001All right. Good evening. Let's call this meeting to order. If you would join us for the flag salute, please. >> 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. >> All right. Let the meeting minute show that all board members are present except for Mr. Nuin. And do we have an adoption a motion for the adoption of the agenda? >> So move. >> Second. >> Miss Roman? >> Yes. >> Miss McAdams? >> Yes. >> Dr. McNeel? >> Yes. >> Chair votes yes as well. >> Consent agenda. All of the following items, those items of a routine nature normally approved at board meetings will be approved by one vote unless any board member desires
002to have a separate vote on any or all of these items. The consent agenda consists of the discussion, consideration, and action on the following items A through SS. >> Move for approval. >> Second. >> Dr. McNeil, >> yes. >> Miss Roman, >> yes. Miss McAdams. >> Yes. >> Chair both. Yes. As well. >> We have a USPA report. >> UCA report. President Reyes, Dr. Federline, members of the board. Um, first of all, we wanted to thank you guys on the board for coming to the kickoff. It means a lot to our staff that you are all there to support us. Um, UCA, we've been busy working on our membership rosters. Our reps have been getting in contact with all of our members, making sure we have all of their information. Um, and then some of
003our reps even hosted welcome meet and greets at the sites at the beginning of the school year. Um, that's all so far. We just hope to keep open communication with admin again this year. It's been great having that open relationship and being able to communicate with each other. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hearings and correspondence. >> Okay. Business agenda instruction. Consider and take action on the expenditure of up to1,216,14644 from the general funds to purchase textbooks, supplemental curriculum, and software for the 2025 2026 school year discount. >> Yes. Good evening, Mr. Reyes, Dr. Federline, members of the board. This is my annual request from our textbook funds. We just recently received our allocation to approve the total of 1,216,14644. This also includes a carryover from last year. And we will spend these funds
004on not only textbooks but also on um supplemental items such as software. Ask for your approval. Move for approval. >> Second. >> Miss Roman, >> yes. >> Miss McAdams, >> yes. >> Dr. McN, >> yes. >> And chair votes yes as well. >> Thank you. >> Consider and take action on an agreement with the Oklahoma State Department of Education, OSDE, and the Public Consulting Group, Inc. PCG, for Medicaid school-based health services blanket purchase orders in the amount of $60,000. Oklahoma Healthcare Authority and 25,000 PCG and authorize the board president, superintendent or designate to execute the contract. Dr. Smith. >> Yes. Thank you, President Rey, board members and Dr. Federline. I'm recommending that you all accept and approve the agreement renewal and purchase order with the Oklahoma State Department of Education and Public Consulting Group for
005Medicaid school-based health services. This agreement allows the district to participate in the Medicaid fee for service program and for the Medicaid um administrative claiming pro program. For added context, in the last two years, we have received around $270,000 in the MAC reimbursements. And since 2022, we have received over $830,000 in Medicaid reimbursement. So this has been a valuable revenue source um for our um team and it's a fairly low low risk which with um with how the contract is um developed. So we have some coverage from some different groups in terms of the billing aspects of it. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Do we see this taking a hit in the next year? >> I hope not. But we really um Oklahoma didn't expand it. So we are not
006a um free care state. So, we can only bill for services listed on a student's IEP, and they've been very limited in wanting to expand that conversation. >> Thank you. Move for approval. >> Second, >> Miss Rome, >> yes. >> Dr. McNail, >> yes. >> Miss McAdams, >> yes. >> Chair votes yes as well. >> Thank you. consider and take action to approve the capacity levels and calculated open transfer capacity amounts as recommended. Dr. Nelson. >> Yes. Uh President Reyes, Dr. Federline, the board, I recommend that the board consider and vote to approve the capacity levels as stated in the attachment and uh so that we can post these for October one. the actual numbers were given on that same chart. We u are already placing some students in those openings that we're aware of
007based on capacity that has been approved in the past. But uh with these numbers then we'll post something on the website according to availability. I know you have uh general interest in transfers. We have almost a thousand now. We're at about 987 transfers. Just over 300 are children of union employees. And the transfer uh distribution is uh fairly equal from elementary to secondary and across various grade levels with third grade being the highest elementary grade with 100 transfers. At the secondary level, 10th and 12th grades have 88 in those students. You have any questions? Questions, comments >> for approval. >> Second. >> Miss McAdams? >> Yes. >> Dr. McNeil? >> Yes. >> Miss Roman? >> Yes. >> Chair votes yes as well. Thank you. personnel. Consider and take action on an agreement for insurance management
008services with Rooney Insurance Agency for employee benefit consulting services beginning January 1st, 2026 and authorize the executive director of human resources to execute the agreement and authorized payments pursuant to the agreement. Mr. Log. >> Thank you, President Reyes, Dr. Federline, members of the board. Um, this is our annual renewal with Rooney Insurance. There are benefit consultants. They have been with us for many many years. Uh they have not increased their rates has been consistent with them while providing great service. Um anytime also if they have any commissions that come in from any of our service providers, they credit those back to our bill and they save us money on our bill and they've never kept those for themselves throughout our contract. So they've been great partners and we look to renew that again this year
009with your approval. >> Move for approval. >> Second. >> Dr. McNeil. >> Yes. Miss Roman, >> yes. >> Miss McAdams, >> yes. >> Chair votes, yes, as well. Thank you. consider and take action on the administrative services agreement with United Healthcare UMR to become the health plan third party and administrator and approval of the monthly premium rates for employee retiree board members and COBRA participants for the district's self-insured PO medical indemnity plans and to approve the plans plan changes other coverages and administrative services including all associated agreements contracts at the cost outlined in the board memo and attachments effective January 1st, 2026 and authorize the executive director of human resources as the superintendent's designate to sign the associated contracts and that the board authorize the issuance of POS and payment thereof. >> Thank you. I
010think I'm going to have to work on shortening that in the future. >> Unfortunately, this memo is our big benefit memo for the year. Um our benefits committee with Dr. Williams and our benefits staff and Rooney um go over our benefits and we went through this in the um business subcommittee quite a bit but insurance costs are rising. Uh we are looking to propose a 5% increase to the pre premiums that employees pay on both the base and the buyup plan. Um unfortunately this year the state did not increase the flexible benefit account. Um so we're we're surprised by that. Um there's some questions as to the politics going on, but we have no control over that unfortunately. While they increased everything else, they didn't increase the amount for the flexible benefit allowance for that
011to change. So therefore, we don't get any additional money from the state this year. Um our plan has been doing better with a lot of our programs we've initiated. Um so we're hoping that 5% premium increase will help offset the increased cost of everything getting more expensive. Um especially the medications. Um on the dental side, we are looking to increase our rates by 5% for the base plan and 10% for the buyout plan. Uh fortunately for those plans, the premiums are much lower. So those increases are actually not a very large dollar amount. Um all the rest of our plans are remaining at the costs that they are. Um one good piece of news in our stop-loss for this upcoming year, uh we already have quotes for at our current rate or below for this
012year. Now, they're not locked in until they get the data from this last month. Um, so I'll bring it back to the board if it's anything beyond what we paid this past year, but just the fact that the stop-loss insurance is not an increase is a huge win for us and may even be a slight slight savings for us. So, we're very excited for that. Um, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. >> Questions, comments. >> Move for approval. >> Second. >> Dr. McNeil. >> Yes. Miss Roman, >> yes. >> Miss McAdams, >> yes. >> Chair votes, yes as well. Thank you. >> Finance, consider and take action on the estimate of needs document for the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year as required by state law for submission to the county XICE
013board and authorize the board president or designate to sign the final documents. Dr. Williams. >> Good evening, Mr. Reyes, members of the board, and Dr. Federline. Tonight we're bringing to you the FY2526 estimate of needs document. You should have a a copy of that. Um the document, the report is actually prepared by our by a CPA firm that works for us, Bledsoe, Huitt, and Gullixson. Uh the document itself goes through every one of the district's funds. Uh but the most important thing that the estimate of needs does is it sets the statutory limitation for the school district's budget that the board can approve. It also documents the uh justification for the syncing fund millage which is what we use to pay off our uh outstanding bonded indebtedness. So, if you look back on page uh
01454, you can see the very top box in exhibit Y where it says appropriation approved and provision made. The general fund, the maximum budget that the board can approve is $176,925,539.32. That increase includes current year revenue estimates as well as the district's existing fund balance. So as most districts, it is very unlikely we would ever want to set a budget that high. Uh would not be a prudent thing to do. Uh but that is the legal uh limitation. On the po following page on page 55 is the uh information related to the syncing fund millillage 30.88 88 mills. Uh that is determined by the district's outstanding debt uh as well as the net assessed valuation. I pointed out in the report that our valuation uh grew at a slower pace this year than what we
015have seen. It's just under 3%. Uh but we were able to keep that millage rate within historical ranges. So if you look back, our budget book has actually a really lengthy recap of our millillage. You can see that we've consistently been in that 30 to 31 mil range. So pleased to to report that. I'd be glad to answer any of your questions, questions, comments. Just so I'm I'm reading this right, the appropriation approved and provisional made of general fund, that's what the total amount that we could have and the total valuation is where we're at. >> Well, the appropriation approved and provision made is the ceiling for the budget. >> Gotcha. >> That the board can approve. >> We're always well well below that. Okay. Uh so the information on the property valuation is the
016val the assessed value of all personal real and public service property within the district's boundaries. >> Does that help? >> Yeah, that helps. A lot of big numbers. >> It is a lot of numbers. >> Move for approval. Second. >> Dr. McNo. >> Yes. >> Mrman, >> yes. >> Miss McAdams. >> Yes. and chair votes yes as well. Thank you. Consider and take action on the general building and child nutrition fund operational budgets for the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year as outlined on the statements of revenues, expenditures, and fund balances. Dr. Williams, >> thank you, Mr. uh Mr. Reyes. Um you should have a copy of tonight's presentation. Uh we tried to boil that down from the budget booklet so you wouldn't have to flip through a whole bunch of pages. Unfortunately, this is kind
017of a whole bunch of pages with a lot of little numbers, but uh part couldn't be couldn't be avoided. Um one thing I'd like to point out, I'm really proud of the work that the budget department has done this year. Uh Jessica Wright and her team have completely revamped our graphics for this presentation tonight as well as the budget book. And I'm I'm super proud of the work they've done uh for this year's budget. Okay, this first slide, and I do apologize for the the busyiness, but there's an awful lot of information here. This first slide is the general fund only, and this is a summary of all the revenues and expenditures. We include uh what the board approved as the temporary appropriations budget in June and highlight in in bright union red uh our
018proposed 2526 budget that we're asking for your approval tonight. Um the uh revenue is totaled at 153,745,282. That's an increase of about 1.1 million over the preliminary budget. And the expenditure budget is $154,749,687. That's about a $1.2 million increase from the preliminary budget. Uh, couple of things I will point out. We typically uh are very conservative in projecting our revenues uh but pretty pessimistic in projecting our expenditures uh which is kind of the way we like to operate uh so that hopefully our actual collections will come in higher than this budget number. Um I will point out that the district ended last year uh with a fund balance in the general fund of 20.3 million uh which is about a 13% of revenue uh fund balance. Uh the state law limits us to a 17%
019fund balance. We are well within that limit uh but sufficient enough to meet our cash flow needs and and pay our bills on time. So that's what we want. Okay, this is the revenue budget. And again, we just kind of dive into uh both the revenue and expense in in a little more detail here. But what you can see is there are a number of changes from the preliminary budget. I've summarized what our changes are uh on this slide. Uh you can see that we've had a a gain. We expect a gain in our advorum uh collections associated with that valuation growth. Some of our other local sources that we uh uh noticed some gains in included a number of local grants. our extended day program where the board increased the tuition in order to
020cover the cost of that program and our facility rentals. Um probably the biggest change is the reduction in the state aid uh from what we expected initially. Um I will say and I'll touch on this in more detail in a minute. our state aid allocation reflected a loss in our weighted ADM uh and our student membership uh for this year. Uh so that was unfortunate. The factors were increased by about $20 uh but unfortunately not enough to offset that loss. We also had originally built in a contingency for an increase at midyear. Based on what we've seen, uh, we felt like it was prudent for us to remove that contingency. We don't expect a gain at midyear. Um, so if we do, it's a nice surprise, but based on what we've seen with our enrollment
021patterns, it's probably not in in the cards for us this year unless the factors go up considerably at midterm. our state sources. Uh you can see that our FBA allowance went up even though as Jay mentioned the FBA is not slated to increase for FY2526. There was an increase at the beginning of 26 and that increase is annualized and that shows up as an increase in our allocation this year. We have our teacher empowerment funds that weren't uh initially in last year's budget. uh and our maternity leave which have all provided additional revenue to the general fund. Um the biggest change overall in the budget is the reduction in state funding. Um as you all remember once those uh ESSER funds went away which we were really sorry to see them go. You'll see that
022our federal revenues are returning to a more typical level for us. So those are some of the changes that you'll see. On the revenue side, when you look at the revenue budget uh as a whole in the general fund, uh what you see is is kind of t a typical pattern for our district. Uh, and what I mean by that is the state revenue sources, which are the red piece and the light gray, uh, account for well over half of our budget. 56% of our budget in the general fund comes from the state. The largest piece of that, of course, is state aid, where we are so heavily dependent on our student population growth. again our um federal sources down back to around 8% which is as again more u more typical for our district.
023Um this comparison shows revenue trends over the years and you can see uh fairly stable with the exception of an occasional increase in state funding associated with a teacher uh pay increase. uh but but really advalorum growth continues to be uh steady and I do apologize this is a really small chart a lot of lot of little numbers on this one but um this is as a point of reference this is our state aid uh information over the last few years uh that we track uh and analyze various changes to our state aid as I mentioned mentioned earlier, this year's allocations, which are in the red uh section down at the bottom, our average daily membership went down uh to 14,844.86. That was a reduction of 113.66 in membership. And that weighted count that equated
024to a weighted student count reduction of 153.55. Any questions so far? We also wanted to provide you with information about the flex benefit allowance. This is an important uh piece of our financial uh information as well as an important piece of our health insurance plan. So, um, under the state law, employees have the option of taking the flex benefit allowance, and that is about $6346 a month for those folks who are enrolled in the district's insurance plan. That pays the single premium. And that premium then is goes into our self- insurance fund to pay for medical claims. For those who choose to wave the state the insurance coverage, uh we do require that they provide proof of other insurance, but they do receive what's called a waving allocation. About $70 a month if you are
025a certified employee, about $189 if you are a support employee. So much less of a value. The state encourages our employees to be on the insurance plan. Um, and accordingly, you see the numbers. We typically have well over 1,700 uh who uh receive that flex benefit allowance. Sometimes we do have people who have insurance through other sources, maybe a spouse's coverage or something along those lines, and they elect to take the waiver. Okay, on the expenditure side of the budget, um again our initial budget for 2526 was uh based on estimates. Uh we have uh since we uh uh asked for approval on that budget. uh we have uh completed our hiring. We have encumbered all salaries and benefits for the year uh and are able to set our budgets uh very accurately so that
026we can monitor them throughout the year. So you see that those amounts are more in keeping with our actual 2024 25 uh expenditures. Uh but again that's about 154.7 million an increase of about 1.2 million. We'd like to highlight the positions that were added uh this year. And after a careful and and thoughtful process of reviewing the request, uh the budget recommendation includes the addition of 12 uh teaching positions. These are actually I call them teaching and certified positions because some of them are simply certified positions. But um the the good news is that that's including the addition of a teaching position for the aerospace and medicalies. Uh so we were able to do that this year. We added a math teach a math position. Uh three early childhood positions. Um a reading specialist funded
027through title one. A parent community liaison. A teacher for the Red Hawks RISE program. a teaching position for the DRS work adjustment uh program and a family and and student support specialist position. So that uh kind of is what makes up those 12 certified positions. We added eight classroom aids based on needs in our buildings and class size considerations. And then we added 10 uh what I've listed as other positions. And you can see at the box at the bottom that includes the four bus drivers, three in child nutrition, and three custodial positions. So despite the difficulty of the budget this year, I'm really pleased that we were able uh to fund those uh important positions. Um this chart shows our general fund uh by what we call function uh code. This is uh important
028because it shows how the vast majority of our general fund budget is dedicated to instruction. That uh big red section that's about 54% of the general fund. instruction is uh defined only as uh expenses that take place in the classroom. So it's teachers, it's aids, it's textbooks, classroom materials, things that happen in the classroom. The second uh largest is the category of student support and that includes items such as attendance and and counseling uh nurses, psychologist, speech pathologist and aiologist. Instructional support includes items like library media centers, professional development, and instructional technology. General administration includes the uh expense of the superintendent's office, the board of education, legal expenses, auditing cost as well as election cost um and so forth. Print school administration uh includes principles and principal secretaries. So, you know, the point is we
029look at all of these and we look at the dollars that are flowing to various expenses. Be it custodial cost, be it transportation, uh be it the many categories, all of this is what it takes uh to operate our smooth our district in a smooth and and professional fashion. When we look at expenditures by object, we see the breakdown uh by the various spending categories, salaries and and benefits. Those are the ones that we understand pretty easily. And you can see very readily that the vast majority of the general fund is dedicated to salaries and benefits. If you look at the graphic, uh you can see that the big red red section which is salaries combined with the black section which is the benefits uh that's just under 90%. It's 89%. So that's a pretty
030typical measure uh in a school district in Oklahoma. And I think it's right where we should be. Uh we want to be staffing and maximizing those salary and benefit dollars to the to the best extent that we can, protecting those positions and paying people as well as we can can. Uh and being very careful and and frugal with our other expenses. Uh but again there are other expenses. So, uh things like legal expense, auditing, uh cost, utilities, repairs, uh supplies, materials, insurance, those are all things uh that are uh come out of the general fund. Does anybody have any questions on the general fund before I move on to the building fund? Okay, the building fund is a little less complicated. It's primarily funded through advalorum uh taxes uh as well as interest earnings. The
031interest earnings that we receive on our bond funds um go into the building fund as well as the red bud funds uh which we are receiving for the third year in a row from the state. That's uh two $2,250,000. those funds can be spent for any building fund purpose. So that gives us some flexibility and quite frankly some relief from the general fund for expenses like property, insurance, utilities, uh and allows us to do things in the general fund like hiring 12 new teaching physicians. Um so red bud fund very important uh for our district. It is designed by the state uh to equalize uh building fund uh expenditures among property wealthy districts and property poor districts. Um the vast majority of our building fund expenses are salaries and benefits uh which we've historically paid
032for our security as well as a number of our uh grounds and custodial employees. Again, vast majority of uh building fund is those salaries and benefits. Child nutrition fund um has has been uh traditionally been a real success for our district and and continues to be. Uh in the child nutrition fund, we always set the expendit expenditures a little higher than we think necessary. Uh our revenue that we expect for the child nutrition fund uh for this year is just under $12 million. It is a large business as I'm sure most people will tell you. Um it is divided between the cost associated with staffing and food purchasing and preparation due to the uh possibility of price increases through the year and due to the costs um associated with commodity purchasing and processing. We set
033that expenditure side budget a little higher in child nutrition to cover those costs should we need to. We've also uh been fortunate to be able to fund uh uh several renovation cafeteria renovation projects with our child nutrition fund. In fact, we have had to spend that fund balance down uh over the last few years. So, it's been a it's been a tremendous resource for us. Again, the vast majority divided between people and food. And that's all I've got. I'd be glad to answer any questions. If we were to actually have the uh appropriate per people funding, would that be under general or state aid increase? So, I I can tell you this. I actually talked to Dr. Nelson's class a couple of weeks ago. Um, if we were funded at the level of the six
034surrounding contiguous states, Oklahoma is so underfunded that if we were funded at the average, our district would have about $46 million per year in extra state aid revenue. Think I got that. >> Thank you. >> Any more questions, comments? >> Second, >> Miss McAdams. >> Yes. >> Miss Roman, >> yes. >> Dr. McN, >> yes. >> Chair votes yes as well. >> Thank you very much. have any new business? >> None opportunities, comments on it. Dr. Penley. >> Yeah, just two uh quick things. Uh we're off to a fantastic start for the school year. I want to thank the board uh for their involvement, their support. I want to thank everyone here in this room and everyone who is not here in this room, all the teachers and support personnel that are getting us off
035to a fantastic start. Buildings look great. Uh buses are vastly improved and instruction as always is excellent. Second thing, I just want to thank you Dr. Williams and the members of your team. Uh these pages, these graphics, the information presented here represents a tremendous amount of work and detail that is excellent as always, but more importantly uh reflects a commitment by Union Public Schools to transparency. Transparency of our taxpayer dollars. There's a lot of rhetoric out there uh that says schools are somehow being wasteful or that somehow schools are underfunded or we're sitting on piles of money. And I think uh this data proves otherwise that we are extraordinarily responsible and thoughtful about where our dollars go and how they are spent to ensure that we maximize student achievement. So thank you. >> Thank you.
036Uh, next is the executive session. Mote and vote pursuant to Oklahoma statute title 25307B11 to go into executive session to discuss terrorism and safety issues. >> Second, >> Miss McAdams. >> Yes. >> Dr. McNill. >> Yes. >> Miss Roman chair votes yes as well. We are now in executive session.