Good evening. The board will now convene an open meeting. Today is Monday, September 15, 2014, and the time is 6.38 p.m. The board met earlier this evening in closed meeting. Any action arising from discussions in a 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. Mr. Griffin.
Katy ISD · Board Work Study Agenda
Katy ISD Board Work Study, September 15, 2014
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- 0:00 to 2:08 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.) 3.2 Consider Board approval of naming an Assistant Superintendent for Instructional and Administrative Support for the Katy Independent School District. (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.) 3.3 Update on Superintendent's reassignment of an Assistant Superintendent for Instructional and Administrative Support for the Katy Independent School District. (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.)
- 2:08 to 8:54 Item 4 Peace Officer Oath of Office – Katy ISD Police Officers
- 8:54 to 36:43 Item 5 Report on the First Day of School
- 36:43 to 54:38 Consent Agenda 6.1 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for glass replacement and repair services. 6.2 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for general building materials and supplies. 6.3 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for the painting services contract. 6.4 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for repair and installation of intercoms and Public Address (PA) and sound systems, including digital clocks. 6.5 Consider future Board approval of the proposal for the new water well at the Mayde Creek Water Plant. 6.6 Consider future Board approval of the Interlocal Agreement between Katy Independent School District and Texas A&M University to participate in the university's contracts for purchase of supplies, equipment, and services and future Board approval of a resolution approving the terms and conditions of the Interlocal Agreement. 6.7 Consider future Board approval of the proposed contract for time and material for cabling moves, adds, and changes.
- 54:38 to 56:35 Item 7.1 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the Katy Independent School District 2014 - 2015 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) representatives.
- 56:35 to 1:01:54 Item 7.2 Discuss and consider future Board approval for the Superintendent to prepare, sign and submit a waiver application to the State Commissioner of Education for elementary school campuses that are currently at the maximum allowable class size limit of 22:1, but could potentially exceed the ratio due to increased enrollment.
- 1:01:54 to 1:02:33 Item 7.3 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a Principal/Assistant Principal substitute list.
- 1:02:33 to 1:07:03 Item 7.4 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a resolution observing Texas Education Human Resources Day.
- 1:07:03 to 1:17:46 Item 7.5 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a Non-Objection Letter for Establishment of a Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZ) by Kobelco Construction Machinery U.S.A. Inc. and associated Contribution Agreement.
- 1:17:46 to 1:19:41 Item 7.6 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of the 2014 - 2015 Debt Service Tax Rate.
- 1:19:41 to 1:23:30 Item 7.7 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of the 2014 - 2015 Maintenance and Operations Tax Rate.
- 1:23:30 to 1:34:59 Item 8 Planning for Growth: 2014 Bond Oversight Committee
- 1:34:59 to 1:35:17 Items 9 & 10 9. Regular Board Meeting – September 22, 2014 10. Adjournment
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Item 3
I move that the Board of Trustees approve the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent. Second.
I have a motion by Mr. Griffin, seconded by Mr. DeBrell, that the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Motion passes 6-0. 0. Noting that Mr. Adams is not present.
Next item is the name of the Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Administrative Support. Mr. President.
Mr. Breaux. Moved at the board name Dr. Torrey C. Hill as Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Administrative Support for the Katy Independent School District as recommended by the Superintendent. Second.
I have a motion by Mr. DeBrell, seconded by Mrs. Fox. At the Board of Trustees, named Dr. Torrey Hill as an Assistant Superintendent for Instructional and Administrative Support for the Katy Independent School District, as recommended by the Superintendent. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we will vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 6-0.
President, please announce the reassignment of Dr. Steve Robertson from Katy High School Principal to Assistant Superintendent for the School. Question with administrator support. Katy High School as well. All right. Just reassignment does not require action. Correct.
Congratulations, Dr. Robertson.
Item 4
Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening? If so, please stand up. State your name. It looks like we have none. They must all have homework tonight. All right.
President, I'd like to introduce Ms. Lindsay Tiger, communication specialist, to have our
recognitions. Good evening Mr. President, board members, and Superintendent Fraley. The KDISD Police Department is a full-service law enforcement agency established in 1988. The mission of the department is to effectively and efficiently provide for the protection of lives and property, preserve the public peace, and provide central and campus administration services. The department is comprised of 50 officers serving all 181 square miles of KDISD. At this time, I would like to introduce KDSD's Chief of Police, Mr. Mark Hopkins.
President Muscovsky, Board of Members, Superintendent Fraley. Recognizing the need to enhance school safety and security, the Board authorized an increase in staffing allocations for the Police Department. As a result of the increased staffing allocations, I bring three of our newly commissioned peace officers. Ashley Malone, come forward please. Calvin Paley.
And Jenny Garcia.
They are prepared to publicly swear or affirm the oath of office as required by law and be recognized as the newest members of the Katy ISD Police Department.
I'm going to ask you to repeat after me. Raise your right hand. I, Jenny Garcia. I, Jenny Garcia. I, Ashton Malone. I, Ashton Malone. I, Elvin Paley, Jr., do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of peace officer of the state of Texas and will, to the best of my ability, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state. And I furthermore solemnly swear that I have not directly nor indirectly paid, offered, or promised to pay, contributed, nor promised to contribute any money or valuable thing,
or promised any public office or employment as a reward to secure my appointment or the confirmation thereof.
So help me God. Congratulations. Thank you.
As they finish signing up their paperwork there, I'd like to tell you a little bit about them. Officer Ashley Malone, standing in the center, was born in Houston and grew up in East Bernard, graduating from East Bernard High School. She is a 2012 graduate of the Wharton County Junior College Police Academy, and she began her law enforcement career with the Wharton County Sheriff's Office. While with Wharton County Sheriff's Office, Officer Malone served as a correctional officer, a patrol deputy. Officer Mone is the mother of two beautiful girls, Justice, age 10, and J.C., age 7.
Officer Elvin Palin Jr. is a native Houstonian and a United States Army veteran. After serving in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he received an honorable discharge from the Army and received an associate degree from Houston Community College. Afterwards, Officer Palin received a Bachelor of science degree in sociology from the University of Houston. In 2010, Officer Paley completed the basic peace officer training from the Houston Community College Law Enforcement Academy. Before coming to KDISD, he was employed with Texas Women's University in Denton, Texas as a peace officer. Officer Paley resides with his lovely wife, Tanya, and their eight-year-old son Kaylee. Officer Jenny Garcia is a lifelong Katie resident who attended elementary, Hutzel Elementary School, Katie Junior High and Katie High School class of 2008.
Officer Garcia earned her associate degree from Longshore College and a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice from the University of Houston. Officer Garcia graduated from the University of Houston Downtown Police Academy this year and is beginning her law enforcement career with KDISD. She is the mother of a fun-loving four-year-old son, Shane, and she loves spending spare time with Shane shopping and playing basketball. And Officer Garcia has some family members here as well. I think her mother and father are here and close friends.
There's the three newest officers of the KDISD Police Police Department and we're very proud to have them on board.
Mr. President. Once again I'm very pleased to have you guys join our force and I'm very proud of our team chief. What you've assembled over there is amazing. It's unfortunate to have to have it but we do have to have it and I'm very proud of the team we have put them up against anybody. Thank you all for your service.
and welcome board guys yes welcome on board we are very proud to have you thank you
Item 5
okay and we will move to the report section of our agenda report on the first day of school looks like we will have uh my list of presenters mr ganell may start us off and i think we have three distinguished oh mr. crews are you okay welcome thank you good evening board president a mahal ski board members and superintendent Fraley I'm here tonight along with Carrie Fentison from Wood Creek and Tammy Wilhelm from King Elementary to provide you with some star school startup highlights and give you a brief update on the challenges for high enrollment campuses at Morton Ranch we were off to a great start with almost 3,400 students arriving for the fall semester since the registration process began we have successfully enrolled over 250 students making Morton Ranch the second largest high school in Katy ISD
we're about 50 students right now behind seven lakes we'll catch them don't worry despite the large enrollment at Morton Ranch we have had a smooth transition back into school the school year with students quickly adapting back to the school routine despite the challenges that can come with a larger campus enrollment as a matter of fact Morton Ranch has already completed our homecoming activities just three weeks into the school year with early the early date being dictated by stadium availability and the football schedule as far as challenges go hallways and portable buildings are two that I will be highlighting this evening as you'll see in the video footage from Morton Ranch and Wood Creek here in just a minute Oh crowded hallways are the norm during passing periods in our hallways you take take it slow whether you like it or not. The positive news is that our students are working within the crowded constraints well. Always do move, but the pace can be slow and the numbers and personal space can become scarce. At Woodcreek Junior High, students have adapted using a drive walk on the right side of the hallway that does allow for good traffic flow. I've noted the same at Morton Ranch and you'll see that in the clips that are upcoming finally crossing the hallways with any kind of large item or even get getting to the other side can prove to be a challenge it's sometimes like trying to enter or exit the Katy freeway there just isn't enough room or time to make the the openings that do occur on portables this school year Morton Ranch has 16 portable buildings each portable has two classrooms even with that large number number of classrooms outside, we still have teachers that float into classrooms inside. Currently, Wood Creek and King Elementary have a large number of temporaries, which they will be highlighting in their respective presentations. The outdoor classrooms and temporary buildings can require much more logistical planning from campus staff with students moving into and out of the main building during the day. Placement of portables on campus and the space they occupy can be an ongoing challenge. The first question is always, where will we put them? At Morton Ranch High School, we've already lost some of our parking area, and the possibility of losing more next year remains an option. All placements of portable buildings must be approved by county officials in advance, so decisions must be made early in the process. At this time, we're going to, I believe, watch the video from Morton Ranch High School, and then I'll bring up Ms. Finneson.
We have 16, 32 classrooms here, yes ma'am, outside and those are full. We have floaters inside so the teacher's floating. You can see that the temporaries have eaten up some of our parking already and that's a challenge in itself.
Well, it's crowded. It would be hard to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. If I were rating the crowdedness in the hallways, I'd say 7 or 8. But the issue is that we're experiencing explosive growth, and I can see that we're going to be at a 10 very quickly. So we're hopeful that we can get some relief on the overcrowding issues that we see now and that we're going to experience in the future.
Well, since registration started this year, we've enrolled over 200 students.
I think it's about 234 actually. But we're averaging seven to eight students a day right now. And we have a new apartment complex that's going in right down the road. We also have some serious growth going on at 99 going towards SciFair there.
Thank you. And now Ms. Fennison from Wood Creek.
Good evening. The video that you're going to see for Wood Creek Junior High was actually a feature that they did at the end of last school year in preparation for this school year. And I guess I'm happy to say that everything that we anticipated to happen did, plus some. So we are currently about 50 students over our end of the year projection. So if you want to show our video and I'll talk a little bit about how we're managing Woodcreek Junior High.
We're just shy of 1700 right now and next year we're projected at just shy of 1900 and then the following year a little over 2200.
So you can kind of get a feel for what it's like now and just imagine two, three hundred more kids on top of this next year. And here they come.
Next year we're going to run two bell schedules just to manage the volume in the hallways.
So you can see from this map here we have portables over here so each portable building holds two classrooms so if you count the tops of these roofs that's 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 but then they don't have my other side so I have 34 classrooms next year outside side for the 17 portable buildings.
I think that's the end of mine, right? Is that the end of mine? So as I said before, all of those things are absolutely true. I'm waiting for my t-shirt that says we have the most buses and the most portable buildings in the district, but I haven't received that yet. So Mr. Fraley, I'll just, maybe I can get that at breakfast this week when we meet with you all. One of the things that we talked about and Mr. DeBrell has a student at my campus. This year we implemented, oh two students that's correct you do have two, we implemented two bell schedules which really helped. You saw from the footage that was seven just shy of 1,700 students last school year and this year when we implemented the two bell schedules it really alleviated and the stress so I would say that was probably a highlight from the beginning of our year. We have seventh and eighth grade switch classes at one time and then sixth grade switches switches class by themselves. So it keeps our sixth graders separate. On the floor plan that my building is on, sixth grade was initially designed to be upstairs, kind of away from the seventh and eighth graders. But when you have over 1,900 students, that becomes impossible. So we reconfigured the building and ran two bell schedules so that my students could, we could have that integrity of having sixth grade separated from the seventh and eighth graders. I think our lunch schedule is probably, I think I was informed that we have the most lunches in the district with six we start our first lunch at 9 55 and we finish our last group at 1 15. we we discussed a little bit as a group just managing the growth that is coming for next school year and you know you're devising and developing plans for what's going to make this year functional and best for kids and you know when you think about 23 2400 junior high kids with six lunches already it's just it's kind of overwhelming to even think about what that will will be like for next school year. We talked briefly as well, you know, when you're a principal of a large campus, which I was at Stanley when Mrs. Doyle's kids were at my school, and I am now at Wood Creek, you know, everything that you do surrounds your size. So, for example, we were planning a sixth grade parent night to look at our new math curriculum, and my instructional coaches came down, and we talked about having different sessions on one night, and I looked at her and and said, we have 676 graders. We will have to have one night, three sessions for just pre-AP, and then one night, three sessions for just academic. So you want every kid in your school to have the same opportunities as campuses that have 800, 900, or 1,000 kids. So everything that we do, the three of us discussed, you think about your size and the background and how you manage that and how you give parents the opportunity to come to the school and experience the things that they would on campuses that are not overcrowded. So those are kind of some of the things that we go through every single day. And I just, I know that a bunch of you have either had kids at my school or currently have kids at our school. And, you know, we manage the growth, but we are definitely looking forward to having some new plans in the future.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
It's okay to ask questions as we go. Mrs. Finnesand. Mrs. Fennison.
Mrs. Fox, I was teasing you and said don't ask me a hard question.
This might not be hard. Okay. So when you have 1,900 plus students, do you have, how do they do extracurricular activities? Like how many football teams do you have and how many coaches do you have and how do they play other people because they don't have, I would guess you have multiple football teams or do children just not get to play or what happens top or bottom? for students, fine arts, athletics, the extracurricular?
Our football, of course, in our district, football is open, and we have 254 football players. And the district allocated another coach for me so that we could have a D team. So what we did was we took West Memorial's C team schedule. So our students who are on the D team are on West Memorial's schedule because they didn't have a C team we took over their schedule so that all of those students would have the opportunity to play it's definitely when you watch my coaches out there at the end of the day and you have that many football players it's a balancing act but fortunately we were given another coaching unit to help with some of that you know with my other sports that are a cut sport it's absolutely just what you said it's about the opportunity and I I might have 150 kids going out for volleyball or basketball, and I still have the same number of spots as everybody else. So the competition is definitely stiff. Does that answer your question? And that wasn't hard, so thank you.
Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Mr. President. Mr. Cabrillo. As Ms. Finneson said, I did have two students there, so I'm living the Wood Creek experience. I was there for parent night. The teachers and the staff was wonderful, but going from class to class in the hallway was a nightmare I didn't make it to class on time at all It's kind of reminded me of high school attention. Yeah, yeah, I brought back memories of high school With my concern and maybe mr. Gunnell you may be advanced for this The stress on the core of that facility has to be incredible because with that number of portables outside we're not doubling our cafeterias, we're not doubling our restrooms. What type of stress are we putting on the core of that facility?
Yeah, I think the nail has hit on the head a little earlier when you talk about schedules, when you talk about serving breakfast early in the morning and having your last lunch, literally just before you're walking out the door you see some of that stress. Now in some of our campuses where it's crowded, particularly at the elementary level, we try to put in things like portable portable bathrooms to keep the kids from coming inside. Now in the junior high and high school level, they're moving around the hallways anyway, so as they get an opportunity, they need to go. But it's all we can do to keep up with it. When you take a look at the design capacity of the building, it's 1,400. When we talk about Woodcreek Junior High, we'll be talking 2,200 students next year. Clearly that's going to put stresses on the maintenance, the ability to keep things clean, the ability to repair things or to just have the opportunity to fix them when they go wrong because everything is being used all the time. So as far as the stress goes, they're pretty big.
We'll now hear from Tammy Wilhelm from King Elementary.
Good evening. We would like to begin with a video clip from King Elementary.
With our increased enrollment this year, we have nine buses that take students from our school and deliver them safely home each day. We also have our car rider line which can be extremely long and it does twist through the neighborhood streets. We have parents who choose to come up to the car rider line as early as 2 o'clock in the the afternoon in preparation for our 340 dismissal. Our car rider line often takes until 415 every day to make sure that we get all of our students loaded and safely exit the school.
I'm a rider. I pick my daughter up every day. I get here at 2 o'clock to avoid all the traffic. If you don't get there early enough, it takes two hours to even get to the children, depending on what grades they're in.
At King Elementary this year we have 14 portable buildings. We added five from last year to accommodate our growth. We also have a portable restroom on our campus. That equates to 28 classrooms of students outside. Next year we're projected to add another six portable buildings when our enrollment is projected to be 1,559 students
and as you've heard we've had a great start this year King Elementary has enjoyed a great start just as mr. Cruz has shared for the hot for Morton Ranch High School and miss venison for Wood Creek junior high at King Elementary we welcomed 1,285 students on the first day of school 90 of those students are four-year-olds in our pre-k program since the first day we've enrolled an additional 42 students which moves us closer to the projected number of students for the year of 1369 we are currently adding another fourth grade class as the enrollment in that grade level alone has exceeded the projected numbers as you saw in the video clip King Elementary is experiencing many challenges due to our increased size this year I learned how adding portable buildings to the property is a very involved process anytime a portable building is moved Harris County requires a traffic study be completed the recommendations provided in the traffic study must be put in place before Harris County will release occupancy permits for the school to use the portable buildings based on the traffic study recommendations King Elementary had to completely flip the traffic patterns for our school to prevent our car line from extending onto franz road we changed our entire arrival dismissal pattern and rerouted our parent car line through the neighborhood that was a little difficult for those who had been there for years and always did it that other way as you saw in that video we have over 200 cars in our parent pickup line and it usually extends about a half mile into the neighborhood this has on occasion created issues with community members who need access to their homes and their driveways as well as the frustration with parents who wait in their line to pick up their children the first few days of school did take two hours to get all of our students into the cars and cleared from the parking lot now that parents and students are familiar with the new procedures we usually have our car rider line completed in about 45 minutes Additionally, we have nine buses that must load and unload in front of the school. At Wood Creek Junior High, Ms. Fennison has 28 buses in her loading area and has to double stack the line to get all students loaded in a timely fashion. The driveway at King Elementary is not wide enough for two rows and probably not the safest way to get smaller students into those buses. Luckily, at this time we are able to get all nine in the drive at the same time. However, we know with the addition of Ventana Lake subdivision, another new neighborhood near Porter Road and several new homes currently being built north of our school, we will be adding three to four bus routes before the school year ends and of course even more next year. Those additional buses will be required to park along the street and we will work closely with transportation to delay their loading and their route times in order to move the first set of buses and not have the students sitting on the buses for extended times traffic patterns inside the school also provide a challenge we try to be proactive and plan ahead to stagger traffic flow going to and from lunch or specials to assign classroom restroom times for access to facilities and stagger our dismissal so we can limit the number of students traveling to different areas of the building at the same time even with the portable restroom outside students still need to enter the main building to access restrooms specials and of course the cafeteria for lunch at King Elementary we use a buddy system with our students to travel inside the students use the teachers key to enter the building our 28 classrooms in the 14 14 portable buildings, along with the portable restroom building, have overtaken a large portion of our playground, which then also impacts our recess and PE schedules. We had to remove the baseball backstop this year to accommodate the five new portable buildings, and in planning for next year's projected growth, we will require an additional six portable buildings covering more of that playground area. We are well beyond the building capacity of a thousand students and with programs such as PPCD, which is special education for our preschool students ages three through five, our Title I program and our bilingual program, King Elementary has additional staff and itinerant staff who need space to work with students.
As principals, we strive to provide an environment for our students to focus on learning. As Mr. Cruz and Ms. Finison shared, with the increased challenges that arise from the unprecedented growth in our area, we try to be proactive to prevent our students from experiencing stress or the tension created. Our desire is to maintain the quality of unparalleled learning
experiences for our students. Thank you for allowing us to share with you this evening and we would be happy to address any questions you have at this time mr.
president Griffin mr. Fraley are y'all currently looking at plans to possibly close campuses to keep excess students from showing up well actually every year
the board has closed campuses due to the transfers the question now is do we limit enrollment or I guess the word is cap enrollment some of our junior high in elementary schools and high schools that are experiencing growth. And that's something we will have to seriously consider And miss williams said the word unprecedented is tremendous Most folks don't have a clue About how fast this district is growing. You have many folks were in denial that we're growing and that this is all made up They should get their head out of the sand. Also. I'll tell you this is a place that folks want to be Want to be here and they're coming in droves and I and I can't thank the principals and the staff enough for all they've done And I know we the campus staff is really going above me on but also so is mr. Canales team HR All across the district folks are working very hard Accommodate this and so but we have to consider capping right now Everything's on the table reconsider Of this is just really tremendous
It's president What type activities activities do you have to cut off the table because of this? I would think of a field trip. I couldn't imagine 606th graders showing up at the Natural Museum of Science downtown.
What type of activities do we have to just cut out? Well, in junior high, we don't take large class trips, but theater will take a trip, orchestra, band, choir. So those entities, entities they do take field trips but we just have a lot of chaperones so for example right now my band I have just shy of 300 students and I have three directors so if we're going on a 1 to 10 ratio I need a lot of staff to go on any of those trips my orchestra is about 230 students and I have two orchestra directors but they all go on trips for example band goes to San Antonio and they do the six flags over texas and there is a small posse that goes with them including an administrator so we still you know it's very important and and i think that mrs doyle will attest to this it's very important for me to make sure that we're still able to do those things we just have to do them differently and we have to add more people to support that because i never want our size to be an excuse i used to say that at stanley all the time we just need to think differently but if you would love to chaperone any field trip being that you have two children at my school I will let you 300 in a junior high band that's that's a larger week kids mr. deBrow they're very sweet all of our kids are wonderful well maybe six flags if I can ride the roller coaster we'll let you ride the roller coaster yes sir good mr. president just for perspective think about a 300 member junior high band band. That's more than many high schools total students and certainly more than most high school bands that we compete against even at the 5A and 6A level. That's a tremendous program and again because KDSU is known for its musical programs and parents are coming here they have a choice of where they want to move and they're moving to our schools for these programs that we're offering and our challenge is how do we keep them at the same level of quality with this growth and the stress on facilities.
oldies. Mr. President, we talked about high schools at 300. I've met board members from school districts with less than 300 students. I just can't imagine how anyone could
desire to deny that we have a growth problem here and that we need to build and we need to build quick. Just a very sad.
Sorry, my mic wasn't on. Could you tell me at King Elementary, what time are lunches starting for those kids and ending? I know Ms. Finneson shared that they actually have breakfast slash lunch at 9.50, and they continue to go until 1.15. So they have brunch. What time are these? Brunch and leper. Yeah, and a linner.
At King Elementary, our lunches start about 10.20, with our kindergartners going to lunch at 10.20, And we have our last fifth grade class that finishes lunch at 1 55 is our last time for lunch, okay? Now of course on early dismissal days we do have brunch at 920 for kindergarten starting So they basically get to school go in put their backpacks down and line up for lunch on early dismissal days
President keeping in mind that Dispensational source about 730 your source about 830 yes, sir So he's gonna know ours difference week when you start lunch on because of the lakes later start time. That's correct. Yes, sir
Well and like was pointed out I guess it was that our last meeting we had a parent come in and expressed that she had A child in a junior high not at Wood Creek But it would be a similar situation at Seven Lakes Junior High where her particular child gets to school at seven and actually has the Latest lunch so he doesn't eat anything again until 1255 Miss venison has something to say We talked about this briefly and it's exactly what you said.
You know, and some of my athletes are coming in the morning at 5.30 and 6 o'clock and even if they eat breakfast at 7 and they have my E or F lunch, they've gone all day. So we've allowed this year, I tell my teachers, we don't sweat it. Let the kids snack. If they're walking in the hallway eating a granola bar, we don't care. Now if they're busting out lasagna, we probably will talk about that. But I mean, you know, we as adults can't go that long without eating and I don't think that we should ask kids to do that either so we've done that on our campus just because there's so much time between lunches that you have you have to allow them to snack i mean just because they're older kids doesn't mean they're not hungry they're probably hungrier so i think everybody should snack i like snacking mr fraley is there something that we've done to encourage these larger campuses to encourage the principals to know that snacking should be allowed for these students that
arriving so early and maybe not eating so late? Is that something district-wide that we've encouraged the principals to encourage in their classrooms and at their schools?
We've always given principals a lot of latitude. I'm meeting with all of them this week at breakfast, and we'll be discussing the challenges that they have. And I fully will say right up front, I think that, principals, you have my full support to do what you need to do to take care of your children.
Okay.
Okay. Thank you very much. Very informative report and we certainly appreciate the challenges that you have and the work that you do for our students. So thank you.
Okay. Okay, we're moving to the consent agenda portion. Looks like the next several are with Mrs. Stevenson. Welcome.
Consent Agenda
You may need to snack before you finish. You have seven items here.
I'm telling you. I may need to.
Good evening, President Mohoskies, Board Members, Superintendent Frehley. I do have seven items to bring before you this evening.
I do want to, as we begin, let you know that you'll notice that there's a limited number of bidders responding to our request for contracts now. And it's just generally because the economy is doing so well in Houston. We know there's a lot of building going on. A lot of these contracts have to do with maintenance items and because of that we're having a difficult time finding qualified people that will respond to our contracts. We are difficult customers at best because we have very restricted hours that they can work. We have very stringent requirements for the contractors and vendors that come into our schools so we We qualify them extensively and so we don't get as much response as we would like. We are always diligently working, trying to bring vendors in. So even though you see a limited response, I do want to let you know it's not for lack of effort of my staff. The first contract I have tonight is the proposal for general building materials and supplies. This contract will be used by the maintenance department and the schools for the purchase of these items. the school do use them in their programs from time to time. While we do use the larger retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's through the cooperatives that we are members of, they have better contracts than we can obtain on our own, we did want to put some suppliers in place that were close by in proximity for the district maintenance department in schools to use and that would meet our criteria. So all vendors that are on the proposal have met our requirements and we We will ask that the schools and departments purchase through best value criteria and get competitive proposals wherever possible. This will be a one-year contract with an option to renew for four additional one-year periods. Expenditures outside of the cooperative are estimated to be $70,000 over the next 12 months. District expenditures will be funded from the General Operating Fund and or Special Revenue Funds.
Thank you, Ms. Stevenson. Is there any questions or discussion? I do have one. You started with that. I had on mine 6.1, glass replacement and repair services. Is that coming up or is that not?
It is the next one. I'm sorry. Did I get that in the order?
No, quite all right.
I do apologize. The next contract, or the one I should have presented first, is glass replacement and repair services. services. Again, we did have a limited response to this. This is because of the requirements that we have for our vendors. We are recommending, however, that the contract be awarded to UTEC's Glass and Mirror Service for the glass services. They have done a lot of work for Katy ISD and again, it's always been successful and we have checked the market pricing and it it is within the current market pricing out there. This contract will be for a one-year period with an option to renew for four additional one-year periods and we estimate the expenditures to be $60,000.
Questions? Moving. Okay, the next contract I have for your consideration tonight is the painting services contract. Again, this will be utilized by the Maintenance and Operations Department. It is to provide painting services throughout the district when we do not have enough staff to suffice the need or to take care of the needs that we have. Although numerous requests for proposals were requested due to the demands of the contract and the indefinite quantity that we can guarantee the contractors looking at the contract we had limited response. The criteria included looking at cost, quality of services, and the ability of the vendor to meet our deeds needs. After consideration of these and other criteria, the recommendation is to award the interior and exterior painting to Milam & Company Painting, Inc. and the parking lot painting to Genesis Painting & Construction, Inc. This contract period will also be for one year with an additional four-year renewals. Expenditures for painting services are estimated to be about $70,000 over the next 12 months based on our previous experience. District district expenditures will be funded from the general operating fund and or special revenue funds.
Okay the next contract I have for your consideration is a proposal for the repair and installation of intercoms and public address and sound systems and this includes a digital clocks in our buildings. This contract of course is utilized by our maintenance and operations department to keep these systems operational. It is a difficult contract to award because we have various manufacturers models in our buildings. Of course they're installed by the general contractor when the buildings are built. These systems last for a long time so when we replace them or when they need repairs we have to go out and look at the manufacturer that installed the original system and try to find someone who can service that particular system and provide parts for it. So each of the vendors that submitted a proposal could service various of these manufacturers. They all met the requirements to be a district vendor and they were willing to accept the contract on the basis of an indefinite level of work. So based on this evaluation, the recommendation is to award to all the vendors submitting proposals as per the tabulation and when work is needed the maintenance department will obtain quotes and procure the services again based on best value. This contract will also be for one year with an option to renew for four additional one-year periods. We do estimate based on our past experience the next 12-month expenditures will be $79,500 and they will be funded from the General Operating Fund and our Special Revenue Funds.
The next contract I have is for the approval of a proposal for the new water well at the Maid Creek Water Plant. The Maid Creek Plant currently has two operational wells but we need a third in order to meet our firefighting requirements so that if one well is down we always have two wells ready to respond. In accordance with this need, the district obtained the services of Mr. Sean Rooney from PBK Civil Engineering Division. He did design our specifications and assisted the district in contacting potential providers. And again, because of the number of wells that are being dug by developers in the area, we had a very limited response. In fact, we received one response. The The company that did propose to us was Basel & Sons, and they are a company that has provided these types of services to KDISD in the past, and they were willing to take on what is actually a very small contract in the water well digging world. So Mr. Rooney assisted the district in the evaluation of this proposal against current market pricing, making sure that even though we had only one bidder, that we were paying what is fair market value. and we looked at the past experience we've had with them the quality of work that they've done for us in the past and after that all those considerations Mr. Rooney's recommendation and the district concurs that we accept the proposal submitted by the cell and sons and we feel that this represents the best value for the district the work would begin within two weeks of approval and would be completed within a hundred and ten days it will be awarded as a not to exceed price of $236,883, which does include an owner's contingency of $10,000, does not include the engineering costs, however, and this project will be funded by the 2010 bond funds as approved by the Board.
Mr. President, this might be for Mr. Gannell. I've talked to a couple of people who work on the mud boards in the local areas, and They said that most of the wells are no longer going to be approved, that the mud areas are now going to go to top water. I guess they're bringing in water from the city of Houston. Do we still need this well, or will this requirement eventually go away due to the new requirements?
I don't anticipate this to go away. When you take a look at the Maid Creek plant, it's a standalone plant, and we do all the water processing for it and sewage processing for it. We are our own mud there, and we are not looking to bring surface water in, so really our go-to point is to go with the wells. I haven't said that. We've been getting discussions with MUDs to see if perhaps we can get out of the MUD business, and if so, we'll look at that down the road. So I don't see the requirement for wells going away. Anytime in the near future unless we can figure out somebody who's willing to take the plant from us. Thanks
Any other questions
Thank you
The next item I brought forward for your review this evening is an interlocal agreement between Katie ISD and Texas A&M University This will give us an opportunity to participate in the university's contracts where they have allowed that for the purchase of supplies, equipment, and services. We have found in exploring different options for the district that there are a couple of technology contracts that Texas A&M University has awarded that no other entity in Texas has been able to obtain. and they have longer warranties with their installations and that type of thing. So they have allowed other governmental entities the right to tap into their contracts, provided there's an interlocal agreement in place. There are a number of school districts exploring this option. I can tell you I talked to Spring ISD and College Station ISD, who are already beginning to take advantage of the Texas A&M contracts. contracts. They're very enthusiastic about being able to help with smaller educational entities and they build much larger buildings than we do, multi-story, and they install thousands more items than we do when it comes to technology. So it is an opportunity for us to perhaps tap into something that may be very beneficial to the district. We will only use those contracts where they are beneficial to us. We prefer to set our own contracts contracts in place, but when we can't obtain the same type of terms, it is very helpful to us to have another type of contract that we can tap into. So again, what this does, we are asking the Board simply to approve the interlocal agreement that allows them to represent us in the bidding process and gives us permission to tap into those contracts where it provides best value to KDISD.
Mr. Fray.
You frequently compliment our folks working on employee benefits. I don't think we fully appreciate how hard Ms. Stevenson works as well. We're part of several other cooperative purchasing networks. She seeks them out at the best pricing for us for goods and services that we need and I just really appreciate what you do, ma'am.
Thank you. Yeah. And my staff works very hard researching these as well. We really want to bring what's best value to the table
Any any questions on on this agenda item this one actually has a resolution that goes with it So since it will be on our consent agenda for next week, and we will do an up-or-down vote on it I'm going to go ahead and read that resolution now a resolution of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District KISD, 80, Texas, approving the terms and conditions of an interlocal agreement between Texas A&M University, providing for the purchase of supplies, equipment, and services, designating Regina M. Stevenson, Director of Purchasing, as official representative of KISD relating to this program. Whereas the Board of Trustees of KISD has been presented and proposed interlocal agreement agreement by and between Texas A&M University and KISD are hereby and all things approved. Whereas, Katy Independent School District, Katy, Texas, pursuant to the authority granted under Chapter 791 of the Texas Government Code, also known as the Interlocal Cooperation Act, the Act, as amended, desires to participate in the describe purchasing cooperative offered by Texas A&M University and in the opinion that participation in this program offered will be highly beneficial to the taxpayers through the anticipated savings and improved efficiency to be realized now therefore be it resolved by the board of trustees of Katy Independent School District Katy Texas section 1 the term and conditions of the agreement having been received by the board of trustees of Katy independent school district and found to be acceptable and in the best interest of KSD and its citizens are hereby in all things approved section 2 Regina M Stevenson director of purchasing of KSD is hereby authorized to manage and administrate all matters related to the agreement including the designation of specific contracts in which KSD desires to participate section 3 this resolution shall become effective from and after its passage duly passed and approved on September 22nd 2014 thank you okay you have one more I believe I have one more all right the last contract I have bringing forward for your consideration tonight is for the time and material for cabling moves ads and changes this contract was very competitive from the vendors that submitted. We have a lot of this type of work that goes on in Katy ISD and we were looking for contractors that can respond as needed in a timely manner with qualified personnel, people that are have passed all the requirements to do work in our schools, especially since most of this work is done in buildings where there are students. After all the contracts, all the proposals were received, everything was reviewed and we did some test pricing comparisons looking at the different vendors. The recommendation is to award to Walker Engineering as our primary provider and we would like to have secondary providers of ATEC Communications and Fisk Electric so that in case Walker for whatever reason if the demands became too great and they didn't have enough crews to respond to our needs on a particular job we could at least have some secondary providers that we could quote between to get the work done.
It's again, we looked at this on the basis of best value. We do have extensive experience with all of the recommended vendors and all of the experience has been successful. This contract period will also be for one year with an option to renew for four additional one years. Based on the district's past experience, we do anticipate the expenditures over the next 12 months to be 500 000 and this will be funded from the general operating fund special revenue funds and or bond funds as approved by the board questions okay mr president mr griffin i think
this is just goes to general comment how good a job that y'all are doing i uh mr dubrow always likes to ask you know were there any local vendors that that bid for these projects i talked to two of them this week and said with all the growth that's going on in Katy are you been any or are you getting awarded any of the contracts and they say no we don't even bother to bid them there's not enough money
so yeah that backs exactly what you're saying y'all are doing such a phenomenal job that the local people say i can make more money doing something else than bidding the school projects kind of a double-edged sword i guess well
it truly they do bring in a very low margin when they come in to bid to schools and they know that and the We're fortunate that a lot of the companies that like to do business with us like to be able to say that they do business with KDISD. That's a real feather in their cap because they know our requirements are so intense and our standards are so high that to be able to say that they've acquired a contract with KDISD is very beneficial. But because we do have very low margins for the vendors, they're not making huge of profits on these contracts. A lot of the smaller businesses have a difficult time coming in Thank You miss season thank you
yeah we'll move to the discussion action portion of our agenda 7.1 talk about this school health advisory council
Item 7.1
Welcome. President McCaussey, members of the board, Mr. Fraley. Part of the school board's responsibility is to approve representatives that provide advice to the district on coordinated school health programming and its impact on student health and learning throughout the eight components of coordinated school health and they include physical education, health education, health services, nutrition services, counseling, psychological and social services, health and safe school environments, family and community involvement, and health promotion. KDISD will hold four public meetings throughout the school year. One, our first meeting is October 14th, second meeting is November 3rd, Third meeting is February 10th, and our fourth meeting is March 17th. And then I will be back along with Debbie Godfrey in the late spring to discuss and present the topics throughout our meetings this year. So at this time, if you have any questions to any of the representatives that are presented to you concerning school health, I'd be willing to answer those for you.
Okay, is there any objection to moving this item to consent?
Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.
Item 7.2
Okay, Mrs. Edmond, you're going to talk about classroom waivers, class size waivers.
Yes, President Mihalski, School Board members, and Superintendent Fraley, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present two items before you tonight. My first item is related to the maximum class size exception. It is part of our normal annual process that we balance grades K-4, the classes and grades K-4, which is kinder through fourth, to the state allowables limit of 22 to 1. However, we like to balance our classes 24 to 1, but in order to do that, the superintendent must have your approval to file a waiver with the State Commissioner of Education. The attachment that I have behind list that we currently have nine campuses with a total of 17 sections that have exceeded that maximum. So again, I am here to ask for your consideration to allow Mr. Fraley to file a waiver for the state of Texas.
Mr. President. Ms. Fox. Mrs. Edmonds, this does not mean that every class will have 24. It just allows us, if my understanding is correct, that The minute we get a 23rd student we have died an entire the way it reads now We have to add an entire teacher and then all classes drop down to 17 18 and then builds back up again Is that right that is 24 would allow us to get everybody around 22 and well with the 24
We wouldn't have to add a teacher until there's 24 to 1 plus 1 so when it reaches 25 That's when we would be required to add a teacher, but we could go up to 24 with the waiver in place
Do you anticipate us getting to 24 in every classroom at the schools that are recommended here?
I do not. We currently have four that I do know that will because right now they're at the maximum And they will go over The the 24 to 1 this may balance out because this could change before next week before you do the final approval We're still balancing classes at this moment, but right now we have a deadline to file for the waiver on October 3rd This is our only opportunity to come before you. Again, it may reduce by next Board meeting.
Follow-up? Yes.
And the other benefit of this, would it be to save us classrooms and also teachers, which is our great expense, is space, like we heard about earlier, and then salary is also there. So it allows us to spread it across.
Yes, it would because to add one teacher is approximately $51,000.
And a classroom space. Yes ma'am. The whole entire thing. At some of these schools, do they have the portable buildings? King is on here.
100% sure.
Mr. Cone, do you know? Wood Creek.
If I could, you know, when you take a look at adding a teacher, you have to add a classroom. You know, we've moved probably close to 30 portables, maybe even more, maybe it was 40 over the summer to get ready. There's not a heck of a lot of empty classrooms out there, particularly in the schools that are crowded. So if push came to shove and we needed another classroom and you couldn't find a place to carve one out of the school, you'd have to figure out a way to bring another portable in.
My questioning on all of this, of course, is because classroom student-teacher ratio the smaller it is we understand the reason it's that way is because it's beneficial for student learning but when you go over one student it causes a great expense and a great movement and so I'm just trying to before I make my decision to balance for myself the benefits of getting a waiver for a temporary time versus importance of that student-teacher ratio so that's those are my questions as I'm thinking about those kinds of
things thank you Mr.
President Mr. Brill it's so good to see you miss Edmonds
thank you the question do you anticipate a need for more growth units even with this waiver in place because we're going so rapidly I do not anticipate that many We know we're going to need something for special ed.
We're looking at those numbers as we speak. We're actually going to look at some vacant special ed positions that we currently have and consider those. I honestly do not believe for regular ed that I'll need any more growth units. I don't want to say 100%, but I think we've balanced pretty well where we are now, and I have given growth units from the ones that were approved in March. But I think at this point we've done some really good balancing because we We kind of staff heavily up front.
Just keep in mind she didn't say 100% because we don't control who buys those houses and which kids they bring to us.
Any other questions?
Mr. President, one thing. The growth units we approved were around 35? 25. 25. Okay, thank you.
Okay, is there any objection to moving this item to consent?
thank you and i believe you have one more for us yes sir the next item is our recommended list of administrative substitutes we have to bring this list forward to the board because in order for us to have administrative substitutes they must be board approved in order to evaluate staff and there comes time where we might have a substitute in place for a long period of time and this will allow them to do walkthroughs as far and as far as formal evaluations
Item 7.3
questions any objections moving this item to consent thank you very much thank you
our next agenda item is to discuss future board approval of a resolution observing Texas Education Human Resources Day so this is actually our item where believes the governor of the state of Texas governor Perry had designated Texas Education Human Resources Day and signed it on August 18th of 2014 so now we have prepared a resolution which I will read or there is a resolution for Katie which I will read and then we will decide we're going to take action on this Texas Education Human Resources Day resolution whereas the Human Resources Department is instrumental in recruiting selecting resourcing and retaining quality staff in support of providing an excellent education for all students and whereas human resources plays a key role in fostering satisfaction among employees by continually striving to be a competent responsive and knowledgeable department so that the needs of all stakeholders are met in a timely manner and the goals of the department and district are achieved and whereas human resources is an important part of district leadership and is vital to the overall productivity and efficiency of the district's workforce and whereas human resources is a valued and respected department that supports the district's most important asset its people therefore the Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District does hereby resolve that October 8 2014 will be observed as Texas Education Human Resources Day throughout the district the board also encourages students staff and parents to express their appreciation to our human resources team members for their dedication and commitment to Katy ISD employees and students.
Item 7.4
Mr. President. Mr. Dubrow. I'm sure you would agree that our Human Resources Department does a phenomenal job with the amount of growth that we have. They do an incredible job keeping up with it. And to that end I would ask that we leave this off consent so that we can read it again during our formal meeting.
You did a great job reading it but I would ask that you read it one more time next next week as a separate item I should have a few comments before we can celebrate our human resources a department properly I absolutely agree we will absolutely do any other comments while we have it open for discussion this president's one of quick in case my voice from now and then one think miss Edmond and the whole team
for all they've done it's been a tremendous effort opening up two new schools and adding a great level to tompkins high school uh this year i i welcomed and spoke to over 700 and some change new employees new teachers completely filled up uh uh the uh the cafetorium which was a lot of kids so i want to thank you all and recognize you guys with the formal job we greatly appreciate it i certainly echo those sentiments and our employees certainly are our greatest asset so it's extremely important function and we appreciate the work that that you all do so we will read this again next week and celebrate
again mr. president mr. Griffin mr. Fraley does the HR department run the teacher and hiring festival that they had at the Merrill Center this year yes
sir they do put on that but that was one impressive impressive activity I got Almost 2,000 folks who attended I believe that at the teacher job fair and That's putting it into elementary and morning and I think secondary or vice versa Well, they have two different shifts. They run that through and we have Even though the districts had adopted a higher teacher salary schedule We almost double how many folks showed up at hours compared to this running district And they do that on top of their other work
Yeah
I could and also we have some principals and APs to help do recruiting and things as well So in mr. Any tremendous it's a team effort. You have some great folks on the staff here
All right, we will be moving to in the item 7.5 Mr. Smith Ain't about foreign trade zones What are those?
Item 7.5
Well good evening. Mr. Fraley and mr. Mahalski As after hearing the report opening the new schools, I must say I couldn't hear Very much in my head dr. Clark. I'm back go back to the days of dr. Clark talking about conundrums And what I'm going to talk about tonight may be a conundrum or what we call and when we're dealing with spreadsheets a circular reference As you know, and it's been well publicized lately that there are thousands and thousands Dozens of thousands of kids moving into Texas from other states because of the economic development climate Katie ISD is a destination district and a result of all that economic development work that the state of Texas is doing through the years the state of Texas has adopted several things to aid in bringing those or enticing companies to come and relocate to the Texas some of those back in originally was called tax abatement school districts can't do that because wealth equalizations won't allow them to there's tax increment reinvestment zones report exemptions after 313 agreements and what we're here to talk about tonight is a foreign trade zone or foreign trade zone exemption FTZ there's a company Cabalco it's a Japanese company and as best I can tell they make excavators and those things that go and big and a lot of heavy equipment stuff and they make pumps etc they are new to Katie ISD they are building a facility out on Mason Road just west of Mason Road in one of those industrial complexes they have a building that will be valued well first of all they will be like I said they're brand new they've not paid any taxes they've not an understanding even moved employees here year but at the beginning of the year they plan to hire about 50 employees the property will be on the Harris County tax roll at that point in time at valued at eight point two million dollars that'll be the land in the improvements to the land that we will be taxing moving forward for the next many years at our full tax rate they've requested or they have approached Katie ISD about this foreign trade zone which would takes the contents in the warehouse and
basically moves it from being part of the avid Lauren tax calculation let me back up and say make it simple that a retail store may have inventory on January 1 they pay taxes both maintenance and operations and service service taxes on their inventory on January 1 of that beginning of that year this foreign FTZ application would take the contents in their warehouse and remove that from paying ad valorem taxes again state of Texas and it's a vehicle by them so how do we do that and how do we allow that and be made whole the state of Texas makes us whole by taking excluding that property from our property value study so the state of texas would if we didn't charge them a maintenance and operations tax would pay for the maintenance and operations tax by having our lower property value we estimate that we told that they expect about four million dollars of inventory in that building
that would generate about forty five thousand dollars in maintenance and operations taxes and about sixteen thousand dollars in debt service taxes they have requested again foreign trade zone that that basically go away but through what you have in front of you this pilot agreement they are willing to pay those taxes are a pilot payment in lieu of taxes of the full amount for the first year in the second year and moving forward they would pay the debt service portion that are based on our our current debt service tax rate at the time but they would be moving and not paying taxes on the maintenance and operations because the state of Texas would make KDI st-hole so it's kind of complicated but but do know that basically KDI st comes out ahead or does does not lose anything the company comes out ahead not by much but they come out ahead through the things that they get by tariffs and taxes on things that are inside of the warehouse that they're not having to pay part about the conundrum is is this is the thing that helps bring in businesses it shows that we are welcome to that as long as Katie asked he's not losing any money we're not in this case there's an there's a clause in your agreement here that says if we ever feel like we're losing money or based on law changes it is null and void we will start over we're not going to lose any money and in order and also one of the things that they did say in addition because we are willing to if we're willing to work with them they have offered to make a gift the foundation as part of a payment of taxes to the KD ISD educational foundation for $15,000 and because of the benefit that this gives them with their their foreign trade zone or their status of what's in their warehouse so we've had okay see Dan Casey of Mo Casey Associates has looked at it we've spoken obviously with the folks from the a economic development group and David for Wonka mr. walk has looked at this and they have some FTZ's where he is at this time so at that with that I would go into answering questions I have I hope hope I can this is new to
Katie this is similar to the agreement we have in place with what right this is
this is similar to what we have in Weatherford it's a smaller scale Weatherford is based on a number of jobs that is created that's an excess of this And the real improvements that they're making out there are far Greater than then the amount of these that's in this warehouse So this is a smaller scale, but it very similar very very similar to the 13
One follow-up any idea how many jobs this would bring to our communities
I'm told they expect to hire about 50 the first year and increasing it to 75 over time Again, they they are not in existence in Katy ISD The building is there to say have a sign. There's no signage on it There's a sign kind of in the corner that says the future home of Cabela Co and there will be on our tax rolls on September January 1
Just to get a little deeper into kind of how it works is this
They won't be paying the tax but it will be affected through the funding formula that taxable value will just be eliminated from what?
That's correct. That's correct on the maintenance that side we are subject and I'll talk about that on one of the next couple items When we have a property value increase our our local share increases Are meaning the state funds go down and in this case our local share would not increase and so our state funds would would Would stay up at a higher level as if it wasn't on our tax rolls, right?
Because you know as we've seen in some of our budget discussions as our local tax base goes up and we're collecting more dollars in m o taxes from our taxpayers within the district our funding from the state is actually coming down on a percentage basis at the same time yes sir
and this is this is a very small uh portion of that but again it's kind of a microscopic look at what you just said but because of what you just said kdisd is not harmed and if anything changes from the state there's an agreement in here that this would be canceled if it harms the school
district financial okay well that was my kind of my next question if because we're what a chapter 41 we are chapter 42 or 42 and the high property tax district what chapter is that 41 41 okay so if we were to ever move from 42 to 41 well how would that affect it do we know if we ever moved
chapter do chapter 41 district having this not in place are the amount of the check that we wrote to Austin would increase $45,000 having this in place we would not be writing that check for that much because it would be off of even the
chapter 41 values okay are there any other questions with the current lawsuit
that's going on with the funding for schools is there any way or do we have any foresight and would that cause us to have any problems with this there
depending on what the state could come up with absolutely could and that's that's why the agreement in there if it becomes been not beneficial to Katie isd or hurts us anyway this deal is null and void is there any objection to moving this item to consent oh there's I was asked to add a couple things to the agreement and we'll be doing so and I don't know if that changes we're gonna add the educational foundation it says right now Katie ISD foundation it Doesn't say educational foundation
We now next
In the agreement itself
Oh Okay, really no, I think that that's that work
Okay, let's talk about tax rates
Item 7.6
Okay, well I I don't have the website up, but I'll show you this This is on our website and it shows a graph of how the tax rate in KDST has been the same for seven years this first item addressing the Dead service tax rate would make that the eighth year Of staying the same tax rate for the debt service side section 26.0 five of the property tax code Here here States that the governing body of a school district shall adopt a tax rate on an annual basis And this rate must be adopted in suit two separate components one being the debt service And one being maintenance and operations So this I had a first item is for the debt service and then there's an attached levy That I will I'm sorry attached order
That says a A levy debt an order levying a debt service tax rate for the Katy Independent School District for the tax year 2014 be it ordained and ordered by the Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District that We the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District do hereby levy and adopt the tax rate of $100 valuation for this school district for the 2000 tax year 2014 of 40 cents for the payment of principal and interest on the debt of the school district ex-assessor collector and hereby authorized is hereby authorized to assess and collect taxes on in its cool district
again this will be your number eight of keeping maintaining it 40 cent tax any
questions on the dirt service tax rate I think everyone's well aware where that stands we are not going we won't be moving this to consent we will actually because we've all need to read that order actually next year so okay and then of course the last item here is the on the discussion action is the maintenance and operations tax rate okay maintenance and operations tax rates the
Item 7.7
same as it has been the last seven years so it'll be the eighth year that will keep a dollar twelve six six that is for the early section twenty seven twenty 26.05 of the tax code again. It's the same thing. I won't reread that but it does require to set that us to set that annually There's some interesting wording in this order and I'm going to elaborate on it as I read it For you. It says loving a maintenance and operations tax rate for Katy Independent School District for the next year 2014 We had ordained an order by the Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District's that at we the board of trustees of the KD impendent school district you hereby levy and adopt a tax rate of on $100 valuation for the school district for the tax year 2014 of a dollar twelve six six for the purpose of maintenance and operations and that's the that'll be for the eighth year in a row but it moves on to say this tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate we had a 17% increase in our property values or four billion so naturally taxing at four billion more is going to raise more taxes it moves on to say that the tax rate will effectively be raised by three point two percent and will raise taxes for maintenance and operations on a $100,000 home approximately zero point zero zero four zero zero and what that that is is again with our growth we are going to raise more taxes generate more tax revenue however as we've talked about a couple of times the state funding formulas next year when we are doing a budget our local share will increase proportionately by this big growth in values and our state share will decline proportionally so that's probably the one of the main reasons by Judge Deitch's decision last month because it really gives school districts no control over this because they'll take the growth away the following year. And, again, this is the eighth year in a row that we'll be recommending $1.1266.
Any questions? Really, our local taxpayers just can't really catch a break. they're paying more because valuations are up yet the district isn't getting full benefit out of those dollars because we're getting a lower
percentage amount from the state of Texas yes sir and when I mentioned that in the board budget presentation that pie graph it's been shrinking each year the state's percentage that they contribute toward our funding that will continue and because of this increase that piece of pie from the states will be much smaller and ours will be larger this time next year.
I would add in there a number of folks who would say, well, then, if you're raising more revenue, why can't you just drop your tax rate? Because the state cuts their support for us by the amount of additional revenue. So other than the student population enrollment growth, the revenue is almost neutral.
Yeah, I assume at some point in the future we'll be talking about legislative priorities, and I think this is certainly one that we want to address with our legislators when we can. Okay, again, I will need to read this order next week, so we will not be moving this item to consent. Thank you, Mr. Smith. And that leads us through our discussion action to Agenda 8, Discussion. We have an item, Planning for Growth, Discussion on the 2014 Bond Oversight Committee. And this is just simply a beginning discussion
Item 8
Should the bond pass in November and kind of looking forward on What an oversight committee of community citizens? Would look like to you know as the projects are would be built and whatnot to kind of review that report back to the board and Now that would be made up
Mr. President, again as you said, the purpose of the Bond Review Committee, this would be, this would be established, I think the third one since I've been here that I've had a chance to work with, but one from the 2006 bond, one from the 2010 bond that was successful. And this committee is made up of citizens to review the status of capital projects, bond expenditures, project schedules and timelines of the bond projects. And the committee counsels and provides input to the administration. Administration and it also does report to the board make certain that what we're doing is congruent with what we ask the voters He gives permission to do so it's not just left up to a staff But this will be a committee that will review all the all the work The board would approve the committee We had I believe 14 members last time around we've talked about me miss Mahalski recently, maybe maybe doubling that amount or so and I think that's a good idea So should the bond pass November, we would have the Board is looking at appointing a committee to review projects along the way Once they get to vote, start rolling out
So it's going to open for any discussion that we would like to have at this time as Fraley said, from my standpoint and kind of and you were given in your documentation kind of the charter for the 2010 2010 bond review committee and kind of as a guide, but I think there's certainly Reason to discuss potentially having a larger committee than we've had And we have previously to include a broader group of the community And at the end of the day, you know, my thoughts on this is I want would like an oversight committee that is both representative of the community and and would also promote transparency on the entire process so that you know we can have continuous kind of somewhat reporting both to the board and kind of lays on with the community itself on what is actually happening with the facilities construction and what to do with any potential bond savings if there are any or cost overruns for that matter you know and so that there's an awareness through every stage of the process if I could add mr. president uh the 2010 bond committee did recommend a support building two new schools out of the bond savings and that would be part of the rules having input in those types of so you know what this yeah this charter also kind of includes some of the duties and responsibilities along with that and mr. Griffin
What happens to the, so we have a current bond committee now that's overviewing the previous bond. So this, that's hypothetically this bond passes so we set up a new bond committee. Do we roll the previous bond committee into this one and combine them both and just have one bond committee or do you want to run a 10 bond committee and a 14 bond committee?
Well, they're very different roles. The bond committee established the referendum components. The review committee is to make certain that the activities are congruent with that referendum that was approved by the voters. What we've done in the past is we've taken members, some members, from the bond committee itself, but then added new folks to the bond review committee. One, you have bond committee members who have knowledge of the referendum components, and then you, so to make certain that they can articulate the congruency of the work, then you have other folks who would have to look at it from a more objective standpoint and then verify that what they were asked to approve as a community is truly happening.
How much time do these individuals spend doing this job that we would task them to do? Is it per month, per week, biweekly?
We set up a schedule. The construction work projects, and Mr. Knudson can speak more about that, You really don't start meeting with them immediately because nothing's happening You're working up to your proposals So your bonds and things like that and you're with them to review what you're doing And then they look at the neck at the schedule going forward. I think this part of the chart as well They don't meet. I don't know. I think was monthly it was if I could superintendent, please yeah for the
2010 bond review committee which met for the last time about a year ago after a substantial completion of the the major projects on the 2010 bond we met about once a quarter unless there was a reason to to meet as a special meeting we found there was sufficient time to get the reports that they needed to tour the facilities to to give the financials to review the the building construction whatever it may be as as well as where we were with any project savings as well as we were where we were with the with the bids if you look at the uh the schedule for uh for last time um after the bond was approved um we we talked about it i think in that following january after the bond was approved and brought the uh the charter to the board in uh in february the actual uh committee didn't meet until a few months after that for the first time so quarterly seemed to be plenty of time You know, it took probably about three hours, a quarter. There were some homework assignments that we provided. So probably six to ten hours a quarter was the expectation. Thank you.
Mr. President.
Mr. Breaux.
I would definitely support the or larger number of committee members, doubling it, I think would be appropriate. Definitely getting members from different areas of our community, not only from different interest areas, but from different geographical areas of our community so we can begin to, so they can all get a feel of how wide and deep our district is.
I think that kind of as we go through and it obviously is very early but it really kind of looking at this charter from 2010 and maybe tweaking it a little bit obviously for a little bit larger committee and some of the things that we've discussed here so I think that's kind of the thought process of them how to make it up and make a few few modifications to the to the Charter similar to what we did with the bond committee itself this year I think in having a more inclusive larger broader more diverse committee was a benefit at the end of the day on the recommendation that they ended up making so it's kind of in light of trying to trying to continue that and and work with the community through these projects.
Mr. President, I know at the last bond that we asked for that wasn't successful, some of the people felt that we had asked for this money and we were going to use it for weird purposes or something. I really wish we would have stressed that because the language has to be written for that referendum a certain way, that there's multiple processes in place to make sure that what we've asked for we're going to spend in the appropriate manner. And this is the exact reason why that policy and this procedure and this committee was set up.
Absolutely, because if this board does something different than that, then I want an oversight committee that's going to call us out on it. Absolutely.
Mr. President, again, I appreciate and agree with that as well. I know there's been lots of stories about not trusting the board administration, and I think there was one time when The board deviated from the referendum because they built a junior high before the elementary school because the growth Demanded that modification and the language allows you to do that other than that you've been extremely congruent and there's been extreme fidelity With the actions of the staff of the board with the referendum language There's I don't I don't know a time when the project spelled out were not Delivered we have this last time been very successful. We're successful in getting good bids We have found some bonds project savings that again this review committee Supported looking at two additional schools Others asked me to do something else with it. I said it's not my call And that will be the same way this time around but this district has been very very congruent and truly inverted In line with with the ask and how the funds were spend it
President It's um and said before but I'll say it again those two new schools That would not have been built if the language had been different or if some other things were in place Those 2,000 kids because I visited both of those schools There's a thousand in each one would currently be overcrowding some other campus if the language and the last bond was different Would it would have been too restrictive we had some problems and those schools wouldn't be built today So I look forward to forming this committee And again, I think we should increase this side
side any other any other discussion well this was just kind of a I mean introductory to introduce the concept of kind of looking at a charter for that for that committee which will you know should this bond pass will be coming to fruition a little bit later so we will from that we just kind of wanted to have an open discussion tonight so mr. president what I would request is you You have time, should the burden pass, you will be appointing a committee more than likely sometime around February of 2015.
You have time between now and then to look at the charter, talk to staff, understand the intricacies of this type of work, look at the role of the committee, look at the role that the board is held accountable to by law as well. So between now and then, if you would just take some time to look at it and ask us any questions that you have, we would greatly appreciate that.
Okay. Well, we have a regularly scheduled board meeting for September next week, Monday, September 22, 2014. And there being no further business, we are adjourned at 8.13 p.m.
Items 9 & 10
Official documents
Agenda
The district's own agenda for this meeting, as published on BoardDocs.
Official agenda, Board Work Study Agenda, 15 September 2014 →
Board packet · 25 documents
The district's own backup material for this agenda, retrieved from BoardDocs. Each file was checked against the size BoardDocs states for it.
- 1 - RFCSP #1512 TAB - Glass Replacement and Repair Services 88 KB
- 2 - RFCSP #1512 EVAL - Glass Replacement and Repair Services 43 KB
- 1 - RFCSP #1509 TAB - General Building Materials and Supplies 12 KB
- 2 - RFCSP #1509 EVAL - General Building Materials and Supplies 12 KB
- 1 - RFCSP #1510 TAB - Painting Services Contract 93 KB
- 2 - RFCSP #1510 EVAL - Painting Services Contract 77 KB
- 1 - RFCSP #1504 TAB - New Water Well at Mayde Creek Water Plant 21 KB
- 2 - RFCSP #1504 EVAL - New Water Well at Mayde Creek Water Plant 29 KB
- 3 - Recommendation Letter - New Water Well at Mayde Creek Water Plant 52 KB
- 1 - RFCSP #1511 TAB - Repair and Install. of Intercoms, PA and Sound Systems 86 KB
- 2 - RFCSP #1511 EVAL -Repair and Install. of Intercoms PA and Sound Systems 77 KB
- 1 - Katy ISD and TAMU Interlocal Agreement 18 KB
- 1 - RFCSP #1515 TAB - Cabling Moves Adds Changes - Time and Material 43 KB
- 2 - RFCSP #1515 TAB - Cabling Moves Adds Changes - Special Projects Pricing 46 KB
- 3 - RFCSP #1515 EVAL - Cabling Moves Adds Changes - Time and Material 10 KB
- Debt Service Tax Rate Order 9-22-14 7 KB
- Governor_Proclamation_-_2014 367 KB
- HR Resolution 186 KB
- M&O Tax Rate Order 9-22-14 7 KB
- Kobelco Katy ISD Non-objection letter 308 KB
- Ashley Malone Oath 176 KB
- Elvin Paley, Jr. Oath 176 KB
- Jenny Garcia Oath 176 KB
- Katy ISD Draft Agreement - Kobelco 61 KB
- First Day of School Presentation 1398 KB
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 3.1
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report as recommended by the Superintendent.
6 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| bryan-michalsky | Yes |
| charles-griffin | Yes |
| courtney-doyle | Yes |
| henry-dibrell | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |
MOTION 002 · AGENDA 3.2
PassedIt is recommended that the Board of Trustees names Tory Hill as an Assistant Superintendent for Instructional and Administrative Support for the Katy Independent School District, as recommended by the Superintendent.
6 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| ashley-vann | Yes |
| bryan-michalsky | Yes |
| charles-griffin | Yes |
| courtney-doyle | Yes |
| henry-dibrell | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |