District One Board Meeting at a Glance
The Yuma School District One governing board convened for its May meeting Monday evening and streamed live via YouTube. The meeting is viewable at https://bit.ly/3N9NlGM on the district’s YouTube channel.
PUBLIC HEARING
A public hearing was held before the regular meeting to review the budget revision for the 20212022 school year. Chief Financial Officer Denis Ponder explained that there were five main areas that were taken into account for the revision: average daily membership (ADM), classroom site fund, Group B student numbers, transportation and “BUDG 75.”
Comparing the estimated ADM of 8,143 students with the actual number of 8,122, Ponder stated that it was “pretty much dead on for an estimation 100 days before you know what’s actually going to happen.” He added that it’s a really close budget with a variance of about $80-90,000, which isn’t significant for the size of the district’s budget.
Ponder explained that Group B refers to any type of special education, which are weighted differently and receives additional funding. He showed that the original budget accounted for 8,280 students, but the revised budget needs to account for an actual 8,319. He considered this change a significant one.
“BUDG 75” is put out by the state and it shows the district whether the state or the district owe each other any money. Ponder pointed out that the state owes the district $137,231 from last year’s reconciliation. Originally, the figure for this had been about $106,000.
He also demonstrated that nothing had changed for the classroom site fund in this revision and found that the financial impact led to a change from $53,861,854 for the maintenance and operations budget to $54,079,501. The revision also showed an additional $217,647 for the unrestricted capital outlay, which was captured from having additional Group B kids.
RECOGNITION
The district’s High Five program acknowledges employees that demonstrate the district’s values of professionalism, positive attitudes, “sees it, owns it, solves it, does it,” demonstrating district pride and going above and beyond. For the month of March, District One acknowledged Health Assistant Jessica Carillo from C.W. McGraw Elementary, Instructional Coach Megan Randolph from the Learning Services Department, Counselor Stacy Gibson from Sunrise Elementary, reading teacher Christina Fisher from Dorothy Hall Elementary and teacher Cori Burton from Desert Mesa Elementary.
At the meeting, recognition was also given to the students from Ron Watson Middle School who’ll be competing in Odyssey of the Mind’s World Finals and to those who are retiring at the end of this school year, including two school resource officers.
DONATIONS
The most sizable donations this month came from DonorsChoose donations.
C.W. McGraw received seven DonorsChoose donations in the amount of $4,652.30. Dorothy Hall received eight in the amount of $4,455. G.W. Carver received two in the amount of $1,593.59 Palm Croft received 11 in the amount of $3,514.48. And Pecan Grove received five in the amount of $4,035.22.
Also notable: Matthew Butler donated eight airline tickets for the students competing in Odyssey of the Mind to make it to the World Finals in Iowa.
“Our total this month was $26,799.11 and our donations this year totaled $208,310.14 from our generous community,” concluded Superintendent James Sheldahl. “We’re very, very grateful.”
ENROLLMENT AND FINANCIAL TRENDS
Ponder stated that there was a minimal uptick in enrollment for the last 20 days, which is normal for this time of year, but did mention the enrollment number was higher at this point than it was last year.
Financially, Ponder finds the district to be in a good place with a strong ending balance. “Our yearto-date versus the percent of days passed is a healthy gap,” he said. “We continue to maintain a safe and conservative ending balance.”
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT
Bill Lukehart from Arcadis gave a presentation on the Capital Improvement Program and facility assessments at District One. He explained that should the district enter in a contract with them, they’ll be looking into the district’s needs, setting priorities for the capital improvement program which will target funding opportunities and facilitate an architectural exercise reimagining the learning environment.
CONSENT AGENDA AND ACTION ITEMS
The consent agenda consists of items of a routine nature that typically don’t require deliberation, however, items can be pulled for discussion as needed. President Barbara Foote exercised this ability to pull the approval of the competitive grants for discussion.
“The only reason I’m pulling this item is to publicly recognize and highlight the great work that our grant writer Terry Lowe and staff have diligently done to fund and find additional revenue sources for our schools and kids,” Foote said.
After her discussion, the governing board unanimously approved the grants as well as the rest of the consent agenda.
Following up on the public hearing regarding the 2021-2022 budget revision, the governing board voted to approve it.
The governing board also voted to approve the Capital Improvement Program. Through this program, the district will be entering into contract with Arcadis, Thompson Design Architects and DLR Group. Arcadis will act as the lead for planning and Thompson and DLR will be involved in a consulting role providing guidance and coordination on design issues for the overall plan.
During discussion on future agenda items, board member Keith Ware requested that the question of sex education in the district be placed on a future agenda.
The board’s next meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 14.