The Board will now convene an open meeting. Today is Monday, August 18th, 2014 and the time is 6.32 p.m. The Board met earlier this evening in closed meeting. Any action arising from discussions in closed meeting must be taken in a subsequent open meeting. Mr. Fraley, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Law in regard to the notice for this meeting? Mr. President, we are in compliance. The first item is the personnel report.
Katy ISD · Board Work Study Agenda
Katy ISD Board Work Study, August 18, 2014
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- 0:00 to 1:00 Item 3 Reconvene from Closed Meeting – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting. The presiding officer will verify that the meeting has been duly called and notice of the meeting has been posted for the time and manner required by law. 3.1 Consider Board approval of accepting resignations and hiring of professional contractual personnel. (Texas Government Code 551.074: For the purpose of considering the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee or to hear complaints or charges against a public officer or employee.)
- 1:00 to 29:58 Item 4.1 Presentation of the 2014 - 2015 Proposed Budget and Tax Rate
- 29:58 to 36:47 Item 4.2 Receive public input regarding the 2014 - 2015 Proposed Budget and Tax Rate.
- 36:47 to 47:59 Item 5 2014 State Accountability Performance Results
- 47:59 to 1:47:12 Item 6 Consider Board approval of the Order Calling a School Building Bond Election
- 1:47:12 to 1:54:58 Consent Agenda Consent Agenda 7.1 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for books and media for instructional and reference use. 7.2 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for the Taylor High School building envelope and waterproofing project. 7.3 Consider future Board approval of the Water Meter Easement to the City of Katy associated with the construction of the Center for Imagination and Innovation.
- 1:54:58 to 2:02:49 Item 8.1 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the 2015 Healthcare Plan.
- 2:02:49 to 2:04:29 Item 8.2 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the voluntary benefit products for 2015.
- 2:04:29 to 2:07:12 Item 8.3 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the proposal for an excess workers' compensation reinsurance policy.
- 2:07:12 to 2:15:09 Item 8.4 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the contract with American Logistics Company (ALC) for specific alternative transportation.
- 2:15:09 to 2:16:23 Item 8.5 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the Memorandum of Understanding for Operation of a Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) with Harris County.
- 2:16:23 to 2:19:32 Item 8.6 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the proposed 2013 - 2014 final amended budget.
- 2:19:32 to 2:22:52 Item 8.7 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a resolution to commit and assign fund balance.
- 2:22:52 to 2:26:02 Item 8.8 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the 2014 - 2015 State Compensatory Education funding and other End of Course Assessment funding budget, as required by House Bill 5.
- 2:26:02 to 2:28:51 Item 8.9 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the proposed 2014 - 2015 official budget.
- 2:28:51 to 2:29:47 Item 8.10 Discuss and consider future Board approval of grant ratifications.
- 2:29:47 to 2:31:21 Item 8.11 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a delegate and alternate delegate to the 2014 Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Delegate Assembly.
- 2:31:21 to 2:31:49 Items 9 & 10 9. Future Meeting 9.1 Regular Board Meeting – Tuesday, August 26, 2014 10. Adjournment
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Item 3
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
I move that the Board of Trustees approve the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent.
Second.
Thank you. I have a motion by Mrs. Fox, seconded by Mr. Griffin, that the Board of Trustees approve the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we will vote. All those in favor, raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 7 to 0.
Item 4.1
Okay we will be moving to agenda item number 4 which
is the presentation of the 2014-15 proposed budget and tax rate followed by a public hearing. Mr. Chris Smith CFO will be presenting. Welcome Mr. Smith.
Good evening, Mr. Moholsky, Mr. Fraley, board, public. It's my pleasure to be in front of you tonight to talk about the 14-15 budget. I want to start off with the statement that Texas Education Agency code or state law requires that the budget be materially ready by August the 20th, which has been materially ready for quite some time now, or at least for the last several weeks, materially, by August 20th and adopted by the Board on August 31st. The intent is for the Board to adopt this budget next week during the work study. I'm going to start with this brief calendar. It starts off with July the 25th, but I'm going to back up probably to this time next year. I don't want to make a statement, and I've made it before, But I want to make it again that the budget is a continual process. Pretty quickly after we put this budget and get it adopted, we're going to start updating the next year and getting ready, prepared to do the next year's budget. We've already taken a brief look at it, as we always look at long-range planning, when we get information in that warrants updating that. But we'll start that off relatively quickly. quickly, but this really kind of got really jump started or officially started back in January when we got our enrollment numbers that we were going to use to build as the basis of the budget. We've worked on that budget. Hundreds of people through different departments in all our campuses have worked on that budget. The board has heard updates about it periodically. Of course, the cabinet has been involved, Mr. Fraley. again principals and department managers throughout the district this is a culmination of that work that we see tonight what's happened recently is July the 25th we were supposed to get the certification by our appraisal chief appraisal districts we got those we actually I've got some good news to talk a little bit about that since that date but we of course had our meeting
Sorry. July the 28th, where we approved the notice, the notice did run in the August 17th paper. That was basically a mention of this meeting and public hearing tonight. We hope to, again, present this tonight. Next week, have the board approve the budget. budget, and then next month would be the adoption of the tax rates. Again, those tax rates would be the same for the eighth year in a row. This budget is built on the same tax rates we've been using now since the 2006-2007 school year. So this will be seven years that we've done it and eight that we'll be recommending no change in our tax rates.
I guess I want to start with the assumptions and just kind of remind the board and let the public remind the public that we are working with an enrollment of a 5% increase. That's 70,440 students. We were at 67,000 this last year and expect a 5% increase. increase. We are opening new campuses, Davidson Elementary School, Randolph Elementary School, and then of course we're adding the 11th grade at Tompkins High School. This is a little different than you saw last month when I spoke to you. It's different because the tax base is $500 million. That sounds like a big number. Higher, and it is a big number. We're looking at a 17.2% increase in our property values from last year to this year. About 10 days ago, we received word from Harris County that the values that they certified originally were indeed 4% higher. That was good news. I will, in full disclosure, say that they were a little bit higher than that. But with ARBs, Appraisal Review Board, still working in Fort Bend and other than all the counties in Harris County and Waller County, County. We did take some office abundance of caution. It could be a little more than that. It could be a little less. We think that's a realistic number and obviously we'll be letting the board know how that turns out within the next couple three months. But it is still a fluid number but we think that's very solid at this point.
This budget is built around staffing that includes the new schools plus the growth, the over 3,000 student growth. Includes the salary increases that were given within the last couple of months. Again I'll say that it was built on a general fund tax rate of $1.1266 and a debt service tax rate of 40 cents. Again that will be eight years in a row.
Diving into the general fund, general operating fund, that's the main fund of the district. That's what pays salaries and operations of the district. I'll point out visually how our revenue is broken down. This is a little easier on the eyes in the next slide, but roughly 53% of our revenue comes from local resources, okay, primarily being, the primary one being tax revenues. And then the next biggest portion of our budget is 45% from the state and 1.9% from federal revenues is our smallest percentage of revenue. I want to state that next year, I'm going to just jump forward to next year and what this will look like. The blue portion will be significantly more. more. As we know that the state funding formulas require, there's a delay. And so the growth in our property values that we're seeing now will be reflected on this chart next year. And so the state's percentage of 45% will be significantly lower and the local portion will be significantly higher. That won't happen for a year from now, but I did want to, I do want to say that the state funding formulas will require that and, and, and, and we can and look forward to that next year. So the revenues break down to this. Of course you see our tax revenues being the largest one at 315 million. We have our TERS, both local and state of our TERS. Other local revenue would be athletic ticket sales, interest earnings, after school tutorials in some cases. Of course we have the state funding. That state funding, I want to note that there is 4.7 million of that. That's a one-time influx as a result of last legislative session. It's the 1.5% TRS tax. The state decided to fund that for the first year. It will be shown in our expenses here in a minute, but the funding will go away as far as a revenue standpoint. point all districts will be have that expense moving forward as the years go on state TRS contributions you'll see this as we move forward it's a wash it's that same number will be in our expenditures from the last time we spoke and I'll mention this here in a little while a little more in depth this numbers changed but it changes both on their expense side and the revenue side so there was no effect in this part to the bottom line federal revenue is ten $10,717,000. So when it comes to expenses, there's two parts of our...
It caught up here on paper. There's two portions of our budget on the expenditure side, both payroll and non-payroll. And as you can see that blue piece, we are a very payroll intensive business. through teachers, custodians, bus drivers, counselors, nurses, principals, assistant principals, instructional aides, yard crews that are part of that expense. The 15%, the majority of that is supplies and utilities.
So we are very labor intensive business. And I would note that that 85% normally is 87, 86 or 87%, and it's a little lower this year because we have some one-time expenses with technology and our technology retrofit cycle to keep up to standards on that and some other one-time expenses that are making the 15% a little bit more. but those will be one time and they'll go away after this year.
Okay, from a payroll standpoint, I won't talk too much about this. I'll just say that you can see the current salaries for both teachers and non-teachers are the first two rows of that. The new positions that we needed for the growth the district's incurring are on the middle two rows, and the salary increases and the amounts of those are on the bottom two rows, totaling $401 million of payroll costs, payroll. Okay, other compensation. We do still have some career ladder. That number gets a little smaller every year. We have stipends of 6.7 million dollars. That would be for fine arts, athletic stipends, you know, for fine arts coaches and athletic coaches, academics such as bilingual and ESOL stipends. We have allowances substitute teachers and non substitute our non teacher substitutes are quite heavy again we're being labor-intensive because in a lot of cases or in most cases we're supervising children and when the teacher is not there we need to get a substitute in that classroom well to help supervise and instruct children and so that is the substitutes portion and and then supplemental pay, part-time and overtime. The majority of this would be made up in detention, summer school, of course, overtime, and then tutorials.
As far as the benefits go, oops, they're pretty self-explanatory. Our largest benefit that the KDISD's responsible for anyway way is 27.4 million dollars for health and life insurance i think the administration mr robinson mr mcgannell and mr fraley and the board have done a great job with controlling these costs and doing what they can to maintain that some of the better insurance for district employees that i'm aware of and they've done a tremendous job and a lot of the staff probably is not aware that how much work goes on and trying to get that and keep that healthy but we are in a good position there TRS care insurance that is the district's portion to retire fund retirees health insurance the 1.5 percent local contribution is the 4.7 million I mentioned earlier there was a revenue that goes with that this year that expense that you see there will stay here next year the the revenue will go away. Medicare and Social Security is 5.9 million, workers' compensation just over a million, unemployment 275,000, TRS statutory minimum, I'll come back to in just a second, local retirement leave, that's a program that the district's had for many years to encourage people not to use their leave and to be in the classroom teaching as opposed to not being there, and it runs about that amount annually, it's an estimate. TRS on behalf contributions, again this is one where there's a revenue that offsets that expense, so those are washed to the bottom line. I will say that the state of Texas requires us, if we pay above the minimum teacher salary schedule, which we do, that we have to pick that expense up as a district. And so moving up two lines to $5.4 million is our contribution for that above the teacher salary schedule.
So that turns out to be a payroll budget of $502,121,370. Now, you may remember that at the last meeting it was pointed out by Mr. Mahalski that it was just under a $500 million budget. uh budget we did make a change in the trs portion we had a rate that we needed to move that did not affect the bottom line it was again a wash but that did change the expenses that's the primary change from the last time we we met
as far as non-payroll costs campus and department allocations are the largest portion there at 53 million dollars that's all the campuses that are given in a same amount per student based on whether they're high school elementary junior high campus and then we pay for the utilities district-wide facility utilities is probably the largest fuel for maintenance vehicles and buses software all the Microsoft licenses and Adobe licenses and the umpteen different kind of licenses that are required for education come out of that money and then appraisal district fees we we don't have control over the praise values the appraisal districts do that on our behalf but there is an expense it's based on our levy and our number of parcels but we do have to contribute our portion of their expenses and then the tourist contribution is an annual expense that we have there's a revenue for that and that's the effect of the transaction for the Merrill Center and it has been a very very good financial transaction for KDI SD over the years as far as visually looking at how that looks now there's the 85% payroll cost of the big blue portion I want to point out the green section of supplies and materials this is normally third but since we're using Since we are having those one-time costs, a lot of them are being coded to supplies and materials. This, for the first time in a few years, exceeded the purple section of purchases and contracted services, which is now 5%. Purchases and contracted services are utilities primarily. Other operating expenses are 2%, and the capital ILA is 1%.
How does that look from how we spend it and where we spend it? I just want to point out this. This is one of my more favorite slides that the blue section, obviously the vast majority of where we go, where we spend our money is directly in the classroom. That's instruction, instructional related and curriculum is all in the blue. And so basically the majority of this budget is being spent inside the classroom. That purple section there to the right is instructional and school leadership. That's assistant principals, principals, their staffs that run the front office, etc. Support services there at $58.9 million. That's guidance and counseling. That's our counselors, our nurses, transporting kids to and from school, co-curricular expenses expenses for fine arts and athletics and its evaluations and assessments. The small portion there that you see at $11.5 million is the administrative expenses. That would be staff largely in part in this building. It would be the purchasing department, financial services department like my area would be coded or expensed to this section there in administration, our smallest area. area. Support services there in the yellow, $72 million. This is for plant maintenance and operations. That's the largest portion. Again, it's our grounds work, fertilizer for fields, utilities,
mowing fields, security is in this. Our campus police, our police department and security, campus of security is in that as well as all our technological or technology data data processing most of our technology folks would be coded to this supporting technology instruction across the district and then of course the one on the far right is ancillary services that's community education's facilities and construction department our shared services arrangements the ter's expense expense as well as our county appraisal fees would be there. That's kind of a visual of where that budget goes. So to sum it up, we think we're going to end the year with a fund balance of $157.850 million.
Revenues would be $591 million. million dollars expenses, $578 million. Uh, that does include underspending. Uh, we typically do have about 2% underspending. Uh, and we budgeted that we have some transfers in and out of the general fund, uh, transfers from our tourist fund to cover the cost of operating the Merrill center. We transfer into the general fund or that's a revenue basically transfers out. Uh, we have the, a large portion of our federal revenue is Babs Build America bonds revenue at three million two hundred thirty seven thousand dollars we we record that as revenue to the general fund and then transfer it over to debt service that's one of the tools in the toolkit that we've used over the years or since we issued those to help keep the debt service tax rate down and then transfers out to health insurance I mentioned this earlier health insurance fund
does not, how do I phrase this, we know that health insurance across the nation is headed toward turbulent times or if they're not in turbulent times. We have the opportunity to transfer some money to keep it solid and healthy, no pun intended. We want to keep that health fund healthy and we're transferring monies to do that in order to keep what again I mentioned earlier is a great plan for the employees of the district. So that would end up being a net change to fund balance of $7.6 million or in the year with $165,492,154. Now I want to talk a little bit about fund balance because people look at that and say, well, that's a lot of money. Well, it is a lot of money, but do realize that we're looking at a $578 million budget. That's about 27 or 28 percent of our expenditures are just barely over three months. And I think if, depending on who you talk to, somebody will say somewhere between 25 and 30% or three months is a good healthy fund balance. And so we're right in there in that sweet spot for that. But there are reasons to have a fund balance and not to just go out and spend it. And those would be for possible, you know, our cash. All districts in the state of Texas, cash hits its low spot in the fall before tax revenues, that largest revenue comes in. So it's important to do that so you don't have to borrow money. You have a potential change in the instructional calendar. If we all got our wishes, we could have started school earlier in August, and I think that everybody agrees that that was a better thing for public education. If we did that, that would be about $1.5 million a day hit to our expenses in that year, so that would be a big hit to the fund balance. We also have what I mentioned earlier about when our property values increase, our local share increases so the following year if our property values didn't have a nice increase we could be in a tight year because our share is going up and our state share is going down and that would lessen our overall funding and then there's potential for capital expenses there could be a need one day to buy portable buildings out of the general fund or unforeseen repairs such as a chiller going down or multiple chillers which are not cheap. So those are some reasons, and I could probably talk forever about the need for a fund balance, but I did want to hit on that and to say that that $165 million is healthy, but it is not obscene, and it's definitely in the area we would like it to be, it needs to be. Moving on to the Special Revenue Fund or food services. This is our food service operation. It began the year with $4.5 million in revenue or in fund balance. If you'll recall, I guess two or three years ago now, we got, this had too much fund balance. So we've made an effort to try to reduce the fund balance as best we could by buying capital was the main reason. and we can't lower food prices because of the federal guidelines but we've tried to get this spent down some and we're continuing to do that in this budget so if you look at the revenues that breaks down at 16.3 million dollars in local revenue that's kids paying for their meals whether online or bringing a check or cash to the school the fed and then the federal program revenue that's our free and reduced lunch students at 10.8 million dollars. I would bet that that probably surprises some of our some of y'all in here and and then when I look at it or surprises me knowing that we do have 30% of our students on free reduced lunch 10.8 million dollars and that is a is a large number. Payroll costs in this are not going to be as high as they are in the general fund. What's the biggest expense in this is supplies and materials or or cost of goods sold, that's the food. The payroll is those who cook it, clean it up afterwards and serve it, the expenses for that. But the primary expense here is the cost of the food, milk, et cetera. And then we think that we'll use about a million for that fund balance and get us back into that area where we don't have to worry about the auditors and the Texas Department of Ag saying that we have too much fund balance and that's 3.1 million dollars would ending okay the debt service fund that service fund again is primarily made up of property taxes is 112 million 736 thousand 420 dollars uh interest earnings is 235 thousand dollars uh we're making a concentrated effort to get the best returns we can in this to help manage the debt service tax rate. In Prosperity Bank, we have a great relationship with them and agreement where we get 50 basis points on that, and we're going to try to keep the fund balance in there, and we hope to earn about $235,000 in interest. You'll see some three big zeros there at state program revenues. revenues. This is a first. This is our first year that we've talked to the board and the public about the budget where there's no state revenue shown. Our property values have grown to the point where we don't get state assistance moving forward. It has dwindled from as much as 23% of the revenue to this to now nothing. I think that's a good sign of our the property values and the economy. and the types of property that we're getting, such as commercial property, it's a good thing to actually not get it. There's not a fear of wealth equalization like there is on the general fund when it comes to debt service. I will say that Mr. Pawanka still works diligently on behalf of KDISD, and he may file a property audit that would have, in one of those years where we did receive EDA and IFA, so by the time we're doing the final amended budget there could be some funds in here but i doubt that they will be significant and they'll probably and i'm almost certain that moving forward we won't budget any because this is it's going to be a thing of the past most likely in kdisd our expenditures principal and interest payments of 114 million 827 194 dollars and then we have fees uh those are arbitrage we use those fees for arbitrage calculations, trust and escrow fees, and paying agent fees.
There's that transfer
in that I mentioned as a transfer out when we're talking about the general fund. We transfer that in as basically revenue and so you'll see a net change to fund balance of just over a million dollars and an ending projected fund balance of fifty two million eight hundred fifty five thousand five hundred
The bond election that you'll be talking about later, if that passes, we will have interest expense when we sell bonds, presumably, in January, and we would be amending the budget expenditures for that expense. But you can see we have a healthy fund balance and a healthy bottom line to be able to do that all things look look very good on that front so putting the all the three budgets together there's just I won't talk about them I'll just that would just be regurgitating what I've already said but I think that gives you a clear view of how things look for KTISD from a budgetary standpoint we are required posted on the website for the district tomorrow but this is the TEA format and it shows the revenues by fund it shows the expenditures by object or where it's payroll purchasing contracted services supplies materials etc and then you can see those bottom line changes to fund balances after the transfers in and out and the other partition of the tea format is how where we're spending it you saw this graphically earlier this is just all those functions that make up that and when we come to you with budget amendments throughout the year we're moving monies from one of these functions to another and that's just a good overall look at our functions across our funds and this of course of course, wraps up the presentation. Of course, this will be posted on the website tomorrow. This presentation will be posted on the website tomorrow. The budget will. We've had out there the notice that was published in the paper that was also published a couple of weeks ago or three weeks ago now, as well as a comparison per student of the general fund and the debt service fund is out there on our on our website on the financial services bond transfer transparency website so I encourage you to go look at that if if you feel you need any more information
okay Thank You mr. Smith we will now receive input from the public input regarding the 2014-15 proposed budget and tax rate. Those individuals requesting to speak regarding the 2014-15 proposed budget and tax rate have signed up in the back of the room. 30 minutes have been allotted for this forum. The time allowed will be divided equally among those requesting to speak, but no presentation makes it five minutes. As I announce your name, please come to the mic, state your name, tell the board whether or not you reside in kdisd and whether or not you have children presently enrolled in kdisd we have two speakers this evening so each will be allotted the full five minutes when there's one minute remaining our sergeant in arms miss courtney doyle will give you a verbal indication that you have one minute remaining our first speaker this evening is ms anna agnew
Item 4.2
Good evening, Ms. Agnew. Welcome.
MS.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have two children that have graduated from Katy ISD. I don't have any children in the district right now. And I myself am a graduate of Katy High School. I live in Cinco Ranch. All of my questions pertain to the notice that you published regarding the budget and tax rate. You published that the preceding tax year, the property tax value was $24 million, almost $24 billion, and the current tax rate, tax value of all property, as the CFO has mentioned, mentioned is 28.5 billion, so an increase of 500 million from what you've published here. So as your CFO said, the proposed property value has increased 17.2% from the last year to this year. At the same time, KDISD's enrollment has increased approximately 5%. So I'm just a little bit confused as to given that the tax value of all of our property is increasing so much and you're collecting an extra 17.2 percent in taxes whereas our enrollment is only going up five percent why our tax rate wouldn't in fact go down using the rates that you had published I had calculated that there's an extra 46 billion million that you would be collecting assuming a 28 billion dollar property tax value but given the 28 and a half that increases to about 73 million extra that you're collecting and so I'm interested in finding out where that extra 70 million or so is going in your budget and then I I calculated if you were to collect approximately 5%, which is the same rate as your enrollment, that would actually reduce our tax rate by about 16 cents. So I would be interested in finding out why we're not in fact decreasing our tax rate. I think it's a great accomplishment that we've maintained our tax rate, but I see the opportunity for a reduction. reduction. And given that we are such a large district in public companies, there are some operating efficiencies or purchasing power discounts that come into play when you're a large corporation. Given that we're a large school district, I would see some of that coming into effect as well and giving us a potential reduction.
So in conclusion, I'd like like to find out where all this extra money is going and find out also when we're going to be able to get some purchasing power efficiencies or if we're doing that today.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Eichner.
Our second speaker and final speaker this evening is Elizabeth Johnson.
Ms. Johnson? Good evening, Ms. Johnson.
Hello. My name is Elizabeth Johnson. I have three children in the district.
I just wanted
to speak tonight about the tax rate increase and the fact that I appreciate the fact that we've been able to maintain the same tax rate for going on eight years now. I have seen some great improvement in the fact that we have been able to approve a large salary increase increase for our teachers and also our, if anybody knows me, bus drivers and a lot of our non-salary personnel. And so those are all some of the expenses that I know she was concerned about. But for us, we have increased costs. Inflation rates have gone up. Utility costs have increased. We've also gone ahead and built some additional schools. And with that comes additional costs as well. so I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that we are maintaining our tax rate at this point in time and it puts us in a great position to be able to continue to pay off our debt and manage our debt efficiently the other issue that I wanted to address is the fact that our financial health the transparency that we have been able to you know put out there with the dashboard and everything on the website has been extremely helpful. It makes finding information very easy and I appreciate the fact that we have been able to increase transparency in regards to our
financials. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Johnson.
This is the end of the public
hearing. We will now move, well next item on the agenda, are there any scouts present this evening? If so please stand up. Give us your name, troop number and and what badge you're working on, please.
Okay.
Very good. Well, welcome this evening. We'll try to get you home at a reasonable hour. Fortunately, you don't have to go to school tomorrow quite yet, so.
Item 5
Okay, that moves us to our report section of our agenda tonight where we will hear about the 2014 State Accountability Performance Results. I believe Dr. Matney and Dr. Creech will be presenting.
Welcome.
There it is. Yes. Good evening, President Mikalski, Board members, Superintendent Fraley. We are here tonight as a team to introduce you first of all to Alison Matney who is going to be the new Executive Director of Assessment, Research and Accountability. And I said it backwards. But in this I'm going to start it out with sort of a refresher of what this is and then she's going to take the show and give you the report. report. So we are here as the STEA tells us we need to give you the report, show you the scores and we really have a lot to celebrate tonight. So I'm excited to be part of it. First of all, the overview of what we're going to look at is the 2014 district and campus accountability ratings, the performance index report, distinction designations for campuses and system safeguards.
As a reminder, the 2014 accountability ratings are as they
were last year. Nothing's really changed about how the ratings are tagged. You have met standard, improvement required, not rated, or met alternative standards for alternative campuses like Raines High School that's under the AEA. The ones that we deal with the most are the top two, met or needs improvement. To receive receive a met standard rating, campuses and the district must meet or exceed the target scores. And Allison is going to go over, Dr. Matney is going to go over the index scores with you and the performance data for 2014. And I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Allison Matney and welcome.
Allison Matney Thank you.
Okay, so I get to show you the fireworks. KDISD met the standard on a hundred percent of our indicators and it looks like it froze let me see
there we go we'll skip to the last firework so I get to bring you the excellent news that is a district we met standard and all of our campuses did as well so let's get into what goes into that and as the district you meet the standard on all four of the indexes meter exceed the standard which obviously we did and all of the campuses have to meet or exceed the standard on on all four of the indexes to be considered a met standard campus. So the performance index report, we have four indexes that we have to meet. Index one is about student achievement. Index two is about student progress, where we take a student from where they are coming and move them forward. Index three is about closing performance gaps, making sure that there's no disproportionality between student groups. And index four is about post-secondary readiness. How are we moving our kids forward to be ready to leave us and move on to other pastures. The district and campus must meet the required target score in each of the indexes to meet the standard that is set by the state. So here is our data chart for you so let's look at the green section index one that's our student performance section the target score that the state wants us to achieve is 55 the district this year was at 90 which is even higher than we were the year before so something huge to celebrate the state average was 77 this year. For index 2 which is our student progress how we're taking students and moving them forward the state is looking for a score of 16 and KDISD blew that away with a 46 and the state average is a 40. Index 3 closing the gaps target score of 28 KDISD is at 48 and the state is at 38 and then index 4 our post-secondary readiness when you look at all of the the components we're looking for a target score of 57, KDISD is at 77 and the state is at 69. So as you can see we have a lot to celebrate not just in meeting standard but how far above we exceeded those standards.
The next component of accountability that we look at are distinction designations and those were new last year and those are important because that's when we look at campuses in comparison to other light campuses from across across the state. So not Katy Campus to Katy Campus, but other campuses that look like them across the state. So we're looking at academic achievement in the areas of reading, math, science, social studies, looking at how we're doing on index two with the student progress, closing performance gaps in index three and postsecondary readiness in index four. So a campus must receive an accountability rating of met standard in order to even be eligible for the distinctions. So now I'm going to go through each one and let you know how many campuses achieved these this past year.
So in the area of academic achievement and reading ELA, we had 24 campuses achieve this distinction and you get that by a combination of attendance rate, student growth in the area, advanced level three performance, so not just met standard, but even the highest level standard for passing the assessment, the advanced level three. And then also AP, SAT and ACT are included in this area and it's important to note that because this is really the first time that college assessments are included in any component of our accountability system in math it looks very similar we have 12 campuses that achieved that distinction in same areas attendance rate student growth advanced level 3 performance AP SAT and ACT scores for the next two subjects and the distinctions in science and social studies they look very similar again to the reading in the math we had 18 Eighteen campuses achieve a distinction in science. Ten campuses achieve a distinction in social studies. Again you see that pattern of that advanced level three performance. So we're not just looking at getting through the test and passing but truly showing that we are scoring at a much higher rate. The top 25 in student progress, we had 20 campuses achieve that distinction and that's really how they scored on index two in comparison to their other like campuses. There's a group of 40 like campuses they're compared to. So this is scoring in the top 10 of those campuses. Academic achievement top 25% in closing performance gaps. We had 24 campuses achieve this distinction. And that's the same pattern as the previous one, only it's about index three. So making sure that there's no disproportionality among student groups. And then our final distinction is post-secondary readiness. And we hear a lot of information about that term. We have 16 campuses that achieve that distinction designation, and it's really looking at how our students are doing on the level two final standard. We kind of have a phase in process of our standards for passing the test. And so we're looking at those students who are actually scoring at the final standard, which will not be in effect for several more years now. And then graduation rates, diploma rates, college-ready graduates, dual enrollment, SAT and ACT participation, SAT and ACT performance, and AP performance are all included, of course, for the high schools for this indicator. And at this time, we'll take any questions if you have any.
Mr. President.
Mr. Dubrow.
Congratulations. Great job to everyone, all of our employees. I really like seeing the fact that we're working very hard and closing that achievement gap. That's a huge passion of mine. And I'm very happy to see our success on the SAT and PSAT test. But is any of this weighted towards how we're doing with kids who aren't going to attend college? Kids that are maybe going to attend some type of trade school or some other type of post-secondary education?
That's a great question. For the accountability system, no. No, it is all about all of your students included, and you have a participation component. So what percent of your students are participating in ACT and SAT assessments, and then the performance piece of it. So right now, they are not looking at students who are college bound versus trade bound, or even junior college versus four-year degree bound right out of high school. So they are not at this time.
Mr. President. Mr. President. Congratulations once again. My question is, what are we doing to the campuses that aren't achieving the academic awards that we've got here? What are we doing for those campuses to bring them up to the level to the ones that are performing so well?
The distinction designations? That's a great question. Right now, we're doing a lot of education about these. Because even last year in 2013, there there were only three eligible distinctions. So we have seven this year. So the first part is really just educating campus teams about what goes into the distinctions, and then really talking about and getting down to the granular level with data with where are our students. And just that whole conversation of passing is great, but when you're in a district where you've got 90 points in your index one, we're excited about how many campuses that have distinctions because that is where we need to be pushing. So there's already a lot of conversation about, OK, okay, let's push forward and stop the conversation about just meeting standard, but really it's about, for a lot of our kids, pushing to that final level two and the advanced level three performance.
Thank you.
Mr. Adams.
Thank you, President. Dr. Matheny and Dr. Creech, thank you so much for the presentation. One of the things I think that needs to be said tonight is the fact that in the recent Houston Chronicle, They talked about the fact that Cy Fair, of course, had no campus that needed improvement and as being one of the largest in the state of Texas. And I think as Mr. Fraley points out quite frequently is that we're not far behind them. I mean, as far as that, we're in the top ten districts as far as size goes. That's great, and we didn't need any improvement. We didn't have any campus that needed additional improvement either. but one of the things I would say to that we all need to be aware of is the fact that that there continues to be an influx of students in our into our district students from all different places students that don't have the opportunity or maybe coming to us that are very needy and they should be applauded for the things while we certainly as mr. Griffin said is that we we need to continue to strive forward. I think that we've done a great job with the ones that, we have to play with what's brought to us and that's what we have. And so I would just like to commend you for that as well while seeking the improvement for the other campuses.
Any other questions? Okay, thank you, Dr. Manny. Well done.
Item 6
That brings us to the action section of our agenda. Our next item is to consider board approval of the order calling a school building bond election.
Mr. President?
Mr. President?
It's not in.
Check one, two, one, two. Check one, two. Coming up.
Okay, here we go. Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to come down here and speak to the board and to the community. The board is about to consider some action tonight that once they take that action, by state law, I must suspend part of my First Amendment rights. I'm no longer allowed to speak in defense of a recommendation from our community community based committee that I fully support. It is now a recommendation as well. Before you vote, there are some things folks need to hear. I want to say a few things.
Tomorrow my wife and I will be moving our son to his third year of college in his third apartment.
He was home a few weeks ago and we took his car in to be serviced and we took it to the place we bought it from. and I know some things that changed at the place we bought it from.
First of all, the dealership, when we bought the car in 2010, had new cars and used cars pretty much in the same lot.
And they had a few things across the street, but now they have so many new cars they're pretty much parked door handle to door handle. And with new vehicles.
Across the street they've taken up space completely for their used cars.
We noticed that the service bin behind of the dealership was torn down, and they were expanding that. I noticed a big billboard that says, thank you for making us the number one seller of these vehicles in the nation.
And because of that, their fast growth of their business, they had to expand their footprint. Space for new cars, a new inventory. Space for the used cars they were taking in and trade. And space in the service bay and space for customers waiting for service. And I don't, having been a customer of them twice now, recall getting an email or an invitation on a committee to study their growth needs. I don't recall an email asking me to help them develop a proposal to go to the bank to ask for money to expand their business. They didn't need to. They didn't need to.
Well, in KDIC, we're number one in something also. Also, the number one selling zip code in the nation, 77494. We've been the number one, one of the top communities in the nation in terms of home sales for a number of years. Thus, we're growing big time. And this is not according to me. Here's our friends in the news media. It's their reports, chronically, our fast growth. growth. In fact, up top left, that's Cross Creek Ranch.
Based on the story, that land was purchased in 2005 for $56 million, the property was.
It sold recently for $125 million.
dollars. I'm waiting for my percentage.
And in fact according to Fort Wayne County Central Appraisal District there has been a property value increase over the last five years of 78 % north of FM 1093.
What is north of FM 1093 folks?
folks. KDISD. KDISD. Oh, and by the way, these appraisal values, I don't get to set those. No one on my staff gets to set appraisal values. We have three counties that do that. And in fact, the predictions are projections that we'll add another 38,000 housing units by 2023. 23. Of that number, 27,000 single family homes.
I visited with the realtors last week and they saw these numbers, they were not sort of ordering big BMWs.
They'll say no, they're going going to be quite busy, quite busy. And like the car dealership, we need more space, not Not for inventory, but for our students.
For our students.
Projections are by 2023, we'll be adding almost 30,000 more students. We'll top 70,000 this year. We'll be knocking on the door of close to 100,000 students in a couple scenarios.
That brings us to the big elephant in the room. Because of our growth, we have to build.
And unlike some of you, I don't have an extra $23 million lying around to go pay cash for an elementary school. I don't have an extra $46 million or so to go pay cash for a junior high. Or $100 million to pay cash for a high school. By law, we have to do something different here in Texas. That's a bond referendum of $748 billion. That sounds like a lot. It is a lot. It is a lot. And because of this elf in the room, it brings up a conversation that's pretty toxic. Debt and of course taxes. As I said, I don't have $100 million lying around to go pay cash for a high school. So we have to ask our voters to give us permission to sell the bonds, borrow the money, to build the facilities that we need, and we need them for one reason only. only. If we weren't growing, if we weren't growing, we wouldn't be building.
And if we weren't building to meet the demands of the growth, we'd have very limited debt, if any at all. No one can deny with any sense at all that we're a growing district. You can't deny that. Every years ago I stood in the parking lot of Seven Lakes High School, looked across Fry Road, saw nothing but a beautiful rolling hills of Katy.
And now across Seven Lakes High School.
So much so we have kids camping out in the parking lot.
You get a parking spot.
Yes, we're growing. And because we're growing, like the business, we have to have more space. More space. And again, if we weren't growing, we wouldn't need it. It wouldn't happen. And to pay back the debt, we have to assess taxes.
I'm old enough to remember back in the days of my youth when I had a few tussles with an opponent, but I always knew who was throwing the punches, and they knew who was throwing the punches back.
Public education is definitely now a fully politicized contact sport. And you don't always know where your opponent is because sometimes they hide behind these things.
Sometimes they'll put things like this out. This was out in 2010. No stadium was on the ballot in 2010.
This was put out in 2013 against the stadium proposal.
And then this sign popped up in 2013.
And then Sunday morning.
I can appreciate the challenges expressed here. Let's think about it. Basically, we're being asked, we don't mind building schools that serve your math, your science, language arts, social studies. We don't mind competition and performance space for your volleyball team, for your theater arts, for your orchestra, for your basketball team, for your softball and things. We don't mind that at all. We don't want a stadium.
Well, who performs in the stadium?
Our band students, our dance teams, our drill teams,
our cheerleaders, our soccer teams, and yes, football teams as well. In fact, over half our secondary kids be performing in this venue.
The folks are saying we want to segregate from this issue.
Segregate these kids and their interest from these kids.
Let's put these out there as a sacrificial lamb and yes we'll give you this maybe if you do that.
Well in Katy ISD this community is about all children not just these but these as well.
To ask to have a segregation from here of these kids, to ask to make these a political sacrificial lamb so we can at least vote no against something, I don't think lands on what Katy community community values? I really don't. For some, yes. The majority, I don't think so. We went back to 1984 and looked at the bond issues that were presented to the community. You can see that the bond issues were not the same as the bond issues that were presented we have had quite a few.
We've had a couple of failures. 2006, it failed because there were folks felt we didn't need to grow.
Unlike the city of Austin, I guess. In 2013, yes,
that referendum went down in flames.
My first day seven years ago in KDISD at a receiving line out in the hallway. Folks came in and shake my hand and asked when will we get our second stadium. I said, Kaz, I haven't even signed the contract yet. And I've heard it multiple times every year. We even had a special committee that someone just kind of formed that I did, I found out about, to study this issue.
Because they care about these kids too.
So finally last year we said, all right,
let's put this out there by itself not competing with anything it's out there by itself if the community really wants it go for it we just said no i accepted it i moved on i was done with it there were rumors that i was going to bring it back in may
there's an old saying about it ain't what you don't know because it's trouble it's what you do know it just ain't so those who knew i was going to bring it back in may knew something that just wasn't so.
You can see that each year the success of the elections or the failure, it was all pretty close. One year, 37 votes separated.
This tissue from defeat and success.
Every vote counts.
The station that most folks listen to, WIIFM, was in it for me.
Let's talk about that. A lot of our community, what's in it for them are these brand new schools highlighted before you, dating back to 1994. 1994. According to a demographer or survey, almost over half our people have been here five years or less, or ten years or less. A lot of folks move here on purpose. And they move here and they find themselves in one of these schools that the folks here before they got here agreed to tax themselves to build. Well, let's look at it. 1994, there was a bond election. A few years later, these schools popped up.
Hayes, McRoberts, Alexander, Beck and Cinco Ranch Junior High and Katie Junior High Schools. 1996, had a bond election. Nothing's ever going to be built west of 99, people said. But because of that, Cinco Ranch High School opened up. And had the voters had the attitude that my kids at Taylor don't get anything out of it, so therefore I'm not going to help those kids on the side of town.
What's in it for them? Well, mainly community pride. Community pride. On down, I mean, in 2002, voters said yes, resulting in Seven Lakes High School. Now imagine had we not done that in this community. Then in 2010, with the opposition signs,
with a depressed economy around the country, This community chose to continue to invest in its children. And we opened Tompkins High School here. I think those schools highlighted.
Did we not need those?
Did we not need those schools?
I don't care about those kids. What's in it for me? Okay. How about this? For seven years running, the tax rate has not changed at all. $1.52 total. 40 cents is the debt service. Okay? Well, let's just look at this. What's in it for you? Well, let's just presume you bought your house in 2007.
Market value of $180,000. Taxable value of 165. You agreed at that time, I'm willing to pay $2500 in taxes. Being Katie Astin. I agree to do that. Well, because of our growth in value, you see that next year you paid another $119 on top of that. All in all you paid another $103,000 on top of your original agreement. And you see so forth and so on until now in 2013, man, I'm paying $3,000 in taxes. What do I get for this? Well along with all those schools that we just showed you, let's look and see what do you get for the taxes you pay. Now keep in mind the tax rate has not changed. Sold all at $52. to. The tax rate has not changed. All the knowledge that we've been upping the tax rate, and we agree that's been done.
And I will say to you, if you got your recent values,
this time next year you're going to pay a lot more than what you paid this year. Why is that? Because the values have gone up tremendously. We have a situation now where folks will agree with the house on the market, for the size in the front lawn, they have multiple offers.
A situation where folks are getting multiple bids above the asking price. And because of that, when you sell your house, you're walking out with a pretty good-sized check. I sold a house recently after six years of trying in another community. I had to walk in with a big check. Because that place was not KDISD.
What's in it for me? Well alright, so you agreed to pay this much in taxes, now you're paying this much in taxes. Tax rate hasn't changed, why are you paying more in taxes? Here's why. Your value has gone up. And again, I don't get to set the appraisal values. So from your original agreement, you've paid a total of $536 more than your original agreement.
So what's in it for you? How about an equity increase of $35,000?
And I guarantee you, the desire to be in KDISD, this community, is not because of the rolling hills.
It's because of the school system this community has helped create and sustain over many, many years.
Why can't we be on the same page about that? Why is there a fight about that?
No tax rate increase, values increase, equity increase.
For over a period of four months, we had a number of citizens in this community choose to put themselves out there and volunteer to study the needs of our, of their community.
Here they are.
227 members of this committee looked at 82 plus land items of need in this district. They spent four months, about 6,000 hours they volunteered, over 13 meetings.
They spent the first six weeks on learning what they thought they knew.
Learning really more about the school district. Learning more about the needs.
Planning over their
processes and how we're going to go about coming to a decision. They spent seven weeks in deliberation.
Having learned something, they spent seven weeks in deliberation. There are a lot of folks who've jumped up at the last minute who didn't spend any of this time, who think they know more than you guys knew.
Staff walked in saying we have about a billion dollars of identified needs. Committee said no sir, we'll only look at part of that.
But this comprises the recommendation before the Board of Trustees this evening.
Looking at 48 %
30% brand new schools. 30% renovating our existing schools.
All told, with technology and student-acquired facilities, which is rounded up from 10.8% to 11%, it's a rounding thing. And then the fact that in the 4% you have buses, portable buildings, and design service fees to plan for more schools.
So in a very fair assessment, 90 plus, maybe 95 percent of this is directly impacting our children.
Six brand new schools that somebody will be highlighting up here from years down the road.
Perhaps. Perhaps. perhaps.
Renovations, not only do we take care of the new growth, we take care of the existing facilities as well. This committee was adamant about that and they actually went out and toured facilities to take a first-hand look, see, at the needs.
And they're tremendous. Plus we have 68,000 of other people's children running through our house on any given day.
Here's the listing, it's all on our website, of the projects and the recommendation for the board tonight. 8,890 seats. This was being proposed.
For these children, some of whom are also these children.
Why split them up?
You can see that the projects are all over the district. It's not just, it's not north against south, east against west, considering the entire district.
And based on these we got last week, we can do this with a zero to a half cent maximum tax rate increase. So with all the media reports about folks don't want a massive tax rate increase, I agree. You're not going to get one.
What else you got?
So the average homeowner of that house bought at $180,000 may pay another ten bucks more annually, maybe, based on the tax rate. Now I would wager you that you're probably going to pay more than 10 bucks. Why?
Because the tax rate changes.
Because the value of your home is going to go up. Because folks want to be in Katy ISD. The demand.
We're all free market, we're all capitalist. The demand is set in the price. If you're 65 years or older, no matter what, you don't pay any more. You don't we don't restrict your equity growth.
But what's in it for me? I don't have children, but I own my house. And you probably pay this much for it, but when you sell it, you get a good retirement house out of this, I guarantee you.
It's a whole lot of money, right? All this massive tax increase creates because of the buildings. No, it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. There is a second elephant in the room that has embedded in people's minds. Something I'm still looking for and that's that $70 million stadium.
Haven't found it yet. Oh, semantics well let's think about it already West yes we're growing leaps and bounds we got to have all this stuff over here what's everyone talking about
stuff over here in fact last November this was the front page of the Chronicle above the fold Sunday morning offense defense lined up very catchy if someone had a lot of fun with that. Over 69 million dollar stadium.
Oh and then you have this T-Porter versus 70 million dollar high school stadium. You have Texas needed 69 million dollar high school stadium. Voters asked to vote for 70 million dollar high school stadium. Oh if approved the 14,000 seat would be the most expensive in the state's history. I would have voted no too.
If that were were true. After the election, this was the same paper that used the same information that gave you the sensationalized headline.
It was not apples to apples compared with Allen. And Allen told them so.
In the blue, that's what the stadium was going to cost back in 2013 based on the numbers.
Committee of 42 looked at three different scenarios. That was the cost of the stadium, but we included parking we thought you may want to have a parking lot. You don't need to have one. I know some school districts build stadiums but no parking lots. Some even build them without locker rooms, but we proposed a locker room.
Proposed two additional ones we thought may have some tournaments out there like soccer tournaments so you you need to have four locker rooms.
That was proposed. Item A and B. Then item C through G, a band plaza. The coaches wanted 100 yards, a couple of goal posts, north-south configuration. And then the band folks took over and said, we want a place to warm up before we perform at halftime inside the stadium. But they asked for a band plaza. So we said, yes. Multi-purpose balcony, security guy said, we need to find a way to get around to the other side. without having to go down and back up and then over again. Three bridges across the bayou because we want to use both parking lots and maybe get emergency vehicles across if we need them. Also included restrooms for band and drill teams. If you've been involved with those kids, you know that it's kind of hard to be in uniform and fight the crowd right before your halftime performance to get in the bathroom.
We thought you might want to have a left turn lane on Franz Road. It'd be a little bit easier. easier. And I mentioned, okay, well, we have a field house. What about the second floor, chill space for future growth? Today's dollars are a lot cheaper to do it now than later. If we're going to have events, let's have some folks on site to manage it. How about athletic offices up there? Sure, we'll do that. The choir teacher said, you know, we have a hard time with choir competitions because because the packs are being used for not only us in theater arts, but for testing, media means a lot of stuff. So could we build this above there too? Because you don't need a 22 foot ceiling facility to play football, but it works acoustically for our performances. Storing a piano, you don't need that for football, I guarantee you. And a metal storage building on site because you don't want to screw those fumes up against the locker rooms. Items A through K come at $10 million. When you add those things to the previous actual stadium costs, that's where the numbers come in.
But it was always more than a stadium.
Well, I've actually read your broadcast system. That's the million dollars right there that we put one in over roads, and guess what? It paid for itself with advertising two or three years in advance, earlier than projected. And it's part of our Miller program because our students operate this camera, all five cameras in the broadcast booth.
Mr. Bond survey, we said, no, 54%, sure, we're for the bond, we're okay. 30%? No way.
And they popped the question. What if there is a stadium for these kids on the ballot? Well, I don't know about that.
What if we told you the stadium was only 8% of the total bond amount? out. Oh, okay, maybe so.
They were together, the stadium for these kids would lose by itself. This is with no background information.
Beginning 54 % for, 3 % against. Now at the stadium because of all the rhetoric that people know, it changes. So then the surveyors gave us some information that well actually the stadium that's proposed is this.
It's 5.8 % of the total bond package. Having a field office with locker rooms because I know places that have built stadiums without locker rooms. So we can do that. I figure we probably want to have some in Katy.
Parking. You can park in a field on grass.
But we may want to have to put concrete out there.
Then they mentioned 25 other elements.
30 % of the bond includes funds for existing campuses, has nearly 3,000 new students each year, so therefore we need to have six more schools.
Energy efficient, safety and security,
construction costs are going to go up and you know you're going to have more buildings, more facilities.
There's investments in technology. When they told the survey participants that, that's what it came out as.
This community wants these kids.
Why segregate them now? The survey says we don't need this facility for these kids as well. The committee says yes.
So why use them as pawns to borrow a previous term?
And who's really being held hostage?
Katie community, who are we?
I don't think we're this. I don't think we're that.
And heaven forbid we become this.
No, we are 17,000 registered volunteers who provided over 800 plus thousand volunteer hours that were documented. I know many were not documented because my wife is one of them.
and I'm tripping over stuff at the house that she's not writing down as ours.
We're a civic community, a group community of over 70 civic organizations. Tremendous, tremendous heart. That's Katie. That's Katie.
These were the numbers last year, 89% proficiency. This year it's 90%. our students are highly sought after. We're offered over 22 million dollars of scholarships this last year's graduating class.
For six consecutive years and even more total we've been rated one of the top communities of music education which is the kids over here and for the kids over here.
That is why this committee of citizens, 200 plus, fought tooth and nail at a few battles. But they agreed, it's our district. It's our kids' future. A local matter, it's a local decision.
They had the conversation. Do we segregate from these kids, these kids, and the committee that spent 6,000 hours together,
four months, 13 meetings? they said they're all our kids.
No one's left out hanging for the sake of another group. Board will call an election probably tonight if I haven't bored them to death
and this is what happens register and please vote early if you can November 4th for certain and if we do this if we get all the correct information in this place we call KDISD is well poised to fulfill this mission those unparalleled learning experiences for our children, to prepare them for an honorable, honorable, fulfilling life, and create a future.
This we can do. This we must do. Thank you very much.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
Is it all right to ask a question at this point?
Well, I think we're going to have Mr. Haskett present, and then we'll have a discussion.
It's directly related to Mr. Fraley's presentation. Go ahead. It's all right. Mr. Fraley, I have been asked by numerous people in numerous ways about information that's circulating in our district that says we have been, the district has been offered to by a company to pay for the stadium outright. Could you clarify that as fact or fiction, please?
I need names because I've not heard of that. No, that is totally incorrect. We have not had that offer made that's been brought to my attention.
Thank you for the clarification. Thank you.
Okay, now we will get a presentation by Mr. Haskett on the order calling a school building bond election. Welcome, Mr. Haskett.
Thank you, Mr. Mohoski, Mr. Fraley, and members of the Board of Trustees. As Mr. Fraley so well presented, there has been a committee studying the needs of the district for over four months. And there are many needs because of the growth in the district. We need more facilities. We need to renovate the facilities that we currently have. We need to buy, purchase more property. We need to purchase buses. There are lots of needs that have been identified by this committee. committee. KDISD would therefore intend to hold a school building bond election in conjunction with the November 4th general election this fall. And in doing so, we would have joint elections with three counties, Fort Bend, Harris, and Waller County. We are currently in contact with those three counties and working out our agreements to have them conduct the elections for us. It is our recommendation, therefore, that the Board of Trustees approve and order a bond election for this fall for November 4, 2014, as recommended by the administration.
Thank you, Mr. Haskett. Mr. DeBrow?
Before we get into motions and everything, I kind of want to recap what we've been through. We first started talking about this at the beginning of the year. We formed a 200-member committee. People could self-nominate. We purposely went into the community to try and get people from different sides of the issue so we could have something that our entire community could support. And personally, I'm very troubled by what I've seen this past week. Mr. Fraley touched on it, but to me these signs are outrageous. To try and pull a church into this is unbelievable. The fact that someone would make these political statements and not have the courage to even put their name at the bottom of it, as the law requires, a little political statement, political ad paid for by, which the laws of the state of Texas require, is appalling. And one of the signs, personally as a believer, really enraged me. The one that said, second should save souls, not stadiums, somehow implying that I should leave my Christian faith at the doors of the church my faith goes with me wherever I go it goes with me to work to the grocery store when I'm pumping gas when I'm driving down the street that's why you will not see a Christian bumper sticker in my car because I always don't drive Christ -like.
It comes with me to this dais, it goes with me everywhere, and
for someone to try and pull a church into this. What angers me is the intent behind these signs wasn't to express a view because I believe we all welcome debate. We can talk about this issue for as long as you desire. Please express express your feelings no matter what side you're on. But the purpose was to bring a chilling effect to the conversation. The purpose was to try and silence people by making them feel intimidated and bullied. And I for one, am not gonna stand for bullying. I know that our role changes after we make this vote. The law says we can't advocate for or against. But for one, I will not stand for bullying. I will support this as a private citizen because I still have those First Amendment rights. I can put my money where my mouth is and support the group that's out there campaigning for this. I will do that. And if you want to try and bully someone, get off Second Baptist back. come this way because I'm willing to put my name you spell it with two L's behind my statement because I don't believe as an individual or as a community that Katie will stand for anybody being bullied I'm not even a member at second but I support them a hundred percent I believe that congregation should stand strong and the rest of the community should stand with them and say we will will not be bullied by these intimidating tactics. And I, for one, am not going to do that. So who's ever involved with the group that's going to support this, call me so I can get behind you guys.
Okay. Mr. President. Mr. Adams. Is this the right number? I move the Board of Trustees approve the order calling a school building bond election in the amount of $748,120,000 as recommended by the administration.
I have a motion by Mr. Adams, seconded by Mr. Dubrow, that the Board of Trustees approve the order calling a school building bond election in the amount of $748,120,000 as recommended by the administration. Is there any discussion?
Mr. President. Ms. Fox. I certainly echo what my colleague, Mr. DeBrell, has said about the tactics of people who oppose part of the recommendations, all of the recommendations, any of the recommendations from our community. to support our community. I agree. I'm in complete agreement. No one has to agree with me. I don't mind an opposing view. I like to have discussion about KDSD. I love to talk about KDSD. I love to talk about what it looked like when we came, why we stayed,
why my husband's job continued to keep us here and he quit taking promotions and transfers first because of KDISD is why we stayed. Our children are gone now and we're empty nesters and we stay because I love this community and the school district is a huge part of why I love it. But I'm also great with talking about things that people disagree with and why they do. And I never make anyone feel belittled or wrong about having a different opinion from me. and I welcome discussions so that we can talk about facts. But I am tired of people lying. I am tired of people saying, I don't know if this is true, but I heard someone offered to pay for the stadium. If you don't know it's true, it's not okay to pretend like it is. It's not okay to present hypothetical suggestions that people might believe. So I'm just asking the community, when you hear things like that, ask for proof. Let's just have an honest discussion. Let's have our integrity and our honesty with us at all times. and I too welcome conversations debates and I love this community thank you as
Fox I thought for a minute we were gonna get another bring it from you
Any other discussion?
One point that I would like to make, in the motion that was read earlier, it talked about this bond as recommended by the administration, and certainly this board is acting on a recommendation from the administration. However, the reason for that recommendation is because of the work the Bond Committee did and the recommendation that the Bond Committee made a month ago to this Board of Trustees and to the administration. So you know, and one other thing I would like to say is there has been discussion within the community about whether this should be on one bond referendum or more than one. And I think the stadium is the issue that most people are bringing up when they talk about that. And there are compelling arguments on both sides of that. I will recognize that degree. However, I will say that as far as me and the way that I made a decision and the way I will vote regarding that, it really did come down to the most informed people in the room, which is the bond committee. They spent four months, 13 plus meetings, learning about what was going to be in this bond and deliberating on what they believed was the best package for our community. And I, for one, admire the work that you did, and I think you did a remarkable, the bond committee did a remarkable job putting that together and putting a fiscally responsible plan in place for the that will satisfy the growth in fact the last slide that mr. Fraley had up when he was talking was the mission or Katie ISD that talks about unparalleled learning experiences everything in this package in my opinion is required to be able to meet that mission every single piece from the new schools for the new students coming in the renovations of the old schools to the investment in technology building out a second floor at the Miller Career Center which will create new opportunities for you know vocations and and absolutely that stadium I will say this i was on way back when when i was in high school i played football and was in the band and some of the best learning experiences i had were out on that field and i think in the overall scope of things and the opportunities that this district is able to provide its students that is an integral piece the eighth high school is going to be built by this bond referendum um we need another playing surface and um and this is the best option that we have and the bond committee committee, did a lot of deliberation over that, and they made the right call at the end of the day. So I'm proud of the work that they did, and thank you for making our job that much easier.
Mr. President, I want to give you the last word, but when you vote, then I lose my voice. So let me say it now.
Considering the reports you heard tonight about the financial health of of this district, considering the performance academically of this school district, considering what I shared in terms of the high regard for our community that folks have.
Why can't we be on the same side on this thing? Why can't we work together for our community? Why are we at war?
Is there any other discussion?
Mr. President.
Mrs. Stoll.
I agree with the three of you, what you have shared. And one of the things I'd like to say in considering whether this should be a single referendum or a split, again, I've heard conflicting reports. I've heard both sides. But as you all know, I'm new to the board. And one of the things that I heard throughout the election was please be transparent when you're up there. Please don't let it just be the seven of you being the only ones to make all the decisions for the district. And there were several times that I had to convince people that that really wasn't what was happening. That this was a community and then it was brought to the board and then we would make the decision from there. And in trying to make this decision for myself on whether, you know, hearing the conflicting sides of it should be two, it should be one, it should be everything itemized. And it was a question that came up a lot throughout the election process. If there is a bond, what are you going to do? How are you going to vote? Are you going to itemize things? Are you going to make it separate? Are you going to pull the stadium out? I know Ashley can contest that that was a common question across the board. But this board decided to open it up to the community. And then you had 600 plus volunteers who said, I want to be on that community. And then it ended up with 227. And 227 committee members are bringing this to us. and this is what they're saying they want, I think it would be very undermining for us to then say, well, the seven of us want it this way. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your hours. Thank you for your time. But we're going to make seven of us are going to change what 227 have asked for. And so I just want to make that statement as well, that I think it's imperative that we listen to what the community of committee members on that bond are speaking to us, because they are the ones that are speaking for the community. Because they didn't do it alone. They went back. They spoke to their neighbors. They spoke to their friends. They shared that information, and that information was on the website. And I know that they were bombarded with questions and concerns. And so I, too, appreciate, and I have said that repeatedly, the efforts that you made. And in no way do I want to undermine the work that you've done. So, again, I appreciate you.
Mr. President, one more question. Go ahead. When you were speaking about the tax rate and the new evaluations that came in, we talk about the worst-case scenario all the time. What's the best-case scenario? What's the likely scenario? Because oftentimes the worst doesn't happen.
Well, Ms. President, if I can, you saw part of the best situation that you all took action on earlier this year. You were able to accelerate payoff of some of the principles of $16 million dollars saving over 11 million dollars in interest we're going to have more than likely unless this community is destroyed by this election we're gonna have a very healthy growth of values this district again and for the next several years and what that may give us is a chance to defeats more bonds on accelerated rate cost of the increased value and the regular that it generates rates. And I know this board, my values would be, we can, let's do that.
Mr. Griffin? Mr. Fred Lee, I got to ask you one question, follow up on that one that you had. So right now we've had a direction that this district is growing. And I believe Mr. Smith's earlier projection was 15% growth on the taxable value rate. We ended up at 17.2. So to me, the district's going in the correct direction so i think this is almost a community is going to come out to tell us which direction do they want us to go do they want us to continue to have growth
or do they want us to go backwards well thank you and as i said right now the desirability of our katie school district community are connected directly you harm one you harm the other And when you harm both, the direction changes. And then you'll have people here walking into closings with checks versus walking out of them with checks.
Mr. Mahoski, one of the things you showed tonight was a chart that went back to 1994. I was there.
I was there.
We absolutely did have elections that we were successful on and we were able to move forward. We had elections that we weren't successful on and we stood still. We just sat until we could pull another election to move forward. And I think that we're faced at a time if we don't move forward, we will stand still. And this, we can't stand still with the education of our children. We've got to move forward. And this is what this is about. This is not about a stadium. A stadium is 6.7% of the total amount of this thing. So we just need to look forward here and think about what this is all about. Yes, it is about the children. It is about the children and we need to understand that. These people didn't spend these thousands of hours for their health and to come to these meetings because they had hard times there when they were talking about things and they had some some disagreements in their discussions about things, but you know they worked through it in a democratic process.
And now we need to grow up and be big folks
and we need to operate this and we need to make a vote on a democratic process and pass this bond election for the students of Katy ISD.
Mr. President? Ms. Van. To go back even a little bit further talking about the legacy of Katy ISD, in 1978 we had a bond you weren't there for that one though right
for 36 million dollars that if my math is correct that's about 131 million dollars in today's dollars and that bond built taylor high school this town said we're going to grow we believe in katie and it's not just about katie high school and the schools that feed into it can Can you imagine if, I'm sure $36 million in 1978 was huge, and the voters said yes, and Taylor High School was built, and this district began to grow. And in 1982, they said yes to a $75 million bond that built May Creek High School, three elementary schools, and a junior high. And I think that's truly when the legacy of KDISD started. And I feel like this bond, the time, the energy, the love, the input that this bond committee has put into it is going to help to nurture and guarantee that the legacy of Katy ISD stays the one that we're proud of and the one that, you know, these 227 people have told us and we've listened. And speaking to what Courtney spoke to, yes, there was questions about should this be two bonds, should it be line items and multiple referendums, and I feel like this is a smart financial choice for this district, and it will ensure the growth and the security of this district, and it is for every student, not just these students or these students, but all the students at KDISD.
Mr. President, may I one more time? And people are always a little confused when they see my bring it side because I'm most called the cheerleader. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for that. Because I am. I love this district. And so I just couldn't end on negative in that Mrs. Vann is a product of KDISD and so is Mr. Griffin. And they know, like I do, that I love what Mr. Wollman said. Let me say this. He said, when I drive past schools and I see names on buildings, I don't see a building of brick and mortar. I see Roosevelt Alexander kneeling next to a student and helping him get his locker unstuck. I see Mrs. Creech loaning lunch money to a child to make sure that they can eat. I see all of these, I see Mr. Tompkins coaching and driving the bus and getting home late at night to make sure that those boys get to play basketball and I see them pouring into those young people and developing them into incredible individuals. Someone who graduated from the Air Force Academy, a mom and a community member who's poured her life into KDISD schools. These are products of of KDISD. These are products of people who said yes to more taxes so that our community and our school district can be the best. And so when I look at the bond, when I see those line items, I see boys and girls. I see their faces. I see their parents being as excited about the opportunities their children will have in the future as my children got. And And I'm proud to be a part of KDSD, and I'm proud of the bond committee for working hard and fine-tuning and bringing us a package that represents all children, all parents, all non-parents, and the things that will make the KD community stronger. And I'm excited for what this presents.
Thank you, Rebecca. I actually add to that. I see Mrs. Rhodes handing a love note to a little boy in the lunchroom. That just makes his day.
Okay.
I think we will proceed to vote on this motion. I'll read it again in case anyone forgot it. I have a motion by Mr. Adams, seconded by Mr. Brell, that the Board of Trustees approve the order calling a school building bond election in the amount of $748,120,000 as recommended by the administration and 227 member bond committee. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye.
Motion passes 7-0.
Thank you, Mr. Haskett, for standing up there the entire time. Sorry we didn't ask you any questions.
Okay, we are now at our consent agenda portion of our agenda.
Consent Agenda
Mrs. Stevenson, looks like you've got the next couple of items for us. Welcome.
Good evening, President McCloskey, board members, Mr. Fraley. I have two contracts to bring forward for your consideration this evening. The first one is the proposal for books and media for instructional and reference use. This is not items that are used in the libraries or not cataloged for the libraries. They are strictly classroom or for our administrators for reference, for counselors, that type of thing. This particular contract will provide a list of approved vendors from which the schools and the administrators can purchase these items. All these items are, again, not library or cataloged items. The list of publishers and suppliers was developed by the purchasing department based on the history of the last three years of purchasing and the request from our schools and instructors for suppliers that they needed for instructional materials. All of the suppliers that submitted met the requirements to be a vendor for Katy ISD, and this particular contract will be a one-year contract with two additional one-year renewals. We will ask that the schools do competitive pricing whenever it's possible, and we will certainly look at that, and we will purchase based on best value. The total expenditures we anticipate over the next year, particularly with the opening of our new schools this fall, is $3,100,000. And this represents an additional allowance of about $200,000 over what is normal because of the opening of the new schools. Contract expenditures will be funded from the General Operating Fund and our Special Revenue Funds, Student Activity Funds, and Bond Funds as approved by the Board. Board.
Thank you. Any questions?
Okay, thank you.
The second contract I brought forward for your approval this evening that will take care of improving the envelope and waterproofing at Taylor High School. This particular project was developed as a separate project because it's outside of the scope of our routine type of work. It is a very large project. We asked for a consultant to come in and evaluate the project and help us to develop the specifications to be certain that we obtained the best pricing possible. Mr. Todd Spor from PBK was brought in as our consultant and he assisted us in this process. After evaluation of all the proposals submitted, the recommendation is to award to Restoration Services Incorporated. It is a not-to-exceed cost of $607,000, which includes a $100,000 owner's contingency. The project will begin shortly after board approval, if there is such, and will be completed by August 1st of 2015. This project will be funded from the 2010 bond funds as approved by the board.
Mr. President. Mr. Adams. Maybe this should be directed to Mr. McElwain, but can you expand a little bit about what a roofing envelope means for me and the scope of work here? I wasn't able to extract that totally from that.
Building envelope in the construction industry refers to both the vertical and the horizontal surfaces surrounding the interior of the building. So in other words, it's not just the roof. It's also the vertical surfaces, the penetrations through the exterior wall, whether they be windows or doors. So with respect to this particular project, it's all encompassing. It covers a wide spectrum of water infiltration protection type aspects of work, including a replacement of specific windows, which have deteriorated. uh elastomeric coatings on some of the aepha surfaces uh on the exterior caulking control joints uh through wall flashing a waterproofing all openings and penetrations as i mentioned repairing roof curbs uh uh addressing roof drain issues throughout the building as well as specific roofing work on brain itself on sir on the horizontal roof surface so when we're completed this project it will encapsulate the building and protect it from any further water infiltration which is occurring now at locations and and the and why this has been brought forward in the budget was brought forward last month was to accelerate this
mr. president mr. Griffin mr. McElwain do you currently have damage being done in Taylor High School and is that going to need some remediation also?
Within the school because of the water infiltration? The maintenance department has been doing a good job mitigating that but our concern is that the the deterioration will accelerate if this work is not addressed immediately and they'll cut and they'll be the added water infiltration will cause you more damage. So at this particular point in time there has not been excessive damage to the work that was done recently with that. Thank you.
Mr. Michael, I have one further question. It says here that the project will be funded from the 2010 bond funds. Is this the last project from the 2010 bond funds or is there room for
any more? This project was identified and constructed through the support of the board through the available bond funds but there is, as you mentioned there are some funds that are still remaining. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Any other questions? Thank you, Mrs. Stevenson. I guess Mr. McElwain, you'll be staying for the next item, right?
Yes, that's correct. And I'm pleased to bring this item because it's associated with a project which is dear to our heart, which is the Center for Imagination and Innovation, otherwise known as the STEAM Project Center for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. It doesn't seem too long ago that we actually had the groundbreaking for this particular facility adjacent to the Miller Career and Technology Center. If the board has been by this particular site, you'll see that the work is happening in earnest there. The structural steel has gone up. There's masonry, exterior walls being constructed. This particular item is a water meter easement to the city of Katy. It's a small easement. It's approximately 10 feet by 15 feet. adjacent to Katie land drive so it doesn't impact the site at all but it will provide a connection for water services into this particular facility
any questions mr. Michael mr. the projected completion date of this
remind me again is substantial completion date identified the contract is mid-january we're trying to you said February mid-january anyway okay thanks
Just something with 2014 on it. We'll be good. Thank you, Mr. McElwain. Okay, we're now moving to our discussion action portion of our agenda, and our next two items have to do with benefits and health insurance. Mr. Nelman, welcome.
Item 8.1
Mr. Fraley, good evening. I'm here this evening as a follow-up to our July meeting where we discuss the status of our employee benefits.
We've been provided a lot of underwriting data. I'd like to begin with this. The district moved to a self-insured plan in 2004. The main objective is to reduce the effects of long-term medical inflation while providing providing quality health care options to our employees. Since the inception, the annual rate increase of total cost of district funds has been at 3.6%, which is really, really outstanding compared to the national average, which we see is anywhere from 8 to 10%. Over the last seven years, the average premium increase to employees has been 4%, but three of those years we saw nothing. The health care plan which we currently have for the district is under the umbrella of the total health care partnership, which Katie is a member with HISD with Mercer providing consulting services. Following some preliminary projections to the Board in July, various options were considered for 2014-15. These options were, one, maintain status quo and premium and plan design. Two, evaluate or move to the TRS active care. Or three, lastly, revise and review the existing plan with some design changes in pricing. Let's look at the first option, maintain the status quo. Given our employee growth that we've seen tonight, that we've seen growth in our district, we would create a budget shortfall in our healthcare plan of $5.5 million. We could ask our employees to move closer. Is that better? Give me a minute.
Is that better?
If we maintain the status quo, we could see that we would ask our employees to fund that $5.5 million loss, which would equate to about a 9.9% increase to their premiums. Two, we could look at evaluating the TRS active care plan. This plan has some issues. The future of the plan is uncertain at the moment but mainly it takes our control out of plan design and our flexibility and our availability to give our employees the best benefits we feel our last option is to revise the design and look at some different pricing options as we all know the Affordable Care Act has put a lot of pressure on self-insured plans it's put plans in question about their future and we have to pay for those options as we look. Following a detailed review of the plan, the opportunities for savings were identified in which we were able to reduce an estimated deficit of $5.4 million to a shortfall of $2.925 million to be shared by plan participants and the district. Each plan was evaluated for its ability to stand alone. loan. To cover the participant's share of the deficit, a recommended plan design premium changes indicate approximately 3% increase for all plans except for the consumer plus choice is 10%. An increase in maximum out-of-pocket for the plans was an increase of $500. Worksheets are attached for your review. We've taken these steps to to reduce our plan where at all possible. It is important to note that we are not taking any consideration in participants moving from one plan to the next. We're taking a very conservative approach that the percentage of participation will remain the same.
If you have any questions on the attachments, I'll be happy to ask. And I would ask if you would look at the last page where the exhibit shows what the monthly premium increase will be for our employees. And then the proposed monthly premiums for those employees as well.
All in all, we would ask that the Board
fund the deficit and to be shared with employees of 1.6 million. This amount will be paid from the general operating fund as designated in the 2014-15 budget that Mr. Smith was alluding to earlier. I welcome any questions you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Noland, for the presentation. One of the questions I have just relates to corporate America and what's going on with that as well. We know that they're faced with this big time.
Some plans with corporations have where that if they have a spouse that is working at a company, that their insurance plan says they must be insured by that company as opposed to being part of a family plan there. And I know it's been touched even in our family about that. I'm just wondering, have we looked at that? Or is that of significance here? Or what are the pros and cons or something like that?
At this point, we considered it at a high level.
But when you look at it from an overall perspective, spouses do drive that cost. but we found other ways in which we could absorb those costs by spreading that risk I guess you could say across the board evenly so that we could provide those benefits because in speaking with our benefit Advisory Committee we have several employees who their spouse works with it so you know being able to design that and also you know having spouses that may work in other districts or other companies and it's the future still untold about the the impact of ACA and the charges that these companies are facing. I do must stress that our 3.5% inflationary growth and trend is really outstanding because industry-wide it's 8% to 10% across the board, and we're really to be commended as a district by providing healthy benefits and providing awareness to our employees, which helps drive that cost down, keeps costs at bay.
Any other questions? Are there any objections to moving this item to consent?
Mr. President, if I could, I'd like to publicly thank Mr. Nauman and Mr. Robinson for their work. Again, these guys, this department, they do a tremendous job of working hard on behalf of our employees and their health care benefits. We know this is very important to our folks, and they really go above and beyond, and they leave no stone unturned. I really appreciate the work.
Thank you, sir.
Item 8.2
Okay, looks like you're going to stay with us for another one, right?
Round two.
All right.
As part of the benefits provided to our employees, there's a second half called supplemental benefits. These benefits are at the election of the employee. These benefits include disability income protection, vision, cancer. There's a dental HMO, a dental indemnity plan, term life, and legal. When I presented to you in July, we were expecting that those rate changes would be running flat. Throughout the summer, rates did kind of increase on the dental side. You will see that the dental HMO went up 8% and that the dental indemnity plan went up 3%. And that's just a function of inflation and our loss experience that we have seen. But the other plans have remained flat. And one of the areas that we've been able to, over historically, been able to keep rates flat and consistent is entering multi-year deals with these carriers. And most of these carriers will be doing that next year. We'll be going out and looking at multi-year options again. So that will be an option we'll be looking at in the coming year. And I would recommend that the board act upon these recommendations.
Any questions? Is there any objection moving this item to consent? None heard. And round three, I guess now.
Item 8.3
Round three. As you know, the district does participate in the Workers' Compensation Act of Texas. to provide benefits to workers who are injured on the job. I must say that in a district this size and the amount of payroll that we have, we have a tremendous loss experience to the good. We are all to be commended to that. I think the steps over the last couple of years of just alertness and being present in the community and on our campuses has really driven our claim costs down. To protect us from those big incidents that may happen, we buy stop-loss or excess insurance, you may call it, for those big things that may happen, those unforeseen events that may come along. We went out to the marketplace, and there are very few carriers that write this type of business. Usually there's only three or four carriers. And because our loss experience is so low, it's a very, very competitive market. We went out to the market, and at the end of the day, U.S. specialty underwriters and AM Best rated, a seven company has proposed a renewal quote of $69,505. This is for a one-year premium, and we will be looking toward, this policy is auditable, and we will be looking at a retention of $550,000 per occurrence. I would recommend that the board approve this and must say that our numbers for claims, cost per claims is down. And there's a couple reasons for that. To make these programs work and make us look really attractive to employees is because it's a great place to be. We treat our employees well. and as a board I think you're to be commended for that and I thank you for
the opportunity to serve you any questions I have one mr. no so this has this plan has a retention of five hundred and fifty thousand dollars per occurrence that's really a kind of a reinsurance type policy we're self-insured up to that amount right is that is that the same as the current
policy it's the same we were looking at apples to apples in the current policy
a year do we have any occurrences that exceeded that we have not okay thank you very much is there any objection to moving this item to consent unheard thank you very much see we are now at 8.4 talk about American Logistics Company mr. Anders Welcome Mr. Anders.
Item 8.4
Let's talk transportation.
Here we go. President Maholsky, Superintendent Fraley, the rest of the board. As you might recall last July, there were many mandates we had mentioned that affect the operation of the Katy Independent School District Transportation Department, one of those being the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. It's a federal act which compels the district to provide transportation for displaced students meeting certain qualifications. In the 2013-14 school year, the district's compliance with the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act impacted the Katy Independent School District Transportation Department as follows. At one point in time, we were carrying 109 students. A mileage of 159,419 miles traveled for those students. We were using 12 buses, drivers, utilized AM and PM, because some of those are just in AM, some are in PM, so it may be a total of like 24 buses. buses. The cost was $900,595.
After initial discussion with the American Logistics Company,
ALC, and once again we have Mike Dunn from the American Logistics Company has joined us back there for any questions. But as we did, we did a survey since our last time we met. We then took a phone survey of several districts in the area that are using American American Logistics Company. All those districts reported very positive experience with their services. Some of the local districts using them and some statewide using American Logistics are Spring, Pine, Fort Bend, Humble, Galena Park, some within the state of Texas, Round Rock, Frisco, Dallas County Schools, which is one of the fourth largest transporters of students in the nation, over 1,400 routes. And also Lamar Consolidated. Tomorrow night, Mr. Dunn will be doing a presentation to the school board over at Lamar Consolidated, so they're considering also to be using them. now. The cost of the service to the district based on a 2013-14 experience would have been $465,000. The transportation costs have already been budgeted for 2014-15 and the ALC transportation service for 2014-15 will be paid by reallocation of the transportation department budget. budget. Also not figured in that is the time that our staff has to take out from their time for their busy schedule to try to schedule with the other districts to set up this form of transportation. Many man hours are trying to get hold of the parents. They are homeless. Sometimes it's hard to get hold of them. So the American Logistics Company would be taking over that also once we get that permission to do that.
Are there any questions? Mr. Griffin. Mr. Anders, if a student meets the requirement of this homeless act, let's say they're doing extracurricular activities, is this basically personal transportation from school to their home regardless of what the student does and they modify it to meet the student's schedule?
From my knowledge, we have not provided them transportation for any of the after school activities.
Is that what you're asking? Yes, sir. So this act really doesn't if a student decides to stay after school and they're homeless Do we still have to provide them with transportation back home?
We have not been doing that but well we have with this Nakia Coy he's the director of federal programs and external funding and Like I said, we're just a support service if she says we're gonna do it. We're gonna transport
And the intent of this act is to provide comparable services. We don't provide home, you know, we don't provide transportation to regular students after school. So sometimes we do try to make accommodations for students through Title I as far as they want to attend tutorials or something like that, but we do have to look at the cost versus the benefit. And if it's too expensive, then we try to look at other options during the school.
So this act basically just covers to get a student to normal start time and to get a student from end of school time back to their home. And these are the kids that generally live outside the district, I assume.
Well, no, we've got several that live in the district. It's just they're not inside their school's attendance.
I'm sorry?
They're not inside the school attendance zone.
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Mahoski. Mr. Adams.
Mr. Anders, while I appreciate the fact that you've got an indication of what the cost would have been for us using ALC,
last year, $465,000. You talked about it's been budgeted for the coming year. Can we have that number? Do we know what the budget is for that? Have you budgeted for that number? I don't see a number in here that's what you're anticipating for cost.
Well, what we're talking about, we have a fuel budget, and it would be coming out of that fuel. We'll reallocate money from the fuel budget to pay for that.
I understand, but how much is that?
Well, like I said, we're just estimating based on last year. Like I said, it was the 400. But I can't project this year because right now we don't know the number of students that we're going to have. And as of right now, we only have one student. But as you see, when we get closer to school, last year we ended up with 109 students.
If I could, our assumption for next year is that it will be pretty similar to this year. And that will be offset by savings we'll have by not having to transport the kids, whether that's in driver salaries or in fuel, the cost per mile to run a bus.
So you estimate to be very similar?
That's right, and we expect to get the service for about half the price
Okay any other questions so I have I have one so But you're saying the actual cost for these hundred nine students in 2013-14 was nine hundred thousand and it would have cost roughly a little bit over half of that I guess under the service So there's I guess this was logistically inefficient to do with school buses is that is that?
That's correct. Anytime you put one or two students on a school bus, your cost is going to be more.
Okay. Just one more question. Mr. Adams. Are there times when we have run vans as opposed to buses? Like when you mentioned the one at Hobby Airport that we transported, did we use a van to do that as opposed to a small school bus?
or and to my knowledge we you know we have never used vans to my knowledge no our inventory only has yellow buses of various sizes and the makeup of this
fleet with ALC what will it be primarily I'm sorry what type of vehicle will they be using from us Suburbans and minivans okay that's what is there any objection of moving this to consent?
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Anders.
Thank you.
Item 8.5
Our next item, Mrs. Holland will be presenting the JJAEP.
MOU.
SE. Welcome, Mrs. Holland. Thank you.
Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, Mr. Fraley. As we do each year, and in accordance with the Texas Education Code, we are presenting a memorandum of understanding with the Harris County Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program for the board's consideration. The provisions of this MOU are basically the same as they have been in recent years, with one exception. The cost of a seat per day has been increased by $1. So the cost of seat per day now is $110 as opposed to $109. And we are asking for three discretionary seats rather than two to accommodate the growth that we're experiencing in the district.
Okay. Thank you, Ms. Holland. Is there any questions? Any objection of moving this to consent? Thank you very much.
Item 8.6
Our next item, Mr. Smith. Yes, sir. We'll be talking about the proposed 2013-14 final amended budget.
Yes, sir. This is the final amended budget you had before you, and what we've done is as a staff we've looked at it to make sure that we weren't going to blow a function, meaning to overspend a function. We do have controls in place that keep us from doing that through our ERP system. However, when it comes to the first payroll of the year, which will be run next week it will have a new staff of which we're not real sure what their experience levels may or may not be we'll have the the pay raise etc so we go through and look at it and we do estimates to make sure that we're not going to blow a function and we don't think that there will be any anything that shows the near final the final amended budget does have a near final estimate of revenues there are still believe it or not things that are going going to come in that affect that and it could affect it significantly such as tax revenues athletic ticket sales we tried to do an estimate but we think they're near final and close there the budget that you have before you the final amended should adhere to under historic underspending as an example it has the steam center we are not going to unfortunately have paid for all of that and so when we determine what that invoice is through the end of August We're probably going to come in September or October with a budget amendment for next year's budget. So we'll be in fund balance but only temporarily as it's just an accounting maneuver. And there will be other items in the budget I think that will probably cause that to happen. But what you see before you that shows a general fund, ending fund balance I mentioned earlier of 157 million. Special revenue fund I mentioned earlier of 4,506,000. and the debt service fund of $51,696,000. Again, those are near final numbers, and we do expect to have some underspending, especially the general fund and the special revenue fund.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Smith. Are there any questions?
Okay, we're actually not going to move this to consent, just in case Mr. Smith and his team need another week to finalize some last-minute things on it. But we will have it as an action item next week.
Thank you. Mr. O'Haskell, I would add that that does include the fees that we had. That is in there and paying down debt, saving interest.
Very good. Thank you very much. And I guess you will be presenting the next as well on a resolution to commit and assign the fund balance?
That's correct.
um
he's me transition a little faster than me I'm sorry I'm sitting my old age okay take your time I'm still looking for
Item 8.7
Gatsby 54 governmental standards account at government accounting standards standards board statement number 54 and Texas education see require the district to adopt the resolution to commit portions of our general fund unassigned fund balance and delegate a responsibility of assigning fund balances to the superintendent or his designee. You have a resolution attached that basically does assign the superintendent and his designee, which would be me in this case, the ability to come up with the amounts for those and i'll tell you that last year we committed just as a historical reference five million dollars of our fund balance toward the health of the self-funded insurance program we assigned monies for the future technology retrofits that we were expecting opening of new schools uh stop loss insurance future land purchases that we knew were coming out of the general fund, capital expenditures for equipment, and other encumbrances. Those totaled $5 million and assigned $22,273,000 last year. And we'll be analyzing those amounts once we do our financial statements and are presenting the audit to you in January.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Smith. is there are there any questions related to this okay this item actually has a resolution so I'm going to read that resolution and then if we move it to consent we will not have to read it again next week so state of Texas County of Harris resolution whereas the governmental accounting standards board GASB has adopted statement 54 GASB 54 as a new standard for governmental fund balance reporting and fund type definitions effective for fiscal year starting after June 15, 2010, and whereas the Board of Trustees shall approve all commitments and delegates the responsibility to assign fund balances to the superintendent or his designee, assignments may occur subsequent to fiscal year end, it is hereby resolved and ordered that annually the Katy Independent School District commits a portion of its general fund unassigned to fund a balance as stated in Board Policy CE Local, be it resolved that the district commits a portion of its fund balance for contributions to the district's health insurance plans, be it resolved that the district commits a portion of its fund balance for local special revenue funds, not restricted by funding source or its intended purpose, be it resolved that the provisions of this resolution shall be effective as of the date of adoption and shall remain in effect until modified by action of the Board of Trustees, passed, approved, and adopted this 26 day of August 2014.
Are there any objections to
moving this item to consent? Okay. Okay, so moved.
Staying on the finance theme, we will once again go back to Mr. Smith to talk about the 2014-15 State Compensatory Education Funding and Other End of Course Assessment Funding Budget as required by HB 5.
Item 8.8
Okay, well this is new. This is a result of House Bill 5 passed in 2013 and of the House Bill 5, it created Texas Education Code 29.08, which requires the district to budget funds for accelerated education for students who performed, for students who failed to perform satisfactory on end of course assessments for graduation.
Again, specifically for students who failed and performed satisfactory on end-of-course
assessments, you've been presented tonight a $578 million budget, of which a large portion of it goes to help struggling learners. The success of the test scores that you saw earlier are from several programs that keep keep kids from struggling for end of year courses in large part. And we're a shining star when it comes to looking at our test scores. So in that $578 million, we fund instructional coaches and content for coordinators to create new instructional materials for teachers. We allot time in the campus's day for additional instruction like enrichment periods for for students that are struggling. We target students that may need help in passing the end of year course. We've developed courses, technical writing to serve students, not just end of year course, but all students who may be struggling. We host Saturday review sessions inducted prior to the state assessment. Cram sessions is what I used to call them, hosted by the ESL department. We have instructional support periods for math. And I can go on there's literally six or seven more items that we do that are embedded in this project But none of them say quote and of course for end of course, but we do have $100,000 that we have that is specifically for end of course and we are required to budget that separately and apart from the rest of the budget and that's why I Have gone through this whole thing is to say that hundred thousand dollars has been earmarked mark it's standard that is specifically for that but by no means do we limited to helping those students with just that hundred thousand dollars any questions
though HP 5 did have a little complexity to it with regards to a few of these things huh okay are there any objections to moving this item to consent
Now we will talk about the 2014-15 official budget. Mr. Smith, once again.
Item 8.9
Okay, well, I've talked a lot about the official budget. You have before you, in addition to what I went over tonight, the budget in TEA format. Again, that will be posted on the district's website, as will the presentation that I made earlier and of course by law we will file that budget through PEMS once adopted at the as part of the October snapshot date I do think that the budget maintains transparency we've tried to be as transparent as we could throughout the budget process we're recognized by the comptroller as a gold member of their uh from a transparency standpoint we're always open to suggestions for transparency uh we've been recognized as a gold member three years in a row and uh we've recently they the comptroller has offered a platinum award for transparency and we applied for that and feel confident that we should based on what we have on our website should be a awarded the Trans the Platinum this budget also like other budgets I think will be warrant the FAST award we've received that two of the last three years that's what basically is a five-star award it says KDISD gets paying for its budget but the test scores show results and our spending is below average compared to the state and this budget maintains that and then of course we've had our first rating of superior achievement for the last 12 years so we think that this budget adheres to all of that and other than then my appreciation to the many district staff who've been involved since January of course the cabinet mr. Fraley and the board there's not much more to say about the budget does support the mission of Katie ISD and it's our recommendation that we adopt the budget as presented anyone have any
unanswered questions regarding the budget so I was recently on the comptroller's website and saw that the leadership circle and there is a listing there in the best there are a few Platinum school districts out there but the vast majority are in the gold or lower so certainly something I think guess we would love to attain so good luck with the actual process okay this item also I believe we will not put on the consent agenda for next week so that we can have any further discussion if needed on approving the final official budget or the official budget for 2014 2015 okay that gets us to 8.10 grant grant ratifications, Mrs. Butterfield, I believe, will be presenting, or is Mr. Smith? In the spirit of, just keep it going.
Item 8.10
Keep on diarrhea at the mouth. I'll keep going and say that we only have one grant to be ratified tonight, and that's a professional development grant through Region 4. We do a lot of professional development through Region 4. They've been proven a tremendous asset to the district to become sharp in its saw when it comes to instruction. And these funds will be used back at Region 4 trainings. and products and services related to professional development for educators
throughout Katy ISD any any questions any objection of moving this item to consent okay and I think we're done with you for tonight mr. Smith thank you very much our last discussion action item of the evening is to discuss and consider Consider future board approval of a delegate, an alternate delegate for the 2014. TASB Delegate Assembly.
Item 8.11
Would anyone like to start this discussion?
Would anyone like to raise their hand and volunteer?
I would do it. I'll take it for the team.
Okay, Mrs. Fox.
I'll be happy to.
Thank you. Would you like to choose an alternate?
Mrs. Vann. Okay.
Is that acceptable to you, Mrs. Vann, and the rest of the board?
You have to make sure I don't get sick. No one gives me a headache.
Mr. President.
I'd be glad to.
Mr. Griffin. I can think of no better person to represent us than Ms. Fox. I concur.
I concur. So it appears that we have identified a delegate. This is Rebecca Fox, an alternate delegate. This is Ashley Vann to the 2014 Texas Association of School Boards Delegate Assembly. Is there any objections to moving this item to consent? None heard. Okay. Very good. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday. Monday is the first day of school. So we will let everyone take their children to school and hear about their first day that day, and then we'll get back to work on the second day of school. We have a regular board meeting on Tuesday, August 26, 2014. There being no further business, we are now adjourned at 9.04 p.m.
Items 9 & 10
Official documents
Agenda
The district's own agenda for this meeting, as published on BoardDocs.
Board packet · 27 documents
The district's own backup material for this agenda, retrieved from BoardDocs. Each file was checked against the size BoardDocs states for it.
- Atty Ltr (STEAM Project Water Meter Easement) 107 KB
- STEAM Project Water Meter Easement - Katy ISD - City of Katy - 07-23-14 CLEAN 1175 KB
- 1 - Proposal TAB - Books and Media - Instructional and Reference 2014 48 KB
- 2 - Proposal EVAL - Books and Media - Instructional and Reference 2014 19 KB
- Board Grant Summary-August 6 KB
- Grant Descriptions-August 2 5 KB
- 1 - 2015 Calendar Year Projections 10 KB
- 2 - 2015 Raise vs Projected Premium Increase Board 10 KB
- 1 - KISD Excess Reinsurance for WC RFP Summary 2014-2015 114 KB
- da_handbook_2013 1179 KB
- designation_form-pdf 43 KB
- Board Memo - Assignment Commitment Fund Balances - Resolution 2014 71 KB
- 1 - Proposal TAB by PBK - Taylor HS Envelope and Waterproofing Project 21 KB
- 2 - Proposal EVAL by PBK -Taylor HS Envelope and Waterproofing Project 10 KB
- 3 - PBK Recommendation Letter - Taylor HS Envelope and Waterproofing Project 53 KB
- JJAEP MOU for Harris County 789 KB
- PUBLIC HEARING BUDGET AND PROPOSED TAX RATE sign in 94 KB
- public hearing BUDGET AND TAX RATE sign 25 KB
- 13-14 Proposed Final Amended Budget by Fund Function Object 0814 27 KB
- 14-15 Official Budget by Fund Function Object 081414 21 KB
- certificate 66 KB
- Accountability Update Aug 2014 687 KB
- Budget Hearing Presentation_links_August_18_2014 3089 KB
- Order 540 KB
- Board Bond Presentation 7572 KB
- order signed 537 KB
- certificate signed 64 KB
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 3.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve the personnel report as recommended by the Superintendent.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| bryan-michalsky | Yes |
| charles-griffin | Yes |
| courtney-doyle | Yes |
| henry-dibrell | Yes |
| joe-adams | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
MOTION 002 · AGENDA 6.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approve the Order Calling a School Building Bond Election as recommended by the administration.
7 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| bryan-michalsky | Yes |
| charles-griffin | Yes |
| courtney-doyle | Yes |
| henry-dibrell | Yes |
| joe-adams | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |