Yuma Sun

District One Board Meeting at a Glance

- BY SISKO J. STARGAZER Sun StaFF WrItEr Sisko J. Stargazer can be reached at 928-539-6849 or sstargazer@ yumasun.com.

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.

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