The Littlefield Independent School District’s Board of Trustees met in regular session on Thursday during lunch to discuss the business of the school district.
The meeting was called to order at 12:04 by Board President Lance Broadhurst and he also gave the invocation.
No one was present to speak during the public forum regarding the 2021-2022 Littlefield ISD Budget and Tax Rate and the minutes from the previous meeting were approved by general consent.
“The Board must designate the Lamb County Tax Assessor, who completed the tax rate calculation worksheet,” Superintendent Mike Read said. “This has to be approved prior to adopting our budget and setting our tax rate.”
The motion to approve the tax rate calculation worksheet as completed by the Lamb County Tax Assessor was made by Will Williams and seconded by Adrian Solis. The motion carried.
“The budget that I recommended has not changed from our workshop on August 9 th . It was built on a tax rate of $.9189,” Supt. Read said. “If you remember, our taxable values went up 8.1%, and when the values go up, our compressed rate decreased to $.8689 and when you allow the five pennies they allow us to add, it comes out to an effective tax rate of $.9189. The values increased 8.1%; all of the state revenue estimates are based off of TEA student ADA numbers.”
He added, “We’re building this year’s budget on 1,158.067 students. That was our refined ADA for the previous year. Basically, we’re down 42 students, which equivalent to about $435,000 that we’re not going to be getting in revenue.”
The motion to adopt the 2021- 2022 budget as presented was made by Solis and seconded by Hervey Valdez. The motion carried.
“A year ago, our tax rate was $.9664,” Supt. Read stated. “The values went up and the compression went down. Our tax rate that I am going to recommend setting this year is $.9189 per $100 valuation.”
The motion to approve the ordinance setting a tax rate of $.9189 per $100 valuation for the 2021- 2022 school year was made by Gary Birkelbach and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
Beverly Boldes went over the budget amendments with the Board, saying, “Basically, we are just shuffling the budget into some different functions to cover those that we are either short in currently, or that we could come up short in. There will be bills that come in in September, I’m hoping for no surprises, but I wanted to create enough room in every function so that we don’t go over.”
The motion to approve the budget amendments as presented by Supt. Read was made by Johnny Castillo and seconded by Pat Demel. The motion carried.
“We got the notice of grant award for ESSER III, so we’re about to start spending some of that, Boldes said. “In payroll costs we have $472,000, contracted services $249,000, supplies and materials $302,000 and we also have some budget for HVAC. That is what we have budgeted out of ESSER III right now.”
“The ESSER II application has been submitted, but we do not have the notice of grant award for it yet.”
Matt Meredith spoke during public comment in regards to the ESSER II and III funds.
The motion to approve the use of ESSER II and III funds for Littlefield Independent School District as recommended by Supt. Read was made by Solis and seconded by Castillo. The motion carried.
“Each of our administrators are T-TESS appraisers for the what’s going on through the school year. By law we have to set up a calendar on when we are going to start the actual appraisal, etc. The first three weeks of school are orientation and after that you can set that appraisal calendar up – I set it up from Sept. 15 th through April 12th.”
He added, “We’re going to evaluate all of our teachers this year.”
The motion to approve the 2021- 2022 Appraisal Calendar as recommended by Supt. Read was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Demel. The motion carried.
The motion to approve the 2021- 2022 T-TESS Appraisers as recommended by Supt. Read was made by Valdez and seconded by Williams. The motion carried.
“Last year, when we were battling COVID-19, teachers that tested positive – we passed this Act, they provided this and what it did is instead of our teachers using their sick days, the first 10 work days did not count out of their sick bank. Through this resolution I talked to our school attorney and I said that this is something I think would benefit our folks. So, if we have a faculty member test positive for COVID-19, the first 10 days will be taken care of by this resolution. I think this is the right thing to do in this point and time with where we are, so that we can take every step we can to take care of our employees.”
The motion to approve the Resolution to extend the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Provision through December 31, 2021, as presented by Supt. Read was made by Valdez and seconded by Solis. The motion carried.
Supt. Read presented an update on the Facilities Maintenance Priorities Plan, saying, “I’m very pleased with both press boxes at the football field. They’re still trying to finish the visitor’s side, but the home press box is done and looks great. The windows made a world of difference.”
Bryan Gregory added, “They had one window that didn’t get delivered. So it is scheduled to be here next week and should be done prior to our first home game next Friday.”
“The gentleman was here on Wednesday and replaced 10-15 lights that were out at the football stadium and he also replaced some lights at the softball field,” Supt. Read said. “I spoke with the Superintendent at Hart ISD regarding one of our buses. They came about a week ago and their bus mechanic drove the bus and looked it over. She called me on Monday and we agreed that they would purchase S2 for $10,000. So, when we get our buses in, then they will come and get S2. We are also in the process of finding out what we need to do to get S1 sold.”
Mr. Gregory talked about the Bus Barn extension, saying “We did an RFP (Request for Proposal) and ran it in the newspaper for two consecutive weeks. We got two bids, one from Surrett Steel Buildings, the other from Syd Albus, out of Levelland. They’re within a couple of thousand dollars of each other, so I will pull all of that information together and get a good comparison of the two.”
The Board discussed Personnel matters.
The motion to approve the hiring of Brooke Jones (SPED Aide), Fancisco Tarango (Food Service Personnel) and Brenda Bobadilla (Food Service Personnel) was made by Birkelbach and seconded by Solis. The motion carried.
Resignation letters were presented on Martha Sierra and Gina McKinnon.
Supt. Read presented his Superintendent Report to the board letting Assistant Superintendent Mitch McNeese begin with an update on the Migrant Program.
“I’m working with Mrs. Perkins, who is in charge of our Migrant Program. Last year we had 70 kids in the program, we’re down to 44 kids at this time. She is working closely with the junior high and high school counselors to get some questionnaires out there to all kids. We’ll go through those with a fine tooth comb to make sure we find anyone who would qualify for our migrant program. We are needed to get it up to 61 students in order to meet our 5% for attendance; that is our goal.”
He added, “I spoke with KZZN and West 11 Sports – during halftime they have coaches on – this year we’re going to have principals, counselors, Supt. Read, on those broadcasts to highlight all of our programs, things that are going on and our teachers at that building. I’ve set up a schedule so that each person will speak once on each broadcast throughout the season. Our teachers are pleased with our curriculum stuff that has come in so far this year.”
Supt. Read added, “If we are able to get to the 5% migrant population, then we get to count our top four six weeks out of the six six weeks that we have during the school year, with the ADA, which is our main driver.”
Supt. Read stated that they are optional on masks throughout the district.
“Our COVID-19 protocols are on our website under district information,” he said. “We have a superintendents call every Thursday afternoon with the Commissioner of Education. They’ll put out new protocols and we have those posted in the same place as our COVID-19 protocols.”
Supt. Read said that they have rapid testing for COVID-19 available to students and faculty. He said they’ve tested close to 20 people in the last two weeks.
“We will be getting all of our district building assessed next week and they will hopefully be able to report the finding at our next meeting on Sept. 21st, ” he said. “Joe Sellars will be here on Oct. 19th to do his presentation regarding the Guardian Program. He will also be taking care of the safety/security audit for the school year.”
President Broadhurst declared the meeting adjourned at 12:54 p.m.