Good evening. The Board will now convene an open meeting. Today is Monday, June 20, 2016, and the time is 6.52 p.m.
Katy ISD · Board Work Study Agenda
Katy ISD Board Work Study, June 20, 2016
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The Board met earlier this evening in a closed meeting. Any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting must be taken in a subsequent open meeting.
Mr. Connell, will you please verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Otis Bend Meetings Act regarding the notice for this meeting?
Madam President, we are in compliance.
Madam President?
Mr. Maholsky. I move the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report is recommended by the superintendent in closed meeting.
Second.
I have a motion by Mr. Maholsky, a second by Mr.
DeBrell that the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report is recommended by the superintendent in closed meeting. Any discussion?
Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All in favor raise your right hand and say aye.
Motion passes 5 to 0. Mrs. Vann and Mrs. Doyle were unable to be here this evening.
We have an update on the reassignment on the principal for Martha Raines High School and
the OAC Behavior Transition Program.
Mr. Gunnell?
Madam President, it is my pleasure to announce the reassignment of Carrie Finneson as principal
for Martha Raines High School in the Opportunity Awareness Center.
Ms. Finneson is currently the principal of Wood Creek Junior High, has been since 2012,
serving over 2,100 students.
If you joined Katie in 2006, then also been the principal of Maid Creek Elementary and
Open Stan Stanley Elementary.
Great.
Congratulations, Mrs. Finneson.
Do we have any scouts with us this evening?
It's summer.
We don't have any scouts.
So we'll proceed to our budget update.
Mr. Smith.
Well, I know everybody's excited to hear a budget update, and I'm not going to show you
all a bunch of numbers tonight.
I am going to just lay out some information that I think is important.
It kind of follows up on what we've talked about before and what we'll be talking about
later on as we go into the summer.
and as you know we have an August 31st fiscal year end so our budget does not
need to be prepared until the August board meeting we are we have some
neighboring districts had have changed their fiscal year those are effective
July 1 they're adopting their budgets this month there's some advantages to
that and there's some disadvantages to that um to adopting their budgets uh early um i think the
disadvantages are further or greater than the uh than the advantages that those pose but so we are
two months behind them in adopting our budget and uh i think them it's probably about a 50 50 split
for districts across the state of when their fiscal year ends so we've got a couple of months
So we're still putting this thing putting the pieces together
But I want to start out and I'm going to talk about these topics the 1516 budget
the timeline that we've worked under thus far and into the development of
Of the budget that y'all be approving in August. I want to talk about property values extensively
I'm going to talk about the initial budget update for the 1617
school year and then the timeline from this point going all the way through
September when we adopt a tax rate and then I'm going to talk about some future
considerations that we that we must consider so what you have before you is
a is a is a picture and I'm sorry it's small but that was the budget that we
adopted in August of last year for the 1516 school year and it showed a surplus
we've done amendments through the year and and I'm going to show you those on
on the next page and and some of those will actually be being presented tonight
but we still continue to have a surplus in our budget those are the amendments
that we that y'all seen that have increased expenditure some of those have
revenues most of those do not but we still maintain that that surplus budget
in the 15-16 school year so 15-16 again the year that we're done with the school
year we're not done with the budget year student demographics that will affect
the original budget that was adopted in August of last year we got our PEMS data
last week like the middle midweek last week our PEMS data which is our student
student data summarized for from a funding perspective that was done last
week and is being sent to Austin this week we'll do a resubmission in July but
we don't expect it to change much so now we finally got in the idea of what
drives the budget and what the students look like how often they came to school
what type of students came to school etc tax collections and we normally budget
100% and we normally collect a little more than 100% we're on track to collect
a little more than 100% our collections and you'll see in the tax report next
week are right on with what they have been historically our comptroller
property values this is what this is a big big portion that fits in the state
funding formulas got news June the 9th from the comptroller that mr. Pawanka
was successful in lowering our property values that will give us additional
funds in this in the budget that we are just we are still working on under it
that'll generate a couple of million dollars which is good news so that means
we're gonna have a surplus at the end of the year and then Senate bill one
adjustments and hold harmless if you'll recall last year when we adopted the
budget i said that at some point during the year we would amend the budget because if senate bill
one was voted on and passed at the polls for the additional homestead exemption we would lower
property taxes and raise state funding proportionally and uh that has happened we are
being held hold harmless for that uh for that through tea and ta came out with their calculations
on how to make that all happen sometime over the Christmas break.
And the good news is when we budgeted, the appraisal districts had already included the reduction.
They did this in August, and everybody went to the polls in November to vote yes or no,
but the appraisal districts had peeled that off.
So the good news is there's a significant amount that we will be able to amend next month.
the revenue budget for state state funding that will increase because it's
not just a it's not an offsetting it's all going to go to our bottom line which
is good news Sharr's that's our third largest single item revenue we don't
think that we'll have to double up that revenue and should be right on budget
but there is a chance based on the timing of it that it could we'll be
be trying to avoid having to do that and then under spending is a part that
affects our 1516 budget and we will we never really spend the entire amount but
through April we were we were pretty much on track and then salary accruals
that's an accounting function that depending on the counters we adopt this
one will will affect the 1516 budget negatively but we should be able to
handle it it's because we're going to have two more instructional days in this
this summer than we had in the past so we'll expense two more instructional
days that'll hit the 1516 budget it's a counting deal but all in all we're
probably looking at two percent increase to revenues two percent I'm going to try
to not wait until August to amend those I'm going to try to bring those in July
to give you an idea of what the bottom line is starting to look like but it's
going to be a good year we are going to add to fund balance.
Speaking of fund balance here is the percentage of our fund balance we have a
healthy fund balance anything over that blue line that you see is considered a
healthy fund balance the blue line represents three months spending so
we're just over three months spending but we're about twenty million dollars
over three months of spending so anything that is above or below above
that line is the comfort zone and we want to stay stay above that line but we
have we have some flexibility in our fund balance as far as the 1617 budget
goes I'm shifting gears now and starting to think about next year I'm done
talking about the year that we're wrapping up but our battle cry for mr.
Mr. Faley was we're going to maintain a balanced budget.
We've had a balanced budget every year, and he wanted to not leave without a balanced
budget.
So we are working really hard to maintain a balanced budget.
We want to maintain competitive salaries.
I think especially, well, for everybody, but we're always wanting to be competitive when
it comes to classroom teachers and hiring the best.
So salary increases are an important component of the budget that we're investigating, and
I'll talk about that in a little while.
but we are very labor-intensive and and salary salaries are very important to
stay competitive maintain our health care program and avoid TRS active care I
promise I put that that statement in there before Friday of last week Friday
of last week TRS came out with their their new rates that they're going to
charge participants in active care and I think it can be summarized or I've seen
it summarized as the the benefits were reduced and the rates were increased
significantly on both sides so the fact that we control our own health care
program is becoming more and more valuable and it's important that we keep
that healthy and going because we our staff is far better off in that than in
TRS active care we're open in three schools two elementary schools and ties
junior high and then we need to we still are planning the three additional
schools in the 1718 school year one of those being a high school as far as the
budget overview in the general fund this is where we started we started back
earlier in the day on August October 226 with administrative for heard a report
from the PASA population and survey analysts I believe that that was the
the night that they addressed the board about our enrollment demographic trends.
And we massaged those and worked with PASA,
and on February the 16th we published our enrollment projections.
Those drive the amounts of the baseline budgets for our campuses.
Basically how much money, how many students you're going to get
is how much money you have to work with in your budget,
and that's the pretty, those are the easy ones.
funds. And then also on March 28th, the Board of Trustees approved the 15-16 staffing plan.
The staffing plan is developed around those enrollment numbers. So we've done some pretty
arduous things between that time to tonight, which is where we are on the Board work study
at the bottom. You may note I put May 13th, we had the Supreme Court decision. And the
The other big one that I should mention is the estimate of appraisal rules,
and I'll talk about that.
We received on April the 30th the estimate of our appraised values.
So enrollment and taxable values, those two things drive the budget.
Budget doesn't need to increase if enrollment doesn't increase,
or if enrollment goes down, the budget needs to go down.
That happens in some districts.
districts. We're far from that happening. We're having to increase every year, and because
we have new students, we need new staff to supervise those students, as you know. So
we are a growing school district, and because of that, our taxable values are growing too.
The students that come to the district have houses they're living in and apartments. All
of those maintain taxable values. The assumptions that we used in the budget, and then we've
been using and again some of these you know we started using later than others
but I'll start and then I'll mention enrollment we're looking at 2166 student
enrollment over what we projected last year it's a 2.9 percent increase that's
less than what we projected last year
taxable values we're looking at a 7.9 percent increase that's about two and
$2.6 billion, a little over $2.6 billion.
I will make a disclaimer here that there was a significant amount,
and I don't know all the amounts.
I know it was $4.7 billion in Fort Bend County alone that was uncertified.
So it was an estimate that we received from them,
and they usually lose some values between the estimate
and the time that the rolls are approved.
So we're using a $2.6 billion increase.
It could be more than that.
we go through and look at what what they've lost in historic years and try
to extrapolate that out towards what we think is a good loss but there could be
some conservancy there could be some conservativeness going on right there
but we're being safe than sorry so again as we'll talk in a minute if if it is
more we're going to lose it the next year we can't count on it teacher growth
you can see with opening those three new campuses and not we're not growing as
much in enrollment but we are adding those campuses so with that are things
like a nurse librarians principals etc that that wouldn't come if we weren't
adding those campuses and as far as a pay increase that we're we've been
toy in all along with one percent and now we're looking real hard to see if we
can make two percent we're that just that just started today and I don't know
how far we'll be able to get I know we will be making a recommendation to the
board in July and hoping we can get a response some action on that but we are
looking at one to two one to two percent again we're going to try like crazy to
make 2% work
oh I would say that because I think we're going to add to the fund balance
we may also at once the school year starts we may look at trying to do an
additional 1% like we did this last year it's proved very popular and I think
we'll be in the position to be able to do that I'm sorry I should have mentioned
said earlier yes okay mr smith you're right that was very popular teachers loved us we want to do
that again the one percent like in december or sometime just an extra one percent payment yeah
that that was very well received people liked that right well i've heard good feedback on it
my wife did too yeah okay good yeah her canvas liked that great thank you um this is the
The percentage increase in our property values over the last, I guess, 12 years, it looks like.
And I want to just point you out to the right there on the red, or the orangest color.
You can see that we had two banner years at 18% and 15% these last couple of years.
Those were some of the highest in the state, and they're the highest in the Houston area from an increased percentage standpoint,
point from at least the colleagues that I've spoken with or what I've read so we
are we had the last couple years we've had some really large increases in our
property values obviously the majority of that's in new construction there's
been some reappraised value in that as well but we are still growing and so we
We are still adding property in the district.
But the one year, I guess it's the second dot from the right is where we are now, just
over 8%.
Again, that could be a little higher once it's said and done.
So we've not grown as much in our values.
We had those two banner years.
We're about more like average when it comes to some of the fast growth areas around the
the Houston area anyway and then next year from a forecast standpoint we're
looking at something less than six percent as a placeholder we're being
conservative let's talk about property values I've read that it's that the
appraisals are coming in high so so the taxing entities can spend more or to
have more access to it and I want I think it's important because I don't I
I don't know how that works, but I do know what I have to watch as the year progresses.
As I understand it, and I wish David Pawanka was near me every day where I could continue to pull knowledge from him,
but they use market data, buy and sell of houses, and the county appraisal districts take that information,
and that's that and the new parcels to the roll is what generates the value.
And they provide that information to school districts.
I assume they do that to other taxing entities as well.
So I'm moving toward the right on there on the school districts,
and the school districts use that information on the right bottom in their budget and tax rates.
I'm going to start back up to the top where it says county appraisal districts in the middle and go to the left.
In November of every year, the county appraisal districts provide this information, all the market data, and they provide the information that they have in all of their roles, and they submit it to Austin, to the Comptroller's Property Tax Division.
And the Property Tax Division takes that data and they score it.
And they do statistical analysis of it, as I understand, and they do one of two things in that property value study.
They're going to just one of two results the result on the right is the green and that means that the appraisal district did a good
Job they assigned local values and basically they're nodding their head
They're saying you might not be perfect
But you're doing a good enough job and we agree that you appraised the value of the properties appropriately and therefore the school district taxed
appropriately and
That information is in our in our in our budget in our tax rate
Now if it goes up red, and you see that red going back up to the appraisal districts,
that means that the appraisal district did not do well in the property value study and
they are going to get a bad score from the Comptroller's Property Tax Division.
And what that means is they didn't appraise values high enough and then they will assign
– see that red arrow going back to the school district?
They will assign the value that they think the appraisal district should have done.
So if it's if that happens and it's a school district, they didn't tax enough because the appraisals weren't high enough
but then the appraisal the
The formulas are going to treat it as if they did tax it. So it's kind of a double whammy for school district
So it's real important in our appraisal districts
Do a good job and and our and hopefully it's all green and it has been green
we've teetered with some of our a couple of property studies over the years where we got signed a
a state value but there is a one-year grace period and the appraisal district
I guess did a better job in their study or was able to show them to why they
well they did a good job but it was we've never been assigned state values
and and hurt hurt our funding at least not in my time here okay so what if our
property values go up the next year our state funding goes down and y'all will
will hear me talk about how about those apples, not in a positive way, all the time.
And I know some of you are tired of seeing those apples,
but I can't stress it enough that there is a correlation when the values go up,
the state revenues go down.
So let's talk about wealth per student.
And wealth per student in this case is if you take your total wealth,
your total property values, and in our case it's $35.6 billion,
million dollars, and if you take it divided by our weighted average daily attendance,
you're going to get a certain number.
And what I've tracked there and in the yellow is our calculation where you take our values
divided by our students, and you can see that we're right on the state average.
We've been below the state average, and we may be just very slightly above the state
average, but pretty much right on it for these last several years.
So people look at KDISD and they say, well, you're a high-wealth school district.
No, we're not.
We're about state average in wealth per student.
So we're not a property-rich school district.
Property-rich school districts would have to be as high as that red line.
And if the red line that you see is significantly higher in wealth per student than what we are now,
so we would not really be considered our subject to recapture until we got to that amount.
out but you will hear in the next few months we'll have to go through the
motions of being a quote chapter 41 school district we are going to be
considered a chapter 41 school district we are far from that red line and far
from being subject to recapture but it is an old law in chapter 41 of the of
of the education code and they use 319 500 per student and uh we are about 315 000 per student
now and we're we're going to exceed 319 5 but we are far from that red line that you see
now you've got a graph up here the 1516 general fund and i'm sorry i don't have it updated yet
I'm just not quite we're not quite ready to have have this information of
Updated but it's going to look very similar to this
but I think our salary and benefits are going to be 88% and
Non-payroll is going to be 12% as I think you see here. It's 85 and and
15
One of the things that that are 15 16 budget had is it had a lot of one-time expenditures in there because of that
that state funding because of the apples we had some one-time expenditures in
there and and those were not in salary and benefits and now they're pulled out
and so now the salary and benefit portion has increased from a percentage
standpoint okay let's talk about our debt service fund it's our other major
budget that we will adopt in August and I wanted to talk and remind you of the
debt management tools refundings I guess it was two years ago and I even said we
hit a home run on some refundings that we did and we had hit a home run on the
refundings and the 15-16 school year there just was not a lot of opportunity
we did not have a lot of a lot of bonds callable to do a refunding so we didn't
We had a small refunding, but it wasn't one with the wow numbers that make your chin drop.
We have been for several months, well, for years, actually, looking at a refunding for bonds that are callable as of February 15, 2017.
And so as of November 15, we can refund those bonds.
The analysis that I've seen keeps getting better.
and I think we may we again we're subject to tax rates so I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna jinx it but we we may be have an opportunity for a good at-bat
bond defeasances we've been able to defuse bonds as part of our debt plan
basically bonds that are callable and we've just been able to identify and and
cherry-pick and try to the pay just pay them off and not refund them and we've
been successful at that last month we had a resolution that was approved so
So we're ready to defuse bonds again in the 16-17 school year,
and we'll be developing the budget, or we are developing the budget to do that as well.
As in addition to that, another bond sale, the third of four from the $748 million authorization,
we'll have our third bond sale sometime next spring.
Interest and income on bonds, interest income,
we're one of the rare districts that use the interest that are proceeds.
We get the bond money and we invest it.
We don't get a lot of good returns on it, but we do invest it and we put that back into
our debt service fund and it helps us manage our tax rate.
And then we use the revenue off the Build America bonds to help us manage our tax rate.
And then of course fund balance.
Maybe I was supposed to talk about the defeasances now and the bond refunding that we're going
gonna have a nice at bat remember and then with the new money sale sorry I got
ahead of myself so this is where we are and this is the milestones that we have
to adopt our budget on July the 18th we're gonna ask y'all we're gonna
present to y'all a notice that's on the next page and it's going to be for to
to notify the public of our budget public meeting on August the 4th we'll
have to put a notice in the paper to let the public be aware of that and of course we'll
post it on our website and then on august the 15th we'll have a we'll have our budget public hearing
that's when the budget will be done and hopefully be adopted the following week
on august the 23rd and then in monday and september we'll be adopting the tax rates
This is the notice of public meeting and it's that August 630 on August the 15th
we'll have a meeting similar to this to discuss the the finalities of the budget.
Future considerations I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the you know
again if we had a bunch of students we're gonna need to have staff and so
we're gonna need to increase our expenditures but our revenue increases
with that there are we are in economic uncertain times I know the state's
having a problem with this budget we are in energy corridor the KDISD is located
or the energy corridor is in KDISD so there's some economic uncertainties
that it could affect enrollment and property values both of our two drivers
for revenue and so we're watching that I wish I had a crystal ball I'd probably
probably be 20 pounds lighter if I did.
Property value growth, again, that goes hand in hand with economic uncertainty.
And because of those apples, KDISD is living on the lag.
We're living on – that's a harsh term because it sounds like we're overspending,
but we're not.
But we are taking – we are – the funding formulas are to our advantage because of our
increase in property values.
And then if those stop growing it's what's written in my business is what's been referred to as the funding cliff
And so that's that's something that that that we do face, but we know that there's a cliff out there
That's that's that's the good news
state revenue budget
We talked about this back in March is uncertain stales taxes are down
Oil and gas
Revenue is down
The good news is in the state's budget, property values across the state, especially in the Dallas and Austin, San Antonio areas are really up.
And that's really providing a lot of relief to the state's budget is the property values.
Again, it's those apples.
Property value growth helps their budget.
We have the regular 85th session.
they won't be going into a session with the results of the lawsuit on their on
their backs but I think they'll be well aware that they're because the courts
made it very clear that they do have a fundamental problem with the way the
system is work and I want to say one more thing on the state revenue budget
Friday
The Supreme Court of Texas always comes out with their verdicts or whatever they call it.
They came out with their verdict on the Southwest Royalties lawsuit,
and the Southwest Royalties lawsuit, they were in favor.
They sided with the state.
The state got the good verdict, and that was a potential $4.8 billion loss to the state's revenue budget
and then an ongoing amount.
out and that that went to the favor of the state so that's that's a good relief
for the state's budget that something that we won't have to worry about when
it comes to hurting their their revenue stream in the 85th regular session
future considerations we're monitoring our expenditures as close as we can
expenditures per student and we're doing everything we can and and and so far
we're and we're not going to affect student instruction that's the most
important but we but there are things and I think you've seen evidence of it
just in this year with our lawns you know we had all that rain last fall and
the beginning of school our lawns didn't get the treatment that they needed and
that's one of the things that unfortunately we've had to be tight
with and and and of course we're going to prepare to open three schools again
next year one of those being a high school and then we'll also have the
agriculture facility the state second stadium and there's a couple of was one
more that I'm not I'm not grabbing with my mind right now but but those will be
increased costs that we'll have to incur next year and at this point I met a
President. Mr. Griffin. Mr. Smith, I'd like to thank you and your staff for the
outstanding job you do. It is such a privilege to know that our finances are
in good order and y'all do a great job keeping us briefed, updated, and really
prepared to answer any questions that the community has. I want to thank you. I
appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I echo what Mr. Griffin said. You know, there's
such strength in knowing that you guys are there monitoring every piece of
this and you keep us updated through the year and we appreciate that very much
I believe I had rookie mistake I was too close you'd made some reference or four
and a half billion dollars on the tax base that will not be certified but is
anticipated or under protest I didn't quite catch that there when we got our
with the one of the appraisal districts Fort Bend appraisal district we saw that
they provided us an estimate back in March on April 30th they provided us a
certified estimate we've seen a report that shows that in that certified
estimate there's a portion of that or four billion dollars as large amount
that has not been certified so that's typical with all three of the appraisal
districts this time of year and it's because of ARB's appraisal review boards
Okay, well that money if whatever percentage of that four and a half billion materializes,
will that money go into the district or will that just kind of hurt us in next year's funding?
We have made the assumption that we would not, that some of that the district will lose.
We'll lose.
We've made that assumption and it brought it down, our values down to a gain of $2.6 billion.
If we don't lose as much as we've taken off our game could be more than 2.6 billion dollars
But we are taking into account that they will probably lose some of that and we've taken that into account
Based as best we can off of historical trends
All right, and so all staffing levels for next year or have been decided previously, right? That's correct back in March based off the enrollment numbers
Okay
Mr. President?
Mr. Michalski.
Mr. Smith, I just want to say thank you as well.
I, too, appreciate the work you and your staff do.
I know it's a lot of work.
If you don't mind, I'd like you to go back several slides to that little graph, the growth
rate and assessed value.
This is really just once you get this quite.
Before the apples.
Okay, thank you.
That helps.
And really just kind of a request off of this.
This one?
Next one.
Sorry.
That was in several parts, right?
That one.
That one.
So a request, and I'm asking you to create that now, but if you report this kind of to us again,
I'd be interested to see the growth rate, the enrollment growth rate of the same period,
Because I believe what we see most of the time is that it is lower than what our property
tax assessed value growth is, which in effect kind of creates the lag that we talk about.
Is that not right?
Yes.
So that's just kind of a request for...
I'll make note of that.
I have a really cool slide that I think shows that well.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith?
Yes, ma'am.
You talked about, you know, my teacher friends are calling me tomorrow going, how much is the raise?
How much is the raise?
So you talked 1% to 2% for our employees.
And when will you know if it's 1% or 2%?
Because they care about that.
When we bring it to the board and you all adopt it.
August.
July.
July.
Yes.
We have a lot of work to do.
My staff and HR on pricing that exactly out.
and and it's not just so so we we hope to be able to give 2% and if we can't
build that into just the annual monthly 2% we for sure can build in that
additional percent I'd like to be able to do both but we just it's just still
too early to know early to know and the piece that mr. Scott asked you about is
part of that depending on how much of that money we keep is that part of the
reason you don't know yet it's just all of it you just know it's because you
to have all those there's a whole lot of stuff going in here and and and y'all may not know this
and may get in trouble but uh miss butterfield is having um she's had a family emergency and so
she's not been as in uh is in and uh we're a little behind without miss butterfield here
growing her work because she's so good at what she does and she's doing a yeoman's job but she
is kind of handicapped a little bit and uh um so we're we're a little bit behind on that but
but that's not her fault.
It's just a myriad of circumstances,
but she could keep us up if she were here, 100%.
And one final question.
The 1% to 2% is what you're budgeting,
looking at for increases for our teachers and non-teachers,
and we always, I mean, our plan is to treat them the same.
That has historically been our practice.
It's historically been our practice, which we like.
Everybody has different talents,
and we all know we're here for classroom instruction and once I've been a bus and and
Being a custodian is grass equal share and educating children
Okay, okay. Thank you very much. Thank you president
Mr.. DeBrell
Smith again, thank you
Knowing your predecessor was here
I used to say that there were five people in the state of Texas that understood how the state funded schools
And he was one and I think there are six
six after working with you the past several years.
So congratulations for being one of those six people in the state that understands this.
I want to have a question about that cliff that you talk about often.
With the state continuing to downgrade their budget estimates because of low oil prices,
do you think we'll see that cliff sooner, later?
Do we have enough in our fund balance if it comes sooner rather than later to make up that year?
Yes.
we have we have our fund balance and that's what's going to help us soften
the fall only from the cliff and that's what the fund balance is for and if we
didn't have that fund balance I would not have any here and I'd be 40 pounds
even heavier but but we do have a fund balance and that will soften our fall
for the cliff I guess the thing is is how you know if we if we we hit that
cliff how many years will it will it happen and then Katie my guess is it
wouldn't be long because of the growth that we've historically had we may not
hit it mr. deBrell we may not hit it but I think it would be negligent on my
behalf not to continue to say that there's a there's a storm out here or
there's a pothole in the road up ahead and we need to be aware of it so it
doesn't didn't catch us by surprise I think not only does the board need to be
aware of it but I appreciate you putting it out there that our community is aware
of that cliff and how the state kind of messes with our funding sometime I think
if we could keep all the money we were collected here and the state kept us
whole at the certain level we'd have a whole lot better budget years yes sir
Thank You mr. Smith you okay board members will go to the consent agenda
and the first item is mrs. Stevenson has a proposal for us on a district-wide
security upgrade package mr. Bremer even so how are you this evening good
Good evening, President Fox, Board members, Mr. Gunnell.
I have two items to bring before you this evening.
The first one is the consideration of the proposal for the district-wide security upgrade package number two.
You will remember that we brought package number one to you in April.
This is a continuation of the project to upgrade the security access and controls at all of our district facilities
and integrate the security systems so that eventually they will all work
together so this is package number two which was developed with the district's
emergency management team with the assistance of our PBK team with mr.
Brian hood leading the way so again this is a continuation this is package number
two after review of all the proposals submitted the recommendation is to award
to ATEC at a cost of $890,000.
That will include all the software, hardware,
and an owner's contingency to complete the project.
The project would start upon the award of the contract
by the Board of Trustees and is scheduled for completion
during the summer of 2016.
And this will be funded from the 2014 bond fund.
Okay.
Our next item is the scoreboard structure and enclosure
for the lambs to be purchased for the second activity, student activity facility.
Thanks Mr. Brimmer. Hi Mr. Rollins, we haven't seen you in a while. How are you? Good evening,
I'm well. How are you? Good to see you. Go right ahead. A lot of help. Okay.
This again is to consider future board approval of the
delivery method for the purchase of the scoreboard
structure, support structure and enclosure for the live action media
broadcast system or the lambs for the student activity facility
Second Stadium. General Government Code Chapter 2269 requires that any time the
district is proceeding with a public works construction project that the
Board of Trustees must approve the method of procurement before we go out
for bid. Any time the costs are anticipated to be more than $50,000. That
is the case with this particular structure, so we were asking for your
permission to go out for and use the competitive the competitive seal
proposal method with the criteria as listed in the document that I presented
to you once this is done the package will be brought back to you for approval
any questions board members thank you for being here tonight thank you okay
Okay, board members, we'll move to discussion action item 6.1,
discuss and consider future board approval of the discipline management plan
and student code of conduct for the 2016-17 school year.
As always, Mrs. Holland is the keeper of all knowledge when it comes to this,
and we're happy to have you here this evening.
Thank you.
Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, and Mr. Gunnell.
Fortunately, the legislature did not make a lot of changes in regard to discipline this year,
But so you'll see that many of the changes in the proposed plan are just to update legislative actions in areas such as truancy where you saw there that basically the legislature through House Bill 2398 repealed the law making truancy a criminal offense and instead created a civil enforcement procedures.
And so all of that was actually put in place this year, but was after the discipline plan was published.
So we have updated all of that.
Another emphasis that we have in addition to making sure that we have the most current policy,
we've tried to, as we always do, make notes about issues that parents were not clear on or that we might have done a better
job with. And
one of the things that came out of that was in regard to privacy codes.
We want to make sure that our parents really know the codes that they're
selecting. We have added some information to several of the codes that have been
existing codes and with the help of technology we've also added some new
codes. So if you have a parent for example who selects an A code they're
indicating that their child's directory information can be made public. That
means that if we have a public information request, their child's name
address and phone number and other information about the child can be
released to that for that inquiry. They're also able to be on social media,
be in publications that the district produces for marketing and other
purposes. If the parent selects an AS, which is a new code, it means you can
share my child's information in the school, you can share them, they can use,
they can be in directories, they can be in do bills, they can be on athletic programs or whatever,
but they're not to use or be on any social media platform. So that was a new code. We also created
another code which was AM, which meant yes you can share my child's information but the restriction
there is that it cannot be shared with military or institutions of higher learning. And some people
say well why are you saying military and institutions of higher learning and
because by law we have to treat those two groups equally so you can't say that
you restrict one and not the other but we hope that the changes in the privacy
codes will better help our parents to fully understand the choices that
they're making so we hope that those will be helpful changes you know that we
We also had House Bill 910 pass, which was the open carry.
And we've talked to the board about that a little bit before.
Our policy still dictates that employees are not allowed to bring any handgun
or any type of firearm onto school property during the instructional day
or while there is any kind of extracurricular activity taking place.
So nothing there has changed.
And it doesn't really matter if the person has a concealed weapon or they're carrying it in the open in a belt or shoulder
holster. They cannot carry it into a school building. They cannot carry it into a board meeting.
They cannot carry it to a voting place and certainly not in any vehicle operated by the district.
The same thing applies in the open passageways between buildings. We treat those just like we do internal walkways.
So even though we may have employees who are licensed handgun carriers, they are
not to bring those onto property. Most of the other ads, as I said, have been really
to update statute or to clarify things for parents. We have made a few changes
in regard to the charts for discipline. For example, we've added overnight
suspension at the elementary level, which is really nothing more than a mandatory
conference and sometimes that's a very effective tool for getting the parents
in the school to work together. Much of the emphasis as you know in discipline
as with attendance or any other area now is really the emphasis on prevention and
intervention and you will see that throughout our policy. We also have added
added restorative circles for the secondary campuses, for those campuses who have trained
individuals to implement those circles. And I will say that the campuses who have been
implementing the positive behavior intervention systems and those who have been doing Safe
in Civil Schools and have been working with restorative discipline, we are seeing reductions
in the discipline on those campuses. Pretty significant reductions on some. We don't have all of our data yet from this year, but it's very evident when we walk through the schools that we're seeing results from those programs, and it's really exciting for us to watch.
So those are the main changes that we have made in discipline. We've made one other change. You
may recall last year we brought to the board a recommendation to try a dual type placement at
the OAC. Some students being placed on 60-day removals and some 75. After talking with Becky
Tucker and Dr. Robertson, we really came to the conclusion that that was not necessarily the
why is this choice? Part of that deals with the fact that we found there was
more disproportionality. Different people had different opinions of what might
constitute discipline that should account for the 75 days. Another factor
that came into play was the fact that a large number of our removals had to do
with either marijuana or alcohol possession. We're very blessed right now
to have a counselor at the Opportunity Awareness Center who is trained to do
drug counseling. And they are trying very hard at the OAC to implement some of the restorative
discipline practices. And we really feel that for some of those students, you're not going
to affect the kind of change they need in that shorter period of time. So we are going
back to the 75-day placements, but we will still have the early release options and we'll
review those students at 30 days, 45 days, and 60 days. So they will still have opportunity
for those other returns. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.
Madam President. Mr. Griffin. Ms. Holland, when parents bring their kids into
the school, is all this information contained in the student
handbook or is it just one of multiple pages when they bring their student in
for the first day of school? Actually they just have an acknowledgement form
in their packet the first day of school. All of our discipline materials are
online for the parents so that it's easily accessible. We do have some hard
copies for those parents who request them but for the most part our parents
like having them online it seems so but they are easily accessible to the
parents. Thank you.
you. Are you doing a formal evaluation of the restorative discipline process? Mr.
Scott we are not at this time because we really are just beginning to pilot some
of those strategies at some of the different schools as far as any
widespread type function with the restorative practices, but we we're doing
a lot with our response to intervention, we're doing a lot with our positive
behavior and interventions strategies, and with our safe and civil schools,
which are all behavior intervention types of techniques. And for those we're
seeing, and I hope to be able to bring you some numbers later, but we don't have
have all of our PEMS data quite yet, but we are seeing reductions in the number of students
who are being placed in ISS and OSS at those campuses where we have these practices in
place.
Are we going to be able to see the level of complaints?
I mean FERPA clean, of course, but to say that there are less referrals to ISS, there
are several ways to send fewer kids to ISS.
One is just not to send them there.
Another way is that there has been actual improvement that does not harm the instruction of the classroom.
So are we going to be able to see the kinds of evaluation that you're doing when we look at these numbers?
I don't know exactly, you know, what kind of evaluations you would like to see.
I know that those principals who are at those locations who have effectively implemented these strategies
and their teachers are giving us praise every day and I say we I mean all of the
individuals who have had a part in that I can think of several examples Diane
Winburn for example going over and visiting that school and part of that
involves all of the teachers learning common language using common language
having common expectations so as the students move throughout the school they
They know the expectations throughout the school.
They have common language about what things mean.
And restorative discipline is a lot about building
relationships rather than just all punitive action.
It's really focused on prevention and intervention.
We spoke with a young man at one of our high schools who
had been a gang member and who was heavy into drugs.
And he is now helping to run some of these restorative
circles.
and he said it's changed his life. So we see those stories. I don't know if we
have really quantitative type evaluations from any of that that we can
share with you, but we certainly can look at numbers in terms of the reductions in
some of those areas. Then one final thing, there's there's the 25-day allocation to
the ISS. Is there any informal pressure placed upon principals or campuses not
to come close to 25? Are there informal rules that come under the policy? We do have some
informal rules and that is that the principal, normally we say a student
should not be placed in ISS more than three days at a time because if they are
placed there because they're disruptive and you can get them back into control
in one day, there's no need to have a missed class for three. But we do know that there
are situations sometimes where we have students who need a greater period of time out of class.
The principal has the authority to approve up to ten days if they had a student who had
a situation of some kind. We do have a few students over the course of the year where
they may be waiting for a special ed evaluation. There may be any number of factors. A principal
can call my office and say look we've got a case we're going to go over the 25
days and we we work with them to do that but as the standard rule is the state
has really put some pressure on us to reduce these numbers okay if a teacher
uses her law her his or her authority under the statute to remove a kid from
campus do we have numbers on how many times that happens during the year and
the discipline subsequent discipline referrals of that child I'm sorry if I
see if a teacher removes a student a disruptive student and invoke state law
to say this this student cannot be in my classroom yes studies that would
indicate subsequent behavior kind of like we're doing on the restorative we
to be truthful we've had very very few teacher removals in the time that I've
been in Katy. Our teachers just don't give up. We have, if we have students who
are students with disabilities who are in a class are experiencing some
emotional problems, they're not going to go through teacher removal. If a teacher
feels like that's an inappropriate placement, it's going to go back to an
ARD committee. But we have response to intervention. That is a resource for
teachers. We encourage teachers if they see a pattern behaviors developing with
with a child, they immediately refer them to our RTI coordinator. And there's a team
then that can help them to identify some strategies and work with that teacher and the student
to try to make things better for them in the classroom. Our goal is to keep our kids in
the classroom, keep them on their campuses so that we can close some of those achievement
gaps that we've all talked about. But if they're not in class, they're not going to get the
instruction.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Mihalski?
Ms. Holland, thank you so much for explaining the changes to us.
I want to have a question around the new privacy codes.
I just kind of want to understand how these kind of work in practice.
For instance, if you have a campus-wide activity that's going to be either videoed, a lot of
pictures posted on social media, how do you determine kids that opt out of that or parents
that opt out of that and removing them and all of that?
Well, we actually have several things that we do.
Some of the activities on a campus are public events.
If you're having a field day, you know, anybody can show up,
and there can't be that much expectation of privacy.
We cannot ask a parent why they have selected a particular code,
but if there is an event that's taking place, like, for example,
occasionally some elementaries will have two choir programs.
They'll have one during the day for the other students,
and the parents can attend, but with the understanding this is not an open session.
We don't take pictures.
We don't videotape.
But if you want to videotape, you can videotape at the evening performance, as an example.
If everybody knows that, and if I am a parent who is selecting an ENCODE
and I have a very good reason that I do not want my children photographed or anything,
they have the option of making the choice not to come.
So we try to do some things like that.
We try to be knowledgeable.
The teachers, I think most of our teachers check early in the year to find out among
their class who has As, who has Ns, who has Os.
And the teachers are pretty aware of that.
Our challenge is with some of the marketing types of things that campuses want to do,
where you want to send Twitter and Instagrams and that kind of thing, they have to be very
knowledgeable because we really do have to protect those N codes.
We really don't know why parents select them.
We may have parents in this size community where they're in some type of protective order. They may be the sole
Possessor or the sole parent for the child, you know as a result of a divorce decree in court order
So they may be hiding from a previously abusive spouse
We don't know what their circumstances are, but those are the kids we worry about
Really we refer back to these codes. We don't use like opt-out forms or things like that
Yes, the parent does have the right to opt out of some activities.
Some will choose to opt out of a particular instructional class for whatever reason.
And they do have the right to opt out.
Now, if it is a state mandate, they have to understand in some cases you're going to be tested over this material whether you attend the class or not.
But we do have some opt-out options for them.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
May I follow up there?
But an opt-out form is not a substitute for the ENCODE, Mrs. Holland, is that right?
It's really not a substitute for the ENCODE.
The opt-out forms can be used for a variety of things that may not involve identifying the child.
So we have other types of opt-out situations other than just whether or not I want to participate in a public event.
Thank you very much. Any other questions?
Thank you for your presentation. Board members, Mr. Scott, Mr. Griffin, is there any objection to moving this to consent agenda for next week?
Okay, so moved. 6.2. Mr. Smith, you have the next four, looks like. You're just going to stay up there. You're ninth.
Thank you, Ms. Fox.
Budget amendments under 6.2, please.
Again, I'm filling in for Ms. Butterfield on these budget amendments.
There are three amendments, one for the CTE STEM camp, the asset forfeiture procedures
and some athletic tournaments that we've hosted.
Those expenditures have revenues that offset them, so that has no effect on our budget.
line. There is an increase in the budget of $25,594 for technology related to all
the portable building moves we have. We're moving a lot of portable buildings
this summer and in order to make ends meet we've really had to scramble but in
order to make technology that we have to code that to a certain function and there
there was no money in that function to do that. So we're amending the technology budget
for again for fiber optics to the relocations to those portable buildings. The general fund
also has various amendments that you see before you that are moving money from one function to
another. And again the approval of this will affect the general fund balance by $25,594
and was in the summary that I provided in the budget update earlier. As far as
the food service fund, last month as part of the May Creek High School kitchen, the
May Creek High School renovation, that budget was in order to try to make
ends meet there. We used, we plan on using $730,000 from the food service fund, fund
fund balance. We won't spend that this year, but since it's our practice to
follow the month after the board meeting, we are showing that and we are going to
amend the budget and food service and it'll be in the original budget next
year once once we have that adopted in August. And then also again last month we
approved two projects, one in May Creek High School and Katy Junior High, both of
which decrease our 2014 project savings by $4,978,000.
This is just ratifying those contracts and putting them in the budget.
Mr. President. Mr. Griffin. Mr. Smith, Katy High School got to play in the state
tournament this year for football and was fortunate enough to win. We get some
revenue from the UIL for that participation. When does that typically
show up in the amendments?
It'll be in the final revenue budget in August. Right now it's tied up with
$7 million of other miscellaneous revenue and we do get a portion of the
gate, not from UIL, but we get a portion of the gate from those events and
and it'll be in the final in August.
And then our annual financial audit,
we'll have that in one of the schedules as a line item
for the amount of athletic revenue that we have.
It'll stick out.
Thank you, sir.
Okay, thank you.
The next item is the approval of grant ratifications.
Okay.
All right, before you have a list of ratifications for grants, these grants are things that we have just applied for because they've just been released by the Texas Education Agency or are in the process of applying for.
Most of these are entitlement grants.
of the list of 18 million seven hundred forty nine thousand four hundred seventy
four dollars that you have the vast majority of them are 17 million eight
hundred fifty thousand of them are federal funds so we talked about having
about twelve million dollars of federal funds in our general fund budget that's
a very very small piece of our general fund budget or about two percent of our
general fund budget this is outside of the general fund these are accounted for
and special revenue funds and they have a significant portion of federal monies
again a 17.8 million dollars that you have before you the other there's 680
million dollars in state grants and then about two hundred twenty thousand dollars
in various miscellaneous grants the two big ones that you have our idea B that's
for special needs children idea B is individuals Disability Education Act and
And the other big one is title, ESEA, the title programs.
And they go down to, all the way down to a local Walmart community grant for one of our, for Katy High School.
And then also there's a description of all those grants and what they're for that you have in front of you as well.
That's attached to our agenda.
Any questions?
Board members, any objection to moving items 6.2 and 6.3 to consent?
So moved.
Okay, and so now we have item 6.4, which is discuss and consider future board approval or denial of a request for waiver of penalty and interest on property taxes.
Mr. Smith?
I think I've been in public education almost 18 years or just over 18 years now.
And this is the first time I ever remember something like this coming, especially to our board.
If it did, it's just so long ago, I don't remember it.
But as you know, Fort Bend County Tax Office collects our taxes on both Fort Bend and Waller Counties.
And for the first time that I can remember, since we've no longer housed the tax office,
we have the need for a delinquent penalty and interest being presented to the board.
Basically the each month if this happens in Fort Bend County the recommendation
by the tax assessor collectors makes their recommendation and the Fort Bend
County as I understand that the Commissioner's Court listens to it and
approves or does denies because this is Waller County they didn't want to do
that and they've been asked they've asked that information to go to our
board. What we're talking about is one case. It's a $690 delinquency. The
individual bought the home and the previous mortgage company didn't do what
they were supposed to do and the taxes didn't get paid by the new mortgage
company because the new mortgage company didn't know where to send the taxes, etc,
because the old mortgage company stepped on that ability to do so.
It is the responsibility of the taxpayer to make sure that all the taxes are paid,
even though the escrow does it most of the time on autopilot,
and that's why they are taking a stance that they don't want to waive them.
I spoke with Mr. Pawanka, and he said that for this amount and for that type of circumstance,
it's our call.
We've waived them like that in the past. And that's the history of it. If we want to skip this agenda item, the next agenda item is something that we've discussed and been proposed.
And basically to avoid y'all having to do this again, it's the first time in forever that I can remember anyway that we've had to bring this to the board.
but if the next item would give us the administration the ability to waive or
to do not waive without having to bring that that information of the board each
time it comes up in the future there is a $1,000 limit to that so if it's over a
thousand dollars it would still come back to the board but most of them are
going to be de minimis like that like this one but it's only ever happened one
time in 18 years. To my knowledge, I seem to recall one shortly after we did away
with the tax office that and that disappeared. It didn't come to the board.
I don't know how that got taken care of. I don't remember. But this, we've been
told that it needs to come to the board or the action to where administratively
we can we can do that ourselves. Okay board members, so you have 6.4 and 6.5
for our discussion what would you like to do about those any discussion mr.
Scott I would personally like to see this and maybe if at least you could
hold it to Monday or to our next regular board meeting even if it's episodic I
still think as a board member I would like to see when penalties and fees are
waived it's not the format that I expected but this is a slow boat it's
not something like you know water is coming in the building and I need
emergency authority okay this this doesn't happen fast and if it happens
this infrequently I'm willing to look at it I really would feel better looking at
this kind of documentation than just passing it on.
Madam President, I'm a little confused on what 6.4 is the recommendation to waive the penalty or not to or just really you're presenting it and want the board to discuss it?
Presenting it and the Fort Bend County Tax Office, their recommendation would be to not waive the penalty based on everything that they do and everything that the processes that they work down
by their recommendation would be to not waive the penalty but they can't make
that recommendation to the fort penn commissioners court okay I understand
well I guess my I don't know that I have a strong opinion one way or the other on
that however I would say I didn't agree with mr. Scott on the it's the board's
duty to kind of look at these anything tax related and given that it's not if
If this was coming up quite often and with the same result over and over,
I could see giving that to an administrative function,
but I actually believe the taxpayers in this community look to us for the tax matters,
so I would kind of rather those come before the board when they come up.
Mr. Gunnell.
If I could, Madam President, I think the first thing we need to probably resolve then
is the 6.4 question as to whether we've moved forward
to approve or deny the request.
And Mr. Smith mentioned that Fort Bend,
who's collecting for Waller,
suggested to hold the line and deny it.
And basically in their letter,
and I believe you have a copy of it,
talked about there was nothing that the county did wrong
to create this error.
However, Chris Smith also talked about Mr. Polanka and how he looked at it.
It's one of those things that, well, you know, maybe it's one of those things that you could consider waiving.
And we still get the tax payment.
It's just a penalty and the interest that's at stake.
The gentleman who applied for it, I believe, is 67 years old, too.
and and I think it's just one of those errors and certainly be my recommendation to
approve the
request waiver
When president mr. DeBrell looking at the letter do we know anything else about?
Mr. Wynn and his wife's situation or then
Obviously they must be fixed income. What else do we know about their financial situation?
Just what's in the letter.
Madam President.
Mr. Scott.
The problem is there is a section 33011 of the code, and it cites specific causes for which you can waive penalty and interest.
There's a whole section on waiving penalty and interest.
If there was ever a case that probably should be waived, this is it based on what I'm reading.
But on the other hand, I think tonight, I don't know if the – it's not supposed to really be a judgment from what I understand.
It's supposed to be the statute.
And I'm not sure that there is a statutory cause that has been cited.
So it may well be one.
I don't think hardship is is a factor in the code
I just think we need to look and see if there's some statutory citation that permits us to set a precedent of waiving a
Penalty and interest even though I feel terrible for these people
So your recommendation is to wait until next week to make this decision, yeah, just give a little more time
Okay, so it will not be, 6.4 will not be moved to consent agenda and we will have an action item for it on next Monday's meeting.
6.5?
That's so much.
Do you all, what's the will of the board to keep the, just keep it here?
Is that what I'm hearing?
Okay.
So just future approval.
So we will not be moving 6.5 to consent agenda. This will not be a pretty
Okay
Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Smith
6.6 discuss and consider future board approval of the nomination of a Katy independent school district board member to the Texas Association of School
boards
TASB Board of Directors for Region 4, Position E. This item is our school
district is large enough that we have our own director. Yes a director for our
school district that represents just us at the TASB board. This position was
formerly held by Joe Adams and so they're asking us to make a nomination
of someone to fill this position and that's what we're here to talk about.
Good night.
Madam President?
I don't want to jump ahead but if it's okay, I would like to make the motion to recommend
that the Board of Trustees approves the nomination of Henry DeBraille to fill the Region IV position
E of the Texas Association of School Boards, TASB Board of Directors, the large district
seat allocation for Katy Independent School District.
Okay. Any discussion?
I'll need a second.
So this will be a future, because it's listed as future board approval, this will be on next week's agenda.
And the nomination of Henry DeBrell will be added there.
And I would like to offer my support of your nomination, Mr. Scott.
Mr. DeBrell serves us very well in so many areas and one of the things that he is a master trustee
He's taken the leadership TASB class which is a year-long trek around the state learning about issues
that better affect the children of Texas and it's a lengthy process and he finished in
2015 15, okay, and so he's made several presentations at the TASB
conventions. And he cares very deeply about
issues that are addressing
Texas when they come to education. It's one of the things he's really good
at. He's a great thinker. He's a problem solver. And I think
he would be a great asset to the TASB board. He's worked
and maintained a lot of relationships through that. We just went to a
leadership TASB graduate class
last weekend and you know he had great connections and great relationships
there I echo you I think he'd be a great person to fill the role
I'm president mr. Mahal school just once I concur with everything you both said
and represent us well mr. Dubrow my friend thank you any objection to
moving this to consent agenda for next week
Okay, so moved. Okay, our discussion item for tonight, 7.1, is discuss the naming of the student activity facility Second Stadium.
Madam President, if I could, sorry I cut you off early. The Bond Committee had a lot of discussions about this and I think their primary desire was to sell the naming rights.
Okay. And I think we should allow our new superintendent every opportunity and once he exhausts all opportunities, if he can't find one, then to allow the administration to bring that item to the board with a recommendation.
There is a very good procedure that the administration uses and it allows the community ample time
to put a case forward and since the stadium has that chain or represents the entire district,
I think it's only fair that if nobody's willing to buy the naming rights that the community
has every opportunity to come up with a name they want and stay paid for it.
That's what I got to say.
Thank you.
I was going to say, this is just for discussion.
What is your pleasure?
Madam President.
Mr. DeBrell.
I wouldn't disagree with the opportunity of selling the naming rights.
I think that would be a wonderful way to bring revenue into the district.
But I think we should talk about what's a reasonable amount.
Realizing that this will be a highly visible facility,
that it will be mentioned numerous times I mean I attend football games in the
fall up there multiple times a weekend and I can tell you for a fact that
several times every year you will have channel 2 channel 13 channel 11 the two
box out there reporting and they will say live from Rhodes Stadium so what is
their coverage on that one weekend what is their coverage when it's repeated
Throughout that same weekend when it's repeated on the Sunday shows that covers high school sports
All of that has a value
so
Not only for the sense of our own pride in this facility, which I think we all have but
I'm not opposed to selling it. I don't think it should be cheap
We have we have to seriously consider
What type of exposure your name across the top of that stadium will get you across the Houston area in?
comparison to other advertising costs rest since I know for a fact in Greater Houston in Houston on the corner of 59 and
610 one of the most frequently traveled
Intersections in the United States. There's a billboard that has three different billboards on one unit
Some of you may have seen it each one of those billboards go for ten thousand dollars a month that one
billboard unit is
$30,000 a month which comes out to a lot of money per year
So, you know, I think our stadium is worth a whole lot more and some little billboard on the corner of 16 and 15
Mr. Maholsky.
First, in this discussion, I do want to convey, Mrs. Vann was not able to be here, but she did actually want me to convey something on her behalf with regards to this discussion.
And so she wanted us to consider a permanent name for the facility.
She she knows that the naming rights sometimes have a duration
And that was just her opinion. So I'm throwing that out there and then I'll talk about mine
Which I do believe I concur with what?
Mr. Griffin said about the the bond committee and the desire to go out and potentially sell the naming rights to
this facility and
certainly it is a you know will be one of one of the if not the highest profile building within our district and
and certainly I believe it is our duty almost to go out and see what the market will bear with regards to that.
I think there are some potential comparables and maybe even a recent one,
and I somewhat concur with Mr. DeBrell as well.
We should be expecting top-of-the-market type pricing with regards to that,
but I do think it's it's definitely in our interest as stewards for the for the
taxpayers of this community to entertain all options and obviously that that
could be desirable given the right circumstances I do believe we're kind of
at that point with regards to construction and and and signage and
everything else and planning for where those names may be and what other
marketing opportunities are available in the facility that you know it is
probably time if we're going to do that to go to go to market with that right
now and and see where the interested parties are I agree we have an
interesting unique situation in Katy we have two stadiums side-by-side does not
exist anywhere else in Texas for a school district as I understand it and
so while there is a recent neighboring school district who had as a new name
for their stadium it's that's a little bit similar but we have side-by-side
stadiums and a lot of traffic so ours would of course bring increased demand
and maybe increased value and I agree with the board very much agree with mr.
griffin if we choose not to sell it that our community needs to name it they paid for it
it's theirs they should name it so i appreciate that waiting for our new superintendent is uh
something i wanted to do as well but my understanding is that the far along they are
and what they're doing they need some direction from us and so this is just a beginning to um ask
our great marketing team to see what's out there and and to or mr. in
connection with mr. canal to to kind of bring us some ideas but they wanted
direction from us first like what are we thinking they don't want to go get all
this stuff and then we're like oh that's not what we had in mind so this
discussion is only that to give some feedback what are we thinking because we
represent the values of our community and so I'm interested in seeing what the
the options are with no promises.
Mr. Madam President, if I might add,
you know, there are multiple potential,
I guess, opportunities with that site,
especially when she brought up the complex
with two stadiums on it.
I don't my personal opinion is I don't feel like
we should handcuff the marketing team either in any way.
It's like bring us the best alternative,
whatever that may be, whether it's,
you know, naming the whole complex and the stadium.
I don't know. I don't know what that could mean, but I don't think I think all options are potentially on the table
Mr. Cannell I
I think the administration is going to need a little more direction in a little bit of time
You know historically the naming of facilities has belonged squarely to the board
There's a whole lot. We have to consider. There's the potential tax implications of
naming a stadium that's been built with tax-free bonds there's certainly the
opportunity to discuss those that have a presence in Katy compared to those that
are outside Katy who are just willing to bring bring forward money and we can
present those options probably some options within a month or so don't know
if this is the time to discuss the possibility of a you know some kind of
working committee to go through it historically hey you have for for naming rights um i would
hate for the administration to uh to go it alone come up with ideas that are i'd like to get
something that uh seems pretty practical and uh you'll get some get some feedback along the way
madam president mr griffin mr goodell were you looking for like for community input
like like a committee say like the bond oversight committee since they worked on
it are you looking for their kind of input or just an administrative group a
naming committee like we normally do for schools possibly but well or for like
you know you just mentioned to pursue different odd topics or names I mean are
you just like a little working group is what you're looking for I think
initially we we have to talk some some type of working group you already have
in place something the community is used to as far as right ours naming rights go
and I would I would hate for the administration to be the one coming up
unilaterally with with coming up with with recommendations although we could
do that I'd hate to be here two months from now coming up with something that
really isn't acceptable to the board so I think the board's had a presence on
those boards to those come those community committees and I think that
would be invaluable okay that's a good idea is that okay with the board to do a naming committee
of sorts from community members okay mr scott oh i like your idea name the complex and name the two
fields i'm for that i think we have a lot of opportunities there and i think when we uh bless
your heart for us for asking because when you get that community committee there they're going to
come out with so many ideas here doesn't even think of them so that'll be great i mean we have
field houses we have the fields we have press boxes we have concession stands i personally
think it should be called fox sports i think that's logical right so um okay we'll work on
a committee for you and bring that to you and let you all anything else if i could madam president
Ben Rollins, could you step to the microphone, please?
He's our Director of Special Events, Reservations, and Marketing.
And I think he's been thinking about this for probably a year or so, for the last year or so.
I think he even sent a memo to the board maybe about a year ago.
And it's great to see we're at the point now of construction where we're seriously talking about naming rights.
And I'm going to ask you, if you could, Ben, to just give us your vision for about 30 or 45 seconds.
and then tell us other concerns we should have.
Okay.
Well, good evening, President Fox, members of the board,
and Mr. Gannell.
I appreciate this opportunity.
I do have some things on here,
and some of these ideas have already been mentioned.
So thank you for doing some of my homework for me.
But you're right, you could,
there's so many options on the table.
I mean, and there's pros and cons of all of them, right?
You can name the entire complex, as you mentioned.
You can name just the student activity facility,
Second Stadium.
You could offer naming rights on the field.
you know you could not offer not accept any corporate naming rights you know it
is feasible we could name stadium or the complex and be able to realize the
advertising revenue and you could also keep with the traditional naming of
facilities as president Fox mentioned with your press boxes your field houses
your field so I guess my point is there's just a lot of ideas out here and
I appreciate mr. Canales idea you know we could we really think outside the box
here I think and some of the other feedback I've heard as well we are Katie
we have a very very tangible asset there and we're gonna have a lot of big
special events there and I think you know if we're given the task and we're
we're told okay go for it and go solicit a corporate sponsor I think we'd do very
well mr. Rollins let me ask a couple of questions and the reason this is on the
agenda I wanted the public to be aware that we're beginning to talk about it so
So I hope they watch the video from this meeting and then give us, you know, they'll reach out to all of us and give the feedback.
So the stadium nearby us was named, it was a 10-year agreement, is that right?
Yes, ma'am.
The research we've been able to ascertain, right, it was a 10-year deal for $150,000 a year to name the football stadium portion of that particular complex.
Okay.
Okay. So, okay. So, and in 10 years, then it changes over to someone else, possibly, or they renew their agreement or however that happens. So, okay. So, that's what Mrs. Vann was talking about. She preferred a permanent name sponsored by somebody else, maybe, or a permanent name and give rights to something else. So, that was her view on that. Okay. I appreciate that.
any other comments and okay awesome I appreciate the input we're gonna get
y'all a committee and we're gonna hear back from you when you have things ready
for us so we'll I mean putting a committee together means involving dates
I'm sorry but I'm talking off the off the cuff here because you know we hadn't
talked about this before so putting
committee together in the summer what's your timeline that's my question well
the naming rights is kind of the first domino that falls working with HKS and
they've been a tremendous partner with us and work it along with the okay and
and working on coming up with your naming rights so that's the first thing
you have to look at because when we put together our packages that's the first
one so that's kind of you know that's your top-of-the-line package so if you
don't have naming rights them any other packages that you have that could change
the value of what we're trying to ask for for those additionally with the
naming rights if somebody comes in and they're a very very high dollar sponsor
they might for example they might want the naming rights and they might might
want if they wanted to commit those kind of dollars they might want all the
advertising packages or half of them so timeline I agree with you mrs. Fox that
we're at a point where we need to solidify the naming rights discussion
whether it's yes or no or whichever way we decide to go we kind of at that
critical path on being able to figure that out so we can formulate all the other packages because
there will be but 60 days get you there for an august decision would that be enough time
i just don't see any way of getting us ready there by july do you think well like my question
was going to be how long do you think you would need to run the process if we said go
and and fairly well defined what we were looking for um are you are you looking at doing
RFP type process or that's something that has been discussed internally right in order to
Get the most attention awareness on make sure we don't leave anybody out
We could do that
So I think mrs. Fox is 60 days or you know that could be workable
Mr.. We could do that
madam president
If we could you know this is kind of kind of new to all of us although
we've given it some thought uh we certainly need to come up with some type of charter and
some kind of assumptions that we need to talk about and uh i don't know if it's out of the
realm of possibility that we could add this for a discussion topic for uh for next week and perhaps
we might be able to have something a little more solid to present to you and then of course uh who
the membership's going to be uh along with that maybe uh you know expedited timelines if that's
the the board's desires okay let's bring it back next week for more discussion
and then any more input that we have because this is it was just a very
organic discussion no we thought put into okay if you all have any input give
it me or else we'll just bring it back for next week thank you mr. Rollins
Thank you.
I hope you weren't planning on a vacation for the summer.
You work at the Merrill Center, there's no vacation in the summer.
It's our time for our open forum.
At this time, the Board of Trustees will hear from patrons.
An open forum is established by Board policy.
The first 20 speakers who signed up for at least 15 minutes before this meeting began
will be allowed to speak.
A maximum of 30 minutes has been allocated for this forum.
The time will be equally divided among those who have signed up. However, the
maximum amount of time for any one speaker is three minutes. A time clock is
visible on the podium and each speaker will see the time remaining. If speakers
wish to share non-confidential written material with the board, ten copies
should be provided by the Secretary for Board Services or Chief
Officer for Communications, Government Relations, Administrative Support. Written
material will be given to the board after the meeting. Due to posting
requirements of the Open Meetings Act, the Board is able to respond only to a
statement that is related to a posted agenda item. Speakers shall limit comments
to issues that can be presented in a public forum. Student discipline, specific
student issues, and personnel matters shall be addressed through appropriate
channels established by policy and the presiding officer shall determine
whether a speaker has attempted to solve a matter through these proper channels.
Patrons who have not provided their first and last name will not be allowed
to speak as i announce your name please come to the podium state your first and last name for the
record and you will get a one minute uh notification that you have one minute left from our sergeant
at arms mr de brel at the end our first we have only one speaker this evening and our speaker is
Don Durgin. Good evening Mr. Durgin, we're glad you're here. I see what
you're going to speak about and you can speak about an issue but not not
employees by name or anything. Okay. Okay. I appreciate it. My name is Don Durgin. You
may have seen an email from me previously. Every board member received
it. Mr. Scott your link wasn't working on the website so I found you otherwise and
and sent an email to you.
I appreciate your response.
There were approximately 30 KISD seniors
that received a three-day suspension
on the Tuesday of finals week,
which prevented them from taking finals
and participating in the graduation ceremony.
As one of the parents of all these students
that were affected,
I can say that the the parents all were in agreement that that senior prank was
disruptive but we also compared it to other incidences in the school district
such as bringing your dog to school and didn't find it any more disruptive or
dangerous or or potentially damaging to the school or anything like that any
more than bringing a dog to the school. I will note that the that there was no
damage to the school and there were no injuries from the senior prank. It was
raucous and rowdy but we also recognized that probably no more so than what you
might find at a pep rally or some event where you're celebrating a win or win or
something like that. I noticed in the YouTube videos that I saw that there was
a lot of school spirit displayed in that and but I also recognized that the
administration or the school administration tried desperately to put
an end to that to that activity. I hope I'm representing the rest of the parents
at this time, but we contend that that punishment was too severe.
Took away a graduation ceremony for several students.
And we requested a review by the KDISD administration,
and we also submitted grievances.
We were told that the board's discipline management plan
prevented the administration from considering the matter.
that the final say was afforded only to the principal of the school we request
that the incident be thoroughly reviewed and that a statement or some after-the-fact
statement if the board can make it make their opinion known or if they if the
administration can make their opinion known on that on that punishment we'd
appreciate that we also request that the policy be reviewed as it does not seem
appropriate to leave something like that in the call of one person such as a principal
thank you so much for being here we appreciate you very much
okay having no further business um we have a future meeting next week june 27th i'll be a
regular board meeting there being no further business before the board this meeting is
is adjourned at 8.30 PM.
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
MOTION 001 · AGENDA 3.1
PassedI move that the Board of Trustees approves the personnel report as recommended by the superintendent in Closed Meeting.
5 Yes · 0 No
| Trustee | Vote |
|---|---|
| bryan-michalsky | Yes |
| charles-griffin | Yes |
| george-scott | Yes |
| henry-dibrell | Yes |
| rebecca-fox | Yes |