YISD board votes on plethora of action items

By Jacob Stock

Yorktown News-View

The Board of Trustees of Yorktown ISD gathered this past Monday, July 11, for their regular monthly meeting. After the meeting was called to order at approximately 7:30 p.m. Yorktown High School varsity cheerleader, Aubriana Longoria, presented a formal invitation to the board for the girl’s upcoming mini cheer camp. The board was invited to attend the last day show that will take place July 28 in the high school gym at 6 p.m. The open forum was conducted with public comments coming first. There was one speaker Mr. Gene Henry. 

After the conclusion of the public comments, the board then discussed information items. Up first for discussion, was the first reading of the Local Update 119. 

“Any time there is a legislative session there are policies and things that change. Our process for going through that is that we have the first read to them, second read, and then the third meeting we will adopt them,” mentioned Yorktown ISD superintendent Katherine Kuenstler.

Erin Merks, Yorktown ISD Business Manager, then presented a budget workshop that further examined fund balances and tax rates. Merks emphasized to the board that any data that they were viewing for the 22-23 school year are strictly estimates. Certified values will not be accurate until the beginning of August. Merks described the use of the “Golden Pennies” and how big of an asset they are for the school district’s revenue. There are a total of five Golden Pennies for YISD. What the Golden Pennies do is increase the tax rate by five cents. The value generated stays within Yorktown ISD and is not subject to recapture by the state of Texas or the Texas Education Agency (TEA). 21-22 school year data was displayed to the board. The total revenue generated from the Golden Pennies for the 21-22 school year was $755,000.

“That is all money that stayed here with Yorktown ISD,” said Merks. “It’s a great thing for our district, it gives us more revenue.”

Yorktown Junior High and High School principal, Dr. Theresa Molina then called into the board via a zoom call and gave a report on separating junior high and high school students. A map was shown and explained the crossover of the classes. Dr. Molina explained how she has moved around classrooms and currently the only crossover is between band students. Putting a plan in place students will meet at a meeting spot and band kids will be escorted back and forth to avoid the crossover. Dr. Molina explained how she is currently looking for hallway barriers separating junior high and high school students. 

The board then progressed into several items to consider, discuss, and take possible action on. 

A lengthy discussion and questioning by various members of the board to pay off the 2012 bond early took place. The bond rate was considered very low and ignited a discussion on what the best possible action was. A motion carried and the board moved to pay off the 2012 bond early. The vote was 4/2 (for/against). 

The next topic on the board’s agenda, taking possible action on the baseball/softball field projects. With funds being a hefty topic, it was voted unanimously to postpone the project. An amendment to uncommit the $750,000 for the project was enforced. 

The bid for Gomez Flooring Covering was accepted and to not exceed $80,000. The bid submitted was for $78,666, which will come out of the committed construction and fund balance. The next topic discussed was to approve the MOU with Nixon-Smiley CISD for DAEP services, and a unanimous motion was carried out.

Taking action on the Student Code of Conduct for the 22-23 school year, the board reviewed the legislative changes and went on to unanimously approve. The board then set a public meeting date for Aug. 29 at 7:30 p.m. for the proposed tax rate and budget adoption which was again unanimously approved. 

One of the bigger things on the agenda was next, taking possible action on the 22-23 YISD Compensation Plan. The compensation plan is practically a raise for everyone who receives a paycheck from YISD.

“Our staff works really hard and we need to be sure we are compensating them for their work and keeping them here,” noted Kuenstler. “We are looking at an estimated 10%-20% increase for payroll in our budget, but we do think we will be able to work with that and absorb that.”

A motion to approve the 22-23 YISD Compensation Plan was carried out and approved. Moving on the next topic was to consider the increase in the district contribution Employee Healthcare Premium from $417 to $427. A motion was made and seconded to increase the premium by $10. It is estimated that it will cost the district roughly $8,400. 

The next topic under consideration was approving the employee-perfect attendance incentives for the upcoming school year. With accurate budgets still to be examined, it was postponed for further and accurate consideration.

“Our teachers deserve every dollar we give them,” said Aaron Koopman. “Seems like we maybe could have given them more,” continued Koopman with the 22-23 budget not figured into the equation.  

Moving on, the board then approved the employee retention plan that has remained the same from previous years.

The last topic on the agenda, approving free breakfast and lunch from the cafeteria for all employees was postponed as well until the 22-23 budget is in place.

Read the full story in this week’s edition of the Yorktown News-View. Call 361-275-3464 to subscribe.