Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this work-study meeting of the Board of Trustees of KD Independent School District to order.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, March 24, 2025
Find something in this meeting
Search every word of the automated transcript. A result moves the recording to the moment the words were spoken.
In this meeting
The headings and the descriptions beneath them are the district’s own words, taken from its index of this recording.
- 0:00 to 0:28 1. Call to Order
- 0:28 to 1:15 2. Pledges of Allegiance
- 1:15 to 5:34 3. Oath of Office
- 5:34 to 10:54 4. Public Comment
- 10:54 to 11:22 5. Closed Meeting
- 11:22 to 12:11 6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
- 12:11 to 54:13 7.1 2025-2026 Budget Update
- 54:13 to 57:03 7.2 Harris County Appraisal District election results.
- 57:03 to 1:08:59 7.3 Attendance Boundary Modification (ABM) for the 2025 - 2026 School Year
- 1:08:59 to 1:15:00 8.1 Discuss and consider Board Approval of the January 2025 Financial Reports.
- 1:15:00 to 1:16:03 8.2 Discuss and consider Waller County Appraisal District Board of Director Vacancy nomination
- 1:16:03 to 1:18:07 8.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the March 2025 budget amendments.
- 1:18:07 to 1:25:31 8.4 Discuss and consider classroom security enhancement for student and staff safety. (Texas Government Code 551.076: To consider the deployment, or specific occasions for implementation, of security personnel or devices; or a security audit.)
- 1:25:31 to 1:26:23 8.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the paving of the Hutsell Elementary School parking lot.
- 1:26:23 to 1:26:58 8.6 Discuss and consider Board approval of a sanitary sewer easement to Harris County Municipal Utility District (MUD) No. 495 associated with the Agricultural Sciences Center.
- 1:26:58 to 1:31:07 8.7 Discuss and consider three Board Resolutions authorizing participation in the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program in the following areas Assessment and Evaluation Projects (two grant applications) and Workforce Development Projects.
- 1:31:07 to 1:32:00 8.9 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a low attendance waiver as recommended by administration.
- 1:32:00 to 1:36:11 8.10 Discuss and consider future Board approval of an amendment to the 2024-2025, 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 Instructional Calendars to address a staff holiday based on the use of bad weather days.
- 1:36:11 to 1:37:13 8.11 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of Policy Update 124.
- 1:37:13 to 2:01:25 8.12 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the campus staffing plan for the 2025 - 2026 school year.
- 2:01:25 to 2:01:47 9. Information Items
- 2:01:47 to 2:02:01 10. Future Meetings
Full transcript
Automated transcript, not human verified. It is a way to find a passage, not a quotation.
1. Call to Order
Today is Monday, March 24, 2025, and the time is 5 p.m.
Dr. Rogorski, will you verify that we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to the notice for this meeting?
Mr. President, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting tonight.
Thank you.
2. Pledges of Allegiance
KDIC Police Officer Sergeant Clarence Howard will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.
3. Oath of Office
At this time, KDISD Chief of Police David Ryder will swear in our new KDISD Assistant Chief of Police.
Welcome.
Good evening President Perez, board members, and Dr. Grigorski.
Tonight it's my pleasure to introduce you to Mr. Bart Rosebur.
Mr. Rosebur has been a certified Texas peace officer since 2001.
However, his professional experiences have reached far beyond police work in both K-12
and higher education settings.
Mr. Rosebur began his public education career at ARP ISD as a world geography teacher in
in the classroom and a physical ed teacher and he coached football power lifting and track mr
roseberg moved to plano isd where he became the safety and security specialist while simultaneously
serving as human resources compensation coordinator from there mr roseberg accepted
the position of director of safety and security at rockwall isd implementing a comprehensive safety
and security program during his tenure there he also served as the executive director of human
resources. Mr. Roseberg then became the director of technical security at Baylor
University where he led a multi-year transformation of physical and technical
security systems as a commissioned peace officer. Some of his duties at Baylor
included developing security camera systems, intrusion alarm systems,
oversight of police radio systems, increasing security and access control
at research labs and facilities, and leading physical security measures at
game day and large-scale events. Mr. Roseburg returned to Plano ISD for a
second time where he served as the executive director for safety and
security where he led all safety, security, law enforcement coordination,
and emergency management for the district. From there Mr. Roseburg came to
Fort Bend ISD where he joined the police department command staff and served as
the executive director of life safety systems and emergency management. His
His duties included the oversight of 1,200 emergency drills annually, the development and maintenance of campus emergency operation plans, and the executive leadership of all emergency management and physical security programs.
Bart earned a Bachelor's of Science degree from Texas A&M University in Commerce and a Master's degree in Security Studies in Intelligence and Analysis from Angelo State University.
He has numerous licenses and certifications in professional protection and sporting events security as well.
Bart has been married to Angie for 22 years and they have two daughters named Leslie and Zoe.
Mr. Roseburg's extensive and well-rounded professional experience make him the ideal candidate for the assistant chief job at Katy ISD Police.
So it's my pleasure to bring Bart and Angie up so that we can swear him in.
I say your name.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
I.
The laws and the Constitution of the United States are all to be continued and not at the end of this day and at the end of the day.
So love me God. So love me God.
Congratulations.
The tradition is you get to have somebody fit your badge on for the first time.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mark.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
I don't see any scouts in the audience tonight.
4. Public Comment
So we will move on to the public comment on posted agenda items.
At this time, the Board of Trustees will give members of the public an opportunity to speak in accordance with KDISD Board Policy BED Local.
As defined by Board Policy, speakers who signed up by 2 p.m. on Monday, March 24, 2025, provided their first and last name and signed in 15 minutes prior to 5 p.m. will be allowed to address the Board.
Speaker who signed up to speak on posted agenda items will be allowed three minutes to speak.
If a speaker is not finished speaking at the end of their three minutes, the audio will
turn off.
If speakers wish to share written material with the Board, please provide 10 copies to
the Secretary for Board Services before the meeting begins for Board members, the Superintendent,
the Chief Communications Officer and permanent record.
If a speaker has not attempted to solve a matter administratively through proper channels as stated in Board policy, the presiding officer's designee shall advise the speaker to seek resolution through the appropriate policy.
Finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code Sections 551.074 and 551.0821, the Board will
not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a student
and will not discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline,
or dismissal of a public officer or employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an
officer or employee. Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must
do so through the appropriate local grievance policies, FNG local, DGPA local, CKE local,
or GF local. Our speakers will be called forward in the order they signed up to speak. We have
one speaker tonight and that is amy coomer
welcome
thank you good evening thank you all for your hard work serving on this board and
continuing to serve our kids i'm here on behalf of the families
living in les 60c and 60d we all have a shared commitment to
giving our children the best educational experience possible
our request is simple but incredibly meaningful we are asking the board to
consider rezoning us to tides junior high beginning with the 25 to 26 school year
this change is about convenience safety community and ensuring that our children thrive both
academically and socially to give you some perspective our homes are right across the
street from tize a mere 0.3 miles yet we're currently zoned to cinco ranch which is 4.1
miles away that commute especially during peak school traffic hours can take up to 40 minutes
its round trip. Imagine what that means for our families. Longer, stressful drives that eat into
time that could be spent on homework, extracurricular activities, or simply being together as a family.
But this is about more than just convenience. It's about safety. Right now, the buses that serve our
streets can't turn around safely at the end of our street, so they're forced to stop on the busy
Gaston Avenue, where traffic moves quickly. It's a dangerous situation that puts our bus riders at
risk every day i see it firsthand every morning when i watch a boy sit there on the ground at the
corner of gaston and i can't help but worry it only takes one distracted driver for something
tragic to happen rezoning our streets to ties would eliminate that risk entirely reducing the
need for bus transportation since we are so close to the school lastly this is about preserving the
social connections that are so critical to our children's development right now our kids attend
Wood Creek Elementary, which feeds to Katy High School, then transitions to
Cinco Ranch Junior High, which feeds to Cinco Ranch High School, only to be sent
back to Tompkins High School where they are left without any past social
connections. It's a disjointed experience that disrupts friendships and makes it
harder for them to build the support systems they need during these pivotal
years. I know firsthand how much these connections matter. I grew up right here
in Katy attending Nottingham Country Elementary, Beck Junior High, and Taylor.
The friendships I formed during those years didn't just shape my childhood, they became the foundation of my life.
Even now, as an adult, the friends I started kindergarten with and walked across the stage with at high school graduation remain my biggest support system.
They're the people I lean on in life's hardest moments and celebrate with in life's best.
This is why this request is so deeply personal to me.
I want nothing more than to give my children that same opportunity to grow up surrounded by familiar faces,
to build bonds that will carry them through the challenges of adolescence,
and to feel that sense of belonging that only can come from sharing experiences with lifelong friends.
Rezoning our streets to ties is a small adjustment that would have a profound impact on our families.
It won't dramatically change the attendance number at ties.
There are only 65 junior high students.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
5. Closed Meeting
This concludes the open forum portion of our meeting.
The Board will now convene and close meeting as authorized under Section 551.001 of the Texas Government Code for the following purposes.
Texas government code five five one four zero seven seven one five five one point
zero seven four five five one point zero seven six and five five one point one
two nine thank you the border will now reconvene in open meeting today is
6. Reconvene from Closed Meeting
Monday March 24 2025 and the time is 615 p.m. I'm a half my colleagues that
welcome everyone to this evening's work-study meeting. Each board member
received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Friday, March 21, 2025.
The board will receive information and recommendations from staff,
administration, and the superintendent on these agenda items at tonight's meeting.
Board members will be able to ask questions, receive answers, and should be
prepared to take action. The board has just reconvened from closed meeting in
In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code,
any action arising from discussions in a closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
7.1 2025-2026 Budget Update
Our first item is 7.1, 2526, Budget Update.
And our presenter is Chris Smith, Chief Financial Officer.
All right.
Good afternoon, President Perez.
Supertentate Grogorski and trustees. I'll start off with a glorious beautiful day
outside and appreciate everybody being here tonight to listen to this. I'm here
to talk about where we are on the 25-26 budget. We're still very early. We're in
March here, the third bullet down. We're gonna look at the general fund
projections under current law. There's some laws being in Senate Bill 2 and
House Bill 4, I'm sorry, House Bill 2, as an example, are two proposals. There's no state runs,
no impact of what those would do financially to school districts because it's so early in the
process. People don't want to put that out there to get their hopes up or down because it's just
too early in the process. Of course, we can calculate it and I can get some general ideas of
of what each one of those laws would do,
but it's too early to put a pencil and paper to it,
especially in a public forum like this
because it just may or may not happen at this point.
But where are we with the 25-26 budget?
We're watching the 89th legislature,
something very, very much.
We know that they're working with a state surplus,
quite as big a surplus as they had two years ago, but a state surplus nonetheless.
School safety allotment, our school safety is big both for the state and for KDISD.
We do know that there's talk of doubling the school safety allotment.
You're going to see a slide in a couple of three or four slides that shows a little bit of breakdown
on what the school safety looks like and what doubling that would look like, but that's being talked about.
out. Property tax cuts and exemptions, we know that there's talk of compressing the tax rate
further down and or increasing the homestead exemption. The homestead exemption has gone from
$40,000 to $100,000. That saves taxpayer homeowners money, and there's talk about
increasing that homestead exemption yet again. Education savings accounts are kind of ruling
the session up there right now and taking a lot of the time and focus but
we're watching the other things outside of that and then a special education
there's also talk of increasing the space the special education allotment
which comes through the foundation school fund program which is determined
on like everything else on the number of students and I'm going to show you in
those three or four slides from now a little bit about that and I'll be able
to talk talk about that specifically not what's going to happen but what it looks like right now
so under the uh current budget uh in uh just to show you there i just highlighted
uh the basic allotment y'all know that that's been sixty six thousand one hundred sixty dollars since
2019. that's the primary funding formula uh that runs that's how school districts earn their
monies it's not the only thing that we earn money off of we have the golden penny yield
uh which i'll talk about in a second but we also have local revenues gate sales interest earnings
on our deposits we have federal revenue we have uh trs on behalf which i'll i'll highlight a little
later in the presentation so there's several things that make up uh that 6160 is the basic
foundation fuel that drives state funding across the state of texas it's all the same for every
every school district to the Golden Penny yield promised I talked about that
you can see that goes from 129 to 132 40 that's baked in the law that goes back
to 2019 they have an adjustment that that does that and so that three dollar
and forty cent increase would yield about three point two million dollars to
Katie ISD since it's in current law they'd have to take it out of law in
order for that to not to stay at 129 I left it in these numbers that you're
going to see tonight and it does it and that that increase does help us by about 3.2 million dollars
that used to be the austin yield where they would take the property values uh and divide it by the
number of wada for uh austin and if that yield that result went up uh that number went up and
that that uh that golden penny yield has changed quite a bit from when it was the austin yield but
the austin yield used to increase so much that we could pay pay raises just off the increases in the
the Austin yield and that goes back to I would so a slide that showed the skyline
of Austin and how much it's changed over the last ten years and that's one of the
reasons why the property value market has been so hot there but it's no longer
the case but it is going up and that helps us our enrollment of course we're
driving off the number of students and the type of students that we have from
budget to budget is only increasing 524 students that's 96 637 I got to be
be honest with you we thought was a conservative number we hit that number
of Monday of last week normally we hit it in October we hit it Monday of last
week and we ended up today at ninety six thousand six hundred fifty five so we're
about almost twenty students more than that but normally we'd hit in an October
and because of that our current budget is probably until the budget amendments
tonight is a little inflated because it's just sluggish enrollment but that's
That's a .5% increase in our enrollment.
And then this is also going to show the teacher growth that Mr. Schuss is going to go over tonight.
It shows 89 new – well, let me back up and say we're opening two elementary schools, as you know.
And then we're going to – in order to outfit those and the other growth in the district,
and there's some ebbs and flows on staffing throughout the district,
but we're going to end up netting about 89 new teaching positions or people positions tied to the teacher salary schedule.
And then non-teacher growth is the custodians, bus drivers, principals, assistant principals, et cetera,
associated with those campuses and also with special education growth district wide.
That's where that is. A lot of our special ed folks are not tied to the teacher salary schedule.
And so special ed is growing at a clip a lot faster than a half percent a year.
And so our special ed population is growing.
That helps our revenues grow.
Again, I'll talk about that in a couple of slides, but that's what's driving that number upwards.
That does not include any department staffing.
So like my staff, anybody's staff in this building, et cetera, that's not in this number.
Y'all are going to see campus staffing and what's needed for the classrooms and the campuses that we're opening, but not department.
That'll come in a month or two later from Mr. Schuss.
And right now, unfortunately, we're not modeling a salary increase until the state.
I think you'll see why as I wind this presentation down until the state does their part.
That's going to be tough, and you'll see why.
Tax revenue goes up, you see, 3% because our tax basis is estimated to grow 3%.
Again, will that happen?
It's grown more than that on average of about 8.3% for the last five years, even with that
increase in the homestead exemption.
But are they going to increase the homestead exemption again and will that slow that growth
down?
Will the just simple economy slow that growth?
There's no way for me to know.
I'm not a chief appraiser and we won't know that until the end of April, what that's going
to do.
It won't affect as much on the general fund.
Again, as state values increase or local values increase, state values just go down and it's
It's a balancing effect, all centered around $6,160.
So in essence, in the general fund, it just doesn't matter.
Other local revenue goes up.
It's a little bit more in interest.
And then when we have more schools and folks participating at the varsity level, ticket sales, et cetera.
State funding, again, that's up $5 million.
It would be up more than that, but the increase in $10 million in tax revenue, again, it's this happening.
TRS contributions, that's $65 million.
That's another thing that's a wash,
and that $65 million you're going to see in the expenditure side of the budget as well,
where it shows as a revenue, it shows as an expense.
There's no cash that leaves its hand, but we do record it as an expense.
As I mentioned, I think it was the January meeting where they show how much we spend statewide per student.
That's in that number.
Districts don't have a choice on that number, but it is shown up on our expenditures.
But it's an offsetting revenue.
And then federal revenue, that's one to point out.
That's down $5 million.
It was down from $17 million in the 23-24.
We got cut by a little over $5 million in December of 23, which reduced the 24-25 budget.
budget and then now in December of 24 we were notified by HHS that we were going to be reduced
another $5 million and hence you see the $7.99 million.
That's not all SHARs.
Only about 2 million left of SHARs is there.
And there's going to be some hard decisions probably around the SHARs subject if that
continues.
There's a lot of work that generates that only a little over $2 million now.
now, but it's indirect costs on our federal grants like the Child Nutrition Fund, our
IDEA B, Title I, etc.
We're able to charge some of those grants for the indirect cost, the cost of my office,
for example, or HR, because there is a cost of having those programs, and we are allowed
to take those revenue to the district to have those costs.
So funding, there's some good, and the good is our financial position. We are in a very good
financial position. Even after a very, very modest increase to our fund balance this last year,
we are still at about 34%, which is good going into a turbulent time. That's what you lean on
to have to not make draconian or rash decisions when you have a little bit more time to react to
what's going on and we are in a good financial position and I think you
should be proud of the position that you've put us in from a financial
perspective because we don't have to make harsh rash decisions and we are a
growing district and even though it's times are tough we're in a position that
we can handle some turbulence property value audit you're gonna see in a budget
amendment tonight it's a net effective one but we had a property value audit
that was that was successful we found out and got the funding for it in
November from TEA it was a 22 audit and it generated a significant amount of
money you'll see the result of that in the property in the budget amendments
tonight unfortunately there's some things that are the sluggish enrollment
has to go take away from that a little bit we are comp ed another decision that
was made by a Health and Human Services or HHS cut the students off of some
some federal COVID opportunities,
which we had been growing our comp ed population a little over 6% on average
for the last 15 years.
And now it went down from one year.
We budgeted a 3% growth thinking we were conservative.
It went down from the 23, 24 school year with what we're going to get funded on.
So that's coming out of on the budget amendment tonight.
We expect, and so the numbers that you're seeing,
we get back on that growth trend.
I think that was a one-time correction, but we're projecting to get back on that growth trend not six percent
We're gonna do a conservative at three percent, but we do think that number will grow moving forward
Attendance rate is still up. We're in number two
Year two and as through the first four six weeks the attendance rate is continues to go up
it's harder to get it up when you're running a
Ten flat hundred meters. It's hard to get to nine nine. It's easy to get from 12 seconds to 10
10, but it's harder to get to 99. And so we got to 10, and we want to continue to improve,
and we want to see that stabilized moving forward. But the attendance rate is up. That's helped with
our sluggish enrollment, et cetera. Declining M&O tax rate, that's a good thing. It's saving
taxpayer dollars. It's a good thing, and it's what the state's doing with their surplus
through compressing the M&O tax rate and the increase in homestead exemption. But I want to
to be clear when you see 16 billion dollars went to tax relief that's not a dime in the new into
our classrooms throughout the state of texas is in tax relief it's in taxpayers like mine and
your back pockets uh that's great but it's not helping the classroom and i just want to be clear
on that uh the bad sluggish enrollment you've heard me talk about that uh allotment caps
several things in the legislature are allotted capped in other words the fast
growth allotment they allocated 320 million dollars only for the fast
growth allotment 320 million dollars if they funded it at a hundred percent it
would cost four hundred and five million dollars so 85 million more dollars but
when they passed it and put it in whatever law it was in I think it's
House Bill 3, they say we're going to cap it at $320 million.
So if it gets too expensive, we're going to limit it.
So it was limited at $320 million.
If it was paying at 100%, it would be beneficial to this district of about $10 million.
$10 million in the 23-24 school year and the 24-25 school year and the 25-26 school year
under what we're looking at.
And I'm saying rounding to 10 because those numbers do change from year to year.
But my point is is that's 30 million dollars that we've lost over a three-year period of time because of the cap and we're working
With trying to get that cap lifted or at least raised 80 million dollars statewide is nothing from the state's perspective
Ten million dollars to this district is a lot and so we're trying to work through that as well. There's other caps like our
Get in talented program is capped in other words the dyslexia program is capped
there's other things that are capped.
In other words, it's a backstop.
So, SHARS, that's bad.
Ten million dollar cuts over two years is bad.
The potential consideration of just doing away with SHARS
because of the amount of work that's involved by people throughout this district
providing those services, is it worth it?
I don't know.
But that's one of the things that we're going to have to look hard at
because it's been taking such a hit and we don't expect it at least right now to
rebound both what's happening in the federal and state landscape that it's
gonna be tough and competent bilingual I mentioned the comp ed and how how that
another HHS decision hurt that and slowed that comp ed growth and bilingual
it's been a little bit slower than we anticipated as well the ugly I put a
question mark by it the legislative session it sounds rude and I'm sorry but
okay it's right now it started out as ugly that's that's that's my opinion
there's a lot of room to grow to go to make that thing to work out for the kids
of the state and I think it's gonna happen and so it maybe it will look
better over time but right now if you ask me you didn't ask me I'm telling you
though it's got a slow start okay and then the stagnant revenue is is killing
us because our people deserve the ability to operate in this economy that
we're in with with inflation y'all were able to give us a raise this last year
and the year before that and when you give raises on a fixed income the
deficit grows there's no way real where he's no real way to pay for it without
going into a deficit again another good reason why it's good that we have been
in a good financial position.
Here's a slide, and I could elaborate this
and probably have two of them up there, but I'm not.
I just want to point out that burn orange column on the left
shows the amount that we spent in the last two fiscal years.
These are audited numbers.
And so I'll point to the one on the right.
And so we spent about $115 million.
I'm sorry.
We earned through the funding formulas about 115 million dollars for special ed all our
Special ed students through those formulas generated through the state funding formulas
115 million dollars
But it cost us about a hundred and forty five million dollars
There is about a thirty million dollar deficit of state funding that comes to us
Based on what we spend and we spend it based on the needs of our students and complying to the laws of
of which we need to spend on our students.
And so they're underfunding that $30 million delta to special ed.
And I bring that up to show you, to say that there's a lot of talk about them correcting the funding formulas to put more money into the special ed formulas.
But until they reach that $29 million shortfall, it's not going to add the amount of money that we can spend on special ed students.
It's going to sound good, and it's going to be a good soundbite.
hey, we're putting, what, $300 million or statewide maybe a billion dollars,
and it's going to the special ed funding formulas.
Well, until it crosses the $28 million threshold, they're still underfunding special ed.
And I bring that up because also the one next to it, the blue column,
is the amount that they spend on or the amount that we spend as a district on safety and security.
$13.6 million a year is what we spend, and that little amount, or about a million and a half, or two million is what we get to fund that.
And so if they double the allotment, that navy blue bar at the bottom is going to double.
That's great, but it's not going to generate any more money until it crosses $13 million.
And I just wanted to say that because you're going to be pressed, the administration's going to be pressed to say,
Hey, they double what they're sending you for safety. Are you gonna double what you're doing with our safety stuff?
And we would love to chief we would love to
but unfortunately
We just can't because it's still grossly underfunding it and then and then also the transportation allotment
There's been no talk of doing anything with that in
2019 there was a lot of talk on it
We spend about 24 million dollars a year
transporting students to and from school that's only to and from school it's not
including any co-curriculars and stuff like that that's coded to co-curriculars
that's to and from school and then you can see our revenue amounts about four
million dollars so they're under funding several things if they put and I'll just
again I'm just going to throw in a billion dollars toward towards
transportation everybody would say oh well now we're gonna be able to pick up
up at curbside still be tough to find drivers and it would still not cover the deficit of what
we're spending currently to get kids to and from school and i hope that makes sense to y'all um and
i don't want to i hate that i sound negative i'm just pointing out things that because when they
put that out there and they put something out there like we're going to spend 100 million dollars on
safety and security throughout the state of texas that sounds great and that's eight dollars and 40
or 72 cents a student I'm sorry it's nine dollars and 72 cents a student when
you take a hundred million divided by the number of students across the state
and that 100 million really sounds good and nine dollars and 72 cents a student
does not go very far and that's why you see that navy blue line so low of course
we're opening two elementary schools there's ancillary positions associated
with those new campuses in these numbers that you're looking at includes the
district-wide growth of a little over 500 students, special ed, bilingual, and pre-k growth.
We don't know what those are. We're using estimates based on trends at this point. We'll
be able to fine-tune those as we end up in this school year. We kind of get a little closer to
the dark target. Right now, we're throwing it a far away once the school year's over.
We're not right on it, but we're still a little closer to get a little bit more of an educated
guess. It's all an educated guess. What's going to happen next year with the number of kids that
that show up, what type of kids show up,
and with their attendance rates,
if there's a flu epidemic or whatever,
who knows?
Nobody.
And so it's the best chance we can do
with our not crystal ball.
This is what we're aiming for.
As Ms. Rios puts the budget together,
we're aiming for about this, 89% payroll.
Y'all know that's the biggest part of our budget.
And utilities is the second part of our budget.
The stuff that we really can make decisions on as far as textbooks and stuff like that, not textbooks, but supplies and a lot of that travel and that kind of stuff is a very, very small percentage of our total budget.
Administrative costs, I always put this in there because I'm proud that we're able to do it more efficiently than a lot of our other districts across the state.
Those are the lowest around.
And it's normally big districts because you have some economies of scale.
But us and CyFair typically are one of the ones who lead that race when it comes to the lowest and most efficient administrative costs statewide.
It's on our transparency website.
And I put this out there to show you that when I show you that pie chart that says 89% of our money is in salary and benefits, I think this relates well with that.
you can look at that's a 12-year history there that shows that what we spend on
instruction is pretty consistent it goes up but it's pretty consistent from year
to year and what we spend on administration or transporting students
or maintaining our schools maintenance operations co-curriculars those
percentages even though in this 12-year period of time we've grown 32,000
students 32,000 students those percentages are remarkably the same how
How are they that?
It has nothing to do with me.
It's going to have to do with HR and Mr. Schuss and the staffing plan.
Again, anytime you're spending 89% of what you're spending on salary and benefits, it goes back to the staffing formulas.
We've had consistent, good staffing formulas that we followed over the years, and that, by and large, takes care of those percentages because of the 91%.
And the little difference may be the ebbs and flows, but there are very little ebbs and flows.
And that's right there on the transparency website.
You got it?
Because I know not a soul in here can see that because it's a lot of numbers on there.
But I encourage you to look at that because I'm pretty proud of that.
And it shows where we're putting the money is in the right areas.
And that's the ones that directly affect children.
Okay.
Current positions in what we're looking at here increase from 489.
You have to add the salaries that we added last year for teachers at $8.3 million into $15 million and pull that up over to the 513.
And, again, that's budget to budget.
So that math may not be perfect because sometimes when you budget vacant positions until you fill them, it's an estimate.
And so it never comes up perfectly.
But that theory is the 512 moves up and is their starting point for the next year.
And the new positions that so far that Mr. Suss will be showing you tonight tally on the teacher salary schedule $6.2 million for a total of $519 million, $520 million for the teacher salary group.
That's what it looks like graphically.
Non-teacher pay group, again, this is LSSPs, counselors, librarians,
librarians, anybody that would be at a central office, a central plumber, etc. That would be
this group. Again, that $259,000 pulls up when you add the $240,000 of current positions plus the
new positions that we added in the 24-25 year salary increases and the fact that we're going
to open new schools and we have expenses associated with those new schools that start this summer.
So we had to budget something and we pulled that up. Again, the math won't be perfect because
because here you can see some savings as we pull that up.
The net new positions that you will see tonight are $8.4 million added to that,
or a total of non-teacher salaries of $264 million.
And again, what that looks like graphically.
Oops.
You're not going to see much ebbs and flow here.
Stipends, again, opening new schools and district-wide growth,
We do see an increase in stipends with more people.
Cell phone allowances, auto allowances, those stay the same.
Those are flat.
We anticipate they stay in flat.
Here's your big one, substitute teachers.
It's actually going down now at the trend we're looking at now.
We'll adjust this at the end of May.
Ms. Rios will look at it throughout and always does,
and that's why it's able to have a little slight savings.
But at the end of May or at the end of the school year,
We'll look at it once all those expenses hit and we'll be closer to the at a dart throw for next year again
Going back to how do we know what teachers are going to show up if there's a flu epidemic etc
We just go off of trend because that's all we can do
But it looks like graphically
benefits
Are what they are again. Those are estimates right now. Those will shore up as we move forward
forward throughout the budget process and staffing, et cetera.
And again, any raise that the state would enable us to be able to do, those would all
change because again, if you were able to give a raise, then all the other benefits
that calculate off of the amount of salary that's paid will increase too.
So that's a graphic look of that.
So the total of the payroll budget would be $924 million, an increase of $14 million, or just under $14 million.
And there's that $65 million that you saw in revenue. Again, that's a bottom line, it's a wash. Revenue equals expenses.
No monies leave this district, but the expense is recorded on our general ledger and is embedded in our financial statements.
those percent spends, the 89% salary and benefits that we have, it is in those calculations.
So a total payroll budget of $989 million, and that's what it looks like graphically.
Non-payroll costs, you see the campus allocations increase.
We have growth.
We are adding two new campuses that have students at those campuses.
The high school is going to add a grade level, so you're adding a grade level of students to that.
Department out oops department allocations that's uh right now reflects the utilities associated
with the new schools there's a couple of placeholders those budgets are not do not
and entirely they still haven't even come in from the some of the departments yet because they're
not due and yet but but so we're using some placeholders and some estimates on those that's
what that looks like graphically. So as it turns out from a budget perspective,
well let me just go into the column on the left. We budgeted a deficit in the
23-24 school year of 8.1 million dollars. They ended up being a surplus of about
12 million dollars, so that's a 20 million dollar swing to the good. You saw
it every month last year of underspending. You're seeing in this
This month, this year in underspending, we are, you'll see from Mr. Hines' report tonight on the financials that we are going to see underspending again, or it looks like it.
Significant underspending.
That helps that budget deficit.
And then we ended the fund balance up 12 million.
I said 10 million earlier.
I'm sorry, it's 12 million that we increased our fund balance last year.
In order to stay with our increased expenses, the fund balance needs to grow.
If it doesn't grow and the fund balance stays the same as we grow, that our financial condition deteriorates.
It needs to grow along with it.
An example that I could give in our households, if we were making $50,000 a year, we should be having three months of spend on that.
And what is that?
Probably $12,000 in the bank for rainy days and for whatever may happen in our lives.
If all of a sudden we were able to double our salary and go to $100,000, well, guess what?
You should go to $25,000 or you're not in as good a financial condition for if a rainy day happens.
And that's the same thing with the school district's fund balance.
It should grow proportionally along with our growth.
It's going to be tough to grow in the 24-25 school year we're in.
We adopted a $27 million deficit.
We're going to do a revenue amendment tonight that improves that by about $2.5 million.
It doesn't improve it very much, but we're having underspending.
Just in instructional loan, you're going to see about $14 million of underspending that's
already kind of evolving as we move through the year.
So when it's all said and done, we're probably going to use fund balance at the end of this
school year, but not $26 million.
That's why I've said that I'm not going to get up here and lose too much sleep over it
because I know underspending happens and I know things that we'll do, such as the property
value audits from prior years.
We're not always sure the amount of those or the timing of those, but those will happen,
and it's just not fair to budget them because we don't know, and we don't know the amounts
or the timing of them.
We just know, and I try to let you all know that they are out there, and we'll amend it
as possible, but if they don't happen, I don't want to mislead the board over things that
are systematically in the budget.
Those are anomalies, and I'll point those anomalies out as necessary.
necessary. So next year, again, everything considered, same kind of trends that we're on,
that budget deficit grows. Why does it grow $38 million? Well, because it reflects things,
not a property value audit, but it reflects the slower growth. It reflects a turndown in our
comp ed. It reflects several things that we're aware of. The SHARs reflects that now in the
the initial budget and so unfortunately that has grown and we haven't done a salary increase
but again we're in a good position and even at that that I think the underspending we would
use fund balance okay but that's where the state needs to come in and do their part and I think
they will I think they will so we've talked about future property values with the general fund it
It doesn't matter as much.
It matters a lot in our debt service fund, but with the general fund, it's not going to matter much.
I didn't even say that there.
Increase in homestead exemption.
Guys, I will say that in my opinion, and this is my quote, the state is in chaos when it comes to tax offices across the state and appraisal districts and the comptroller's office trying to figure out the value of that homestead exemption increase.
And the way that that's reported from our CADs, they all use different software, or the tax offices use different software.
There's slightly different terminology things.
The comptroller's office wasn't collecting everything.
We got an email just Friday, Friday of last week from one of our appraisal districts saying, hey, we're going to resubmit those numbers if you would like us to.
Because we've been told that there may be some reporting issues.
if you'd like us to and so we're trying to figure out would it behave it behoove us to have a report
and what are they speaking of we don't know what their numbers that they reported and what versus
what they are now so that takes a big investigation that's happening across the state and that's why
as a resident and a homeowner and a taxpayer I love that homesteading increase from an administrator
that is in it from from my perspective god I don't like it and now that is the
tax offices and I do the appraisal districts now there's the comptroller's
office it's caused some chaos it's a great thing for tax and we will work
through it but there will be some roller coasters and some needs to to take a
sedative or or go to a cartwheel because of good and bad that's happening as we
as we get information as this works out.
So it's a roller coaster right now.
We had a 15, 20-minute meeting on it today,
and it's hard to get our arms around.
It's all going to work out.
Again, from a general fund perspective, if it hurts our general fund,
the state funds will pick it up and vice versa.
Increased tax rate compression, that's going to happen likely as well.
Y'all been able to increase or decrease the tax rate maintenance operations tax rate because of that compression
That's happening at being funded at the state not going to our classrooms, but being funded at the state of about
32 cents over the last several years or since 2019
State funding caps and formulas are they going to pull that out?
If they were lift that cap just in the fast growth allotment again
That would do wonders to our bottom line if they would just lift that allotment
So now you've looked at through March and then we've got May or June.
Probably, of course, if something happens in Austin, we'll do an April update.
I would not hold my breath for that.
I wouldn't hold my breath for May.
Normally they wait until, what is it, Sinai DA or whatever.
I don't know how you pronounce that.
But the last day of the session, the last week is when they're going to pass something.
And then those districts with June 30th fiscal year-end dates are going to scramble to make things work.
There's raises across the state that need to happen that they're going to have to wait on until those funding formulas are decided on.
We have a deficit budget.
We're one of, I think it was 800 deficit budgets across the state.
And when you look at ours, that's a big number.
But based on the size of our district, we're in pretty good shape.
There's districts half our size with a deficit twice our size.
There's different, there's different, and so we are in a pretty good position there, but I will say that if they increase the basic allotment under current law, and this is a great, this is a great thing, and I want to say that first, it's great, that increase in the basic allotment requires a salary increase of at least 30% of what it delivers to teachers.
teachers. So if you increased it and it generated a $10 million, $30 million surplus, or to
our bottom line, $10 million of that would have to go to teachers. Great thing, because
we want to give, y'all want to give as much to the teachers as possible, so does the administration.
That would be just over a 1% increase. That's not much, okay? And so that's the bad part
of it. The good part is, is we have to do it. Y'all are going to do it anyway. The administration
is going to recommend that anyway, et cetera.
But there are strings of tie with those basic allotment increases.
And so it needs to increase to fund that so we can pass those much-deserved raises on
without depleting our fund balance as we move forward.
Again, it hasn't been depleted yet, but we're at the end of the rope on that, guys.
Eventually it's going to start going down without relief from the state.
And our budget motto investing in excellence and empowering tomorrow, and that's all I have I'm glad to answer any questions that you may have
But thank you. Thank you so much for that presentation. That was excellent when
Mr.. Smith as far as the fund balances a percentage of expenses when
What what number is?
Where would you like to be I mean you'd like to be higher than 27 percent or 31 percent where?
Where's your comfort level with that?
Well, my comfort level would be, and you've heard me say this before, is if that percentage stayed where it was at 34% and stayed that through the rest of my career, that means I would be very proud.
And if that remained at that percentage for the next 100 years, the kids of this district would be taken care of.
That means we're not increasing our fund balance and hoarding it away because we're that conservative and we like to sleep at night and all that stuff.
And I would love that.
That's not good for children.
And you don't want to dip into it too much because then when you get into a spot that we're in, then you're forced to make changes as opposed to letting a little time go by and you have more time to think those changes through because you don't want to hurt children.
You want to be surgical about any reduction in services that we would need to perform.
And so 25% is our goal, and anything above that is good.
I would not want to go to 25%.
That means we're spending more than we are our means.
That's the first question that the rating agencies will ask me.
Tell me about your fund balance and your fund balance trends.
Well, it's gone from 34% down to 25%, our level, our low level.
And then you get in a position to where we're in now,
and you make cuts that may be tougher to make and not as strategic just to keep it above 25%.
That's the minimum amount.
We're well above that.
And I think if we could just maintain that plateau and be sensible about it at 34 percent, I'd be very happy.
And if it dips a little, I get it. That's okay.
But as long as it stays level, then we're not adding too much and we're not spending too much.
Just stay level. That's the best thing for children. That's what matters.
Thank you. Any questions? Any questions?
Mr. President?
Ms. Champagne?
I just have a couple of things I'd like to recognize about y'all.
Okay.
You got an $878,570 rebate from CenterPoint.
Yeah, I know that was Mr. Veerling.
That was Mr. Veerling and Nathan Fuchs and their staff.
Yes.
Mr. Veerling and Nathan, are you here?
Nathan's not here.
He doesn't have any other websites.
Nathan, thank you very much.
That was awesome.
Thank you.
So that's 40 KDISD schools qualified for the Energy Star rating and district earned best in class for efficient and healthy schools.
And that's 40 schools out of, you know, we have over 1,000 school districts.
So that's impressive.
And also, TASB official had awarded KDISD, the Financial Service Department, the Award of Excellence.
excellence. So I just, it highlights your supreme commitment to professional standards.
That's the Texas Association of School Business Officials. And we also won the purchasing
award of merit too. So that was two awards that were received last month from the TASBO
organization and that my staff does a very good job doing that and thank goodness for
them for receiving that because if it were up to me we probably wouldn't have i just wanted to
congratulate you all and um thank you so much for the hard work and getting that the money back and
for being on top because you've i can't even keep up with all the awards y'all get so thank you for
i'm sure you're recognizing that spreadsheet of them somewhere but thank you so i would just
is that it i would just add that it's great that we finished 24 20 million better
As a result of that, we're going through this period with such a good financial position.
I think that's outstanding, and it's a great job on that.
I appreciate that.
It's a team effort.
It starts with the financial clerks and principals and works all the way up to the superintendent and the board,
and people are dedicated and do a good job in this district and care about kids.
Add fund balance and start off better than we originally expected.
Thank you.
Great, thanks. Thank you so much. Anything else, Prestige?
Thank you.
Thank you.
7.2 Harris County Appraisal District election results.
The next item is 7.2, and I think we talked about this a couple months ago, I think it was,
and it's 7.2 and that's the Harris Harris central appraisal district and
miss Fox asked this be put on the agenda in order to report the results to
everyone mr. president okay so I know that she you have her on here as a
president the presenter but can i just go ahead and can we we have the letter but they don't have
the letter there was a vote and so the what they how they do it is they i guess they award the
first five and it was jim robinson cassandra ozzine bandy mike sullivan melissa noriega and
martina dixon were the first five and there was three less than that lower than that and one of
them was bill frazier and that's the one that we put all our votes in and i just want to say he had
306 votes so we gave him half of our votes and um i just would like to say that back then when we
were voting on that like you said a couple months ago and we had wanted to put you know a few of us
had wanted to put all of our votes into martina rather than bill frazier because just because
based on her experience and the fact that we we knew her and so the other
board members that didn't want to vote for her and wanted Bill Frazier I don't
think they really I mean I could be wrong about this but I don't think they
knew Bill Frazier but they wanted to vote for him for other reasons and
Martina does have a long-standing good reputation with the H CAD and I just
have to restate what I stated before which was that I feel like that by not
voting for her that we have lost some of our credibility with HCAD and so we you
know it's kind of like maybe has minimized our voice if we need HCAD or
something because we didn't throw our support into the the candidate that had
had the most. And, you know, he got 306 votes, Bill Frazier, but we gave him 146 of those votes.
I'm not sure where the rest of them came from, but anyway, so that's the results. I'm glad that
that we were able to present it tonight. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, we will move on to
7.3 Attendance Boundary Modification (ABM) for the 2025 - 2026 School Year
7.3, and our presenter is Ted Verling.
Mr. President, good evening. Board members, Dr. Grigorski, I'm here tonight to present a potential attendance boundary modification that would affect Cinco Ranch Junior High and Ties Junior High.
So we had a public speaker tonight, and that kind of gave you a preview of this.
this. At the board president's request, after some feedback from some patrons, I presented you guys
with a kind of a board update in early January that sort of spoke to this a little bit, kind of
the potential and what this looks like. We were requested to take a look at a potential ABM
that moves land use zone 60D from Cinco Ranch Junior High to Ties Junior High.
So 60D was the original request. They currently go to Cinco Ranch Junior High
and the request was to move them to Ties Junior High. The other piece of this
request that's a little bit different is that the attendance boundary modification
would take place in August of 2025, meaning this coming school year, as
as opposed to a full year from now.
Just to remind you guys,
and I know we've done a few of these, but not a bunch,
the normal timeline for these would be
we present with PASA in June,
we send out surveys, that sort of thing.
Dr. Grooms presents that survey data in September,
and then the board votes on a final
either in October, November, historically.
I've been doing this with the group since 2018,
and that's kind of our historical pattern.
So this would be just a little bit different from that.
This is kind of the timeline.
So our presentation would be tonight.
You're not voting on anything tonight or next week at the regular meeting.
So we're presenting tonight.
Families would be surveyed over the next 30 days.
Dr. Grims' group would do that like we do a normal ABM,
but it would be a protracted survey to 30 days starting April 1st
and close April 30th. And then the results of that community survey would be presented at the May 5th
work study meeting. And in theory, if the board were to move forward with this,
the board would vote on it at the May regular meeting again. So that would mean that you would
vote at the regular meeting and then you'd have a couple of months and then the kiddos would start
at their new school in August, which is different than the regular timeline. This is the current
current junior high attendance zone. I apologize if like Chris's slide with the tiny numbers. This is a little bit hard to see, but that's the current junior high attendance zone 60 D and 60 C are circled and I'll explain.
60C here in a minute. You can see where Tice Junior High is. It is definitely closer to 60C
and D than Cinco Ranch Junior High. I'll remind all of you, although some of you were on the board
at the time, some of you weren't. A few years ago, we balanced out or attempted to balance out
the junior highs in the Southwest Quadrant. They were way out of whack. Adams was brand new at the
time, Tice was way high, big. Cinco Ranch Junior High was small and Beck Junior High was small. So
we did a kind of a, well, it was a massive ABM at the time to kind of rezone everybody in the
Southwest Quadrant for junior highs. At the time, we did not put 60C and D at Tice Junior High
because Tice Junior High was still massively overcrowded at the time. So that's the reason
and you see that move to Cinco Junior High there.
It kind of balanced out a little bit better.
But that's the current attendance boundary that we have.
So in 60D, there are actually 65 junior high kids,
or at least there were about three or four weeks ago
when we were putting this together.
It's about the same now.
So the original request came from some acreage homes
along Karen, Tina, and Hunter Lane.
The vast, there's nine junior high kids in that section.
There's 60 or 50-something.
The rest of those are in a neighborhood called Westlake,
which is just right across the road from Tompkins, kind of catty corner.
So if you're at that Kroger Shopping Center, Westlake is just north of Greenbush right there.
That's where the vast majority of the kiddos in 60D, junior high kiddos, live.
So that's information.
The other thing is, so when we started looking at this and I was talking to PASSA about it,
60C is also in play because 60C is a neighborhood you can see very few students live in 60C.
Definitely acreage homes there. There's two junior high students. Those two junior high students in
60C would be the only kids that went from Wood Creek Elementary to Cinco Ranch Junior High to
Tompkins High School. I don't like that feeder pattern. I don't like the way that works when
you only have two kids uh it's bad enough when it's 60 but it's when it's two it's really bad so
uh so when we were asked to move 60d we said well we got to bring 60c along with you so
um at least there's some continuity there for those kiddos
so this is the uh the way the abm would look like if the board were to move forward with this this
This would move 60D and 60C to Tice Junior High from Cinco Ranch Junior High.
You can kind of see how the numbers work out.
The numbers, as Chris loves to say, it's not going to keep me up at night.
The numbers don't throw anything off.
Nothing's crazy there.
No real concerns with that.
I'm probably going to come back to this slide, though, here in a second, and I'll explain a little bit more.
This just gives you an idea of what we're talking about.
So 60 C again acreage homes probably not even streets
That you have heard of Pecan Street Lake Lakeview Road Cedar Lane. These are really small kind of neighborhoods
and
then 60 D
again
the section
That sent us the original quest hunter Tina Lane Karen Lane
That's a smaller neighborhood. They're actually building a new neighborhood
Tompkins
Tompkins, Tompkins Crossing, Tompkins something in that area as well. About 80 homes. And then 60D
is Westlake. Again, don't get that confused with Westlake over there by May Creek High. This is
Westlake over by Tompkins High School. So I'm going to go back to this one real quick just to
kind of let you guys know what's going on here in terms of busing because I know that
transportation was mentioned. So at this point, Westlake, the Westlake neighborhood currently
does not receive transportation services to Tompkins High School because they're within a
walk zone. There is a safe route across Gaston at Rosner, Raisner, however you say it. They're at
a light. It's a protected light across Raisner from that neighborhood from Westlake. That would
be the same if this attendance boundary modification were approved those kiddos because
they do have a safe walk across gaston road at raisner at the light and they're within the walk
zone to ties so they would not have a bus to ties junior high that's that's one of the benefits
certainly uh for us we would get a bus back um there uh hunter karen tina lane i know the bus
was mentioned by the patron. However, those kiddos right now are not within
the walk zone. They're in the walk zone to Tompkins High School, but they're not
in a safe zone because there is no way to get across Gaston Road without
walking into traffic. There's no safe way to get across there. Theoretically, you
could come all the way down to Rosner, but when you really start talking about
distances and that sort of thing, that's not realistic. So those kids, and the
And the reason I tell you that is those kids would continue to receive bus services to Ties Junior High.
And then the last thing I'm going to say before I give you a chance to ask questions,
there are nine junior high kids that live on those three streets.
Five of them are currently on a transfer to Ties Junior High as we speak.
And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.
Questions, trustees?
I think the idea here is that we're not approving anything this week or next week, but depending upon comments or feedback from the trustees, the idea would be to go ahead with the survey beginning April 1 and then bring it back to the board in May.
Yes, sir. That is the correct timeline.
Mr. President?
Ms. Jepain?
I just wanted to say I really appreciate that you all listen to the people, the concerns,
and you kind of dig into this because sometimes there's a misconception that I like to think
it's a misconception that we don't listen to people and this is proof that we did and
that you did.
And so I really appreciate that and I hope that the public is kind of paying attention
to that right now.
I really appreciate that.
Any other comments?
Mr. President, Ted, did you say we would gain a bus back if this were to be approved?
Yes, ma'am.
Currently, and I'll go back to that, currently 60D, which again was the original request,
that currently has a bus to Cinco Ranch Junior High because of distance.
distance. So if this worked out, they would not have a bus to Tice Junior High. There is a safe
walk path. Okay. And 60C would keep their bus? Yes, ma'am. There is no safe walk path because
Buffalo Bayou, you see that little squiggly line between those two? That's Buffalo Bayou.
So we would not have the kids traverse the bayou. Again, from an operational standpoint,
standpoint, I have no concerns with the ABM itself. It's strictly just the different timeline
than what we normally do or what we've done historically since I've been doing this since
2018. Well, thank you so much and thank you for looking at this. Yes, sir. Mr. President,
I had one question. Go ahead, Mr. Redman. Historically, when we've performed an ABM like
this that was moving from an existing school to another existing school and being that it's not
really affecting the overall enrollment are there any plans to offer like kids
that have started say at Cinco want to finish at Cinco the opportunity to do
that like we offered when West Memorial went to Taylor and yeah so so junior
highs we have not historically done that high school we have done some things
because we've done some some high school is it is a tougher deal you know you
know mr. Redmond from a sports standpoint and band and all that stuff
you get into the thing and then we move you and then you know you've been there
a year and then we're not and so we've made some concessions at the high school
level because of that kind of thing we move some kids from Katie to Taylor
recently we move some kids from pay toke back to Morton fairly recently and we've
made some concessions and and we wouldn't give you transportation but
we'll let you stay those kinds of things only if you'd already sat in the seat if
you hadn't been in the seat yet but we have not done that for junior high okay
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other comments or questions?
8.1 Discuss and consider Board Approval of the January 2025 Financial Reports.
Thank you very much.
Yes, sir.
The next item is 8.1, discuss and consider board approval of the January 2025 financial reports.
And our presenter is Jamie Hines, Assistant Superintendent of Finance.
Welcome.
Good evening, Mr. Perez, Board of Trustees, and Superintendent Gorgorski.
You have before you our March financial reports, including the district's financial statements, construction report, and tax report through the month of January, as well as our check register summary for the month of January.
Our financial statements include revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance, as well as an analysis of all of our expenditures by both function and object.
I just want to bring a few things to your attention this month. We're through five months of the fiscal year with these financial statements, which equals about 41.7%, so that's the percentage you'd want to compare.
On that first financial statement, your interim statement of revenues and expenditures, over on the right-hand side, there's only one of our object codes, the 6,300 supplies and materials that's over that 41.7.
And everything else is really in line or even better than it was last year in terms of spending.
And that's at 43% for supplies and materials.
You can see that's also the exact same that it was last year.
And that's just a result of our front-loading our software purchases toward the beginning of the year.
So that kind of works itself out throughout the year.
So you'll see that tick down until it's kind of right on the percentage that it should be.
And that's usually toward the six to seven months within our fiscal year.
So everything is kind of right in line with what we've seen in past years.
We'll bring to your attention this year, I said this past month, we are very similar to where we were in underspending last year.
After this past month, we've actually moved, and I apologize for turning the page.
So we were about a tenth of a percentage point better in terms of more underspending this year compared to last year.
last month this year we're we're about four tenths of a point so anyway just
we're showing that a lot of the efficiencies and a lot of the cuts and a
lot of the just keeping an eye on on the budget Thank You miss Rios how that's
kind of coming to fruition as we get through enough of the year to really
start analyzing where we're at from an expense standpoint I also want to point
I just wanted to point out on our capital projects, our construction report just up at the top there, on the $806 million authorization, the Prop 3 on the general, we're at about $22 million in underspending as we stand now.
And we've also had on that page we've changed it so you can see each month any changes and you'll also notice
in those other projects we've added a little bit to those in terms of just
Recognizing the interest income that we've had the past month. So that's all I've gotten. I'd be glad to answer any questions for you
questions trustees
It looks like you're you're
Just a comment looks like you're under spend. I mean you're still
You're at a good pace so far. I know it's only five months to underspend.
Exactly. We never want to assume anything, but it is really looking similar to last year,
which is a good thing as we move through it.
And we haven't had any unexpected extremely large events that have really ticked into that.
So, yes, sir, things look good.
Great. I had a quick question on the construction.
Yes, sir.
And that is, I don't know if we discussed this, maybe we did, I apologize if we did, where we have like about a $4.8 million over on Cimarron and Nottingham Elementary. Am I reading that right? I know it's offset with other positives.
it is I don't know down to the facilities level specifically so I would
have to look at that unless mr. Behrling or miss Cassman has has something they
could comment I don't know that down to the we haven't spent very much on that
so far but we're projecting it to be if I'm reading that right I'm 4.8 million
over the original budget yes I'm sorry you are being that correctly it is over
what was originally budgeted but for example those two new elementary schools
are significantly under so there will be ebbs and flows over over on all these
projects that was a flow if you will and if you'll recall last month I think it
was Bear Creek with the plumbing issues underneath it was another one that is
going to come in over the slides yes and and just to note that 22 million that we
have an underspending right now does not include that with the Bear Creek roofing
so that that's a about a million dollars off of that but that 22 million does
does include that $4 million from CIMRA.
Okay, I see that.
No, it includes it.
It does account for it.
It does account for it.
Yes, sir, it is included in that number.
Okay, all right.
Thank you.
Sir, I'm also 8.2, so I'll just stay up here.
That's all right.
8.2 Discuss and consider Waller County Appraisal District Board of Director Vacancy nomination
8.2, discuss and consider
consider Waller County Appraisal District Board Director vacancy nomination?
Basically a couple of weeks ago, maybe just a couple of weeks before spring break, we
were notified of the vacancy from Waller County Appraisal District.
This board has an opportunity to nominate someone.
You're not going to get an opportunity to vote.
According to property code section 6.03, it states that you can nominate somebody.
the board the remaining part of the board is the one who's going to vote
that position in so if you have someone to nominate we would need to do that
next week so we don't we don't have anyone that I know of so we can nominate
or not nominate we don't have to nominate that's correct and just just
figuring from what we you would usually vote on this position if it was a normal
cycle but since this is a resignation from the board that's the reason they
have a different rule okay moving on to a point three discuss consider board
8.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of the March 2025 budget amendments.
approval of the March 2025 budget amendments
and Esperanza Rios is our presenter welcome good evening for president Perez for the trustees and
dr. Cagorski tonight we bring forth budget amendments to adjust the district revenues
revenues. Local taxes are being reduced by $6,350,000 related to past homestead exemption
legislation which has caused a reduction in collections. State revenues are being increased
by $16 million due to a one-time property value audit and federal revenues are being
reduced by $7 million related to the change in SHAR's reporting. We also bring forth several
several budget amendments which are all direct functional offsets. These functional offsets
are included for staff development, instructional supplies, reallocation of growth units based
on the district needs, supplemental pay, instructional software, and interpreters. The approval of
these amendments will result in an increase of $2,650,000 to the general operating fund
balance we also are presenting a budget amendment for the capital funds project for the renovations
to bear creek elementary which was presented at the february 17th board meeting and approved at
the february 24th board meeting um these funds are coming from the 2023 bond project savings
and the approval of these amendments will result in no impact to the capital funds
capital projects fund balance. Thank you. Any questions, trustees? Thank you very much.
8.4 Discuss and consider classroom security enhancement for student and staff safety. (Texas Government Code 551.076: To consider the deployment, or specific occasions for implementation, of security personnel or devices; or a security audit.)
Now we move on to 8.4, which is to discuss and consider classroom security enhancement
for student and staff safety. And our presenter is David Rider, KDISD Chief of Police, and also
Also Ruben Martinez, Director of Emergency Management and School Safety.
Good evening again.
Tonight we'd like to provide you with information about FlipLock.
It's a unique locking device for classroom doors that would enhance the safety and security of our students and staff in a lockdown situation.
KDISD has a robust safety and security plan, such as security vestibules, window film, car access, and security cameras.
And while we have a district policy that requires our doors to stay locked and closed during
instruction, these flip locks would give an added layer of protection and a visible affirmation
to the students and staff that the door was locked and secured and they were behind a
locked door.
Flip lock is installed on the door frame and is activated by simply swinging the locking
mechanism towards the door and allowing it to drop down into a locked mode.
It works on both inward and outward swinging doors.
doors and egress is one motion out the door with the existing door mechanism.
This complies with all egress standards in the IBC or the International Building Codes,
ADA and the 2015 life safety standards.
The district has received written approval from all our fire marshals having jurisdiction
in the Katy ISD area and to install these in our schools.
And our request is that the Board of Trustees approve the purchase and installation of flip
lock devices in all classrooms where attendance is taken representing approximately 11 000 devices
across the district if approved flip block will utilize their installation teams to work with our
teams after hours and on off days summertime to make sure that these are installed before the 25
26 school year and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have so just to clarify
these locks would be in the normal course of business every day they would
not be utilized whatsoever that's a great question that's correct these
would only be used in an emergency situation if a lockdown was called this
is just an added layer of protection in those type of emergency situations mr.
president champagne yes I like to say that the one thing I'm always so proud
of our district about is that when the Uvalde situation happened and all a lot
of the new regulations and everything were passed down to us through the state
that I was right that we were already ahead of the game we were already doing
all these things and this is another example of something that we're doing
that's that's beyond the the basic requirement that we have and I really
appreciate that and as a as a if I were a teacher or a child in the classroom
just knowing that that was there because I remember when my kids were in school
they always constantly were asking me you know what where do we hide where do
we go what do we do and to have that there is just to me just adds a little
bit of a feeling of security for the kids and when I initially ran in 2018 I
I was running because of safety and security problems, the Sandy Hook and all that.
And I just remember my kids saying that they were scared at school.
And I think that if we can alleviate even just a little bit of fear or apprehension,
then they can actually sit in their class and concentrate on what they're doing
instead of figuring out how am I going to run out of here if something happens.
So I really, really, really, from the bottom of my heart as a mom,
I appreciate this very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other comments, questions?
Mr. President.
Ms. Cuzela.
I have a question about the funding source.
Could you just help me understand why it's the 2023 bond savings we're hitting versus prior?
Well, right now the 2021 authorization doesn't have that amount of savings.
The 23 does, after what was presented and approved last month, you had a little overage
at Bear Creek and I can't remember the other project, kind of offset that somewhat.
And with this, you would have about $20 million of underspending in the 23 authorization,
which is more than enough to fund this and any concerns whether we could have with another
elementary school to build and a junior high.
I do there are some but so I think that the
Savings is adequate enough and it would come from the 23 authorization. There's plenty of money there. Okay. I just see 6.5 for the
other bond
Well, we would only be prop a and I believe prop a has about 2 million in it right now or just under 2 million
I do think that
Some things as we close out Freeman high school, etc, etc
There could be some more added to that.
Just at this time, we don't know how much.
So there is the money here.
But that money will still be available added to this if necessary on a project that could have an overrun.
But there's plenty of money in the 23 authorization, and that would be my recommendation at this time.
And I would say that on that note, there's two things that I would take Dr. Gorgorski and the president's advice on this.
We can change the if y'all want to move forward with this
We would either need to do two things change the amendment that you said miss Rios just presented to include this so we can move
Forward with the purchase next week or if you don't want to do that and want to do that in April
I'm probably if assuming that you all vote on this or plan on voting on this and you do vote on this
I'm probably gonna have to override the requisition
so we can get them ordered in the hopper so they can be installed before next school year.
So there is a timing issue on that, and we've got two things.
We can change the amendment if you're going to approve it
or just have me do an override and shore it up in April.
Therefore, that way when we approve on March 31,
this, it'll already be in the amendment that we'll be approving.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
And again, I'll take yours and Dr. Gorkorski's lead on that.
On how you want me to proceed?
We need to happen without into the amendment, okay?
So the amendment for next week will reflect this in it. Yes, sir, okay?
Thank you so much, and so we're putting one of these in every classroom in every school
Yes, sir, so our plan is to put one in every classroom where attendance is taken and start there
As I've said before these classroom door locks just just like you said my champagne
The parents, the teachers, the students, they love them.
And so I expect that they will be in high demand.
And so we will probably look to add more in the future.
But right now, this is what we can start with and we can put them in every classroom.
Great, great, thank you so much, thanks.
Thank you.
8.5 Discuss and consider Board approval of a contract for the paving of the Hutsell Elementary School parking lot.
We move on to 8.5, discuss and consider board approval of a contract for
the paving of the Hudson Elementary School parking lot.
Welcome Lisa Kastman, Executive Director of Facilities, Planning and Construction.
Good evening President Perez, Trustees, Dr. Gagorski.
I only have two items tonight, so compared to my 12 from earlier months.
The first one is the paving at Hutzel Elementary.
When we were defining the scope and going through design,
that's when we realized we had some drainage issues out there.
If you remember, a tree fell over in the parking lot,
which resulted in us looking at some more detailed investigation of what was going on.
It also provides some additional parking spaces upgrade the utilities and help with some of the traffic along Franz Road
Any questions
8.6 Discuss and consider Board approval of a sanitary sewer easement to Harris County Municipal Utility District (MUD) No. 495 associated with the Agricultural Sciences Center.
So we have another one are you on the next one 8.6
Yes, it's a sanitary sewer easement along the western edge of the ag sciences complex with mud 495
We've been entered under agreements with them. That's where we get our water and sewer from so they're gonna be doing
some additional upgrades so they need to use an easement on our west side of the property so
that's that is for thank you any questions trustees
thank you very much all right thank you
8.7 Discuss and consider three Board Resolutions authorizing participation in the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program in the following areas Assessment and Evaluation Projects (two grant applications) and Workforce Development Projects.
so we're on 8.7 nikia coy executive director of federal programs to discuss and consider
three board resolutions authorizing participation in the state and local
cybersecurity grant program in the following areas assessment and
evaluation projects to grant applications and workforce development
projects and I have the next one as well so I'll kind of talk about them as a
whole but we have applied for seven competitive grants through the office of
the governor these first three are centered around cybersecurity so the
workforce development project is for professional development for the
operations uh technology operations uh team and then the other two on assessment and evaluation
are centered around enhanced logging and penetration text testing so all three grants
do require a 20 district match we are requesting approximately 66 000 from the office of the
governor and the district match would be about 16,000 on that first item okay
any questions on that one mr. president was that one six matching yes I didn't
understand and then 16 is that how excuse me 16,000 608 to be exact that's
all the grants work generally there's always a matching fund component or
sometimes it's you I mean it happens but not too often we have a very particular
about what we agree to match. Sometimes it's worth, you know, 20% matches, not that much.
It's worth applying for the grant. Depends if it was a 50% match or something else, but it might be
different. Okay. Is that 16 for each grant? 16,000 total for all three. Okay. So the, yeah,
the total of it, all three is 66,000. So those are small. Mr. President, Mr. Rodman, are there any,
Will there be any savings to like our cyber security like will this replace anything we're currently doing or?
Is that a possibility depending on legislative session all of these?
Grants with the governor's office have a supplement not supplant requirement, so we're not allowed to
Use these grant funds on things that we already have in the budget
We can sometimes use it to enhance and so that you'll find out that's what we're doing on the next four
A couple of those grant applications, kind of.
And I'll talk about it.
So 8.8 is, there's four resolutions for the criminal justice grant program,
the state crisis intervention grant program,
and the Project Safe Neighborhoods grant program.
So two of those grants would be providing upgraded equipment,
so body-worn cameras and radios.
So they are enhancement of what we already have.
And then, so that, one of those grants is $136,000.
That was for the body-worn cameras.
The radio requires...
The second request is for $146,000.
These four do not have a match requirement.
Okay, so we have a third grant that's centered around community outreach efforts.
So that one's requesting $171,000.
And then the final grant is for promoting positive behavior supports, and that one's for $164,000.
What's the use of funds for those?
As far as?
Like what are they for?
Well, we have one is body-borne cameras.
The second one is the radios.
The third one is community outreach.
And the final one is for positive behavior supports and school safety.
Is there no matching?
No, not for those four.
They're all kind of different.
Okay, any other questions?
Thank you very much.
The next item is our presenter Sherry Ashourn, Director of Student Affairs.
8.9 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a low attendance waiver as recommended by administration.
Discuss and consider Board approval of a low attendance waiver as recommended by administration.
Sherry Ashourn, Director of Student Affairs Great, thank you.
I have the next three items, so I'll be up here just for a little bit, but they're all
pretty routine.
The first one's starting with our low attendance waiver.
So on February 3rd, we had eight campuses closed for bad weather and then on February 19th
We had one campus have significantly low attendance due to a power outage
So this is an opportunity to file for a waiver with the state and it removes those little attendance ratings so that we can basically
Kind of erase them from our 88 percentage puts more money back in our budget
And that's like if they if they're low by 10% so like that
to drop yes it has to drop more than 10 from the previous year and it can only be for weather or
safety issues okay and then the next one is uh 8.8.10 yes so the next one is really exciting
8.10 Discuss and consider future Board approval of an amendment to the 2024-2025, 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 Instructional Calendars to address a staff holiday based on the use of bad weather days.
and good news so historically the board has been very supportive in taking our last professional
development day which is usually added to the end of that three-day holiday
surrounding Easter to give a four-day holiday for students and staff so every
year it's usually brought to the board to approve and so what we've done is
we've provided the current year and the next two calendars to have a note that
says absent any significant bad weather you're basically pre approving staff to
have that extra holiday on whenever the last pd day falls so i will point to your attention for 26
27 um the last pd date does arrive in april so it is separate that won't be a four day weekend but
the reason that was done was so that you could have a three day weekend every single month
otherwise that is a long stretch from march to may so um the last pd day if there's no significant
bad weather if we don't need any additional minutes what you're approving
would be to have that legacy of kind of that pre-approval of a holiday for
students and staff I'd also like to draw your attention to the fact that we
always have two days of bad weather accounted for in our minutes so I don't
anticipate any problems in the future but we did want to just put that little
asterisk just in case there was a need so for example we'll have a teachers
will have a holiday on the 21st this year April 21st assuming we don't exceed
the two days yep three day or four day weekend okay great mr. president yes I
have a question first let me catch up with you okay so in 27 when it is is a
three day weekend in April is it not coinciding with Easter is that what the
thing is correct because um spring break and easter is so close together what was recommended
was to provide it on april 2nd which is at the end of the six week grading grading period which meets
the same standard of practice of having that pd day like we've had all of the other six weeks
before that and then it also kind of stretches out that three-day weekend into april so that there
isn't such a long um session without a break for teachers and students okay because so apparently
Apparently Easter must be on March 28th.
26th.
It's very early that year.
28th.
28th.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
The 28th.
The holidays on the 26th.
So I'm just going to say, I know this is still a couple years away, but I think the people,
the expectation, you know, there is like a trend and their habit and all this and we
get all the holidays.
And I understand everything you're saying.
But people are going to equate that with Easter.
You know, they're gonna because because it's always has been Easter first as long as I can remember
You know even before I was on the board
I think they used to do this and hmm
So I'm just I'm just saying so what I would like to ask is this could this could be subject to change still right?
I mean because this is this is just like a placeholder
But obviously this is two years away. So
Correct. This is currently what's approved with the modification of the asterisk
So certainly if something wanted to be changed, the board would have that ability to do so.
We're not completely set with this.
I mean, we're setting with it with the vote next week, but it could be changed.
Because I can see how people will get to that time and they'll go, wait a minute, we're not off on Monday?
And they won't remember your speech from right now, from two years ago.
They won't probably find a video with you saying this, so they won't understand what the reasoning is for that.
Hopefully we can remember it, but anyway.
It's three years from now.
I think we're all.
It's hard to remember last week, but certainly if the Board wanted to make a change to that,
there would be time to do that.
I think it's a good idea to put it in there so that we don't always keep doing this.
So that's awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anything else, Trustees, on that one?
Great.
Thank you.
8.11 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of Policy Update 124.
now we um we move on to uh 8.11 to discuss and consider a future board adoption of policy update
124. thank you this one isn't as exciting as a holiday um but it is important so um update 124
this is our first reading as you know now the second reading will be at the regular board
meeting where we'll be asking for your approval um it basically is kind of one of those maintenance
and sub days nothing super specific a lot of changes specific to administrative code one policy
cda just include a few local changes um but again those are kind of minor and just to clean up
when working with our finance team
and we have the the marked copies of the track changes on the uh local policy changes local and
legal both have all of the track changes available for anyone who wants to look at them
Any questions, comments? Thank you very much.
Thank you.
8.12 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the campus staffing plan for the 2025 - 2026 school year.
And we now have 8.12, which is Brian Schuss, Chief Human Resources Officer. Discuss and consider
future Board approval of the campus staffing plan for the 2025-2026 school year.
Thank you, President Perez, members of the Board, Dr. Gorski. First, I've got to say,
I feel a little bad. Mr. Smith, I think, had about 96 slides and I'm going to talk about
89% of the budget and four. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. But yeah, campus
staffing plan. So something we bring to the board every March, the staffing plan for the
following school year. And there's going to be some redundancies in my presentation that
that Mr. Smith has already presented.
But I do want to say, when he talks about this being
89% of the budget, I can make a joke,
but we do take this extremely seriously.
And this is something, any conversation that Dr. Hill,
oh, and Dr. Hill is with me this evening
for any questions or to keep me in line,
but any conversation we have about campus staffing
with any of the teams that we discuss,
that 89% at some point always comes up as a reminder
that we don't we certainly don't want to increase that number because that that
that limits the school district on what they can do for everything outside of
outside of staffing so and in addition to that this year knowing that it is a
low growth year we want to make sure certainly that our numbers are
representative of that so we're gonna we're gonna get into that so just a
little bit of a reminder about the about the process so our enrollment projections
are in mid-january and our business intelligence team and mr. Carter's folks
to do a fantastic job. They're working on this well before. Of course, we've got all our
demographic information, but for us, we start looking at that mid-January and final projections
into January. As soon as that happens, folks on my staff and HR staff, staffing data analysts,
they immediately begin to take all that enrollment information and generate campus staffing for each
individual campus. Once we have that, we meet with all of our assistant superintendents, school
leadership team who in turn speak with their principals then we begin to meet
with all of our other departments special education being one of those and
I'll briefly mention special education staffing later on in the in the
presentation and dr. coffee's here as well if there's any questions about that
and in those meetings are very important right because we have staffing standards
for our campuses but some of our assistant superintendents may have a
concern about about one of their campuses a principal may have a concern
about their campus and we've got to be able to listen to those concerns we can't
You can't just say, well, these are the standards and that's all there is to it because the
standards are very black and white.
But we've got to be able to listen to those concerns and if there is an exception to be
made, be able to make that.
For instance, let's say a campus drops just below a threshold where they might not continue
to have an assistant principal or a counselor.
They may say, Dr. Hill, Brian, I've just five kids below that threshold.
I cannot afford to lose that assistant principal this year.
Those are the kind of conversations that we have and make some of those exceptions.
But it's a fine line.
We can't make every exception, right?
Because again, it goes back to that 89%.
And then of course it culminates in tonight and next Monday with board approval.
And then we have that final release and then our teacher job fair is next Saturday.
So staffing projections.
And Mr. Smith talked about this.
So projection enrollment, 97,161 students for next year.
Enrollment used for projections are really better worded.
The enrollment at the time that we began to look at projections, 96,100.
So if you look at that, it's saying, okay, we're going to grow about 1,000 students.
Well, the 24-25 projection enrollment was 96,637, and that is where we staffed.
So really we're staffing from that number and staffing, as Mr. Smith discussed, for an additional 524 students.
students.
As I mentioned earlier, campus staffing is formula driven based on those standards.
And we do review those standards annually.
No changes to those standards this year.
It's a low growth year.
Not really a time to be adjusting standards as well as we all understand where we are
with budget constraints and school finance currently.
Okay, so getting into the numbers.
And you do have, this is very high level, you do have in your board agenda the campus
personnel staffing summary as well as the campus support staff summaries and
they have the detail that reflect this high-level information. So elementary
additional staff 63 and this is this is teachers this is paraprofessionals this
is administration this is this is all campus staff so elementary additional
staff 63 secondary additional staff 110 so 173 additional staff for the 25-26
school year and you know again knowing this is a low growth year and we do this
any year but but knowing that this is a low growth year you know we look at that
number we see 173 and dr. Hill and I kind of thought oh is that is that you
know I asked her all the times that passed the smell test you know is that
that seem seem right or seem a little high and so let me refer you to the
bottom of the page remember we're opening two elementary schools and we're
adding a grade level at Freeman High School and the numbers down at the
bottom of the page are the staff that are associated with those campuses
that's 274 staff members associated with those campuses and our request for
additional staff next year is 173. So I think that that really points to a low staffing year because
typically the narrative would be board of trustees were asking for let's say 450 additional staff
members and then the reminder that 200 of those are for new campuses whereas this year that's
completely flipped. Okay so we're requesting less than what it's taking to staff those campuses
which shows that in large part those campuses are being staffed with existing staff members in the
district. Past two or three years we've requested 50 additional growth units.
This year we've backed that down to 30 just because it is a low growth year and
with the budget constraints. So that gets us to the 203 campus staff units or
campus staff members and then campus support staff of 59. That's going to be
our food service staff, our custodial staff to staff the new campuses,
as well as some educational support, our LSSPs, diagnosticians, ARD facilitators,
speech-language pathologists those are included in that number as well and that
gets us to the total of 262 compared to the the 306 and in a half in the 24-25
school year now in discussing special education let's refer back to just the
elementary and secondary additional staff so those hundred and seventy-three
additional staff members 87 of those are special education support for those
campuses so about half of the additional request is special education support
that said won't want the board to know and obviously we know where we are with
budget constraints and with school finance but dr. coffee would tell you
that that that request is is a low request and and there's a concern that
that you know the level of the level of support that we expect in Katie is D
there's a concern that that's not going to get us there so what our plan is and
And that's much lower than the original request.
So after discussions with Mr. Smith, myself, Dr. Coffey, Dr. Gorski,
special ed did accommodate and reduce their request.
But what we hope is that if the state legislature does fund public schools,
does give public schools additional funding that actually do impact our bottom line,
in the next couple of months we may be coming back to you
with additional special education support for our campuses.
It's not something that with the 30 growth units that we would be able to handle
So if we are if you know if we do know of additional funding and we are able to afford that
we'll come back to the board with it with additional special education support and
that really in a nutshell, you know high level is campus staffing for
for the next school year and
We can take any questions
questions trustees
mr. President
Ms. Tamey?
Ms. Has anyone had time, and it's okay if not, but has anyone had time to look at the
ABM that we talked about tonight and how this might have, I know we're not talking about
a lot of students, but I just was curious.
Mr. Yes, ma'am.
So we're looking at probably two to four teachers, kind of just looking at it high level right
now and we'll dig into it a little more, but two to four teachers that would potentially
go from one campus to the other.
Ms. Okay.
Mr. Thank you for that.
Ms. And then, we're not changing the elementary.
we're just talking about changing the junior high right I'm going back to the
ABM sorry yes ma'am the ABM does not change elementary it does not change the
high school I'm sorry no is it these are net numbers yes sir so therefore the
growth in positions is looks like less because you're using staff members from
other campuses sir because I noticed that for example in the for total
teachers in elementary it's only going up by six sir and so and and that's a
good point and you know we're looking at this and again we go through all that
and we make sure you know look at things oh does that look right is that correct
well if you look at that and you look at that you look at that summary and you
look at elementary and you kind of look down you'll see a lot of reductions in
elementary and so what that tells us staffing at the level we did last year that in essence we
were overstaffed at the elementary this year and of course that helped with that number but that's
exactly why that is and in large part the the two new campuses are being staffed with existing staff
members okay actually that answered my question so that's okay mr president i'm sorry go ahead
Ms. Grisella?
Thank you.
So there was a couple of concerned or curious teachers hearing about the lower enrollment at certain campuses
that would then, I forgot what you call it, in excess special teachers.
On the specials?
The specials teachers.
Yes, ma'am.
Was that handled?
So we're in the middle of that process, and we're close to that process being complete.
I can get you that information.
I can't tell you tonight unless dr. Hill you know, but I can't tell you tonight if if all those special teachers specials teachers have them placed
But I can definitely get that information for you
I know we're nearing the end so how so how that works is we always want that process to end before the job fair and the
Job fairs coming up Saturday. Yeah, so so so that's how that process works, but right in the middle of it
Okay, so you're in the midst of that? Okay. Thank you. And then I have a I just looked I tried and I may have misread something
but I looked at the numbers here in detail of I
Guess per elementary secondary staff support staff etc and I
Saw an extra junior high admin. I mean is that I know this is really detailed question
But but we're not opening a junior high so like where would that be coming from so let me let me take a look
And I don't remember which line that is
Okay
It seemed odd to me
Thanks for junior high administrator. Yeah and then 23 junior high teachers what is the what's
going on there? Okay so I can address the 23 and I'll let Dr. Hill look up the the the admin and
maybe a student support administrator but with the 23 we also looked at that and so so a couple
things going on there we did have about three junior highs that did have a significant add I
I think, I want to say Nelson, this is off the top of my head, but I think Nelson had eight or ten.
Katie Junior High, I think, added a few.
And Haskett, yes, Haskett added eight or ten.
So now, of course, there's reductions in other areas, but those are pretty significant adds.
Also going into that, we had a couple of junior highs that, enrollment-based, would have dropped below a threshold,
that would have lowered them below a number of teachers
that is kind of a minimum for them to run their campus,
which is 39, and so we had to add those back.
So that impacted that 23 as well.
So that number did stick out to us, and we did look at that,
but based on enrollment in that threshold, it is correct.
Okay.
Okay.
And then there were, I saw seven instructional coaches being added.
Is that?
Yes, so that would be the new elementary campuses,
And I can get that to you as well.
Just because we just reduced, so I'm curious.
Well, so we just reduced, but it's going to be the same standard like the new campuses.
Percentage or same ratio.
Same standard, yeah.
But I can get you all those specific campuses.
No, that's okay.
I can get that to you.
If it's the same ratio, then it makes sense to me.
Yes, ma'am, absolutely.
Okay.
Okay, I think that answers my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other questions, Ms. Sheffay?
Yes.
I wanted to also ask some questions about the instructional coaches and the instructional coordinator, and I apologize
I know I asked this probably every year, but I have a two a two-fold question one is
What is the difference between an instructional coach and an instructional coordinator?
so
What I might do is I might have
Superintendents answer that question
So an instructional coach focuses on instruction. They work directly with teachers on instruction
and they might target some specific teachers that need some additional support. And instructional
coordinators do a wide variety of things. So they might be the MTSS coordinator. They probably
take care of organizing all of the state testing. What else? Speech arts. They conduct the speech
are and so the instructional coordinator is kind of an extension of the
administrative team okay so the instructional coordinator is the one
that's kind of like admin is that right right but it's a teacher but they're on
the teacher okay scale and the instructional coach because I look I
think the reason why I get a little bit confused about this is because when you
look at the instructional coach at high school there's not obviously I don't
think okay there's there's more than one for each high school which that probably
makes I can see that because it's a bigger population of kids but then when
you look at the instructional coordinator so in other words there's
more instructional coaches is that correct than instructional coordinators
am I getting that right yes so not all campuses have an instructional
coordinator it was because I heard that somehow the principals get to like if
If they get to choose maybe if they want an extra AP or an instructional coordinator,
is that correct?
Well, not necessarily, but if they're given the opportunity for Title I funding,
they might choose an instructional coordinator.
Okay.
Because the reason why I'm asking this is because sometimes there are campuses that
will complain or whatever because they don't have an instructional coordinator.
And so that's why I always kind of have to re-figure out what the answer is to that.
That's because the principal is choosing how to spend her or his Title I money.
Yes, when it comes to Title I, yes ma'am.
And what about if they aren't Title I?
So there is a standard for that.
And I can get you that too.
That's like a number of students?
Yes, so it's 1,300 students or more or at three programs.
So, three of our specialized special ed programs, if they have three of those programs, then
they qualify for an instructional coordinator.
Okay.
That's only for elementary, though.
Okay.
So, there's some kind of standard like that?
Yeah, it's like a formula.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
All right.
That answers because I do hear about that sometimes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Other questions?
Mr. Redman?
Mr. Schuss, as we move into this next year staffing plan, some of those changes have
been shared and right the quick story prior to covid we didn't really do the rehire retires
because the state would um analyze us with a significant penalty but we had esther funds so
we did hire those teachers and now as we've talked about our budget continuing to drop would you would
you mind sharing just to kind of share that with everybody kind of the budget drive for decision
and kind of the history behind why those contracts are currently not being renewed yeah so um
And we've talked about this for the past two or three years because it is expensive.
But, of course, it's conversations we don't want to have.
We know we love our teachers.
They're fantastic teachers.
But Mr. Smith can correct me, but I believe it's about a million dollars a year that we pay in the TRS pension surcharge.
And so this year, without seeing any additional funding, we didn't do that last year.
We talked about it last year.
But we said, you know, for 24, 25, let's not hire any more.
You know, let's keep it where it is.
and again with with no news on additional funding we did decide to take
that action this year and have those conversations but I do want to say and
those were difficult conversations right but in those conversations our retirees
were told that if additional funding was given to to KDISD in public schools this
is something we might be able to revisit in the future and and and we were very
clear with that because because those were difficult conversations and we know
these are great teachers but that's it is truly budget driven and budget
constraints and it's I think it's about a million dollars a year thank you thank
you I just I would just like to explain as well the surcharge when we know when
a teacher retires they quit contributing to TRS and now they are a recipient of
TRS dollars and this is strictly that the state and TRS trying to keep TRS
helpful because all for teachers that could retire would retire quit were
contributed to TRS take a TRS paycheck and then take a job in the district and
then a teacher who would be contributing to take a job that a teacher would be
contributing to is not going to have it won't be available and then TRS we go
broke very quickly because they need participants in there and so that's why
we were hit with a very hefty surcharge of what mr. Schuss says just under a
million dollars a year in that because TRS needs to have that revenue so it
doesn't go broke and that's that's why they surcharge exists mr. president
miss Cuzela about how many teachers are we talking about our positions I believe
it was 44 I believe but I'll double check that but I think 44 you you
mentioned about the perhaps coming back depending on school funding on this bed
side, correct, positions? Yes, sir. But with the budget so far the way it is, I
mean, I know that the shortage of SPED teachers is greater, generally speaking.
Does this budget exacerbate that or are we keeping up at all or how would you
characterize that? Well, so there is a shortage of SPED teachers. I mean, there
are. I mean, you know, out of 150 vacancies that we have right now, I think
57 of them are special education. So, you know, I guess you could say that adding
additional staff could exacerbate that.
But I'm saying is we're not, we're not making, are we making it worse with this budget?
In other words, we have a, where we're not, maybe they don't understand,
more SPED teachers?
Say, say, I'm sorry.
No, are we holding back from, from, from the, from hiring more SPED teachers because
because of the budget issues the state...
Well, yeah, certainly the budget issue, and I can just, you know, I'll explain it.
When we first spoke with Dr. Coffey, I believe the initial SPED request,
not by numbers but by dollar amount, was about $10 million.
And speaking to Mr. Smith, Dr. Gorski, we, in SPED, accommodated and lowered that request
down to about three and a half million dollars, which is about what it was last year.
So yes, it is purely budget driven and why we lowered that request.
So we still have the same shortfall?
Well, we still have the same shortfall currently and then potentially have a greater shortfall next year
depending on what happens with SPED growth and enrollment.
But you saw the presentation that Dr. Coffey gave last month and talked about the growth in special education.
Right. It's about 18% of our enrollment.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
And moving to 20.
The other thing I wanted to ask about, in the budget that you've presented so far,
I know it's early, there's no increase in class sizes. We're not talking about any increase
in class sizes like in secondary schools?
No, sir.
Any increase in class sizes, any kind of formula to increase class sizes?
No, sir. Not based on our standards.
Okay.
Okay.
And if you remember last year, we did at the secondary, we increased by half a student,
which is not really half a student, but, you know.
And this year, it's been, you know, probably six weeks ago or so,
Dr. Grogorski and I had that discussion and thought that this was not the year to do that again.
Got it.
So we left it the same.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Yes, I'm sorry.
I have one more.
but that you just made me think of something when you were saying what you
were saying about the reduction and so there are classes in that in the CTE
program that I don't want to mention the name but we've been hearing a lot about
it they get they get cut because there's not enough enrollment or interest in that
class is that correct and then what would happen first of all is that
correct and then what would happen to that teacher what yes ma'am that could
could happen and Ms. Hack could speak more directly.
to that but then that teacher would go into our process depending on their
certification to find them a new home
mr. president miss Gonzalo could I maybe this is a request for more information
further but the the staffing standard you keep referring to in your formula
hmm can I what is that absolutely like to see so we've got one for elementary
and we've got one for junior out of high school and periodically I will share
those with dr gregorski and i'll share those again and he can share those with the entire board okay
yeah that's your starting point you're talking yes absolutely yes ma'am and i will say mr president
may i say something i would like to just address what miss kazella because i've seen that before
is really interesting because the a school for example let's say a elementary school they'll
fall under a certain number and i don't i don't have them memorized but they'll and then they'll
lose a fine arts teacher and then that's difficult because they may only be like 20 under or whatever
But so they have 20 less kids, but they're gonna lose a whole
Teacher sometimes so those it is good for you to see that and it's good a good reminder to all of us because there's like
Every single thing has has a number to it
Yeah, I'll get it. Okay. Thank you very much anybody. Okay. Well, thanks. Thanks. Thank you
It's gonna be an interesting few months ahead of us
Thanks a lot
9. Information Items
Okay, on to 9.1, donated items to Katy Independent School District. Everybody got that list. And then unless anyone has any questions on that, Madam Secretary, have we captured any requests from the board such as the ones you just made?
Just the one I just made, yes.
Anything else?
10. Future Meetings
okay thank you very much we will have a regular board meeting on Monday March 31 2025 there be
no further business for the board this meeting is adjourned the time is 8 o 5 thank you all
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
The motions and votes for this meeting have not been recorded here yet. Whether any were taken is not stated either way. The agenda and the recording above are the primary sources.