Anchorage School Board: 09/18/2026: ASD School Board Municipality Joint Meeting

Okay, everyone, we're gonna get started. If folks could take their seats, uh, take conversations outside.

Hey everyone, uh, and I'll check with clerk staff. Are we ready to go? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um, so, uh, welcome everyone.

I'll call this meeting to order. Uh, this is the joint meeting of the Anchorage School Board and the Anchorage Assembly. Today is Friday, September 18th. We are in this room from 10 AM to noon, um, and I'll be chairing the meeting today as As you probably remember, we switch off between the school board president and the assembly chair leading the meeting. So first we'll do a call to order, so I will turn over to staff— sorry, a roll call.

Member Handlin? Present. Member Martinez? Present. Member Gerker?

Here. Member Silvers? Here. Member Presverdia. Chair Brawley.

Here. Vice Chair Voland. Happy to be here. Member Baldwin-Day. Present.

Member Scout. Present. Member McCormick. Member Park. Present.

Member Johnson. Here. Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you.

Member Lessens. Here. Member Bellamy. Here. Member Blakeslee.

Here. Member Higgins. Member McDonough. Here. Member Wilson.

Here. President Jacobs. Present. Chair, you have a quorum. Hey, thank you.

Um, so we have a quorum of both bodies. Also note we're joined in the room by a number of folks, our mayor and folks in the mayor's office. Assembly Council members of the school district administration. I believe we saw the superintendent somewhere, um, or he'll be here, and, uh, Assembly Council and some members of the public. So, uh, so next we will do our, uh, reciting the Pledge.

So I'll turn to Member Johnson, lead us in the Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. President Jacobs, will you please read the land acknowledgment? We acknowledge that we gather here today on the traditional lands of the Dena'ina Upper Cook Inlet. For thousands of years, the Dena'ina people have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. ASD is committed to diversity and inclusion, and it is with honor and respect that we all recognize all Indigenous people who live and learn in this community.

Thank you. Next on our agenda, we have approval of the minutes from the previous joint meeting. I don't have them in print before me, but— and then I'll note also, we would have the June 5th meeting minutes, but those aren't quite ready, so we're going to take those up in December. So looking for a motion to approve those minutes. Move to approve the minutes.

Second. Motion by Mr. Bolen to approve the minutes, second by Ms. Baldwin-Day. Any discussion or corrections?

Okay, not hearing any. Um, any objection to adoption of the minutes as provided?

Okay, seeing, hearing none, then we'll consider those— the March 20 meeting minutes adopted. Next, we'll move on to approve the agenda. Um, is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second.

Motion to approve the agenda by Mr. Vohland, second by Ms. Bellamy. Is there any discussion or additions? I see Mr. Handeland. Yeah, I'd like to make an amendment to move H3 to after D3. I'll second that.

Okay, there's a motion to change the order of the day— or sorry, to change the agenda to move up H3 after you said D3.

Correct. Okay, so there's a motion by Mr. Handlin, second by Ms. Scout. Any further discussion on that? I oppose the motion.

Sorry, I should wait my turn. Okay, her proposal from Ms. Lessens. Mr. Handlin, do you want to speak to your rationale? Yeah, this has been a, I mean, a topic of great discussion. We've got another meeting after this for the assembly, and so I just don't want that to get kind of lost.

That seems to be a high topic, and so just want to give it the, um, put it first and foremost there on our agenda. Thank you. Okay, I have Mr. McDonough in the queue and then Mr. Voland. Um, thank you, Madam Chair. I, I support it for the reasons that, uh, an agenda is a reflection of priority lists, and going to community councils the last several weeks, one of the biggest things that has frequently come up is how are we dealing with empty schools, like the schools that we've determined in excess, how do we deal with them?

And I have to keep telling them we don't have a plan yet. So as a priority list, I think this, this motion makes a lot of sense.

Okay, next Mr. Bullen, then I have myself in the queue. Thank you, Madam Chair. I intend to support the motion. I think that this conversation has caused some confusion amongst our body in terms of what was the motion made at the pre- previous joint meeting. And so I hope that we can achieve some clarity on that and make some progress on this issue.

And so I think we should move the conversation up. Thank you.

Okay, thanks. I have myself in the queue. I guess I'll— you'll be— you can, you can functionally take the gavel. I am fine with moving this up. I will note the reason that we put it at the end was because that conversation probably has the most likelihood to take up all of the meeting potentially.

And so I just want to note that we do have a number of other items on our meeting. We don't meet again until December, and so I would ask the body that if we do that, if we are getting into an hour and we have not done anything else on our agenda at that point, then we're going to need to move on. So that was the thought behind putting it last and getting some of these other things out of the way. Additionally, we have a number of staff who are here to present on other items, so I would just again remind the body that we have that item. It is important, and so are— so is every other item on our agenda.

So I would ask folks to help me manage the meeting if we do change the order. Um, any other comments? Miss Silvers?

I'd actually like to move to amend that motion. I would like to, um, make sure that we get to our budget stuff, uh, and so I would like to place that, um, after E2.

Um, so it would be moving H3, um, to right after E2. I'll second. Okay, I see a number of folks in the queue. I'm going to do my best to manage from the microphone. So the motion to amend— we're going to consider this an amendment to the amendment of the agenda to move item H3 to instead to after item E2, financial plan.

I think that, you know, it ensures that we get to it, this discussion, in a timely manner, but it also ensures that we're able to get through all of our budget discussion, which is important, um, as well. And it might actually lead to a more fulsome conversation because we're not hurrying through it knowing that the budget is after it. Okay, thanks. So for the, uh, the record, also, that was a motion by Miss Silver, second by Mr. Jacobs. Um, I see Mr. Handlin in the queue, then Miss Scout.

Yeah, I've got no objection to that, and so I'd accept that as a friendly amendment if my seconder would do that, just to for brevity here. I concur. Thanks. Okay, uh, any further discussion on this item? And, and for the cue to reminder for folks, um, you can press the microphone button, it will turn your microphone on, so be aware that you'll be live on the mic.

Um, and also I'm going to visually scan and try to keep queue as best I can. Okay, I don't see any other comments, so I'll ask, is there any objection to changing the order of the day as amended, which would be to move H3 after E2? Mr. Martinez, are you objecting? Okay, so we will take a roll call vote. So I'll turn to staff, either with starting with Assembly or Board.

Member Handlin? Yes. Member Martinez? No. Member Gerker?

Yes. Member Silvers?

Yes. Chair Brawley? No. Vice Chair Voland? Yes.

Member Baldwin-Day? Yes. Member Scout? Yes. Member Park?

No. Member Johnson? Yes. That passes 7 to 3.

Member Wilson? Yes. Member McDonough? Yes.

Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Bellamy? No. Member Lessans?

Yes. President Jacobs?

Yes. That passes 5 to 1. Okay, so that motion has passed. We will consider the agenda amended, and we'll take the items up in the order that we just decided. So is there any further discussion on the agenda?

Okay, any objection to adoption of the agenda as amended?

Okay, seeing and hearing none, then we'll consider the agenda adopted. Next, we will have our— I don't think there's any students in the room. I think we all, we all look like we're older than students. Um, uh, so next we'll move to public comments. So we have 2 folks signed up for public comment, and over here at this table we have a microphone that we'll ask folks to step up and provide your comments there at the table.

So first I have Mr. Heimwenger, if you'd like to come up. And I have 2 people signed up, so we'll go in the order they're signed up.

Yes, right there. And I believe you just need to press the button to turn it on. And I think our staff can help if you need.

Okay. And then I believe there's a timer on the screen. So, and I think the person behind you can help if you need the microphone.

Well, the timer's listed on any of the screens. Yeah. Go ahead. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, members of the assembly, members of the school board, it's good to be back here and still hard to be back here. I believe you've all heard me talk before, and I've— and I've always talked to you about Campbell STEM, but I've always said the same thing throughout this time. This is that we are allies, and I need you to be allies because Ultimately, I'm trusting you with my kids, and I'm trusting you to be— help me grow in this community and to be part of the community. And therefore, I need you to actually have credibility, to have the trust and the faith and the belief that people want to have good schools and strong schools, and the— and that my kids will grow up in a functioning environment. And I think that we can all possibly agree on that part, if nothing else.

So I will say once again that the pain and the tears and the struggle over Campbell is still very, very present and real, and we all kind of know what happened. And I can still say that there's a lot of distrust and a lot of loss of credibility, and that is destructive to the whole environment. I can tell you that there are members of my community that have left the state. I know 3 personally in my neighborhood that have left the state because of that, and that affects everyone's funding, if not all the other intangibles and tangibles that it does. I can tell you that the— about the graffiti on the school that happens afterwards.

I can tell you about the people that— the home directly across my street was put up for sale last January. It closed February, uh, 1st, I think it was. And during the probationary period, the weekend just so happened to be the same weekend that Campbell was closing. The buyers backed out. Who does that when they've already found a home?

It was because of the loss of a school. I can tell you that of all the downstream consequences And the single most frustrating part about all of this is that there was no methodology and no transparency. And when we tried to get it out of the school board— well, forgive me, we were obstructed and overruled, and we tried every other possible way. And I think everyone here knows those ways to actually get answers and transparency and rationale. And the bottom line is, is that at the very end, that The money came through.

No one knew about that, and yes, we have to plan, but the money did come through, and the destruction and the pain and the loss of trust was still real. So I've got 10 seconds left, but I will say at a time that ASD is claiming to listen and sending me text surveys about this. I came here directly to say, please listen to us and actually work together with transparency about all future reports and work together.

Okay, thank you for participating. Uh, second person, uh, please come forward, Miss Carolyn Storm.

Okay, and looks like microphone is on, so please go ahead. You'll have 3 minutes when the mic— when the timer starts.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking public testimony. Many of you know me. My name is Caroline Storm in multiple capacities. I am here today as a citizen of Anchorage and speaking only for myself.

I re-listened to your joint meeting from June, and frankly, I was dismayed at the perceived infighting intention and accusations that took place during that meeting. When we are at a point where there needs to be public trust in this joint institution, pointing fingers at each other is a problem, and it further erodes public trust, and it is precisely the wedge that will be exploited by those who want to defund public education.

There are 2 gubernatorial candidates right now, one who's saying our schools are failing. We know they're not. They're being starved. There's another one who's saying public schools are indoctrinating our kids, not educating our kids. This is what we are collectively up against right now.

So my request to you is to work out your differences in executive session. Or privately, and please collaboratively come together to preserve public education and further allow it to thrive. Thank you.

Hey, thank you for participating. Uh, that is— that concludes the folks who have been, uh, signed up for testimony. So next we'll move on to item E1, financial planning, 2026 state funding update, and '28 budget planning. So I'll turn it over to ASD folks. Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is Dr. Bryan, ASD Superintendent. Our CFO Andy Ratliff will be briefing the assembly with the latest information on the ASD budget. Mr. Ratliff. All right, thank you. For the record, I'm Andy Ratliff.

I'm the Chief Financial Officer for the district. Um, I'll make this brief. I got a few slides for you to go through, uh, the update since last time we met. Um, so briefly, you know, we had our funding recap. We did finally get some funding from the state.

Came kind of later in the year, we got the changes to the required local contribution, which capped that at 4%. Previously, it was calculated based on our full and true values of property in the municipality at, I believe, I believe it was a little over 8%, but they, since they brought that down, that provided about $6 million in new state money to the district. They also provided about $5.5 million of energy relief as one-time funds. And then other one-time funds, and based on our adjusted ADM of about $32 million. And then in addition to that, for capital needs, we have some major maintenance grants from the states of a little over $20 million, with potentially more coming after December based on another waterfall calculation from the state.

Any questions on the revenue side? That's— we've talked about this one quite a bit. So how we spent the money, here's the kind of list of the memos that have been approved since we received it. So the first Memo 006 was approved in July. We had another in '16 in, I believe, August, and then the last one, Memo 037, was approved just this past Tuesday because we got the waterfall funding, I believe, on the— the state did give that to us on the 31st, so they notified us when they said they would.

But here's the list. Most of this money went to teachers. Some of it went to things, to some either budget corrections. We restored some student activities, transportation for activities, Highly Gifted and King Tech, restored nurses, and then charter schools got their proportionate share. Um, there was some conditional language added in Board Member 37 that says other than legal contractual compliance and/or budgetary corrections, the investments made with the money after July 1 shall be not— shall not be included in the FY28 budget.

So that was really the board's direction to say these things like these holdback teachers, the activities, uh, some of the charter school staffing that's not tied to— that is tied to one-time funding, um, that all kind of goes away within the '28 budget development process because we're not going to know how much— frankly, we won't have— know how much money we're going to get from the state when we start developing our budget again. So that was the board's direction to not include that. So in all, we got— of that money, we spent about $26 million of it. That leaves about $17.6 million that we're going to save for FY '28 to help offset reductions there. So we did put together a quick calculator to show what our FY '28 budget deficit would be, and there's a lot of assumptions that go into this, so it's going to change.

But really, we take the money that we have up here for the one-time funding, the required local funding in the waterfall. Um, total funding minus the amount spent gets the amount we're going to save for the following fiscal year. How we kind of project out what that deficit is going to be, we start with our current revenue, add what our new revenue is going to be, that becomes our baseline budget, which to which we'll apply an inflationary factor. There's one-time funds that support our '27 budget currently would be $8 million in fund balance, some money for bond debt reimbursement and FENA that's transferred to the general fund, and then it also makes a pretty big assumption on this $18 million of energy relief that's in the state budget that says the state may provide additional funding for energy relief in future years, contingent on a few things. We did make that assumption for ASD.

It's about $18 million. We made that assumption that that will be coming next year. Energy prices, as you know, continue to, continue to go up at this point, with potential shortages looming in the, in STAR as well. That may contribute to higher prices as well. So with that, we then add our recurring revenue and our saved new money to get an estimated FY28 revenue about $631 million.

We have that one-line item up here in the top right in yellow, less one-time budget allocations. That's kind of the summary of what we've taken from the board's guidance to say here's the things that aren't going to be added back with the holdback teachers, nurses activities, those things. So we kind of reduced that from what we're planning to have to cut additionally. We know that will be felt in our schools and our communities. However, based on the board's guidance, we took it out of this calculation.

We're assuming a 5% cost escalation. Our largest contracts with our teachers unions and other groups have about a 5% wage escalation in them for FY28. We expect medical insurance to continue to far exceed that, just like it does at the city and most other businesses right now. Medical insurance is becoming one of our top drivers of why our costs continue to increase so fast. So at a 5% overall inflationary increase, it's about 30— a little over $30 million of additional cost gets to an estimated budget of expenditure budget about $641 million, which really leaves about a $9 million surplus or deficit.

And that does not include like enrollment changes, any additional local contributions, or additional costs from contracts that we have yet to settle, curriculum, technology, maintenance needs that come apparent throughout the year. So that's really kind of what our deficit picture looks like going forward. As we discussed, I think at the last joint meeting, we bringing this back to the assembly for an upper limit revision. The assembly's job is to approve our upper limit request and our tax request. So there's those two numbers.

As we've gotten more money to spend, or we've approved more spending from the new state money, we do need to bring that back to the Assembly for upper limit revision to say, just to get authority to spend this money we are getting. Anticipate doing that sometime, one of your meetings in October.

So that's kind of the quick update that I have for budget. If anybody has any questions or discussion—. Questions from members? Uh, Miss Baldwin, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Ratliff.

Would you, would you repeat what's included in the one-time budget allocations that are being pulled out of the FY28 budget? What, what, you, the $20 million-ish? Yes, the $20.4. So that's by and large going to be these holdback teachers that we're pushing out to classrooms based on need, the nurses, a chunk of the charter school money, the $2.1 million you see down there. That's going to be going away.

That's because that's funded with one-time money, um, that would go away anyway. The student supports, uh, the student activities— we probably need to keep the snowplowing. But most, by and large, those are the big categories of it, and that's really what people will feel, I think, in the schools.

Um, that's— thank you. Um, so So that— so pulling all of that out, and also, you know, thinking about the fact that, you know, the $17— there's $17.6 million that's been sort of held in reserves from the waterfall funding that was received this year. We're really trying to make up— it looks like somewhere in the neighborhood of like a $40 million deficit. Is that correct? Yes.

Okay. Um, could you speak briefly just to, to why that $17.6 million is being held in reserves as opposed to actually pushing that out into classrooms and schools this year, and what the calculus was for, for making that decision?

I can defer that to Dr. Bryant, could probably speak to that a little more eloquently, or one of our board members. Sure, I'm happy to get the conversation started. So really, this is knowing that the board will have to submit a balanced budget to the assembly prior to March, and the larger the deficit grows, the more severe the cuts that will need to be proposed to the community that, that there will be. So by investing those $17 million towards FY28, we can begin to stabilize what we have, because as you gathered, the status quo of the ASD budget will grow by about $40 million going into next year. So we're trying to stabilize as much as we can, and even that $17 million is just a fraction of what is needed to fully stabilize our schools with what we have right now today, which we all know is not nearly enough nor meets our aspirations of the district.

Sure, yeah, and I, I really appreciate that. And I think, you know, for, for those of us who are, who are sitting in community council meetings and fielding questions, it's helpful to be able to frame that for our constituents because there is concern, or there are questions certainly in the community that I've been fielding about, you know, why aren't we, why aren't we trying to blunt some of the pain now in the hopes that next year might look somewhat different with potentially a different gubernatorial administration? So I really appreciate what you've shared and just I just want to note that that has been raised as a question in the community, and that that might be helpful for more folks to hear in a more pronounced way. Okay, next I have Miss Lessons, and then Mayor LaFrance, and then Miss Blakely. Um, I guess I was going to speak about something else, but I'm going to maybe respond a little bit more to the intent of the memo, and perhaps we can ensure that the assembly and the mayor's office receive the substitute memo that the board approved as amended.

03-7S because there is a tremendous amount of context and background information, including data points that the board received in advance of our vote. For example, we learned just about a week and a half— two weeks ago, um, that as of the first day of school, there were 102 vacancies being filled by long-term positions in classrooms. If you go If you were to put on your hat of, I want to look for a job in the Anchorage School District right now, and you would find almost 3 dozen elementary classroom teacher positions which have been posted since July and August that have yet to be filled. We are— we have extended positions to the community. I think we were notified that 16 new hires out of all of the funds that we've allocated have arisen.

The rest have been piecemealed from teacher retirees, um, teachers picking up an additional class, right? If you're a secondary teacher, there's a lot of them right now teaching 6 out of 6 classes, foregoing their prep period at the high school level, or 6 out of 7 classes at the middle school period, uh, foregoing their prep levels. That's how the additional positions have been Taken up, the board had a robust conversation about $3 million of— there's a $3.7 million item, student supports, down there. We had a robust conversation. The will of the board on a close vote the other night was to allocate $3 million back to this current fiscal year in lieu of saving it for next year.

But what I was going to say prior to your really helpful question is that based on my back of the envelope tally of that $43 million in total that we've received, over 72%, 72% has gone to teaching positions. In addition, another almost 12% have gone directly to student supports, student activities, shoring up the Alaska Middle College, whose expenses kind of skyrocketed this year. Charter schools took almost 6% of that. We needed to up our investments in snowplowing, transportation, and fuel. Of all of the $43 million, less than 1%, by my tally, has gone to a total of 2 administrative positions and the board's own memberships that we, we need and rely on, quite frankly, to be, um, in line with the state's, uh, new laws governing school board training in fiscal matters.

So, so over 72%, based on my calculation, of the total $43 million has gone to teaching positions. Yes, they've been spread across 2 years, but it was that allocation between the 2 years is specifically in that memo in defense of 123 teaching positions next year, including the middle school model, which fell apart in our budget discussions and deliberations this February because we discovered after we deleted it from the budget that we cannot provide over 1,000 special education students with the services they need in middle schools. When we delete the middle school model, we cannot support our English language learner students, and we cannot support our immersion students. In middle schools without the middle school model. So this was proactive and allocating $43 million the best we could to ameliorate a $90 million budget deficit.

Really tough math. Okay, next, Mayor LaFrance, then Member Blakeslee.

Thank you, Chair Brawley. I was thrown because the light is red.

Um, I have a clarifying question for Mr. Ratliff. At the presentation earlier this week at the legislative luncheon, my understanding is that to maintain the current service level of this academic year, it would take $35 million just for a continuation budget And just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly. Yeah, and that was more the— to illustrate the cost growth. It doesn't really take into account the changes in revenue that we might see. So in our changes in revenue, that's what really kind of swings wildly, but about $35 million for our operating funds between our general fund, transportation.

Those costs are expected to go up by about that much. And then whatever revenues we get, whether it be through local, state, the energy relief, whatever it is, then we will end up— that number will change at some point, what our actual deficit is. That's the cost growth. Thank you. Next, Miss Lickelsley.

Yeah, I just want to ground the budget conversation in the realities for teachers and students and to make sure that we understand that when we're talking about maintaining current levels of service, the current levels of service are not sustainable. They are not sustainable. The class sizes that we have now are, are beyond horrendous and will absolutely facilitate a dramatic exodus of people from this district and from this city and from this state if the conversation is only focused on maintaining what we have. Because what we are doing this year in terms of our class sizes and the pressures on our teachers will not continue because people will choose to leave. So when we're talking about the deficit of $9 million, or if we're talking about it in terms of more than that.

I just want to, to remind us that it is more than just balancing a budget on paper, that balancing this budget on paper is still not sustainable for what is happening now. It is really bad, and we have class sizes in elementary school in the upper 30s and in middle school in the 40s, and, and it keeps growing. And if you don't even— if you can't even conceptualize what that means, think about classes where in elementary school, if they have walls that are partitioned and can move, they have in many scenarios opened that wall up so that they can combine and fit essentially two class sizes worth of kids into one class, into one giant room. We have teachers that are using microphones to be able to get students to hear them, and doorbells, the sound of a doorbell to get class attention because the noise levels are so loud. We have teachers that are bringing in gym mats for kids to sit on because there are no desks or room to place desks for the physical bodies in those rooms.

So just know I just want to remind us that this budget isn't sustainable. That's it. Okay, any other questions, comments on this? Don't see any right now. Thank you.

Okay, I think that concludes, um, this item. So next, uh, the other item under financial planning, E2. FY27 muni budget process and local contributions. So I'll turn it to the mayor, and I see we have our OMB director, Ms. Brouse, as well as one of our muni attorneys, Kate Vogel. So whoever would like to start, please proceed.

And we have a brief— or not a presentation, but a piece of paper to look at.

Thank you to the chair. Ona Brouse, director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Municipality of Anchorage. Thank you for having us here today. I wanted to run through the sort of timing and, uh, process that we will be paying close attention to over the next, uh, 8 to 12 months, specifically because there are a couple of additional coordination steps that we can take together and in order to maximize the ASD budget and what is available both from property taxes and from the municipality. So if we start on this slide with the timeline to the 2027 budget.

Uh, do you see that August right now we're going through our preliminary budget information? The school board and school district are going through their sort of development, early development. On September 2nd, we produced the 120-day memo to the assembly. The mayor's messaging in that letter included some commentary on the school district funding. So if anyone has not seen that, we can make sure that's distributed to everyone, but part of that is the explanation that CFO Ratliff has already given, that the challenge on some of this is the timing of when we know the information that we know, so we have to make the best assumptions with the information that we have in every moment when we have to move the ball forward.

So I know as of right now that there are some, I believe, positive developments that we can discuss with the school district in a meeting next week with the Finance Division because I think that some of the assumptions that we are currently working with on the municipal side can be adjusted, and that would give a little bit more room for the tax cap calculation for the '28 year. The October 2nd deadline is when the mayor's proposed budget is delivered to the Anchorage Assembly. That includes the initial continuation budget with adjustments That is the beginning of our full budget process. In October and November, the Assembly goes through their budget deliberations to get to the approved budget. Traditionally, in this time period, there is not much discussion about the school district budget because it is not part of the approved budget process.

The timing, as we get later in the calendar, you'll see that the integration of those two budgets usually happens during the first quarter of of the budget process, but because we have this challenge that came up last year, we are coordinating throughout all of our budget process to understand how we can make any adjustments when we can make them, the same way Superintendent Bryant and Mr. Ratliff mentioned that we are trying to make, uh, uh, sort of, uh, risk adjustments that can be flexible into the future so that we know what we can work with and sort of create contingencies, if you will. If this doesn't happen, then maybe this happens. If this doesn't happen, then maybe this happens. The, uh, once the approved budget goes into effect at the municipality, that's specifically for operations to start in January, but our budget is not fixed until April. The bond and ballot propositions for the April election are finalized at the end of January.

That is when both the municipality and the school district bonds should be prepared and approved, and the Alaska legislative session begins. So we sort of overlap into our first quarter process, the legislative session, and the school district going through their full robust budget process. The February timeline, as I said, school board reviews and approves the ASD budget. In March, the assembly reviews and approves the ASD budget, and in April, the assembly reviews and approves the muni revised budget that incorporates the school district budget at that time. Last cycle, I believe Chair Brawley and I had a conversation about how there should be some additional coordination in between that March and April timeframe between the municipality and the school district and the budget offices, specifically to make sure that all of the assumptions are correct and that the numbers have been updated to allow for the most flexibility we can manage within the tax cap.

The changes on the municipal budget between our CPI multiplier in the approved budget to the revised budget is usually some amount, and between those changes it usually increases only slightly, but that's usually where we land because our projections at the end of the calendar year are usually more conservative than we expect them in order to make that sort of, uh, risk judgment call. Um, And that's one of the points I will say about, I think, if we can make some adjustments to projections, that the outlook will be a little bit better. The '27 revised budget that incorporates the school district budget finalizes the tax limit and sets the property levy. And that is why that timeline is so important, because it is the final moment when we can determine how much taxes are being collected for that year. And the school district in that scenario has a little bit of an interesting reality because if we are charging taxes for half of each of a school year because we have to collect and spend taxes in the same year, and because the school district splits fiscal years, we levy for half of a school year that has already happened and half of a school year that is about to happen.

And if there are budget challenges that come up, any additional upper limit action that takes place between those budget cycles, if there is additional space available in the next year's tax cap, can be taken. So there is some additional flexibility that could be adjusted if we knew that that was the demand and the bodies were able to take action on approving revised budgets in the time frame that it needs to occur. So I think that there's a layer of additional coordination that has not been happening in the past, partially maybe because it has not had to or the question has not come up in the same way, but now we know that we can do that and make those specific adjustments during first quarter or even throughout the budget process depending on the information we have. Um, and then the Alaska legislative session adjourns after we have done all of those things. So part of the challenge is the timing of when each of these things is finalized and how we then cannot necessarily take any reversal action because our deadlines have passed.

Any questions, comments from members?

Uh, Mayor LaFrance. Thank you, Chair Brawley, and thank you, Director Brouse. I just wanted to make a couple comments, and first of all, uh, thank you all for the work that you do for our community and for serving our constituents. We share the same constituents, and our community Seattle needs a strong public school system in order to thrive, and I wanted to be very clear that as mayor, I am committed to the full voluntary local contribution and also want to emphasize that merely continuing the budget that is in place now is insufficient, wildly insufficient. As difficult as it may be given this current climate to even continue it, it still falls way short.

So at the municipality, we are looking at all the ways that we can help. And for example, the superintendent and I have been talking for the last 9 months or so about potential land sales, and I know that you will get to that conversation later in the agenda. But education is what brought me to public service. I have 3 children who are now out of school and have all been successfully educated by the Anchorage School District, and I thank everyone who had a role in that. And again, we are going to do everything we can do to help.

And I know that we share a collective duty, and the we is not just us here, but our leadership at the state to ensure that every single child has access to a quality education. That is a fundamental duty we all share, and so I wanted to reiterate that we are here to help and we will do everything we can. Thank you. Next, I have Ms. Silvers.

Do we know at this point what our full local contribution would be?

Not exactly. I mean, we, we would know— we can actually backward calculate it for '20, for the current year, but I actually— we can't even do that because we don't know what our enrollment ADM final count is. So it just gets complicated and will get more complicated for FY '28 as well. Okay, thank you. Okay, any other comments from members?

Okay, not seeing any. And just a reminder, folks on Zoom, I am trying to keep an eye on my phone, but, uh, feel free to speak up if I miss you. Okay, I think there's no one else in the queue for this item, so we can move on. So again, our agenda has been reordered, so we will take up item H3 next. So that's the Right-Sizing Joint Committee update.

It lists MOA, but I believe there's shared update here, so I'm going to actually turn it to, I think, President Jacobs to kick off. We have a couple documents in front of us, or one document for this so far.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So those who were able to closely track the outcome of our last joint meeting are familiar with the fact that Member— Chair Brawley and I were directed to draft a proposal and bring that proposal to this meeting for consideration. To further discuss a joint committee that had voting authority for both assembly members and school board members. Members of both bodies have in front of them that proposal.

Um, when I approached Member Brawley with my— the, the best way that I thought I could articulate the vision behind the underlying motion, I talked about making things as simple as possible, utilizing an existing committee structure that the board formed after a motion made, I believe, in February of this year to create a committee to address right-sizing after our choice to begin the process of consolidation of schools.

The proposal itself adds 6 assembly seats, one from each assembly district.

There would be—. The, the language that would restrict assembly participation from voting is removed. Um, it also would expand school board membership from 3 current members to the full body of school board members. So The composition would change from 3 school board members, a series of community members that currently is still being identified, and then 1 assembly liaison, to the full school board, 6 assembly members, 1 from each assembly district, and then expanded participation from the community from a series of stakeholders that is listed in the charter.

I think that they're, uh, my underlying concerns for my colleagues on the Assembly remain, but if the joint bodies are going to engage in this work, I feel this is the most sound proposal that I can draft. Um, I approached Chair Brawley, uh, proposed the idea as we were tasked together with creating, uh, this framework. Uh, Chair Brawley was amenable to making this proposal, um, recognizing the body could consider it And I certainly am available for questions.

For transparency purposes, there's actually 3 documents attached to our agenda, which is online. The first is this proposal. The second is a— I'm going to— I would call it a white paper, but Member McDonough may have a different term for it. Member McDonough drafted a document on his own board, which is 19 pages, and expand on his personal thoughts regarding the benefits of a collaborative framework for school consolidation and a committee structure. ASD administration legal reviewed that, provided some thoughts for administration, so that document is attached as well.

Uh, yeah, I'll stop there. Sure, Brawley, I'm open to you to chime in on your thoughts and then certainly available for any questions. Thanks. Yeah, there's a couple folks in the queue as well. I'll just briefly say, um, uh, we did discuss this.

I know this is another idea on the table, and so I am not representing that this is what I think is the perfect solution. I'm just hoping that we can walk out of this meeting today with some kind of resolution to this so that we can move on and talk about other things. I'll just say that. Uh, so I have, uh, I saw previously, uh, Mr. McDonough in the queue. Uh, did you still want to be in the queue?

And then I'll just note, I'd— Mr. McDonough, Mr. Handlin, Miss Silvers, and then Kelly Lesson, or Miss Lessons. Go ahead, go ahead. Oh, for me? Okay. Um, thank you.

And so, uh, since the school board president mentioned the paper that I brought forward to the Assembly liaison Janice Park, to the current ad hoc committee that we have.

Um, I'd like to speak to that. And then also, since, um, we have a memorandum from legal counsel, I think inviting them to be able to present both sides to both bodies is helpful. For the record, I have not seen the memorandum myself in detail until this morning, and I haven't seen the proposed charter revisions, or perhaps supplanting of our existing charter, until this morning either. The paper that I provided is an actual research paper. It, it describes its methodological insight.

It's intentionally broad and intentionally vague because Anchorage is unique to any other literature case. So, um, you know, I— like, in, in the world of education policy that I usually operate, we have really clear warnings of schools and cities that are handling this wrong. And I really started with that. Like, Chicago in 2013 had this mass school closure event all in one fell swoop, and there was no plan and process of property handoff. There wasn't a very— there was an even worse, like, methodological discussion about why schools are unviable.

Um, the research now shows that that process being haphazard and siloed has caused a great cost of equity to the, the communities of Chicago. The poorest communities got hurt the most, the communities that have the most Black and brown children got hurt the most, and it's been 13 years and that city still doesn't have an intact collaborative space. Um, so from there, there are other cities, there are other communities and other joint government action task forces that do it well. I kept the paper very broad, very, um, like, I don't know what this room of us needs, I don't know what our constituents need. It's like, I don't think we should just copy Seattle or copy Minneapolis.

I think we should learn from insights from these other places because schools are closing across the whole country. Um, so while it is broad and vague, it is clear in its vision, which there are two things that the task force must do, I think, according to myself, but also public record that the school board has all essentially unanimously voiced. Number one is we need to retain the plenary authority of the school district over school district business. And this should not open the door for any ways of us offloading our governance responsibilities to anything else. Um, that especially includes deciding why and when and where a school is unviable.

That should only be our call as a school board, and that's what this paper puts first. The second thing is maximizing collaboration on the stuff that is joint business. Most importantly is we are going to be giving, or like, who gets to control these multimillion-dollar buildings and hundreds of acres of land is going to change hands over the next decade or two. That is joint business, and I think this task force is equipped with the purpose of that broadly and vaguely while in this paper. And then if this body supports it, um, the job would be to take a vague policy paper with 30 or more citations and create an actual white paper that's narrow in actual charge throughout the next 5 or 6 months.

So that's where the paper is. I hope you guys do find the time to read 19 pages and then track the 30 citations. I would also like to invite legal counsel to, to summarize their memorandum. That is a sort of external vet of the paper, if the chairs are comfortable with that.

Uh, yeah, I think that would be helpful. Please approach. And then I'll note, um, I was just going to download the documents, um, and I don't know if we can ask staff to also put them in our emails just for easy access. Thanks. Unless I missed it.

Sorry. Uh, go ahead, please introduce yourself for the record, and, um, you may speak. All right, is this on? My name is Lee Baxter, and I'm legal counsel for the Anchorage School District. Um, as Member McDonough explained, I looked at the proposal.

The, the Anchorage School District administration asked me to look at the proposal and provide some initial thoughts, uh, and concern and concerns. Um, 4 things stood out, and as Member McDonough, uh, correctly stated, one of the first thing is, is for, uh, consideration of both bodies is to understand that under Alaska law, the Anchorage School District School Board has plenary exclusive and non-delegable authority over school district operations. So any task force that's put together, it needs just to go into these things with eyes wide open. These bodies need to understand that any decision of such a task force would be a recommendation. The school board, the 7-member school board under Alaska law, has to vote and make the decisions on school district operations, including closures.

And the McDonough— Mr. McDonough's, uh, proposal properly recognizes that. The second thing for these bodies to consider, and, um, when deciding whether to form any joint task force, this— the administration believes it should— these bodies should consider that the Anchorage School District and the assembly have different legal obligations. Under Alaska law, the school district is tasked with exclusive management, operation, and control of the school district. The school board members are elected at large to represent the entire school district, and so their interests and duties flow to decisions that are in the benefit of the school district. Conversely, the Anchorage Assembly is elected by district, district by district, and your job is to manage and operate the local municipality and your constituents.

There's going to be an inherent friction there in any task force. Members who represent certain districts are going to have constituents that come to them from those districts and are opposed to school closures. My house is in Midtown, and I could see myself being having an opinion about closures of schools in Midtowns. And so in Midtown, so you'll have to recognize that any task force with assembly members on it is going to have that inherent friction.

As Member McDonough stated, the proposal is vague, and that seems by design so that these bodies can consider the scope of, of the, of the task force. That's understood. When you—. When these bodies decide on what such a task force purview is, it should be clear. And there's difference— there's difference between— so for instance, for the purview, is this joint task force going to consider pre-closure decisions?

What schools are closed? Is the purview of the task force to decide post-closure decisions, what the property is to be used as after the school's closed, or is it both? And within, under Alaska and municipal law, depending on what the scope is, we will have members from the respective bodies voting on and weighing in on things that are not part of their typical purview. So the Anchorage School Board, for instance, once it determines that a school is no longer needed and is in excess, does not retain management over that, and the municipality decides what to do with the property. But if the task force's purview is to determine post-closure use of school property, then school board members will be weighing in on what is typically only muni decision-making.

If the task force is to decide pre-closure decisions, i.e., what schools are closed, that is under Alaska law decision for the school board. And so if the task force— if the task force purview includes that, then you'll have assembly members weighing in on territory they're not typically weighing in on.

Um, the last thing I wanted to discuss is my fourth point. Um, so, so far we have the, the, uh, school boards— any rec— there has to be a recommendation too. It has to be— they have different legal obligations, the boards have different legal obligations, and the purview needs to be detailed. The fourth thing is that The jurisdictions discussed— be careful with borrowing models from other places and what happens in other jurisdictions. Alaska is unique in so many different ways.

The jurisdictions discussed at length in the— Mr.— Member McDonough's proposal, there's ones from Washington, Colorado, California. In all those jurisdictions, it's a whole different model. Where the local school districts own the property before and after school closure. They purchase the property, the property is held in the title of the school district, and so naturally those school board bodies are, um, involved in decisions on what happens to that property. They own it, so they have to decide what happens to it.

Here in Alaska, title is held by the municipality, and so the school board has not been involved in post-closure decisions. Philadelphia is a whole different ball game, um, in that in Pennsylvania there— the Philadelphia had enough— a school crisis of the school district was not performing, so the state legislature passed a special law just for Philadelphia and put a super board in charge of the schools in Philadelphia. And that super board was comprised of 3 state members and 2 city members. And that state board got to override. They had the authority to override all other school law and just try to fix Philadelphia.

So they have a state law that says they're city members on the board, and then later on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck that down as unconstitutional and said you can't— the legislature cannot delegate and allow a board to override all other education decisions. So Philadelphia is a, is a difficult area. Is a difficult case to try to mimic because it was very unique and it was legally problematic. With that, I'll say that nothing prevents these two bodies from creating a task force. There is no legal problem with the task force as long as the recommendations are— the decisions are recommendations.

And with that, that concludes my remarks. Thank you. Mr. McDonough, you still have the floor, and then I've got a number of folks in the queue. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Baxter. Um, I have no questions for you, so while you're here, I can pause comments and see if there's any dialogue with the attorney from members.

Yeah, I think, um, uh, there's, there's a number of folks in the queue and we have less than an hour, so I think I'm just going to ask folks, I guess, if Mr. Baxter can stay, I'll get through what I have. I'm sure others do have questions. Um, the, um, The bottom line that this paper finds is that districts or states or like any governing bodies that fail to find a cross-pollination interstitial area between the local government and the school district, you create these giant conflicts like you mentioned in Philadelphia where, um, the state-level politicians get so desperate that they do what ends up being unconstitutional levels of overreach. And I think everyone here is committed to not having this process spiral out of control so that a governor feels like it's their political prerogative to fix Anchorage.

There's a lot of pressure already in Juneau that says our schools are run wrong, and those are frankly all misinformational. Um, they're, they're just for political campaign talking points. I don't think we want to feel that fire coming together and coming up with a set of first step protocols, which would be the only thing that the preclosure is, um, that the task force should do is not decide any conditions of viability, any conditions of how ASD closes, but a protocol that gets initiated as soon as ASD recognizes we need to reduce our school count. Then there needs to be a first step protocol that I think the joint bodies can build And then I think after that there should be, um, uh, like a sort of working inventory that is better curated between the two administrations so that we are getting live suggestive updates just from virtue of our own inventory about where the next priorities are going to be. And that inventory should include things like where the community's priorities are at.

We should have real methodological understanding of what people want their public properties to do if they're operating a school. Thank you. Hey, thanks. Um, I'm tracking in the order that I saw folks, so I've— I'll just read it out real briefly. Uh, Miss Silvers, then Miss Lessons, then Miss Bellamy, then Mr. Handlin, then Miss Scout.

So go ahead, Miss Silvers.

Yeah, so I think for myself, um, kind of the, the scope that I'm interested in, um, is just making sure that there is a clear process in place for, um, identifying schools, uh, for closure, and making sure that there's, uh, community involvement, and just making sure that we are following best practices. Um, other than that, you know, I don't really think the Assembly needs to get, uh, involved in a lot of these these detailed decisions. But I do think that, you know, just ensuring that there is a good process in place for making the decisions and for notifying the public. Looking over this proposal, I think, I think 6 assembly members is probably not what we had in mind. I think with the Open Meetings Act, generally the assembly, when they work on things, they limit it to 3.

So that would be a change I would recommend.

Other than that, you know, I think I'll just listen to what other people have to say. But yeah, that's kind of the scope and my thoughts on on this. Thanks. Thanks. Next, Miss Lessons.

Thank you. Um, I wanted to begin by going back in time, uh, about a comment, um, Chair Brawley raised at the June meeting. I was not in attendance, but I studied the YouTube recording of that meeting intensely to try to get up to speed. And what I heard the chair say is that this was in the— once a motion had been raised, you said that you had received advice or caution or a message from the clerk to the effect of, we don't vote on items such as motions in these meetings. You then inform members attending this joint meeting that the two bodies could take a roll call vote establishing in our minutes whether the motion will be supported or not.

So I think apart from the conversation I'm interested in understanding where this is going. Are we— is the intent for the joint bodies today to make some kind of a motion, or pursuant to the advice you shared in June, are we going to potentially be taking a roll call vote establishing our minutes that members are supportive of this, that, or the other? Um, so I think That is a first question. A second question I have, and I don't know who should answer this, is if— a member McDonough used the word protocol— if a protocol is established by a potential task force which is jointly comprised, maybe this is a legal question, if protocol is recommended by a jointly comprised task force or committee for the board to use, does that potentially impinge on board members governance. Madam Chair, if I may, was the question at me?

I think I'm—. That's a great clarification. I think it's a legal question I have, um, because you use the word protocol and I, I took it and ran with it. I can describe exactly what the protocol is. I would like to get an answer from the attorneys as well.

And I, I will say also, um, I'm trying to remember what I said in June, and I think this is a question that we've been trying to figure out, is what actions we take topic. So, so I have my— I may have spoken incorrectly, so I'm going to defer to others. But I—. But it is true, certainly we don't adopt substantive items. But there's a— the attorney, I believe Ms. Vogel is in the queue and wanted to provide.

But can you clarify, were you going to speak on the memo, or— I got a note from Ms. Gardner that you were— so I don't know if it was on this or another topic. Sorry. Yeah, not, not on the topic of what the assembly can do, but rather on the Motels and school handoffs. Okay, um, well then I would turn to Miss Akers, who's acting as our clerk, although I think she's conferring with our, um, assembly counsel. So I think in ter— so in terms of what the intent is, I think that's the question for the body.

In terms of what we can do, I think that's the clerk and our attorney are working that out.

Sorry, so if I could turn to Ms. Akers to clarify the— I think the procedural question.

Through the chair, can you clarify what you're asking me? Sorry, I was—. That's okay. The question was really, I think, essentially what actions or what motions can this body take? And for example, if we made— if someone made a motion to create this committee as we did in, in June.

Um, what is, what is the actual procedure here?

Through the chair, we were just discussing joint resolutions because I believe that's what you were referencing at the last meeting, was not necessarily a joint motion, but that a joint resolution has to be on the agenda to be taken up by both bodies. As far as creating a joint Task Force, I'll defer to legal counsel.

Yeah, and I'll kind of generally restate, I think we've— the question before us really is what action can we take in this meeting, meaning can we have a joint motion and what effect would it have, or what kind of legal weight does it have?

Um, so generally when the body acts, um, to give effect to something external to the actual procedural machinations of a meeting, it acts through resolution. Um, so I would say that any step to form something substantive would likely need to be captured in a resolution as opposed to an oral motion. Oral motions generally are procedural. Um, we do allow oral amendments to things, but we're dealing with something substantive when we do something like that. Um, for the most part, the motions that we make, um, that aren't associated with any document are merely procedural.

Additionally, um, the legal basis for creating committees, although it doesn't envision a joint committee. But what we have in code is the— under the assembly, the chair has the authority to create committees, and then the body has the authority to make committees by way of resolution. So I would say that any wanting to make anything substantive through the assent of this body would require some form of resolution.

Okay, uh, thanks. So I think, I mean, I think regardless, certainly this, the two bodies as we're meeting can speak to our intent. So I think the real question that we'll have to come back to is what, what do we do after this? Um, so I'll turn back to Ms. Lessens. Do you have further questions, comments?

I think really it was just to allow space for legal analysis, and so I don't know, um, Do we have any additional legal analysis? Really, the question— I guess maybe the question was the secondary question, which is if a protocol were to be established by the— by a task force which is somehow created, um, would, would that impinge on the board members' governance and purview over how a school district operates?

Any decision by the joint task force, including decision about a protocol will have to be a recommendation. The school board will have to independently vote on every, everything, including what the criteria is, what, what counts as important weights, and just deciding school closures, and ultimately on the school closures, if any, themselves. So a protocol would not be binding. It would—. But that is issued by the task force, it would be a recommendation for the school board, and the school board would then have to independently vote on Thank you.

Okay, uh, next I have Miss Bellamy in the queue. Thank you. First of all, I'm surprised to even see Member McDonough's, uh, I don't know how it made the agenda because I'm on the internal committee and I'm just— I just saw it at 9 o'clock this morning. Um, and we have a charter. Our bylaws give our president, uh, the authority, whether we agree or not, to, um, define the scope of the ad hoc committee.

And so I think that it gives us a clear process. It provides for community involvement. Um, I appreciate the work Member McDonough has done, but I, I don't think— get— I don't think bringing it to this meeting and, and denying the full board to have access to it before— I have some concerns about it. Maybe it's legitimate, maybe, maybe I'm just old-fashioned, um, but, uh, I just caution us to follow our processes. And our process, the school board's process, is that the president writes the charter, the board does vote on the charter.

And if you want to give us a lot of more input, um, in what that looks like, the president has already made some adjustments to the charter. Those are going to come back to the board We're going to look at it again, and if Member McDonough wants us to look at and incorporate some of what's here, there's a process to do that. Uh, but I'm, I'm really uncomfortable seeing this document for the first time at 9:14 this morning. Thank you, Madam Chair. If I may, I did send it to the board president much earlier this week.

Okay, thank you, Mr. McDonough. I do have a long queue that I need to work through. I'm sorry. Um, uh, next I have, uh, Mr. Handeland. Uh, thank you.

I mean, it's, I guess, good to hear that we're allowed to form these joint committees because I thought we already did that. I mean, in the motion that, uh, Member Scout had, thing, there were, I mean, two things that were pretty clear. It was equal membership in 30 days, and then now we're seeing this, I guess, the right-sizing the charter thing that, yeah, just, just here this morning, that kind of changes that That does solve the equal portion there, but yeah, I mean, I guess it's just from my perspective, just very disappointing how much time we're sitting here talking about, hey, how to form the committee and stuff. And now we're hearing like, oh, it has to come through a resolution. And so we're hearing that now at this meeting.

So the first time that I guess we could actually form a joint task force will be at the December meeting. Am I like, I guess, getting that wrong before we can, I guess, get a resolution to get forward, maybe confer to legal counsel.

I'll invite legal counsel to respond.

So, uh, just because the body meets 4 times a year, um, in regular session doesn't mean that you can't call a special meeting, and that's, that's been done in the past. So a special joint conference could be called. Um, and yeah, I apologize, I wasn't here at the, the, uh, the previous meeting where this first came up. Um, And just to clarify my earlier statement, the bodies of—. The body—.

The rules of procedure, when the code doesn't explicitly speak to the rules of procedure for this body, Robert's Rules will govern. And Robert's Rules 10:13 does explicitly state that resolutions must be brought in writing. So I apologize if this information is coming late. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I just— yeah, I mean, it's very disappointing.

I think that the I mean, the motion that was made to form the committee was very clear there. The, the nuanced aspects of the, uh, the exact roles and, um, what, what, what the committee is tasked with, I don't think anyone is arguing with. But there were some very clear provisions in there, and that's the 30 days and the equal representation that was in that motion that was, was clearly missed. Um, it's just very disappointing that it was passed unanimously by both bodies here that we're now in this situation where we're, we're still arguing over this and whether we should be focused on the actual issue at hand. Thank you.

Okay, next I have— I'll just read them out—. Ms. Scout, Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Voland, Ms. Park, and Ms. Silvers. Um, Ms. Scout, I think previous comments have stated what what I had intended to say.

So nothing further. Okay, next, Mr. Jacobs. Yeah, um, thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, so yeah, I agree. I think the motion was very clear, the intent, and I as chair actually stated— restated what I was taking away from the conversation, just to allow the joint body with the limited time left, um, to weigh in and fact-check.

My understanding was that we were coming back today to discuss a proposal that was drafted in collaboration between myself and Chair Brawley. No committee was created or voted to be created at our last joint meeting, and I welcome all members to go watch the YouTube recording. We actually have it queued up if members want to watch it today. I just don't think it's a wise use of 12 minutes, 12 to 15 minutes of our time, which is the entire duration of the conversation. Um, I'll just remind members that the topic itself as well as the motion weren't noticed prior to the start of the meeting, and I think that along with its place in the agenda caused an abbreviated and challenging conversation to follow.

And I've heard that from folks who have watched it, members of both bodies, and even staff who support our bodies. With that said, The proposal from myself and Chair Brawley is in front of this body for consideration. I don't think I even need legal analysis on the fact that the school board, outside of a joint conference, can choose to open up a committee to assembly members if we want to. We don't need this body's— this joint body's permission to do so. I've actually asked as chair my body on two different occasions, in June and then on August 14th, if that's something that we should do.

And as I don't believe that's something that I should have sole discretion of as chair, although I can create committees, um, and I did create a committee in the spirit of collaboration and opened up an assembly member liaison seat, which mirrored a process actually the assembly used. I was invited as a school board member to partner on a public safety committee as a liaison to the school board, and that process was utilized. So it was mirroring something the assembly actually brought forward, um, and I thought that process was collaborative. I understand some folks may not agree with that. With that said, I want to speak to some feedback we actually got on the proposal from Member Brawley and I, um, about reducing the number from 6 assembly members, um, if we are going to pursue the spirit of collaboration, I think that's intended by members who want to, to engage in this work with us.

Um, I can support that work as long as we address the legal concerns and, and maybe the inherent conflict that Mr. Baxter referenced, that assembly members, unlike school board members, are elected to represent certain districts. Now, assembly members make decisions that impact the entire municipality. You folks do that every meeting, but you also understand that you have those regional concerns, and that impacts how your meetings are run, that impacts your decision-making processes. I've watched past assembly meetings when, um, I believe it's a conditional protest on an alcohol license, members who are from a particular area where the licensee resides are given specific influence and I've even heard members indicate they were going to defer to members from a different— from the impacted area. We don't have to do that as a school board.

We don't have those regional concerns. Now, we all live in certain areas of town. Some of us own property in certain areas of town, but we're tasked with representing the entire municipality. Um, no school board member is free from any inherent bias. We all have inherent bias, but the assembly members have significantly more due to the way that you're elected and by whom you're elected.

So I couldn't get behind a process that only had representation, for example, from South Anchorage and East Anchorage, because if the criteria, using the language in the charter, that was to be developed by a committee that had joint membership with voting authority on a recommendation for criteria that was then subsequently adopted by the board and chose a campus that wasn't in the area represented by the assembly membership, it is possible that you would see constituents from an area that wasn't represented by assembly members, and they would indicate that they had concerns about the criteria that was adopted for any one reason or another, and there wouldn't be an adequate defense for why membership from each assembly district was present. To review and adopt those criteria. There just simply isn't. Um, and I don't want there to be such significant work and time investment made when the end product could be argued in such a way that it's fundamentally flawed and fatally flawed, potentially. I've watched our district administration spend months, the better part of a year, drafting criteria that was used in a past right-sizing effort, and it was fairly, but also very thoroughly, um, I'll say critiqued and fact-checked by members of the community from certain areas of our community, indicating that their concerns weren't adequately incorporated.

And so I know I've seen this process play out. And so I think if we have full representation from each assembly district, um, that, that makes sense to me. I think I'll leave my comments there. Thank you, Madam Chair. Getting said, Mr. Bolland, Ms. Park, Ms. Silvers, myself, Ms.

Scout, Mr. McDonough. So go ahead, Mr. Bolland. Thank you, Madam Chair. It sounds like we still have a full queue, but I think I, I want to make a couple, couple comments, and I think we should actually table this conversation. Um, it occurs to me with this discussion that we have some work to do as two different bodies who are used to working in two different fashions with our own standard procedures.

And I think that that is something that we could probably task our— both of our chairs with.

I, you know, a question that occurs to me is, well, if a resolution was required, why isn't there a resolution at this meeting accompanying this charter, you know, that could have been disseminated to both bodies, and then members of both bodies could have brought amendments?

Also, members who have memorandums that they wouldn't put forward to attach as supplementary to that resolution could have had the opportunity to do that with adequate notice, and we all would have been able to digest that information ahead of time and not feel caught by surprise.

So I think I want to make that a project where— what is the expectation if we're going to have a joint meeting and be able to work in a good faith dialogue, but also a shared expectation what those procedures would look like, how we can make shared decisions when appropriate. I think that that is worth exploring so that we don't walk away and say, well, we had two totally different ideas of what was discussed at the prior meeting.

So with that, I would actually move to table this conversation for now.

And move on to the other items in our agenda. But my request in the meantime was that maybe our— the leadership, the chairs of both bodies could put together sort of a paper informational memo to members of both bodies to say, you know, what does it look like to bring forward a resolution to the joint meeting? How can it be amended? What is our decision process going to look like? What is the difference between a resolution in writing and a procedural motion at these joint meetings?

So yeah, anyway, so I realized we do— since you made a motion, we do need a second. Motion is to table this for now, take it up in a later meeting. Second. Okay, a second. What's your point of information, Mr. Grover?

What is table it? Postpone to a date certain or indefinite? Well, I think we've heard the idea of a special meeting. I don't know if that's something that the bodies would entertain, or that the leadership would entertain. To start, you'll have to make a specific motion, and then we— it can be amended, obviously.

So I think, pick a path. Yeah, so I guess then my motion would be, without knowing the amenability of a special meeting, my motion would be to postpone this to our next joint meeting. Okay, so there's a And does the second agree to that specific— sorry, Miss Bellamy, do you agree to the, uh, the motion? Can you restate your motion? Sorry, postpone this matter to our next joint meeting.

Okay, so a motion by Mr. Bullen, second by, um, Miss Bellamy. So I'll run through the queue that I have, um, and then I can leave you in if it's not on this item. Uh, first, Miss Park, on this motion. Thank you. Um, uh, sort of mirroring what, what President, uh, Jacob said, uh, the school board members are elected at large and they have the greater responsibility of overseeing.

Sorry, Miss Parker, I just want to make sure your comments are on the motion to postpone. I'm sorry, no. Okay, sorry, I'll keep doing the queue. Um, so I'm going to move through and I ask again, is this on the motion to postpone? Next, uh, Miss Wilson online.

Yeah, apologies, it took a moment, but, uh, no, my comments were not on that, so postpone. Okay, Silver's on this item.

Yeah, I'll, I'll speak on the motion to postpone. Um, I, I support the motion, um, and I, I just want to say, you know, I think the way the school board works and the way the assembly works is, um, different, and it's causing a lot of confusion. Um, and I, I think at the last meeting there was a motion put on the floor to create a joint committee with equal representation. That was not the motion that passed. That was amended.

And what actually passed— excuse me— was a motion to have a proposal brought before us. And so I think the, the body of the assembly as a whole hasn't actually weighed in on if we actually want a committee. We've weighed in on if we want a proposal for one. Um, and so I think we need to do our processes over, you know, with us on the side to even decide if we want to have this committee formed, um, as an assembly majority. Um, I think we did want to have a proposal brought to us, and I think that's kind of what we missed.

Um, we didn't see this until today, uh, and so I do think that we need to postpone this. I support that motion, um, and I think as an assembly we need to decide whether the majority of the assembly, uh, wants to move forward with forming this joint committee differently than the one that's already been formed. Thanks. Okay, continuing to move through the queue. I had myself in the queue but not on this item.

Uh, next, Ms. Scout, did you want to be on postponement? Thank you. Yes, I also support the motion to postpone. I also want to, um, voice my support for the previous comments.

Made by the mover. Um, really, we need clarity on who and how we impact the agenda and disseminate resources. I feel a lot of clarity about how we do that on the assembly side. If I had had a memo to share with my colleagues, I would have sent it to the clerk. Um, and so I would, I would really like to understand how that happens in this space.

Um, And also would like to note that the motion that we had voted on at the last meeting did have a 30-day timeline, um, with those requirements, and that was not met. But I really appreciate this discussion and support tabling it. Okay, next, Mr. McDonough on postponement or tabling. Yeah, um, I, I support the maker's intention For sure. I think we have so far only engaged in limited dialogue, and it is very difficult for us to make a joint commitment with as little we've been able to discuss this.

But to notes raised by many members already, there seems to be some goaltending happening about what information reaches the bodies and establishing some form of a construct at this point helps more equitably distribute the voices, and that, um, it could be a safeguard against the goaltending. Because I didn't get most of these documents until this morning. A member of my own committee didn't get the document that I wrote, not on behalf of the committee, but it certainly is germane to her business, until this morning, because of the way that document handling is occurring. And if we create our own space that we can share documents under the Open Meetings back, then I think we will— that'll be much more conducive way of us dialoguing than a postponement back into the president and the chair's discretion. And, and we could see ourselves in another 3 months with no movement on this issue.

Okay, next, uh, Mr. Jacobs, then Ms. Blakeslee, Ms. Baldwin-Day, Mr. Gerker. Yeah, um, I'm gonna speak to just briefly the, the comments regarding the motion to postpone and then speaking to, to timing.

Um, the, the document that I requested be attached to the agenda today from Mr. McDonough actually wasn't intended for this meeting. Mr. McDonough indicated he wanted that attached to our school board meeting agenda as a committee update. The challenge was that Mr. McDonough said he hadn't shared that memorandum with his committee, and so I told him during our last school board meeting that it wasn't appropriate to attach there, but I would find a place to attach it. It. I thought that since our conversation was happening this Friday and it was directed to assembly members, I assume that he had sent that to assembly members.

It was dated the 15th. I'm assuming you have that in your emails. The top of the document says that, so please refer to your email for that. I asked Mr. McDonough if he sent that to his colleagues on the committee, and it was my understanding that he was planning to do so and/or had done that. Um, I wasn't CC'd on any such email.

Um, with that said, I thought it was relevant for today, so we attached it for today. I wasn't able to comfortably attach it until I asked for administration's analysis, which I received yesterday evening. And so that's when I asked for those documents to be attached. They were attached, I think, this morning when staff were back on duty. Um, regarding the proposal, um, you know, I absolutely will take ownership for not getting that attached to the agenda sooner.

I I admit that I— because essentially, Member Brawley and I drafted exactly what was asked for. I was hoping that members could come prepared to discuss the concept, not knowing that we would— or knowing that we likely wouldn't adopt a framework, um, as there's a lot to take in regarding this topic, but would continue discussion. So that's my perspective on the matter. I'm happy to support the matter to postpone— the motion to postpone. I'm also happy to continue discussion.

Sure, thank you. Okay, next, uh, Miss Blakeslee on the postponement. Yeah, and just to clarify, the motion to postpone is to postpone to the next meeting in December, correct? No, or just indefinitely? Just in general, next meeting, really the next meeting of these bodies.

So it does not specify when. Okay, so is that right? And the next meeting of the bodies is in December, but we— it could be a special meeting. Meetings. It's not—.

It could be a special meeting. The motion is to postpone to the next, um, joint meeting, next scheduled joint meeting in December. I suppose an amendment to that motion could be for a special meeting, but I just don't know the scheduling, what that would look like. Yep. And I also recognize I, I also do not know the scheduling and if it's possible or not, but I, I think I also support the intent of the motion but am going make a motion to amend it.

As someone who is sitting currently on this ad hoc right-sizing committee that's been created at the school board level and has not— we haven't really engaged in much work yet, and this topic has been deliberated for a long time, and I think this process has been a lot slower than, than intended. I worry that if we begin now engaging in the work of this ad hoc right-sizing committee on the school board level that already currently exists, and then in December we reconvene with this joint body and there's some new task force or committee that's then created, and, and then the work is either duplicated or upended or has to be restarted because the, the two committees are both focused on right-sizing. And so I worry also about what that looks like to the public, that we won't have our ducks in a row, that we're going to be engaging in business and then related to right-sizing and then coming back to the table months later and completely redoing that structure. So if we are still deliberating on this topic, I would like to urge expediency because it's already, it's already been taking quite a long time and we do have a committee that's currently been established, and I'd like to be able to get that work done if that is what our charge is to do. So I would like to amend the motion to postpone to a special meeting to be called within the next 30 days if capacity or schedule— I don't, I don't have access to the schedule— if scheduling permits.

Second. Okay, there's a motion to amend the proposal to postpone to a special meeting within 30 days, or as scheduling allows to be determined. So that was a motion by Ms. Blakeslee, second by Ms. Baldwin. Madam Chair, could I raise a point of order? I mean, I worry that— yeah, I worry that the motion is vague.

I would rather just have a motion. I'm looking for very clear direction, and I don't know that I want to make the call on our side as to if scheduling allows. House. Um, so I, I would prefer just task us with a motion to create a special meeting and then let the joint bodies vote on that. Okay, I will then, for additional clarity, change my amendment, and I would like to move to postpone to a special meeting to be called within 30 days or prior to the next December the next scheduled joint meeting.

Is that clear enough? Is that not—. Is that good? It's helpful. Yeah, I don't have to make a judgment call as to how many folks is enough, just given I do not have the schedule.

If I, I want to make sure that, that the intent of the motion can continue. Does the second agree to that? I see a yes. Um, okay, uh, then there's a couple more folks in the queue. I'll run through to see if you are on this amendment or if you would like to stay in for, um, other items.

So the next Miss Baldwin Day.

Thank you. I will tailor my comments to the amendment, to the amendment, wherever we are procedurally. I just want to bring us back around to the fact that this conversation— I mean, we are, we are now in September. This conversation started in the spring, even prior to our meeting in June. And while we are dithering about process and procedure and who does what and who has which authority and who is going to have which which types of bias or not.

We have a situation in our community that requires our attention, and I believe that there is alignment around this entire table about the absolute necessity of engaging the public in this process, of having very clear values stated that we can follow into the future, about the development of a rubric that will guide extraordinarily painful decisions going forward. And we are doing all of this work against the backdrop of a massive budget shortfall. And we don't have time.

We just don't have time. And so maybe the composition of this joint thing won't be perfect. Maybe it won't be exactly what we all hope it would be. Maybe we might have to lean a little bit harder into trusting our colleagues that we all care so deeply about this community, about the kids and the families who live here. Care.

But I am so tired. I am so tired of getting mired in procedural mess when we all know what needs to happen. So I implore my colleagues to please, please keep the main thing the main thing in this discussion, please. And it's children and families and education, and it's the things that form the bedrock of our community. And I think we can all agree that that is what needs addressed.

And so the most direct way that we can get to collaboration is what I am imploring us to do, whatever that route is. And if that is another special meeting where we get down to the brass tacks of, like, creating that thing that we all know needs to exist, then fantastic. But let's not wait until December or January or whenever else. We just don't have that luxury, and neither does Anchorage. So I absolutely support the amendment to do a special meeting.

Let's do it soon, and let's start the real work rather than the meetings about the meetings. We don't need any more of those. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, Mr. Gerker on this amendment to the amendment. Yes, Madam Chair, I would just echo what Member Baldwin-Day just said. I think I think time is of the essence here. This is— we've heard from members of the community, uh, we've heard from parents and students and teachers and members of the public testified today. We're having a lot of back and forth up here.

There's a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of, a lot of blame shifting, and I just— it's just so uninteresting to me. What I want to get to work on is how do we make this work so that the school district can move forward the city can move forward, parents and students and teachers have a little bit more, uh, predictability. So I, I don't understand why we're spending so much time getting spun around the axle on procedural things when we all know what we need to do. Let's, let's form the damn committee. Let's get the work done because we just don't have time.

If we, if we postpone this, it is September right now. We're going into our budget season. It's going to be hectic. It's going to be busy. We're probably not going to be able to meet on this realistically until, you know, later in the fall.

And at that point, like, okay, congratulations, we're staring down the barrel of another, you know, January decision time. And I know the ASD has, you know, their timing for their budgets right around the corner on that too. We just don't have time for this. We know what we need to do. Let's get it done.

Let's not postpone. Let's vote on this in front of us. I don't know what more as an assembly member I would I don't need anything else on this. I can see the proposal in front of me in black and white and a little bit of blue. It's okay, I got it.

I understand what we need to do. Let's get it done. Okay, next I have Mr. McDonough. Uh, is this on the postponement? It's on the postponement.

Um, it's actually a question for the president's charter that is amended here, um, which is, is your authority as a school board officer to make. So, um, Is it— I'd like to see if it is your understanding, your intention, that we will, as an ASD function, still continue with this charter, at which point there, there's kind of a natural convergence in the committee's business as, as defined under this expanded charter to come together with at least half of the assembly. So is, is this going to be a document? Does the motion affect your judgment on this document?

If this motion to postpone our discussion holds and then we get no more opportunity to give feedback for up to 30 days, are we still moving forward with this expanded charter of the committee?

The document in front of members is a response to the Joint Body's request to have a truly joint committee. With voting membership from both bodies. Um, I— my decision as chair will be influenced by how school board members vote, what they weigh in on, similar to any other changes to the charter. Um, with that said, to Member Baldwin-Day's point, we have a committee that's meeting right now which assembly has— the assembly has representation on. Um, I think the committee should be meeting tomorrow to engage in that work.

I'm also supportive of Mr. Gerker's motion to Mr. Gerger's language to not postpone and just to continue discussion and to vote today. I think that's fine as well. I hope that's helpful. I do. I—.

Because I think this, this document gives broad and vague, which was my intention also going in, broad and vague but clearly defined shared responsibilities. I think this document is really what the best way an Anchorage collaboration can look. And so if we have the template to make a combined effort instantly, I would prefer that than come back in 30 days and then basically just accept this document in its, in its form. So that I guess I'm no on the postponement because I really think we have the solution right in front of us.

Point of information. What is your point of information, Ms. Blakeslee? Um, is—. Are we— I thought we were not allowed to vote on the creation of anything per legal counsel because we don't have a resolution. Is that not correct?

So, um, maybe I'll turn to the clerk and counsel. So I think there's 2 questions there. One is, um, Can, can you please clarify how would this— how would these two bodies take up basically the same resolution? Um, what would that look like? And then I think the question is— what the other question is— what action, if any, can we take today beyond expressing our individual intent on the record, I think is the question.

Like, what collective action could we take today via motion?

And I know those guys are confirming. I will say, in the meantime, I was communicating with the clerk, um, they did confirm that in terms of a resolution, those do need to be introduced prior. And generally, in the past when we've done joint resolutions, they, they've run through both bodies. So for example, the school board passes a resolution and then we take up that same language and generally do not amend it and take it up as our body. So those happen in our own meetings.

And I'll turn to Clerk and Council. Through the chair, we would agree with that statement that Both bodies could— a body could take up a resolution, pass it, and then bring it to the next body for them to review. The only thing that code specifies right now that was changed was that no resolution shall be introduced for action at any joint conference except as specifically stated in the notice. So if you wanted to take it up together, then it would have to be noticed.

Okay, does that answer your question? Yes. So yes. Okay, thank you. Um, next I have, uh, myself in the queue, then Miss Silvers, then Miss Bellamy, Miss Blakeslee, Miss Wilson.

Um, I will— and I'm speaking to the, the motion to postpone— I would say I want to outline we have multiple paths before us. And to the, the point from Miss Baldwin-Day about what is our goal here, um, one path is that we pursue this we postpone, um, both bodies, or whoever, whichever members of those bodies would like to take up the drafting of a joint resolution. We can schedule a meeting to discuss just that item. In theory, if we notice it, we can vote on it in that meeting as two bodies. Um, we would basically take a roll call vote of both bodies the way we do with our approval of the minutes.

That's another path. Um, or I should say, that's one path. Another path is, um, the school board has created this committee there is one member currently serving, other members could participate in that. Up to 3 assembly members could take up a project and work collaboratively on draft recommendations, whatever that looks like. And then of course, if the committee is meeting in public, then anybody can attend those meetings and probably sit at the table as a non-voting but another elected official in the room.

So, and I don't want to offer that from the school board's perspective but that is an option. So I would say one path has a lot more formal process but might create some certainty for folks who really truly want a joint body of these two bodies to work together. And I would offer there's alternatives to this, um, that, that whether or not we postpone this, um, that work could continue and those discussions could happen. So I think the question is, do you want a formal structure to do this, or do you want to find other ways to engage in the conversation? I think that's, that's really— maybe that's not a fair characterization, but that's what I'm looking at.

Do you want more structure, or do you want it to be more open-ended with a formal structure on the school board side? I actually have a point of information. Uh, yes, what's your point of it? So, um, maybe, Chair, if you could restate the part about the drafting of a resolution. Um, my point of information is, does it need to be jointly drafted, or could any member member of either body sponsor a resolution and given that it has proper notice, bring that to the special meeting or have it ready, um, to, to be debated at the special meeting.

Yeah, it is true. One, I can't speak to the school board procedure on the assembly side. Certainly one sponsor can bring a resolution. Point of information. What's your point of information, Miss Baldwin?

Dad, what, what a potential third path be for the school district to enact this charter, um, the, the expanded charter that's been placed before us today, and members could just accept the invitation to participate and we move on. So I'm going to turn to President Jacobs, or— because I don't, I don't really know the school board's procedure, so maybe you could clarify Member Baldwin, that's what I tried to speak to earlier. I don't— again, I don't think I need to speak to legal, but he's sitting here at the table. He'll jump up if he feels he needs to chime in. Um, this— the board could adopt this charter by a vote, um, but I've, I've queried the board on two different occasions, and they've— a majority of the board hasn't supported a committee structure that included, um, in theory, three assembly members voting along with three school board members.

That wasn't a decision I made. By myself. It was a consensus of the board. I'm happy to ask the board a third time, um, so— but I think the answer to your question is yes, I think that's possible. I'm, I'm speaking particularly of, of the expanded scope that includes 6 board members and 6 assembly members.

Yep. Uh, 7 board members. 7, Right? 7 Board members, 6 assembly members. Yeah.

So I mean, our board has gone on record, I think, at 2 different occasions where a majority We weren't comfortable with Assembly members having a vote, wanted collaboration. Um, but again, I'm happy to discuss it at the next availability of the board. Um, we can continue, and regardless as to that, I, I want the work for our existing committee to continue, which includes Assembly representation. Uh, Chair Brawley eloquently stated that the pathway for collaboration is open either way. Thank you.

That's helpful. Okay, um, and also note, so it's 11:56. We 4 minutes left in our meeting, so I'll see if there's a motion to extend. I will note that we do have a work session at 1 PM. I don't know what else is on the school board's agenda today.

Motion to extend by 15 minutes. Second. Okay, there's a motion to extend by 15 minutes, uh, by Miss Park, second by, um, uh, Miss Lessens. Uh, is there any objection to that motion? Okay, I see an objection, so we will do a roll call vote.

Member Handlin?

No. Member Martinez? No. Member Gerker? Yes.

Member Silvers? Chair Brawley? Yes. Vice Chair Voland? Yes.

Member Baldwin-Day? Yes. Member Scout? Yes. Member Park?

Yes. Member Johnson? Yes. That passes 8 to 2.

Member Wilson? Yes. Member Lessens? Yes. Member Bellamy?

Yes. Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member McDonough? Yes.

President Jacobs? Yes. That passes 6-0. Okay, we extended to 12:15. I'll note, um, there are a few more folks in the queue, and then I'll just say I think it's not realistic we're getting to the other items on our agenda.

Uh, we will take that up if we— if this suddenly, um, resolves. Next, Miss Silvers, then Miss Bellamy, then Miss Blakeslee, then Miss Wilson. Uh, Miss Silvers.

Yeah, um, so we voted last time to see a proposal. Um, we've seen that proposal. Uh, it, it's in front of us. I was reminded in these comments that we have a committee that has been formed. We have a committee that is doing the work.

I think what I haven't seen, and we're having a lot of conversation, but I still don't even know if the majority of this body supports moving forward with a different committee than has already been formed, much less a committee with equal representation. Um, in fact, the words equal representation didn't even carry through the amendments when we voted to see a proposal put before us. And so I just really feel like I just really want to step back from all this conversation, and I want to find out, as a majority, do we support continuing this conversation about forming a different committee than has already been formed?

Um, and so I don't know what kind of motion I would have to make in there, or what kind of a a vote we would have to take, but I just, I really feel like I want to know if the majority here really wants to keep moving forward with this conversation, or if we want the committee that's already been formed to continue their work. Thank you.

So, um, next I have Miss Bellamy in the queue.

Uh, Miss Silver said exactly what I was going to say, so I don't need to say it. I can't say it any clearer. Uh, next, Miss Blakeslee, on the motion to postpone to a special meeting. Oh, okay, sorry, I must have missed that. Um, next, Miss Wilson online.

I, I actually was going to reiterate what Miss Silver said, is that if there is an existing committee where the school board members as well as assembly members are represented I don't want to feel—. I don't—. The community voices that I have heard have clearly stated that they want to be included in this conversation, and by— for me, by having a second joint committee of only assembly and school board members essentially could make them feel that those, those voices, those community voices feel like the work that they are doing on the one committee that's already been that already exists is null and void in some regard. I really think we should continue with the, the process that has already been started, and, and I commend President Jacobs for continuing to bring this topic up in our school board meetings and allowing for each of us as board members to have a voice in this process. And we're continuing to do that.

But with this other committee that has already started the work, I would like to see that continue rather than trying to create, recreate the work in a whole second setting. Point of information, I thought we had just heard that that work hasn't actually started yet. Was that—. Did I mishear? So generally, point of information is for procedural questions, but I think—.

Apologies. Okay. Okay, sorry, I'm trying to manage the queue here. So next I have—. I've got a point of order.

What's your point of order, Mr. A lot of this discussion is getting around away from the actual issue. It's supposed to be on postponement, like when or where. It's not supposed to be getting into the actual merits of the debate here. Thanks.

So I'm going to suggest we do have a motion on the floor. It's been amended. It is to postpone this particular discussion or this, this proposal to a special meeting. So I would suggest maybe we, we vote on that motion and deal with it, and then we can continue discussion, and that opens up for possibility of another motion. Um, is there any objection to that?

Okay, um, so I'm going to call for a vote. So again, the, uh, because again, then we can continue, we have a few more minutes. The motion is, uh, as amended to to postpone this proposal for joint committee that is before us to a special meeting prior to the December 4th meeting, possibly in 30 days, if possible.

Member Handlin? Yes. Member Martinez?

Can you repeat the motion, please? The motion on the floor is to amend to postpone to a the discussion regarding the Joint Committee or Task Force to a special meeting to be called within the next 30 days? No. Or before the December meeting? Thank you, Clerk.

No.

Member Gerker? Nope.

Member Silvers? No.

Chair Brawley? No. Vice Chair Boland? Yes. Member Baldwin-Day?

Yes. Member Scout? Yes. Member Park? No.

Member Johnson? Yes. That fails 5 to 5.

Member Bellamy? Debate. No.

Member McDonough?

No. Member Lessens?

No. Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Wilson? No.

President Jacobs? No. That fails 5 to 1. Okay, so the, um, and thank you for the clarification, Clerk. So the amendment, uh, fails which was to amend the postponement motion to a special meeting prior to December 4th, essentially.

So now we're back on the motion to postpone or table this discussion, uh, as currently worded. I believe it was to the meeting of December 4th, our next joint meeting. Through the chair, that's correct, the next joint meeting. Okay, um, and, uh, Mr. Mullin, did you want to speak to that?

Um, yeah, can I— do you have a cue? I am trying to figure that out. So why don't you speak, and then I have Mr. McDonough. There was a few other folks, I'll come back to them. But so I, I guess I'm interested in this question, um, about whether, uh, the— there's even support to form a separate committee from the one that is already doing their work.

Um, and so I'm scrambling through Robert's Rules of what we— how potentially we could—. Well, I believe so. The motion on the floor right now was made by Mr. Bowen to postpone this originally to the December meeting, so you could withdraw that motion. That would clear the deck. And I continue my comments, please, Chair.

Thank you. Okay, so Um, my motion to postpone— if there's not, um, enough will on the joint bodies to even go through this, if folks are satisfied with the existing, um, committee that's underway, then maybe we don't have more meetings for meetings, I think, is how— or meetings for procedure, as Member Mr. Baldman, they said. And so I believe what we could do is have a— take a sense of the meeting. Um, would require a second. It's debatable.

Uh, it's, uh, require a majority vote to pass. And essentially what we would do is a straw poll, and members of both bodies could indicate their support or lack thereof for having a different committee structure, structure than the one that is already underway. And so I guess I, I'm gonna withdraw my motion to postpone, and I'd like to make another motion, and that is to take a sense of the meeting. Second. Okay, there's been a— the original motion has been withdrawn, so there was no motion on the floor at the moment.

So now we have a motion to take a sense of the meeting from Mr. Ms. Devlin, and second from— I heard multiple, but I'll say Ms. Park, I believe. And I think I should refine my motion to say, uh, I move that we take a sense of the meeting that we support a different advisory committee structure than the right-sizing committee that is currently underway. So a yes vote would say yes, we want to do a different charter, imagine a different process. A no vote would say essentially we're fine with the committee structure as is, that is already doing their work. Point of information.

What's your point of information? Um, when you say currently underway, are you saying this charter, the charter that we have passed ourselves? I'm talking about the, the, um, committee that's been put forward that I, I think one of your members was referencing, uh, Miss Blakeslee. There's work that's already under—. So the one not that's So to state, I believe it was July 16th, I believe, that the president created that charter.

So that's the one you're referring to? Yes. So no vote would endorse that one, whereas a yes vote would endorse something different, whether it's this before us today or, or a completely different structure that we could do via special meeting resolutions, etc. Okay. And I do have a queue of folks now.

So, um, Mr. McDonough, you were in the queue. And then I have Ms. Baldwin-Day, Ms. Bellamy, and Mr. Handeland. Uh, the way he worded it actually was the question I was going to raise, which is, uh, we need to decide if it's this charter or the one that comes through mid-July. Um, and the, the sense on this is we're looking at the July one, which only has the advisory seat. So just to be clear on that.

Okay, yeah, thank you. So again, motion is the sense July, uh, current structure versus some alternative. Uh, next, Ms. Baldwin-Day. Um, I'll hold my comments. Thank you.

Um, next, Ms. Bellamy. I was just going to clarify the same thing, that the— what's before you today is not, um, what the committee has been working on. Um, so, and we've only had one committee meeting but I know lots of work has gone into the actual launching of the— for the public applications. And Member McDonough is the chair. Okay, next Mr. Handlin, then Ms.

Scout, then Ms. Park. Silvers. Oh, I had the exact same stuff that people were talking about. Okay, next Ms. Scout.

Yeah, before taking this vote, I would like to remind my colleagues that the current iteration of this right-sizing committee has a scope of work that ends in December. No, we've changed that. Okay, well, that's what was presented to the assembly, um, and it has not— and any changes have not been shared with us.

So that's my current understanding. Those— that is the latest Sorry, it— okay, it goes until December 31st. It goes until the end of the school year. No, it goes until the board restructures in the spring. Okay, that's new information to me, um, so I appreciate that.

Um, and I think that does speak to some of the challenges of collaboration here, um, with a lack of new information being shared. Um, so I really appreciate that clarification and want to reiterate my earnest desire for collaboration and information sharing here. Um, so yeah, thank you. Okay, next, Miss Park, then Miss Silvers.

I concur with, with comments made by President Jacobs earlier. The school board is elected at large, and their, their charge is to do what is best for the school board at large. I don't see value in introducing the territoriality of which Mr. Jacobs spoke in in bringing forward what is best for the district. And if in fact the assembly members have no legal standing other than making a recommendation, I don't see the value of that. So I support the current structure.

Next, Miss Silvers.

Yeah, I have a question. If other Assembly members wanted to have some kind of involvement in the committee that has already been formed, can you explain how they could have that involvement? Yeah, and I'll ask either President Jacobs or the committee chair, Mr. McDonough, to respond. Yeah, Madam Chair, I can start. It was my expectation that we would never only have one Assembly member at many of the committee's meetings, given the level of interest, and that's my hope hope.

Um, you folks are incredibly busy, um, have far more meetings than we do, and are about to launch into a really challenging budget year given your fiscal situation. Um, so I don't have hopes as to how consistent attendance may be, but from my perspective, we want you in that work. Um, I'm very nervous about the assembly's ability to engage in having one representative consistently present at each meeting from every assembly district, which is why I was hesitant to do anything more than have one advisory seat, even acknowledging that that member might have to rotate given your availability. I was trying to be conscientious. With that said, Member McDonough, who is responsible for scheduling all meetings, can speak to what his vision was about including the assembly.

Madam Chair, what's your point of order? 2 Minutes left in our meeting, so we don't need to extend or wrap up. And so So I would actually make a motion to extend by an additional 15 minutes. Second. Okay, there's been a motion to extend the meeting to 12:30 by Mr. Gerker, second by Mr. McDonough.

Is there an objection to that? Okay, Mr. Martinez is objecting. We'll take a roll call vote.

Member Handlin? Yes. Member Martinez? No. Member Gerker?

Yes. Member Silvers? Yes. Chair Brawley? Yes.

Vice Chair Voland? Yes. Member Baldwin-Day? Yes. Member Scout?

Yes. Member Park? Yes. Member Johnson? Yes.

That passes 9 to 1.

Member Lessans? Yes. Member Wilson? Yes. Member McDonough?

Yes. Member Bellamy?

Member Blakeslee? Yes. President Jacobs? Yes. That passes 5 to 0.

Okay, the motion is passed. We extended to 12:30. I will note, um, I will not entertain future or further motions to extend, um, because we do have another meeting at 1, but that will give us enough time to get across town. So, um, yeah, so let's get back to Mr. McDonough. If you could speak to your intent, or what's, what's available for assembly members to participate in the committee?

Yeah, um, it's always open to the committee, and if we need some side pocket dialogues that are Open Meetings Act compliant, where I can huddle with any member of the assembly to look at your concerns, your questions, uh, with the liaison, without— you can reach me personally. As far as the official open meetings, we run them through Member Park as the named liaison because she has all of your contact info. She knows how to reach out to you guys more efficiently than I do. So as we make those meetings, we do see it as the liaison's responsibility to then carry the message outside of our own, like, public channels and say, hey, we have a meeting on this day, it's open to the public, and Assembly voices are definitely very encouraged. Okay, um, next I have myself in the queue, and then I'll I'll see if others jump in.

My question is, I think, to the president. I think, um, obviously the charter has been created, it can be amended. It sounds like we need to see the most recent version if there have been some changes to the timeline. Uh, but my specific question is, um, if we do proceed with this structure, would the president be willing to entertain, for example, addition of an alternate or, um, you know, the formal designation of at least one other assembly member, it sounds like, if there is interest in the point about not being able to participate in all the meetings. So I don't know if that's the right answer.

I'm just asking if that's possible. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, first, uh, I want to be clear that with the exception of the formatting language that's underlined, I think in Microsoft Word, the joint body has the current charter in front of it. My understanding is Member McDonough has disseminated that to all committee members to include Ms. Park, um, so the committee does have the most current charter, which indicates the expanded timeline, which allows, uh, the extension of which allows the maximum amount of duration available to us to have a committee according to our own bylaws. With that said, um, I tried to include wording of the most broad language possible to say, uh, even one alternate, in my opinion, was a bit limiting given Assembly member availability.

I think I think any Assembly member could be an alternate to represent, is my perspective. My hope is the Assembly members see that as a benefit. If you would like to have one person named as an alternate to limit it to only 2 people, I'm certainly open to that. My hope was that anyone who can make it could make it. Thanks.

Yeah, and I'll just ask, I would be interested— I, we do need to wrap up this discussion, but if folks have thoughts about that or would like to provide your intention or your interest in that, if that is that's just the way this goes. Ms. Baldwin-Day. Yeah, thank you. I, I think as we're discussing whether we do or don't support a different committee structure than the one that is— was, um, proposed or chartered on July 16th, I want to point out that not only is this about the mechanics of the committee, it's also about the optics for the public. And I think the current construction of the committee as proposed on July 16th does not communicate to the public what I think we all hope that it would, and that is that this is a truly joint and balanced effort among two bodies that bear responsibility for citywide operations to come to the best possible solution on behalf of the public.

And I think regardless of how we might have alternates or not alternates, or who might show up in an ad hoc capacity, or— I mean, it is fundamentally important that this be a trust-building exercise that we have mutual and clearly defined joint investment in. And so I, I would like for my colleagues to consider that, and perhaps even that geographic representation is helpful to actually moving this conversation out into the public in a more robust way, um, and that that is a strength of inclusion of more than just one one or two committee members in a named fashion. Thank you.

Okay, um, amazingly, I don't have anybody in the queue right now, so I think, I think we, we may be to the point that we are. So, um, and Madam Clerk, if you could restate the motion that we are voting on just so everyone's clear.

Through the chair, currently I have to approve to get a sense of the current committee structure as the current motion, and I would suggest suspending the rules, um, amending the motion to suspend the rules to take up that discussion. Essentially, we—. So I think the motion is to take a sense of the meeting.

Which is treated as an incidental main motion. Um, the motion is to formally capture both bodies' opinion on a non-binding matter. So I moved to take a sense at the meeting that we support exploring an alternate committee structure other than the one that was chartered on— I believe it was— was it July 16th? So then a yes vote would indicate Yes, we're going to explore something else. A no vote would say— would essentially mean, um, the opposite, that the one that was chartered on the 16th, um, has more support.

That's my understanding as well. What's your point of— and do you mind turning on the mic, Ms. Silvers? We need to be able to hear. Thanks.

I guess, um, did you say the opposite thing before, or did I just understand it wrong before? No. So the sense of the meeting is that we that we support— I'll just make it even simpler. The sense of the meeting is that we support exploring an alternate committee structure.

Yeah, yeah, and that is my understanding when you, you said it originally. So if you— so a yes vote means, um, we should do something other than what's already in place. A no vote would mean stick with what's in place.

And, um, and Madam Clerk, if you could speak again, I, I'm not sure if this is something that we are governed by Robert's Rules. I'm not sure that we need to suspend the rules if it is something that's not specifically covered in code, but maybe you folks can clarify.

Through the chair, it's not specifically in code or in Robert's Rules. But we have conferred, and the discussion overall essentially is making a motion to debate. This is—. This motion is a debate, and so we think that it would just be in order to suspend the rules, just to clean up the motion, just to make sure that we're following procedure correctly. Okay, so to be clear, we would move to suspend the rules.

If that passes, then do we need to make the motion a second time, or can we return to that motion? Through the chair, you can just reword it, um, to say to move to suspend the rules to get a sense of the meeting to support exploring an alternative committee, um, structure. Okay, then I will see if the original mover of the motion would be willing to make that change. If that provides more, um, security for us all, I'm happy to do that. Thank goodness.

Um, okay, okay. Uh, so again, restating the motion, uh, Mr. McDonough, you're in the queue. Oh, I was gonna make or second that, but if the original seconder wants to make it with—. Okay, okay. Yeah, I think— okay, so, so then I will turn back to the clerk.

So if you can restate the motion again, and then we will go through a vote. The motion on the floor is to suspend the rules to get a sense of the meeting to support exploring an alternative committee structure. Thank you. So please proceed to call the vote. Member information.

I'm sorry, one second, Miss Olbers. So to clarify, we're going to be voting twice.

I'll turn to the— I believe it's a single motion that has two pieces to it, essentially, and I'm seeing nods from the Assembly Council. So yeah, this is one vote. It is to both suspend the rules in order to do the thing that we just said.

So point of information, a yes means Yes, we will then vote on the sense. No, my understanding is we are suspending the rules is part A. Part B is on— is so I suppose yes, suspending the— if you vote no because you don't want to suspend the rules, that is an option. It is a two-part motion, so you have to agree to both of those things in order to say yes. Okay.

Okay, and I see the point of information. I, I still need a little more clarity on what we're voting on. I apologize. I'm going to ask the clerk to speak to that. We're going to be voting on suspending the rules and whether we have an interest in a different committee in the same vote.

Okay, thank you. Through the chair, to summarize it, a yes vote would say that the rules are suspended and that you are meeting to support exploring an alternate committee structure. If you say no, then you're not exploring an alternative committee structure. Does that make sense?

Okay. Yeah, and I suppose we could divide the question, but I am seeing no interest in that. So let's go ahead and vote.

Member Handlin. Yes. Member Martinez. No. Member Gerker.

Yes. Member Silvers?

No. Chair Brawley? No. Vice Chair Boland? No.

Member Baldwin-Day? Yes. Member Scout? Yes. Member Park?

No. Member Johnson? No. That fails 6 to 4— 4 to 6.

Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Bellamy? No. Member Lessans?

No.

Member Wilson? No. Member McDonough? Yes. President Jacobs?

Yes.

That's 3 to 3.

Motion fails. Okay, uh, to restate, the vote was 4 to 6 on the assembly side, 3 to 3 on the school board side. So that motion has failed, or the sense of the body has failed. Um, okay, we have 5 minutes left. I would suggest, uh, we are not going to take up our other items, uh, today.

So I— and then I'll note our next meeting is scheduled currently for December 4th. So the last 5 minutes we can use for member comments. So I will start to my right, Mr. Voland. Thank you. You know, I think this was, although a tedious conversation, an important one to have, and I, I do look forward to seeing how we can collaborate and improve our processes and make sure that members of either body have the prerogative to, to move forward information and, and resolutions, whatever we need to accomplish our business, that we feel empowered to do so.

So thank you. Mr. Kerker? No comments. Mr. Handlin? I just want to say I think the school district— or is the school board here— for, uh, thinking about my schedule when deciding their meetings.

Mr. Johnson? No additional comments. Miss Blakeslee? No comments. Miss Scout?

No comment. Ms. Park? No comments, Chair. Mr. Martinez? No comments.

Ms. Silvers? No comments. Mr. McDonough? No comments. Ms. Lessens?

None. Ms. Baldwin-Day? I'm really, really disappointed right now. Super disappointed. Um, and I think there are a lot of other people who are going to be really disappointed as well, and I really regret that I will not have a great answer for them as to why we have voted this way today.

And online, I believe we have Miss Wilson. No comments, thank you. And, uh, Miss Bellamy. No comments, thank you. And is there anyone online that I missed?

Mayor LaFrance, do you have comments? Thank you, Chair Brawley. Um, I want to reiterate that at the municipality, we're looking at all the ways in which we can help ASD. We did not get to Item G1, ASD properties discussion, but the proposed land exchange is a way we can help. It gets publicly held land out into the private sector to potentially grow the tax base, and there's private sector interest in developing this property for housing.

And again, it helps ASD, and I hope you all support that proposal when it comes before you. Thank you.