Summary of the 2/16/23 School Board Meeting
ARLINGTON SCHOOL BOARD MEETING SUMMARY
February 16, 2023
Top 5 Take Aways:
APS Staff expects $17.7 million in closeout funds for FY 2023
Safety review is ongoing with an improvement in transparency over the past 2 weeks.
Recent issue at Gunston Middle School was the source of several public comments.
As part of the budget process, APS needs to explain why 260 employees receive winter and spring break. This has a budget impact.
There was no discussion on curriculum, learning loss or educational excellence.
Meeting Open:
Chairman Goldstein opened the meeting at 5:30 and immediately moved to close the meeting for a hearing on an employee dismissal. This motion unanimously passed. Mr. Priddy was absent for both the closed and open meetings.
The open meeting began late at around 7:15 at which time Mr. Goldstein moved to certify that only public business lawfully exempted from open meetings was discussed at the closed session. This motion unanimously passed.
Recognition/Information;
19 teachers earned National Board Certification.
School Board Clerk Appreciation week.
Consent Agenda: Ms. Diaz-Torres moved to adopt a consent agenda and it unanimously passed. Part of the Consent Agenda included revisions to policies on Acceptable Use of Social Media, Cooperation with Juvenile Court and an amendment on Options and Transfers to align the review with the regular 5-year policy revision cycle. Dr. Durán has approved the PIPs for all of these.
Announcements/Questions/Comments:
Dr. Durán’s proposed budget announcement will be on February 23, 2023.
Incident at Gunston; student praised for coming forward about situation that made him uncomfortable. Gunston administrators are looking into how this activity was approved and what actions will be taken going forward. Instruction at APS must be inclusive. Make sure all activities are culturally sensitive. “Very disappointed” this has happened. Ms. Sutton had a follow-up comment regarding this issue that “we need to be vigilant about watching for behaviors”. She also asked Dr. Durán to clarify how APS was reviewing the activity approval process. Ms. Diaz-Torres wants to amplify that what APS has done is not sufficient but that the work DEI has done is just a start. She provided lots of advice to people in the community.
School safety and violence follow-up – have talked to all principals and assistant principals. Every staff member is authorized to call 911 if they feel threatened. Have adjusted communication to create consistency and transparency across schools. Some things are not allowed to be shared due to medical reasons. Secondary school staff are being trained on Narcan administration. Stations are being put in schools. Community Conversations are planned in February and March. Ms. Kadera wanted to know if Community Conversation were geared to just high school or also middle schools. Mr. Sampson confirmed open to all families and that APS is working toward having information available in home languages. Ms. Kadera also noted that she has seen a noticeable uptick in transparency on safety issues. She asked for clarification on why ACPD reports don’t match what APS reports at what happens at a school. The quick answer is a crime can occur on school property that does not concern a student/teacher/APS activity. Some of the ACPD occur on weekends when school is not in session. Ms. Diaz-Torres asked a follow-up question on naloxone training for elementary schools. It might not be a student that has an overdose but maybe a parent or staff member. The increase in elementary training is being reviewed. This could be part of Base Camp training.
Home Address Confirmation Process – only for families with current 5th and 8th grader. APS is not a housing authority but is just requesting documentation on where the student lives. APS will not be sharing the information. There are affidavits available for those with more complex living situations. Ms. Diaz-Torres asked a follow-up question regarding complex living situations.
2023-2024 Budget Calendar review – public hearing on March 23 is unlimited public comment.
Public Comment:
9 speakers on topics including a member of the committee that recommended removing SROs, 3 current APS teachers and the chair of the Education Committee of the Arlington Branch of the NAACP Education Committee who appeared with the Gunston 8th grader and his family.
APS teacher commented that “APS is a fantastic place to work...if you are a 12-month employee.” These employees have 260-day contracts but in 2022-2023 they are only working 229 days because they have 31 paid holidays. Teachers are on 200-day contract and are not paid for holidays or winter or spring break – but Syphax employees are paid for those days. Dr, Durán made the decision in 2021 to close Syphax over winter and spring breaks. These closures were not voted on by the board.
Monitoring Items
FY 2023 Mid-Year Fiscal Status Report and CIP Quarterly Report: Leslie Peterson, Assistant Superintendent, Finance & Management Services and Mark McLaughlin, Director of Finance
Purpose is to figure out where APS is mid-year. This is a projection today for full-year FY 2023 and that closeout will be presented to the Board in December 2023.
Current projection is closeout funds of $17.7 million due to $8.3 million in higher than budgeted revenue, $12.9 million in under budget expenses and an increase of $3.5 million in carryover for the 2024 budget.
Revenues are higher due to State and Federal Revenue. State sales tax helped revenue. We should expect some changes since the General Assembly is in session. Local revenue is lower than expected due to summer school tuition and the Apple buyback. APS did not enrichment summer school programs. The Federal revenue is higher due to $2.8 million from the ARPA bonus. This was fully offset by higher costs for Employee bonuses.
Expenses are lower due largely to salary and benefits since more vacancies than expected. Lower debt service also helped keep down expenses. The county did not sell bonds last year but will be sold this spring so debt service will go back up.
The recommendation is to not allocate any of the $17.7 million since these are the only funds to replenish reserves.
CIP quarterly report Major Construction $417.4 million with balance left to be committed of $65.5 million; Minor Construction/Major Maintenance (MC/MM) is $7.9 million with balance to be committed of $2.7 million.
A number of projects have been removed from Major Construction and some have been added. Career Center initial funding and HVAC/Infrastructure/Roofing are the ones with highest uncommitted funds. Funds have been added for a number of entrance renovations.
MC/MM through November 2022 had 117 projects identified with 69 complete. Most of the remaining projects will be completed or underway over the next 6 months. This is very favorable vs. other years.
Capital reserve is $22 million, MC/MM reserve is $0.25 million, Major Construction reserve is $0.57 million.
Questions:
Ms. Diaz-Torres: Asked if MC/MM reserve was low but Ms. Peterson assured her this was a normal level.
Ms. Kadera: What “best practices” for reserves in terms of operating budgets? Ms. Peterson’s response is “it depends”. In Virginia, schools are not allowed to carry-over their funds since they are dependent districts. Arlington County allows APS to keep excess funds within APS. Usually this is only seen in school districts that are independent and have their own taxing authority. Best practices are 3%-5% of budget not including capital reserve. Capital reserves are tied to bonds and are tied to specific projects so must be left out of the calculation. Including the funds added at the most recent closeout, APS is around 8.4% of the current year budget which is good. That said, some of this will be used to help fund FY 2024.
Ms. Sutton: It seemed to her that there is a high amount of money in the HVAC/Infrastructure/Roofing line. Those funds provide the funding to do these projects. They are not all earmarked for a specific project but are working through projects that need immediate attention and that takes time. They are large projects. None of the funds will be taken away since APS needs all the money to be used on these projects. Summer is usually when the projects occur so it is a slower spend in the winter.
Mr. Goldstein: A number of lines from past capital projects are still included in the Major Construction projects. Some of these seem to be done but there are final punch list items that need to be resolved and then they will be removed. Everything on the list is still in play. Also, he asked about the projected funds available at closeout. Even though this is a mid-year estimate, the numbers cannot simply be doubled since it is a projection that takes into account things that are expected to happen in the second half of the year. The $17.7 million in projected funds is the actual projection for the year.
Information Item: 1. Campbell Elementary School Kitchen and Entrance Renovations Construction Contract Award
Mr. Goldstein, Ms. Kadera, Ms. Diaz-Torres and Ms. Zecher Sutton all had questions and comments clarifying finance and budget details of the project.
Information Item 2: Steven Marku, the Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs, presented minor revisions to 10 School Board policies. Mr. Marku went over the changes, most of which were minor changes for clarity.
7 brief financial management policies were combined into one policy. Of note:
APS funds expended will now be in “alignment with the School Board’s Strategic Plan” rather than “to maximize educational returns.”
The Financial Management-Budget Development policy will now require planning factors to be reviewed every 7 years.
For the Internal Audit policy, the Internal Auditor will now report directly to the School Board and not the Audit Committee. This change was made because there are non-voting APS staff members on the Audit Committee which is a conflict of interest. Also noted, the Chair of the School Board is responsible for the Internal Auditor, not the committee. And finally, the Internal Auditor is subject to FOIA. Ms. Diaz-Torres, who took part in the updates, added that it is important to clarify that the auditor covers a wide range of topics, not just finance. The policy was updated to reflect current practice.
The Student Fees, Fines and Charges policy was updated to explicitly state that no student will be punished for having outstanding charges, i.e. expelled or not allowed to graduate. Any fees are only to cover costs. School Meal Fees are covered in a different policy but were referenced. Ms. Kadera thanked Mr. Marku for sharing public comment feedback in the presentation. Mr. Marku added that the committee reads every comment submitted and tries to take as much into account as it can. Mr. Goldstein asked whether this policy covers fees or fines for something broken or lost, i.e. iPad or furniture. Mr. Marku stated that technology is covered separately and that the Superintendent may take action including reimbursement for any school property destroyed.
New Business - None.
To see our Scorecard for this meeting, click here.
