001Good evening. The time is 5:30 p.m. on June 10th. This meeting of the Midland Independent School District Board of Trustees meeting is now duly open for the matters or is duly open for the transaction of business or any matters that may be properly presented. If you will please stand for a moment of silence and Miss Andrew Messik will do the pledges. 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 God, one and indivisible. Thank you ma'am. Moving on to agenda item one. We are a quorum. Ro of officers are here. Moving on to agenda two, verification of compliance with open
002meeting law. This is to certify that the provision of section 551.001 of the Texas government code have been met in connection with public notice of this meeting. Um Dr. How and I talked earlier. Nothing. You don't have anything for executive. We don't we don't expect to go into executive. Uh moving on to item three, public forum. There's nobody listed to speak at public forum. So moving on to agenda. Item four, consent agenda. A approval of donations over $20,000. Is anybody like to pull that or speak of that? Seeing no motion, can we get or seeing nobody that would like to pull for discussion, can we get a motion to vote? I move second. It has been moved and seconded that this board vote on agenda item four, consent agenda A, approval of donations over $20,000.
003All those in favor, raise your right hand. Is unanimous. The motion passes. Moving on to agend agenda item five, district reports. A, financial and budget preparation for 2025 2026 update number five. Mr. Durham, how are you today, sir? Doing well. How are you? Good. Good evening, President Hodes, members of the board, and Superintendent Howard. This evening, the administration brings a fifth budget update um regarding next fiscal year. Starting off, the projections for the current 2425 fiscal year. Some of the main factors is our current and final ADA is 26,265.284 students. Our final attendance rate is 92.5%. Um, and then overall, um, I am projecting a conservative $29.9 million going into fund balance, um, at the end of this fiscal year. We do still have some pending transactions, um, for the remainder of this month and
004then payroll acrals. Um, and I do anticipate us ending at a much better state than going into a $29.9 million deficit. However, this is better than the projection shown last month of $31 million. To start off for the 2526 DI district budget priorities, um we implemented three main priorities. Um adopting a sustainable budget. Um providing compensation increases throughout the entire district and then building a data-driven budget based on board goals, strategic plan, and comprehensive assessment. One of the strategies going into the current 24-25 fiscal year was the reduction in some of the positions through attrition in preparation for the 24-25 fiscal year. And then starting this fall um in preparation for the 2526 fiscal year. U the district really focused on the reduction in personnel um or and positions at the district level. We also
005focused on non-payroll um budget at the district level. And then we continue to refine the current budget and the proposed budget for further efficiencies to ensure that nothing was double budgeted and make sure that everything that was in the budget was absolutely necessary um moving forward. This is an overview of FTE efficiencies that we have had throughout the um f current fiscal year. So, at the start of the year, we had approximately 3,400 FTEES, which stands for full-time equivalent positions. Um, we have currently, as of today, um, reduced um, 279.5 positions for a final position um, count of 3164 positions for next fiscal year. Um there's also percent of reduction which takes the start of year um number of FTEES and then reduces the um number of reductions made throughout the entire fiscal year. So
006overall we had approximately a 8 um.12% reduction. However, you can see that the majority of the reductions occurred at the district level. Um one thing that I did want to mention is that on the left hand side um you have different classifications based on the pay group. Um, and there's also two different categories for teachers that you'll see. You'll see the teacher at the campus base and teacher at the district base. Um, the teacher at the campus base are actual um, positions that are being paid off the teacher compensation um, pay grade for the current fiscal year and that are located on the campus. The teachers at the district base are currently employees um, that were getting paid off the teacher compensation plan. However, they were located at the district level. This is an overall
007view of the reductions to the operating budget. There's two different columns on the right hand side. One indicating the general fund cost reductions and then the other um including the cost reductions for other funding. Um the two major um items on this list that I'll point out is the reduction of the payroll cost for the general fund at approximately $18.3 million. And then the very last item um is the reduction for perfect attendance incentive and retention incentive. Um one thing that we did on the perfect attendance incentive is we revamped it in order to only allow people um who are in the classrooms to receive that moving forward. So that would be inclusive of teachers, associate teachers and classroom instructional aids. Um everybody else was removed from um being allowed the attendance incentive moving into
008the 2526 um fiscal year. Um we've also took out the retention incentive that was locally budgeted um for this upcoming year. However, we do still have that in the compensation plan and there is a contingency language in there that states that it's um contingent on outside funding. Um there are some outside funders that have shown interest in that and so um in the fall we'll make a determination of whether that will be paid out or not and make sure that communication um is provided to all. Um in summary the reduction of FTE positions is right at 279.5 FTEES. The total payroll efficiencies specifically in the general fund is $22.6 million. And then the total non-payroll efficiencies in the general fund is approximately $12.6 million. This slide shows the overall ML revenue per ADA. Um, one
009thing that I have um included in here and updated is since the 89th legislative session has um concluded and House Bill 2 was implemented and signed into law. I wanted to show some of the um comparisons. So, you'll see for the current 2425 fiscal year, we have approximately $10,000 of revenue per ADA. Um for next fiscal year based off the assumptions and old law, we were projecting right under $10,000 per ADA. However, with the updated um 89th legislation and House Bill 2 being implemented along with our assumptions, we're estimating approximately $10,488 um of revenue per ADA. the projections for the 2526 fiscal year. Um, some of the main factors are shown on your right. We have the enrollment projections of 30,13, ADA projections of 27,13, an attendance rate based off funded students of 93%. Um,
010two items that are not currently taken into consideration on the revenue side is the pending royalty um, payments for the new leases. um that is set to come before the board um in the next few months um along with a sale of real property. Um so with that being said, as of today, we're estimating approximately passing a $7.9 million budget. Uh one thing that I'll also mention on that um 7.9 is that is taking into consideration all requirements um based on House Bill 2 um in regards to compensation. Um this slide shows the major leg legislation passed during the 89th session. Um the first one is Senate Bill 2 regarding education savings accounts. The first year this will be enacted and go into play is in the 2026 27 fiscal year. Senate bill 4 um
011allows for additional homestead exemption an increase from 100,000 to 140,000. That is a constitutional amendment that will require voter approval this upcoming November. And um if that is passed then it will become into law. um for tax year 2025. House Bill 9 um increases the business personal property tax exemption to 250,000. Um two items that were um legislative trackers that we were tracking um that did not pass is transparency for taxpayers along with a discount on recapture um if the payment was made by February 15th. those were not um passed and they did um die um on June the 2nd. House Bill 2 was the major financial um reform of Texas finance um that increased the basic aotment by $55. It also increased um classroom teacher compensations. So, for districts that have 5,000 students or
012more, um for teachers that have three or four years of experience, um will receive $2,500 in additional compensation. And then teachers that have five or more years of experience will receive $5,000, um in addition on their compensation. Um and then it also increased uh other aotments. Senate Bill 260 increased safety and security aotment um which will help offset some of the um underfunding that the district has been required to um support over the past few years. Um while that is not paying for itself regarding the um requirements for safety and security um it does help further offset the cost that the district is having to make up. Um and then the last major one is Senate Bill 1453 um which requires majority vote for debt service tax rate in certain circumstances. That certain circumstance is
013um allowing districts to actually defease um debt saving taxpayers more money. Um and so um as clarity comes around that and as we go into um September, we'll make sure to update the board in regards um to the tax rate um for the board approval in September. Um, I will also mention this. Everything that you've seen um in this slide is contingent based off current interpretations from the 89th legislative session um and is subject to change based off further clarification um that the district receives from the state and can may I interrupt you just real quick before because I'll forget this on that if you go back to that slide on HB2 and I just think it's important to give out to the taxpayers and this board maybe later on there is a lot of
014cost that's associated to the districts in HB2. So all there although the aotment went up there's a lot of cost unfunded mandates through data collection and different there there's I don't know I counted like 27 and I haven't got it done but if we could come up I think it'd be smart for the district to send out to the public to show that even with the new aotment I would like to say or show give a visual to Midlanders we got x amount we got this increase but with this increase we're actually only going to net this because this is what we think project our cost we're going to have to incur to the district is to comply with the unfunded mandates in HB2. Does that make sense? Sure it does. So I do have
015a a a very preliminary number on that overall defunding. You don't have to do it tonight. just like like for the next I think it's very important that we show yes there was an aotment increase from the state but there were unfunded mandates that were packed in to HB2 that we're going to have to that that we're going to pay for. Yes, sir. Sorry. So I have a question on the um I know the teachers got raises etc but that is only for a classroom teacher that's going to get that raise. Is that correct? That is correct. For the public. It's it's specified in the bill. Um they must also be working in the classroom um for at least 4 hours on average. Right. And um this does not cover their TRS that we will
016have. So so right now our current interpretation is that it's required to be um placed on top of their current gross pay. And so the district would be left with um footing the bill for all the miscellaneous benefits. And so, um, I I'll I'll mention it like this. So, a a teacher, um, cost the district approximately 15.5, um, percent on top of their gross for all the, um, ancillary benefits, um, including, uh, health insurance. Thank you. I got a quick question. Um, I think it would be helpful to publish all of our unfunded mandates or um, nonfully funded mandates if we could get a, you know, put something together with that. Yes, sir. So, Dr. Howard and I actually had that discussion during the legislative session this year um, in regards to trying to quantify
017what those costs are and the specific items. Um, that is one of my main projects after we get this budget passed is to go in there and really dive in to figure out what those true costs are to the district to figure out what is a true unfunded mandate and what is an underfunded mandate. Right. Yeah, that would be very helpful. Um, our our state representatives need to know uh what they're subjecting us to. So, and the public in general. And then the last slide I have um for this evening is the timeline of upcoming items. Um so later this month um the administration will bring um final budget amendments in regards to the 2425 fiscal year along with the budget adoption for the 2526 fiscal year. Next month, um the district will bring a
018defeasence resolution in line with a resolution that was passed in September. At the same time, we passed it adopt passed and adopted a tax rate um to defease um outstanding debt obligations um in August. August will actually defease those um outstanding debts and then in September the district will set the tax rate for tax year 2025. And that concludes my presentation for this evening. Mr. Hajes, if I could, I just want to thank Mr. Durham and the team for their work throughout this process. Um, you've seen now five updates and uh with each of those, the team has continued to work. Um, and to reduce the budget by 35.2 million and do it in a very methodical way and and working through that uh dating back to September. uh they've done a lot of work
019and really appreciate their work and their time and their commitment to to making these decisions but making sure they were the right decisions. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. You got winning lottery numbers or anything for any of us? Unfortunately, not. Moving on to agenda item. Everybody done? Anyone has any more questions, comments? Okay. Moving on to agenda item six. Discussion of possible action of a discussion of and request for approval of RFP number 24-235 liability workman's compensation unemployment auto and student accident insurance and B discussion of and request for approval of the 2025 2026 Midland ISD compensation plan. We'll start with agenda item 6A, discussion of and request for approval of RFP number 24-235 liability, workers compensation, unemployment, auto, and student accident insurance. Hello, Mr. Dominguez. Well, nope, you're Tucker. Sorry to disappoint. I'll
020actually be um doing this presentation for you this evening. Um so in February of um February 14th of this year, the district issued out an RFP for risk insurance which included the liabilities, workers compensation, unemployment, auto and student accident insurance. In years past, we utilized our purchasing cooperative, but we wanted to make sure this year that we fully maximized um our procurement um and ensured that we were getting the best price. Um we did receive five submitts um and open those on March the 21st of this year. Um, in total, um, the Legend Insurance Agency, um, which is for our student accident insurance came in at $32,000, um, less than they did this previous year. And then TASBY risk management came in at $14,000, um, less than the previous year for a total decrease in
021overall risk management insurance of $45,812. And at this time, the district recommends approving the Legend Insurance Agency LLC and TASBY risk management fund um as presented. Anybody have any questions, comments? Move we um approve as presented. What? Say that again. Did you motion? I move that we approve as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded. This board vote and approve item uh consent agenda or I'm sorry, agenda item 6A, discussion of and request for approval of RFP number 254-235, liability, workers compensation, unemployment, auto, and student accident insurance. All those in favor, raise your right hand. It is unanimous. The motion moves. Thank you very much. Moving on to agenda item 6B, discussion of and request for approval of the 2025 2026 Midland ISD compensation plan. Miss Garcia, I almost said Mr. Durham because I didn't
022y'all switched that time. Good. Thank you very much. All right here. Um, all right. Good evening, President Hodgees, members of the board, and Dr. Howard. Um this evening we are seeking approval of the 2526 compensation manual. Before we review some of the changes in this year's compensation manual, it's important to know that we recently completed a salary study. Um in addition to that, House Bill 2 has a lot of requirements. Can we move the mic a little closer to you? Thanks. House Bill 2 has a lot of requirements um that um you saw in Mr. Durham's presentation just a few minutes ago that are also reflected in the compensation manual for 256. So a salary study um just for the public's awareness is um an analysis of um our compensation for the school district. It
023it shows the results of um we started this study in the fall and we received the results in the spring. We use the data from this study to help inform the decisions that we make in our compensation manual for 2526. By engaging in this outside salary study, MISC can ensure that our salaries remain competitive in order to help recruit and retain high-quality employees. The data provided really helps in uh drive our budgetary and staffing decisions. By reviewing the salaries, we are also able to correct um any pay uharities and provide transparency to the community. Finally, reviewing the compensation helps us align our human resources to our um student needs. Engaging in the salary study begins with data collection. Our compensation data is compared to other districts that are our size as well as other districts
024in the region. An additional layer compares us to market uh analysis to make sure that we are comparable with roles outside of education. The salary study is rooted in these objectives that ultimately help us with recruiting employees, retaining employees, um making sure that our uh current value for positions is not either overvalued or undervalued as well as by controlling cost, which is extremely important in a budget year like this. MISD was compared to the districts that you see on your screen. I know they're kind of small to see, but these include Ector County ISD, Leach ISD, which are equitable in size. Um, districts also in our region help us compare uh to make sure that we are competitive um in the region as well. In addition to the districts that are comparable to us in
025size and region, we also look at um how we compare to other industrybased roles in the Midland metro area. Um, and those are reviewed where applicable as well. Miss Garcia, sorry. Can Can you try tilting the uh microphone down? I'm having a hard time hearing. Is this better? I know. Thanks, Robert. Thanks. This better? Yes, ma'am. Awesome. This graph that you see here shows an overall compensation in comparison to other districts reviewed through the study. Overall, Middled compensates our teachers more, but the gaps begin to narrow at the 10 year plus mark. This means that our teachers with less than 10 years of experience are making more in comparison to other teachers in the study compared to our teachers with 10 plus years of experience. The requirements in House Bill 2 will help us with
026correcting this starting at the 5-year and above line. Next year, our 20-year salaries are expected to be approximately about 75,000. Um, which ultimately helps us with the challenges we have with compensating our year our teachers with more years of experience. On this chart, you can see how we rank in comparison to other districts in the study by years of experience. You can see our rank order for zero year, 5 years, 10 years at the bottom. Um, and you can see how we start to trail off at 15, 20 years um, and above. One important thing to note through the salary study is that it does not do an extensive look at stipens. However, it does look at a few common stipens across the districts across the region. Milan ISD is currently competitive in stipens as
027well. Um, sped and bilingual education is an area where MISD is compensating our teachers at rates much higher than our competitors. When comparing non-teer salaries, we're also able to see that across the board, we continue to pay competitively in these categories as well. here is in the best interest of the district to be as close to 100% to be competitive yet also fiscally responsible. As we review some of our non-exempt employees, you continue to see that we remain competitive in these areas. As well, in this mixed pay group, you see child nutrition services, police department, and technology services. It's important to know that although not all areas are at 100%. This is common in market value because some years of experience really um play a role in how our averages end up being. So in
028some cases uh new or novice staff can be below market value due to years of experience. So taking the data that we just shared, Midland ISD um has the following recommendations. We recommend to adjust our master's degree stipens as part of our teacher pay. So removing the standard 1300 and making it into two different stipended amounts. Um teachers would get a $1,500 stipend if the master's degree aligns to their subject area and a flat $1,000 stipend if they just have a general stipen a general master's degree. In addition to that, MISD recommends that our compensation plan aligns to HB2 requirements. We also recommend that it's contingent to updating on House Bill 2 requirements as they become mandatory. That we take into consideration placement scale adjustments as necessary and we improve at that 10-year plus mark,
029which House Bill 2 already kind of um does for us. And then if an an employee remains 90% midpoint after all of the adjustments, an additional 1% be added to that strategic adjustment. When we get into the cost, um, with House Bill 2 requirements, we're looking at about 5.5 million um, for about 14 um employees that would fit into the teacher category. Our starting salary will increase to 61,500. Midland ISD recommends a 2% increase um in recommended for the areas that are listed in your screen on your screen. This allows us to remain competitive while still being conservative within our uh financial constraints. So you can see technology services, police department, clerical support, instructional support, auxiliary, and child nutrition services at an overall cost of about a little over a million dollars. Our last recommendation
030is for our professional administrative groups. Milanist D is only recommending a 1% increase for 463 employees in this pay group. The overall cost of the our recommendations is a little over or 7 and a half million at 7.692 million. Um again, this does not include fringe and benefits that Mr. Durham referenced in his presentation. So at this time, let me read this correctly. The administration recommends the boards of the board of trustees approve the 2526 compensation plan as presented which is contingent based on current understanding and implications from the 89th legislative session and is subject to change based on further clarification from the state. I'd be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Yes, sir. Uh yes, ma'am. Miss Garcia, thank you for the uh for the presentation. Uh I guess going over
031some of the financials that we talked about uh in the in a meeting uh yesterday. Uh from my understanding some of the or the stipens are asked uh from my understanding are asked to be included in the uh that individual salary versus having it as a stipen. Is that a correct statement? Yes, sir. Yes. And I can speak to that. Um, so as we've gone through this compensation plan, uh, what we look at is sometimes stipens are there and maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place. They they were approved. They're no longer relevant. They're no longer necessary. Uh, when we look at certain pay groups, so there's different kinds of stuff. There are those that just need to go away and they need to to be removed. There are some like what
032we're doing strategically with the master's degree, a content area masters is more beneficial for the district because teachers can then teach dual credit courses which benefits our students uh to take those courses at the high school level with their high school teacher. Um but then we also sometimes see areas um and the area I think that you're talking about um over the years and having seen this in four different districts now sometimes positions will fluctuate between the teacher pay scale and the administrative professional pay scale. So there are times districts will say we're going to pay uh these positions that are non-eing positions on the teacher scale and we're going to give them a stipend. Well, so at some point typically when it's recommended to move them back into that administrative pay scale or move
033them there once and for all, typically what happens is you roll those stipens in so you're not telling a a number of people that they're taking a significant cut during this transition of the plan. And so um one of the areas in particular that we looked at diagnosticians was an area like that. I expect over time either they were in the teacher plan with a stipen or they were on the administrative plan and maybe the the district and the board at that time was having trouble hiring diagnosticians and so they added a stipen to try to recruit people into the position. And so that's uh one of those areas where and we've done this with with much of this comp plan when we have to make those tough decisions. How do we do it in
034a way that we get that long-term strategy out of it, but we're not penalizing our employees who it's of no fault of their own any more than necessary. And so, um, that's that's why some of the stipens are moved into that complex or into that salary. Uh, whereas some of those standalone stipens that have always been and should be standalone stipens have been removed. Well, one of the things I I guess my question is, uh, Dr. tower is that from a standpoint of if I'm understanding I know we compare ourselves to county and but I'm looking at the whole perian basin if you will uh from my understanding those salaries that we're talking about is already 15% above what those positions are paying in our in our in the perian basin. So the part I
035look at is is that from a stipen standpoint of view I mean if it's those 30 people we're looking at $240,000. So, in the cuts we've had in the past and going forward, my thing is is the question to ask is even we left the the the $8,000 or whatever it is. I'm not saying cut those now, but I'm just looking at if we embed those in a contracted position, then that's going to be money that from a standpoint of there's no leeway from the district or the board to make any decisions on if there needs to be some reductions made because that money's already been embedded into their salary. So that's the part that that I look at from a standpoint of of giving those uh those type of monies and then plus it
036adds to the uh to the TRS which is the district pays toward that then that's going to be another avenue from a business standpoint uh from the board as far as recommending paying more to our TRS when we've added another $240,000 to salaries. Right. So, those are things that I look at from a standpoint of of finances and being on the board and then being a representative of uh of the district that I'm in and representing the the MISD that I think that this board needs to take another look at versus emboding embedding uh uh the stipens into a a full-time salary. And I'm not saying we go out tomorrow and cut those people's $8,000 or four whatever it may be, but I think the district needs to have some leeway in a standpoint of
037just adding that money into their salaries. That's my take on that that part. And we really considered that uh we've actually been working on this specific group of employees for about a month. And there's multiple ways we could have approached this. But when we think about the uh role that our diagnosticians play, uh the fact that they're not all easy to find and and there's a shortage of diagnosticians, this is a position that we feel and and the amount of compliance that they keep us out of. This is one of those things we feel like rolling that in and grandfathering those employees in and then working ourselves out of this in in a more of a grandfathered approach. We feel like that's the right thing to do for these employees. Um, if we look at
038market, I mean, we pay our starting teachers 124% of market. Now, that'll fluctuate as everyone makes their adjustments. Um, but this isn't the only group that falls into being above market. And so trying to tackle those one at a time and then also thinking about that equity piece between other groups of people that could could fall into that same category. I just have a question kind of bolt on there. If I remember correctly, last summer. When was Miss Osborne here? Was she here last summer? She was here last summer and the year before. So last summer she stood before us and she brought up the fact of how many kids we still had to have tested. Correct. We had a huge backlog because of our diagnosticians were backed up. And I I certainly understand your
039concern, especially on the TRS, long-term liability, but it goes back to improving student outcomes. We spend money across this district on major items that don't necessarily impact the student outcomes as far as in terms of academics, but greatly to the powers of magnitude more than $240,000. And I want to make sure that I'm understanding the importance of a diagnostician in the success of a student and improving student outcomes. If we have to be competitive with our diagnosticians to bring them in, the diagnosticians are testing those students for every type of program that we possibly could offer them to be successful as a student. Correct. That's correct. Okay. I just I just want to make sure because this category I I think it's it's an important piece in the sequence of the entire education program from
040preK all the way up to 12th grade even rolling in with the convergence of K12 with with uh with junior college with higher ed that the diagnosticians are kind of setting the precedent and setting up every piece of resource and tool that we possibly could utilize to make that kid have the equitable opportunity to be successful in attaining their educational goals. So, I just want to I I I I absolutely agree with you. I think that that is a TRS liability that's probably that we're going to have to get figured out at the state. But, I think if we don't if we're not careful with not going above and beyond protecting one classified group of educators over another, I I don't want to do that, right? But at the same time, I think this is
041probably one of this the most important pieces we can have. If we don't have high quality diagnosticians to set up our kids for success through the testing, then everything we do out like after that can be out of sequence and it can just increase the obstacles that we have to get them to success. Well, and there's a couple of other things and um some of this is still in the works with the new legislation, but there will be it looks like there will be funds that will flow for every evaluation that we do, $1,000 I believe for every evaluation that we um complete. But then uh what we're hearing about the new um ESSER voucher bill and of course this next year will be a planning year for that. Uh but it appears that the
042ISDs will still be Did you say ESSER? ESSA. Oh, okay. I was like that cannot be coming back. That's ESSA vouchers. Yes. So, um it appears based on the two webinars that I've been in just last week that even if a student, regardless of where they sit, the ISDs are going to be responsible for evaluating students um through the diagnostician and special education programs and SS is the federal component. So, rolls up to the state. Anyhow, I I appreciate Mr. Bishop being a fiduciary like looking at the fiduciary responsibilities of it, but I for for me it sets it it just gets everything out of sequence. Well, again, I'm not saying cut their stipen out. That's not what that's not what I'm saying. Uh that's not what I'm after by no way, form, fashion. I'm
043just saying that the money's the $8,000 is still going to be there. I'm just looking at the part of of and I understand what both of you are saying, but I'm just saying adding that into to a a salary and not a stipen is is the one that No, I agree. I mean, we should look at that. We should figure out a better way to get this achieved later down the road. But I just Anyway, I don't have anything else. Anybody else questions, comments? M I had a comment. Um, I just want to say the state did a good job by doing the teacher increases, but what they didn't do was increase anybody else's salary in a school district. And it takes the entire school district to for better student outcomes. It takes our bus
044drivers. It takes our custodians. It takes our nutrition services. It takes our counselors. It takes our diags. It takes our librarians. It takes coordinators. There's so many more staff other than the classroom teacher. And I'm not against the classroom teacher at all. Y'all know that because I am one. And I'm thankful. I wish they'd done it back when I was teaching. But I think that it would be nice if once we talk about our legislative priorities that we look at that the state legislatures know that it a school district is is more than just the teachers. It's a lot of people. No, I agree with that. I mean, first off, we need to start with the feds if we're talking about nutrition because that's a federal program, not a state. But anybody else? Dr. Freeze,
045I got a few questions. Um, I'd like just a little bit of an explanation, just kind of overall um a bird's eye view on why most school districts do experiencebased raises instead of merit-based raises. if you could just kind of maybe you all could give us some insight. I think the bad answer is that's how it's always been done. That's not the good answer, but I think that's probably the historical answer. There are some districts um that have launched out and are doing that. Dallas ISD is a perfect example of that. I guess it's been about seven, eight years ago that they tackled that. Um they actually have four tiers of teacher pay and so tier one is is where you start until you prove you move to tier two, you stay. So, you could
046stay in tier one, make the exact same amount of money every year um for 10 years if you don't promote into that additional tier. Uh for Midland ISD, we actually are we cohort D or E for TIA? D. So, that means A, B, and C went before us. And so TIA is an attempt to look at, you know, at least compensation that's more merit-based, more student outcomes based, as well as I would say opportunity culture is. Um, in some of the new legislation, there's going to be some incentive and some funds to assist from a technical assistance provider standpoint uh for districts to explore moving to more of a merit-based student outcomesbased um compensation plan. And that's something that um I'm not opposed to. I think if we do it, we need to take advantage
047of that technical assistance. There are people who have worked through these processes and know the pitfalls. And um even like with TIA, um TIA doesn't affect all of our teachers, but we have teachers that don't love teacher incentive a lotment because not everybody can earn it. And merit-based pay is not everybody can earn it. And so it will be one of those things that will be very different because it's not how we've done business in education. Doesn't mean it's not the right thing to look at or explore. Um but I hope that kind of answers your question. If if you could just kind of follow up and just kind of describe what we do offer all of our incentive based um and how much like how many um how many of these checks are we
048giving out just kind of an overview for us and also the public. Sure. Absolutely. We have a teacher incentive aotment. Um this year we paid uh 274 teachers about $27 million worth of incentive pay. Um so 274 people received checks. Um and we're looking at expanding that next year to adding more courses and more teachers that would qualify into that. Um now the state set some parameters and we try to stay within a 30% mark. So on average it follows kind of a bell curve where your top 30% of teachers should be the ones who qualify for this incentive pay. In addition to that we do opportunity culture. We have uh opportunity culture at 27 campuses and we're looking at adding I think a couple more in the next few years. I think Lonear Trails
049will be joining after one year of implementation. Um and we currently serve probably about 120 um MCLs and MTRTs and TRTs that get um additional compensation as well. um for their um performance in the classroom and their support helping teachers and coaching teachers. So there's quite a few teachers. Some of those fall into both categories. That's where we get teachers that earn over $100,000 because they could potentially be earning $17,000 as an MCL. In addition to that, they could be earning 20 up to $22,000 of teacher incentive aotment. And so when you combine those two things, we have teachers that can earn 30 to $40,000 in extra incentive. And in House Bill two, they actually made some adjustments to the teacher incentive aotment pay ranges. And so what's not clear yet is, you know, when
050we listen to the webinars, they say this is in effect for next year, but we don't know if that means for people earning next year or people already designated. Um, so we've left those in the comp plan the way they are and as we get further clarification, we may have to bring those back. but we didn't want to adjust them up if the money is not going to flow from the state for those increases because that money does come from the state. Just to kind of bolt on to what Dr. freeze it said and we can talk about it offline too but I think when you when you bring when you deliver this this data and I think it's worth the extra time that it'll take to break it out to show how it flows
051back to the feds because we like to talk we've been dealing with teacher incentive aotments and all these different things from goals 2000 to no child left behind from all the way back from ESSA to esser I mean it goes forever and there's a lot of federal mandates that flow through through the TEA to the district. And I think for the school boards to get to really get your arms around it to understand the complexities of how it flows, I think it would be good to try and draw like show the flow going this goes to the state. The state is mandated by the feds through this to be able to hit this criteria so people can understand the complexity from a board standpoint because I I don't know. I've got like 136 of the
052court cases, state and federal court cases, where we switch from inputs to outcomes on there, trying to memorize them all. But it's that's really important information to understand, I think, for a board trustee to understand the complexities of how that does. So, if you're going to put that data together, I think it would be worth Well, I'll tell you. I I'll give you a gift card or something if if we can get that done because the data he wants is important, but what if you're already if we're going to be putting the time in, if we do one step further to show that flow from the Fred and the state, I think it'll be beneficial to the board after I'm long gone. One more ask question. Um so the TIA money is different at each
053campus correct how much is available the top top and bottom and that's based on the US census tiers right so is that a do we advertise that anywhere when we're recruiting teachers to campuses campus principles do campus Thank you. I got another question. Break it down into philanthropy, too. All the different pieces. Uh, so the TIA money, I I kind of would also like a little bit of a picture of like is this subjective? Do you have objective criteria? Um, do teachers kind of see the criteria that they're going to be evaluated on? you know, everybody at different at their different offices, you know, kind of at least at my office, I kind of use a mix of both subjective and objective. I just kind of like to to hear how it's done here. Maybe
054it's different at every campus. So, go ahead. It it varies. And so, actually, part of the question you asked earlier about merit pay, that's what makes merit pay so difficult because we have teachers that teach different subjects, different um grade levels, um different expectations. So there's different assessments that we give. Um for example, pre-K assessments are going to look much different than eighth grade math assessments, right? Um so we have to set those metrics for every grade level in every content area. Um and we look at nationally referenced and normed assessments um to see what's out there. Some of them are already TIA approved. Some of them are in-house district created, but we do look at both subjective and objective data. We look at objective data through the assessments. We look at subjective data through
055their TAS evaluations. And so we combine those. They have to meet a certain score in order to qualify. Um and then we communicate that with teachers through our TIA handbook that's published on the website. We also have TIA um we call them ambassador committee meetings. And we have one representative from campus come to each one of these meetings to ask questions, get information, and go back and share with their particular campus. And then once all of the data is collected at the local level and they have been validated, it goes to Texas Tech who does the validation for the state of Texas and then that they ultimately tell us who is designated and what designation they so it's a multi-step process. Going back to the comp and the question about stipens. Um, if it's the
056board's will, we could So, what you won't see in the comp plan tonight are the stipens that we're talking about related to diagnosticians. If the goal or the intent would be to continue to offering that because they've already been told what those amounts were, the ones who were with us last year. Um, that could be they could be grandfathered in. We can be very clear about their grandfathered in, but new people coming in because it's not part of the comp plan would not be eligible for that stipen. And we would leave those stipens separate until the employee separated from that position. So, I believe we could do that if that that's the will of the board. I'm fine. Uh we've we historically most of the things that we've seen in other meetings or what have
057you have had some issues with stipens here and there and it's been pretty consistent and so I if this is what the district is recommending for the board to do then it is of my like it's up to the board right my personal opinion is I'm going to accept it as is because that's as long as we're under budget and we're improving student outcomes I that's all I care about that is the recommendation and I do believe that over time. There are some other strategies we can look at as we continue to watch market. Um there's other ways that we can continue to work to keep positions within those market ranges. I I mean I'm for for me again it's the will of the board on it, but I'm fine accepting it as is and
058I am going to be very cautious on on on making our diagnosticians upset this late in the game trying to come in when we're trying we're myopically focused on improving student outcomes. We have dyslexia targets that we're going to hit that we've added to this. We want to improve student academics and screwing with the with with our with our base of really high highly qualified diagnosticians in my opinion is very very disruptive and could be potentially hazardous to the entire sequence. So I it's up to the board, but that's me. So, one of the things I want to say is I I just don't see how it's going to upset anyone in my personal opinion if if the money is still the same other than moving a stipen to a salary. That's the only thing
059I brought up. It wasn't about trying to upset or make anyone mad. Sure. And one of the things I have asked the team to do for the last three months as we've gone through or maybe four months now that we've gone through different cuts and and changes and um positions that we were you know changing for various reasons stipens were being adjusted stipens were going away. Every employee has been communicate they've had that communication. So, we've been very strategic to when we get ready to make those announcements, we're having those either individual discussions or if it's a whole group of people having those group meetings so that we're very clear on what we're doing, why we're doing it, how it affects them, or how it doesn't affect them. Um, and so that meeting actually took
060place yesterday, I believe. Um, so they are under the impression that it'll be rolled in and um that'll be grandfathered and we'll continue to monitor the market. Are we ready for anybody have anything else? Are we ready to vote this? I got some more things to say ask. But you're close to your 10 minutes. So let's round it out. What's your count? I was just going to say that you know just clarify this. So the non-teer positions are getting roughly 2%. Right. Everyone other than the positions, there's a little over 400 positions on the administrative profession. Um for me, I think um it's pretty good considering the cuts you guys did have to make this year. Uh Tucker, everybody, you know, we started this year out 41 million roughly to go from 41 million to
061approximately 8 million, 9 million, what you're projecting. I mean, that's pretty impressive in a year, I think. Um, I think last month the board gave guidance on what we are looking for on the budget for next year. So, uh, with that being said, I'm good with this recommendation as well. It's been moved. Is there No, it's been moved. Who moved? You didn't make a motion. All right, then. Go ahead. I uh I would like to just kind of go through Whoops. some of the we talked a little bit about the attrition um uh the attrition based efficiencies that we're going to kind of grandfather in. Could you kind of just talk about that to the rest of the board in case nobody I think that's a really good idea. I applaud you all for for
062uh doing that if you could just kind of explain. Absolutely. There's one change in the comp plan that's very different this year than past years and at the very bottom of every page there's a footer that says new hire schedule. What we want to people to understand and our current especially our current employees is that this comp plan is really geared or intended for our new hires. Um when they look at this they should be able to see what their compensation's going to be. And so many of our current employees the changes that are listed here are not going to impact them. They've been grandfathered. We're communicating with them that that if you see 217 listed there as a number of days that doesn't quite necessarily mean it's you. It means that if you leave
063your position, the next person we hire will not be perhaps on a 226 work calendar. They'll be on a 217 work calendar. And so it's more of a of a task for our supervisors to be aware of because the questions will come from the employees over time saying, "Why is this person working 226 and I'm working 217?" And supervisors will have to understand and be able to speak to that. But the reality is over time um we'll start to save districts money by being putting people in the on the work calendar that best meets their needs. So a couple of examples we have some positions like an example librarian. Um we have students that come to school for about 168 days of the academic year but we had librarians on like a 192 I believe.
064So um that's already over 30 days that we are asking librarians to be present. And yes, they have some work to do to wrap up the school year, but it not an additional 30 days worth of work. And so by making these adjustments to work days, um we're being very strategic about looking at every person's role and aligning the work calendar to make sure that they align with their actual job responsibilities, but again, at the same time, not trying to impact the current employees who would have to take a pay cut in order to do that. So we are this is really a new higher placement schedule for our current employee for our new employees and uh for our current employees their salary will remain unchanged unless there's specific cases where their stipens were adjusted
065or or edited in some way and we've already communicated that with them. That's all I had. Thank you. I I just one comment when we're doing this I just want to remember because Dr. How and I spoke to this a little bit and y'all are doing a good job on this, but I just want to remind you for future boards and going forward, we've seen that we lack processes and systems and I want to make sure that we're codifying this into a scalable system that can be replicated and communicated to into the future because we're y'all, not we, y'all are having to put together past things and get them up to snuff in order then to codify them and put them into like a systems like an actual process and a systems design phase. So
066I just want to please make sure that we do that because it'll make everyone's life easier I think going down the road. But that's all I have. Anyone Mr. Bishop, Mr. Booker? Anyone have a motion? A motion to approve as presented. It's a tie. It's been motioned by Mr. Booker and Josh Gwyn. Second. Been seconded by Mr. Hernandez. It has been motioned and seconded this board vote on agenda item 6B, discussion of and request for approval of the 2025 2026 Milan ISD compensation plan. All those in favor, raise your right hand. It's unanimous. The motion passes. We have a motion to adjurnn. to adjourn. It It has been motioned and seconded that this meeting of the Midland Independent Board of Trustees be adjourned. All those in favor, raise your right hand. It is unanimous. Motion
067passes. We're adjourned. [Applause] I would really