Noting that a quorum is present, I hereby call this work study meeting of the Board of Trustees of Katy Independent School District to order.
Katy ISD · Work Study Meeting
Katy ISD Work Study Meeting, June 15, 2026
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In this meeting
The headings and the descriptions beneath them are the district’s own words, taken from its index of this recording.
- 0:05 to 0:27 1. Call to Order
- 0:27 to 1:28 2. Pledges of Allegiance
- 1:28 to 1:48 4. Closed Meeting
- 1:48 to 2:27 5. Reconvene – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
- 2:27 to 12:10 6.1 Presentation on the 2026-2027 Federal Grant Applications.
- 12:10 to 1:23:19 7. Reports
- 1:23:19 to 1:25:09 8.1 Discuss and consider Board approval of the 2025 - 2026 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) representatives.
- 1:25:09 to 1:28:31 8.2 Discuss and consider Board approval of the April 2026 Financial Reports.
- 1:28:31 to 1:30:29 8.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of an amendment to the Fort Bend County Tax Collection Interlocal Cooperation Agreement.
- 1:30:29 to 1:38:05 8.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of the June 2026 budget amendments.
- 1:38:05 to 1:58:57 8.5 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the Katy Independent School District compensation plan for the 2026 - 2027 school year.
- 1:58:57 to 1:59:11 8.6 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a compensation increase for the 2026 - 2027 school year.
- 1:59:11 to 2:00:08 8.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Interlocal Agreement with Harris County Department of Education for specialized therapy services - ECI Project Tyke.
- 2:00:08 to 2:12:13 8.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of the breakfast and lunch meal price increase for the school year 2026 - 2027.
- 2:12:13 to 2:13:10 8.9 Discuss and consider Board approval for the electrical service upgrades at the Mayde Creek Complex.
- 2:13:10 to 2:23:02 8.10 Discuss and consider Board approval to award a contract for design services necessary for the renovation and construction at the Complex of Innovation.
- 2:23:02 to 2:24:16 8.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of a First Amendment to the Cost Sharing Agreement for Drainage Facilities to service PHHOU Cane Island, LLC., Lennar Homes of Texas Land and Construction, LTD., Harris County Municipal Utility District's (MUD) #171, (MUD) #178, (MUD) #465.
- 2:24:16 to 2:26:12 8.12 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of Policy Update 127.
- 2:26:12 to 2:34:03 8.13 Discuss and consider cell phone tower leases.
- 2:34:03 to 2:38:26 9. Consent Items
- 2:38:26 to 2:41:15 10. Information Items
- 2:41:15 to 2:41:28 11. 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, June 15, 2026, and the time is 5.02 p.m.
Dr. Gorgorski, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act with regard to notice for this meeting?
Mr. Edmund, I do confirm we're in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meeting Act for our meeting tonight.
We'll be starting our meeting tonight with the Pledge of Allegiance and our KDIC police
2. Pledges of Allegiance
officer Robert Lister will lead us in the pledges tonight.
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 thee, Texas,
one state, under God, one and indivisible.
Thank you.
Do we have any scouts in the audience this evening?
No.
All right.
It is time for public comment,
but we do not have anyone signed up for public comment,
so we'll move past that.
and this concludes the open forum portion of our meeting the board will
4. Closed Meeting
now convene in closed meeting is authorized under section five five one
zero zero one of the Texas government code for the following purposes Texas
government code five five one zero seven one and five five one dot one two nine
5. Reconvene – The Board will reconvene from Closed Meeting.
The board will now reconvene in open meeting.
Today is Monday, June 15, 2026, and the time is 546 p.m.
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome everyone to this evening's work study.
Each board member received the agenda and documentation for this meeting on Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
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.
And in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, any action arising from discussions in the closed meeting must be taken in an open meeting.
There's no action to take from closed meeting.
6.1 Presentation on the 2026-2027 Federal Grant Applications.
so tonight we'll move on to section six uh item 6.1 presentation on the 2026-2027 federal grant
applications and our presenter will be nikki akoye our executive director of federal programs
all righty good evening president redmond board members and dr gregorski tonight i'll present
the annual public hearing for our federal grant programs for the 26-27 school year these grants
provide supplemental funding to support specific student populations and program
areas across the district. Most of these are formula grants, meaning funding is
generated through federal formulas established in law. Each grant has a
specific purpose and spending requirements and tonight I will briefly
review each program and the activities we are proposing to support next year.
Before we submit our federal grant applications, federal law requires that
we provide the public an opportunity to review and comment on our proposed use
use of funds. This hearing fulfills that requirement and allows us to share how these funds will
be used to support students and staff throughout KDISD. I'll start with Title I, Part A. The
purpose of Title I is to provide additional support to schools with higher percentages
of students with low-income families and help ensure students have access to the resources
they need to meet academic expectations. The intent of the program is to help close academic
academic achievement gaps by providing additional academic support where student needs are greatest.
In KDISD, these funds primarily support campus staff, tutorials, instructional materials,
professional development, and parent-family engagement activities.
The next program is Title II, Part A. This grant focuses on supporting effective instruction
by investing in teachers, principals, and other school leaders.
The idea behind Title II is that student success is directly impacted by the quality of instruction
students receive each day.
The activities listed on this slide support professional development learning opportunities,
leadership development, mentoring programs, conference attendance, and training designed
to strengthen instructional practices across the district.
Simply put, Title II helps ensure our educators have access to the training and support needed
to help students succeed.
Another important federal program is Title III, Part A.
These funds support our English learners
by helping them develop English proficiency
while also meeting the same academic standards
expected of all students.
The goal is to ensure language is not a barrier
to academic success.
In addition to instructional materials
and professional development,
Title III supports extended learning opportunities,
family engagement opportunities,
and parent centers that help families better support their students education
title four is a little different because it allows districts to support students
in several areas the purpose of this grant is to provide access to a
well-rounded education support safe and healthy schools and improve the
effective use of technology this grant recognizes that student success begins
more depends on more than academics alone so in Katie I see the funds these
These funds support social workers and dropout prevention facilitator salaries, instructional materials, as well as summer programs.
Idea Part B.
Idea provides federal support for students with disabilities.
The purpose of this grant is to ensure eligible students receive the special education and related services necessary to access a free, appropriate public education.
The intent is to ensure students with disabilities have access to the services and supports needed
to make educational progress alongside their peers.
These funds help support instructional staff, behavioral intervention services, speech services,
evaluations, therapy services, and professional development.
Our career and technical education programs are supported through Perkins V funding.
The purpose of this grant is to help students develop the academic, technical, and employability
skills needed for success after high school.
The focus is preparing students for both college and career pathways while helping meet future
workforce needs.
These funds support program staff, instructional materials, equipment, and professional development.
Perkins Funds helps ensure students have access to high-quality CTE programs that prepare
them for college military service, industry certifications, and careers in high-demand
fields.
And our final program is the Texas Education of Homeless Children and Youth Grant.
So the purpose of this grant is to identify and remove barriers that may present may prevent
students from experiencing homelessness from fully participating in school.
So the intent is to provide educational stability during often during a time which is is very
often an unstable time in students lives.
So these funds support programs, staff, tutorials, school supplies, emergency assistance, and other services designed to help maintain school stability.
And the education of homeless children and youth allotment has not been released by the state, so that amount remains to be determined.
And so here we have a slide that compares our current year final entitlements with the planning amounts for next year.
So you can see that varying that funding levels vary based on the federal formulas and how much was allocated to the state.
The most significant change is the loss of our Title three immigrant allocation.
So that funding requires districts to meet specific growth criteria.
And so we did not actually there was a decline in that population.
So we did not meet the criteria for that grant this year.
And that also happened maybe several years ago during the COVID where we did not have those funds as well.
But then they came back, so there's always that possibility.
Okay, so this concludes the public hearing for the 26-27 federal grant programs, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Board, any questions?
Mr. President.
Ms. Champagne.
Okay.
Thank you, Ms. Coy.
I love it when you get to have your time because I know that what you do is so important.
But does this represent all of the money that we get from the federal government?
I would not say all because food and nutrition is a large chunk of federal, pretty much other
than food and nutrition.
Chris, if you help me out, I don't know.
Is this all the money?
The Child Nutrition Fund, Food Services Fund, which you'll hear about tonight, is a large,
probably the largest one of the individual grants that we receive.
The general fund will take indirect costs and some SHARS revenue, but it's a very small
percent.
It's 1% of the general fund.
But besides the Child Nutrition Fund, this is where the federal funds come from.
Okay.
And I would state that as these are awarded through Texas Education Agency, we will send
a memo to the board through dr gregorski letting them know that that these are entitlement grants
that are been awarded and the dollar amounts and what they're for in general and do we have to
apply for these each year okay and is this i just want you to say this in front of everyone because
you know when we talk about the um idea um this is not all the money that we need for to support
that section of children, right?
So this only pays for a small amount
because there is a, I don't want to say misconception,
but an idea out there by some people
that the federal government funds all of our special needs.
And I know this is, but I don't know,
I don't expect you to know the percentage of it,
but it's very underfunded, right, by the federal government.
I will say that back when IDEO was passed about 50 to 51 years ago, within the last year it was 50 years, the goal of the federal government was to fund it at 30 percent.
And we're somewhere around 15 percent funding level, if I'm not mistaken.
I hadn't read that lately, but it's a very, very small percentage.
It's dipping every year, too.
Is the 30% goal, is that still written as part of their guidelines and they're just not, you know, meeting it?
To my knowledge, that goal has never changed.
It is dusty, but it has never changed.
Okay.
So we did get 30% rather than 15%.
We would get probably double the amount of money that we get, I guess.
But anyway, I appreciate your time.
I just wanted it to be known that the federal government, although they are helpful and
we want to continue to receive help from them, they're not completely funding that population
of people.
They're not meeting up to their 30% that they were told to us that they would do.
Thank you so much for your presentation.
I appreciate your work in this.
I really do.
Any other questions for?
You did a great job. Thank you.
Next we have the public hearing on federal grant applications, and I don't believe anybody signed up for that.
7. Reports
So we'll move on to seven reports in our first presentation under reports.
So 7.1, our 2026-2027 budget update, and our presenter, Chris Smith, our chief financial officer.
It is less than 15%.
I checked that just now.
Okay, we are through March in our budget process.
Again, you're looking at June tonight.
We don't adopt until August.
some of our neighboring districts and districts across the state you're
probably seeing it in headlines they are already adopting because they their
budgets take effect July 1 we are still on the August 31st or September 1
beginning of our fiscal year which in times like this is good in my opinion
significantly better than than to be June and so we still don't adopt for
for another two months.
Tonight, I'm going to be speaking to you about,
and this board will adopt three adopted budgets.
The General Operating Fund, also referred to as the GOF,
or the Operating Fund.
Interest in Sinking, or the Debt Service Fund,
is also referred to that.
And then the Special Revenue Fund, or the Food Service
or Child Nutrition Fund.
I'm not going to speak to that tonight.
I know Mr. Bierling is going to speak to that fund tonight, but you'll see all three of those in July and then again in August for adoption.
Tonight, mainly we're going to talk about the general operating fund.
We are looking at a projected deficit again, but I want to make sure that I restate what I've said up here several years now,
that we adopt a deficit budget that is a backstop, that is so people can operate and do the things that they need to do.
not that they want to do.
And those wants, unless they turn to needs, go undone.
And so we normally don't spend the entire budget.
It's a backstop.
If we pulled out that and went with just the needs,
then when something popped up from a want to a need,
we would be driving you nuts with budget amendments increasing the budgets,
and sometimes we would not be able to react in a timely manner
to get those funds spent for our programs and for our children.
So I'm confident that 25-26, as it ends, will be another surplus year, not a deficit year.
In fact, well, tonight, Ms. Rios is going to be presenting a budget amendment.
That budget amendment goes back to the 23-24 fiscal year, where the first big increase in the homestead exemption was passed by the voters of Texas in November of 2023.
23, the CADs, the county appraisal districts from all the counties in the state, or at least that
I'm aware of, especially in the three counties that we deal in, reported in November of 23
information that was just frankly incorrect. They didn't have the software to handle that
big homestead exemption increase. They reported the way they had reported it. The comptroller
worked it the way they had worked it. TEA worked it the way they worked it. School districts worked
it the way they worked it and we've uh were approved in march late march a uh the comptroller
approved our 2023 property value audit uh that yielded 34 million dollars so had all the stars
been aligned from the county appraisal districts comptroller's office tea this district etc uh 34
million dollars would have been received in the 23 24 school year they weren't we're going to get
them now. It's a one-time anomaly, not an anomaly, but it's a one-time injection of cash. I'll be
speaking to that here in a minute. Well, I'll go ahead and speak to it now. I know Mr. Schuss will
be speaking with it in his item tonight, but of that $34 million, Mr. Schuss is going to be
suggesting or proposing a 1% lump sum payment, cash payment to all our staff in August. That
that would happen out of the budget that we're currently operating in, not next
year's budget. That's the cost of $8 million. And then another 1% around
Christmas time, again, using that inflection of cash of another $8 million
or just a little more than $8 million at that time. Um, as a way of giving to
our employees that deserve some cost of living stuff. It's not ongoing. He is
also going to be recommending it on 1% ongoing. That's from a chief financial
financial officer standpoint, that's tough to do when you're working in an environment that's fixed, fixed income, if you will, because it's hard to give away something that's ongoing if the state doesn't do what they need to do. And that's the way you get upside down in your budgets. And it's hard to take back. You can't take back a pay raise. And so one times are a good way to get through the storm, if you will. And we have the cash to do so. So Mr. Suss will be talking to you about that in more detail in his item.
But Ms. Rios is going to be presenting a budget amendment,
and we knew we would get a comptroller's property value audit,
but we did not know it would be near that large.
It is an anomaly on the size of it.
There's no skipped expenses in our budget,
and we don't have any things that are accounting gimmicks, if you will,
like a fiscal year change.
I've seen districts go, we balanced our budget.
You balance your budget because you changed your fiscal year end
from August 31st to July 1st and that's a 10-month expenses and yeah if you're
gonna have 10 months expenses and one year 12 months of revenue that's people
have done that and it does increase their fund balances significantly that
but I'm not proposing that there's no need to be changing a fiscal year for
that it really doesn't affect your cash position cash is still gonna hit a low
no matter what your fund balance is sometime in the October or November area before the taxes start coming in.
Our general fund balance has gone up over the years.
This is the last 23 years has increased.
But remember, we've more than doubled our students.
And so if a family has a income of, let's just say, $100,000,
dollars, we all know that they should be having 20% of it in the bank for unexpected anomalies
that they may need to have that money for. If they are blessed and that money doubles,
that savings should double. So as our expenses have raised over the years, our fund balance
does need to go up. And this next slide is our expenses. That reflects adding all that staff
for all those, you know, 50,000 additional students over that additional time frame of
of all the teachers necessary to educate those 50,000 students,
our expenses went up, but our fund balances went up at the same level,
which is appropriate, very appropriate.
I would point out that you see that increase in the 18-19 year,
that big increase, that was Senate Bill 500.
I think that was Senator Kohlkors' bill on the coattails of Hurricane Harvey
that have impacted districts.
And so we found out about that late in the year,
and basically that amount of money,
almost $50 million, went straight to fund balance.
It was a one-time injection of cash.
It was to make up for the loss
and the loss of property values that we had during the event.
And that is the reason for the increase there,
that one large year.
And then we've been able to earn interest on that,
which has helped in a very good interest rate environment
moving forward with ongoing budgets. But as a percentage of fund balance, again
this is the one that really looks at your fiscal health, that's stayed
relatively flat. I've always said that if that thing could go straight across
that 35% line for the next 10 years or until whenever it is I retire, I'll be
happy. If that goes up, we're not putting the money to work for our staff and our
students if it goes down we're overspending even though we may be
gaining fund balance we're not gaining it at a healthy level I do expect that
to tick up this next year kind of back to where it was the year before or
somewhere maybe even a little bit higher than that but again over time we'd like
that to be that a flat line again that flat is healthy in that in that also 25%
You can see that there.
As long as it's over 25%, the rating agencies and tax education agency, et cetera, think that you're okay at that.
What you don't want to do is start having it dive and dive at a level that's hard to pull out of.
And the only way to really pull out of that is to reduce expenses.
And you see a lot of that in some of the headlines across the state of what they're trying to do to get out of their fund balance percentage dive.
have primary revenue drivers in our budget are the basic allotment and the formulas inside the
foundation school program those are set by law House Bill two most recently updated those those
funding formulas that were done last summer they're stagnant they're they're set in law
there's nothing that this board or anybody in this room can do to affect that enrollment is
is something that we really can't control. Although I will say that uh
that Mrs Hack and her team and Dr Gregor ski, I think he presented on this
last week of the things that we're trying to do to do to affect our
enrollment. And those are those you can control. That kind of stuff is
attempts to counterbalance stagnant or flat enrollment or declining
enrollment or to increase it even further. I know back in 2004 during
Hurricane Katrina. We were in October. That event happened and we were able to
place kids from that were relocated from Louisiana into our schools that needed
not needed but that had capacity and we had a didn't have to add expenses you
were able to put like sand in a bucket of rocks and they just fit and by doing
the things that Dr. G spoke to last week at the Dr. Gorgorski spoke to last week
are things that we're doing that can kind of add sand in a bucket of rocks.
And so I, from a financial officer perspective, very much appreciate those efforts.
Property values we can't control.
And the tax rate, compression rate, we really can't control.
I'm going to speak to that here in a few minutes.
But we really can't control that as a board.
We can control our enrichment pennies.
We have 11.02 enrichment pennies of a total of 18. If you'll recall back in
2021, we went to the voters to try to get those increased by four and we were not
able to do so. That is a school district's really, other than trying to
control their enrollment through the things that this district's doing,
through attendance incentives that this district is doing, etc. That's the only
The only other thing that we can do to try to affect our revenue, and that's to have a VATRE.
And, again, we have the good fortune to have 11.02 enrichment pennies.
That means we have all eight golden pennies and 3.02 copper pennies.
And, again, the district tried to go get 4.7 more copper pennies back in 2021, and that was not successful.
successful. Pending outstanding items that are not included in the budget that you're going to
see tonight are property tax compression. That's to be determined. That's because when we get the
final values, we have a certified estimate from our three appraisal districts, but we won't get
certified values until July the 20th. And so on July the 20th, the Texas Education Agency will
will open a portal for us to input half a dozen numbers,
maybe not even that many,
and that will set the district's compressed tax rate.
The higher our values grow, we have a chance to compress,
the TEA will compress our tax rate more.
If our values aren't growing very much,
our compressed rate may not change very much.
That's out of our control.
The only thing is in control is we will have 11.02 pennies to put on top of that compressed rate.
When that compressed rate goes down, it does not affect our changes, our revenue.
It will affect the mixture of our revenue between state and local values, our local revenue like this container.
The pink level and the brown level may change.
But the fact is we will only get that basic allotment or $6,215 per student.
no matter what the level of the sand does. So it could lower our tax rate for our patrons, for us as taxpayers.
That's a wonderful thing, but it won't affect the amount of revenue.
We won't lose any revenue by lowering that rate.
We won't gain any if we don't lower that rate because we're capped at $6,215 per student.
Education savings accounts, not included in these numbers tonight.
We don't know what that's going to be. We may have a better idea when we open school in August for when we adopt the budget, but we may not at that point still, maybe still not clear.
Right now, nobody has that crystal ball, but nobody also has the crystal ball of the effects of the programs that Dr. Grigorski spoke to last week.
So those are not included in there because they're speculative.
What we have included in there are what we have trends for and we can support through trends.
Those are new, new part of our worlds, and we will gladly increase the revenue budget if that works sometime, maybe even in August, but for sure by September or October should that be warranted through those hard work efforts by Dr. Grigorski, Mrs. Hack, and her teams.
Enrollment in KVS and out of district is kind of what I'm talking about when I mentioned the efforts that we're doing to try to affect our enrollment. Again, that's to be determined. So that's not in these numbers.
Just as a reminder, Senate Bill 4 increased the voters supported that and increased the homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000. That was in effect in our statements this last year. It's going to be in effect in our statements when they go out again in November.
That costs the state $3.7 billion in total.
And then, again, also the compression.
They put $3 billion towards rising property values to compress or to push down the tax rate.
It won't change our total revenue, but it would be a benefit to our taxpayers.
Again, if their houses appreciate and go up in value, the state wants to push down that through the tax rate
so that it doesn't all land on the burden of the taxpayer.
Special education, Senate Bill 568 is new to the funding formulas.
It's not in the 25-26 school year.
It will be new in the 26-27 school year.
It set aside $850 million.
We don't know what that's going to be.
Those formulas are absolutely not written at this point.
What they have asked all the school districts in the state of Texas to do is to hand input or manually input all of their IEPs in their district.
And so our Dr. Coffey and her team that are off contract are now working to input 19,350 IEPs manually into the state of Texas's database.
database and that's going to cost us about $65,000 to pay people that are off contract to do,
but it is a manual and labor-intensive process. But all the school districts across the state
are doing that and then the state will take that information based on those IEPs and then they're
going to apply the formulas to those results. So there's absolutely no way for me to tell you that
we will gain $4 million, $2 million. I've heard there will be some districts just depending on
the mixture of the type of special needs kids they have could lose money we don't know but when we
find that out and when we find that out in the fall we will amend the budget so what you'll see
is not going to include that because it would be complete speculation on my part or on my team's
part going on the coattails of um ms champagne's question about the idea portion that's spent
Even if we add, let's just say we were on the top end and we got $4 million additional special education money,
that blue allotment line that you see, the one on the left of the red, would rise by $4 or $5 million.
But it's still, we are...
still spending more on those students and they are they also are not funding
the full expense to fund our special ed program okay even with that we there
will not be doing and I went ahead and added because this was in there last
year when I had an added that are that's the same for our state allotment for
safety and security and our state allotment for transportation you can see
that our expenses are far more than the revenue that the funding formulas
generate those are coming back on on this district to fund those differences
a lot of numbers here I'll just focus on the shaded it well I'm going to go to
the basic allotment those are the same six thousand two hundred fifteen they
did change finally from six thousand one hundred sixty dollars for the for since
2019 they finally changed for the 2526 that you see on the left and it's going
to be there until they they'll all changes that again as did the Golden
and penny yield at $129.52 per student per WADA or per per WADA per penny of tax effort.
Enrollment from our PEIM snapshot was down $1,866 from the year before. We are projecting it to go
down or let's just say relatively flat this next year without including things like the increases
in the works that Mrs. Hack and her team are doing for out-of-district
students in the Katy virtual program, etc. That's not included in here, nor is
any loss of students to vouchers, but right now we're looking at a flat
enrollment. And then you can see there's a very small change on maintenance and
operations tax rate based on what we know, based on our certified estimate of
those values estimate being the key thing if they if the values increase a
little bit more that tax rate will go down a little bit more and then the INS
tax rate is based on the same amount or 39 cents I did I did put in here and
it's not shaded and this is how it's been done for 22 years I didn't want to
change it but we are what the people that are tied to our teacher salary
salary schedule is down 259 students, but the non-teacher growth is up 142 students. Now, all but nine of those, and you'll hear about the details on that from Mr. Schuss, are campus related. Those are, they're in positions like emergent bilingual specialists. They're not tied to the teacher salary schedule, but they're needed. And emergent bilingual clerks, etc. They're all campus positions. Most of them are campus positions, but I did want to point that out. I
I didn't want to change that on here.
I should have put a bubble that showed that breakdown of campus, non-campus,
and I didn't think about it until just now.
But that is the breakdown and how we've shown it before.
But in a growing district, yeah, you'd add a lot of teachers
and you'd add non-teachers to support those.
But the world has changed in the last 12 months.
Tax revenues up slightly.
State funding, you can see, is down $10 million.
dollars. Why is it down? Well, tax revenues went up a little bit, so it's offset. Color of this
sand changes a little bit. Doesn't affect the bottom line, but the fluid, the seesaw, if you
will, does happen. We're losing a little over five million dollars to the fast growth allotment.
With that decrease in enrollment this last year, it took us a dent. We went from number one to
number three or four on the list that's over a six year period of time but we fell from from one
i think to three or four on that list but that cost us four or five million dollars um just being
flat or just a small decrease also cost us and nifa the new instructional facilities allotment
that's the thousand dollars we get for every new student in a new school we're not opening new
schools this year and so that amount is going down as well so those those are the primary things that
that are driving that down and you can see that unlike the years past where you would
gain 30 or 40 million dollars in revenues because of student growth, you can see a three
million dollar decrease.
Again, I think that's still conservative at this point.
It does not include the additional special ed.
It does not include the optimism that I have for those programs that Mrs. Hack and Dr.
Gorgorski are working on, etc.
but we just don't know and didn't think it would be fair to just blindly guess at this point.
So what we would look at now is after tonight, before tonight, you have a $19 million deficit.
Again, you adopted a $24 million deficit.
It's down to $19 million.
We are underspending, Mr. Hines' report said, every month.
Now we're going to add tonight $34 million.
So you're going to have a $6.8 million surplus after tonight.
And again, we're still going to be underspending.
Mr. Schuss is going to recommend a 1% to be paid during this fiscal year,
so now your 6.8 would go down to about minus 1.2,
but underspending is happening,
and we'll put that back into a small increase to fund balance,
which is appropriate.
Next year, right now, we're looking at a $15.7 million deficit.
I'm confident that we can support that 1% ongoing salary increase and it's not
included in that bottom line number in the 1% payment because we have the cash
to do that and I'm confident that we will be okay and not dipping and start
diving our fund balance like some of the districts that we've seen across the
state. We're very blessed to be able to be in a position that we can do that and
and not put ourselves in financial dire straits. Again, you can see that percentage at the very
bottom. We're going to end up a surplus, so if we switch that to a surplus, you're probably looking
back to about 34 percent, which would raise next year's to about 33 percent if all things
went bad next year. Still be just over 30 percent, so we're in good shape there.
Debt service, not going to talk a lot about that, but I think it would be, I don't know the word, I can't grab it, but it wouldn't be right for me to be in the middle of a refunding.
We are in the process of refinancing our bonds or refunding our bonds that are callable.
We have about $165 to $175 million in bonds that are callable.
We expect about an 8% present value savings, which would yield several million dollars in cash savings that can be reduced out of our budget moving forward.
Interest savings to our taxpayers by replacing those bonds with bonds at a lower interest rate.
In addition, we're teeing up a new money sale of $50 million.
million dollars. We don't need that money for our construction projects right now,
but what we want to do is to be able to issue those
so we don't have to pull back as much principle
on the refunding to keep as many bonds as we can eligible for additional state
aid for homestead exemption. In essence, we're doing a lot of work to generate
rate about a little over $100,000 a year in the good to this district by taking advantage of
additional state aid for homestead exemption by keeping those eligible for that funding. If we
just paid those bonds off through that refunding, the eligibility for them would go away. And so
by the mixture of that, we're a huge savings in a budget this size, but $100,000 a year plus is
hundred thousand dollars a year plus and so it's worth the efforts to do that.
Those rating calls are happening this week and I'm not sure when the
transaction will happen. I'll be selecting a syndicate or the investment
banks that help perform that transaction and we'll be going to market sometime in
the next few weeks, markets considered. We'll be able to enter or to not or just
sit on the sideline until we think it's best from an interest rate environment
for the district to move forward and again we're doing that all under a
the 39 cent INS tax rate as our goal. Future property values, what's going to happen, we'll
know in about six weeks. Property values aren't going to really change anything with a general
fund. It will help us with our debt service fund. We'll be able to pay down principal faster if they
increase more. If they increase more, we'll be able to change this color of sand and compress
our tax rate a little bit, saving our taxpayers dollars, but that won't help our general fund.
and then enrollment growth who knows how those efforts are going to work out or
what the the voucher process is going to happen to us but I'm pretty optimistic
about that I do think it's appropriate not to speculate at this point and if
this early and then state funding the implementations of the funding that's
not included in there for special ed I've dwelled a lot on that and then also
So there are limitations to where they say, okay, like for the fast growth allotment is a perfect one where they say we're going to give, I don't remember the amount, I think it's $200 million, and that's a cap.
And so if the growth across the state hits $200 million, you're all going to get prorated downward so we don't have to spend more than that cap amount.
But with state-wide enrollment doing what it's doing, are some of those ceilings going to go up a little bit, which could create more money?
I have no way to know and we won't know until probably October because that's when people will start
Reporting their enrollments etc etc
And then the TEA will then look at their budget and adopt adjust as well
Which could free up some some money within those caps that could help us. I just don't know
And then next month you'll hear all three funds won't be as quite as extensive as tonight, but we'll show you a
closer
Poster step to the target on our general operating fund.
We'll show you proper and loss for the debt service fund and the food service fund here in July.
And then you'll be ready in August.
It'll be a piece of cake from the perspective.
Y'all should have everything you need, if I've done my job right, to be able to adopt those budgets in August.
And at this point I'll be glad to answer any questions that somebody may have.
Thank you Mr. Smith. Board, any questions?
Mr. President, I have a question.
Ms. Taylor.
Mr. Smith, how are we thinking about the transition from service intensity based funding model for SPED?
How are we thinking about managing that in terms of what that funding might look like?
Or do we have the numbers to forecast the possibility of how that might impact our budget?
it well we've moved forward with the staffing plan uh to handle as best we can the the special
ed expenses associated with those again what those formulas are going to change to i don't know we
have a we've used the old formulas for for for the projection that you saw there um and i could
i'm going to guess it's two and a half to four million dollars that it would add to us but
But again, depending on how those IEPs shake out and how those formulas are written, we could lose money.
I don't think that's the case.
I think those odds are very small.
But there will be districts that lose with those new formulas, and there will be districts that gain.
There will be districts that gain big.
I just don't know where we lay, but I'm going to guess $2.5 to $3 million, maybe $4 if we're lucky.
But that will be added.
but I won't be able to add that until August and we could speculate make the
bottom line look better or we could just say structurally this is what what it
what it calls for and we know that there's things out there that's that
could that could be better but if I go out there and we put four million in and
it only comes and we're a losing district well that's a four million
dollar swing that isn't fair to to you guys management or the public to just
just scoop it out from under us because we speculated it.
I don't know if that answered your question.
It does.
I prefer you're taking a more conservative approach, so thank you.
Mr. President.
Mr. Dixon.
Mr. Smith, thank you for the presentation.
Very helpful.
I think you kind of outlined the landscape really well.
I just had one question.
You had talked about the general fund balance as a percentage of expense.
Yes, sir.
And I thought that was an informative graph.
We had been above that 30% threshold for 14 years.
years and if I'm interpreting slide 15 right it looks like you know once the I guess the final
numbers come out we will be hovering around 30.8 and then are projecting to dip to 29.6.
Worst case if we spend all that money and we won't I think that I think you're going to see
a tick back up on that percentage slide when when our audit comes in and you see it in January I'll
show this again in January, and I think you're going to see it tick back up to around 32, 33%.
Okay, that's helpful. I just wanted to, you had noted the 35% flat line would kind of be ideal.
You painted a lot of challenges, so I understand why it was dipping a little bit, but just wanted
you to comment on that. It was helpful for me and anybody else who was kind of following along your
your trajectory there. Thank you.
Yes, sir. And, you know, from a
flat goal standpoint, I think that
this board has done a fantastic
job of doing things for our
employees within the
limits of state
law. $6,215
is what we
have to do. And so,
you know, we're doing everything we can
to not drive that
fund balance down, but to give our employees
as much as we can. And it's a fine balancing
balancing act that I appreciate you all doing. And even though it's going down a little bit,
that's appropriate for our employees, especially since we're in a healthy position. If it were
under 25% and it was going down like that, alarms would be sounding and I wouldn't be comfortable
at all at that point. But to see that little small decrease in the environment that we're in,
that's what fund balance is for. It is to be healthy to get you through a storm
through the until the weather gets better and and and hopefully the weather
will get better in the future if if they would have just put inflationary factors
in that basic allotment they would give you all the tool to say okay well we can
count on that whatever that inflation factor is to increase in salaries or
benefits and or benefits to our staffs and to pass that along the only other
Another way to do that, to affect that is somehow get more kids, somehow pass a VATRE or reduce expenses.
And none of those are popular.
Well, I guess getting more kids is, but the other two are not, especially reducing expenses.
Because when you reduce expenses, you effectively affect programs that people want.
Mr. Ubin?
how did you know mr i want to let the new uh trustees know this mr smith is an excellent
teacher and so i have been here this is my beginning of my ninth year and i continue to learn
from him and i appreciate the time you take putting your presentations together
i'm just enthralled every time but actually this is the truth i do have some comments i tonight
First of all, I love the sand thing, and I hope that the public is watching because it's so important for everyone to know that although we're thrilled to death, as you said, when the property taxes can be lowered, we will still, no matter what, get the same amount of money.
Even if somehow miraculously we had the whole thing filled up, we're still only going to get that much money because then we go into the Robin Hood thing where we have to give our excess away.
way. So we're never going to get more than that bucket as far as basic allotment is concerned.
So I really, really think that that's such an important illustration that you make every once
in a while. Thank you, Ms. Champagne, because you just nailed that explanation about the sand going
here, but just spill over the top and go back to Austin. Okay. Then the other thing is I just have
us a couple comments to make first of all um i really appreciate the um i don't know if we're
going to talk about it but the strategies and the ideas that the team has with dr gruborski about
increasing enrollment and you know trying to advertise to the kindergartners coming and
trying to do the virtual school and offering the open enrollment and all that these are such
innovative things to do and I really appreciate that so I don't know if we're
going to expand on that more but he actually did a really great presentation
of it TASB and I think it was beneficial for other districts to see our ideas and
you know it's helpful to other people because we ultimately we care about all
the five and a half million kids in our state that are receiving our you know
education from public school the other thing I would like to say is the 34
million dollar I don't know kickback or whatever I really appreciate you all
trying to do your best to give that back to our staff and even though it may not
be as much as you know we would all love we want to give everyone a huge raise
but we you know the fact that you're that you've looked into it you knew
about it and you figured out a way to give it back is awesome the other thing
I want to say is on page 11 it's on my page 11 I think yeah no actually page 12
that is something really good that I wish maybe we should take to our
legislators in the spring to show that you know we aren't getting here's what
we're spending and here's what we're getting somehow and that's such a good illustration
for everyone to see and i hope people is this on the website somewhere yeah i believe so it
will be yes it should be because i think that you know hopefully people that are interested in this
can understand that we're doing what we can and with what we have which is not not enough and
And then what else do I want to say?
Oh, and, you know, God bless you, Dr. Coffey, and your team on page 11,
having to do all of that.
But it's important, and I am grateful to you and your team also for doing that
because every, you know, these children who are here,
and the parents bring them here for a reason,
and our SPED children are so special,
and they need every little bitty dollar they can get.
So I just wanted to make those comments.
So actually I don't have a question.
Sorry.
You did a great job.
Thank you.
And, Ms. Champagne, I remember, Ms., you passed some nice words on to me,
but Ms. Esperanza Rios and Jamie Hines and Kayla Smith,
they're the real meat behind this.
I'm the talking head, so the thanks goes to them.
Ms. Champagne.
And your administration and your superintendent. They all have done a lot. I'll tell you, your administration has gone through a whole lot of work on this these last few months.
And a lot of kudos to them too for hanging in there. I know they didn't get it in public education to build budgets. I get that.
They go in there to help and do things that they want to do passionately for kids.
And then they have to go work on budget stuff. But they've done a great job over the last few months and I appreciate them too.
Yes. Forgive my voice. I have laryngitis. I'm not contagious in any way. And my husband wants every man in here to know he will take $5 and let me breathe on your wife. That's what he says. For $5, my wife will breathe on yours.
I think some of my colleagues wished that you'd have breathed on me about an hour ago.
So forgive the squeakiness.
So Mrs. Champagne, what was that statistic we heard this weekend about how many states
fund education on attendance instead of enrollment?
We are only one of six states.
Texas is one of six states that funds education based on attendance, not enrollment.
So why wouldn't we fund on enrollment?
And the state legislature says, well, if the child is not there, you shouldn't get paid for them being there.
Yet you still have to have a teacher in the classroom.
You still have to have a desk and food prepared and transportation, the buses.
everything still runs and you still have to have the schools open but they fund
on in on attendance because it's cheaper and they get to keep more of the money
so I'm gonna bit of a rant probably here but it's just it's just so discouraging
to see that last year they roll the legislature rolls out this big to do
about teachers getting more money lump you know big raises for classroom teachers only
and it's all there and that's great but there's nothing for this year right and so we're we are
expected to continue to pay those salaries that they deemed you know fabulous and took the credit
for happy so happy for teachers but every teacher will tell you they cannot do it without all the
support people and now because of that we're seeing that the people who have the
please forgive me teachers if if this sounds anything other than the great amount of respect
i have for you but there are people who support them principals assistant principals that that
help as much as they can so those teachers can have quality time face to face with students but
But that's causing the salary schedules to shrink
for the people who have become the leaders of the campus.
And the principals and assistant principals
and things that shoulder so much of those burdens.
So now we have a shrinking,
why do people even wanna be a principal?
Just stay and be a classroom teacher
because now you can have your TIA,
which which teachers should be able to earn and for us to isolate teachers as if they are the
only ones making a difference for students is is causing some unexpected consequences
as we're seeing and so meanwhile all of us here are tasked with how do we how do we help
how do we use finite amount of money for all of the needs that we have for this special education
what was the number you said mr smith how many 19 350 ieps to smith 19 350 individual entering all
the data for that many children that's unbelievable at our cost right those are the unintended
unintended consequences that people think, oh, this is a good idea. But it costs money, and they don't think of cost. They just think of, you know, like that's some accountability that we aren't doing the right things for kids. I get insulted. I get offended for all of you who are giving your heart, soul, mind, and strength about to education.
education so the next thing I want to say is how much of a heartbreak it is to all of us that a
one percent raise to the base salary is what we're going to be able to do that's heartbreaking it's
not what we want to do we talked about it a few years ago that instead of doing the Christmas
phone Christmas lump sum excuse me and the you know maybe an extra lump sum somewhere else in
during the year and in August or of some help with buying school supplies,
those kinds of things.
We took it all and we dumped it, we poured it into lump sum
because that helps their base raise and raise and all of the raises add to it.
I'm not as eloquent as you are, Mr. Davidson,
so with your business experience here,
but you all know what I'm saying,
that it's better for it to go to base salary because it compounds on itself and then it's
all added together and this year we just can't do it we just can't do it we will be able to still
give three percent and is that what i'm hearing we're going to do the three percent but it's going
to be one percent to the base and then lump sum payments because we do not know what the future
holds and we cannot be confident of of what's coming did i misspeak okay okay sorry i'm i'm
just doing that so as people are going to call me tomorrow and ask me and as i'm going to try
to explain it in my rebecca way of very using my hands and common sense i just wanted to say that
because i know that's heartbreaking for all of us that it can't be you know three percent and then
And if we have extra in December, you know, we would by then with our underspending or whatever the tax base is, we're able to add more.
This year, it is what it is.
And we are still coming through everything we can because 1% raise.
And what's going to happen with health insurance?
We all know where that's going.
That's out of our control.
It's just so disappointing.
It's heartbreaking.
breaking but that sand and that bucket is finite and that is decided by Texas legislators that's
where we all have to go to talk to them to ask them to make them understand that that schools
are don't have infinite amounts of money 62 15 is that the correct number yes ma'am six thousand
$1,215 is what public school children are valued at.
But if you go to a private school or you go somewhere else and a voucher, you're worth $10,000.
Help me understand it.
If I may, I'll throw a couple things in there with what Ms. Fox was saying that might provide a little context to how she was saying that.
People do need to remember that our our legislature meets every two years and they did put a significant amount of money in House Bill two in the last legislative session.
But the way they structured those dollars was not mostly to the basic allotment, something we could use in the future to give raises some way we could give more money.
There was a small increase to the basic allotment, but the money came in different buckets.
And so all of those monies got allocated last budget cycle, last year.
Every dollar we got from the state got allocated in a different way with some good raises that were in there.
But this budget cycle, what new money are we getting from the state in this cycle?
Does anyone know what that number is?
It's zero.
Yes, not one new dollar.
So one would ask, okay.
where do we get money for raises this year?
Okay, we go into the GOF and we do all that work Chris was talking about
of maybe try to make this program more efficient or reduce here or fix this here
or find a couple dollars here and scrape all that together to come up with a raise in money.
And we're still at a deficit right now, but, I mean, that happens.
So it's really hard to cobble that together because, yeah, I guess some more levers could be pulled.
I'll admit it.
We could reduce other things in the budget.
But I also got to say this.
Every time we make an efficiency or reduce something in the budget of a program or a what or a people or whatever it is, people generally don't like that.
So we are very cautious.
what we reduce in the budget that does the least amount of harm so I guess if I
had to sum it up what are we trying to accomplish here how can we as a school
district put the most money new money into somebody's pocket next year but not
stretch the budget so far that in the future we're in real trouble with our
fund balance because now we're paying for future raises out of the fund
balance so we're trying not to do that so how do we do that we do that with
one time monies. I know a lot of the public or even our employees don't
understand. Wait a minute. If you've got enough for 3% just put it all into
salary. But you heard Mr Smith talk about we've got some infusions of cash
coming in and they are truly one time monies. And we looked at those and say,
okay, let's give those monies back to employees or let's recommend that to
the board. No action has been taken on that. But how can we put more money
into the employees pocket in some different creative ways? Whether that
storm until the next legislative session till we figure out what new monies might
come in the future hopefully that helps add some context to what we're trying to
accomplish there thank you mr. president this evening I would like to a little
bit elaborate and add to some things that dr. Kravitz he was saying because I
actually talked to him today a little bit and you did a great job but I just
want to further explain this a little bit um the you know since it's a one-time thing
and you add if we added three so we could do three percent okay we could with the 34 million dollars
but if we added the three percent to someone's salary let's say you earned a hundred thousand
i'm just using easy money and then we give you 103 000 because of the three percent raise but
But then next year when we go into session, you know, not this coming year, but the next year when we, well, yeah, this coming year when we come into session, we're not guaranteed any money.
So now we're, I hate to say, we're locked in to everyone's 3% increase that we use, we got from that one-time bit of money that we may not get again.
But now we're not going to reduce people's salaries.
We're going to be locked into everyone's 3% raises that we gave them this year with the one-time money.
So that's why I think we were being conservative, if that's correct.
But the 1% that we could probably feel better about sustaining over the next year or so,
depending on what kind of money we get next year, which we don't know,
But in the meantime, we could afford to do the one-time lump sums because those aren't going to be something that we have to sustain.
I'm sorry.
I just want to make sure everybody understands that while I completely agree with Mrs. Fox and there's nothing that we can do about it,
the part that I agree with and I'm sure that we all agree with is that we do want to give you 3% or 5%.
Heck, I'd give you, if I was a multi-billionaire, I'd give you 10%, you know, but I'm not.
So I wish I were, but, you know, I'm not.
So we're doing what we can, I guess, is what I guess the message is.
I appreciate your explanation.
Mr. Cross.
Mr. President, thank you.
Same thing.
Thank you so much for going through that.
It's a lot to go through.
You do a great job of kind of bringing that down to a level that,
because here's the thing a lot of people don't know.
If Chris, Mr. Smith were to sit here and get off in the weeds on this, I'm pretty sure we're all going to be lost unless you just happen to be a guru in school finance.
Because even the gurus, when I was working in Austin, a lot of times they're like, we don't even understand half this stuff.
And so appreciate that.
The piece of it that was frustrating is that bucket, that is really, that's what brings choice for us.
If that bucket gets increased, then if the light bills go up, if gas goes up, then we have flexibility with those dollars.
Like Dr. Grigorski was saying, I'm happy too.
I was so excited when the teachers got the raise this year.
that's it I mean that those dollars are set for that specific thing and again
like Miss Fox was saying you know our pair of professionals our counselors our
administrators everybody else who who helps support the education of a child
you know there's no no money set aside for them other than what we can we can
muster up and with the special education cost I mean I just I know that the
the number of special education students has risen tremendously since I entered this district.
And that was a long time ago.
But I remember there was a point in time when you were getting up to 5, 6, 7, 8 percent special education students.
And we're all like, what, 8 percent?
I guarantee every school in this district would start laughing if you said 8 percent now.
You know, some are over 20 percent.
If I remember hearing correctly, I know Dr. Coffey could probably tell me that.
Yeah, exactly.
So where I'm going with all that is when I visited with folks in Austin,
a lot of times those people love to use an example of a district
who wasn't doing something very well, managing the money very well.
And that's always going to happen.
I mean, how many districts in Texas?
A thousand?
Over a thousand.
Yeah.
Yeah, so you're going to have examples of that.
But it's kind of like going back to the world of education.
If I've got a group of 30 kids in my class, 28 of them are just doing everything they need to do.
They're working hard.
They're learning.
And two are being squirrely.
I try not to punish the other 28 for that.
And I feel like that's kind of what happens in the world we're living in.
you know most districts are trying to do the best they can with the money they
have and do sometimes people make mistakes here and there or they they you
know have some idea you're like that's probably not a great idea to spend money
that way of course that happens but but I feel like there's this core trust
that's missing between so many of our folks in Austin and public school folks
that they don't feel like we really are going to do our best to take care of
kids school boards superintendents all the way to the folks who are working
with the kids every day and you know miss Fox was saying with regards to I
was afraid that was gonna happen yes thank you you read my mind miss
champagne thank you yeah the enrollment thing and the comments that you get well
if the kids aren't there and you nailed it we still have to turn the lights on
the teacher still shows up all those things that you mentioned but the things
that I would hear yeah but then districts aren't aren't very motivated
to get their kids to come to school I'm like really have you ever heard of the
same called like accountability and kids take a test every year and if they're
They're never at school.
They're going to have a hard time passing a test that you require us to give.
So my core, and this is really just a compliment to the whole team because I'm with you.
It takes a lot of people to make this stuff happen.
But it's really just it comes back to this core thing that until those dollars change, you know, I mean, yes, we get little bits and pieces here and there.
and sometimes it happens to be some serendipitous thing like we ran across with the 34 million,
which is great, and I'm excited.
Same thing.
I love that we're doing this for our folks.
But if that piece that's barely climbed and took six years to get a raise at all,
and with the the you know the index if we index this if we could index the
basic allotment you're right boy what would that do for our schools so I say
that to say all those folks who are out there and who care about us as a public
school system got to be able to share this stuff with the folks in Austin
because at the end of the day if if those dollars don't come in and my worry
is again that you know each year gets a little tougher a little tougher and if
for whatever reason we're not growing and I too appreciate the efforts I mean
we're trying to find kids and get them educated and that's the best thing we
can do but but if we're unable to do that a level then things have to start
getting cut or you know reduced and I just I worry about that down the road
and it's really just commentary I try not to do that too often but this money
stuff gets me kind of fired up so I'm done
mr. president say look love the passion of my fellow board members and the
ability to put them to connect the information that mr. Smith is providing
us however clear as kind I believe that administration is going to talk a little
bit more about compensation and all the different pathways for that further the
agenda. Yes, Mr. Smith, I had a couple of questions. So I know we can't, like on
here, that's actually perfect that that slides up there, the effect of
educational savings accounts. I know we don't know what that is, but just,
it did have some type of number you used for the budget, maybe some effect you
might think it might happen. I'm not asking for the number, but these things
that are to be determined kind of made some best guesses right on how it would
affect our budget or our demographics projected for it or probably bringing
some of those things I'll jump in there and mr. Smith a little bit and tell you
how my feelings are on that like when you talk about education savings
accounts or if you hear the word out in the in the in the community around the
website tifa texas education freedom accounts that's what they're called here in texas tifa
we have roughly and i've seen two different numbers they both come from the comptroller
from two different asks because they don't publish this stuff guys it's not just there
you can get you got to put in a pir to ask them how many kids might be impacted uh the last pir
I put in for KDISD or that Mr. Graham's department put in for me came back with limited information.
They didn't really answer the questions I needed.
So I followed up with a more specific one and still waiting for information on that.
But there is a rough number out there, guys, and it's it's I'm going to go with six hundred and eighty five.
That's the last number I remember.
685 students who were enrolled with KDISD in the 24-25 school year,
not the year we just finished, okay, the last full year we finished before then.
That's the data they're pulling from at the comptroller's office.
office. 685 kids who were enrolled that school year qualified to receive a Tifa. Okay, so they've
been notified by the comptroller's office, you have a Tifa coming to you. Well, now the big
question is, will they spend it? Will they leave? Will they withdraw? I'd have a hard time going to
our enrollment projection and pulling out 685 kids like they'll all leave, so we didn't do that.
Now let's counter that with another thing on their enrollment in KVS and or out of district limited open enrollment.
Some kids may leave, that's a reality, and take their TIFA and go or not.
But can we balance that by bringing a few the other way?
Can we get KVS up with some kids from outside the district that would be in our virtual school that we're now collecting ADA?
So remember that any kid who enrolls at Arcadia Virtual High School, Legacy
Virtual High School, that's full ADA funding for that kid. Okay, that's a good
thing. We've got that other thing out there called that limited open
enrollment and we've dipped our toe into that water and there's a couple of
slides in there from the presentation. I know a couple of you mentioned we did a
presentation on that so I wanted to share those with the board who didn't
see the presentation. Just a couple of slides and informational stuff. But if I
I can gain a few kids back in, we're hoping that'll balance out. Okay. So, and then hopefully
we come in now, nothing would probably warm my heart more than Chris come back to you guys in
October for a peen snapshot date. You guys all know that's the last Friday in October, uh, that
he comes in and says, our enrollment is back up. And we found the kids through either the,
the kindergarten roundup that Ms. Champagne mentioned, or some more kids came for virtual
or nobody left us for a TIFA or whatever those combination of things.
And then he comes back and says, hey, let's amend our budget up a couple of bucks
and we have a little more than we thought because enrollment is back up.
Well, that would be fantastic, wouldn't it?
So that might be another thing we look forward to as a presentation
would be around snapshot time and see where we are with those dollars
and make sure we're not down here, not wherever we are.
But full knowing if something more catastrophic happened like Mr. Smith was talking about that's where the fund balance kicks in. That's why we keep that 30, 31, 32% fund balance on there if we had to supplement back into the budget because something happened that we weren't sure would happen.
And we just don't know. So hopefully that helps a little bit.
Yeah, and I ask that question because I know that there is a thousand other conversations y'all have had preparing a budget that we're getting such a small glance on it that every decision that's been made is not just a, oh, we're just going to see what happens.
Like, there's logic behind it.
And then the other thing, on slide 11, we were talking about the new special education funding.
Is that $850 million new dollars, or is that just they repurposed some that they will already spend at the state?
As I recall, it's new dollars.
Okay.
And weren't we supposed to find out what that was going to be in December?
Wasn't that supposed to come out in December?
The agency is asking volunteer districts to try to input their information even sooner
so they can kind of see what the sample looks like or how those students' IEPs are looking statewide
so they can provide the state legislature or the legislative budget board a number of what it's going to cost.
They don't really know because the legislature is going to want to know
so they can keep that into their considerations for the next legislative session.
And frankly, without volunteer districts providing that data earlier, they're not going to know in time for the session to start.
I was kind of tongue-in-cheek.
We have to make a lot of decisions based on information that's changing, like the $34 million that showed up.
It would have been great to know that was there and funding formulas would have gone into effect at that time, interpreted correctly.
Mr. President.
Ms. Fox.
May I ask, Dr. Gorgorski, I heard you say a statistic recently about how many of the vouchers have been a big deal for 10 years, and they finally got it passed.
30 years.
But, yeah, for the last 10 that I've been marching up there to Austin doing my thing.
But how many children really want those?
And do you know the percentage of children who are even applying?
Yeah, when it comes to public ed, and Ms. Champagne had mentioned, I think, just a few minutes ago,
5.5 million public ed kids here in Texas that we serve in public schools all the time.
So people often wonder, you know what I mean, how many families in public ed would truly apply for
and want a voucher to leave public ed and take choice somewhere else, okay?
So that number is on the comptroller's website.
It's about 1.3%.
So of the 5.5 million schoolchildren in Texas,
about 1.3% chose this round to apply for a TIFA account.
So that tells me 99% of kids in Texas public schools love their public school.
You know what I mean?
And they're happy where they are, and they appreciate what we give them
and what we do for them every day.
and our and i think you know i mean i can only speak for katie i don't know what happens in
other public schools but i know our teachers and our staff and our and our principals and
all those campus folks you were speaking of they give our kids a world-class education every day
they really do and of that percentage excuse me mr president maybe it's not that same percentage
but i read something said something like 75 percent of people who applied for those were
were already in private schools, something like that.
There's a great big percentage of those.
So they were already in private schools, affording private schools,
attending private schools, but since they're going to give money,
they'll go apply for it.
So, okay.
Any other questions, Board?
Thank you, Mr. Smith.
I appreciate you and your team and the hard work, not just you,
but our entire district's doing to, I think the way I explained it to someone
one other day is we we're giving you ability to go into a deficit or like
this past year gave you permission that in worst case scenario spend this money
but what I so appreciate is that our team here recognizes that just because
we can do it doesn't mean we have to do it and that under spending or when like
you described when those once aren't needs to put their own department or
school to the side sometimes and say okay we can wait and so thank you all
for making that easy because I shared with one of our legislature legislators
a couple probably last month that you know we've adopted a deficit budget for
the past four years but we've added the fund balance every single year because
of the way the people in this room and in our campuses carry out finances so
appreciate you kind of taking the charge and then everybody else that is doing
as well we will now move on to item 7.2 our school health advisory council our shack annual report
and our presenter is h.c grimmett our curriculum coordinator of health and physical education
good evening president redmond members of the board superintendent gregorski the purpose of
my presentation tonight is to provide you with an annual report of our district school health
Advisory Council otherwise known as SHAC as required by Senate Bill 283. Our
Council is composed of members representing each of the categories
listed on this slide. Any person who wishes to be a part of the Council is
invited to attend. Meeting agenda items and topics relate to one of the
eight focus areas for coordinated school health. Meeting notices are posted in
in advance on all campuses and sent out to all parents via KD Cork Board.
Our committee met twice in the fall and twice in the spring.
Meetings were held at the Food and Nutrition Building and our meeting dates are listed
on this slide.
All meetings are recorded and minutes are posted on the KDISD Shack page in accordance
with Senate Bill 1525 and here is the summary of all four of our meetings. At
the first meeting members receive information on the KDSD Nutrition and
Food Service Program, the KDSD Partners in Education Program, and also received
information on the mission and divisions of Fort Bend County Health and Human
Services and the services available to the KD community. At our next meeting
members receive information on KDSD's off-campus physical education program.
The KDSD Health Service team also provided information over Senate Bill
12 with its emphasis on parent rights. Additionally, members from the Spring
Branch Community Health Center provided information on the community health
programs available in the Katy area and members from the Harris County Public
Health provided information on school-based health services available
for both students staff and parents during the third meeting members were
provided information regarding project wild a teak's aligned hands-on
environmental education program and the Katie asked the office of other
languages provided information about services and programs which provide
students and families all kind of information in our district SHAC members
Members receive information on Texas Child Health Access
through Telemedicine, which is otherwise known as T-Chat.
And it's available to students in KDISD.
And then our final meeting, members
receive information on the Pregnancy Ed and Parenting
Program, otherwise known as PEP, provided to students in KDISD.
Members from Harris County Public Health
provided information regarding the Safe Routes to School
initiative and the shack members also received information about the Texas
opioid prevention for students otherwise known as the tops program the committee
reviewed and approved the annual report which I'm presenting to you tonight and
the members provided feedback regarding future shack meetings and topics and
basically that concludes the annual report and I'm happy to answer any
questions thank you board any questions
you're getting off easy tonight thank you thank you I will now move on to item
8.1 Discuss and consider Board approval of the 2025 - 2026 School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) representatives.
8.1 discuss and consider board approval of the 2026 2027 school health advisory
council representatives so I've also provided you with that list of school
health advisory council membership for your approval for the coming school year
So you have that in front of you, and so I'm happy to answer any questions there as well.
Any questions, Board?
I have one question.
Ms. Champagne?
Hello, Mr. Grimmett.
Thank you for your presentation.
Is there, I just don't know this, is there a requirement for how many people need to be on your, you know, as membership for your shack?
Well, the majority needs to be parents in our community.
And there are certain districts that they might have guidelines of the numbers that they might limit.
We've always, and Katie, always had the idea of, hey, if parents want to be a part of SHAC, come and be a part and so on.
So that's still our standing membership policy that we've had.
All right.
Cool.
Thank you.
Yes.
I'll just go ahead and take this time also to remind, because we have three new trustees on our board,
Um, shack is always looking for parents. So I'll put that plug out there. If you have somebody
or know somebody who would serve, uh, I'm not opposed to getting those folks in because you
guys haven't been on the board long enough to recommend anybody, but we can always bring the
board a new list in a couple of months and say, Hey, this is going to be our new list of members.
Cause you guys went out and recruited two or three, five folks to jump on there. So
if you have some folks, we'd love to have them.
all right no questions thank you thank you we'll now move on to item 8.2 discuss and consider
8.2 Discuss and consider Board approval of the April 2026 Financial Reports.
board approval of the april 2026 financial reports and our presenters jamie heiss
our assistant superintendent of finance
good evening president redmond board of trustees and superintendent gregorski
You should have below you or in front of you your April financial reports, including our financial statements, our tax report, and our construction report through the month of April, as well as our check register and our tax report.
I'm sorry the tax report for the month of April included with our financial
statements is an analysis of our expenditures and revenues by both
function and object our construction report provides a summary of all of our
capital projects our tax report gives you an up-to-date information on our
collections for taxes and then our check register provides a summary of all of
our checks for the month of April. Just briefly, this goes through April which is
eight months of our fiscal year, about 66.7% of the fiscal year.
The good thing is now that we're through this much of the fiscal year, it really
starts to get a lot easier to look at these numbers and kind of know where
we're going. Quickly by function, if you were to look, we only really have one
of our functions that is actively spending that is over that 66.7 and that's going to be our data
processing services again that starts out really hot because we have all of those software contracts
at the beginning of the year and then works its way out and it's down to 70 so just just a couple
two and a half three percent above that and and within a couple of months it should be
under that spending percentage for the month. Again, our set, our function 81, our construction
facilities acquisition and construction is at 78%, and that will stay there until we make
our bond payments in August. But other than that, our underspending has been fairly significant.
You can see we're at 65% within instruction, which is our biggest.
And then if you look by object at our payroll costs, we're also at 65%.
So underspending there, as Mr. Smith has pointed out, that's where we expect to see some underspending that's going to last into the end of the fiscal year.
And that's what we'll utilize to make up any additional deficit, which tonight's amendments will wipe out.
So that's all I have for the financial statements. There's not a lot this month except for what Mrs.
Rios is going to bring you in just a moment, but I'd be glad to answer any questions you've got.
Any questions, Board?
No questions tonight. Thank you.
8.3 Discuss and consider Board approval of an amendment to the Fort Bend County Tax Collection Interlocal Cooperation Agreement.
I also have the next item.
All right. And then we will now move on to item 8.3,
discuss and consider board approval of an amendment to the fort bend county tax collection
interlocal cooperation agreement representative jamie hines you also have an amendment before you
to amend the fort bend county tax collection interlocal agreement
this changes the district's payment of the county's assessment essentially from us remitting
payment to them to them just withholding it from our tax collections that they
usually send us what happens is in December they send us an invoice and
then in the past we would have to essentially issue them a check for that
amount there's no change to what they're charging us this is just changing the
way that they're going to remit and they're just going to withhold that from
the taxes that they collect Fort Bend County collects for both Waller County
County as well as Fort Bend County and we have a near local agreement for those tax collections
that's been in effect since 2022 that that agreement is not changing except for this
amendment on how they how they actually collect it just for for your knowledge this is also the
same way that we handle remitting the payment to Harris County so this is kind of them standardizing
their practices and going to an elect or going to a withholding instead of having to ask for
the money and then us send it so it's actually easier on us so it's not it's not a
problem from the administration's standpoint and there's no impact of funding for for the district
we're not losing like interest coming to us for a little bit before we write the check or anything
no sir and it would be nominal it's it's very little it's it's um it's less than sixty thousand
dollars for the entire year uh and so even if they were to do that over a period of a couple of
months it you're not talking about very much money we're not talking about hundreds of billions of
dollars. Yes sir. Any questions board? All right then we'll move on to item 8.4
8.4 Discuss and consider Board approval of the June 2026 budget amendments.
discuss and consider board approval of the June 2026 budget amendments. With our
presenter Mrs. Esperanza Rios, our Director of Budget and Treasury.
Good evening, Board President Redman, Board of Trustees, and Dr. Gagorski.
Tonight, for the general fund, we present a budget amendment in the amount of $34,730,827
to recognize the revenue gained from the 2023 property value audit, as mentioned by Mr. Smith.
We're also presenting a budget amendment related to the increase in the teacher incentive allotment payouts.
will recognize an increase to state revenue in the amount of $4,364,805 and an increase in expenditures in the amount of $2,930,137.
We are also presenting a budget amendment in the amount of $10 million to reduce the health insurance deficit
and an offsetting budget amendment to record subscription-based information technology arrangements called SPIDAs
as required by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, GASB 96.
This amendment increases expenditures and other sources in the amount of $7,384,728.
The remaining budget amendments are all direct functional offsets.
These functional offsets include gym floor refurnishing, painting the gym,
staff development, chair camps, mileage, travel, summer extra duty,
start-of-year supplies, printing, memberships, AI licenses, and overtime.
The approval of these amendments will result in an increase of $26,165,495 to the general operating fund balance.
Questions?
Any questions, Board?
Mr. Medman?
Ms. Champagne?
Mrs. Rios, I have a question for you.
Are you a Spurs fan?
Sorry.
I come from San Antonio, so yes, I do.
I apologize, I'm not a Rockets fan.
And every time I say my area code is 210, I get weird looks.
I'm really sorry.
This is funny because we were actually just in San Antonio, a lot of us, and so we were
there during when y'all were going through all that.
But anyway, that's not really my question.
Anyway, I just stopped laughing.
The $4,364,000 for the teacher incentive payment, so that's because we get, you know, they get paid, the teachers who have that, what do you call it, that standard, that qualification or whatever, they get paid their money from somewhere else, and then we get a portion of it back.
Is that correct?
Correct.
So we budget for the cost rate, and then we get reimbursed.
And so we have to have those payouts out by August 31st,
and then they sure us up in September.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
So what we did is we budgeted last year's,
and I think it was $3.9 million-ish that we paid out.
We didn't know that until about this point last year.
Then we went from $300,000 to $3.9 million, or whatever it was.
And it's a revenue and expense offset.
So we don't know what it's going to pay out next year.
So we budget.
So this next year we'll budget the full amount that we did in the 25-26 year.
And then this time next year we'll shore it up through an amendment like this.
And it should be mostly offsetting the revenue and the expense.
Okay.
So we have to pay it.
Yes.
And then we get reimbursed it.
Yes.
Yes.
All right.
And then we get to keep some, right?
There's a small percentage, 10%.
10% of that we do.
Okay.
Okay, so is that money, I'm just curious, it doesn't.
That covers the cost of, like there's a position in HR that does nothing but that program.
And so that covers that cost.
There's budget costs.
There's benefits and all those things.
Administrative costs is what it covers.
So the 10% helps pay our administration.
Yes, but it also pays for the benefits that we pay that are associated to it because those are not reimbursed.
It's just the actual pay cost.
That's really important for people to hear because sometimes I, you know, I have friends that have, that receive that money and they sometimes complain that they have to give 10%, you know, 10% back or whatever.
They don't get 10% of it.
So I think it's really important for them to know that we need that money to go ahead and to be able to handle the distribution of that money and the paperwork of that.
It's kind of other things. It's kind of that unfunded mandates kind of thing. So when they started that, it covers the cost of the actual pay to the individual. But there's benefits that are associated. So anything we pay out has TRS health. TRS care. Yeah, TRS care. That cost. Workers comp. Income. Oh my goodness. Unemployment. Unemployment. Yeah. I'm sorry.
That's really important. I'm so glad you explained that because it'll help us better explain it to other people when they ask us. Thank you so much. I'm sorry about the spurs.
I mean, we'll get them next time.
Mr. President.
This real. Thank you for the presentation. Is this correct that this one of these amendments is money from the general operating fund?
by $10 million to help offset the health insurance deficit
because our claims through our health care program,
people who were sick,
the claims were larger than the amount of money spent.
Yes, than the contributions.
And so this is an additional $10 million
to cover those costing claims.
Okay.
And that's not the total for the year.
it's just this is just this increase we've done a 10 million dollars before millions for this time
miss rios uh watches the cash for the district and that cash is down to four million four million
dollars and so at the rate we spend it we needed to go to the board to uh give her more cash to to
to put into the fund uh right so that's part of that health insurance like our claims of the
the people who participate outspends the amount that they contribute with their fees every month.
So we use general operating fund to help cover that since we're self-insured.
Okay.
Got it.
Thank you.
Any other questions, board?
I do like seeing the net change in fund balance increase.
I know.
And not have parentheses around the number.
I like that.
Yes.
Much better situation.
Now, Mr. Redmond, I would say that if you all approve the 1%, we would come back next
month with the 1% budget amendment to come.
It would come off of that.
But I just wanted to make that clear while it's fresh.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Rios.
8.5 Discuss and consider future Board approval of the Katy Independent School District compensation plan for the 2026 - 2027 school year.
We'll now move on to item 8.5, discuss and consider future board approval of the Katy
independent school district compensation plan for the 2026 2027 school year our presenter will be
mr brian chess our chief human resources officer it looks like we'll have you for two items right
yes sir uh president reman members of the board dr kagorski uh uh presenting the compensation plan
for the 26-27 school year this evening and like you said i do have two items and i've got both of
those included in the presentation so i'll just uh speak to both of those through the presentation
and after, obviously, we'll have time for questions if necessary.
I do want to say, do I have Dr. Neterhill with me this evening,
and also our Compensation Director, Robert Russell, is here this evening.
They are a huge part of this process.
I appreciate all their efforts, and they'll be here for any questions as well if necessary.
So the compensation plan for the district is something that we bring to the board each year in June
and typically talk about salary increases as well.
So just to talk a little bit about the plan development and the contents, obviously a
lot of market analysis with compensation plan.
Dr. Gorgorski and I talk about this quite often and I tell people often that the compensation
plan isn't something that we present to the board in June and then, okay, it's approved,
it goes into a drawer and then we pull it out next February or March when it's time
to start talking about it again.
Again, the compensation plan development and management is really a year-long process,
especially in an organization the size and that is growing and ever-changing as KDISD.
So I think that's important to note.
And so, yes, so there is ongoing market analysis to ensure market competitiveness.
In KDISD, we've got to be able to hire and retain the best.
Market analysis to make sure that comp plan is competitive is a very, very big piece of that.
And I've got a couple of slides.
later on the presentation that will show teachers as compared to the region and also compared to
some of our comparable districts larger districts in in the houston area and and we'll look at the
the competitiveness there but i will say that uh currently i'm comfortable that we are market
competitive uh uh across our compensation plan and again we'll talk about teachers here in a
little while too uh teacher hiring skill and district pay grades so that is also in the
compensation plan the district pay grades the governance pay throughout the entire district
all of the positions in the district so it's very detailed very involved and then of course the
teacher hiring scale that is recreated each and every year i think it's something important to
point out as we give raises teachers don't move up that hiring scale it is recreated each in each
year depending on the the board approved raise one thing that i need to note this year remember last
Last year, with House Bill 2 and how they funded teacher raises,
with what the legislature called the teacher retention allotment,
teachers at years 3 and 4 were to receive $2,500,
and teachers 5 and beyond received $5,000.
Well, the board approved, actually, teachers at years 1 and 2
also receiving that same $2,500 that teachers in year 3 and 4 were required to get.
We didn't have to do that, but the board approved that,
and I think that was a great thing to do.
So because of that, our teacher hiring schedule is in a great spot,
and just about everybody is covered from the requirements of the teacher retention allotment
except the teachers moving from year four to year five.
They are entitled to that $2,500 that makes them whole for that $5,000 that they are guaranteed in year five.
So we've made that adjustment in the teacher hiring scale as well as raise adjustments that we will also speak about in a little while.
Stipend review.
It's a rotating review.
This year was academics.
Next year is fine arts.
Last year was athletics.
Happy to report no real adjustments to the stipends this year.
There were a couple of minor adjustments based on our bilingual program change, but those washed each other out.
So there's not going to be any budget additions for for these stipends for the next school year one
One one change that I would like to point out is it's not considered a stipend
It's in the special handling section, but we do pay our police officers when they get the advanced tico certifications
There are amounts in the compensation plan
They're paid for each one of those three all the way up to the master
Which is now is it being adjusted from?
from 3000 to 5000 for the master as well as the other two an increase of $1000.
So like to point that out, Chief Ryder brought that as a recommendation.
It has been a long time since those have been adjusted for our police officers.
So feel that that is a great adjustment.
Also a recommendation from Chief Ryder was to have a shift differential for
our evening shift.
That way we can encourage people maybe to stay on the evening shift and
not leave as soon as they can.
So so it felt like that was a good addition as well
So those are a couple additions that kind of related to kind of related to stipends
And we've got the incorporation of campus additional department staffing position and classifications
The next slide does show a small number of additional position requests
But when you look in the comp plan you look at the pay grades you see some some titles that are highlighted you see some
Some titles that have striked throughs and that's really a culmination of the incorporation of all of these items
whether it's from campus staffing, which we did in March, additional department staffing, or position reclassifications.
And each year I do talk, since we typically request very few additional department positions,
I talk a little bit about position reclassifications because that is something that it's a great tool for organizational efficiency
that I feel that we use really well and that our departments use really well.
Basically, you've got a position, you've got a need in your department,
you've got a position that you would like for it to take on some additional duties,
maybe some additional supervisory duties.
And then when we make the adjustments to that position,
well, now it aligns more with a position in a different pay grade.
And so then you reclassify that position.
If we didn't have that tool at our disposal,
the only recourse that a department head might have would just be to request additional positions.
And that really is not very efficient, especially when it's not needed, and it's very expensive.
So I'm glad that we are able to use that tool throughout this process.
Policy and benefits information.
Asking for a small modification to DEC Local.
I think this is a great change for our employees.
DEC Local governs our leaves and absences.
We have two types of leave for the employees, for the majority of employees.
You've got your state leave, we give them the state, and then local leave that KDISD provides.
provides. For many, many years, we've been very specific on how local leave can be used, and it's only for sick. That's it. It's very specific in policy. So Mr. Smith made a recommendation, and I think it's a great one, that we make the adjustment where local leave can be used the same way state leave is used. So you can use it for personal, you can use it for sick. Basically now you have kind of one bucket of leave that you can use at your disposal for what you need to. So we don't have employees worrying about, oh, I'm out of
this bucket of leave, or I wish I had some more in this bucket of leave. I think it's a great thing.
It's a minor modification, but I think it's a great thing and gives more flexibility for our
employees. Comprehensive market study, 26-27. So Dr. Gorski and I talked a little bit about this.
Every three to five years, we think is good practice to have an outside group come in,
look at our compensation plan, kind of do an audit, so to speak, of our compensation plan
for market competitiveness. And typically when they do that, they'll give a presentation to
the board and more often than not they say hey your plan's in good shape it's competitive we
we would just like these couple of extra tweaks and uh i think that's good for administration to
hear i think that's good for the board to hear and so we are looking at doing that uh this coming
year and so this time next year you would get a presentation from uh more than likely tasmi third
party group they do a great job and uh and it's really good information and i think it is good for
Great for the board. So as I just said, additional positions. So there's four on the screen that would require, we would need budget for these positions.
Our departments were great this year when looking at reclassifications or any additional position requests to look and see within their departments if they had any vacancies that maybe they could use to offset the cost for those positions.
And in large part, that is how that was handled this year.
But in the end, once we take into account all the use of vacancies to help offset those costs,
these four, three in special education and one in food service, we will need budget for.
Now, of course, the food service position will come out of the food service fund.
The special education positions would be general fund expenditures.
But just because the district isn't potentially growing in enrollment next year,
it doesn't mean that there won't be growth in special education next year.
And Dr. Coffey has confirmed that there will be more students in special education next year than there were last year,
and hence the request for a couple of the compliance positions.
And then we've got the coordinator that is at the Merchant's Way facility.
Okay, so this is some great information.
This is how our teacher salaries compare to the market median for Region 4.
And you can see a number of districts is 43.
And if you see that column that says comparison to market, well, that's representative in that graph.
We are that blue line compared to the market median of Region 4, the darker line below.
And you can see the actual percentage to market on that chart.
So, for example, our zero-year salary, we're at 105% to the market, and then you can see the percentages as they go down.
So certainly compared to Region 4, I feel like we are in good shape when it comes to market competitiveness,
and this is exactly where we want to be.
We do want to be above that market median for Region 4.
And then this is a comparison.
We have 10 what we consider comparable districts,
and when we do have that market study that I just spoke about,
those same 10 districts are used in that market study,
and this shows how we compare to those.
And those are our neighboring districts, the larger districts in the Houston area.
You can see the comparison to market isn't as high,
as above that market median as it is compared to the region but we are still
above the market meeting now this is 2526 we don't have all the information
and everybody hasn't announced all the razors for 2627 but we'll know that
within the next couple of months and each year when we get that information I
do recreate this for dr. Gorg or ski so he can you can share that with the board
so we should be able to see soon how we're going to compare when it comes to
2627. As we sit right now, I think that shows that that we are in a good position.
Okay, and there's already been a lot of discussion on salary increase this evening,
but go ahead and provide the official recommendation. So salary increase and lump sum
recommendations. So as Mr. Smith said, a one so it's 3% new money for our employees. It's 1% three
different ways so we have a one percent general pay increase for all employees and that is will
be a part of their salary one percent general in general pay increase for everybody and that will
be recurring the items that are not recurring or not part of the salary are the two percent
uh two one percent lump sums one to be paid on august 31st 2026 which would come out of this
current budget year as mr smith described and then one percent lump sum to be paid on december 15th
2026 and of course as we have done in the past these increases are calculated
at the midpoint of each pay grade according to the compensation plan and
that is what I have this evening and then any entertaining final thoughts or
questions questions for mr. president does someone else I'll start down here
because I've started down here before the sailor Thank You mr. president a
A couple of questions.
First of all, is it possible for the comp graph to include the,
to specifically aggregate out the ISDs that we're actually losing our teachers to?
Because I know this Region 4 is like, what, 43 different districts from, you know, Cleveland down to Brazoria.
I'd be curious to see how do we compare against those that are, like, nearby where our teachers are actually.
Yeah, so going back to the one that shows the 10 comparable districts,
Yes, ma'am, and actually, it's kind of funny you bring it up, Dr. Korkorsky, and I've been talking about it.
I do have that graph, and it has been in the presentation in the past, but I mean this in a joking way,
but kind of giving a little bit of a hard time about it because it is very busy, and it's kind of hard to read,
but I do have that.
I actually have it sitting over there.
Well, actually, it would be interesting.
Do we know where our teachers are going to?
I'm sure there's exit surveys you do, and you can maybe take that,
and that can kind of guide you versus maybe you wouldn't even have to do all 10.
Yes, oh no I have it. I've already created it. Yeah, no I have it. I'll be,
I'll send it to Dr. Gorski and he can send it out to the board tomorrow. I've got it.
Perfect. A couple other questions. I know this is a very hard time to try and
figure out how to like provide raises to our staff given what our, what our
financials look like and the money they were getting, the money we're not getting
from Austin. Clarifying question, the 1% lump sum is for all, not just for our
teachers yes if I said that I apologize I just want to clarify just that's
everyone across the board yes the other question is in terms of your strategy
for the one lump sum have you all thoughts about how you can leverage
those funds for maybe something else that may make a bigger impact because I
think oftentimes lump sums are great to get but oftentimes when you get them you
they're not as significant you know there's a lose 20 to 30 percent of it on
taxes etc has there been a consideration to maybe apply that towards because we
know we don't know the full answer is going to be in terms of how expensive
benefits are going to be for next year but is it possible to maybe leverage
those funds there to help offset some of that cost you know were there any
discussions related to that and you know what is that the potential for that what
does that look like so we I'll answer it this way I don't know that we've had
conversations in general about doing that instead of the lump sums we did
want to provide that extra income to our employees we have had discussions when
you bring up the health health insurance specifically dr. Gorski and I mr. Smith
have had discussions on you know where we are with employer contribution where
we were how we compared to other school districts and I think we'll be having
those conversations soon i'm going to be giving a report to the board very very high level report
next monday on benefits administration and then we'll be getting a lot of detail in july with the
voluntary products and and with the health plans so we don't have all of those numbers just yet
i think to be even able to make a recommendation uh for those types of items because we really
need to see uh really need to see where those numbers come in i think i would be curious and
And I understand it could present some sort of inequity, because not everyone uses KDIC
insurance, so then they wouldn't necessarily get that benefit.
But I'm just curious, you know, if that would make some kind of impact, if that's something
to be considered.
And I have one last question.
The last question I have is, for the lump sums, is that contingent on anything, or is
that guaranteed if that is what is approved?
So that's a great question.
And we've done it different ways in the past, but in presenting these, basically how that
would work for the august 31st if you're receiving a check on august 31st from kdisd you'll receive
the lump sum same as the december 15th so money will already be baked in we don't have to fear if
we get hit with some crazy bill or something we need to pull it back okay thank you hey thank you
okay uh mr shesh are you also a spurs fan i know i'm a mavs fan so i'm in really bad shape
Because I know you're from down there so anyway
But actually there is a graph that we used to get that and I don't know mrs.
Taylor probably hasn't seen and I'm sure but from region 4 and it was show like all the different ISDs it would list them
So that was so when I've done that in the past that was for those 10 comparable districts
And that's what I was saying. I do have that
Thing I'm sorry, but the thing that I had seen in the past maybe they're not doing what they listed all all of them
But the reason why I'm referring to this is because back in the day, you know, six, seven, eight years ago,
I was already harping because we were at the bottom ten of those.
Oh, I know what you're referencing.
There were 47 school districts, actually, and we were at the bottom ten of those.
No, but it was something like that, but it actually listed.
Yes, and that, oh, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Well, I'm just saying, I just want to say so I really feel good that we moved to the top because we were,
I think there was nine below us and they all had less than 5,000 kids in them, except for
HISD.
So I really feel good about where it's taken us a long time and we finally have moved up
to the, not just this year, but as of a couple years ago, we've been up at the top.
So I just wanted, because a lot of people may not know that, that we were kind of low
and now we're pretty high.
But usually in here somewhere, there's a piece of paper that shows the teacher wages.
That's in the compensation plan.
It is?
Yeah, that's separate, and it's one of the first few pages in your compensation plan.
It's about five or six pages in.
All right.
Well, I apologize I missed it.
No, it's okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh, and I guess I should, while you're looking at it,
I could say that in referencing that, starting teacher salary.
Oh, I see it now.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah, including the raise of $66,550 for next year,
and the teacher raise is $775,000.
Okay.
I didn't mean to say that.
All right.
So that's good.
But I do have some questions about some, I hate to bring this up,
but some jobs that look like they're not here anymore,
and I just saw them scratched through.
I just wanted to ask about them.
Coordinator of library program?
I believe that.
So, okay.
So as I mentioned earlier, we have some highlights and some strikethroughs.
Occasionally on the strikethroughs, yes, that might be a vacancy that, you know, has been removed or inactivated.
We don't use that position anymore.
But in that position that you're referencing, that position was actually reclassified into a different pay grade.
So we take it out of one pay grade and put it into another pay grade.
So that job is still here somewhere.
just the same thing for coordinator for library systems yes and coordinator for
gifted and talented I think that's the only thing I had give me one second here
the coordinator for gifted and talented if you have it in front of you can you
you might tell me that pay grade sorry I didn't stay on that
page.
Let's see.
You found it?
Let's
see.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, it is 100.
You're right. Thank you.
It's page 18 on our thing.
It's under the same .
Oh, okay.
Yes, that was reclassified to a lead teacher for GT at the elementary level.
So we still have gifted teachers?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Yes, ma'am.
And I think that's all.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, and I appreciate all of this work.
I know it's a lot, so thank you.
Thank you.
you any other questions for all right let's move on to item 8 sorry 8.6
8.6 Discuss and consider future Board approval of a compensation increase for the 2026 - 2027 school year.
discuss and consider future board approval of a compensation increase for
2026 2027 school year I guess we just talked about that yeah all right we will
8.7 Discuss and consider Board approval of the Interlocal Agreement with Harris County Department of Education for specialized therapy services - ECI Project Tyke.
will move on to item 8.7 discuss and consider board approval of the interlocal agreement with
harris county department of education for specialized therapy services eci project tyke
and our presenter is dr gwynn coffee our assistant superintendent for special education hi good
evening president redmond dr korsky and board members i'm here tonight to discuss and recommend
approval of the interlocal agreement between harris county department of education and our
ECI project hike we have an existing agreement with them for our k-12 services in the area of
occupational therapy physical therapy and music therapy this would be adding an additional
interlocal agreement to service project tyke in the area of occupational therapy services
i'm happy to answer any questions you may have
Any questions, board?
No questions.
Thank you very much.
8.8 Discuss and consider Board approval of the breakfast and lunch meal price increase for the school year 2026 - 2027.
We'll now look at item 8.8, discuss and consider board approval of the breakfast and lunch meal price increase for the school year 2026-2027.
Our presenter is Nagara Maguda, the Associate Director of Compliance, Nutrition, and Food Services.
Good evening.
Thank you for butchering my name.
It's Dagmara Guida, I'm the Associate Director at the Nutrition and Food Service Department.
Thank you for having me today, President Redmond, Dr. Grigorski, and Board of Trustees.
I would like to discuss with you the current fund balance and projected financial outlook
for the Nutrition and Food Service Department.
Beginning in the 23-24 school year, the Texas Department of Agriculture expanded allowable
net cash resources limit for school food authorities from three months to six months
of average operating expenditures in their food service accounts. For KDISD, this equates to an
estimated allowable balance of approximately $28 million. As we enter the 25-26 school year,
the department's beginning fund balance was projected at $19.7 million with an estimated
year excuse me balance of 11.2 million this reflects a loss of approximately
8.4 million over the course of the year due to several significant shifts in
both expenditure and revenue during the 22 23 and 23 24 school years the
department benefited from two temporary funding sources the local food for
school grant to offset the cost of fresh produce and the supply chain assistant
and the assistant grants largely covered milk expenses.
Together, they provided approximately $9 million
over a two and a half year period.
Both grants concluded at the end of the 24-25 school year.
As a result, the department is now fully responsible
for the costs with milk alone,
representing an annual expense
of approximately $3 million.
While these grants provide a critical short-term relief,
relief, they were never intended to serve as a sustainable or ongoing source of revenue.
Revenue and expenditure trends highlight the financial pressure facing the program.
Federal reimbursements for meals account for about 62% of total revenue, while salaries,
benefits, and food costs make up about 83% of our total expenditures.
This gap shows that federal funding alone does not cover core operating costs.
Revenue from paid student meals is essential to offset expenses and support a more balanced funding structure.
Food costs have also increased significantly.
Compared to the prior contract, the most recent food service request for proposal reflects an approximate 21% increase in food prices.
This does not include an increase in our disposables, small wares, or other non-food supplies.
In the 23-24 and 24-25 school years, there was notable growth in personnel expenses.
The department implemented a new pay scale for all nutrition and food service employees
and added funding for three additional maintenance positions and procurement position.
These investments were necessary to support operations and staff retention. However, without corresponding increases in reimbursement or meal prices, these added costs are not fully supported by existing revenue.
revenue. Each year, contracting entities must evaluate lunch pricing to comply with the paid
lunch equity requirements. PLE ensures that revenue from paid meals covers their cost and
that federal funds for free and reduced price meals are not used to subsidize them. If they
see pricing is not equitable, corrective action is required. This may include increasing paid meal
prices. Contributing non-federal funds are a combination of both. The United States Department
of Agriculture allows an annual PLE exemption based on a CE's financial status. Districts with
a zero or positive fund balance as of June 30th of the prior year may qualify for an exemption for
the following school year, which removes the requirement to raise paid lunch prices. This
This exemption is reviewed and approved annually and is not guaranteed.
As noted, rising payroll, benefits, and food costs have created an imbalance between current revenue and expenditures.
If we maintain our current pricing structure and operating practices, the fund balance is projected to be depleted by the 28-29 school year.
year. Should this occur, a contribution from the General Operating Fund would be required
at the close of that fiscal year.
Please be aware that the breakfast price of $1.25 has not increased in the past 12 years
since the 2014-2015 school year. Elementary lunch price of $2.25 was also adjusted 12
12 years ago and secondary lunch prices for 275 was last increased in 2016-2017 school year this
was 10 years ago giving the rising costs along with the expiration of Grant funding and meal
price increase is a meal price increase is recommended to help restore financial balance
and ensure the long-term sustainability of the program the proposed price adjustments are an
an increase of 25 cents at breakfast to $1.50.
For lunch, we propose elementary lunch to be $2.75
and secondary lunch to be $3.25,
an increase of 50 cents at all levels.
The meal price increases are intended
to create a more equitable pricing structure
while supporting the department's ability
to continue providing high-quality meals to our students.
Thank you.
Any questions, Board?
Mr. President.
Ms. Taylor.
Would it be possible to get that report?
Because we'll be asked to vote on this in the board meeting next Monday.
I would love to be able to have that data and that information to help make some decisions.
Also, do we know, will our families that receive reduced-price lunches, will this impact them?
Reduced-price lunches have been approved by the Texas legislature to receive free meals this school year.
It was approved for the previous school year and then 26-27 school year.
And then as you all are presenting this recommendation, did you all have the
opportunity to look at how many of those families just fall right beneath that threshold for free
and reduced lunch just to have an idea of who would be impacted by this increase?
The federal guidelines change annually and also we have about 33 campuses that are currently CEP
where everyone receives free meals and then a rain meter for the campuses are, you know,
based on eligibility that is, that meets the household requirement.
I don't have the numbers right now, but we can go ahead and get that for you.
You could do that.
I'm just curious to see what the impact would be and who those people are.
Thank you.
Ms. Taylor, I believe Dr. Gorgorski sent you guys that report a couple of Fridays ago.
Maybe not.
He's looking at me right now.
thinking what are you talking about no we sent a summary that you gave me right
and if you're saying what you guys are talking about because I've I was writing
down something different than what that was I'll double check what we see and
make sure it was it you what she said tonight but I think you might have it
but I'll double check yeah we'll double check because I was thinking it was
something different but we'll check it sir mr. president mr. Davidson thanks
Thanks, Ms. Gouda.
One quick question.
So we saw a market analysis on one topic already.
Is there a market analysis on meal costs in Region 4 or comparable districts?
I think it was also in the report that was submitted.
Yes, it's in the magical report that one way or another you guys will get.
And Dagmar can speak to it.
but i think cyphair was the only district that's that is charging less than us at this point
everybody else that's kind of surrounding uh is already over us in terms of meal pricing
if that's the question you're asking that that's the question that'll be helpful to look at thank
you this year hi miss gouda thank you for the information and this is not really what you were
were talking about but I have been I do notice a lot you know I look at the KDI
Steve Facebook page and all that and you know I have a passion for helping food
insecurity and I work on committees at my church and all this and I just wanted
to eat a little bit spotlight what we do as as a district in the summer for our
kids and the different if you know about this and the different places to pick up
and all that and a little bit about that program because I think it's really important to highlight
what we do there. We have summer feeding sites if this is what you're referring to,
summer food service program and where children can come in anybody in the community that doesn't have
to be students of KDISD it's any child from 0 to 18 years old that can come in and get a
a complimentary breakfast and a lunch meal.
Monday through Friday?
Yes, it is Monday through Thursday.
Yes, Monday through Thursday.
And on the district website and also on our website,
it is posted the times that we're feeding lunches or breakfast at what campuses.
And they just go and pick it up, right?
It is not during COVID times.
are able to take it away but currently it has to be consumed on site so is it is it is just for the
children and not for the adults it is just for the children but we also welcome adults to purchase
their meal with us i see so that way everyone can eat together okay thank you thank you
making sure i understood it correctly so part of the issue is we're charging this rate federally
we're getting reimbursed at this rate and if we don't raise our prices we won't continue to get
this money we'll take a hit we won't be reimbursed at the same rate federally the federal reimbursement
rate changes annually um we don't know what the upcoming one will be depends on when usda and tda
post post that but we get reimbursement a higher reimbursement for free and reduced meals
not the paid.
The current free and reduced reimbursement for this year is like $4.90 for each meal,
whereas it's about 40 cents for a paid meal.
So it does make a difference.
So we have to make up that in what the student pays for the meal.
So to continue to get, say, that $4.90 or whatever the new price will be,
they're saying that we are charging not enough,
that we need to increase our prices if we want to continue to get those that those dollars to also
avoid um funding from the general fund okay yes i i thought that's what my understanding was but
any other questions board
all right thank you so much have a good evening i will not get your name wrong next
8.9 Discuss and consider Board approval for the electrical service upgrades at the Mayde Creek Complex.
Well now I'll move on to item 8.9, discuss and consider board approval for the electrical services upgrade at the May Creek Complex.
Our presenter will be Ms. Lisa Kastman, our Executive Director of Facilities Planning and Construction.
I think we've got you for about three agenda items.
Good evening, President Redmond, Trustees, and Dr. Gagorski.
Yes, three items.
The first one is a contract approval for the electrical service upgrades at the May Creek Complex.
It includes the high school, the junior high, the elementary, transportation, maintenance, the water treatment plant.
This is one of the three facilities that we actually own our own electrical system.
And it's been 1979 is when it started, and it's time for some upgrades.
Any questions, Board?
And that would be a bond project, or we'd be using funds from the 2023 bond?
Correct.
Infrastructure funds is what we're planning to use.
8.10 Discuss and consider Board approval to award a contract for design services necessary for the renovation and construction at the Complex of Innovation.
All right, let's go to 8.10.
Discuss and consider board approval to award a contract for design services necessary for the renovation and construction at the Complex of Innovation.
Yes, so Ms. Hackett brought earlier part of our district strategic plan.
We're going to be revamping the CTE program over at the Miller site, so it's going to encompass Miller, the old OAC, the old BTP.
We're going to bring on Stantec.
They've done the Rains Facility.
They've done Shaw Center.
They've done other projects and we'd like to start design on that and that'd be for
a future bond project.
Chair Greg Musil.
Any questions board?
Ms. Taylor.
Mr. President, I just, I'm sorry, I just need clarification on this because I know this
is a conversation that happened with the previous board.
This is not asking to build a new building.
this is a request to fund just the master planning phase for expansion, is that correct?
Mostly for a renovation expansion.
It could be some new construction on the site, but that's what will be determined by the end of this study.
And then by the end of the study, if there was a request for a new building,
would that be paid out of bond money or would that be?
It would probably be a new bond.
Yeah, future bond.
bond okay it would probably be something like that i would think yeah i would think a future bond
yeah that's a good question and and probably one we wouldn't be able to answer tonight what that
looks like uh because they're going to do a full study of our current miller building and the
building across the street one section of the building across the street was built to help me
Yeah, at least in 1982.
1981, 82.
81, and the other one was built around 2010.
2008.
2008.
So one side might be in better condition than the other two.
So should we examine a teardown, a part of it, and a build back up?
I don't know that yet.
If so, yeah, that's definitely bond stuff.
If it's just maybe expanding programs and moving a program from one side of the street to the other,
we could have some funds available to do some of that now.
with some minor interior changes, but until we get our architects in there to show us and evaluate every program,
I really couldn't tell you, but probably would be a future bond project.
And then I know it was requested in a previous board meeting.
I'm not sure if it's happened yet, but was there ever an efficiency audit done of our existing facilities
to really understand what we have versus what we think we may need
and that there are other costs you know finding ways that we could use current
buildings facilities I don't know no request was made we did not do a fish
efficiency audit miss Cassman remind me what you guys did on capacity to look at
our was it just our high schools no high school element we got the high schools
are done we're being doing the junior highs and elementary to get you capacity
and it just is looking at capacity but it's not an audit of every building we
have in every space we have correct correct it's just our campuses and we tend to go through like
a large renovation that's when we do a real in-depth analysis of what's there and what needs
to get done it'd be good once you i know it takes a while to do that but if we could see that in the
future appreciate it miss cassman do you have a final report from the um it was an architect firm
correct for the for the high school yes I do have a final report okay so if
you've got a final report on that we could share that and you say the
elementary would be done what's the scope on that probably by the end of the
summer okay in the fall so we're still working on that okay sounds good thank
you mr. president miss champagne so I'm so excited about this new that we're
working on this already and I I can see it so I just so we're talking about the
new the building though I see building right okay so the old field a OAC the
old OAC building but there yes it's so current but okay I know but this is for
the future but I just wanted to restate that there are about nine hundred fifty
kids that are eligible for the Miller classes that are eligible but they can't
get in so I'm so optimistic that these kids you know it'll be 950 this year
maybe it'll be a thousand by the time you know we get to there and that these
kids will be able to have classes so to me I saw this presentation that dr. Bell
gave while we were in San Antonio in,
you know, Bravo to you guys because I
didn't realize that that our Miller kids
had grown from 25% in 2022, which wasn't
that long ago to 75% now, not just Miller,
but the CTE classes.
I should clarify because some of
those are not at Miller,
but still 75% of our kids are in
some kind of CTE classes.
That's amazing.
So what I want to say about that
is I see this as a twofold benefit because not only will those 950 kids be
able to take their classes that they want to and find their pathway that they
want but we also make a little money on on kids that are in in those classes
there's some kind of really really really complicated formula that I can't
go into and I wouldn't I'd be able to understand it myself anyway but it's
very complicated but we do get a little money from them then we get some money
too when they become certified so that to me that's a double that's a double
whammy the kid the kid the student benefits from it and then we can benefit
from it also so I see this only as a positive and you know I'm sorry that
some people you know some others may not see it the same way as I do but I am
I'm very excited about this new renovation of the new building.
Thank you for your work.
And by the way, you got lots of compliments from various people at TASB, the SLI.
They would sometimes mention to me, you know Ms. Casman?
She's awesome.
So I thought I would pass that along to you too.
Thank you very much.
That was us saying it, wasn't it?
Mr. President?
Ms. Fox.
Okay, so I like Mrs. Taylor's question, and I'm wondering if this, and as I'm reading through this to see the scope of work, if you will, that isn't this kind of like an efficiency audit of this building?
like when you were saying, let's see how that end of the building looks, and the other,
the efficiency would be what's happening at the current Miller,
which one of those programs might be better moved,
and what we could enhance in our offerings once we see what this building is capable of holding.
That's correct.
If we need to, I mean, Mrs. Taylor, as you know, and we've talked about many times,
the opportunities for students to be successful when they leave here have so
many fingers and so many avenues that having this current or OAC building
reconfigured into possibilities for the future for children who will have jobs
we don't even know are invented yet right so that to me feels like an
efficiency audit this talks about i don't know mrs taylor if this is where you were coming from but
it talks about um like traffic studies and where'd it go things like that like
you know geography and topography and all that but included in this would also be i mean stantec has
has built and designed many of our incredible areas right like the shaw
steam center and you know incredible things so just because it says projects
physical characteristics size location dimensions geotechnical it's also an
efficiency audit of the current building the building across the street what
what would be possible so that you could bring it back to us or to a future bond committee if necessary.
Is that my understanding of what will happen here?
That is correct.
Does that help answer your question, Mrs. Taylor?
Partly, but I want to clarify.
I think we're all aligned that expanding services at Miller is extremely important.
We know that we want to make sure that our students have access to not just a sound academic background
around so they're ready for college, you know, provide access to military options,
but absolutely access to career opportunities if that's what they want to
do when they leave. So I think we're all aligned on that. I think the request that
I'm making, a question that I have is, have we exhausted all possibilities in
terms of space that we may have possibly available in our on our campuses versus
considering a very large expense and requesting a bond for it, which is very
much further down the road but just making sure that we have all the information so that we can
make the best decision that's right for our district financially as well as what's right
for our students and giving them the access to all the opportunities we want
any other questions board all right we'll move on to item 8.11 discuss and consider board approval
8.11 Discuss and consider Board approval of a First Amendment to the Cost Sharing Agreement for Drainage Facilities to service PHHOU Cane Island, LLC., Lennar Homes of Texas Land and Construction, LTD., Harris County Municipal Utility District's (MUD) #171, (MUD) #178, (MUD) #465.
of a first amendment to the cost-sharing agreement for drainage facilities to service
PHHOU Cane Island, LLC, Lennar Homes of Texas Land and Construction, LTD, Harris County, MUDS 171,
178, and 465. So when we bought the property that Nelson and Freeman is on, it was a very
dollar square foot, but it had nothing. No roads, no water, no sewer. So we worked with the
developers Ellison primarily we have a mitigation basin for a stormwater to the
south of the site and then we have our water and wastewater treatment basically
come from the windward site which is just West so as part of those original
cost agreements the mud can allow other people to come into the agreement and
that's what this is asking for so north of the transportation site a
Lennar and Perry homes is doing a development so they're going to tap into
the system and we're going to get reimbursed for what they're going to
take out of the system which is nice and last month you approved the storm sewer easement so
this is part two now so to get the cost sharing part done any questions board
thank you very much thank you we'll now move on to item 812 discuss and consider future board
8.12 Discuss and consider future Board adoption of Policy Update 127.
adoption of policy update 127 our presenter will be miss sherry ashburn our director of student
affairs thank you president redmond members of the board dr gregorski today i have for you tasby
policy update 127 this is still that trickle down from the 89th legislative session a lot of updates
to administrative code we do have four local policy updates recommended by kdisd administration
one related to disaster pay one to the local leave policy which you heard about earlier during
the compensation plan update and two transfer policy updates that allow a request to remain
transfer. So I'm open for any questions. Any questions, Board? Mr. President. Ms. Fox.
Ms. Ashburn, do you love your job? I really love this local policy update. So I can use my
personal and my local sick days however I'd like. So I'm excited about that.
But yes, I do love my job, Ms. Fox. I mean, these
These are so technical.
You know, replace this, revise that, delete this line, add this.
God bless you.
Well, I have to give the credit to TASB because they really do organize their team of lawyers and specialists,
really help us understand and break this down a little bit more.
It's so complex, and it's a lot to read, and I appreciate you very much for all the details that you give us.
Any other questions, Board?
This is so much fun policy reading in here.
Yes.
I like the job security.
Install me a cure right here.
Thank you.
We'll just come up with a bunch of questions for next Monday.
How about that?
Thank you.
8.13 Discuss and consider cell phone tower leases.
We'll now move on to Item 813, Discuss and Consider Cell Phone Tower Leases.
And our presenter will be Justin Graham, our general counsel.
Mr. President, Dr. Gorgorski, members of the board,
what you have here in front of you is an action discussion item
to consider cell phone tower leases.
Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code sets forward a general premise that all real property vests with the Board of Trustees,
which means if we want to sell a piece of property or buy a piece of property, you actually have to take action on those.
Those of you who have been on the Board a little bit have had those discussions enclosed, and then we'll come out and take some action.
We do have some new trustees. This particular item is a little bit new to the entirety of this board because we have actually, we were approached by a group that wanted to look at the feasibility of cell phone towers on our properties.
But even more so than that, we have, from an administrative standpoint, our administrators have determined that we have actually dead spots at several of the high school campuses that we're referring to.
That makes it an issue sometimes when we're trying to get a hold of folks, especially at the high operational tempo which we run at.
I know Mr. Cross would agree with this. His campus is one of those campuses, his former campus is one of those campuses that's set for a site here.
So in order to be to increase that connectivity and also be a good steward of taxpayer money, we're talking about doing every presentation that you heard today on budget, on school cafeteria funding, on what we're doing with the compensation plan is all about how we do more with less or less with less.
So we're turning over every rock. The sites that we've identified do not interfere with the district purposes that we have.
and the proposed leases do not divest the district of any of their ownership
of the property and ability to do what we need to do at the campuses you will
see in the executive content there's a site sketches of where those cell phone
towers will be for the record we're talking about today is we're talking
about five specific high school campuses Tompkins Cinco Ranch Pato Freeman and
Jordan High School within those leases you'll see that there is a financial
benefit to the district we were actually they came in much lower than that we
were able with Mr. Bierling's team able to negotiate those rates upward to put a
little bit more money in our pocket but again trying to be good stewards of the
taxpayer dollar while also increasing the connectivity issues that we do have
at some of those campuses so I'm bringing these five to you here but I'm
also asking that administration is recommending that the Board of Trustees
authorize your administration to continue to negotiate and execute these
leases as they may come up which means should we have an opportunity in the
future to increase this at other campuses by taking action in the manner
that's prescribed would allow your superintendent to negotiate and
authorize those really condenses down now that we have sort of a standard
operating protocol with the company that we're working with and an ability for us
to move forward a little more quickly so that being said I'm happy to take any
any questions that any trustee may have.
Any questions, Board?
Mr. President.
Mr. Davidson.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Graham.
Just two questions kind of related to some of the details here behind what terms could look like.
First question is, does this involve the granting of any permanent type of easements to these companies?
Okay.
And then the second question is, have you heard lease terms being thrown out yet?
Is there a standard in the cell phone industry?
What are the types of terms you're hearing about?
Yeah, so we actually have outside counsel that's engaged to negotiate with us on these particular items,
and they specialize in this area.
What we were originally brought to was something like 300% or 400% less than the number that we were actually able to negotiate to,
and these leases are on an annual basis right now.
now. And so they will have an option to extend. We also have an option to walk away if we
feel like that that's a bad use of the resource or whatever. We have some pretty standard
terms that are included therein. I'm happy with those terms from a legal perspective.
Also I think our team and I think Mr. Fieling's team is happy with those terms from also a
cost sharing perspective.
perspective.
Mr. President.
Ms. Champagne.
So is this, Mr. Graham, is this a general, I know you've, well actually there's only
four schools listed unless Jordan's not on there, but it may not matter if, is this like
a general, like in general we want to be able to do that, not just the schools that are
listed here but in general of this you know we're going to give you leeway or whoever yes so instead
of bringing five specific contracts and putting those on the board docs and having us go through
those um with a fine-tooth comb what we're saying is what i'm asking you to do or what the
administration is asking you to do is authorize your superintendent and his team and their for mr
beerlings team and my team to go ahead and finalize the negotiations on these well there's
four or five here and then also seek those opportunities in the future without then having
to come back or in general that's right yeah yes okay and and so then so what i want to ask you
about that too is so we're going to make money potentially on leasing this out but this will
also benefit you know our people at the schools because for example i mentor someone out at freeman
and i know that freeman has terrible maybe not for everybody but for me has terrible reception so
that's to me a win-win on that and i appreciate you know i don't i see what you're saying instead
of just bringing this to us every single time to just allow the superintendent and his people
Right, so I do think it's interesting you talk about Freeman and the connectivity issues up there, and we can talk about, hey, that's our newest high school, and it's in a newer area.
That's at the north side of our district, and maybe it's, you know, that undeveloped sort of Harris County corridor.
But we also have those same connectivity issues at Jordan High School, which is our furthest south high school.
I routinely call, I routinely have administrators at Jordan High School say, let me step outside of where I am so that I can get you on the phone and talk to you.
And so if we can make a little money doing this, but also we can have better connectivity
where our administrators don't have to go through that process as they're, because guys,
you know, at a high school level, things happen at a real quick operational tempo.
And so if you need, a principal needs an answer, they need to be able to pick up the phone
and do so immediately.
And so it does, you are correct, it does kind of kill two birds.
Okay, I like it.
Any other questions, Ward?
Thank you, Mr. Graham.
9. Consent Items
Board, and then item nine is our consent items.
Just a reminder, we put items that are kind of normal business items that kind of happen.
They're repetitive many times.
And so if there is something that anybody wants to pull off at this point, you can request to pull one of these items off.
We're obviously not considering them right now, but you can pull them off and we can discuss them now
Otherwise when we get to the regular board meeting that will just this whole agenda item will roll into our consent agenda
So are there any items that you want to pull off to discuss? Mr. President?
I'm gonna I'm gonna use I'm just a baby board member for a while
It's excuse was the the optional flexible school day program presented at a previous board meeting
I'm curious. Yes. Okay
Okay.
Everything that, well, I can't think of anything that would end up on a consent agenda that you're seeing.
The board hasn't seen probably one, two, three, four, five times over the years.
Actually, I'm thinking, was it presented publicly in a public meeting?
Because I just think it's great information that the public should know.
And if it wasn't, I'm just curious if there's a way that they could get access and understand this program.
So if someone went back into our board videos last year at this time, they'd find it in the year before that, in the year before that.
Probably the last three years, maybe as many as five, to watch those presentations.
I guess my only question is the updated version of this flexible program, where is it made of?
Is it made publicly available on our website?
So if families want to know more information about this, they'll be able to find it.
Yeah.
I'd have to ask.
Ms. Heck, do you know, is there something on the website about the optional flexible school day?
Specific with Reigns Academy, you mean?
Yes.
This is one of the programs we offer there.
You know, I'd have to check.
I don't know if it specifically calls out.
It's specific for off-cohort students at risk of dropping out, things like that.
Reigns Academy incorporates quite a few different strands of programs,
And this is one of them that we could offer the kids at risk of graduating a flexible school day
So they can do the other things
I just think it's a great option to make sure that our kiddos can graduate with a high school diploma and
You know the more people know about it
These are that I would say the kids that we offer this type of program to we're very intentional and we're making contact with them
we're recovering them in the community or
Deterring them from withdrawing because most time they 18 and can withdraw themselves
and so there's this effort to offer them an opportunity to continue with school and
Work or do the things they need to do, but I'll certainly check into it. Thank you
Mr.. President I would also remind us that
Mr.. Merryman presented on this program last year. I think maybe in the last
Yeah, and it was incredible
He was the principal at Raines High School at that time and he covered all the avenues and it's really he stood there and
Presented to us it was really really building this program out. Yeah, so mr. Mary men might be the code words
They'd look up
Is it the members mr. President? I would just like to say I'm going out on a limb here with mrs. Taylor and and
And don't feel bad about if you want it to be removed from consent agenda, because I've done that before.
And this is, you know, and for me, no judgment here.
So if you would like that to be removed, then that is your.
No, but thank you very much.
I just needed clarity.
All right, but don't ever feel bad.
You know, no apologies needed.
Just remove it.
I won't feel bad at all.
Thank you.
Yes, we're dead and I think that that's one thing we would say is if you know you're gonna want to pull something from that
Consent agenda give us a heads up before the meeting and make sure whoever needs to get like if we were saying
Miss Craig we want you to come up here and make this presentation at least you can have an hour or two to prepare again
Not that you're not prepared if we brought you up here you could do it, but
Yeah
any other questions board
10. Information Items
All right, then item 10, our informational items.
The board has received the donated items list.
Mr. Secretary, do we have any requests for information?
We do.
We have a few tonight.
We're looking to, Ms. Taylor had asked about if we could see the graph,
which I believe Mr. Schuss said that he had that available of the Region 4 districts
and the compensation plans.
the comparable the 10 i believe was it 10 districts is that right okay and then also the
food and nutrition report to look at the so we know about the the cost increase and
and how that's playing out and then uh yes and then free and reduced looking at like those
families that maybe were just over the threshold to qualify for free and reduced um
to be able to look at that and then possibly like some kind of if there's a market analysis
of lunch prices and i think i can't remember who said that cy fair might be the only school that
they remember being cheaper than us but we could take a look at that as well um and then the fi
final report on the efficiency audit for like high school and I guess the in relation to Miller
and that building use and how that's all playing out with the new moving forward. Also then
just making sure that we have there our optional flexible school day information
information available to the public if I understood that
correctly miss Taylor
That that there that was somewhere it was on the website that we were putting it back out again and in some manner
And I believe that's all I have unless somebody else has anything else to add. I
believe that it was available to
Get some additional information regarding the possibility what it would look like to
to potentially leverage the two 1% payouts towards
and putting them towards benefits.
What does that look like?
Sure, 1%.
So we will add that to it, to benefits.
I highlight that too, that could possibly be an equity,
but I would just like to see what those numbers look like
and how that might, if it would make any kind of
significant impact on the cost of benefits.
Okay. All right. There will be a regular board meeting on Monday, June 22nd, 2026, and there being no further business before the board, this meeting is adjourned, and the time is 826 p.m.
11. Future Meetings
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.