program uh later on uh will highlight it's at 11% for small business as of March 2025. Our projects
049are 93% in the Urban project and all the phase uh one projects from 2020 are just spending retainage release and close out and our budget process for FY can we say uh 26 27 uh 20 no yeah 25 26 is underway. uh our balance sheet as of March is 56 million in assets, 3.1 million in liabilities and 52.7 in in equity. Um and uh what we have excess as of this time is 18 million 500,321 which is going to be used between now and August 31st. Our key financial ratios we have four that we track. The first one is uh financial strength of percentage of fund balance to general fund. We're at 57% at this time versus 45 at the same time last year. Our working capital ratio, we're at 53% a strong 53 versus
05046 uh million uh last year. Our unassigned fund balance ratio uh we're at 41% versus 35% at the same time last year. Our debt to income ratio, we're at 4.93 versus 4.91 at the same time uh from a year ago. Our tax revenue to total revenue, we're at 34% versus 29% uh for uh at the same time uh from from last year. And our indirect cost tax ratio, we're at 2.4. It's a little bit better than it was a year ago at 1.9. Our uh fee for service ratio uh revenue ratio we're at 19%. Same same thing that we were last year at 19%. And our growth ratio uh because of all our our growth is right now still at minus 11. However um that it will as as the time goes by that's going
051to uh improve to a positive number as we start looking at projecting because remember last year we had some some uh um reduction in some of our contracts. uh fund balance activity. We only had one amended amendment uh this year for 391,000 early in the year and uh our budget to actual ratio. We have the general fund which is our main fund, our special revenues which are our grants, our debt service which is our um um uh payment of of our bonds, our capital projects, our trust and agency funds, our choice partner which is our enterprise fund and our internal service which is our workers comp fund and then lastly our internal service fund which is facility fund. So altogether we're at 60% cumulative uh which is a little bit uh better than the 58%
052in a linear uh estimate. Uh in terms of outflows or expenditures, we're at 51% which is good because we're below the uh the spending pattern of 58%. So it's always good that your revenue is ahead and your expenses are below. In terms of our donations, we are at year to date $299,17.54 in uh u cash and in this month we had some uh donations for Head Start uh Compton Laaport and uh here at Urbington uh the departmentwide here's the tracking of our of our values. Uh we started with 665 billion and we had 67 billion uh waiting to be uh certified and so we're at 660 billion. So we're we'll end up with about 661 billions which is about 4 billion less than projected. So we'll we'll see how how that projection holds out between
053now and and August. And so that could mean a potential um reduction of approximately 600,000 in our in our revenue projection. And so but we will see that between now and and August. So year to date we have um collected 94.4 of our taxes um which is uh 30 million 292,994. Uh so overall including delinquent and penalty and interest we're at 93.8. 8 and we paid for the HCAT and uh the tax office um year to date 734,245 to collect the tax and assess and collect the tax. Our dispersements, all our checks uh for the month were 765 uh dispersements totaling 3,158,838. A total of 5.6 6 million uh which includes 763 transactions and six transfers and all this information is also posted on our web page and our are part of our transparency program
054and and are posted on our website. Our segment division data for divisions uh center for educational success um benefit variance of uh uh a subsidy of 1,11,32032 records management 54,653 therapy 1,660,88 and schools at 1,930,434. uh Choice Partners um has a benefit variance of 6,42,900 which is a positive. Uh it's it's continuing to do well or or 374% uh ratio at this point in time and we still have um what five months five months of the year to go. We don't have any amendments. Um and then our uh educational foundation we have 335,000 in equity uh available in the uh educational foundation. Uh in our PFC and revenue projects update um we have the small business report uh that we uh compile and our target uh it is a his is a policy that the
055the board approved to to be able to have a a small business participation. And so now we are tracking uh all the uh different types of expenditures by the the type of vendor that we have and whether they have some certifications whether whether they are hub minority um business enterprise, small business enterprise or woman business enterprise. Um and so these are the certifying agencies that we look to. We don't have a certification program, but these are the ones that that uh have a formal certification program in place. So year to date, we have small businesses uh at 1,463,812 or a 11% ratio. when you uh look at that and and also uh larger type of uh um enterprises primarily um they're certified through the city of Houston um um metro and port of Houston as
056well and then we have the by the uh the amount whether they're certified by the certification type uh the majority again being the small business enterprise um and then all the other ones that you see there in the in the slide Right. Uh by ethnicity uh participation um 20% Asian, 25% black, uh 4% Caucasian, and 51% Hispanic is the uh breakdown for those uh for those vendors that identify themselves in that in that certification. In terms of our balance and uh cash projection for for our um PFC uh and also a maintenance note, we have 3 million um848,055. Um and uh we have a retainage. The retainage is 1,257,000 pending the approval uh of the retainage and the release of the retainage for the four projects that are that we have pending uh uh so
057far. Um and uh in the maintenance notes for 2024 uh the 2024 issue was 16,313. We have 11,300,708 left over in that account. And then uh we have for Duratech for this building um retainage so far of $265,37. So all our projects are pretty much 99 to 100% complete. We're just pending the uh the uh the retainers to be released. In terms of the maintenance notes, primarily is the 91% which is our Urbington project and then we have other projects that are pending are part of this uh maintenance note. There is a an amendment in the uh uh agenda that we will move some money to Urbington project from from the maintenance note. Um and so we will have available after that 7,590,615 once we do that amendment to the to the maintenance notes. Uh
058in terms of of of source for the Urban project uh we have a commitments of 2.5 million le left over so far and of those uh once we finish the projects we will we will complete the the uh the uh project and the uh and and the uh and the building and the renovation. That's the report for the month of uh March. And I have the next item which is uh an update on electricity that I'd like to update you on that. Can you just again uh go over what you said about the Irvington project on the agenda for today? Well, there is a uh agenda for an amendment for um um there's two uh contracts that are being amended and so we're basically adding to the to that project from all the line items
059in the maintenance notes which there's money available for to be able to do that. Okay. Thank you. Um, any qu what questions do you have on the highlights? Thank you, Madam President. Um, Dr. Met, great job as always. I u was going to ask you about as it relates to the small businesses report. Yes. Has there been any push back as far as the identification process goes and will the will the um depart agencies that we use for the certification purposes, will they continue to maintain that since there's been a push back on? We haven't had uh we have a a contract uh that basically uh identifies we give them the data um and they go through the city or the metro or whoever it is and and they identify that or not for for
060us. Uh we don't we don't do the identification they do that because they've already gone through them. Gotcha. And as far as but we haven't gotten any uh feedback regarding that. So but ours is a small business participation is not a is not a uh ethnicity. So we happen to report it because that's how they report themselves but it is not formally a program. Yes. I have a couple of questions. Um the tax to revenue ratio you mentioned in your presentation that the goal is 20%. Uh yes we're actually like around 35. Yes. And that used to be uh many years ago. And so at this point in time uh I need to revisit the um benchmark because our values have gone so much that the percentage now you know needs to needs to grow
061but now the the percentage and um it is now almost in that 30 31 uh ratio in that in that in that range. So once we get to the end of the year it's going to be more like 31. Yeah. Yeah, I was just trying to figure out if that meant that we were trying to rely less on on our tax base and more on contracts and well, right. What that means is just there's more reliance on on the tax base at this point in time. Right. But it's not because we're not getting contracts. It's because No, it's because the values have gone up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next question. Uh the donations uh do all donations that come into the department go through the foundation? So they go through the um um grants department that
062that collects the data. Anytime that there is a uh donation received, it goes through the through the grant department and you'll see it here as a as a report because we need to uh report the the number of donations. Yep. So they don't all go through the foundation. No, the these go don't go through the foundation. This go through HCD. Okay. So this what you see here is only to HCD directly not to the foundation. Any donations to the foundation would be under the equity u or the the foundation report that that uh that is in the foundation. That's a separate report. Okay. And then you mentioned the tax base um 661 billion that we might be like 600,000 under. Is that because people are protesting their appraisals? Uh a combination of that uh that
063that basically we started with 665 billion and so we end right now we're at 661 billion. Um and so a potential right now we're at minus 205,000 in terms of the values. again uh there is a uh we we will uh um monitor that between now and August because that changes um you know constantly every month and so we we may actually end up closer to the 665 billion um because that's that's what uh what we had projected for the year and so we we budget that estimate based on we budget that's our own estimate not from the appraisal district right that's what they um uh approved. That's what they certify. Uh we budgeted less than that so that we can again it's hard to project what uh how those uh committees are going to
064um determine if the if the values are going to be uh um you know filed and they're going to reduce the value. So we project a certain number that is going to go down. Okay. Um, yes. What I wanted to do is basically give you an update of what the energy market is right now. Um, because uh we have a contract for our energy that we enter about seven or eight years ago. And so we've we've been enjoying a low rate. Um, our rate currently is 041 196 per kilowatt hour. And so when we look at that and we look at the market right now, the lowest one is at 0644, which is projecting almost like a 25% increase in the cost, which is going to, you know, if we're going to start budgeting for
065next year, we need to start thinking about um having a window of opportunity to be able to capture the best rate as we go through this process and not wait until the last uh day of the contract to just take the whatever rate is on that on that day. And so that's what would be the impact an additional 205,000 to the budget uh for for just for the the change in the rate without any change in usage. Um and that's if you go 120 months which is 10 years. And so this is the the term 12 months or you can go 120 months. And the question is where do we think that the the the energy cost is going to be almost 12 months from now uh and where is it going to be here
066going in the next 5 years or seven years and so on. So uh we want to um uh be proactive and try to capture the the the the smallest increase so that we can impact the budget the least. And so, um, we will be bringing to you a proposal to be to allow the superintendent and the business office to monitor the market and be able to capture the lowest rate so that we can enter into long-term agreement to be able to do that. Uh, energy changes daily and so you can't just do that one day and then say, "Okay, I'm going to get the lowest one." Well, you're going to get the lowest maybe on that day, but not necessarily could be over a period of time. So you're going to we're going to want
067to uh u target that and and mark and and look at that. Uh so here's a what natural gas has been here the last uh four months as you see a spike in the uh the rates um and how the uh the heat rate and the gas rate has uh impacted the market and and so we want to kind of be a be ahead of the game and try to try to maintain our our um our low cost down for uh because that could mean a a budgetary item later on in the budget cycle. And so this was just an update of where uh we think the the uh the rates are going to be here down the road. Um and as you can see, it can range from almost 300,000 to 200,000 the range
068between the the amount the amounts that potentially can impact our budget um uh going forward. Um so this is just an update again just information any questions that you may have. Okay, thank you. Oh, there's one more. Sorry. Um, investments somewhere in here. Is that it? It's next. That's TXU flash. Yeah, you have it over there. This PC [Music] Okay. So, the the next report is the um investment report as of March 31st. um our um um investments uh in our in our um investment policy is certified by the government treasures organization of Texas. Um and uh in the past I've given you a little bit of the history behind the Fed funds rate that impacts uh how much uh our interest rates that we earn. And so right now we're in the neighborhood between
069four and a quarter and four and a half. The Fed has not made any changes to uh to that effect and uh they alluded that they might u be able they might change some of that in the near future but a lot of that has uh had some indications with some of the most recent events that uh regarding some of the tariffs and so that that kind of has paused the the Federal Reserve at this point in time. So we'll just wait and to see how that that works. uh this is the treasury rates that are available. Um and so we have when we look at the rates if you're going to invest which is our our scenario anywhere between 3 months and a year u it's a 4.33 or 3.99. Uh the 10year is
070at 438. So there's really not an interest for us to go that far. Um and we're basically um capped at the one-year rate. So um a lot of the mortgages are uh anywhere between the 10 and 30 year and so that's what you'll see there. Uh but uh we're earning uh close to this 433 and you'll see that in our report shortly. Our investment report we have a total portfolio of 66.9 million plus our PFC. So that's a total of 67.2 million. Uh the majority of our funds are in the Texas class uh uh pool, the lonear pool, the the textar investment pool and text pool. Uh so we try to uh use all the pools so that we can kind of diversify among the different pools to see which one gives us the better
071rate. uh our PFC funds are 340,000 and they're primarily on on text pool and our portfolio between this year and last year uh because we've been spending some of that money uh that we received with with our bonds um our portfolio is down by 10.7% because we've have spended not because we lost it. So let make sure that we talk about that is minus 14% but that's because of the change in the in the uh principle that we've used. Uh all our monies are virtually overnight and so we're within uh within one month and we've earned 1.4 million uh in interest rate in interest uh this this year for the general fund and u 88,228 for the PFC. As I mentioned, we're earning 4.34, which is about one basis points higher than the three-month, which
072is the benchmark that that we used to to uh compare ourselves to. And this is the history of the rates. Uh last year at this time, we were in 5% scenario. We're in the four four and a quarter scenario this time between 423 and 437. So, these are the offerings for March uh in the investment pool. Um it just depends on uh you know what's uh what's available and so we try to they're all within one or two basis points. Uh and so we just uh um uh keep the um about 10 to 15% in each one of those. That's the report for the uh investment report. Any questions that you may have? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Madam President. Uh, Dr. Masco, did we have a chance to celebrate the HCDE
073being awarded the award of financial excellence? Uh, it's coming. It's coming. Okay. We haven't done that yet. Okay. Just want to make sure cuz I just, you know, of course being a being a being a member of Tasbo, I still get those emails. And when I saw that, I didn't I didn't know that we had actually paid, you know, we'll we'll do that. It's coming. Celebrate. But I always want to take the opportunity to stop and smell the roses. So, great job. It's coming cuz that's just such a rigorous process. Yes, it is. Thank you. So, thank you. We will now move on to our action, our consensus action items. Is there anything anyone wishes to pull from consensus? All right. Seeing none, do I have a motion to pass consensus items? I'm sorry. Okay.
074Mot motion by trustee Davis, seconded by trusty Gthu. All right. Any Well, we have no discussion. All right. Uh, do we do we have discussion when no one's pulled anything? Any discussion? Any questions on any of the items? Oh, that's right. All right. Seeing no discussion, all in favor? Motion passes. 70. Right. Moving on to non-consensus item, we will begin with item 71. Consider approval of the 2025 2026 HCDE work and holiday calendar. Do I have a motion? Motion by Trustee Davis, seconded by Trustee Duhan. Any discussion? All right. Uh we'll put it to a vote. All in favor? Motion passes. Seven. Motion passes 70. Uh action item 72, consideration ratification of job order contract with Blackman Moing for $93,179 for disaster mitigation commodity/services with disaster recovery at HCDE's North Post Oak facility. Do I
075have a motion? So moved. Motion by trustee Matt. Malik. Malik. Thank you. And uh seconded by Trustee Davis. Do I have any disc any discussion? All right. All in favor? Motion passes. 70. Congratulations. And the next item is 73. Consider approval of change order number one with Durotch, Inc. for phase 1 miscellaneous building improvements at 6300 Irvington Boulevard, Houston, Texas, 77022 in the amount of 611,986 and delegate authority to the superintendent or his designate to negotiate, finalize, and execute the exchange order. Do I have a motion? Motion by Trusty Duhan, seconded by Trusty McGee. Any discussion? All right, all in favor? Motion passes 70 and 74. Consider approval of contract amendment number two with Create Architects for additional services regarding miscellaneous project scope and design revisions at 6300 Irvington Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77022 in the
076amount of $18,300 and delegate authority to the superintendent or his designate to negotiate, finalize, and execute the contract amendment. Do I have a motion? So moved. Motion by Trusty Malik, seconded by Trusty Duhan. Any discussion? Yes, absolutely. Uh just details on what kind of improvements we will be having here, please. Would catch me when I just put a mint in my mouth. Good afternoon, trustees. Mr. Colbert. Um so the architect contract amendment goes hand in hand with the amendment to Durateex contract. So that is for the services that the con that the architect is providing for um we are doing landscaping outside we are doing fencing. We are doing all those different kind of things. Those all require his services and so we're merely paying him for his services. [Laughter] No no extra trees but
077we did get our flag pole. I hope you noticed that trustee can't too. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Yes. All right. All in favor? Motion passes 70. And we will now move into executive session under the Texas government code pursuant to any and all purposes permitted by section 55.1.001 to 55.1.084, including but not limited to 551.071 and 551.074. And with that, we move to executive session. at 216. This board is now reconvened for possible action on items discussed in executive session at 3:58 p.m. Uh, the first item is possible action regarding pending litigation against HTE. Do I have a motion? Yes, Madam President. I move to authorize the superintendent to take action regarding the pending litigation involving CLTD as discussed in closed session and to negotiate, finalize and execute any agreement relating there
078too. Do I have a second? Seconded by Trusty Ku. Was it trusty Ku? Oh, seconded by Trusty Ku. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes. 70. Next item, possible action regarding evaluation duties and or discipline of HCDE trustee position for precinct 3. Uh do I have a we have no motion for that. Okay. And so with that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Number 10. Discussion and possible action items regarding future agenda items. Do we have anything? Okay. So with that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion by trustee Duhan, seconded by trustee Malik. Seconded. Okay. Uh and with that, all in favor, uh we are now adjourned with 70. And that is it at 3:59 p.m.