001Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen Brown, chair of the Virginia Beach School Board, and I call this administrative informal and workshop session to order. Madame Clerk, would you please announce the role? Thank you, Madam Chair. Present in the school board chamber are Chair Brown, Vice Chair Williams, Mr. Bowensteel, Mr. Kalen, Mr. Co Pepper, Mr. Cummings, Miss Dwire, Miss Felton, Dr. Green, Miss Melnik, and Miss Rogers. Okay, thank you. We are on to administrative matters and reports. Um, I do want to very briefly mention the Pearls of Wisdom tickets that I have with me. I did text and call um I believe everybody today and if I did not, I will catch back up with you and make sure that I can meet up with you sometime this week to get them to you. Miss Melnik,
002thank you, Madam Chair. Um I just wanted to make a comment about a topic from last week's budget meeting. Um and that is specifically um Chromebooks in our classroom. So when it comes to education, I really look at myself as very measured and thoughtful about educational decisions. And I have um someone that I call my barometer, if you will. Um a former um elementary school teach uh principal and someone that I was proud to work for. And he walked me through these steps and he talked about a pendulum and um in education. he uh he really offers great advice all the time. Um so in my discussion with him and after the results of the last PRC meeting which was the day after um our last schoolboard meeting I'm really nervous about that the Chromebooks
003becoming a policy. Um, I think that instruction, the development and delivery of instruction is for the people that sit here in front of me. Um, otherwise I don't know why we would have them or a superintendent. Um, and so in my conversations with constituents across the division, I'm asking for if it's going back to policy or if it's staying in policy review that perhaps we all or at least policy review can come to a consensus that we can eliminate preK and kindergarten Chromebooks and that we can make sure that um it's minimal use in first grade and second grade and that nobody can take them home. Um at least to give us an opportunity to maybe have some measurable data after the first year. Um, I'm I guess what I'm saying is I'm very concerned
004about an educational decision being put into policy. And so I'm asking my policy review committee members to seriously give that some thought um as we move forward with that discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bowensdale. Yes. I'd like to talk about the protocol that the uh general advisory council proving. They had a meeting, a committee meeting not just a couple couple weeks ago at Princess Hannah Middle School and they showed what was going on. They had a video of everything and it was really cool that the students got a hands-on opportunity to see what was going on to check and there was a lot of graduates that were there working that had gone to the advanced training and the vote tag. Also, the Green Run Collegiate Gayla is this Saturday at the Weston. So, keep
005that in mind. It's a great fundraiser. And finally, Thursday in Richmond, we got some basketball games going on. Just want to give a shout out to Lance Town for class six and also PA Girls and Green Run Boys that are going to be representing class 5 for the state finals. Okay, Miss Rogers. Thanks. Um, first I wanted to recognize it's reading month and thank the elementary schools that have reached out and asked us to be readers. And hopefully we can um get more opportunity to read in some classrooms this month. But I also want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the following recognitions and celebrations within the community. In the month of March, the community will recognize the following. American Heart Month, a nationwide observance by the American Heart Association and Center for Disease Control
006to raise awareness about cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in America. This month encourages Americans to focus on heart health through lifestyle changes, CPR training and supports initiatives like National Wear Red Day on the first Friday of the month to pro to promote heart health especially in women. It is ethnic equality month and that is dedicated to recognizing the importance of diversity, foster inclusion and promote equal rights. Actually, that is incorrect. I will have to finish March because everything I typed apparently got saved for February. Unless I can repull this up and it saved it. Hang on one second. Go ahead, Mr. Cummings. I'll circle back, Mr. Cummings. Yep. Um, I just wanted to give a quick little report on some of my recent activities with our beautiful, wonderful schools about six,
007seven months ago. Uh, I went to uh the National Night Out and saw uh our community partner um uh the the public library system and they talked about some of the great work they do with our schools and uh was specifically with our prek uh program. And so I they told me about a field trip that our title one prek schools get to get to attend. And I had the opportunity two weeks ago to attend this field trip with our prek kids, ride the bus with them, read to them in the morning. I had so much fun. Um it was right up my alley. And I want to report back that I did get my library card while I was at the Kimsville library. And so it was a lot of lot of fun with
008the with the College Park kids. And so I wanted to express my thanks to uh Miss Silverman, the College Park community, Kimville Library, our public libraries as well are doing some great community work. Uh it's awesome to see. The kids were so excited. They were amped up in the morning about going on this field trip and I had so much fun. And so the other thing that I got to attend was uh just I'm bringing show and tell school board meetings just so you all know is I got to go to the uh what is it the high the the VPA the visual performing arts um barbecue that they had or haiku RQ that they had where they showcase student art. They had clay going on and um screen printing and got to see some
009of the great art that our students from Salem are doing. I was just so impressed. There's about hundreds of art pieces there being shown by the community, shown by our kids, and it's, you know, sometimes I just, it's fun just to go and see the product of, you know, Virginia Beach schools and how great, you know, our kids are doing, how wonderful our teachers are, and to be part of, you know, this event to help raise money for for the academy. And I just had a great time there and wanted to, you know, just share share about that experience. And I think the final thing that I wanted to share was about national or app reading national appreciate reading month. That's a mouthful today for me. But uh I had the opportunity to go to
010Salem Elementary and had a great time there sharing one of my new books. Can you hug a cactus? I don't know. We'll pull the classroom and see what they think if you can hug one or not. But I've encouraged school board folks just to continue to participate in this activity uh and reading to our kids. It's a great opportunity to connect with our schools and just see see our schools in action. So want to report back on that. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Falton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to tell my colleagues about the opportunity that I have to had to uh to visit and to be involved with the face um uh event that they had on Saturday. And I was just so impressed with what they did and how they did
011and how it came together. And of course, our students were there. Uh even volunteering for the works that they were doing. I got to meet a lot of them. Uh happy about it. But I was really impressed with the faith having uh over 300 RS RSVP from the community and we had over 16 partners presented at this event and it was really great. And that include and that did not include the four or five food trucks that they had there as well. I was overwhelmed with what I saw and got to uh see a lot of things that were being showcased. But what really impressed me was the uh beacon face mobile truck. Really impressed with that. And that was um refurbished by it was a truck that we had. was sitting around that the
012uh Virginia Public Schools had and they refurbished it and Baypoint Credit Union did a tremendous job on this truck. and inside the case that where they had uh shelves and storage space that they had because the beacon brings Virginia Beach City Public Resources directly into the neighborhood strengthening the connection between homes and school by expanding families access to academic support, health and wellness services, parents learning opportunities and tools that promote student success. community partners. The mobile unit provide guidance on attendance, behavior support, literacy and activities, technology, assistant, career exploration and connection to essential resources such as housing and financial support. These were the partners that we had also financial support uh wellness, mental health groups that were at this event. It was just great and I would like to see Dr. Robert Sand would like
013to see a little bit more of us uh investing in that because our partners are doing a lot. They're doing a lot with this. But to do all of this what they're doing and we only have one truck to get around to the whole community and they're providing these things. It was really fantastic. I was really blown away with that. Most importantly, our students were there asking question. And Miss Woodhouse, you might be getting a lot of calls from them concerning some things that they asked. I said, "I know the person you need to talk to." So, you probably get some phone calls and emails as well. It was great. Our face department is doing tremendous work and we should see we should get out and see all that they're doing. Thank you. Thank you.
014Um, Miss Rogers, did you have any other reports? I'll have to circle back. Uh, everything I typed before I got here is gone. Okay. All righty. Well, we will now move on to budget workshop number seven. and we welcome Crystal Pate, chief financial officer. So, good afternoon, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chairwoman W, school board members, Dr. Robertson. As Chair Brown mentioned, this afternoon marks our seventh budget workshop presentation. This afternoon's agenda is displayed on the slide. Like previous workshops, we'll start by addressing any questions received by schoolboard members. Next, I will walk everyone through the navigation of our front-facing website for budget and consolidated benefits. During this brief overview, I'll highlight a few key sections that are designed to keep our stakeholders informed and upto-date on our available resources and important updates. I will then provide
015an budget update and then we will move on to a seon budget balancing discussion. Finally, going over remaining key budget dates and outlining next steps. There was one request from the last schoolboard workshop to provide a line item detail of the budget and post it to the website. Um the fiscal year 2027 C online item detail has been posted to www.bschools.com. And so now we are going to and I'm going to say attempt because I've never done this before to try to navigate. Um Regina's going to help because she I can't uh do it from the from the podium. And so I'm going to first cover the benefits um website. So we go to um www like benefitsthebe.com and from this home screen you can scroll down and select I am new here. And this
016is and then as you scroll down that page is an example of information for newly hired employees and things that they need to be aware of in their first 30 calendar days that they're employed. If you go back and there's a lot of information, so I'm just trying to hit on some highlights. If you go back to home and then goes all the way down past that, there's some at uh stay up tod date. Um so this is um to show the communication resources available to employees. They have items that scroll across the top about different um ideas like mobile clinic, EAP. Um they also have um the be wellbe that's on there. They have the benefits e bulletin and then um we're advertising where the be well beach bass which beach bash will be
017uh vendor fair will be um on March 28th and then if you go to the top under benefits under the benefits main page you can scroll down past these tiles and each of these tiles you can click on and get information on any of that those plans that's available. Um and as you scroll down, um you can get to at the pink you can get to the benefit plan rates. So these are going to be the 2026 rates for our plans for all employees based on what that employee um status is within the division and it would be like health and dental and um legal and um all of the plans that we have. But that gives a concise place for those rates to be posted. Then if you go back up to the top
018and go under B well and the B well main page and you scroll down and select view B well eligibility. So again this will show all programs and eligibility again based on where you are as an employee in the system. And then the programs are listed on your left and it kind of tells you where you fall within what's available to you based on your employment status. And then if you go back up to be well again and go to resources at the bottom and scroll down um you can show all the resources that are available. So there's a calendar, a newsletter, a podcast, there's a BWall guide, um if you keep going down, there's all of these well-being resources on all kinds of things. Um social, emotional, physical, there's all kinds of financial well-being.
019So, there's a ton of resources out here um under the SPA platform for our employees. If you go to the top to financial and retirement and then what we're going to do is go down uh to um thinking about retiring there, they do have like I go up a little bit, Regina, like Yeah. And then go to learn more, but you do have a new hire in midcareer. Yeah. The learn more right under the last um all of Yeah. Yeah. And so what this does is so if you're thinking about retirement, you go there. This kind of gives you like five steps of the things you need to look at and consider as you begin thinking about retiring from the school system. But there's also information if you're just starting as a new hire or
020if you're in mid-career. So that kind of like can give you places to go as you proceed through that if you if you so desire. If you go back up to the top to eligibility and enrollment and then there's a main page. Oh, go home. Yeah, go home. Sorry. Oh, more. Oh, it's not like that on my screen. Okay. And then go to eligibility and enrollment main page. And you scroll down to show the plan eligibility by member type. Again, this is a chart based on where you are as an employee and then all of the plans or programs that are available and what is eligible to you. If you scroll back up, you can go under for example full-time and full-time equivalent employees and then um you can click on that full-time one, Regina.
021Thank you. And then this kind of for example gives you all this information if you are a full-time or a full-time equivalent employee and all the information available to you related to your um your benefits. And then if we go I guess under more into resources and so in contact. So this page will actually explain the benefits office contact information here and how to get a hold of them. It also allows you to schedule a counseling appointment um through our appointmentuler to make any appointments that you need. And then if you go back through resources again to more and then resources and select communications and events and then you scroll down to show communication methods and um and then expand on view more items right underneath that and so this basically shows all of the
022communications that we have newsletters podcast Instagram and then we also um show a calendar of all the events and that's kept updated for that. So, that is all available to our employees. And there's also, and I failed to do this, but there's there is a video that's out there, Regina, if you go to the home screen again and then scroll toward the bottom. I think it's where it's at. That video right there. It's a 13 minute video because but it's extremely well done and it provides a ton of information for employees and stakeholders if they would like to review that information. And so with that, I'm going to move on to the budget website. And so that's under bbschools.com. Yeah, that second link. So, this is where we keep the budget. So, on the news,
023if she opens that, this is just like latest news. So, right now, because we're right in with the superintendent's estimate needs, that is actually posted there and you can get to it from there. And if you close that and if you go up to quick links and you go under budget and then you scroll down and these are our resources. So if you click on superintendent's estimate of needs, it has our current um superintendent estimate of needs out there. It also has all our previous years out there. It also has the line item detail that I mentioned that we posted out there based on the request from the school board. And then the latest March 3rd budget balancing is also posted out there. If you go to the comprehensive financial report, that's our annual financial
024comprehensive report. The external auditor presented that to you all a few weeks ago. And so once that's presented, we post all of those um under that tab on on the website. The operating budget tab, that is all of our approved budgets. So once so we have through 2026 out there. Once 27 is approved, that will get posted under this tab. And then the last one is the capital improvement program. And again, those show everything that's been out there. The proposed is out there now. And a lot of previous years are out there for anybody that wants to go out there and look at the information. So, we hope that was kind of helpful not only to you, but to the stakeholders that may be um watching. Um does anyone have any questions about I've had
025to go through it kind of quick. There's a lot of information out there, but I want to make sure we don't need to maneuver back through anything. Miss Rogers is yours about this site. There you go. Yeah. Um, I just wanted to ask about the benefits whether you had like beginning career, mid-career. How are you designating beginning to mid for the employees? Is it just for like um uh probationary and then non-probationary just just so that if you're using it you understand where you will be at if you're kind of like just after your beginning. Yes. So the new hire is meant pretty much for that. Um you know you were a new hireer you may not be paying attention. There's a lot coming at you when you're newly hired. So, it's just a place
026to kind of go back and, you know, re-remember, you know, set up your beneficiaries and, you know, look at your retirement savings plans, uh, look at your my VRS account, you know, those types of things. Uh, remember to enroll within 30 days, right? Um, there is another on that um tab where it has the steps. I think there might be five. One of the tabs is financial wellness, and that'll take you even deeper to to go into some of those things. So there's not a specific time line around it, but it's it is that one tab is mostly, you know, you were newly hired. Midcareer is just everywhere in between. It's it's more about um financial resources. So it's just reminders about things that you may, you know, look at your beneficiaries every year. Um
027you know, just making sure that you're contributing to your cash match, you know, all of those. And then just providing resources. There's so many resources on there. There's resources for you to get to our vendor sites um where they have resources. And then the main one uh or the the one on the end for retirement that is not a specific time frame either because planning your retirement starts years in advance. And so that is meant and so we recently sent a postcard and it went to a lot of people. It was over 4,000 people in the division. But what it was intended to do was we looked at everyone that was within 5 years of a reduced benefit. So that could be even pretty early. You know, you may not be planning on a reduced
028benefit. Um, but we targeted those people cuz you need to start planning. You need to start looking at all of those things and making sure that you're prepared at the time you want to retire. I just I think my question was more like the difference between the new hire and the midyear is what I'm hearing and you can correct me if I'm wrong is that the new hire information has a lot more um step by step where the mid would be you already know what you're doing because you've done all of these things and and okay so and and I think that that's important that our staff understand that it's not just for new hires but if it's for this is for more stepby-step information just so that if I've been here for 15 years
029but I still don't know how to get to whatever resource I can go into the new hire and then find those directions because again when you've been doing something for a long time and then suddenly you're asked to do something that you haven't been asked to do for before or you haven't looked at before you might need those directions so that's where they would live is that what I'm curious and the new that on the homepage the where it says I'm new here that is more intended for your brand new hires. But there's if you go to that financial page where it had the new, mid, and retire um retiring, that one goes into more detail of probably the someone that's been around longer. Like we for those for that tab, we're targeting people that
030were hired in the past year. So it's not like a brand new hire. So we are going to be sending communications to those people. So every year we're going to look back in the past year, the past calendar year and um and target them to to look at that page. Okay. So for that very purpose of what you're talking about. Okay. Like I'm just trying to get uh clarification. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay. All right. If we go back to the presentation, please. Thank you very Yes. The next one. Thank you very much for your help. Um so this next item is going to be on our budget update. Um it summarizes what we currently know about the state budget and at this stage these items are still recommendations. The detailed information
031was shared during last week's schoolboard workshop. So I will not review everything again but I will give you a moment to look over. We tried to summarize it a little bit more than what we presented to you last week. So the House and Senate have each passed different versions of the bannual budget and the House has rejected the Senate's amendments. Lawmakers have now appointed budget conferees who are working to negotiate a final agreement. These confere conferees will reconcile the differences between the House and Senate proposals before a final final vote is taken. As a reminder, and I mentioned this last week, there is a rule requiring members to have 48 hours to review the proposed budget document before voting on it. Given that the general assembly is scheduled to end on Saturday, March 14th, it
032is hoped that a conference report will be available by Thursday at the latest. During this final week of the general assembly, the focus will be on the floor activity in both chambers, continued work on the state budget, and key conference committees that are still meeting. Several major issues remain under discussion. Teacher compensation remains a major difference between the two budget versions with the House proposing a 2% increase and the Senate a 3% increase. Many budget amendments are also being recalculated based on updated standards of quality cost estimates that were released in December. And in addition, conference committees are likely to meet on issues related to collective bargaining, English language learner translators for parents and diabetes. Both chambers include adjustments to special education add-on funding as well as continued funding for the school construction assistance program.
033We are unlikely to see any major changes to the state funding structure until the joint subcommittee on elementary and secondary education funding completes its work. So in summary, the general assembly has not yet finalized the budget. Both versions remain under negotiation and a conference committee will combine them into a final budget before it is sent to the governor for approval. The conference committee process is often where the most significant funding decisions are made. So again, you've seen this several times. Um the next two slides show our budget balancing as it's been previously present presented. Um so um we can determine if there's any additional discussion about items you may want to exclude or include using additional funds that we do expect to get from the state. you will later in this workshop hear some compensation
034related items that you may want to consider and we can revisit that discussion and I'll let that happen at the end. So we continue to show you the remaining key dates upcoming in the state's budget process. Saturday March 14th is general assembly adjourns send Tuesday March 17th schoolboard workshop if needed. Tuesday, March 24th, the adoption of the Seon and CIP. Monday, April 13th is the last day for the governor to take action on legislation. Tuesday, April 14th, tenatively is a presentation to city council. Wednesday, April 22nd is scheduled date for the general assembly to reconvene if needed. And then Friday, May 15th, city council approval of the city budget as required by code. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Questions can be emailed to Dr. Robertson, Miss Woodhouse, myself, or
035Miss Ingram for CIP questions. Please submit questions by Friday of each week so that responses can be provided at the following Tuesday's meeting. And weekly workshops will continue leading up to the adoption of the budget on March 24th. And I want to thank you for this time this afternoon. And that concludes the presentation. Be happy to answer any questions. Miss Rogers. Um, on slide seven, I maybe I missed it a different time, but I'm noticing additional drivers and and bus drivers and funding for achievable dream zone expansion. I I thought we voted on that last year. You did, but we had to put it in the budget. Oh, so this is for what we had already voted on. This is an additional. Okay. I was confused on that. Thank you, Vice Chair Williams. Um yes,
036Miss Pade on on um slide six. Okay. So, the 5.3 million for the additional health insurance contribution increase. Obviously, that's to go into the health fund. Um right above that, the 9 million approximately 9 million employer health insurance contribution increase. What does that do for the premiums of our employees? that at this point is the rates based on the latest projection from Mercer that are actually we've put into our system to calculate through payroll as a deduction based on what employees um choose for their plan to actually put that employer contribution into the revenue for the health fund. So where the 5.3 is more going directly into the health fund balance that 9.2 is the rates that we have used as an that based on Mercer's latest projection. And you have to realize there's already
037rates built into the budget. So we have worked to try to make sure that as the latest projection for Mercer that we're covering what the employer cost is um for for that. And I think right now I think we were at the 10% um for the employees, but no decisions obviously have been made on any of that. Okay, that was going to be my next question. What was the percentages? Okay. Well, that's what I thought because I thought that we had mentioned that none of this does anything for those rates, but that percentage is helpful. Okay. I just wanted a clarification to make sure we have to put those employer rates in to balance the budget and obviously if you as we know if things as we get more up-to-date information, if that changes, we'll
038have to make those adjustments, right? Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Um, I I want to comment uh briefly about what increases are in here because I do think that it's important that I don't blaze over it. I am happy to see that we have $22.6 million in increases to teacher pay, 11.1 million to unified. Um, I do hope that we can kind of fix that compression issue. Um hopefully in future years I would like to see that. Um but I I just wanted to mention those those positives. It sounds like there may be hopefully some more that we can allocate to that but I think it's a good start here. Um and then of course you know we have another 9.2 million into benefits and um I'm glad that we're doing all that. But
039um my questions are um so under increase of landscape services it says it's 179,000 um for increased landscape management. Have we um continued to analyze as a division if it's most cost effective to continue that partnership? And I'm assuming that it probably is because of the plowing and whatnot. We have and yeah exactly and there's a lot of different services and I don't know Mr. Free wants to ask, but there's a lot of different services that I was even educated on last year of the things that the city um does for us and certainly this year, the plowing and all of that. And certainly we have to increase that because the raises for city employees. Okay. The service level will stay the same. Okay. And then I just wanted to confirm uh the McKenna Vento
040V Vento Ven Vento. Thank you. Uh the five drivers that also includes the vehicles, correct? There's vehicles cost in there as well. Yes. All right. Um increased funding for utilities. Are we sure that's going to be enough? Um well, I will be honest with you. So when we did the seon right now, we weren't that's what the latest projection is. However, I believe based on recent um developments that that is looking higher than we expected. We are aware of that and as we go through the final state money and the adjustments for the budget, we will likely have to increase that. Okay. All right. So, we just need to keep an eye on that. And yeah, and even like and this would house a point also fuel because we're also starting to see that fuel
041go, right? And we didn't when this was developed. So, we're aware of those and um Mr. Freeman's group is doing a great job with keeping us a breast of those um estimates of those rising costs. Okay. Um and then the increased funding to the Virginia Beach uh digital campus stipens, those are teacher stipens, I'm assuming. Okay, great. Um and then my I just had a question about the governor school increase. Um it says summer residential governor school programs and um maybe my colleague here um that serves on that committee might be able to that governing board might be able to comment on that but I was just a little curious what that is and is that different than the summer other summer programs and offerings. I don't want to speak but I mean I believe
042that it is because we had a question about that when the request came through and it's it's it's has to be paid for you. Yeah. So that represents an increase to the cost of our students who participate in those two programs to the tune of it looks like boy glasses would be nice. 40,000 right 25,000 for the summer and 15 for the residential. Um I I'm assuming that's the regular school year. All right. Thank you Miss Melnik. So often we have people ask us why we don't spend down to zero. And so that's why Chair Brown's question about the utility costs was really an important one. And so for anybody that's watching this now or is going to watch it later, that is why we don't spend down to zero. That's correct. Because we don't
043these are unforeseen circumstances and we prepare for them um properly. Um and so I'm I'm glad she asked that question. Yeah. And I'm I am too because we do say this, but we do try to stay with about 98% of our budget and keeping a 2% because we know things like this happen and that, you know, we need to have that available flexibility within the budget. That's great. Thank you. And I would just like to follow on that. I don't know if we have a fuel reserve in our budget, but um I would be interested if we do, you know. No, we don't. No, we don't. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could just make a couple of comments before we go to the next presentation. Uh,
044one of the things that we've we learned um over the last year is um we have so many resources that are available for staff, it becomes overwhelming to them. And so, we've taken a new approach. David Den brought this approach to us two years ago and created the opportunity for us to send snapcoms uh out periodically to staff with key information. If you think of a snapcom, it's the it's the the trailing line that comes at the bottom of your screen when you're watching a movie. This is emergency, something on or hey, breaking news. So, we strategically send out snapcoms related to our benefits um to our staff and what we have found is the hits to people visiting our staff has drastically increased because they're getting those reminders say, "Oh, you know what? Let
045let me click on this because you got to click on it or it's going to come back again." Um to to just learn more information. And it goes to Miss Rogers question earlier. How are you defining these things? There is just so much information out there for our staff. And so what we're trying to do is is is go to the medians and the mediums that they're using like social our social media uh uh data that that Miss Lavis shared in senior staff on Monday is exploded over the last couple of years because we've adjusted from things we used to do that were not reaching the people to the to the way that people are accessing their information now. So very proud of that. And um and then again um proud that uh anybody wants
046to find out what's going on with the budget or benefits, it's transparent. It's out there for you. You can see it. Thank you. All right. We are now on to recruitment and retention funding considerations to enhance compensation educational benefits. Welcome Dr. Darnita Tropman, Chief Human Resources Officer. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams, members of the school board, and Dr. Robertson. This afternoon, the Department of Human Resources will present options for your consideration to enhance employee compensation programs. Each of these items reflects our commitment to ongoing efforts of strengthening competitiveness and supporting recruitment and retention efforts across the division. Given current market conditions and ongoing compensation adjustments being made by neighboring divisions, Virginia Beach City Public Schools must continue to evaluate opportunities to ensure that the division remains competitive. With the school board's support, significant
047progress has been made in aligning our pay scales. We value your ongoing collaboration as we continue moving these efforts forward. At this time, Miss Judith Wood, coordinator of classification and compensation, will present several opportunities to build on that progress as we continue to attract and retain a high quality workforce in supporting student success. At this time, I'll turn it over to Miss Wood. And I'm going to preempt Miss Wood just real quickly. The reason we're giving you this information because we there's there's no money in the budget to do anything that you're getting ready to see. But by the time a state budget comes in, you're going to get very little time to try to make modifications. So, we're trying to be proactive in sharing information with you so that should additional funding come in
048from the state, you've had a chance to digest what what are some things based on your priorities that you could do. And that's what this is really about because everything Miss Wood is getting ready to share with you has been something school boards, the school board of Virginia Beach over the last 10 years has been trying to make inroads in, but we never had enough to do it all at once. So, for those of you have been on the board for quite some time, you're very familiar with these because you've been tackling this for years. And so, for some of you that are new to the board, um you're getting this information for the first time, but it really represents years of ongoing work trying to address a situation. Miss Chair Brown mentioned the unified
049scale as an example. Um that's something we'd like to do, but there's a price tag that goes with it. So Miss Wood, thank you Dr. Tropman. Thank you Dr. Robertson. Okay, so to help frame our discussion this afternoon, we have organized the presentation around several key areas of employee compensation for your consideration. First, we will review the unified pay scale, including historical background information and an option for consideration. Next, we will discuss part-time rates for our temporary employees. We will then review educational allowances for advanced degrees, followed by the employee professional development reimbursement program, otherwise known as tuition reimbursement. And then lastly, we will conclude with additional duty supplements to provide some historical background around the unified pay scale. During the 2022 2022 school year, the division partnered with our compensation consultant, Seagull, to improve
050the salary scales and create a structure that is transparent and easy for employees to understand. For the unified pay scale, the recommendation was to implement a consistent 1.5% between steps and an operating cost of approximately $18 million due to funding constraint. I was right. Excuse me, I'm going back too fast. Um, due to funding constraints, the scale was realigned to provide a 1% difference between steps 1 through 14 and 1.5% for steps I'm sorry. I'm going to give it to you back one more. Are you going? Yeah. Yeah. Leave it there. Um, due to funding constraints, the scale was realigned to provide one a 1% difference between steps 1 through 14 and 1.5% for steps 15 and above at a cost of approximately 15 million. As part of the work, several positions, including those held
051by some of our lowest wage employees, were also reclassified, and that structure remains in place today. Employees on this scale received an average increase of about 7% with the intent to complete the full adjustment the following year. This option shown on this slide increases the entry level pay for the unified pay scale by 2% and adjusts steps 1 through 14 to a 1.25% difference between steps. Steps 15 and above remain at 1.5%. This results in raises ranging from 2% to 7.14% at an operating cost of approximately 15.4 million or about $4.3 million above the amount proposed in the seon. This entry level adjustment ensures a division provides the minimum 2% compensation increase required to qualify for state funding. Further, this option represents an opportunity to make progress towards aligning the unified pay scale to a
052consistent 1.5% difference between steps while continuing to support recruitment and retention across our workforce. Next, we will share information regarding the rates for our part-time employees who are essential to the daily operation of our division. Part-time employees provide essential staffing flexibility to support short-term and long-term vacancies as well as special project needs. The division employs approximately 5,000 part-time workers across roles such as sub substitute teachers, bus drivers and assistants, custodians, and other operational support positions. To date, approximately 586 of our retirees support the division in a part-time capacity. Except for adjustments made to meet minimum wage requirements or identified needs, these part-time rates have remained unchanged for the past four years and continue to align with entry- level rates established in the 2021 2022 school year. In today's competitive labor market, it is important that
053our compensation programs reflect current conditions so we can continue attracting and retaining reli reliable individuals to fill these essential roles. The estimated cost to increase part-time rates by 10% is approximately three 33 million. As we consider the need to adjust part-time rates, substitute teacher compensation provides a strong example of why this is important. Substitute teachers play a critical role in maintaining instructional continuity by providing cons consistent learning experiences for students during teacher absences. This chart reflects the division's current standing. We're shown in green within our local market. for licensed and non-licensed substitutes. We were we are positioned above Chesapeake. However, both Norfick and Portsmouth offer higher daily rates. Per regulation 4-90.1, long-term substitute teachers are employees who fill a position for more than 20 consecutive days and hold or are eligible for Virginia teaching license.
054As the chart illustrates, Norfick currently leaves in this category as well. The last time substitute teachers rates were increased was October of 2022. As part of the strategic framework, goal three, value and invest in staff. Educational allowances for advanced degrees are an important component of the school division's overall compensation strategy. They recognize advanced credentials that strengthen instructional practice, build leadership capacity, and benefit our students and the division. These allowances also support recruitment and retention because educators often compare compensation structures when deciding where to work and where to remain. Approximately 90.5% of the 3,300 employees receiving these allowances are teachers, reflecting the strong emphasis on advanced credentials within our teaching workforce. Administrators and professional staff, many who were once teachers, also benefit from these allowances, recognizing the advanced expertise required to support instruction operations and leadership
055across the division. to provide some background on the educational allowances. In the 2021 2022 school year, the division made a strategic commitment to increase our educational allowances for advanced degrees and move them toward local market competitiveness. This effort was designed as a multi-year investment in our workforce, not a one-time adjustment. At that time, an investment of approximately $5.9 million was needed to increase our allowances. The school board sustained that commitment over three consecutive years through 2023 2024 school year, resulting in the current amounts reflected on this table. As the comparison shows, two neighboring school divisions currently offer higher educational allowances. Moving the values to the target amount shown here will complete the multi-year plan and position us more competitively in this area as well as equalize the value of the allowance for the same degree
056in alignment with other divisions. The approximate cost to finalize this effort as shown on the slide is $1.8 million and that is inclusive of benefit cost. This leads us to our employee professional development reimbursement program which is our tuition reimbursement program. This slide this slide reflects a historical perspective of the tuition reimbursement funds available to employees annually. In 2011 2012 the annual reimbursement was $1,000. In the years that followed, the amount decreased to a low of $625 before gradually returning to 1,000 in the 2022 2023 school year where it remains today. This historical perspective is important because for over a decade, tuition reimbursement has not kept pace with the rising cost of higher education. The average cost locally for a three credit graduate course is approximately $1,890 or about $630 per credit hour. One local
057school division offers the prevailing rate of tuition for three credits at North State or Old Dominion University with other divisions providing between $2,250 to $5,500 annually. Currently, 237 employees have taken advantage of this opportunity and as of this month, all funds have been exhausted. As we continue to emphasize professional growth under goal three, value and invest in staff, tuition reimbursement remains an important tool for supporting employee development and maintaining a high high quality workforce. The cost to increase our tuition reimbursement to $2,000 per person annually is $214,000. Finally, additional duty supplements recognize the critical leadership and contributions of employees who take on responsibilities beyond their primary roles. Grade levels and department chairs serve as instructional leaders within our schools. They support curriculum implementation, mentor colleagues, facilitate collaboration, and help ensure consistency and alignment across classrooms.
058Non-athletic supplements provide students with opportunities to explore interest, develop leadership skills, and build and build meaningful connections outside the traditional academic setting, thus enhancing student engagement, belonging, and overall school experience. The cost to increase additional duty supplements by 10% is approximately 300 300 300,375. This concludes our presentation this evening. To assist with reviewing the information presented, this slide provides a summary of the items discussed along with the estimated costs, including the cost difference for the unified pay scale option, part-time rates, educational allowances, tuition reimbursement, and additional duty supplements. This overview is intended to help the school board quickly review the potential investments across these areas as you consider future funding opportunities. We appreciate the school board's time and consideration this evening and we are happy to answer any questions you may have and follow up
059on any items we that may require further review. Okay, Miss Melnik, so you mentioned that we have 586 retirees who are now part-time employees for Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Uh Dr. Robertson and I visited school f four schools on um last Friday and I met at least one. There may have been more but um how many retirees do we have that come back in full-time positions? Do you know? No, I'm not aware of that. But I mean I think a part-time that's a pretty good gig, right? like you retire, you don't know quite what if you don't know what to do and you want to give back part-time, but um you don't know the full-time. It varies from year to year, Mrs. Melnik, because part-time uh retirees would have to qualify under critical shortage
060um positions in order to hold a full-time position, which the state has um BRS has those opportunities. So that varies from year to year because at the end of the year uh retirees who come back in a full-time capacity must be separated um while correct for how long each year annually except for the SSO program. So it depends on the category but of course BRS has worked um very diligently to provide opportunities to retirees. Okay. Um, in my tenure, I've seen retirees who unretire to come back and work full-time. Retirees can work um 80% of a full-time position and not be critical shortage. So, there are lots of ways that retirees can come back and give back and they do. Okay. Yeah, they do. Um, my other question in looking at this, some of these,
061I might be wrong, but some of these topics seem our headlines here seem achievable when you look at the total dollar amount. I'm getting some eye raises, but like employee professional development reimbursement and additional duty supplements. We've talked about all of that, but that's an approximate cost increase of just a little over half a million dollars. And so I often wonder if some of those things are achievable. No, no, maybe not. Well, I mean, so they are lowhanging fruit for sure, but uh any of those decisions will require a corresponding reduction of that amount. I know. Again, trying to stay with that 98% budgeting. But see, this question is important because when you talk about our budget as a whole and you hear it's $1.1 billion, we get questions all the time that say in
062$1.1 billion, how can you not find half a million dollars? How can how can you not? Right? Don't we all the time we get those questions, right? There's a hundred of those lowhanging fruits, right? And so, but it is a question we get because it is hard to imagine that it costs that much to run a division. I know we're very large. Um, but these are always important conversations honestly to repeat because it is very hard to process. that much money. It really is. So, thank you for this. This was really important. Thank you, Miss Rogers. Um, I just had a quick question on slide eight. What is the difference between a master's instructional and a master's professional? This is the class of employee. The instructional course are teachers and the master's professional is for
063our professional level employees. So what does that mean professional? Like it could be a school nurse. It could be um a HRS person. Gotcha. Those type of a position. Okay. And and I'm asking because I don't like that like our doctorate instructional is less than our doctorate administrative and that our master's instructional is more than our like all of these people have earned their degrees. And so I think it's really important that we recognize that your degree whether it's a master's in education or masters in in nursing they still should get the same stipen because they've earned that. So it does I think that's important that we you know let our employees know that no matter where they're sitting in our division that we are recognizing their work and that we are giving them the
064same recognition across the board. Absolutely. And the target was to do just that Mrs. Rogers. So you can see that those uh values are the same. And that's why we wanted to give you a menu, if you will, of options for consideration just in case there were um extra um there was extra funding. But yes, to equalize that and make them the same, that was the target of the school division. All right. And I I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Dr. Green. Thank you. Um my question also is related Miss Woods to the educational allowances for uh ED specialists. How is that considered advanced certificate or because that's the bridge between a mast's and a doctorate. Okay. So that's why I was wondering correct. Okay. and no consideration for just letting it be a
065standalone area or or level because it is a degree. It it is a ed specialist degree. Yeah. Right. We have not explored that. Okay. Okay. was just saying because there is a difference between 30 hours beyond a master's versus having the ed specialists. Okay. Thank you. We can take a look at that. Could add it to the menu, Miss Falton. Thank you, Chair Brown. Uh I just like to say uh when you talk about the retirees when I visit CEKC elementary I ran into three retirees that were working there and they were working. One was a substitute teacher, one was a coach and one was a mentor and they were doing their thing really great and they said they love being there and they look to spend more years retirees. My question to you is
066I'm looking at the um uh professional redevelopment development reimbursement. How are those funds uh reimbured? Is it what criteria logistic that you use? Is it first come first serve or you do increments? So how is that done? How do they receive the funding? It is a first come first serve basis and you have to notify us in advance of taking the course. So yes, it is first serve. Wow. I didn't put that in the script. Yes. And and and what are what is the um what is the return rate? I know when you start getting your degree, you you know it's it's more than one semester sometimes you have to come back. So do you look at those or do you just reimburse all annually? Okay. Right. Okay. Great. Thank you, Miss Dwer. Thank you.
067So I have a question. Um are so are we short on tutors in our division? Uh, we are not. Okay. Because I thought I heard that. And um I guess that would be a good position for some of our retirees, correct? Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Cummings. Yep. Thank you. Um, thank you for sharing. uh retention and the well-being of our staff is definitely something that's top of mind and important to me. And so I'm very appreciative to see, you know, work being done thinking through how we can enhance the opportunities that we have. And so I guess some of the questions that I have, I'm looking at the um side eight on the educational allowances and advanced degrees. I'm kind of curious like looking at you know mast's professional masters instructional doctorate doctorate. Um,
068when I think about professional development and growth, excuse me, you know, how many I do X program, how many career opportunities internally are there for me for some of these degrees? Like how does how do I grow? You know, if I'm looking to grow professionally here in Virginia Beach City Public Schools, I obtain a master's in instructional or a doctorate instructional. how many positions, you know, up the up the ladder are there for those? And I don't know if you have an exact number or if things are mapped, you know, I'm asking kind of high level for future followup. I think that's something I'm thinking about because, you know, I see a just looking at approximate cost, you know, it seems like there's a larger demand for the master's degree programs. Um, you know, and
069when I think about uh you know growth for you know our for folks you know is could this be a stronger ret I don't know what the how many people apply how many you mentioned that the funds have been exhausted so if there's more folks but I wonder if like if expanding those buckets even more at a higher number that would actually you know retain more folks um because I I think back to your presentation the information that we received last year and I pulled it up earlier that talked about the staff in the one to fiveyear bucket being our highest churn rate. Um, you know, that's a bucket of folks that I'm very interested in. How do we retain this population? Um, and so I, you know, when I'm thinking looking through this, and
070I know that since we're kind of in pie in the sky mode with money, I feel like that's a a bucket of something that I'd be thinking about too is like how what are retention based programs that we have um, specifically targets towards those new folks because I mean, I know we also want to retain everyone um, at at our company, but with I think 65% of the folks in 2024 coming from 1 to 5 years, That's something that's top of mind for me. I think also I wanted to ask as well. So if we have a non-licensed teacher who's in the midst of and I sometimes I know I asked this before. I'm just trying to clearly understand and they're getting their transitions license and or they're getting a different license. Are how how
071do we have a benefits program for that? How is that paid for? Do they pay out of pocket? If we have someone who's like or am I totally off in the way I'm asking question? Provisional. Provisional. Sorry, not transitional. Thank you. But I would What' you say one more time for me, Mr. Cumins? Yeah. So, I'm trying to think if someone's has like a provisional license and they're looking to get and I could be wrong in the credentiing structure. That's okay. Um, if someone has a provisional license and they're looking to get licensed, do we have, you know, professional development dollars or allowances for those folks to get the right certification and where does that fall in? Absolutely. So, this um the tuition reimbursement would be an advantage that employees could take it where an
072opportunity employees could take um advantage of professional growth and innovation. Also um they have some programs to uh HR we have written grants to support provisionally licensed teachers. BDOE will put out uh grants to divisions specific to provisionally licensed teachers. So there are lots of programs and opportunities that we can take advantage of at the state level and we do. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking about that cuz I met a great teacher at Brandon Middle who was provisionally licensed. I was so excited to see that got licensed and I was just kind of curious what the funding structure on our side looked like during that transition. And some of our partnerships have expanded. Um so we do have partnerships with universities. However, the employee still has to pay. Um, and so again, that
073tuition reimbursement um opportunity comes in play and that's why we, you know, one of the reasons we're presenting the information tonight because there are various pathways that are being created to support um recruitment and retention. And so this is a part of the discussion with those various pathways coming a on board. Cool. And so I think my final finalish question is just then you know if we have like new emerging fields in technology or business or something like that and we know you know it's teacher has to go through and get a certificate like a nonmasters or they have to go through and get like x amount of hours. I assume that's part of the professional development area or like if there you know we're talking about AI a lot like if someone's getting AI
074to teach AI courses or AI certificate to teach AI courses where where does like that fall? So it it it depends. Okay. Um so we have a partnership with local universities to get teachers certified to teach dual enrollment classes and uh it's reduced tuition for them to take those courses uh that then would qualify them to do dual enrollment. There are other um programs that someone could take advantage of as an employee that's not going to cost them anything to to get a certificate to get a certificate by taking a certification assessment. then they're paying for the certification assessment. Um, we we could do a whole another presentation on the number of partnerships and and tuition re reductions we have with all of our local universities including Radford and University of Virginia, which you're not
075going to get to by driving, right? Yeah. But all the local ones 25% discount. uh with Virginia Wesleyan uh University um thanks to the work Miss Woodhouse did a couple years ago, they're taking our VTF kids and at Virginia Wesland and they are going to school for free. Yeah. And the the the tradeoff is they have to teach in the 757 when they're done for I think three years. And there was discussion at the time, well, why don't we make them teach in Virginia Beach? And I was like, well, that would be selfish, cuz what about if they get married and they live in Suffach, you know, so to speak. So, I said, as long as we we we we want our kids to go into profession if they choose to work in a different
076city, then so be it. Yeah. So, there are a lot of programs because we don't want um the ability to pay to prevent someone from going. And we we do think that it's time to take a look at the the professional reimbursement. It is to Miss Melany's point, it's lowhanging fruit. Um and and with board direction, we can we could make that happen pretty much regardless, but it this is something again we want to bring forward to you. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing this forward and having helping us think through like as funds become more available, you know, what's a top- of- mind initiative to help with retention um of our staff and also just I think their own professional growth and well-being. And so I think like and I know we have benefits at
077the beach and I know that's on our website, but I just think about simplicity to the user always. You know, if I'm an employee here, how do I grow my career? And simply what are what are my opportunities? And so, you know, it could very well be simply out there on the information and I'm just I don't know about it as a board member, but I think that's something that's also always top of mind to me is just, you know, as an employee who's looking, how do I grow? How do I find the answers? What resources are to me? And so, I applaud this effort and growth. So, thank you so much for sharing, Miss Falton. Thank you, Chip Brown. Uh, I am really excited about our VTF program. Uh, I always talk about it
078and I talk with the students about it as well. Uh Dr. Robertson, I would like to see that people work because of the uh partnerships that we have with the I would like to see that because when I'm having conversation with students and they're in the uh 10th grade Oh, I don't know yet. I would like to have that conversation with them. I remember ODU had the switch program. Yeah, it was great. We were there. Great. And I remember ODU would say if they educated and I think this was just for Northfor. If they educated a student to be a teacher, they went out. If they did not uh come up to professional level, the student could come back to ODU and get that professional development all over again. Uh I don't know if they
079did it for us. I know that they were doing it for Norol as well. So that might be something that they're just still doing for Norol. And I would like to see all of the universities that we have that are partnering have partnership we have partnership with to get these new students up and going. Thank you. I want to see homegrown. I do. We can do that. We can show you homegrown. Thank you. Okay. I think my first question is for Dr. Robertson. Um Dr. Robertson, when this says increase employee professional development reimbursement value, is that's a same um professional development that we discussed last year and did a reduction on in the budget or is this something different than that? Something different. Okay. I' I'd like some clarification and it doesn't need to be
080now, but what the differences are between these two because I'm a little confused. Yeah. So, um last year the reductions we made in the budget were to staff members professional development going to conferences. Okay. Attending other events. This professional development is about their ability to to earn additional certifications, take additional classes. So, it's completely separate. Okay. And so, that those funds have not been restored. Okay. I I appreciate that clarification and you know I as we contemplate this and I assume that this has to do with if more money comes from the state as well. Um I would be interested to see this fiscal year what was allocated and utilized to date. Um I want to make sure that if we're putting it there that it's going to be beneficial. So, um, that would be
081something that I would be interested in. Um, and I'm going to try to broach this topic carefully with the unified pay scale. Um, and I I want to make sure that I'm understanding first when we're talking about the cost difference, this 2%, is this an additional 2% than what's in our operating budget? So Crystal, because it says cost difference $4.3 million. So it's just over and above what we've already got budgeted in the in there. Okay. And and the reason that I'm asking and the reason I said I'm going to try to broach it carefully is for the last few years we have made sure that the unified scale we've been working towards getting rid of the compression and we've done a pretty good job for U15 and above. But the other unified positions below
082which make le considerably less money uh they always seem to get shoved off. And so I I would be very interested to know if we didn't do an additional increase what adjust is to just make it all one and a half between you you all the way all the unified pay scale levels. That's what I would be interested in knowing because I I really think that we've failed to prioritize that. And when I look at the positions um that are being left behind, custodial, food service workers, bus driver, cafeteria assistants, um and I don't think that the perception of continuing to put that off is a very good perception. Um and I think that when we when we do what we do, we need to try to do it across the board. And so I
083I just wanted to point that out and have that conversation. Yeah. Dark Troman, do you do we have the 1.5% if we just did 1.5% for unified straight 1.5? We have one point. Yeah. Five and we have 3%. Okay. Because I would like to if possible get them this answer by the weekend. Yes. Absolutely. We can get that because what I'm hearing is just a straight 1.5% for the entire unified scale to see what the range is going to be, right? Because it says here that the cost is if we increase the difference between steps one and 14 to 1.25 to 1.25 and I assume those are unified one through 14. That's correct. And what I'm asking is what it is to do 1.5 without the increase because to me that is something that I
084think we need to try to aggressively work on. One of the concerns we have for that because it was looked at is if we do nothing to the entry level the lower paid scales will not get an average of 2% which right now the state is at making some things required for us to at least give a 2%. So when that runs through the scale, it's about I think this is what we deal with. No entry level rate remains and then doing the 1.5 for the 1 through 14, it was about $5.9 million difference than what we have. But we're concerned that the average that would come out if any additional funding is tied like compensation from the state is tied to that we have to give an average of 2%. We would have positions
085on the scale that would not receive that. But don't we have a 2% increase in our operating budget and we're saying that this other 2% is over and above. Yeah. But that I'm assuming that that's the way they calculated that. So I I'll follow up more I guess about what I'm looking for after the meeting to clarify. I think you understand what I'm asking. I think we understand what you're looking for. Yes. Right. So, um, right. Yes. I just want to make sure that we're making sure that that's even across the board. And I'm just curious what the cost of that is. All right. I do not see any more questions. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Len. Do we have time for closed? You have the one grievance and there was just one update on
086that. So, depending on how quickly you think you do that grievance, you may have time. Okay. I don't think that's Yeah. Can we do the grievance after the meeting? Okay. Um and we'll go ahead and do the other update. So, we'll read into close for the other update. I move that the school board recess into close session in accordance with exceptions to open meetings law set forth in code of Virginia 2.2-3711 part A paragraphs 178 as amended to deliberate on the following matters. One, discussion, consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining or resignation of specific public officers, appointees or employees for any public body and evaluation or performance of departments of schools and public institutions of higher education where such evaluation will necessarily involve discussion of the
087performance of specific individuals. Any teacher shall be permitted to be present during a closed meeting in which there is a discussion or consideration of a disciplinary matter that involves the teacher and some student and the student involved in the matter is present provided that the teacher makes a written request to be present to the presiding officer of the appropriate board. Nothing in this subdivision however should be construed to authorize a closed meeting by a local governing body or an elected school board to discuss compensation matters that affect the members of such body or board collectively. staff in consultation with legal counsel on briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body. For
088the purposes of this subdivision, probable litigation means litigation that has been specifically threatened or on which the public body or its legal council has a reasonable basis to believe will be commenced by or against a known party. Nothing in this subdivision should be construed to permit the closure of a meeting merely because an attorney representing the public body is in attendance or is consulted on a matter. Eight. Consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of illegal advice by such counsel. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to prevent the closure of a meeting merely because an attorney representing the public bodies in attendance or is consulted on a matter namely to discuss a employee grievance b status of pending litigation or administrative cases. C
089consultation with legal council regarding probable litigation and pending litigation matters. Moved by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by Dr. Green. Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the vote to go into close session. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. Is the motion to pass to go into close session?