[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Where are you, my love? >> [music] [music] [music]
[music] [music] [music] >> Gentlemen, the workshop is now convened. It is 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9th, 2026. A quorum of the board is present in the board room in accordance with Texas Open
Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. We uh they are Frost Prelow, Louise Galindo, Courtney Lewis, Rosa Maria Berdeja, Tennessee Walker, Laura George, and Jay Stegel. At the present time, Mr.
Adeyeye is not in attendance. I'll recognize him when he shows up. We expect him. Ask that you please silence your cell phones. We'll begin by singing our national anthem, and Joshua Raga from Western Hills High School will
sing our national anthem today. >> Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we held at the twilight's
last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched
were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave
the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner
yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. >> [applause] >> Please join me in pledge of allegiance
to the flag of the United States of America. >> 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. >> Join me in the Texas I honor >> the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. >> Thank you.
Please be seated. >> [clears throat] >> Before we begin public comment, I'd like to briefly explain the purpose of tonight's meeting. It's not a regular meeting meeting. Once again, it's a special meeting. This is a workshop for the Board of Trustees that has been called for the purpose of sharing information
to support the development and approval of the 2026-2027 budget. The topics listed on the posted agenda were selected for informational purposes only. No action will be taken by the board on these items during tonight's workshop.
Because this is a workshop and not a regular board meeting, public comment is limited to matters that are specially listed on the posted agenda in accordance with long-established board policy BED local and the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Our next agenda item is public comment. We truly value hearing from our community. Public comment is a critically important part of the operations of of this school district. We appreciate the time that people take to be here. We appreciate the time that
you invest in being prepared to to share your comments with us. But I want to share a brief reminder of the process and expectations, and there there was some confusion at our last meeting. To ensure everyone has a fair opportunity to speak, public comment is
conducted in accordance with Fort Worth ISD board policy and the Texas Open Meetings Act and must be managed in orderly and consistent manner. And it will be conducted according to procedures that are long established and and widely followed in school districts all over North Texas.
Speakers must sign up in advance through our determined process. You'll be called in order and will have up to 3 minutes to speak. Presiding officer may make adjustments when necessary. At regular meetings, speakers may address any topic. At special meetings, commented or
limited Pardon me, or limited to items on the agenda. That's I'm repeating myself, but a long established practice and the practice that's followed all through the districts in in our region. Um that it Some have questioned the constitutionality of it. I can assure
you it's well established. Uh and a process that's in accordance with our traditions and procedures. The board will not engage in conversation with any those who make public comment. Um we will listen
and respond if factual information or existing policy is required. We ask that speakers be mindful of student privacy and refrain from identifying students by name as student information is protected by law. However, a parent or guardian may identify his or her own child if they
choose. Speakers are encouraged to avoid naming individual employees or volunteers and instead address concerns at the campus program or district level. We also ask that concerns about individual employees, students, or other confidential matters
be directed through the appropriate district processes rather than during district comment. Please respect the procedures in place as well as other speakers. Ask that everyone treat our speakers and all in attendance with the dignity and respect that we would all expect of
ourselves. Thank you for your engagement and being a part of this process. Tonight we have six speakers signed up. The first speaker on the um to be called is Ambika Sharma.
And Ms. Sharma will be followed by Randy Wheeler. Ms. Sharma, please approach the podium. Your 3 minutes will begin when you >> Okay, hi. Good evening. Um I haven't had enough chance Oh. Here we
go. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um I've been Well, you guys don't know me, so I'll give you a little bit of my background. Before [clears throat] I went into the tech industry, I was actually an analyst uh with Goldman Sachs and I covered like the financial institutions group. So, I was an analyst with
with Goldman Sachs. Can you hear me? Okay. Um and so, I used to cover like the large banks uh both in Western Europe as well as North America. So, if you hear about like when earnings calls happen and there analysts asking tough questions from the CEO or the CFO, those
used to be people like me. Um so, why I tell you that story is I love financial statements and uh I uh I await them with great alacrity. Um so, I was waiting for your budget. Last Wednesday, I saw that you guys were going to present your budget. So, I
called Ms. Um Ms. Dora, I think. Um so, I Oh, Ms. Patty, sorry. I called Ms. Patty, wherever she is. She's very She's been very nice. Um I've been trying to get my hands on this budget and uh she on Wednesday she told me it'll be available on Friday.
On Friday I emailed and it wasn't there. Yesterday I spoke to her. She said that it will be made available by the end of day. I checked yesterday at 8:30. It was still not made available. So I give you this whole 1 minute or 2 and 1/2 minutes of spiel here to give you a background that like I
wanted this ahead of time so I could slice and dice the data. This morning I looked at it. It was available but it was very like high-level. It's so bare minimum. I guess coming from a financial industry I'm expecting like pages of information. So I see that you have 40 or you're expecting a 44 million dollar
deficit and 25 million is attributed to the elevate model school or the model, whatever that's called, the program. So that's about like 56%. I would like more information on it. So like how are you spending the 25 million dollars? I understand there will be a public comment time.
I wish we could ask questions Mr. Garrens. But yeah, so I want more information on the elevate model. I want more information on also administrative like how much are you paid? I know you get you're getting $260,000 plus some bonuses etc. Given the nature
of, you know, the takeover, I think it will also be very helpful if the if we as taxpayers understood what percentage of the deficit is contributed because of the administrative pay. Cuz on the page you the very first thing on the page is I'm making it up now. I think it was 15
million because of the raise for teachers, 2% raise to like regular people. So what I'm trying to say is like we also need to know how much are y'all paid and then how is that contributed to the to the deficit? 25 million for elevate
model, let's break it down and then I would like that kind of information. I need like almost 100 pages of information, not like 10 pages. Sorry. >> Thank you very much. Next speaker is Randy Wheeler. Oh, pardon me. Uh Dr. Lacata, if you'll
pause just for a moment. >> Uh Dr. Salise, would you get her contact information so we can address a lot of her questions and maybe ask her if she wants a job. Um now, just get her contact information cuz I think she's got a lot of good questions and and I think um she's uh
interested in making sure we're doing the right thing, so definitely. >> [snorts] >> Thank you, Dr. Lacata. Our next speaker is Randy Wheeler and Mr. Ms. Wheeler will be followed by Tricia Frossard.
Good to go. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for >> I agree, she had a lot of great things. Let's talk a budget. Everybody loves a good budget, and a budget tells you what matters. It tells you what you're willing to invest in and what you're willing to sacrifice. And Fort Worth has an annual budget of over one billion
dollars with a B, one billion dollars. That's a lot of money and that's a lot of responsibility. This board unanimously approved the superintendent's contract worth well over $360,000 a year when you include moving and housing expenses, monthly allowances, plus the district covers 100% of his health insurance premiums
for him and his family. At the same time, this administration has been very vocal about budget deficits, like we just heard from Abeka, difficult financial decisions, and the need for sacrifice. These are very conflicting messages. When you tell a community their resources are scarce, but leadership
compensation is abundant, the community starts asking questions about budgeting priorities. We all know that highly effective teachers, counselors, principals, and support staff are the most valuable assets the district has. Excellent excellent talent is a district pillar three. And when you lose highly
effective employees, it costs more than salary. It costs recruitment expenses, training time, institutional knowledge, relationships, stability, and continuity for students. But most importantly, it costs trust. And the trust is the deficit that no one's talking about. You have inherited schools that are already
facing challenges, yet in a remarkably short period of time, you have managed to create something even more expensive to repair, a crisis of confidence. Educators do not trust they're going to be supported. Parents don't trust that they will be heard, and communities do not trust the decisions will be made
with them rather than to them. Every time experienced educators leave, are investigated, or removed, every time a decision is driven by radical politics instead of positive student outcomes, every time concerns are dismissed rather than addressed, that trust account gets
smaller. And unlike many, trust cannot be restored with a budget amendment. One day the state intervention will end, and the board of managers will no longer sit on the state dais. One day the people of Fort Worth will begin to rebuild. And when that day comes, the community
will remember. While budgets are moral documents, they reveal what you guys have what you guys value. And I need you to consider not only the financial deficits facing Fort ISD, but the trust deficits that you continue to deepen.
Because financial deficits can be solved with dollars, but the trust deficits will take years to repair. And I need you to think back the last time you sat in those chairs to when AJ was here, and AJ reminded you of your job. Your job is to represent the vision and values of
this community. And the community has been very clear. I need you to ask yourself, have you been listening? >> Thank you, Ms. Wheeler. Next speaker is Patricia Forsyth, and
Patricia Forsyth will be followed by Sabrina Ball. >> I'm sorry to interrupt. I need to step out for a family child care issue. I will listen online to the recorded session. >> She's not here. Okay. Um Sabrina Ball who will be followed by EJ
Carreon. >> My biggest problem with this budget tonight is the 25 million budgeted for the Elevate model. That number is astounding. I don't see a breakdown of it and I'm pretty sure it's free to demean educators. It is fiscally irresponsible
to implement a model that has no real data to support it. A model that is driving away highly qualified educators. A model I believe does real harm to students. So, let's talk about how it functions. Number one, you throw out all discretionary learning and I urge the
board to look up that term. You all certainly had discretionary learning and and you're well-rounded individuals. Two, throw out proven learning models. Think Alice Carlson, Applied Learning Academy, and WLI. Dr. Ocada, you praised
WLI. You can't install Elevate on that campus without fundamentally changing it. And I know because my kids went there. Three, waste money we've already spent. We cram the curriculum we've spent millions on through AI to align it with
the TEKS. Throw out real expertise and condense each concept down to 10-minute lessons. Four, then you drill the kids and only give them 30 seconds to process what was asked and formulate a response. What happens to the 27,000 kids who don't
speak English in that process when they don't have language experts to help them. Five, then you quiz the kids and throw them into groups based on the winners and the losers. All day long, every day, under harsh lighting without regard to IEPs and 504s
and the mental health of those students. A long, monotonous, grueling day, every day. Lastly, as a taxpayer, I resent that you decided on this model without a thorough review of what we had, of what works, of what kids need, and without any value
given to great educators who already have great results. So, I would ask yourself, why is this model being pushed through at taxpayer expense? Who stands to profit? Who stands to gain from it? Because it's not our kids.
Also, I think parents will want to speak on this at the listening sessions. Summer schedules are really tough, so please consider streaming those so everyone can hear, especially working parents. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. Ball. >> [applause]
>> Next speaker is E.J. Carrion, and Mr. Carrion will be followed by Mr. Alexander Montalva. >> What's going on, beautiful people? Uh I think I want to give context cuz I got inspired by Ambika. Um my background for 15 years was in education technology. I
started an EdTech company when I was 22 years old at the Fort Worth Tech Labs right there when Hayden Black Burn was running it. Um our company became Inc. 5000 in 2021 and 2022. I stepped down as the CEO of that company and moved on because I believe um what we're fighting today is bigger
than money and it's about power dynamics. And uh I feel like that is what caused me to be here. So, today what we're talking about is educational expenses. I've been in over 450 schools over those 50 years um from Nevada,
Clinton County to Miami-Dade. And the thing about the Elevate model that concerns me about the $25 million is perspective. I mean I mean you could give every kid unlimited tutoring, counseling, anywhere, anytime for, you know, 10%
maybe 20% of that cost of the Elevate. But I often see a lot of the expenses go to management and compliance software that's ultimately just to shove things around. And so, you know, this idea of elevated curriculum,
elevated training, really what we need is more frontline work and that is things that are directly to students. That is 360. That is family-forward. And Elevate is really, I feel, mostly about you guys making sure you get your stamp from the boss,
Governor Abbott, and it allows you to do that. I would also be careful just making sure what Elevate has funded, who it's funded. We just had in the county commissioner Rakana security just really made a big thing at the
commissioner's court for we wasted a million dollars on this on them getting us officers, which they didn't get us, and we did that with no contract. So I also just think making the Elevate partnership contract available. And then most importantly also is just
like M&A activity. Like what's the merger and acquisition process of Elevate? Where has it been? How much money does it have behind it? Who who is on it? If you know anything about education like you guys do, everything is on a free fall. So what's happening to this type of organization long-term
with that ability. And I think that's also what's very unfortunate. I think the EdTech space could be a lot beautiful and better if it was ran by community, but unfortunately about five private equity firms run EdTech. So um just think um
us being aware of where that is on its life cycle is an important too. You see this happening all the time from the high dosage tutoring process that happened with paper. You know, they raised a hundred million dollars and now they don't exist. You're seeing that with Schoolinks. This happens to everybody who doesn't actually build a real product and just
provide you vaporware at the 80 million dollars. >> Thank you, Mr. Carey. And our final speaker is Alexander Montalvo. >> [snorts] >> EJ was very nice to say that y'all knew, you know, what's up with education. I look at this board of managers and I don't think y'all know anything about
education. And I think that's the big problem of this TEA takeover model is that it's a model for grifters. It's a model for people to present >> Point of order, Mr. President. >> Yes, please.
Miss Perdaya, please state your point of order. >> The individual's comments are not related to the posted agenda. >> So, this is about the budget. This is about money? >> it is. >> Okay. So, this is what I'm talking about. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Point of order is well taken. I ask that you confine your remarks to the agenda.
>> Okay. The budget of the fourth ISD school district is something that is concerning because a TEA takeover invites grifters to take taxpayer dollar money. Is that okay with you, Rosa? How about you, Pete? Is that
Is that sound better to you? >> Um Mr. Montalvo, you If you don't restrict your remarks to the agenda, we'll have >> I just I just framed it under the budget. The concerns of the budget. Okay? >> I'll proceed if you continue with that.
>> I want everyone to see this example. You have no clue what you're doing. You're here to protect your ego. You're here to protect your status and not protect our tax dollars, which is what is my concerns about this budget. This budget shows that you're going to
implement experimental frameworks, experimental curriculum with no real evidence that it is actually help us. This is just another experiment that tax
dollars and taxpayers have to fund. And y'all sensitivity on us getting to the details of where this money goes shows exactly why you shouldn't be in this position. You shouldn't be in the position to be able to help
a district of this size figure out how this budget gets approved, nor less somebody from Florida who knows nothing about our community or our education system and how those dollars are going to be adequately >> Mr. Montalvo, I suggest you please yield.
Uh attacks on members of the staff are are not allowed under this agenda. >> So Pete, they're not attacks if I am criticizing your inability to understand what to vote on for an adequate budget. >> Mr. Montalvo, >> Those are not attacks. Those are my
First Amendment rights to share >> concerns. >> Mr. Montalvo, please uh go to your No, you've lost you've forfeited your time. You departed two times from the agenda. Mr. Montalvo, please >> The exodus of talent, security is going
to ask you to remove. The exodus of parents and students are going to come at a cost. >> Yes, Pete. >> And they are so afraid for us to criticize them. Oh, no. What am I going to do? >> That was our
our final speaker for the night. Uh he can remain if he will not disturb the proceedings. You know, under under board policy, I'm going to issue a warning to all all presents. If we do have disruptive behavior,
I'm going to ask that security uh address that, and if people who are unwilling to comport themselves in a way that's um is able to uh support the proceedings of this hearing tonight,
going to ask them to leave the premises. I now turn this over to Dr. Lacata for reports. >> Well, good afternoon, everyone. Uh first want to start with uh just showing my admiration for Joshua Raga. I've heard him sing a couple times from Western Hills. He has an amazing
voice. It's always a pleasure to see uh amazing student talent, and I look forward to seeing them in my old age being super famous. Uh but they are just wonderful wonderful students. This is a workshop, so I want to make
sure we get in a lot of the points about the budget. I know all of you have met with the amazing Ms. Moss. Uh but I do want to bring up some points that aren't budget related. Uh in essence, they are, but more importantly, it's my report, but more importantly, I will get to the
bulk of the budget as this is certainly a workshop. We are entering our 78th 8th day of the intervention. While we continue to reduce our central office budget and move it to school leadership, there are several other things we are engaged in and have a head start moving into next
year. We've just completed several days of principal and assistant principal academic leadership professional development. And that has had some outstanding responses from our school leaders. Written responses, anonymously. Many principals and assistant principals were incredibly thankful for getting a
much deeper understanding of the academic delivery in the classroom, understanding the complexity of the school grading system, and the overall delivery of expectations next year for all our schools. Many expressed this was a new approach and appreciated the clear
pathway for all our schools to become A's. We opened with and remain constant that this is the entire team of principals, assistant principals, and district admin that are supporting side by side for next year's success. It was emphasized that teachers are to be fully
fully supported, and principals will be guided as well as this is our team. As state starts delivering our scores from this year, and they're not official, I want to give some early insights and reminder that this is raw data. It is not official for school
grades. So, uh sir, you can't write about it yet. [clears throat] >> [laughter] >> We are predicting some nice increases in some areas, especially in algebra. We have some nice gains and schools overall had some great movement to the positive.
Again, I want to remind everyone that we have only been here for a couple of months, and certainly the credit goes to the folks that were here and are still here. However, we are predicting an additional 14
schools that have dropped significantly and would qualify for elevate status. Given the timing of the data, we are not in a position to reconstitute all those schools and it would significantly hit the budget for next year. As we know, we start teachers out
at a very high rate of pay in those schools where the bulk of the money for our elevate program goes. We have a plan in place to fully support those schools and have designated them into a category that is similar to elevate called focus.
Finally, regarding the budget presentation today, we are still reducing our budget expenses as of about 20 minutes ago as we continue over for next year and we will continue over the next few weeks because we are hoping to bring budget amendments to reduce
our deficit that we had when we arrived. The budget is all about putting student outcomes, pillar number one, as the driver in our budget priorities. We have cleaned out this building from a lot of excess and open positions that we did not feel were supporting schools and
move them to the elevate model and into the schools. >> [sighs and gasps] >> We continue to put in new systems and processes that will reduce our expenditures while maximizing efficiencies. The past allocations to schools and department have not kept up with the lower student enrollment and
purchase programs that are aimed at reducing outdated staffing needs. We have reduced the number of products we are buying. We will potentially have a loss of 25 million dollars in FTE because of loss of students much like every large
district around the country. In this In this budget is one of the largest I will repeat this. What is in this budget is one of the largest percentage increases to the classroom teacher salary schedule in the entire state. Let me repeat that one
more time. In this budget is one of the largest percentage increase to the classroom teacher salary schedule in the area and the entire state. One of the largest. This emphasizes our focus on the classroom teacher of record and how important that teacher is when impacting
student learning. What is also in the budget is a 2% increase for all other staff members from principal and below. Nobody above those status or that level will receive a 2% raise. That will remain flat.
2% is consistent with other districts in the area and as you can see our budget is being stretched as we wish it could be more. Also included is the focus on significant increases to the staff of our elevate campuses and strategic initiatives to back up teachers on those
campuses instead of substitutes. Having additional teachers on those campuses instead of substitutes. >> [clears throat] >> Excuse me. We are also taking out the operational responsibilities from the principals so they can focus on being instructional
leaders. My first day here, I reminded principals they should be the best instructional leader on their campus. It is a lot of pressure, but the principal is the chair that has the biggest impact on student achievement on campuses. Now they can spend more time as an
instructional leader and spend more time in the classroom supporting their teachers. As we go through this, I want to thank the amazing Mrs. Moss who's hiding behind that pillar over there. We see you. Our chief financial officer. She has
been tireless. She has been awesome. Our departments have cut back considerably even up to today. I think we cut another $7 million out of the building and out of certain programs today. And we will continue to do so. As a reminder, we inherited a very
significant budget deficit because we were losing students and not reducing the amount of employees while we still maintain being the worst large urban performing district in the entire state.
Over budget and not teaching children. This budget reflects the exact opposite. So, thank you and I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Moss. >> Can I have one quick Can I have one question [clears throat] for Dr. Lacata? Can you talk a little bit about that
elevate model and the results that uh similar models have shown in uh in other areas? >> Absolutely. Um the elevate model is uh not unique to one city. It's uh similar to called different
names that uh I was very successful in Palm Beach as well as Broward, both moving to A's, not having any F's and D's and very few C's. But it's also been used around the state and at this time uh Dr. Solis, if you could uh give a quick
minute or two uh factoids about how the elevate model has been proven to increase student achievement. >> Absolutely. Good evening, uh Board of Managers, Superintendent. Thank you for the opportunity. Um the elevate model is a model that is
going to be hyper focused on having a well-structured instructional day. Meaning uh master schedules will certainly be aligned across all of the elevate schools and the the focus will be delivering high-quality instruction.
Those principals, assistant principals, and teachers have been selected in those schools uh based off of track record and data that show their effectiveness in delivering instruction. They are uh definitely instructional leaders if they
are principals of those schools and assistant principals of those schools. Uh Uh, as Dr. Lacata alluded to, coaching and supporting our teachers is a priority for for all of all of our schools, uh, but especially in the Elevate network. Uh, remember that in order to
be an Elevate school, we had to have an F rating or a D rating with a domain one F and a domain three score of a 70 or below. Um, and those schools that Dr. Lacata was referencing in his, uh, opening
remarks, uh, they are projected according to early data to be triple F's, meaning domain one F's, domain two F's, domain three F's, and an overall F. So, it's really quadruple. Um, we are we are pouring in additional
resources in terms of staffing as Dr. Lacata and I'm sure, uh, Ms. Moss will allude to today in today's budget presentation, uh, by providing additional human capital and additional resources, curriculum resources, uh, into the Elevate model. Uh, we're also
making sure and monitoring our staffing ratios for students to ensure that our classroom sizes are appropriate, uh, and supporting our, uh, leaders from a central office standpoint, the regional structure. Um, Shawn Joseph, Chief Joseph, right over
here, who was leading that network, uh, and making sure that we're not only are we supporting them in the field, but that we're also providing them with world-class professional learning opportunities on every professional learning day. >> Could I Would you have any follow-up questions
to Mr. Solis? >> Uh, no, thank you. >> Okay. Could you talk about the the human capital piece? It's extra human capital resources you noted in your in your comments. Could you you talk about that and and why that's so important in improving student outcomes?
>> Absolutely. I I think one of the things we are very confident in, uh, having had the opportunity to see instruction between March and the last day of school, um, is that instructional variability is our primary barrier to
success in our district. And when we talk about the additional resources from a human capital standpoint, we're looking at how can we provide additional staff in classrooms? We call them teacher residents
that are going to be planning alongside teachers, learn from teachers. These are aspiring teachers that can step in when a teacher is absent. Why is that important? It's important because we want to make sure that every day is an instructional day for our students and
that there is continuity in the instructional delivery. And so one of the things that we will insist happen is we should never have a substitute teacher in an elevate school. We should always have somebody who is familiar with the curriculum, knows
where we are in the lesson this day, understands what the expectations are in the instructional delivery and can keep that continuity for our students. We also want to lift the administrative burden as Dr. Lacata was alluding to and
making sure that our principals and APs have the support that they need to stay instructional leaders. Therefore, we have standardized AP ratios for our campuses. So our middle schools have at least three assistant principals regardless of size. Middle
school is middle school. We know challenges that come with running a secondary school and in order for us to insist that our leaders stay instructionally focused, we have to provide that additional human capital, those human resources to make sure that
they are able to stay focused on providing improvements in the quality of instruction. So those are just two examples of the additional resources we are pulling in in terms of human capital and making sure that we are supporting our leaders and teachers in the
classrooms. >> Thank you, Mr. Sileo. >> Uh, quick question. >> Will, just if you could expand, so we we visited a Elevate school, right? Um, and uh, I appreciate the additional human capital, but what I noticed at that
Elevate school was just the physical resources and and the kids not having what they needed to be successful. So, could you give a little bit more texture around >> I'll I'll adjust the front part of that. >> How we're going to elevate those resources for those kids? >> As you saw last
two meetings ago, last meeting, uh, I accelerated the purchase of $8 million worth of technology for the students in these schools. So, it is there the first day. If we waited till after the first, like most school districts do, it's not guaranteed it'll be there first
day of school. We do not want to miss the first day of school with the technology and stuff. So, we recognize that these schools not only challenged by, um, so many different factors, but some of the factors were our fault. We were not in there having appropriate materials, appropriate technology,
staffed properly. So, that's been our focus for that. Uh, Dr. Sileo, do you want to add something to that, please? >> Yeah, I was actually going to allude to that, um, because this Board of Managers approved that, um, just as recently as last month, uh, making sure that we have the appropriate
technology for use. Now, I will say in the Elevate model, we are going to be very very careful about not overloading technology in the classrooms. That's not the intent. Uh, but for example, we had some pretty antiquated, um, uh, instructional boards in each of the
classrooms with extraordinary glare from the sun that's coming in. We had issues with students being able to even see what was being presented to them in the instructional environment. Uh, so we, uh, we purchased the interactive boards that are larger, that have anti-glare
technology to make sure that we in every classroom that is a core content area that all students have access to instruction. We're also standardizing the materials that are used. We are providing in excess pencils, note cards, paper, all of the
school supplies that our kids need access to every day. We are standardizing the access to that in every one of those classrooms in the elevate model. We want to remove every barrier we can for a student to experience success and provide as much
as we can as a school system to get the alignment of instruction and the execution of instruction consistent across all of our schools. >> One of one of the other things and I do remember this the very first day I was here. Students were having struggling logging on.
5 minutes. 5 minutes. Child couldn't even log on. Teacher had to take their time away from teaching the others, get them logged on. We are backing a lot of this up with paper and pencil and handwriting. I believe students see enough technology during the day and will use it at an effective rate. But sometimes they
need a piece of paper in front of them and they need some pencils and they need to write some stuff down so there'll always be some scrap paper on their desk. They'll always be there to write down their notes. So there's a lot involved in here but we we can't we can't cut corners on this. It's too valuable. Way too valuable for these students.
>> I've got a Just just one more question. And maybe Dr. Licata or Dr. Solis could answer this for me. But in comments we heard it's $25 million for Elevate. And I'm I'm sure that the parents and our community wants to know where where
is that money being spent? Can you break without getting into the weeds and I know we're going to get into more budget discussions later but just in very rough maybe 10,000 level >> [snorts] >> could you give us a breakdown of what the $25 million represents in terms of
where the costs are going. >> Absolutely. A large portion of it is the teacher salary. A large portion of starting them out at so high because we wanted the very best and we did get some great results with people from outside our district in the area to teach just in those schools, actually from out of state. I was at that job
fair and we had couple hundred sign up for Elevate. So a large That was the biggest draw. There are some overhead costs involving technology, which is um the new the new the new not iPads, but the other ones. Chromebooks, thank you.
The projectors, the screens, and there's also a projector in there that when a student isn't in class or for some reason they're not in there, they can also still see the teacher and interactively work with that teacher whether they're sick, maybe they were disruptive, maybe
several other reasons. They are sitting in the classroom seeing the teacher via like we used to do during during that time of COVID. So that's it. And I'll obviously and and it's in the budget. We also padded all the schools with a less a
smaller um portfolio for our principal leaders because they can't have a portfolio 15. I'm coming from a place where we had portfolios of 13 to 15 per my instructional soups. We're down to about five in in Elevate and maybe six to
seven in the other regions cuz that's this these folks here that are going to be supporting schools. And if we've done anything in the last few days and we will do two days of it about coaching and leading and supporting. This is our team and we have
to go to bat with them and this is the leaders that'll be doing that through the portfolio, but that is some of the expenses as well. I There's no There's no hiding it. We need more leadership to help with the principals. So but the bulk of it is teacher salary if I'm not mistaken. Correct? Okay.
>> Uh fellow board members for this process now the budget process I asked that we all direct our questions to Dr. Lacata and he will direct them to the appropriate staff member. So begin with direct your question to to him and and
let him bring forward either answer or direct a staff member to speak to it. >> I have a question. Dr. Lacata, you mentioned about the 5% increase in teacher salaries across the district as well as the 2% increase for
all non-teachers. Would it be possible to do a little bit better on that? Maybe 3% is a budget able to support such an increase? >> The 5% we are very proud of and that's for teachers that are teaching students with a class roster and in class road
roll. The 2% is consistent with many of the districts around us. I will commit to looking for an additional couple million dollars if we can because I believe every percentage for every employee outside of that is about two two and a half million,
correct? This is math. It's 4 million for the 2% but every percent after that is about 2 million. Yeah. Okay. So we we will look at that and try and increase it as well. We value everybody
and we know that 2% covers just barely covers the cost of of living increase and gas prices are out of control. So I appreciate that and I think we will all make a concerted effort to try and and increase it a little bit without going into our fund balance cuz that's our biggest fear right now and you'll see
one slide that'll scare the bejesus out of you. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate you considering that. >> Um I just had a clarification. Did I hear Dr. Solis correctly that um the and I forget the phrase, the
the teacher um support teacher. >> Resident >> Resident teacher in resident. They want to They're people who want to be future teachers. >> Yes, they're just this close to it. >> Okay. >> Um and we don't let them go. >> [laughter] >> Okay. >> We're hopefully uh unfortunately, they
wouldn't qualify for the ACE model cuz they're new teachers. And we would like to extract that free money from the state for ACE teachers, but they require at least 2 years of of successful teaching. But we would definitely find a place for them. We're not going to let them go. >> That that is I mean, just former
teacher, that's very exciting. Just um to have that opportunity to be in the classroom and have a substantial period of like practicum work is huge. And you you're building your future workforce, which is great. >> Dr. Solis, certainly. >> Sorry, I could just because this really
is exciting. And I think one of the things that Dr. Lakota and myself have talked about at nauseam is how there is so much potential uh in terms of instructional talent. And and what we are wanting to do in terms of like teacher resident being an example, also
creating AP Academies, Principal Academies for aspiring leaders, is create our talent right here in Fort Worth. Uh we want to provide them the best learning opportunities. We want to retain excellent educators. And this is one of the initiatives that Dr. Lakota
is implementing in Fort Worth ISD to do just that. >> I met with the Texas Wesleyan uh president. I think she was the third or fourth one. And that's all we talked about. How can we get more folks through there now that we're offering the money that makes them a really good living, a
great altruistic uh career and make sure they're trained. And we are excited because all of them are on board. >> Okay. Now, Dr. Lakota, turn it over you to introduce the Chief Financial Officer.
>> Yes. Uh this Mrs. Moss is just um a special person and we are very fortunate to have her here in this district. Uh she is just as quiet, calm, as referred to, above the water, she's a duck. She's definitely a duck. But underneath that water, those legs are
moving as fast as they can to get her swimming, but she is an amazing person and we're very fortunate to have her here. >> Thank you, Dr. Lacata. Good evening, President Geren, Board of Managers. Um so tonight, I'm going to bring to you a
brief presentation. It's not really a a budget workshop setting. That's why you'll see the high-level data that we present to you tonight. I have two objectives. One is to share with you the current fiscal year and an update on where we are. The second objective is to
share with you what we've been working on for the 26-27 budget that we're going to ask you to adopt on June the 23rd. So we start with the pillars of excellence that has been met mentioned tonight a couple of times. Our role in
the budgeting process in finance is to try to look at what Dr. Lacata has brought to the district and uh compare that with the budget and make sure that we are building a budget that is on the foundation of these five pillars. Um we
started um when I started with the district in January, we had another set of priorities. So I do want to I guess give a shout-out to my team. We've had to pivot a few times in this process. The budget process was already in uh
process when I got here. So we're working on one set of priorities and we pivoted to try to support uh these five pillars and that's what this budget that you see is we're working towards that for the budget that we will ask and propose for you to adopt.
So, I want to start with 25-26. So, this is going to be the fiscal year that was adopted, uh, the budget that was adopted by the elected board members on July 1st of on in June for the July fiscal year, July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2026.
And I just have a couple of slides to share with you about that budget. And on this table in column one, you'll see the adopted budget. We adopted at revenue at 826 million with expenditures of 869,
creating a deficiency of 43.6 million, which we've been talking about uh, trying to reduce for this year. In column two is the revision. This uh, budget was amended by the board in February of this year as of January
31st. The difference you see in the revenue, the increase from the adopted budget to the revised budget, and the increase in the expenditures from the adopted to the revised is the TRA allotment. So, based
on our 89th legislature, there was a TRA allotment for teachers. When we adopted the budget, it was not included in there, and so about 30 million or more, uh, was actually added when we amended the budget for 25-26. When you look at what we're forecasting,
um, I I don't know if you can see that small, um, print there, but it says projections are subject to change. As of right now, this is what we're thinking we may land at the end of June. We still have some expenditures. We still have uh, things
to purchase. We still have salaries to pay, payroll to process. So, we're not there yet, but our best estimate at this time is that we will land at 12.6. And I will tell you that we are being a little conservative there. We really
think that that deficit will be reduced. Um and you'll see on the next slide how we how we got to that 12.6. So, I want to start on the left-hand side where you see the $43.6 million adopted deficit. Again, the revenue was
826 in millions, of course. The expenditures were 894, resulting in what I like to call a budget gap of 68.6. Knowing what that budget gap was, we used what are At the time, they used what we call a vacancy factor. We know
that there're going to be certain positions that are not filled during the year. We know that there're going to be positions that start later in the year, and all of that will add up to payroll what we call payroll savings. And so, I have those notes for you there. So, once
you take the budget gap of 68.6 and reduce it by that vacancy factor of 25 million, which is what they used, that's how you get to the 43.6. On the right side of the slide, I want to share with you um where we started with the budget gap,
and we have now realized that vacancy factor. We know that we have at least $25 million in payroll savings. So, we're back level to the adopted uh deficit of 43.6. During the year, we've had revenue
adjustments, we've had expenditure adjustments, and we've had additional payroll savings that we were forecasting out through June the 30th. And again, as mentioned earlier, we actually purchased technology so that we could start up on
the first day of school with what our students needed, and that all nets out to the 12.6 deficit that we are seeing now. Again, that number is subject to change and we hope that it continues to go to go down.
So now I'm going to pivot to the next fiscal year and kind of share out with you what we're proposing for you or what the superintendent is proposing for the next year's budget. This budget will be effective July 1, 2026 and go through June 30th of 2027.
So I'm going to start with the first with the assumptions that we use in building this budget. Those first seven line items are going to be what we look at when we try to determine what the revenue for next year is going to be. The last two are what we use for the
most part in determining what our expenditures are going to be. Our payroll and staff make up more than 80% of the budget. So that's where we where we start. That's our starting point. So when you look at student enrollment, you'll see that adopted in 25-26 was
69,021. As of May, we were at 66. So at snapshot last year, which is the last Friday in October, we had lost about 2,500 students based on what we had budgeted. And then for
the proposed budget for 26-27, we're looking at 63,068. That is a number for our finance and the budget department because we have to be a little conservative in what we do. On our average daily attendance, you'll see that for the proposed budget, we're
at 58,022. That is determined by how often our students come to school. We're only funded based on their attendance at school. So we use that ADA, as as call
it, of 58,022 to determine what our revenue is going to be and what we're going to receive for uh from the state. Our basic allotment increased a little bit in the 89th uh legislator session. We received our estimated taxable values
in April on April 30th of this year. And you can see that there's a slight increase over the adopted budget from last year to the proposed budget. And then when you look at our total tax rate, I'm just going to the M&O portion
of it and the I&S together add up to 1.0291. We have to post a notice in the paper. That notice will be posted for the public hearing on Friday, June the 12th in the paper. We are going to post the
current tax rate in the paper and later on we'll have to do a a taxable a tax information survey, submit it to TEA, and they will calculate our maximum compressed tax rate to determine what
the actual tax rate is. We'll bring that back to the board in September for adoption at that new rate with the compressed amount in it. And then the staff count, again, this reflects the active positions that were in the system on June the 5th. This
number is subject to change. We've had some conversations on that. When you look at the total staff count for all funds uh for the proposed budget, the 9721, that amount will increase. We do not have all of our uh grant-funded
positions in the system as of yet. So, the proposed budget summary, this is again high-level. I'm sorry, Dr. Legatt. >> I I want to cover that attendance thing real quick. We are paid by the amount of time the kids attend school at a certain time of the day.
One of the things that we are very, very thankful for and I met with the uh CFO uh of Trinity. They provide free bus service for our entire population as long as they do an application, they they get it on there and they uh contract will be brought to
you uh hopefully the 23rd, but definitely the 21st of next month cuz it expires July 30th. They give us free travel for our students, not just to and from school, but if they have a job, they want to go downtown for for on the weekend, whatever it would be and they do it for
free. They do not charge back to us. It's all free. We do not write a check to them, none of that, but most importantly, without them we had 72,000 rides with 72,000 rides last year by our students and it was not pushed as hard as it
could be. So, we want to push that even more, but think about how many times they got to school because the bus was there to take them and it's a lot of our choice students. Like I met with Young Women's Leadership Academy today and she said, the principal there who's doing an amazing job, she indicated that that bus service is very, very important and as
we look to maybe potentially moving that campus for a bigger expansion of it, uh that bus service has got to be there and nearby. So, thank shout out to Trinity. Thank you guys so much and I think the mayor had something to do with that before we arrived. It's not us, but uh she she helped start that up. So, I text
sent her a text yesterday and thanked her, but thank you out there, mayor, for doing that for us uh for our kids. That was for our kids and we don't pay for that. >> Okay, so this is again is a high-level summary of the three funds that require uh the board of managers to adopt the budget. It's the general operating fund,
the debt service fund and then our food service fund. If you'll look at the general operating fund, the projected revenue for next year is 854.2 and the projected expenditures is 904
uh leaving a deficit of 49.8. Um I want to pause here and just uh thank the team, my colleagues on cabinet, my staff, a couple of them are here tonight. Um just a week or so ago
that number was considerably higher. And we've done significant work in trying to get that to a place um you know that is is is presentable, basically. Uh there's still a lot of work to do. Uh as Dr.
Lacota said, we are still working hard as late as today. I've had uh you know items brought to to my office to say that here's some more reductions that we can make. Uh and again, I go back to the pillars. When we reduce that, it is
money that we're using and spending on our students to to help us get to where we need to be. The debt service fund and the food service fund are balanced budgets. And I'll share more information on what
the deficit looks like. First, I want to talk about what that deficit does to our fund balance. And on this table, the table on the left, I'm going to start at the bottom with the 24-25 audited fiscal year. We had 854
million dollars in expenditures for that year. And we had an unassigned fund balance of 284 million, which was 33% of our expenditures and 4 months in operating.
Move to current year 25-26. We're estimating where we think we're going to land, with that being a 12.6 million dollar deficit and expenditures of 878 million, our unassigned fund
balance is going to drop to 271 or 31% of expenditures and 3.7 months of operating expenditures. Then when we look at 26-27, the budget we're proposing that has the $49.8 million deficit in it, that creates a
904 million in expenditures, unassigned at 223 and 25% of our expenditures and 3 months of operating expenditures. So I want to stop there and and and refer to the first report. We talked about that a little bit
where we are required to there's an indicator on the first report that says in a 3-year period, you should not reduce your fund balance by more than 25%. With this deficit, we're getting really close to to that indicator and not passing that indicator. So that's
where I put the little warning sign in for us so that we know that we have work to do still to get that deficit and to right-size our budget so that we don't get to that point. >> Yeah, this I've asked to have some time
in this slide. We've met a dozen times in the last week. That yellow warning sign is very important. We are still spending more money than we get in, which is not a good place to be. I think that's common math, you know,
I know I'm a business major out of Miami, but that's not good math. It's just bad math. So we once we get this past next week, the next day is when we start working on next the following year's budget, much like the LSG coach was speaking of. And that
that gets you guys involved as well. We know we have some school closures. We know that we're probably going to be around 65 to 66,000 next year, anywhere in between that, that's about a 20 to 25 million dollar drop in income.
Uh we have uh we have a lot of schools. We have a lot of schools with small numbers of students in them. We have a lot of capital repairs. I know Kelly, you've been doing Miss Spencer has been doing an amazing job trying to keep everything going and we appreciate that. But this is just the beginning. We we are
going to as soon as we're done next week, we have to start working on cutting some more at the end of the year and looking how we can combine uh our resources to where we're not spending money on kids we don't have. And that's what we're doing right now. We're spending a lot of money on kids we don't have. Let's take care of the ones
we do have and we'll go from there, but uh we can't keep this and we got to stop it uh and and we will. And we will, but I need all of your help to be involved in that as as as it's going to be our project for next year whilst still increasing student achievement.
>> And so I won't go in detail on on uh fiscal year 27 and 28 or 2829. Basically, I wanted to illustrate to you what that would be if we continue to spend at the same rate that we're doing now at the same percent of expenditures. You can see where the unassigned um and
the the chart on the right kind of shows you that where our expenditures continue to increase, our fund balance is decreasing um as well on there and then the unassigned percentage is um decreasing as well. So on the a previous slide we talked
about the assumption slide, I believe it was. We talked about the tax rate comparison. So I want to make sure that the board is aware that the actual for 2526, which is a 25 tax year, and the 2627, which is the proposed um
tax that we're we're doing for for next year's budget, they're going to going to be the same rate until we get that MCR uh rate in late July, early August. I also wanted to share with you the revenue comparison from the adopted
budget of 25-26 to the proposed budget. We see that we are increasing just a hair if you look at local revenue. Our state revenue is decreasing and so is our federal revenue, but overall we see
a slight decrease from the amended budget of 862 to the proposed budget of 854. And on this slide I wanted to share with the board some of the drivers and why we're seeing the $49 million deficit. On
the left side of this slide, you can see these are the things that we're investing in. On the right side of of this slide, you can see things that are somewhat outside of our control. Student enrollment, we can, you know, once we improve our academics, we can see that
increase I'm sure. Operational costs, when you look at utilities, that's something that we deal with on a on a annual basis. We see increases there and then the recapture, if student enrollment declines declines and our taxable values
increase, that increases our recapture that we have to pay back to the state. On the left-hand side of the slide, that's what we've been talking about and Dr. Solis and his team have been working on. The elevate model, we're investing those dollars into the classroom so that
we can see the results that we want to see with our students. Again, it's already been mentioned about the 5% pay raise for our classroom teachers and the 2% staff raise that includes principals and and below.
>> One question. We're we're work shopping, right? I can ask questions. Um Dr. Lacado, where where [sighs] I I think the the the increase to teachers um pay is is awesome. Staff as
well. What what does that put us competitively like with the districts that surround us to make sure we're we're attracting uh [clears throat] quality folks for our kiddos. >> Based on the data as of this morning and I looked this up feeling that this was an important piece.
We are second in teacher salary scale in this area only to Dallas. We're only set we're second uh for the classroom teachers which is which is good. Is that what you asked? >> Yes. >> Yeah, so we uh
we needed to be competitive and we are now competitive. We were about seventh or eighth, maybe ninth in this area when we were without that 5% to the teachers of the classroom. So that was something I saw right away that in order to be competitive we had to get our teachers paid right and get them here. So we're
we're right behind Dallas. They got a little head start but we're working on it. We're working on it. >> Good. Um follow-up question. Um and so I again pay is one thing, you know, what what are what are we doing um your doing your team as a dis as a
district? What are you doing to to attract them other than pay, right? So there other things that matter, right? So what are those things and are you guys doing? >> I I think you hit a really good point. Um when people are happy where they are
they'll drive a little farther uh when they're working for a boss they love. One of the things that we wanted to make sure of and we will, contrary to what some people say or you're hearing out there, this bad bad information, is when we see something going on in the
classroom that's not great for kids, we're not coming after the teacher. That's leadership. That's them. That's us. That's who we work on. We want to make sure when teachers walk in the classroom, they have all the equipment, everything they need, and when they walk in, they feel as though
they're in partnership with the administration to make sure the teachers are learning. With more administration, you also have a better in environment for student learning. Sometimes, especially in middle school, students tend to be a little active or energetic, shall we say. That also reduces that, and I think you saw some of that what we
were doing. So, we want to make sure they're in a safe environment, and we'll talk about that coming up. I have some things I do want to talk to you in private cuz it's school safety, and we we don't talk that publicly. We want to make sure teachers feel like they're partner with us. We want to make sure they're compensated, but most importantly, they
have all the tools in front of them that make them successful. >> I had a quick question, or I thought I read recently, and if I'm bringing this out of left field and you're not prepared, you can just get back to me later. Um, I read in the employee
um, weekly newsletter that teachers are now with young children can now Can you talk on this? The >> Yes, this is something that I was uh, enjoyed as an administrator in South Florida uh, for many, many years. Uh, we
know that the cost of daycare is incredibly expensive. We also know that teachers, people aren't going to school for kids aren't going to school for being teachers, but we want to encourage them to be in our teachers academy, where they can acquire licensure for daycare workers, but also
have our teachers and staff bring students, their children to the campus at a significantly reduced cost. So, you know, I heard once a couple years ago, and I think it still holds true true today, it was cheaper for a teacher to stay home than pay the massive daycare
cost. Now, they're with their child. It's not free. We don't lose money on it, but we're we're getting a couple things here. We're getting folks that want to be teachers seeing what it's like and really getting involved and we're also getting the the teachers who have families, the young men and women with who want to see their kids and can afford to teach while still getting a
pretty discount. Dr. Kushner, did I capture everything there because you are leading that project? We have three pilots coming out next year already. Thank you rainwater, correct? Sorry. Scrape that from the record. We look like we're going to be able to
have a fine support from someone because this is key, but we do want to go ahead and expand to all our schools. Yeah, scratch that. >> No, that was the weather report. Appreciate that. >> Yeah, it's running down into the basement because apparently we're having basement issues again. So >> [laughter]
>> So yes, that is something we want to expand to all our high schools and that's for all the folks there. And >> Wait, hold on. >> Go ahead, Dr. Kushner. What did I miss? Use your cafeteria voice, sir. >> So we are touring three high schools
this week to determine if those campuses would be able to be outfitted for a start for August to >> I like three pre-K three programs to open additional seats because we have approximately 400 pre-K students that
are on the waiting list that want to join one of our programs. >> [snorts] >> So that would help with that process, but in addition, we just looked at our internal process that was in place in some of our internal procedures with how we assign pre-K seats. So we've
opened up additional seats for pre-K that we're going to be announcing this week to those families to open additional seats that they were just waiting in limbo to see if they had a seat for pre-K three. So through our school choice office, we've opened approximately 225 more seats.
>> Okay, I think and that's kind of what I was alluding to or thinking about was the the idea that this teacher can apply. I mean they need to apply and and you know, go through the process, but that their child could go to pre-K 3 at their campus.
>> So, they could do that or historically there was a um there was a procedure in in our current Fort Worth ISD policy that required them to live in the pyramid. And that was a barrier for our families, so we've looked at eliminating that as one of the requirements.
>> Yep. That is a uh internal process and he came to me two days ago and I said get rid of it. Uh we need to make sure we're accessible. Now, keep in mind our student teachers in there are teaching children to read and at that time it's not just daycare. It's teaching them to read. So, when third
they get to third grade, that third grade teacher isn't scrambling trying to teach them to read. >> Right, early literacy is huge. Um okay, that I mean that is a huge as a as a parent or a teacher, that's a huge perk. That would that would draw me to this district. >> You know, uh Dr. Lacada, just
we look at this chart key drivers of the budget deficit and on the left side are those are investments that the district is making to improve student outcomes. So, those are additions to the budget, but as Dr. Moss talked earlier on on page 10,
the elephant in the room, the big driver of the deficit is failure to align staffing and resources to student enrollment. And I understand you're going to continue to make the investments that you that show
on on page 13 on the left-hand side, but our long-term goal is to align our expenditures and and staffing to the the current student
population. That's that's the driver of the of the budget deficit long-term and we have to face up at that very hard reality. >> Yeah, coming into a deficit uh they're hard choices. We have to make
hard choices, difficult choices, and we always look at kids as our last option of taking from them, which we're not, we're actually adding to them. There were a couple days probably about an hour and a half ago I needed to put on a striped referee shirt and get a whistle between cabinet members over
cutting and what was going on, but we got there. We got where we wanted to be. Uh we know that there's going to be incurred expenses next year that we didn't think of, that we may need to may need to replace, but it's not easy. It it's not a popularity contest when when you're cutting budgets and you're cutting positions and you're
trying to make the budget match for kids and it's it's difficult, but it's the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do. >> Uh really I was going to follow up. Pete, my thought was along with yours, but I think the investments we're making I think have been kind of in the short
term and you wouldn't say long term, but you know, more long term. In the short term I think investment is the perfect in the right thing we need to do and so hats off to you and the staff for doing that and the cuts you're looking at. But my question is more along the lines of as we look out long term the elephant in the room is that the the staffing to the
student population is is out of whack. We have facilities in um to facilitate many thousands more students than we actually have. So can you speak to what we're doing as a district to look at maybe staffing ratios that are working in other major districts that are operating on a
balanced budget and just what that data may look like. And I know this is a long term longer term study and look at the data, but what are we thinking on that front? >> That's a That is the number one question we'll be starting with next week, but I want to start with it. First of all, I do want to remind everybody although we've been
only many of us have only been here 78 days Ms. Moss Ms. Moss has only been here since December, correct? >> January 12th. >> January 12th. So So we got some newbies here. I've already started looking at some things and I want to thank Mrs. Spencer
for this because she's already reconvening the school consolidation team that we had over the last few years and you did an amazing job. Previous administration did a good job of getting this done, but have we done enough? Are we doing enough? You know, we got a couple elementary
schools that are within close range and they're all in 200, 300. That's That's really tough to staff because now you're talking about a couple guidance counselors, a couple administrators, cafeteria staff, custodial staff, and keeping the lights on. So those are tough decisions, too.
So we're reconvening that right away. We're going to confirm for a meeting probably in a month or two. Is that correct, Mrs. Spencer? Yes. So we we are ahead of that, but that's some of the things we want to have set the table for for this group here to start working on. So you guys don't have just a blank slate. You have
some ideas of where we're going and what we can think of. But yeah, we're going to have to continue with what you're talking about. >> Just real quickly, Dr. Lacata, on the consolidation, in addition to the the budget savings, combining schools also give you the
opportunity to provide more resources to the the children when you have 600 under one roof as opposed to 200 under three roofs as as I I recall. Could you talk to the advantages of that
from the student experience standpoint? >> As a high school principal, there's or a middle school principal or an elementary school principal, there's magic numbers we call it. The magic number for a high school is 2200. 2200 gave you the right number of students where you had every program you
could possibly want without overcrowding your school, a manageable number because you didn't get another AP till you were at 3,000. So these numbers aren't applicable here, but there are magic numbers. But when you had 2200 students in that high school, you knew
you could offer every AP calc AB, you know, BC, you could offer biology, all the AP courses, all the ACE courses, uh all the CTE courses other than votech, uh and that's that goes the same with middle schools. And we want to integrate more CTE
programs in the middle school. Uh we are looking at other opportunities. There's three buckets, remember? I I'm only making this as a recommendation, but the three buckets of schools is do we sell the land? Yes. Do we Do we reconstitute the school for different opportunities, whether adult ed center, maybe another vocational center? And the
third one is obviously to give back to the community, not where we're losing money, but we can help the community with either housing or a a civic center or a recreation center. So, those three buckets, keeping them balanced, is important, cuz we are going to ask uh we're going to acquire some more properties uh that are going to be in
that limbo. We have the properties, but we have to balance that because it is taxpayer money, it is taxpayer property, but we we can't take a deficit loss on this. So, we have to figure that out. And that is the group in front This this group here, we have to channel that and direct that because it's very important that we cuz we you don't get to sell
property twice. Once it's gone, it's gone. So, we got to figure that out. So, I'm looking forward to your help on that. Uh I know my experience has been good, but I I really want to hear from the people that uh grew up here. I know I'm a resident now. I'm a taxpayer resident. Uh >> [clears throat]
>> even have my license tags by by now, too. Uh but I need the folks that have been here for a while to help me guide me on that. So, we need to have historical perspective. >> Thank you. Just a couple more slides here. I wanted to just point out some of the key budget reductions we've done. Again, you talked about the campus
closures. We've uh saw savings of approximately 15 million there. Our vacant positions that we closed, the work that uh that the team has been doing uh equates about 10.6 million. We've done some reorganizations in our departments uh of about 8 million
expenditure reductions again our vacancy factor of 25 million and unspent funds. Those unspent funds I kind of want to elaborate on that to say when we looked at the 25-26 budget and
there were line items that had not been spent. Zero dollars were spent in 25-26. So what we did was we reduced that for 26-27. So that's where you see those unspent funds that helped us in reducing some of the
27 budget as well. And then my final slide here is just basically going over again the next steps for the Board of Managers. We will publish the notice of hearing on June the 12th. Uh and our public hearing is actually
scheduled for June 23rd. At at that same meeting the board will adopt the budget and the tax rate adoption will become will come later to you in September. And that concludes what I presented for you tonight. I'm glad to
answer any questions. >> I think it's fair to say that there might be some more adjustments before we present. This is the bulk of it. The adjustments more than likely will all be to reduce the budget and if we can find some to increase um all non-classroom teachers a little bit
more, um we will. We will. I think that's an investment. We need bus drivers. We need all sorts of folks and and they need to be paid because um it's not cheap out there. So this is an emphasis on making sure our money is being spent. We have a lot of work to
do. This is not something you fix in 78 days. It takes time. It takes time to move children. It's you can't you can't just make massive gains all the time. But you got to have systems and processes in place and having these extra 3 months and and going through some, you know, challenging times with
making some big hard decisions. I wouldn't have it any other way right now because now we are set. Today we had a meeting that was just so far in advance of what most school districts are doing and it was run by um Dr. Kushner and Dr. Solis about the
opening of schools. We have an entire spreadsheet, every department cross-functional, looking at what every school needs, how many vacancies, uh what work orders are in there, everything from top to bottom and went page by page for every school. We are way ahead of the game right now in what
we're doing. Uh but it doesn't mean we won't be scrambling a week before the school year cuz that's just standard. But we are we are now able to be in front of the ball instead of, you know, on top of it or behind it. Uh so I'm excited by this. It was a really good meeting to see all the departments and everyone in there ready for starting of
school next year, ready to go first day because if we're telling the kids and teachers first day means first day learning, we need to provide that for them and we have to be the example. >> The one last thing, Dr. Lacota, that I will add is as far as the proposed budget, by statute, we have to have that
proposed and posted on the website by the 19th. So we'll do some more work over the next few uh days to try to reduce that and we'll give you what that final proposed budget is prior to posting it on the district website. >> I'm handing it over to you, sir.
Unless there's any more questions. >> This concludes the reports for tonight's meeting. I'd like to acknowledge that um um Mr. Adia is in attendance. I wasn't able to count you in attendance when I read the roll earlier.
Um I want to thank the staff. I want to thank Dr. Moss for her excellent work and and the staff over overall. This is a billion-dollar budget has been noted by
some. It takes a while to redirect a billion-dollar budget. But with this budget, you've you've begun started aligning the budget, you started aligning uh the incentives
focused on on student outcomes. And this is a very important first step and it's a hard first step. Um and you you've been here, we've been here what 74 4 days. So much had to be done by May 10th.
And now we're looking to 26 27. And this is a budget that's making investments in improving student outcomes. That's what we're all about, that's what every member of this board is here for. And I know everybody on this staff the same. So want to commend the staff,
commend you Dr. Lacata for uh turning the ship. This concludes the items on the agenda for tonight's workshop. I'd like to close by thanking the community members who joined us this evening. Always appreciate your participation in the process.
As there is no further business, the time is 6:24 p.m. and this workshop is adjourned. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]